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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Clinton New Era, 1915-01-28, Page 3g5tItELLvcasemmocognaalanumentnianrisoormaxammamommeeme. TSB CLINTON,NBW; BEA'. 'he German GERMAN ARMY ALWAYS READY Most Powerful of World's Land Fighting Machines. KAISER IS SUPREME CHIEF. ,His Right Hand Man, Field Marshal von Moltke, Chief of Staff, Is Nephew of Famous Strategist Who Planned I• Successful Franco-Prussian Wan , Field Force, First Line of Battle, Consists of 1,250,000 Men—Staff Offi ' cars ' All Specialists In Warfare, Some of the Leading Generale. GREATEST in organization, drill and preparedness for war and probably in the number of men immediately ready for active field service, as well as in leadership, and second only to the Russian army in point of size, the army of the Ger- man erman empire is the world's most pow- erful owerful land fighting machine.. Military experts assert that even di - 'aided, with one-half concentrated against Russia and the other half sent against France, the kaiser's army is able to overwhelm any force that could be brought to oppose its advance. The first report of the declaration by the kaiser of a state of war in Germany brought forth many predictions of a repetition of the war of 18704, when Germany's forces almost literally walk- ed alked over those of France. Then. as now. preparedness for active service was accounted the prime factor in the situation. There is no reason to think that the present Von Moltke, chief of staff of the German army and nephew of the famous field marshal, 1s inferior to his predecessor and namesake. The old Von Moltke had all his plans for the invasion of France contained in a aingle drawer of his desk, The pre* ent day Von Moltke has been working for many years on methods of invad- ing France and Russia. Germany has prepared herself against war with France since 1871. In 1875 Inch a war was averted by the nar- rowest of margins. Since then Ger- many has striven with might and main to perfect her military power to a de- gree unknown until the genius of Molt- ke made' Germany a national unit. The frontier between Germany and nnesia, which both nations have forti- fled at short intervals, covers 843 mired. The various fortresses are connected iwith each other by underground tele- graph and telephone, while strategic • • military railroads lead to the principal military centers in the interior. German a Born Soldier. 1 The German is a soldier of the high- , est type—born a soldier, nurtured as Ione—developed to the highest degree of efficiency. `The German army consists of the first line, landwehr and landsturm, the last a home defense reserve. Two regi- ments of infantry, six battalions, form a brigade; two brigades a division and two divisions an army corps. In war all corps will be constituted of thirty- six battalions. To each infantry dt vision is attached an artillery brigade '<twelve batteries) and a regiment of Cavalry (four squadrons); to each army ;corps four batteries of howitzers, a battalion of rifles and an engineer bat- talion. The war strength of a com- plete division of two brigades is about 14,000 and of an army corps of two divisions 80,000. There are altogether twenty-five army corps of two divisions each. There is only one permanent cavalry division—that of the guard—but in war eight divisions are formed from the line regiments. The normal strength bf a cavalry division is three brigades .of two regiments each, with three bat.- terles of horse artillery, in all twenty - dour squadrons of twelve guns. Total Field Army of 1,250,000. - Tbe total of the field army is 1,2500 000, to which must be added the mo- bile landwehr of 600,000. In addition It 1e estimated that there are at least 1,500,000 trained men to supply waste Of war. The landsturm is not lncind• ed in this number. The peace rooting Is 36,804 (Meets and 754,681, men. The army is'armed with Mauser mag- azine rifles and the cavalry with Man- lier carbines. The field and horse ar- tillery have Krupp guns, firing a fif- teen pound shell. ' There are seventeen aeroplane companies, with 173 officers and 4,446 men. The intended employment of the re- serve troops in war has not been di- vulged by the German general staff, but the plans show that most of the two brigade divisions will be aug- mented by a reserve brigade in war and that all army corps in the German army can take the field, with six bri- gades, the artillery being increased pro- portinately by reserve regiments. To each infantry division is attached in war an artillery brigade of twelve bat- teries.' There are eighteen cyclist' companies In the German army. The German field batteries are equipped with 811 guns each, and the horse batteries hay( Sour guns each. Prussia, with Baden and Hesse,, is divided into sixteen' military districts, each of which furnishes a completl army corps. There is also a P'nehiat guard corps drawn from the wholl change, however, lies in the fact tial I the hntiteries ore now mile Lour mow Thdrsday, January 28th, 1815.: I� not Invincible tothe Allies viortirmacuiia How Rain and Floods et Salisbury Made Life and Drill Unnomf a stable for Troops H Y p a .... rrt.,:,rau,�v.. "ts�cscyr.