NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16150, 2 March 1918, Page 7

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE RUSSIAN SITUATION. The one fact—as opposed to a thousand unverified and contradictory reports—that emerges from the Russian welter, that the German's have been over-running the Baltic provinces, and steadily advancing, in on a

in one direction on Petrograd, and in another towards an important junction on the PetrogradJVloscow railway, the capture of which would cut off the capital and prevent it receiving supplies and reinforcements,. if, indeed, these were available. In the South, too, in the Province of Volbynia, despite th e cabled statement that -Austrian troops in that part of the front refused to advance against i the Russians, the Germans have had successes, capturing Jitomir and krementz, while further north again Borisoif m £he Province of Minsk, has tallen to the invaders, and though the latter are reported to have failed, to take Vitebsk, the Russians have evacuated Smolensk, still further east, which does not look as though they had much faith in their powers of resistance. The report that the German troops have been ordered to stop their advance presumably all along the front which they have pushed eastward so fast— may be true. Of that, we shall probably know more very shortly. If it is true, it must mean that Russia has accepted the German peace terms, which were cabled the other day. A HOPELESS RESISTANCE. It has appeared from the outset that this would b 6 the upshot of the futile opposition offered by the Bolsheviks to th e German advance. In spite of tho reported appointment of a Dictator who is also Commander-in-Chief, with orders to fight to the last, the frantic appeals by the Commissaries for volunteers, and the alleged enrolment of 100,000 Bolsheviks, it is probable that the position had been accurately described by Lenin, who is reported vp have declared that they must accept the German terms, as their position was hopeless. "The Army," he said on another occasi<M», "is demoralised, and refuses to fight." The idea' cherished by some of the Russian leaders that they could conduct a successful guerilla war against Germany could only have emanated, , if it were really held, from persons quite ignorant of Germany's power. The great plain of Russia does not lend itself to guerilla warfare, and any hopes based on such a campaign would be considerably disby the fact that the inhabitants in some parts at least, welcomed the invaders as a less evil than the bands of marauders, whom the revolution and the insane rulo of the Bolsheviks have let loose on tho unhappy country. r "Hopeless" is no adequate description of the condition of the Russian Army. Thousands had been'' withdrawn from all fronts during the armistice, the transport system was allowed to melt away, and the whole military system was* disorganised. Soldiers' delegates in visitng Petrograd in January insisted that the army could not be expected to fight under the existing conditions of disorganisation and demoralisation. 4. Petrograd newspaper demanded, to know whether the Bolsheviks' intended to renew the war at a time "when the army is without officers and the whole offensive and defensive plan is in a chaotic condition—some soldiers deserted, others withdrawn to fight "at inner fronts, munition plants liquidated, railway . traffic destroyed and famine advaucmg on the fiont and IC Another report stated that Russian troops were leaving the Roumanian

front in such swarms that the railways wore literally overwhelmed. Sixty thousand men, who had discarded their rifles and equipment, passed through one station in one day, homeward bound, leaving the front to look after itself. GERMAN TROUBLES. I The hopelessness of a resistance by I what, at. best, has been but an armed mob, quite undisciplined and not all of tiiem very anxious to tight as witness tho German capture of one town by a hundred men —was iii no way altered by the fact that Germany had her own troubles on the Russian front. Tho report circulated by Lenin that a German regiment had shot 42 officers when ordered to advance, is piobably correct, for the temper of some of the German troops, thanks to Bolshevik propaganda, "is decidedly mutinous. A German officer who deserted and escaped to the Russian lines, said that German soldiers were refusing to go to the AVest front, and that at one place on the northern front where this refusal developed into a mutiny with open fighting, the German command had shot 25U rebels. On the Russian front, the orders issued by the Lenin Government against fraternisatin came rather lato. A Petrograd paper, not long _ ago, published a description of a visit to tho German lines" on the Russian front, i where brisk trade was going on among j the fraternising soldiers, to the accompaniment of ceaseless noise. The trading was done by cash and barter. Tho Germans sold goods at suspiciously low prices. They refused notes issued by the revolutionaries, accepting only "money issued under the Imperial regime. The daily turnover amounted to hundreds of thousands of roubles. Further, it : is said that a very large proportion of tho German war prisoners, and a still larger proportion of. the Austrians, will return to their fighting fronts only under compulsion. They have not been confined in prison camps, but have lived among the people, and everywhere have proved their worth, in agricultural, industrial, commercial, and even artistic nursuits. Many of them are getting on better than they did at home, and are more than contented to remain in Russia. On the other hand, it is not at all certain that Germany wants them all back. She will, we are told, get back the officers and non-commissione<l officers in any case—many of them already have returned, "but for both Germany and Austria it is a sounder policy to regard the rank and file of these men as the advance guard for commercial conquest." In any case Germany appears to have as many troops in the East to serve her purpose—we do not regard the reports of mutinies as evidence of more than passing trouble. After the break-off of negotiations at Brest-Litovsk Germany practically said, "Accept our terms or fight again," and the Russians' experience in their defensive campaign cannot have given them confidence in their ability to prevent Germany getting all she wants for the present. If peace is concluded it will be because Russia has been scared into signing it. ATTITUDE OF THE ALLIES. It is_ possible that the action of Germany ih checking the further advance of hei' troops is due in part at least to the realisation of the fact that Russia just now is no very desirable prize. Famine threatens large masses of tho population, apd, as was stated the other day, the distress among tho peoplo as a. whole is unimaginable. The situation in Petrograd was depicted lately in the most gloomy colours by the correspondent of "Tho Times," who declared that no Christmas in three hundred yeal-s had been celebrated in such tragic circumstances. Petrograd fras full of dirt, disorder, and crime. Burglary, robbery, and murder in the most audacious forms prevailed to an extent hitherto unknown, and there was no police or other authority to which to appeal. "The food situation is very critical," ho says, "and starvation appears to be staring tho people in tho face. The only bread to be had is black, gritty, and underdone, is composed of millers' refuse and mixed with straw. Potatoes are getting scarce and dear, while meat is a rare luxury." w^a^eve r Germany does or does not do at the present moment, it is difficult to see how the Allies can leave Russia to her fate, which sooner or later, m spite of the enormous difficulties of the job, would become an appanage of Germany. A former colleague of Kerensky's has asserted that the question whether Germany shall organise Russia against the Allies or' the Allies shall organise Russia against Germany. The question is more easily put than answered. The only one of the Allies that can do much is Japan, and she is quite willing, it appears, to take the offensive for the protection of Vladivostock, and immense stores of war supplies in that city and along the Siberian railway, if the Entente and the United States axe willing that she should do so. She is said to be willing for the co-operation of her Allies and America in order to avoid the question of the ultimate disposition of the occupied territory in Siberia. That is surely, however, only a matter of arrangement. The situation is critical. Something must be done to prevent these supplies reaching Germany, somebody should take action to preserve Siberia and the railway at least from seizure or control by the Germans, and.at the moment, except for a few troops that America might spare from the Philippines, the Japanese are the only people m apposition to do anything. We regard Japanese intervention as inevitable. The questions that may arise out of that action must be settled afterwards.