DISASTER TO RUSSIA.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 338, 15 November 1915, Page 2

DISASTER TO RUSSIA.

The current issue of The Great War confirms the startling accounts publish-

ed by American papers of the wrecking of the Czar’s dhief arsenal. The writer says: “At the time of the Russian retreat from the Dunajec to the Carpathian line, it was not advisable to state the chief reason of the disaster to cur Al ies. Russia 'had put most of her eggs in a single basket. More than half her fighting armies throughout the campaign have been supplied with smokeless powder and high explosive shells from the great munition factory at Ochta, which is nearer to Petrograd than Woolwich is to London. Among the leading workers were men of German stock and brilliant talent, drawn from hie German population of the Western Russian provinces. Ger-

man secret service agents appear to have won over some of these men, and the result was that at the critical hour in the history of Russia, all the works at Ochta were blown up by a series of tremendous explosions in the filtrating tanks, deteriorating the material used for shell-filling. Petrograd shook as in an earthquake. Thousands of the trained workmen were killed and nearly all the munition plant was destroyed. Russia was quite crippled. Most of her guns were put out of action, because they lacked both shells and charges, and even the supply of smokeless powder for the infantry seems to have run perilously short. Great siege guns were being produced at the Futilof works, capable of coping with the largest pieces of ordnance made by Skoda and Krupp; but atfer the destruction of Ochta there was so extreme a dearth of ammunition that nothing could be done against the heavy artillery used by General von Mackensen.