Wars of the Week

Biggest war of last week was the Chinese conflict along 80 miles of brand new No Man's Land in Shantung but men were fighting many another war:

Brazil. On at least three fronts "the bloodiest civil war in South American history'' neared the end of its third month, ferociously fought by more than 125.000 Brazilians behind a nearly air-tight censorship.

Travelers emerging from the United States of Brazil estimated that between 8,000 and 12.000 Brazilians have been killed, had no idea how many have been wounded since Sao Paulo State, ''The Heart of Brazil," raised her gory standard against Brazil's faintly perfumed but sufficiently ruthless Provisional President Getulio Vargas.

Berthold Klinger, a onetime German general, is supposed to be the military brains of the revolting Paulistas. Federal troops, who had recaptured about one-tenth of the revolting state last week, scored a spectacular but indecisive coup by capturing Senhor Borges de Medeiros, a leading rebel and once, for 20 years, president of Rio Grande do Sul.

Bolivia v. Paraguay. In the sweltering, swampy, mosquito-infested Gran Chaco between Brazil and Paraguay a total of 1.250 soldiers of those nations have died in the recent war (TIME. Aug. 15), according to Bolivian official estimates last week.

While Paraguayan soldiers captured one-sixteenth of a mile of Bolivian trenches last week, Bolivian "atrocity stories" began to appear in which Paraguayans fired on Red Cross units.

"My family have given 1, 000,000 bolivianos to the cause!" announced Bolivian Tin Tycoon Simon I. Patino, and presented two of his private German airplanes to the Government for bombing service.

"We have completely wiped out," boasted a Paraguayan communique, "an entire Bolivian battalion which appeared to have been made up of young students from La Paz."

Peru v. Colombia-- Because Colombia's Congress voted $10,000,000 "for national defense," Peru's Congress hastened to vote $4.200,000 "for national defense" last week, with this ringing declaration:

"Peru is a pacific people! It does not plan to enter war with any other state, but it has to preoccupy itself necessarily about its defense when winds of war blow along the frontier."

A small cyclone of war vortexed, meanwhile, around Colombia's inland port of Leticia located 2,500 miles above the mighty River Amazon's mouth.

So far as could be learned a provincial clique of Peruvian Army Officers seized Leticia (TIME, Sept. 26) contrary to the Peruvian Government's wishes and continued to hold it last week, defying both their own Government and Colombia. "Our coup was made necessary," they announced, "by the harshness of Colombia in Colombianizing the ceded territory." (Leticia was ceded by Peru to Colombia in 1927.)

In Lima the Peruvian Government of often-wounded President Luis Sanchez Cerro did not exactly help matters by issuing an enormous map. This showed that their political opponents, the ousted regime of former Peruvian President Augusto B. Leguia, ceded to other countries 278,887 square miles of Peruvian territory by perfectly legal treaties.

Ecuador, eager not to be dragged into any phase of a Peruvian-Colombian war, hastily declared her neutrality last week "so long as the rights of Ecuador are not trampled upon nor her territory invaded." Up the turgid Amazon steamed a Brazilian River gunboat, determined to arrive at Leticia and find out just what was going on.

Germany. If Berlin had not been "captured" during the Fatherland's war games or autumn maneuvers last week that most certainly would have been news.

Of course the Blue Army defending Berlin was theoretically trounced & mangled by the invading Red Army, "thus demonstrating the absolute defenselessness of our capital against a foe equipped with those modern armaments which are denied to Germany!" according to indignant German editors.

President Paul von Hindenburg was greeted by mighty roars of "Hock! Hoch der Feldmarschall!" when he appeared, to avoid diplomatic complications, after the sham war was over. Significantly Berlin was "attacked" not from the direction of France but from the direction of Poland. Against the French, Germans know they have no chance, but they fiercely hope for a new der tag when German soldiers shall seize the Polish Corridor and the Germanic provinces of Poland.

Suddenly last week General Hans von Seeckt who created Germany's present Army burst out: "In the long run, I believe there is no force on earth that can prevent Germany from again becoming a great military power! ... If we were not hampered by financial worries we would require only a few years to re-establish Germany's military strength."

The General knows better than almost any other German whereof he speaks. He was Commander of the Army for six years until in 1926 he illegally permitted a son of the ex-Crown Prince to participate in the Fatherland's war games. "The speed of Germany's re-armament," continued General von Seeckt, "is a question of hard cash!" In effect, therefore, General von Seeckt bore witness that the more Germany is required to pay the Allies and the more they are required to pay the U. S., the slower will be Europe's armament race.

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