ANOTHER ZEPPELIN RAID

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 4009, 16 August 1915, Page 5

ANOTHER ZEPPELIN RAID

RAIDERS ENGAGED AT SOME POINTS. EAST COAST AGAIN VISITED. ONE ZEPPELIN PROBABLY DAMAGED. LONDON, August 13. Tlip Press Bureau states that two Zeppelins between 9.30 arid midnight dropped incendiary bombs in various places on the East Coast. They damaged fourteen houses. The Zeppelins were engaged at some points, but succeeded in escaping from our air cruft patrols. One was probably damaged by the mobile anti-air-craft section. Six persons (four civilians and two women) were killed and twenty-three injured. ONLY ONE ZEPPELIN SEEN RETURNING. AMSTERDAM, August 15. A single zeppolin was soon over Vbehind coming from the west. An English traveller reports that an aviator was picked up in •'the Channel a short distance from Folkestone. 'The machine was intact, hut the motor had disappeared.

GERMAM CONFIDENCE. ■ HOW JT IS ORGANISED The neutral correspondent who lias been supplying ‘ - The Times” with first hand information regarding the state of German resources and German opinion gives in a recent article a striking impression of the mental and spiritual attitude which German thoroughness of organisation has produced in the people. When i entered Germany, lie says, I believed myself able to take a detached view of the war. Careful study of the different official communiques had. I imagined, enabled me to get at the truth in its essential features. Nothing, 1 was convinced, could influence 1 . my deliberately formed estimate of the relative value of the information officially and semi-officially disseminated from the various belligerent countries. Constant reading of all the large newspapers published in belligerent and neutral .States had made lue conlideiil of my ability to distingurdi Hie realities behind news and opinion:-.. and had made me proof against "atian.-jilicre.” After a month in Germany ! leum! I was mistaken. 1 1 was a remarkable experience. Be;oiv many days had nasal f made tins di-ng; irii'ili: lii.-vovery that I was being influenced by ill-- German war atmosphere. The confidence of the peoplc jii 1 he invincibility of their armies, the smooth working of the .State machine that seemed to leave nothing co chance, ihe determination everywhere noticeable beneath the subdued oxpressions of feeling, tile daily outpourings of the press, the contempoiary literature—everything, ill short, combined to entice me into a different mood. This strange influence grew stronger as the weeks went by.’ My previous conceptions of war news, of positions and conditions along the fronts and behind them, and of the general outiook for the future underwent a perceptible chaime. f began to understand the workings of the German mind which had before seemed mysterious to me. It became possible to gauge the soul of the people and, to comprehend to some extent their confidence, their outward unanimity. their spirit of sidi-sacrifiee, and their faith in their leaders. The chief agency in the creation of this state of mind, apart- from the dirent influence of the thorough milllory organisation nf the Mate, is the shrewd management of the press. It will he remembered that on the outbreak of war, the whole German press was turned against England overnight. Twenty-four hours after having prais'd the vigorous efforts of Great Britain to prevent war, it denounced Sir ltd ward (day as the moving spirit in a conspiracy to assail Germany. None but distorted views from abroad were allowed to be published. The Gorman people wore told only what it was desired they should believe. All unfavorable information was treated as “lies,” and a thoroughly organised press campaign was earned on in neutral countries in the same sense. The “neutral” opinions thus inspired were reproduced in Germany as evidence that impartial foreign opinion supported the German view. By these means the war-mind of tire German people was created and fashioned. Tim process still goes on. though as 1 have before remarked, the French. Russian, and British communiques are now regularly printed in the larger newspapers, and are frequently criticised in the communications from the German headquarters staff. But foreign reports have no intluenoe whatever upon the German mind. The Germans are so convinced of the accuracy of their own official versions that no other reports count. It is the same with enemy newspapers. In the Victoria Cafe at Berlin I was able to read, day by day, the French. Italian, German, and neutral journals. They were also to be bought in the newspaper kiosks of the large towns No remarks were made when 1 asked for them : but I noticed a pitying smile on German faces whenever they saw others read them.

It is not the big papers of international repute that exercise the greatest influence in Germany. In the smaller towns and agricultural .districts it is the local Press that counts. In that Press none but German reports are to be found, with German explanations and German accusations againts enemy countries. No attack upo.il the enemy is too gross for this Press to reproduce, and nothing in Germany's favor is too absurd for its readers to swallow. Not only is the victorious progress of the German, Austrian, and Turkish armies constantly celebrated, but the financial, industrial, and social conditions in Germany are declared to be far superior to those existing elsewhere. Dissections between the Powers of the Entente are reported, and disturbances among their people are invented and dwelt upon. Every scrap of news that can be turned to account in this direction is magnified, distorted, and supplied from central agencies to thousands of local papers. Leading articles are supplied in the same way. Moreover, the German headquarters’ report is posted up every day at 4 p.m. outside every telegraph office, and is circulated iii special editions of the local papers, which contain nothing but this report. This local Press exercises a. kind of hypnotic influence upon the people at large. As I spent most of my time in Germany in the smaller towns and rural districts. I came under its spell. Everybody had a ready explanation in answer to enquiry about the failure to reach Paris or Calais. When I asked about the news of revolutions in India and Egypt, and of Turkish victories on the Suez Canal I was assured that thev were penectly true. The British denials were treated as “the usual English lies.” And it was argued as the strongest evidence of the unreliability of English reports that naval losses which neutrals bad witnessed had been kept, secret by the British Admiralty. The cumulative effect upon me oi this constant suggestion, witu its wen-calculated variations in the films of the cinemas and in the periodical literature, was such that I seemed gradually to lose my individuality and to become merged in the German mass. If it was not possible for me to react against it.,. what chance lias a German, no matter how sceptically disposed, of acquiring a true perspective? It was with a senso of relief as of tho passing of a mgliemare, that I crossed the border, and found a freer atmosphere and lieutral associations in Switzerland.