PESTILENCE AND FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 57, 23 February 1918, Page 5

PESTILENCE AND FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

MAY KEEP COUNTRY SAFE TILL ALLIES ROUT HUNS. (Received 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, February 22. The "Daily Chronicle's" Moscow correspondent says lie conversed with Austrian and German prisoners roaming in the streets, and found them dejected and indignant. They desired to return to their homes, but were not permitted to go through their own front. They were sent back under promise that they would return via Finland, which route is now closed owing to the upheaval there. There are 1400 Austrians and Germans living in railway trucks at Moscow station, penniless, nnd dependent on the Bolsheviks* charity for food and drink. The "Morning Post's" Petrograd correspondent expressed the opinion that pestilence and famine will keep Russian soil safe from German inroad 3 long enough to enable the Allies on the West front to deal with the common enemy. The announcement of unconditional surrender was a stunning blow to the public. The Germans are making the most of their opportunity with lightning dashes into helpless Russia. Thousands of army horses wero recently starved to death, and soldiers were selling forage to pay their gambling debts. The condition of Russian railways has long been deplorable. The Germans are gaining enormous booty nnd fighting material. They captured at Dvinsk sufficient food for a quarter million men for three weeks, also thirty thousand tons of sugar, six hundred locomotives, and a thousand wagons. The German invading forces, which have already overrun the entire war zone a hundred miles deep, consist of only one division of cavalry or infantry. Polish legions were offered an armistice on condition that tbey give free passage in any direction. They arc making towards Warsaw. Bolshevik party meetings showed the development of indignation towards Trotzky, who will probably resign.