SAILOR AND SOLDIER.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 August 1919, Page 10

SAILOR AND SOLDIER.

. A SKETCH OF KOLTCHAK. SWORN FOE OF DISORDER. Bolshevism lmg caught a Tartar, literally, in the person of the famed dictator of Siberia, Alexander Vassilievitch Koltchak. He ia of Tartar origin, affirms hSs friend, Count Gaston "ds Merindol, in the London Tost,.. An enthusiastic admirer of Koltchak, writing in the Pari 9 Figaro, adds that in the traits and temper of Koltchak we see incarnated all the < qualities of the legendary heroes of Mongolia. In that Asiatic land warriors grow stronger and mora pugnacious as they age. Koltchak is now forty-five, and for that reason, according to the standards of his country, his career is only beginning. He lias the somewhat small physique of the Tartar, with all the Tartar litheness and nervousness in his walk and in the agitated poise of a head that sits tremblingly upon spare shoulders. Koltchak is described in the Paris Matin as the best hater of Bolshevism among all its enemies. His eyes- Hash, Itis arms fly, his twitching countenance turns green,, red, and yellow, and his voice rasps whenever he hears the name of Luiiacharfllvjy, Tchicherln, and the other Bolsheviks. His language becomes unprintable. They stand for all that lie lothes, for Koltchak was reared in the sternest traditions of constituted authority and obedience to orders. At an early age he became a pupil at the great naval college maintained by the autocracy for the special purpose ot training a breed of grim sea-dogs upon the British model. KOLTCHAK'S CREED

The rank and file were made to obey. The select few were born to command. While men live there will be war. All this is part of tlie natural order of tilings, and discussion about it reveals the rebel, tho traitor, .the enemy of society. Such is the gospel according to Koltchak, absorbed easily by him at the naval school and put into practice from the moment of his first voyage as a midshipman in the old Russian cruiser fiurik- Koltchak did not spare liis men iu those days, but neither did he spare himself. He had distinguished himself for his mathematics and his aptitude for the science of navigation as a pupil at the academy, and lie was now to reyeal himself as a disciplinarian. He had a touching faith in the knout as a means of maintaining discipline, and he would cut off the vodka of the men at the smallest provocaton. The rank and file aiid the men in command belong, as he believes, to two different orders of humanity, with nothing in common. He who is born to obey must obpy, and Koltchak is not the one tp {.brink from any logical conclusion from these premises. FAITH IN FOOD AND VODKA. By the time lie had risen to the command of a ship Koltchak was famed for his accomplishments as a martinet, but lis was a student of human nature as well, and he never went to extremes that brought on open mutiny. Koltchak has faith in food and vodka as devices for winning the respect of the masses he commands. He is a materialist, a man with no time for ideals and palaver. A subordinate who questioned an order would be knocked down. Since it is the business of man to fight, Koltchak forces the pace wherever he commands. ■ The domestic life of Koltchak is most intimately associated, perhaps, with Sevastopol, where, at last accounts, his devoted wife and son were anxious regarding iiis contemplated enmpaign against the Bolsheviks. Koltchak was for some time the most conspicuous figure in the naval officers'' club at Sebastopol, where he occasionally lectured on the career of Admiral Korniloff. He has made a study, also, of the genius of Admiral Naldiimoff. Koltchak is firm in his belief that Russia ought to be one of the world's great sea Powers, and his influence over the youneer officers of the Tsar's fleet in the old days was unbounded. He once delighted in a daily promenado through the yellow streets of Sebastopol, especially at ,the season of the year when the leaves of its many trees take on color. The study of nature is said to be his only recreation, and he knows many curious and rare plants by name. A strain of melancholy in him was afforded free play through his wanderings over .the vast field north of Sebastopol in which so many of the thousands who fell during the celebrated siege lie buried. He prayed piously for the souls of the departed in Ihe pyramidal church near by, and it is to this practice of prayer that Koltchak is said to attribute hie marvellous escapes from revolutionists, mutineers, and Bolsheviks,.