The Berlin correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, telegraph- ing to
Thursday's paper, gives an astonishing example of German militarism. Some days ago, at Dessau, two private soldiers, named Guenther and Voigt, were convicted of in- subordination to a sergeant named Heine, and sentenced to five years' penal servitude and expulsion from the Army. Heine met the soldiers in a dancing saloon. He was drunk, and insulted some girl friends of Guenther's. He was asked to apologise. Instead of apologising, he unsheathed his sword and wildly struck out on all sides. Voigt and Guenther dis- armed him, and in the struggle he fell, and while on the floor he injured another girl. At the trial counsel for the prisoners —i.e., the two privates—pleaded that his clients acted only in self-defence. He was sharply reminded by the prosecution that no such defence could be considered. It was the duty of the two soldiers to allow themselves to be killed by Heine rather than raise a band against him. Heine was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, but apparently the official admission of the sergeant's misdeeds is not regarded as any excuse for the privates preventing themselves and their women- folk from being cut down. If the facts are as stated, we do not wonder, as the Chronicle correspondent reports, that feeling in Germany runs high over the incident.
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