PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 126, 14 February 1918, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Though the position in Russia and in regard to th'e peace agreement alleged to have been concluded with the Central Powers remains exceedingly obscure, it seems highly probablo that the part played by the Ukraine is only nominally independent, and i that the arrangement under which Eussia is ostensibly to preserve her pre-war frontiers with Austria-Hungary and the Ukraine territory is to be greatly extended is simply a device intended to cover wholesale AustroGerman annexations. The Ukraine consists of the Russian Governments of Kharkov, Kieff, Podolia, and Poltava, in the aggregate a broad tract of territory stretching eastward from Bessarabia and Galicia, and separated from the Black Sea in the region of Odossa only by the Government of Kherson. It is stated to-day that besides retaining its pre-war frontiers, the Ukraine will receive the whole of the Volhynia, a big province to the north, together with a strip of South-eastern Poland and part of Grodno, perhaps the part of that Government which lies south of Brest Litovsk. All the reports thus far received are of doubtful authority, but it seems probable that • if the Ukraine has actually been extended in this fashion the enemy's real object k to create a vassal State, comprising some of therichest agricultural _ land and mining' territory in Russia, which would constitute; a valuable extension of the territories Germany proposes to annex further north.

The creation of such a State under conditions sot and determined by the enemy would, of course, be merely annexation'under another name. There is certainly no evidence that the Ukraine agreement has been made on the Russian side by an authority entitled to speak for the people concerned. The Ukrainians have been accused of betraying Russia, but it seems much more likely that the so-called agreement has been made by a puppet authority of no real standing. The situation generally in Russia is as 'closely veiled as it has ever been since the Revolution—a London message, dated February 12, states that the last news from Petrogr d was dated February 6—and the total effect of the late developments in peace negotiations has yet to be disclosed. As much may indeed be said regarding the position reached in these negotiations. The particulars supplied in relation to the Ukraine indicate that the enemy is still bent upon wholesale annexations of Russian territory, under the pretence of creating independent States. This apart, the whole situation is obscure. * * * * At time of writing there is hardly any news of events in the war theatres, but a brief dispatch from Mr. Percival Phillips supplies further grounds for believing that it will not be long before a storm of battle breaks on the AVestcrn front. He has something to say about the enemy preparations detected by British aerial reconnaissance—storm troops rehearsing open warfare, a steady stream of fresh divisions and new concentrations of heavy artillery—but it was to be assumed that such preparations would be in full swing, and not only on the German side of the front, The Arresting feature of Mr. Phillips's dispatch is his statement that it is cleav, springlike weather, and that the ground is drying steadily. With the promise thus afforded of an early spring it is manifestly probablo that the_ "unnatural calm" which he describes as reigning on the battle.front will very soon be broken. ', if * * '* A number of recent reports have spoken of successful activities by the Arabs on the line of the Hejaz railway. To-day it is stated that they have destroyed three thousand rails of the Hc.jaz railway between Mecca and Medina and captured numerous Turks, but Arab forces have of late harried and defeated their former rulers as far north as the area east of the Dead Sea. They won such pronounced success a little time ago in the region of Maan, well to the northward of the Gulf of Alcabah, that it seems probablo that the Turks mentioned in to-day's report were detachments isolated from their main body. In any case, the Arabs, in their operations at various points along the line of the Hejaz railway, are usefully seconding the efforts of General Allenby's army in Palestine.