ALLIES’ PROPAGANDA. HINDENBURG’S WAIL. A TELL-TALE MANIFESTO.

AMSTERDAM, THURSDAY. The German papers publish prominently the following manifesto, issued by Marshal von Hindenburg on Sept. 2 (Sedan Day):

We are engaged in a severe battle with our enemies. If numerical superiority alone were to guarantee victory, then Germany would long since have lain crushed on the ground. The enemy knows, however, that Germany and her allies are not to be vanquished by arms alone. The enemy knows that the spirit which inspires our troops and our nation renders us unconquerable, and has, therefore, along with the battle against German arms waged war against the German spirit. He wants to poison our spirit, and he believed that the German arms will be blunted if the German spirit is corroded. We should not treat lightly this plan of the enemy. He wages his campaign against our spirit with various means. He drenches our front not only with a drum fire of artillery, but also with a drum fire of printed matter. His airmen throw, besides bombs which kill the body, leaflets which are intended to kill the soul. Our Field Greys on the Western front handed in of these enemy leaflets, 84,000 in May, 120,000 in June, and 300,000 in July – an enormous increase in July – 10,000 poisoned arrows per day! Ten thousand times daily the attempt to take away from each and all belief in the justice of our cause, and our strength for and confidence in final victory. We may at the same time calculate that a great number of enemy leaflets have not been found by us. The enemy, however, is not satisfied merely with assailing the spirit on our front. He wants above all to poison the spirit of those at home. He knows of what resources of strength for the front there are at home. His aeroplanes and balloons, it is true, do not the carry leaflets far into the homeland, from which the lines are remote where the enemy is vainly struggling for victory by arms, but the enemy hopes that many a Field Grey will send home the leaflet which so harmlessly fluttered down from the air. At home, then, it passes from hand to hand. It is discussed in bars, in families, in work-rooms, in factories, and in the streets. Unsuspectingly many thousands imbibe the poison, and for thousands the burden which war in any case lays on them is thereby increased and their resolve upon, and their hope in the victorious issue of the war is removed. All these in turn write to the front about their doubts, and Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau rub their hands.

“INSANE RUMOURS.”

The enemy attacks the home spirit also in other ways. The most insane rumours, calculated to break our internal power of resistance, are set in circulation. We discover then simultaneously in Switzerland, Holland, and Denmark. From there they spread in waves over all Germany, or they arise simultaneously, accordant in their senseless details, in the remotest parts of Germany, in Silesia, East Prussia, and the Rhineland, and from there pass over the rest of the country. This poison takes effect on men on leave and flies in letters to the front, and again our enemies rub their hands. The enemy is clever. He knows how to compound the powder for each victim. He entices fighters at the front. One leaflet said: “German soldiers, it is a disgraceful lie that the French ill-treat German prisoners. We are not brutes. Come to us confidently. Here you will find considerate treatment, good food, and peaceful shelter.” As to this, ask the brave men who, with unutterable difficulty, have succeeded in escaping from enemy captivity. In barbed-wire enclosures, without a roof, rendered pliable by hunger and thirst to make traitorous statements, or forced by blows and threats of death to betray their comrades, spat at by the French populace on their way to hard labour, and bespattered with filth. This, in reality, is the paradise conjured up by the enemy…

“POISONED MORSELS.”

Such is the tone of his leaflets, sometimes menace and sometimes cajolery… But we must be strong and united. That is what the enemy fights against with flysheets and rumours. He wants to deprive us of our belief, confidence, will, and strength …With his leaflets and rumours he endeavours to sow dissension and mistrust among the Federal States. We seized on Lake Constance many thousands of leaflets which were sent to Bavaria and were intended to stir up feeling against the North Germans. The German Empire, which was the dream for centuries of Germans and which our fathers won for us, that is what they want to destroy… Therefore German army and German home, if one of these poisoned morsels in the form of a leaflet or rumour comes to your ears or eyes, remember it comes from the enemy, and that nothing comes from the enemy of any service to Germany. Everyone must remember that, no matter to what class or party he belongs. If you meet anyone who, maybe, in name or orgin is German but in heart is in the enemy’s camp, keep him at a distance and despise him. Hold him up to public scorn, so that every other German also may despise him. Be on your guard, German army and German home. – (Signed) VON HINDENBURG, Main Headquarters. – Reuter.