�ipcis.^. M. or or.tycu of lie] fun at 5hrewto.. kingdom. Saxony, Wurttemberg and Reichsland furnish five army corps. In the German army are 217 regiments of infantry containing 471,796 men, 110 regiments of cavalry with 82,007 men, 100 regiments of field artillery with 36,000 men and 24 regiments of foot artillery with 33,000 men. The Ger- man army uses 157,000 horses, of whicb over 80,000 are for the cavalry alone. Tako Lessons From Napoleon. In January, 1914, the German war office ordered a translation to be pre- pared of "Preceptes et Jugments' de Napoleon," collected and classified by Lieutenant Colonel Ernest Picard of the French army. Thus after thirty- four years the Germans seem to have taken the advice of Von Moltke to study the campaigns of Napoleon. But this is not all. As everybody knows, Napoleon's favorite arm was artillery, and in that arm there are to be wide- spread reforms and reorganization, particularly with the object of obtain- ing the greatest mobility, if not inter- 'tpted by war. each in place of the regular German six. This means a striking vindica- tion of the French artillery principles, such as were propounded by General Langlois, and no doubt the teachings of the Balkan wars have had some- thing to do with the innovation. Hith- erto the German critics have criticized the French four gun battery on the ground that, if more mobile, it wail far less forceful. Now, however, artillery experts here have come around to quite another Point of view. One of the most expe- rienced reported the other day that the smaller batteries were both easier and Quicker to handle on the march, and rar easier to bring into action. Posi- tions useful for a four gun battery were twice as easy to find, and they were generally far better than those ror a six gun battery. The principle is now so generally ac- cepted and approved that the idea of adopting it for the whole army is being seriously discussed. The 144 guns of 'each army corps would then become thirty, -six batteries in place of the kdile Photos by .emerican Press Association. GERMAN UHLANS, ARTILLERY AND INFANTRY. Eleven divisions of. artillery have been changed from "riding" batteries to "driven" batteries. That is the of- ficial description oP the change, which —officially again—was defended on the ground that 'there would be a large saving in men and horses without any proportionate 'loss in fighting force; since it was practically useless to have the riding batteries unless they were always, working in ,collabo•ntion with cavalry, and tor this purpose there were already enough. .. mp The most iortant part of the cut twenty-four. For the time being this plan was vetoed. The chief reason against the change' was the effect It would have on the .line of march, as it would lengthen out the. march column very considera- bly. The tactical valueof the four gun battery in the field was not dis- puted. ' d uolher artillery reform which was not by so, !Heins clearly indicated in the new military law was the great in- crre 5 of howitzers. Some of the rid-. !utlteries have been quietly chauged into howitzer batteries, and now where ex'ary ,troy corns Lind ftp combletnent 02 howitzers every division possesses the same force. The howitzer, indeed, In the opinion of many German critics, is "the weapon of the future." The Spirit of the Army. • It Is n superb sight to see a Ger- man regiment on parade drill, perfect In equipment to the uttermost button, and Fritz in the ranks appreciates it and exults in it as well as the field marshal or even the sub -lieutenant. But if Fritz Is locked In jail for a week or two because a single button on his coat appeared to the eye of Baron von Martinet to be not absolutely free from tarnish by the acid test why, then, the other Frltzses frown behind their placid masks and welcome the profs- guide of democracy. It must be borne in mind that as the social democracy is the most numerous of all the po- litical parties in the empire so the great majority of that party consists of men who have served their time with the colors under the conscription law. That tact gives added force to the popular disapproval of military abuses. It is not the army, per se, to which even radical social democrats object so much as to the tyrannous exaggerations of the spirit of military caste. There is arising a demand that the army shall be considered, and shall consider