New-York tribune., 1917-07-30
Erzberger, Wit and Prophet
Recalling the Amazing Foresight OF
an Eminent German Centrist
To the Editor of The Tribune.

To the Editor of The Tribune.
Sir: Apropos of Herr Erzberger's sally on
the military question in the German Reicns-
tag yesterday July 81, the following may
amuse you if you have not happened to see IL
In August, 1914, when the war broke out,
was caught in Germany, and in Munich
paper | read the effusion, which | clipped
from the paper, pasted in my diary and
translate now as literally as possible:
"Erzberger writes in the 'Germania':
1.-THE new English Minister of War, Kitch-
ener. he who so well understood swinging the
whip over the Viceroy in Cairo and who has
undertaken the Office of dictator in Paris,
begins his new career as Minister of War in
London famously. He has asked to be glven'
with one stroke, half a million soldiers, and
Parliament has consented. Bravo!! II this
performance does not impress the French and
the Russians nothing ever will! So the great
secret which it was whispered in Paris as all
important is now out!
"'Here in Germany we coolly ask: Why
only half a million? Why not an entire
million at once? That would have been much
wiser Every child in military family here
will know that this new English law is one
of the most wholesale swindles of the twenti-
eth century, and it is only the stupidity OF
the Allies which permits them to be so
tricked. Germany will be enchanted when
this half a million advances against US. We
will put some old military man, so decrepit
that he can barely sit his horse, in command
of a squadron Of semi-nvalids, and he Will
soon capture all these English and turn them
+ha Fa1r :
the latest wonder of the world! Those of
our men who are first badly wounded IN TINS
war must be put in this squadron-given the
first chance!
"Tt is with undisguised merriment that
every one in Germany reads OF this ne"
English concession of Parliament. And we
have the right to be amused! Half million
soldiersl! Do they realize IN LONDON the
absurdity of this grant? Is it possible there
is nobody there who knows what an enor-
nous preparation is needed to equip and tram
500 900 men? Do the English imagine thaI
all that is required is to borrow Doots III
Paris, gunpowder in France, clothes IN nus
sia and officers in Serbia? Has England then'
fallen so low that she can jest IN TINS serious
hour? For with the best Will IN the "orlu
we can consider anything else lhcreuipIe'
Half a million SOIdlerS require lui'' '
million rifles. fifty times that many cartridges
and half a million coats, trousers, knapsacks'
Where is England to get all these? And the
new, paper army demands at the very least
500 new barracks, rifle ranges, drill grounds'
etc. etc. And were it possible to conJure up
all these things overnight, where could the
recruits instructors be found! "here are
tho 90 600 officers, the $4,000 non-commls-
stoned officers necessary?
"'We could hang a legion OF questions on
this new English statute, did we not know II
is not worth the paper on which it is written
BEFORE closing ! would address one more sug-
qestion to Kitchener: Herr Kriegsmlnlster'
have you remembered to mobilize the hreHe"
in the frontier hamlets|"
II is hard to say which is most preeminehI
in Herr Erzberger's writing-his delicate'
witty irony; his extraordinary prophetic
nowcr his understanding of the English psy-
cbologv or his correct knowledge OF Engllsh
conditions as revealed IN MS
climax
wish to repeat if this delicious Dit Oh ger
man bumor has up to the present escaped you'
I think, in view of events up to the present
combined with Herr Erzberger's expressions
of uneasiness yesterday, fine article might
be written with his representations as text
" JOSEPHINE TOZlER.
Versailles, France, July 9, 1917.