Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-02-05
MILITARY
DESPOTS FIGHTING
THE PLAIN PEOPLE
Swiss, Dutch and Scandina-
Wan Reports Indicate Rapid
Spread of General Strikes in
Central Empires

pires tonight are accurate, Germany's
military despots now are fighting the
plain people to whom President Will
son appealed to throw off the yoke Of
Hohenzoliernism.
Swiss, Dutch and Scandinavian dis
patches all reported vast spread of the
general strike in Germany and Austria
Hungary. Many carried circumstantial
stories Of violence to which the govern
ment resorted, to maintain it's hold
over the people. Berlin apparently 5
now wholly under martial law. Troops
have reinforced the police.
The government has served an ulti-
matum on the strikers, ordering their
return to work Monday morning and
threatening as the alternative not civil
processes, but the grim military dis
cipline of the firing squad.
The mob spirit was reported as hav-
ing broken out in at least one city
the important war center of Spandau.
German newspapers reported serious
rioting there Thursday, according 30
Amsterdam dispatches. Strikers attack
ed the police, destroyed factory and rail
road property and stormed bake shops.
Independent Socialists are organizing
national demonstration in protest
against the arrest of Wilhelm Dittmann,
Socialist member of the reichstag, who
was seized as he attempted to address a
crowd in Berlin. Imperial Chancellor
Heartling refused to intervene, declar-
ing he was powerless to invoke civil
procedure while the military controlled
the capital city.
Bloodshed Reported
A brief Central News dispatch. from
Amsterdam late today reported blood
shed" in the streets of Berlin, but no
details are available. Strikers and po-
licemen have had frequent clashes there
but until the report, it was under
stood order was being restored.
The despera ton of the German mill
tarists is seen in the order reducing
strikers food rations reported through
Zurich to have become effective today.
This of course, will directly affect
strikers families and thousands of inno-
cent women and children are expected
to bear the brunt of this retaliation.
While Socialist newspapers are urging
an immediate session of the reichstag to
investigate the strike, junker organs op-
pose this, ostensibly through national
istic motives, but really through fear
of undue Socialistic influence.
Zurich reported tonight that the Lckal
Anzeger and similar papers urged the
government to drastic action, calling the
strikers traitors. The Deutsches Tages
ity for the movement, owing to its in
sistence on shipment of flour from Ger
many to Austria.
The Rheninsche Zeitung Socialist de-
nounced the government for compelling
publication of false" news concerning
the strike.
The storm has been brewing in the
central empires for many months. It's
premonitory outbreak came first in Hun
gary Budapest and Prague were the
first cities to report a strike-where
men, women and children paraded the
streets shouting for bread and for
peace. Vienna was next affected.
Spreads to Germany
Then the unrest spread into Germany
Munich was one of the first cities which
felt it. Next came Berlin itself, center
of the gigantic German military ma
chine
President Wilson made his first ap-
peal to the people to rise and throw off
the yoke of milltarism when America
cast her lot with the hosts of democra-
cy, April o, 1917. Junkerdom in Ger
many booted at the possibility of the
masses they had deceived ever seeing
the light.
The seeds of discomfort had been
sown in Hungary even before this. The
Russian overthrow of cZariSm in March,
imbued the ever-restive Czechs-Slavs
with ambitions to become independent.
Then came the Bolshevik government
in Russia, which from it's outset, un-
dertook to follow President Wilson's
plan of appealing to the people them
selves Austrian and Bulgarian troops
on the northern battle front became
''tavarish" (comrade) TO the Russians.
The Muscovite democracy of the ex-
treme found disciples. Inevitably this
yearnng for freedom must have spread
back into Hungary and Austria and
Germany.
There were some observers here TO-
night who speculated on the likelihood
that Germany's military masters mad
themselves assisted in the growth Of
this great weapon against themselves.
The Teutonic military strategists vio-
lated their armistice pledge to Russia
by sneaking their choicer troops on that
front back home, remoulding them into
divisions, and sending them to the west
front. These men may have carried
back to their homes and to the workers
in the war plants the dreams of full de-
mocracy.
More than that, Germany must now
be feeling tightly the pinch of Amer
ica's embargo 1t is midwinter. Long,
lean months are ahead-and Germany's
submarine war which was to snatch
victorious peace from the enemy IN
three months is still far from this end.
Socialists United
For the first time IN Germanys his
tory, Socialist strength is united in OPP
position to the militarist policies Of
annexation and indemnities. Even Phil
ip Scheidemann, the majority Social
list leader, always suspected of being
mere tool of the government because Of
his willing acquieScence in every pre-
vious governmental scheme, is now ac-
lively working with Ledebour. Haase,
Dittmann and others of the extreme
Socialist type.
One other factor in the situation as
London observers saw it, was the likeli-
hood that the German people have now
fully awakened to the bold dictum of
annexation and indemnities pronounced
at Brest-Litovsk by the German peace
delegates. Germany has long been re-
ported as looking longingly in her hun
ger at the fertile fields of Russia, bare
ly touched by the pillow, andcapable I'M
der Teuton efficiency or producing the
food for which the peoples stomachs
yearn. When Russia indicated her de
sire for peace, il is possible the Ger
man people foresaw the future when
German experts teach Russia how best
to cultivate her lands and German
"kultur' should cement the Muscovites
to the Teutons. Then came the German
terms, showing Germany's debating