The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1918. GERMANY’S ROAD TO ASIA

Taihape Daily Times, 3 January 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1918. GERMANY’S ROAD TO ASIA

/.With which is incorporated The Tai,hape Post and Waimarino News),

What appears very like coming disaster in Mesopotamia and in the neighbourhood where the Siberian •railway approaches Europe seems somewhat imminent. It is reported that The Russian forces in Persia are retiring and that there is Bolshevik hope that it will follow on the rear of •Kaledin’s Cossack army to destroy it, and that it will then pass on to assist in conquering and humbling southern Russia. Despite this rather alarming programme little or no concern is shown by British or Allied newspapers as to the very serious position the British forces in Mesopotamia would obviously be left in if Russian armies, now only a few miles from Mosul, retire and leave the B’ritish to face the concentration of Turksaround the largest city in Asia now left in Turkish Owing to the meagreness of reliable reports it is quite impossible to reason out the position of the British army south of Mosul to any nearness. If Russians in Persia, Armenia, and Mesopotamia are retiring to the order of the Bolsheviks matters would indeed be disquieting, but there is the possibility that any retirements being made may be for strengthening those opposed to the Bolsheviks. Russian armies in Mesopotamia were largely recruited from Turkestan and eastern Siberia, and very few indeed are from western Russia in Europe, it may therefore be fairly presumed that the men wall rather fight with their fellows against the Bolsheviks, than with the Bolsheviks against their own kith and kin. That Trotsky and company are hoping that the Cossacks and Ukranians will be attacked in the rear by Asiatic Russians returning from Russia, by no means indicates that their hopes will be realised, for there is fear in every Avord of the expressed hope that no such Bolshevik good fortune will eventuate. If the Trotsky hope is groundless, then there is very serious cause for the Bolsheviks to fear, for with the artillery, machineguns, stores of munitions, food and men from Mesopotamia, Persia and Armenia reinforcing the Cossacks under Kaledin and Korniloff and the Ukranian armies, appearances are distinctly favourable to a complete Bolshevik overthrow. With the little information yet to hand on the subject opinions can be little more than mere conjecture. With the Japanese and Chinese preparations discussions are on more reliable ground. One is forced to the view that there are very extensive operations being planned and developed by Japan. Such huge mobilisations of Chinese troops along the Avhole Manchurian and Mongolian

frontiers, which is the same thing as saying along the Siberian railway a very little provocation would soon land these troops at Irkutsk, the door of European Russia, and the Bolsheviks have shown their fear of such a move hy destroying the railway in that quarter. There fs evidence that Japan is making the most thorough preparation for seizing the whole line of railway for many hundreds of miles, and for well safeguarding, and if necessary of duplicating it and otherwise adding to its capacity. Admiration was expressed at the way Chinese troops settled with Bolsheviks at Harbin, and we are told that Bolsheviks now realise that Harbin does not belong to Russia. Chinese troops are all along the borders of Turkestan waiting for the order to enter on Russian territory. The impression is growing that Japan will be forced to take drastic measures owing to the spread of Maximalism in Asiatic Russia, and it is expected that China will undertake to deal with the whole of the country over her frontiers. Siberians and Ukranians are showing their hatred of the Bolshevik! by their repeated refusals to allow 'ood to go to Petrograd, There is no question about the reality of war behveen the Ukraine, supported by Asiatic Russia, and the Bolsheviks. Only •'■esterday a cable, having its origin n Haparanda, advised that Ukranians and Cossacks heavily defeated the Bolsheviks on the south-western front, making an important capture of prisoners, of heavy guns and machine guns. The routed men were retiring in disorder. There can be little doubt about the eventual break-up of the Russian Empire, resulting in the usual scramble by surrounding peoples to secure additional territory. Germany is losing no time and while her military lords are desperately striving for peace on a no annexation basis hey are bringing whole kingdoms and thousands of miles of other territories under German rule., Poland, Courland. Lithuania and other kingdoms are being taken possession of by Germany and the Russians cannot help themselves; they have placed the German lords in power over them, and ‘his power is being exercised as only Germans know how to use it.' Suchhuge annexations would, of course, soon seriously disturb the balance of ‘nternational power, against which nations, now comparatively, strong, could not successfully, contend. China and Japan both fully ..realise this and the feverish and thorough preparations these countries are making for entering upon war on a huge scale are to oppose the German dream of the conquest of eastern territories. They know that with a Germanised Russia, a Germanised Persia, Mesopotamia, and Turkey, a Germanised Japan and China could not be averted. They realise that the real peril is now, that Japan and China are in danger of being absorbed by Germany through the artifice by which Germany is getting possession of the whole of Russian territory. It is plain to them that ir Germany can control European Russia, Asiatic Russia will fall a very easy victim, bringing Germany only a few miles from the shores of Japan, and along the frontier of China for thousands of miles. What matters about fighting for Mesopotamia while an easy road lies open to the possession of the whole of the continent of Asia through Russia? Japan and China are both menaced and they j must and will fight. The German peril | has been brought very close to them J and it is now that they can attack it with certainty of victory. Japan does not play with guns, nor will her military organisation spread itself over China to mobilise th e Chinese Empire against a phantom enemy. There is some real work ahead of Britain’s eastern allies, and the magnitude and thoroughness of preparation for it clearly reflect the magnitude and thoroughnes with which it will be performed. If Jap and Hun '■clash we may scrap the old saying, “When Greek meets Greek,” for it will be superseded by “When Jap meets the Hun, then comes the tug-of-war.”