itself, a part of the citizen body of the nation, amenable in time of peace like all the rest to the com- mon civil law. But in time of war all other considerations are overthrown. Kaiser the Supreme General. Emperor William is of course gener- alissimo of the German armies, both of the kingdom of Prussia, of which he is king, and of the other kingdoms, duchies and principalities making up the German empire. With him are as- sociated as leaders of their armies the kings of Saxony, Wurttemberg, Be- va ia, etc., all of whom are train- ed soldiers. The heads of the other smaller German states are also mili- tary men and for the most part capa- ble leaders of the forces of their Next to Emperor William comes the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Count Helmuth von Moltke, nephew of the famous Von Moltke, who was accounted the. greatest strategist of the nineteenth century save only Na- poleou Bonaparte. Count von Haesel- er bolds the rank of field marshal gen- eral, the highest in the German .or any, be -ar�m�� O y,ther officer's high in -ra`nk are Generals Yon. -Colt, Von Lina@• quest, Non Plessen, Voir Ka el, on Horn, Von Buelow, Von Scholl and Von Prittwitz—all these in addition to the numerous royalties, Prussian and non -Prussian, who hold high rank in the German army. in some cases the titles of these last named are purely honorary and they cannot be called upon for active field service, but in others, as has been stated,,"the royal- ties are trained soldiers ad able to give good accounts of themselves as masters of large bodies of 'fighting men. War always finds them in the forefront of the German forces. A Matter- of Regret. ]Husband (at breakfast table)—Oh, for some of the biscuits my mother used to make! Wife (sweetly)—I'm sorry you have not got them, dear. They would be just about stale enough by this time to go well with that re- mask.—Boston Transcript. More Modern. Atlas set down the world and got, on top of it "The nest time I carry the world n 1ny shoulders," said hc,"i thank I'll make a. stock contently of it" --Life. STRENGTH OF GERMAN NAVY Rauh, Second In List of World's Sea Powers, POWERFUL DREADNOUGHTS, Kaiser's Greatest Fighting Craft Com• parable to Monsters of British and American Sea Forces—They Carry Fifteen Inch Guns, Like English Ves- sels Built About Same Time—Five Big Ships Launched In 1913, of Which Four Are Now In Commis- sion. T HD German navy is a most im portant factor in the present European imbroglio. The aggressive militant poll• cy of Kaiser Wilhelm has resulted in the creation of a feet of armed ships almost rivaling the British navy in strength and which safely secures the empire in second place as to naval strength among the world's power". Britain ranks first, the United States third, France fourth, Japan fifth, Rns• sia sixth, Italy seventh and Austria eigb th. Great Britain and Germany have been competing with each other in building new fighting ships of the Dreadnought type, and the latter coun- try has been steadily drawing closer to her rival in marine armament. Germany has now seventeen war- ships of 18,000 tons or over, with two more huge battleships in course or construction. Her latest sea monster, the K. I., has a displacement of 30,000 tons and carries a main battery of ten eleven - inch guns. Her secondary battery consist of twelve guns of the 5.9 inch size "rt':rrize ; t . ,'!�The Naval List. The number and displacement of German warships of 1,500 or more tons and of torpedo craft of fifty or more tons, built and building, are as fol- lows: �. Drnoubts ,(battleships having a maineadbattery of all big guns; that is, 11 or more inches in caliber), built, 13, of a total of 285,670 tons; building, 6, of a total of 162,300 tons. Pre -Dread- noughts (battleships of about 10,000. or more tons, whose main batteries are of more than 1 caliber), built, 20, of a total of 242,800 tons; building, none. Coasting defense vessels (including smaller battleships and monitors), built, 2, of a total of 8,168 tons; build- Ing, none. Battle cruisers (armored cruisers having guns of largest caliber in main battery and capable of taking their place in line of battle with the battle- ships, built, 4, of a total' of 88,074 tons; building, 3, of a total of 84,000 tons, Armored cruisers, built, 9, of a total of 94,245 tons; building, none. Cruisers (unarmored warships of 1,1100 or more tons), built, 40, of a total of 145,841 tons; building, 4, of a total of 21,880 tons. Torpedo boat destroyers, built, 180, of a total of 07,094 tons; building, 12, of a total of 7,200 tons. Torpedo boats, none built or build. Mg. Submarines, built, 24, of a total of 10,540 taus; building, 12, of a total of 9,484 tons. Total tonnage, built, 843,338; building, 284,870. Officers and Men. The officers and men number about 