Marshal von Hindenburg last week issued a manifesto to the
German Army and people, warning them against Allied propaganda by means of "a drumfire of printed paper" dropped from aero- planes and balloons. He gravely recorded that soldiers collected eighty-four thousand leaflets in May and three hundred thou- sand in July, but he added that many other leaflets had not been found. It may be inferred from what he said that soldiers send the leaflets home, where " unsuspectingly many thousands consume the poison " and lose their will to victory. The Marshal quoted in full an assurance that German soldiers who surrender would be treated well, and a warning that an Allied victory was certain now that the submarines had failed and America had entered the war. He also gave wide publicity to a leaflet urging Germans to overthrow the Hohenzollern, and to another reminding Bavaria of her grievance against Prussia. Not the least dangerous of these " poisoned arrows," he said, were those quoting the utterances- of
German men and German newspapers, especially, it may be con- jectured, those of Pan-Germans and Minority Socialists. Marshal von Hindenburg has paid a high compliment and rendered great assistance to the Allied propaganda by this indirect admission that it is producing a serious effect on the soldiers and the people.
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