RUSSIA'S BALTIC FLEET

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 136, 8 June 1917, Page 8

RUSSIA'S BALTIC FLEET

CONFUSION AND MISTRUST

PREVAIL

THE COMMANDER'S REPORT.

Vice-Admiral Koltchak, commander of the Russian Black Sea. Fleet, after having attended the naval and military conference at Petrograd on 23rd May, prepared a report on his return to Sevastopol. In the course of the report, he declared that there was a. marked absence of discipline in the Baltic fleet, and confusion and mistrust prevailed. He found the army discipline maintain' cd. though the army at the front was passive, and practically at peace with Germany. The army was under-officered at certain points, and whole commands had been usurped by soldiers. Admiral Koltehak does not regard the situation as desperate, but says that the best hope is a German offensive, which will compel the Russian' soldiers to fight. Vice-Admiral A. <V. Koltchak (says a Sydney paper) is the youngest admiral in the world. He was appointed to the command o£ the Black Sea Fleet towards the end of last year, and now he is talked of as the nest Minister for the Russian Navy. Yet he is only 43. That is extraordinarily young -for an admiral; ever. Sir David Beatty, who is the second youngest British admiral, is 54, and Admiral Halsey, late of the New Zealand, the youngest, is 53.- Vice-. .Admiral Koltchak entered the Russian Navy, when he was 17 years old, and he has seen 25 years' service. Yet, when one comes to look at' the actual dates, it seems strange. to realise that a man who is now not only an admiral—and an admiral'with a very important command—but seems about to be given supreme naval control in' Russia, should have only entered the navy in 1891. Three years later.he was no longer the equivalent of a middy, and in 1903 he won a great deal of credit for his organisation and leadership of an Arctic relief expedition, during which lie explored the ice of the Kara Sea and a great part of the Arctic Ocean. Ho followed this by winning a series of military distinctions during the RussoJapanese War, in which he shared in the defence of Port Arthur. From 1906 to 1912 he worked on the new' Naval General Staff, and played an active part in the reorganisation o! the .Russian Navy, though this-work was interrupted for a while, by, a sea command. During the two year's, immediately before the war he commanded' successively two torpedo-boats. During this war he ; has. won more distinctions, and in April of last year was promoted to rear-admiral and confirmed in a high independent command in the - Baltic. Only two months later he. was made vice-admiral and appointed to the Black Sea command.