The Washington herald., 1918-06-30
Waiting for the Enemy.

Ludendorf is not ready Time is slipping
through his fingers, July is here, the suen, half
cowed opponents of the government in the Reichs-
tag are straining at the leash. But still the iron
fist poised above the Western line withholds its
blow.
Thorns cracking under the political pot,
both inside and outside of Germany. and this more
than anything else explains why the mitarsts and
the pan-Cermans holding back.
Look at Europe-not at the war map, super
fetal thing, but the real fundamentals of this vital
year in the worlds history, 1918. What do
find?
Austria-Hungary at last is locking horns with
fate. Every conceivable sort of economic and
political malsise is at work in her bordess. The
nation is sick of Prussan bullying, sick of the war;
gnawed necessarily by hunger, falling apart like a
cheap sawdust scarecrow because the congeries
of breeds and peoples held by the sword under
Hspsburg rule are beginning to assert themselves.
The Czecho-Slovaks, the Jugo-Slavs the Bohemians,
the Poles, at last the day of deliverance draw
ing near.
Glance at Russia Here the cunning Teutons
are trying to beat down the power of the Soviets-
the local governments which are the sole remain
ing power in the land. But the strength of
Great Russia-which is very different thing from
the Little Russias-is resurgng. 1t does not matter
much whether the Bolshevik go or not The Boil
hold the real power. And it is the Soviets which
are bringing home to the Russian peasantry and
the proletariat the fact that the peace with Ger
many is sham and betrayal; that Prussian
tyranny in the Baltic provinces is worse, far worse,
than that which the CARBON ever dreamed of i'm
posing; tyranny which drove Herr Haasc
to assert in the Reichstag, amid cries of shame
from the Conservative benches, that "in
Livonia and Esthonia, the German police power
h,rL,, vbe FL tbar. H..
conquered country and treats the people with the
worst arbitrariress. Conditions which absolutely
cry to heaven prevail in Riga. Boys years old
are condemned to severe punishment by imprison-
ment, because they distributed procamatons to
prisoners; and prisoners tortured in manner
recalling the worst period of the Cars rule.
German military power has acted everywhere as the
cutthrost OF the Russian revolution, the sup
pressor OF freedom"
"As the cutthroat of the Russian revolution
An indictment drawn up by German against
Germany-and pronounced in the Reichstag. Herr
-Haase went to indicate that the German mill
tary ring not only the cutthroat of the Rus
sion revolution, but OF the German people them
selves. "If things so on according to the will of
military autocracy," he said, Germany will
be ruined
Indeed, look at Germany at this hour. Luden-
dor is combing her industries for the last available
have admitted the wreck of her great trade-they
have said that huge indemnities (Which they will
never get) will be their sole salvation. 1t is not
necessary to draw any stock picture OF Germany
in starvation, or in rags and tatters in collapse,
to realize how desperate her plight is.
1t is little wonder that lu comes to the West
front while Austria-Hungary and Russia groan
with the significant rumble of great events to
come. In both these nations the Prussian grip is
relaxing. There is doubt that the reaction has
set in. 1t is in Washington, where Secretary
Lansing only yesterday made significant
nouncement about Czecho-Slavs and the Jugo-
Slavs, and where President Wilson, in address
on our independence Day, is expected to
sound a new slogan of Russian freedom.
German mitarists obviously have more to
think about than the Gargantuan task of break
ing through" in the West and winning the
before the summer is out. The whole structure of
arrangements and betrayals by which they had
cured the East and chained Austria to their
chariot. is falling apart.