The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1918. GERMANY AND THE UKRAINE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 196, 8 May 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1918. GERMANY AND THE UKRAINE

Recent reports relating to the Ukraine, though they aro not completely illuminating, mako it plain thai) in dealing with that State Germany lias passed from allegedly friendly measures to open coercion. The fact has an immediate bearing on the eager quest for food in which the Teutonic empires are engaged. Their hopes of obtaining large supplies of grain from the Ukraine, which in normal times is the granary of Russia, have been disappointed, and it now appears that they are meeting' unexpected difficulties in their attempts to organise this rich agricultural territory as a base of future supplies. But tho j outbreak of political trouble in the Ukraine has at tho same time a larger significance. At present anything that adds to Germany's problems and difficulties in Eastern Europe may seem to bear remotely on the main current of the war, but such an ostimato calls for some material reservations. Admittedly Russia is permanently out of the j war as & belligerent, and everything will depend for somo time, to j come upon the ability of the Allies | to stem the Gorman offensive in the \ Western theatre until they aro ablo-j to oppose, tho enemy in superior force. This for the time being is the supreme demand of the war—a i demand which overshadows all | others—but when it has been satisfied, as no doubt it will be, very great importance will attach to political developments in Eastern | Europe and to the spirit in which! the people of the conquered Russian I territories regard their conquerors. If, for instance, after failing in her present offensive, Germany attempts j to spin out a defensive war much • will depend upon her success or failuro in capitalising and turning to account what she has gained in Russia. As Loud Robert Cecil observed the other day, she may have the idea that with tho resources of Russia fully at her disposal she could afford, comparatively speaking, to ignore tho West front and make a stand against tho world for an period. The Allies will best defeat such a plan by a rapid and effective development of their military power, but indications that conditions of incipient revolt obtain in the Ukraine and that those conditions have awakened disquiet amongst the more liberal sections of the population in enemy countries are nevertheless very welcome as suggesting that Germany i? immediately confronted by serious difficulties as well as by important opportunities in exploiting her Eastern conquests. However successfully the Allies dovclop then . Western campaign, developments in Eastern Europe aro capable of heavily influencing tho trond of the war in its later stages and of exerting an' , even more decided influoncu upon the conditions of peace. These general contentions are clearly illustrated and omphasi.wd by the leading facts relating to the constitution of tho Ukraine and the place it takes in Germany's plans of conquest. In their total extent the Russian territories upon which Germany has laid lawless hands under the pretence of creating autonomous States equal the combined area of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Ukraine alone, a tract of 150,000 square miles—approximately three-quarters of the area of tho toman Empire—represents just over ono-third of the territory seized, and must for a numbnr nf reasons he accounted the most important of Germany's Eastern conquests. No faxjfc is mo;o clearly established than that this Slato has

I been created with a single eye to ; the realisation and furtherance of Germany's predatory ambitions. Her first steps towards gaining control of the Ukraine were much facilitated by the fact that she found tho population, like that of other parts of Russia, divided into warring factions. The Rada which the invaders at first elected to recogniso as the controlling authority and with which they concluded a separate- peace, was nominally the political expression of a Little Russian movement for national autonomy. But while an overwhelming proportion of the Ukrainian population agreed with the Rada in opposing the Bolshevik regime, some of its most important elements were, and no doubt are, wholly out of sympathy with the separatist movement. The Little Russians aro one of three great branches of the Russian nation. In so far as it had any real existence _ the Little Russian 'movement which Germany for her own purposes pretended to take up and foster arose not in Russia but in Austria. It aimed at bringing together in an autonomous State the four million Little Russians who live under Austrian rule and the Ukrainian branch of the race. Naturally it is not on these lines that the Ukraine has developed under Gorman tutelage. There is no thought of redeeming the four million Little Russians in the Dual Monarchy. On the other hand, tho Ukraine as it is constituted includes a- considerable fragment of Poland and a corresponding Polish population, togothcr with a numerous Great Russian clement and many members of other racial and religious groups distinct from the Little Russians. Tho position is summed up by Mn. pEsr.iE Urquhajit in a recent article in tho Nineteenth Century in a passage which is worth quoting:

