Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1920-03-25

German authorities as practical, an
armistice might have been proposed
sooner, says the New York Times.
Ludendorf, with a curious naivete,
writes constantly of the destructive
intentions of the Allies, and actually
seems to believe that Germany acted
the part of the sheep to the wolf in the
fable. 1t is difficult to find in the
annals of the written word in any Ian
guage a more complete and compla-
cent example of self-deception.
In his opinion, if the German nation
had been untainted with Socialism, if
it had been willing, to the bitter end
to hold to the Emperor and his mill
tary coterie in the spirit in which the
French people accepted the despot-
ism Of Louis XIV, all would have
been well!
The defeat Of Imperial Germany
he attributes to the weakness of Ger
man education, to the lack of unity
in the ideas Of unflinchiug conquest,
and to the deplorable weakness OF the
Chancellors and the Foreign Office.
He does not conceal his scorn of
Prince Max, and realing between the
lines one sees that If all civil liberty
and every male civilian had been
muzzled, the German nation, under
unshaken imperial guidance, would
have marched on to victory. The
breakdown of Imperial Germany, the
Indebtedness of the present condi-
ton of the German people, is due en-
tirely, in his opinion, not to the SUI
perior skill or force of the Allies, but
to that weakness in the German char
acter which prevented the relentless
and ruthless use Of military power
until the final and favorable peace
| was assured.
In the opinion Of Ludendorff, the
Fate Of Germany was bound up in the
preservation Of the imperial power,
and in the opinion of growing class
of conservative Germans, frightened
by the example Of Russia, and the
weak theories of the radicals, this
opinion still exists as a fundamental
to the process Of reconstruction.
Lundendorff seems to think that the
force given by Americans to the
Allies was merely in the nature of as
sistance." He is astounded by the
ease with which the American troops
were transported across the Atlantic,
in spite of all prophecies to the
contrary. He is amazed at the fail.
ure Of the U-boat war to prevent
this almost miraculously rapid trans
portation. He was informed that u
boat war is a commercial war, he as
sured himself that, carried out re-
morselessly, it must mean the end of
the war, because England must starve
and Atlantic tonnage be limited. He
is as greatly astonished as some of
our French marines men were in the
beginning of the war, by the fact
that America acted with such ire
mendous efficiency, in spite Of it's
hesitation and apparent lack OF pre-
paration. RuthIessness and fright
fulness did not seem to affect the
Americans; the crime of the Lusi-
tania, which ought to have intimidat-
ed them-for what can one expect of
a nation of "ice cream eaters
seemed only to infuriate them. He,
like most of his coterie, found it ina
possible to believe that a country like
America would attempt a revanche
for the loss of the lives of 500 or
500 OF ''the common people In the
opinion of Ludendorff and the other
patricians of the late reign Of "tne
German Augustus" all men who were
-