Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-13
WO HINDENBURG
LINES REVEALED
One Is Political and Repre-
sents German Desire of
Conquest
< NO REAL PEACE PARTY
Former Reichstag Member
Classes All Kaiser's Subjects
as Brigands
NO REAL PEACE PARTY
Special Cable to Evening Public Ledger

Copprioht. 1918. by Nc,0 York Times Co.
Paris. July 13.
There are two Hindenburg lines. One
/. sis physical, military front line of the
y German armies The other is political.
put no less real. Its front line incloses
< the maximum which all Germans hope
10 get out Of the war 1t includes vir-
tually all Of continental Europe and
much of Asia and has far-reaching
curves. taking in a big section of Africa
Able Wetterle sketched such line
Tor me today when l asked him to COM
( mAnt on Hertling's speech in the Reichs-
tag The able, now in Paris was
fnefnber CT the Reichstag from Alsace for
eixteen years and an associate of Hert-
ling. His comment on developments at
Berlin Is always worth while.
Hertling.' he said. was talking in
tefnal politics in his latest utterance.
II had nothing to do with foreign affairs
The most interesting thing in 1t was his
emphasis on the fact that Won Hintze
had not yet been actually appointed to
succeed Won Kuehlmann as Minister OF
Foreign Affairs, and could not be ap-
pointed till he said so. That was merely
Hertling's attempt to save his face with
the politicians
Whole Business Comedy
For the same purpose he insisted in
the speech that, no matter who was
Foreign Minister. Hertfng would deter
mine all the international policies of Ger
many. This whole business is comedy.
and all the groups in the ReiChstag un-
derstand il and are content to go through
themctions of the comedy.
THE only way an outsider can under
stand Germany is to get rid of the deu-
sion that It is a political State at all.
Now. on the contrary. all Germany must
be considered a military unity and
nothing else. Its whole population. ci-
william as well as military women rs we'll
as men. must be considered fighting
army. determined to get everything it
can I. oin the rest of the world
No German Peace Party
There is no party or group in Ger
many committed to peace in the sense
that peace is matter of sentiment
humanity and international justice. The
only difference of opinion as to the time
for ending the war concerns the ques-
tion. when can 1t he ended with Ger
many making the maximum gain.
"On the main point of getting the
most they can out of the war all German
parties are absolutely united. So it is
necessary to think of all Germans as
brigands. and consider their acts and
words in the ReichstaR and elsewhere
not in terms of normal statecraft. but
In terms of physical aggression, and to
discuss their politics in terms of military
operations ....
"For example the German people have
four lines of operation.
The first is their Hindenburg line. not
the actual line of the troop positions.
but the line including the uttermost pam
German dreams. 1t means retaining
Belgium, northeastern France, Alsace-
Lorraine. great sections of Russia and
the Balkans. the Bagdad project. and
colonial development in both hemis-
pheres. Nobody in Germany wants
anything less than that.
,Naumann Political Line
Some people in Germany still think
they will get all this. But. being driven
IN from that figurative Hindenburg line
the Germans have their second. or So
called Naumann line. That is the Nit
teleuropa idea. only a little less ex-
travagant than the first line project.
Many Germans are more hopeful of
achieving the Naumann plan than the
all-inclusive Pan-German scheme.
"Retreating from the second or Nit
teleuropa line. they are prepared TO drop
hack TO the Schiedemann- Erzherger line
and quit the war without anneXations
Still further back, but within the Ger
man calculations for the future, is the
minority internationalist, or the Haze
line.
"The point for the Allies to remember
il that there is no political disagreement
{ in Germany as to the relative merits of
these four lines. All would prefer to
hnish the war on the extreme Hinden-
burg -Pan-German line. No German
would take less as a matter of justice
only as a matter of compulsion."