ARMENIA IN EUROPE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 295, 2 September 1918, Page 6

ARMENIA IN EUROPE

GERMANY'S NEW ATROCITIES MASSACRES IN FINLAND (By Captain P. B, M. Allan.) A terrible account of the latest Gorman atrocities has just reached London. It concerns the wholesale massacre of Russians in Finland, and is comparable only to the stories of tho later Armenian horrorSj which were also perpetrated under the aegis of the German authorities. The following :c----count lias been telegraphed by tho Russian Government in protest to the German authorities, The following acin Borlin. Fortunately it was sent in duplicate to the Russian Minister at Berlin, otherwise it is doubtful whether this authoritative account would ever have been allowed to reach the public eye. Many trustworthy eyewitnesses inform us, producing also documentary evidence, of the terrible position of the peaceful population of the occupi?d regions of White Russia along the line of demarcation, of violence, of pogroms, of tortures, of executions, and of savage methods of dealing with tho working classes, as well as of the nlundcring and burning of Russian villages by German detachments.

"Incrertible Cruelties." "The position of the working classes is desperate. All this, however, is nothing in comparison with the situation in the villages. Whole -villages and small towns have been sot on fire and plundered. In the village of BudaKoshelovskaia a Uhlan patrol extorted a contribution of several thousand roubles, which sum had to be paid partly in gold. It requisitioned all corn. When the peasants had paid part of the contribution Mid stated that they were unable to pay anything more, the Uhlans were no*-- content with this reply, and suriounded the village', bombarded it with w.acnine-guns, and' then set fire to it. Several hundreds of peasants have been killed, and the village is now in ruins. "In Zhaliki, Omeli, and other villages similar occurrences have taken place. Peasants, women, and children,, who' endeavoured to escape from the f.res, were pursued by Uhlans, cut into pieces with swords, and flogged with whips. In one villago an old Jew was first flogged and then hanged in tho pvesonco olf all the villagers. The most siuage acts were perpetrated in the Jewish villages; all objects of ?ny value were plundered, largo contributions were imposed upon the inhabitants, but this did not save them. After having received the contributions, and after general plundering, the villages wero set on fire, and tho Uhlans stated that tbey were clearing these places .for tho Poles. All suspected of belonging to the Bolsheviks, and those who were in military uniforms, wero shot on tho spot. "In Bobruisk the fortress, the _ prions, police stations, and all disciplinary establishments are full of arrested persons, who are detained under the most terrible conditions. They are flogged, and many of them havo been shot

(for attempts to escape. ... Bobruisk is full of Uhlan punitive detachments. They are raiding villages, plundering and killing, and are returning, singing songs of victory, vith Hood-stained whips and clothes." Tho town is cut oflfrom the outsfdo world, and is wholly given up to tho plundering bands. Terrorism in Minsk. "A summary df all the terrorism by tho German authorities occupying the town of Minsk and the province of Minsk is given in a telegram of April 8. . . Whole quarters have been surrounded and raided. AH those who have served in the army were arrested, as well as many other' persons who have never been soldiers. Many thousands of persons have been arrested. They were kept in dirty and specially barracks, which have guns and machine-guns trained on them. Arrested men are being sent in their thousands to the West. Thousands of families have been robbed of their supporters, and are without any means of subsistence. "The town is full of the cries and lamentations occasioned by these atrocities. ... Old men have been bound to horso saddles and dragged for miles. Tho Jewish faction has in its possession many revolting details regarding the beating of an old Rabbi and the plundering of villages. Tho inhabitants of these villages have been so terrorised that they have implored for the non-publication of these facts, because they fear further reprisals.

"Arrests of Russians en masse have taken place. Although they have- done nothing wrong, they have been subjected to savage acts. Even twelve-year-old children have been shot. One witness saw 200 corpses, in the majority of these cases Russian officers and mere school boys. Tho wife of Lieut.Col. Vyssokikh, who was killed, told a witness that she _ saw bow the Russians who were t'o be executed were put in rows and killed by machine-gun lire. According to other witnesses, in two days more than 600 were executed."

After reading tlicso horrors perpetrated by a nation which boasts of its Kultur, one begins to wonder if tho Turks aro not merely-tho pupils of Germany,