FROM OTHER SOURCES.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 September 1918, Page 3

FROM OTHER SOURCES.

[ PKK PRESS ASSOCIATION.—-COPYRIGHT.] WAR FRONTS REVIEWED. Received, this day at 8.45 a.m. LONDON, September 13. The enemy shows no inclination to abandon Passchendaele-W vtscliaete-Mes-sines lines • The recent enemy withdrawal along the whole front, resulted in the shortening of his lines, compared with those occupied on July 14th., bv over seventy miles thus economising between thirty and forty divisions. The Germans now occupy a highly defensive zone and are unlikely to abandon it except as tlie result of heavy fighting. Although tjie enemy carried out the retirement uith great skill, it was only done by a heavy strain on his military machine. Our men are also tired hut are in splendid spirits. The whole trans-Siberian railway from Vladivostock to Samara is now in our hands, and the process of dispersing the Red Guards in the neighbourhood of Chita is continuing satisfactorily. There has been considerable fighting in the neighbourhood of Ekaterinburg, where it- is reported Trotsky personally commands the Bolsheviks, assisted by German officers. The Czechs when they captured Kazan, secured a large amount of bullion, transferred by the Bolsheviks from Petrograd and Moscow, for greater security. Further south there is evidence of a concentration of Germans under yon Eichorn, the intention apparently being to capture Tsartisin with tlio object of separating the pro-Entente troops northwards from those operating between the Volga and Caucasus and so obtain control of the western shares of the Caspian Sea.

NOT ACCEPTABLE

Received. Ibis dav at 8 45 a.m. NEW YORK, Sept. 12

Tbe “Times” Washington correspondent savs official circles are suspicious of the motives of Count Burian s peace conference suggestions to Austrian journalists. Opinion is that the most stirriim features in the statement is a frank doubt that it expresses impossi, bilitv of a Gorman victory. When it recalled what happened to Ivuhlmann officials declare it is a confession ot weakness which no German statesman could nyike and retain his portfolio. Burian’s peace feeler will tail on deaf civs here. Members of the Administration realise onft of the greatest dangers to a just peace is the possibility of the Allies being inveigled into freemature peace parleys with an unconquered arrogant enemy.