Ho Ukraine as a separate independent Kcpublic can only be a temporary creation. Oror SO <per cent, of her frontier marches with Russian territory peopled by Greater Russians; a large Russian [as distinct from Little Russian] population lives within her own boundaries; her industries and manufactories nro mainly owned by Great Russians, and are vital to Northern Russia; her railways, too, aro owned by Russia, and her economic and political system is so interdependent with the rest of the Empiro as to make it practically certain that she will in one form or other re-enter tho Russian Umpire when the war is over. Tho Ukraine is too vital for the economic life of Russia to bo allowed to cut adrift or to support an autonomous oxislcuce. A'part from this, ethnologically they aro Iho same people; half the population of the Ukraine which has been recognised by Germany is Russian, and tho languago is nearer Id Russian than any other Slav tongue. Moreover, ... tho separatist movement is purely artificial —an Austrian and not a native agitation.

Ono way of realising what the Ukraine means to Germany and tho placo it" takes in her schemes of conquest and exploitation is to obey Bethmann-Hollweq's oft repeated injunction to look at tho map. The allegedly autonomous Ropublie extends eastward as a broad belt of territory connecting Russian Poland, from which Germany will never willingly relax her grip, with the Black Sea. Its southern frontier follows the Black Sea coast from west of Odessa to tba Crimean Peninsula, and late reports show that Germany i 3 now extending her invasion into tho Crimea. As Mn. Hilaire Bellog pointed out recently: "This new artificial satellite State has been compelled to sign an economic clause which brings into tho economic orbit of Germany, under a weak and necessarily subject Govcrnmout at Kieff, the navigablo lower reaches of the great rivers, tho great port of Odessa, the control of thn Black Sea, much of tho coal, and nearly all tho granary of that Eastern world." Retaining command of tho Black Sea, Germany would, of courso, have gained a new road into Asia independent of the allies *ind vassals to whom she has hitherto been under obligations as keepers of tho gate. These aro facts which may be added to tho disappointing results of bfcr Western offensive as serving to explain why Germany is now promoting a peace campaign. She could well afford to mako_ far greater concessions to Belgium, France, and Italy than are mentioned to-day if she were allowed to retain what she now holds in the Ukraine, irrespective of her other Eastern conquests. The Ukrainian granary is for the moment empty or nearly so, but apart from the food question vital issues centre in the Ukraine. It is rather soon to indulgo in confident predictions about Germany's probable success or failure in hior Eastern designs, but it is evidont that though she is in touch with vast opportunities of economic and political exploitation, she is still far from having completely gained her ends. STio has to reckon in the first placo with the determination' of the Allies that her unscrupulous reconstitution of Eastern Europe shall not bo allowed to endure. The news of the last day or two strengthens a belief that she must count also u.non the determined opposition of the mass of the racial elements she has sought arbitrarily and in defiance of any interests but her own to compress into a single State and to tear away from the nation to which they naturally belong. Thero is much scope for applying the principle of autonomy to the various Russian territories, but its application must be determined by considerations of (political and economic interest, which aro ruthlessly violated in the present constitution of the Ukraine. Other sources of opposition to Gerj many's schemes of conquest and ; 'lomination which may ultimately j assume importance exist in her own ! country .and in Austria. Protests raised by some sections in Germany against the policy of spoliation havo been inspired mainly by considerations of prudence and a desire for peace, and have thus far been weak and ineffective. Tho same must bo said meantimo of Austrian protests, I though thaw have no doubt been ini tensified by a realisation that German militarists (ire now shaping their policy with a, view to pursuing schemes of world-dominion independently of their present allies. But bofore tho drama of the war is played to its conclusion Germany may_ find herself contending at home, in Austria, and in the territories she hopes to make her own with forces whioh in their joint effect will materially lighten tho task of the Allies in bringing her to terms.