WAR NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 4 August 1917, Page 5

WAR NOTES

WHY RUSSIA FAILED

SENSATIONAL INDICTMENT OF SUK H OLMIN OFF.

j The indictment against General | Sukhomlinoff, who was Minister of , War in 1914. states that the lack of projectiles was felt on the Russian front from the very beginning of the war. Despite the reiterated demands of General Zafaeline, the Director of Munitions on the south-western front, and of General Yanuschkevitch, the Chief of Staff of the Commander-in-Chief. who insisted, if fatal consequences were to be avoided, on the immediate despatch of munitions. General Sukhomlinoff did nothing, and confined himself to evasive answers. General Ivanoff declared that if projectiles did not arrive, he would have to cease fighting and withdraw his troops, and similar demands were made by Count Veroutsoff Dashoff, the Commander-in-Chief of the army in the Caucasus, and by General Russky, the Commander-in-chief on the north-western front. Shortly afterwards the army began to feel the pressing need of rifles, and the reinforcements sent to the front had only one rifle between two men, and later still less, while whole! detachments were sent to the theafre of war completely unarmed. Towards the middle of October,' 1914, there were 870,000 men without rifles. The army leaders declared that all the Russian defeats, from that of Lodz, in November, 1914, to that of August, 1915, are due to the lack of munitions. In one of his letters, General Yanuschkevitch wrote: “The Germans fired against one of our regiments more than 3000 large-calibre shells and completely destroyed our positions. We were only able to fire about 100 shells.”

Before the commision of enquiry. General Sukhomlinoff repudiated ths accusations brought' against him and pleaded the lack of financial resources, which, he said, had been refused to him. This allegation was not confirmed.

THE MAN OF THE HOUR. PEN-SKETCH OF KERENSKY. LONDON, July 26. Mr Robert Lynd, of the “Daily News, ’ ’ writes: — M. Kerensky leaped into the ring like a champion. There is no other statesman living whose acccsiou to the Premiership could fill us with tie same enthusiasm and hope. H e is the representative of the world’s hope. With his defeat, the light of the world would go out. “Making a comparison with Napoleon a Russian writer says: 'The Kcrenskys are dying for freedom. Do not saddle or bridle it. They are its standard bearers, not its executioners. ’ M. Kerensky is a cadaverous-looking man, tall and slight, and not good looking. He is nervy as well as passionate. After a crisis he has more than once fainted, but he does not faint until the crisis is over. He has demoniac energy, which frightens and repels those who are lukewarm to the cause he represents. He became,a national figure in the law courts in 1912, when he took up the cause of the strikers after the Lena goldfields massacre, when hundreds of workers were shot down. Kerensky’s efforts on their behalf compared with M. Labori’s in the case of it. Dreyfus.

“His agitation for a fair trial in the Beilis ritual murder case brought him into bitter conflict with the authorities, with the result that he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment. He is the son of a schoolmaster, and is 36 years of ago. First he is a fearless man and secondly ho is a tender man He loves not only justice and mercy, but human beings. He carries the burning gospel of freedom. His handling of the Ukraine question shocked his colleagues among the Cadets, but proved him a stateman, uot of ' fine words about to-morrow, but the fine deeds about to-day, and revealed him as the first gentleman of Europe. He is a stateman who keeps his promises about freedom. • ’