74,000, including 2 admirals of the neer, 5 admirals, lr vice ,amlrals,•22 rear admirals, 356 captaj „ lry and com- manders and' 1,881 others} , ,e officers. Of the thirteen Dreackniiughts built two were completed in X1909, two in enrson Halms, (MEV ADMIRAL - Or Toa GERMAN NAVY. 1910, three in 1911, three In 1912 and three in 1913. "Those completed in 1913 are the Kaiserin, ffonig Albert and Prinz Regent Luitpold. These ships, like the Kaiser, finished in 1912, carry a main battery of ten twelve -inch guns, all of which may be fired on either broadside. Of the six Dreadnoughts building three were launched in 1918, the Konig on March 1 at the imperial yard, Wilhelmshaven; the Grosser Kur- furst on May 5 at Hamburg and the tfarkgraf on June 4 at Bremen. Of the battle cruisers built one, the Seyd- litz, was completed for service in Oc- tober, 1913. Of the three building the Derf inger was launched at Hamburg on July 1, 1913. Germany has held that the eleven and twelve inch Krupp guns were equal to the English 13.5 inch and four- teen inch guns of the same date for all practical battle purposes. After Eng - toad adopted the fifteen inch gun Ger- many was forced to take the same step and decided to give the two Ger- man erman battleships of the year. 1918 the same armament as that of the five English ships of the year 1912—that is, eight fifteen -inch and sixteen six-inch. The torpedo armament of the latest ships consisted of twenty inch torpedo tubes. New Construction. Five big warships were launched in 1913 (Konig, Grosser Kurfurst, Mark- graf, Lutzow and Derffiinger), and tour were commissioned (Konig Albert, Prinzreg Luitpold, Kaiserin and Seyd- iitz). The protected cruiser Graudenz (5,530 tons) was launched and the pro- tected cruisers Karlbruhe and Rostok (4,900 tons) completed. l'hereseattiN The 1914 budget provides for twelve more torpedo boats. There are twen- ty-seven submarines completed and several building, one of them at the Flat San Giorgio works, Spezia, and the 1914 budget provided 19,000,000 marks for submarine construction. All the new protected cruisers have a four inch armor belt and a designed speed of not less than twenty-seven knots. It 1s stated that those of the current program have a main battery of im- proved 5.9 inch guns and a coal capaci- ty of about 1,500 tons. The displacement of the latest sub- marines averaged about 800 tons, with T surface speed of sixteen knots. The twelve destroyers of the 1912 program (S13, S24) were completed in 1913. Twelve more are now building. The standard contract speed seemed to be fixed at 32.5 knots. Six torpedo tubes and two 3.4 inch guns will rep -1 resent the new armament of these craft. Germany on "the Wave." It 1s a curious fact that the navy which is rapidly coming to rank as the most powerful in the world after Great Britain's, is an untried quantity. Unlike the vessels and personnel of our own navy and that of most of the Bnropeenb�ve.tls the �lermany navy ' ati s fi ver .-tiled its n found s xe`ngth: Iig"bffcel% Mad men have never faced 8nemy, and the ponderous guns that bear down its cruisers and battleships have never been trained upon anything save targets. The whole history of Germany s gularly barren of naval battles, and stories of naval heroes, especially whefi weaanipare it with the history of Eng- land and the United States. Germany, has no Jones or Nelson. Despite its long coastline, it has fought its great battles and won its great victories with land forces. For centuries the army has been the backbone of Prus- sia and the ideal of every German schoolboy. Such few armed vessels as Prussia had were governed from the war office, under the direction of army officers. The first imperial min- ister of the German navy, appointed after the conclusion of the Franco- Prussian war, was an army general, and it was not milli 1897 that the ap- pointment of Admiral Tripitz placed at the head of the German navy a man who had been bred a seaman. Thus the events of the last decade, which have placed Germany ahead of all its rivals, save one, in the matter of naval equipment, represent some- thing of a revolution in German his- tory and policy. It is only a little over fourteen years ago that Emperor William uttered the words which crystallized the new doctrine: "Un - sere Zukunft liegt auf dem Wosser" ("Our future lies upon the water"). They were inscrt'ted over the main entrance of Germany's handsome, pavilion at the Paris fair of 1900, ands served notice to the world that Geri many had entered upon a new epoch,'. In her development. "'Her expanding colonial ambitious and the unprece- dented scale of naval expenditures witb which she is backing them up indicate that she takes 'these new ambitions very seriously. , The Kaiser's One Ambition. But 1t is not alone jingoism that has urged the