Gruff Old Groener

Candor is not the best policy. Indeed the whole of last week was spent by Germany's gruff Minister of Defense, honest General Wilhelm Groener, in bitterly regretting that not long ago he told 24 highly placed Germans exactly what he knows about "The Next War," in writing, and of course in confidence.

There was a leak. Last week the whole Groener memorandum was sensationally printed in London's famed Review of Reviews. Soon beetling-browed English Editor Henry Wickham Steed was described by Berlin news organs as "the most dangerous anti-German propagandist now alive." Standing before his draughty English hearth, Editor Steed said:

"What we have published is perfectly authentic and was not stolen. It reached me in an ordinary way through a channel that I trust and I satisfied myself as to its authenticity. They can make all the investigations they like as far as I am concerned."

Sagaciously the German Foreign Office admitted at once the genuineness of General Groener's memorandum. Thus controversy instantly ceased to exist, and what might have been whooped up for weeks as "an international scandal" became merely a blazing indiscretion. Hardest hearts began to sympathize with tough intrepid General Wilhelm Groener. After all he was the only German commander who dared to tell Wilhelm II that as German Emperor he ought to lead his Armies to victory or die, personally, in the trenches. There was an indiscretion! Moreover General Groener stuck with Feldmarschall von Hindenburg to the bitter end--long after General Erich von Ludendorff had escaped in thick blue glasses to Sweden, long long after Wilhelm II was safe in Holland. Last week people who really know and value the brainy acumen and soldierly integrity of Germany's Defense Minister hastily closeted themselves with his memorandum, read and pondered well. It was drafted last November, just after the Anglo-French naval & military accord was exposed (TIME, Oct. 8), and precisely when General Groener was urging the Reichstag to appropriate money for four new German battle cruisers (TIME, Nov. 26). In fact, the memorandum was apparently circulated among the most potent, and supposedly most discreet German leaders, in an effort to win their support for the cruiser bill.

Wrote the Defense Minister:

"Revelations of the last few weeks reveal as if by a searchlight the future grouping of powers around England and France on the one hand, and America on the other. The fighting out of these antagonisms is only a question of time, and Germany, a people of sixty millions in the heart of Europe, runs the gravest danger of being drawn into the struggle. If we do not intend our neutrality to be violated, and that conflict fought out on our territory, we shall be compelled to defend it in arms.

"The tension between Czechoslovakia and Italy, between Italy and Jugoslavia, between Poland and Lithuania--:with Russia in the background--has left Europe no peace. The antagonism between England and Russia is notorious. If we do not intend that the belligerents should ruthlessly ignore our many-sided economic and cultural interests, which extend beyond our frontiers, we must put ourselves in a position to uphold our rights with weight. This eventually must be soberly pondered.

Pressing home his demand for more cruisers General Groener concluded: "The German fleet must command the Baltic. Poland is strengthening her fleet, and France has bound herself by treaty to support Poland in case of war by a strong cruiser squadron. The safety of East Prussia* demands that we lay down these new cruisers. There can be no question, any more, of Germany aspiring to Sea Power. Her small forces can barely suffice for defense."

*Since the famed "Polish Corridor to the Sea" divides East Prussia from the rest of Germany, it would be the natural point of attack for any Baltic enemy.