The Press. Wednesday, September 11, 1918. The Position in Asiatic Russia.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16314, 11 September 1918, Page 6

The Press. Wednesday, September 11, 1918. The Position in Asiatic Russia.

Wo are afraid that the public find some difficulty in obtaining any clear view of the outlook in Asiatic Russia from the continuous stream of messages recording various successes achieved by tho Czecho-Slovaks, Semenoff's Cossacks, and the intervention army of tho Allies against the Bolsheviks and their German and Magyar supporters. In this respect the public hero are not much worse off than the public of Britain, for in every respect the pasition throughout Asiatic Russia has been exceedingly obscure. Tho first difficulty of the Allies, withont whoso assistance the Czecho-Slovaks and the forces of the young Cossack general, Semenoff, who operates from Western Manchuria, could effect little, was the political ono. There were, to begin with, three Governments, each claiming to be the Government of Siberia—one at Vladivostock, one at Harbin, and one at Omsk; and throughout Russia there are, or were, hundreds of local Governments, each claiming and exorcising sovereign rights. So far as Eastern Siberia is concerned, there was at one time a risk of civil war, owing to the action of the Russian General Horvat, the so-called "un- " crowned King of Siberia," and the chief director of the Chinese Eastern Railway, in establishing a Cabinet at Harbin, and proclaiming himself Premier. The Allied Ministers at Peking protested, and a Provisional Government has been generally accepted. The operations of which wo now hear in brief telegrams are directed towards bringing tho whole of the Siberian railway, and therefore the whole of Siberia, east of Lake Baikal to Vladivostock, inf-o the hands of the anti-German oon-

federacy or alliance. That would be 1 much more than half-way, militarily and politically if not geographically, to the Urals. In the middle of July the Czecho-Slovaks held the railway from Pensa (about -MX) miles east of Moscow) to Nijni Udinsk, about 400 miles east of Lake Baikal. From Udinsk to Chita the railway was partly in the hands of the Bolsheviks —this boing the section that runs round tho south of the lake. From Chita, the line was practically in the hands of the Czecho-Slovaks. It is reported to-day that the B:lsheviks havo been cleared out of Chita, and that the greater part of the railway is in the possession of xhe Czecho-Slovak armies. Another message, however, says that the line has been destroyed at a point not well defined. The section of tho railway south of tho lake passes through very broken country, with numerous tunnels, and it was feared that if tho Bolsheviks blew up the most important tunnels the Allies' communications would be obstructed. On the lake itself there are, or were, steamers which might be utilised for transport, and in any case the lake freezes over in winter, and affords a new road. At the very best, the penetration of Russia from the east is as arduous and uneconomical an enterprise as can bo conceived, but it is, nevertheless, an enterprise which, if successful, would have great results. General Horvat explained its possibilities in an interview at the end of Juno. Using the Chines© Eastern Railway and) the Amur branch of the trans-Siberian line, he said, 60,C00 men could bo transported in four days from Harbin and Yladivostock, bases good enough, for furnishing all the supplies required. The general's idea was that a really great force should be furnished by America, Britain, and Japan, but even if nothing more were aimed at for the moment than the transport of a substantial Allied army to Irkutsk, tho moral effect upon the Russian people j would be very great. It is the first step that is most difficult, as the recent news makes clear, but the capture of Chita is evidence that this first step is being undertaken with increasing energy.