present policy. There is a well justified feeling in Germany that she has carried intensive cultivation in industry, as well as in agriculture, to the point of diminishing returns and that henceforth she must look to her colonies and to her foreign trade to assure her continued commercial pros- perity. This belief, which is shared by some of Germany's shrewdest states- men tatemen and scientists, has led to the for mation of the Flottenverein, which has done such remarkable work In pop* larizing the navy and securing publif support for the naval budget. This verde issues a magazine, publishes books, conducts a press bureau, or ganlzes meetings, engages speakers does everything that one of the bil parties does in this country during t presidential campaign, with the sot view of helping the growth to powe and efficiency of the German navy. 1 is headed by men of the highest stand ing, and its unselfish devotion ha served as a mighty stimulud to Ger- man enman ambition and German patriot, ism. A Great Sea Power: 1 From the moment he came to the throne the German navy has been the kaiser's constant preoccupation. Re ' has as deliberately set himself to make Germany a great sea power as did his grandfather and Bismarck to the biuld- ing up of the Prussian army. Captain Mahan's dictum that "no modern state has long maintained a supremacy by Land and by sea" has no terrors for him. He has hastened on the growth of the navy with the deftness of the most astute electioneering agent. Hardly anything happens anywhere that be cannot convert into an argu- ment for more ships. Now it is the striking expansion of German com- merce that 1s made to serve as an ex- cuse. Now it is the growth of German shipping, which has more than doubled its tonnage and quadrupled its carry- ing power in the last twenty years. easily outdistancing the mercantile marine of France and the United States. Whatever it may be, the kaiser fastens upon it with admirable smartness as a handle to be used in crushing the Socialists to a new navy bill. German "Jackie" at Drill. A spectacle full of interest even to laymen may often be witnessed in Kiel or in the vicinity of any of the naval stations of theBaltle, both dur- ing the busy preparations befo'reland~•' (ng and at the maneuvers on terra 6I'M Miry detail is conducted with scrupulous precision, especially the actions previous to the regimental movements—i. e., the manning of the boats, the drill on the water and the disembarkation. The paraphernalia of a modern war- ship requires too intricate and techno- logical a description for the average newspaper reader. Let 1t suffice here to note that all the Germ vessels are furnished with the most • ?roved ap;, plianees and with all that twentieth - century science has thus far adduced to increase their efficiency and strength POSED AS MEN. Women Tried Hard To Enter the Russian Army. Women and girls in large numbers are trying to enter the Russian army in various disguises, and several wo- men have already succeeded in de- ceiving the military authorities. The most successful have been the masculine -looking peasant women of the northern provinces. Amongst them is Nadezhda Ornasky, a thick- set, well-educated peasant woman fr he twaX ren . -Cohan .. el. S e posed as a man through the -Tee -6a part of the Manchurian campaign, and was praised for her courage bl11 Gen.. Grippenberg. She fought imry,,, September in, South Poland, and it ^. was not until after the battle of Lublin-Krasnik that her sex was dis- covers _,,,(,• pry r11e- 4 ' -g,r named i,iuba Hglick, a 20 - year -old attractive -looking girl, was• present at four engagements in'East nd West Poland, and has been woo deih ly. She says that during the lo0g FgT' ing she had no fear, but had a 1' crossing bayonets n 'ba o ars with the enem . Two daughters of a landed proprie- tor at Kurck have been arrested or their way to join the colors, one o1 them posing as "Prince Adrianog" and the other as her servant. A peasant woman who was killed at Gumbinnen had donned her husband's clothes and impersonated him, as hr had shirked the summons. She did not want her family to be shamed. worr1M'y cuv Grermsua. Brussels now has the double finan- cial standard, often to the sorrow o German officers. Frequently a poo pous officer tenders a 100 -mark bit. in payment for dinner and gets is. return a heap of Belgian paper, Ger- man, bills, Belgian and German salvor and. Belgian nickel cdins with hole: - punched in the centres. There i, also a double time standard, the Ger mans using Berlin time and the Bel glans their own, whicb is one hour be hind Berlin. ¶Phe War Lord "Iucmg." Wearing the uniform 0f a, neon.' lieutenant of cavalry, the Kaiser i. maid io have spent four days tinuters, where a house had been lit ted up for him) at each end of tie town, 74.