The Lambertville record., 1920-04-02
GERMANY AFLAME
WITH DISORDER
Troops Battle Workers, and En-
pire Is Torn With Civil War
as Soldiers Mass in Berlin.
BIG STRIKE CAUSES HUNGER.
Ministers and Officials Refused to Take
kapp's Orders-Strike Potent in
Resut-Has Spread Widely
Throughout Germany.

Berlln.-Red revolution RACES over
vast areas of Germany, and its reign
of terror threatens to engulf the whole
empire. The compromise supposed to
have been brought about by the Kapp
and Ebert leaders proved a dismal
failure
A soviet republic has been proclaim
ed in Bavaria, the heart of south Ger
many. Soviet regimes are springing
up like mushrooms in the big indus
trial cities and provinces.
Every big city in the land, including
Berlin, is battlefield. The death toll
mounts into the hundreds.
Whole units of troops, tired of bar
tering oaths of allegiance between gov
ernments that do not govern, are 60
ing over to the reds.
Kappism, Ebertism, Prussianism,
nti-Prussianism-all these are issues
only localiy; nationally they are re-
solving themselves with amazing swift
ness in the melting cauldron of bloody
civil warfare into two main currents,
and two only, Bolshevist and bour-
geoisie.
Sick of soft Socialism" which they
call the Ebert regime, and determined
to fight to the death everybody and
everything that represents KaiSerism,
the radical working masses have taken
things into their own hands. They ut
terly ignore the pickering between the
Kapps and Eberts. They iibe and jeer
at the peace offers and ultimatums and
negotiations" that are going on be-
tween the two rivaling governments
whose compromise proved to have been
81 braZen fake
What was exclusively fOreshadowed
III dispatches has come through with
uncanny rapidity and accuracy. The
contlagration has swept beyond con-
troll of men of the Kapps and Ebert
type.
In the chaos raging, only the radical
and working masses are united, or
ganized and unbending. The troops
are split. Those in central Germany
are mostly loyal to Kapp's reactionary
rebellion, the remainder sticks TO
Ebert. In the south the majority wav-
ers between the two rivaling regimes.
The aristocracy and upper classes
stand as one man with the reaction,
but neither is armed nor organized.
That great masses of orderly and law
abiding innocent bystanders, usually
referred to as the middle class" is
vacillating between reaction and the
Ebert brand of Socialism. 1t is over
whelmingly and bitterly against soviet
ism.
But this multitude of peaceful pa
triotic burghers is also unarmed and
unorganzed and inherently shrinks
from civil strife, even in self defense.
Therein lies the tremendous advantage
of the reds, who are a compact, organ
ized, determined fighting mass i'm
PEELED by one and the same idea, acting
while its opponents are talking
SO it came about that while Dr.
Wolfgang Kapp and Frederick Ebert
and their executive secretaries were
fiddling away fateful hours with de-
mands and cOunter-demands, that com
pact mass of radicals forged ahead
like a huge steam hammer. Whether
police or troops or outraged civilians
threw themselves against it, they were
hurled back. dead or wounded. Wo-
men and children are on many casual
E., al, to
of sex.
In Berlin, still the stronghold of or
ganized military force, the reds made
little headway in fighting. Violent
battles We're fought however. All
attempts of the soldiers to put down
fhe strike here or elsewhere failed ut
terly. To enumerate in detail the dead
and wounded in various parts Of the
country would be futile, for every hour
adds fresh victims as internecine
strife stalks abroad.
However a few facts and figures
suffice to sketch the picture Germany
presents.
In DOrtmund, the big Westphalian
coal iron and steel center, the red
terror burst into the midst of great
trade fair, attended by numerous for
eigners and hosts of visitors from all
parts of Germany. Fifteen We're killed
and so wounded, including some of the
foreigners
In HarbSrg, just outside of Ham
burg, many were killed or wounded,
including sora women and children.
Dresden was the scene of violent
clashes. The casualties We're many.
ChernfnitZ, chief manufacturing town
of tfse former kingdom of SaXOny, saw
civfI war in its widest forms. The
workers, vietofious after terrific street
battles, formed committee of action.
c;sarnned the bourgeois troops and dis
tributed the captured arms among
1000 Of their c0inracles.
Leipzig, another bjg Saxon city, fa-
nous for its peace time fairs, was the
scene Of continuous fighting. Many
killed and injured
Essen, the home OF Krupps, is a
strategic center of the reds. The fight
ing and casualties We're accordingly
heavy.