Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1919-02-17
NEW GERMAN PROPAGANDA
A PERIL, MR.. SIMONDS SAYS
Campaign for Mercy and Easy Penalties
Apparently Making Roadway Among
Certain Groups In Europe. Includ-
ing Some Americans.

with obvious enthusiasm. The Ger
mans see clearly that this is their
single avenue of escape They can
still win the war if they can escape
paying for the damage they have
wrought, and leave devastated and
crippled France to pay. not alone
for the cost of defending herself. but
the price of German devastations in
all regions Germany occupied and
ruined. The German policy must be
clearly understood.
The Germans have stripped France
and Belgium as far south as the
Somme and Marine of all machinery,
not only machinery of factories but
even farm implements: they have de-
stroyed cities and hamlets. they have
paralyzed French and Belgian indus
/ try for decades, railways and canals,
everything is to make. and having
Done this they viii profit completely
II they can escape paying for what
they have done. Nor is this all, or
half. The collapse of the Hapsburg
empire has made it inevitable that six
or seven million Germans in Austria
proper will be united to the German
empire. This means that even with
Aisace-Lorraine lost, Germany will
gain at least FIVE million people and
an area several times as large as that
of the Rhine land. She will acquire
more territory and larger increase of
population than Prussia ever gained
by successful war
In addition, there is the Russian
heid- The allies have abandoned it.
Appalling Transformation.
Thus we have in three months a
mighty and appalling transformation.
Germany has already escaped from
| the first paralysis of defeat. the dan
ger that the empire would break up
/ Is over Instead we shall see seventy
nTe million Germans in the future
| instead of seventy millions. We shall
| see greatly enlarged German
empire; including Vienna. touching
the middle Danube, Unfolding the new
Bohemian state in its deadly en-
brace. and today threatening to pre-
| vent that Polish renaissance which
mas been rightly recognised as the
corner stone of a just and permanent
settlement in Europe.
For it is very clear that If Franco
Is not repaid for the terrible havoc
wrought in her fields and factories
and mines by the German invaders
France cannot both restore her eco
| nomc lie and maintain her army
as or old. And if the French army
| is reduced the sole substantial OBJ
| stacie to German ambition on the
mainland of Europe disappears, while
britain, with her commercial fleet
| decimated by the submarine and her
human resources reduced by war.
and always less numerous than the
German. cannot sufficiently reinforce
| France.
New Chance to Win the War.
| All of which should make IL per-
| fectly clear what the German is now
| up to. He sees plainly q new chance
| to win the war. He has only to es-
i cape PAYING the costs of his devasta-
| tons, deliberately undertaken to Grip
| pie France and Britain, and ne has
; won the game; he will emerge
despite his military failure, greater
and less exhausted in material and
human resources than the nations
| which defeated him in battle.
And the way to achieve this end is
{ unmistakable. He must appeal to
| the elements in all enemy and neu-
trail countries whose ideaiism or con-
| genital blindness males them the
| easiest victims of his new propa-
| eanda- Above all. he must eniis,
| American sympathy and Americas
| support. and / do not think I exag-
| gerate facts when I say that he is
making substantial progress in this
tiers in Europe The German begins
| his campaign by accepting without
| cavil the most extreme ideaiism any
| where to be found, and then goes it
one better. He accepts Mr.. Wilson'S
| fourteen points, and. having swal-
lowed them. he proceeds to interpret
| them. He accepts the league OF ma
| tions principle: having accepted 1t, he
! undertakes to annex 1t. He pro-
claims his enthusiasm for peace and
| justice, healing peace, and then he
| proceeds to outline it.
Germany's After-War Appeal.
| But now, the war lost, he appeals
| before the world in the name of in
| ternational justice that none of his
| territory. whatever the desires of
the population may be. should be
| taken from him. He characterizes
| the French desire for Alsace- orraine
as wicked Imperialism. He charac-
| terizes French and Belgian demands
| that he pay for wanton destruction
as a proof of the desire to destroy
Germany He meets every just de-
fa-