Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1918 — MUTINY GROWING IN GERMAN ARMY [ARTICLE]

MUTINY GROWING IN GERMAN ARMY

Officers Are Defied and 20,000 Deserters Are Said to . Be in Berlin. TROUBLE ALSO IN THE NAVY Four Torpedo Boats Are Seized, and Attempt Is Made to Escape, but Two Are Sunk by Pursuing Battleship. London. —General demoralization of Germany’s population and widespread •and growing-disaffection in the German army, accompanied by mutiny 1 and desertions, ar^ described in a dispatch to the Daily Telegraph from its Rotterdam correspondent. The correspondent says that information reaching him is so sensational as to inspire skepticism, but declares he has received undoubted corroboration from authoritative sources. He asserts that the Germany arnjy is filled with despondency and seething with mutinous spirit, and that alarming outbreaks have occurred in several units, principally Bavarian and Silesian. One incident on the Arras front

terminated in a whole Bavarian division being disarmed and transported to Bavaria, where it was placed in a prison camp, and the mutiny of one oi the Silesian regiments resulted in nea • ly 100 of its men being executed. Desertions Are Heavy. A huge number of desertions are occurring, the correspondent says, and it is estimated that there are more than 20,000 deserters in Berlin alone. Large numbers are scattered throughout the country and the authorities are having the greatest difficulty in trailing deserters owing to the connivance of the working classes. Nevertheless hundreds have been arrested and generally these have been sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment. A great number of Imprisoned deserters, broken by solitary confinement, have been released and sent back to the ranks. "'Disobedience and defiance of officers is common at the front, according to the correspondent’s information, and a similar spirit is shown in the munition factories, where the workers deliberately are slowing up, with the result that the output has been seriously decreased. Heavy Cannonading Heard. “It was reported from various places on the Danish and Norgeglan coasts three weeks ago that heavy cannonading was heard from the North sea,” says a dispatch from Christiania to the Times. “A few days later, the bodies of German marines were washed up, most of them on the coast of Jutland, but no fighting was reported on either the British or German side.

So there was much speculation about these floating corpses, which" bore life belts with the figures and initials of two different German torpedo boats. An explanation is now given by the Aftenpost’s correspondent at Copenhagen, who says a report was received yesterday from across the German frontier of a recent mutiny. German navy crews refused to go aboard the U-boats to which they belong, and seizing four torpedo boats set a course for Norway. ' They were overtaken by a German warship and a regular fight ensued, with the result that at least two. tor pedo boats-were sunk and the crews drowned or killed.