CIVIL WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1918, Page 5

CIVIL WAR.

THROUGHOUT RUSSIA. RUSSIANS PLUNDERING HAPLESS ROUMANIA. Petrograd, Jan. 2. Twenty thousand officers have joined General Kalcdin, finding life in the reorganised army insupportable. General Kttledin has organised a special corps of officers. The Cossacks surprised and disarmed the Bolshevik garrisons at Alexandrovsk, Orenburg, and Kazatin. Violent fighting continues at Irkutsk. Whole districts of the town have been destroyed and many civilians are dying of cold. The situation on the Roumanian front is tragic. Relations between the Bolsheviks and the Roumanian oflicers alarming the Roumanians they occupied the Bessarabian town of Loeva and several villages and arrested and shot several Bolshevik leaders, i Tscharbatscheef abstained from sending provisions and forage to the Bolshevik Fourth Army. Trotsky addressed a note to the Roumanian Ambassador with the object of Outlining the Soviet's demands, and threatening harsh measures against the Roumanians for aiding Kaledin. The Ambassador replied that the Russian Division was now without organisation. The men left the front without authority and plundered Roumanian villages which were suffering enormously through their excesses.

CITIZEN AMBASSADORS. ORDERED TO LONDON. London, Jan. 2. A wireless Russian report states that. Trotsky has appointed Citizen Litvenolf provisional plenipotentiary in London and ordered the Embassy, Military Mission and other Russian officials in England to hand over documents to Litvenolf. Citizen Karpinsy has been given a similar appointment. BORROWING FROM GERMANY. BOLSHEVIKS HARD PUT-TO IT. Received Jan. 3, 8.45 p.m. Petrograd, Jan. 2. Tlie Russians are demanding a loan of two milliards of franc 9 from the Austro(lermans. The Bolshevik newsagew.y stales that the people's commissioners hove informed the Finnish Government of their willingness to recognise the political independence of the Finnish republic. A BOLSHEVIK STATEMENT. DEMANDS AGREED TO BY UKRAINE ON SPECIFIED CONDITIONS. Received Jr.n. 4, 1.35 a.m. Petrograd, Jan. The Bolshevik News Agency announces, that the Ukrainian Rada is willing to agree to tJi3 Bolshevik demands not to take or facilitate military measures against the Bolsheviks, conditionally on „ .<eing sent to Ukraine and the Ukrainian Republic being officially recognised.

A SIGNIFICANT SIDELIGHT. *>X t'KACIC MAXOKI'VRF.S. Received Jan. 3, 8.40 p.m. London, .Jan. 2. A significant sidelight is thrown on the peace manoeuvre* at Brest Litovsk by Llie anti-peace propaganda which, according in U Petit J'aiisieu, the German high command is conducting in the trenches. A document has been circulated declaring t'hut Slileidman's peace, which the (iennan delegates at lirest Litovsk accepted. would ruin Germany, lor whose future the development and possession of Rricy and Longwy, as the basis for economic and military control of Belgium, is essential. NEGOTIATIONS RESUMED. A RUSSIAN CHANGE OF VIEW. Received Jan. 3, 8.45 p.m. London, Jan. 2. A Vienna mesago" contradicts the Daily .News' version and declares that negotiations will be resumed on Saturday, adding that Russia has now adopted the standpoint that peoples already belonging to a definite State cannot have the light to decide their own destinies, because tliey already possess a constitutional means of gaining their ends. It is reported tlmt Russia has informed the Entente Powers of this change of view. Vienna reiterates that in the event of Ihc Entente not joining, the negotiations will be continued with a view to a. separate peace with Russia.