THE RUSSIAN PARTITION

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 43, 19 February 1918, Page 6

THE RUSSIAN PARTITION

■ Polish dissatisfaction with the new turn in the Central Alliance's political game in -Russia has expressed itself in a remarkable proclamation of protest, in which the Polish Government, created under the auspices of the Central Powers, appeals before God and history against the placing of • Polish territory in the new Ukraine:—

" The Central Powers promised us independence. Now they havo bought peace with the Ukraine by selling a Polish province."

This biting sentence confirms and emphasises the Polish resentment which it was certain, that recent events would arouse. Germany, in her usual bullying manner, replies through a semi-official newspaper that the Polish protest is " equivalent to a declaration, of war," and nt the same time talks of Uevrnnu uiiUUvy measures

to protect the Ukraine—not, it is true, against the Poles, but against the Russian Bolsheviks. Still, German military protection of the Ukraine would have tho same meaning for the Poles as for the Bolsheviks. Interesting as the plight of the Poles is, it is not so important as the larger question of which it forms a part—liow to co-ordinate German and Austrian war-interests, in the light of the partial partition of Western Russia? By making peace with the new Ukraine, whose territory borders (and encroaches on) the new Poland, Austria-Hungary has abolished, on paper at any rate, her Russian frontier. She has . created between Russia and herself a UkrainePolish buffer; and the peoples of both these new States are racially allied with peoples that have long been under Austrian rule—the Little Russians with the Austrian Ruthenes, the Poles with the Austrian Poles. Content with this apparently friendly and partly dependent buffer, freed from the dread of Russian aggression, pacifist Austria-Hungary now feels that the path to peace is easier than it has been for years—were it not for Germany!

The cabled comment of the Vienna Die Zeit is a direct challenge to the German. War Party, and seems to be- more or less echoed in other Austrian newspapers. The Neve Freie Presse agrees with them as to Austria-Hungary's reduced interest in the war, but points out that the Em-pire-Kingdom might undertake to protect the communications of the Ukraine. It appears to us that the Bolshevik threat against the Ukraine is not the only Eastern disturbance tending to retard the return of the Austro-Hungarian sword to its scabbard. , Not only has AustriaHungary an interest in protecting the Ukraine grain, but she may also find grave difficulty arising out of the Polish resentment referred to above. If the Poles are content to protest and then to sit down, and if the grain from the URraine comes in unintprfered with by the Bolsheviks, Austria-Hungary's path will indeed run in pleasant places. But the assumed conditions may not materialise; it may, indeed, be. Germany's immediate interest to stir up some little temporary trouble in Poland and Russia, if only to check the march of AusteoHungarian pacifism. To do this Germany will have ample opportunity, for she has given publicity to an appeal from a Ukraine delegation for armed help against " the northern hordes" of Trotsky. It is worth noting that the good people of the Ukraine are by no means desirous of entertaining either the "northern" or the Hohenzollera hordes on their own soil, and what they ask the Christian-Mohammedan champion' to do is to " protect our northern frontier." The summit' of Ukraine ambition is evidently a protecting army of Huns billeted a-jnong the Poles. What the issue of Polish-Ukraine-Bolshevik friction will be is not yet clear, but meanwhile Austrian newspapers are ■ willing to assume that Austria-Hungary's war is almost finished, and they welcome the idea of Count Czernin taking a- bigger part than hitherto in- the exchange of declarations with the leaders of tho English-speaking peoples. Milan predicts that . Count Czernin will presently reply to President Wilson in a tone of friendliness, and the Die Zeit declares that the peace issue rests more than ever between AustriaHungary (whose war is " practically finished ") and the Western belligerent who has "scarcely begun " :—

" Thinking people now look to Count Czermn and President Wilson. Germany must not interrupt the negotiations."

What Hohenzollern thunder are we to hear in reply to this amazing independence in Vienna?