OFFERS TO BRITISH OFFICERS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 130, 29 November 1926, Page 9

OFFERS TO BRITISH OFFICERS

INDUCEMENTS TO ENLIST

GUNNERY, GAS, AND AIR

E V.PERTS

(United Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 29th Novejiber, 10 a.m.) LONDON, 2.ith November.

The "Dispatch" states: —"Tue So-, viet is secretly offering salaries from £1000 to £1500 yearly, and other inducements,, £6 unemployed and discontented British ex-officers, principally gunnery, aviation, and gas experts, to join tho Red Army's headquarters at Moscow, where there is a kind of foreign legion based on. a recruiting campaign conducted quite apart fron. the activities of the Soviet missions abroad. "It is doubtless tho outcome of a decree signed by Trotsky's deputy, Skiliansky, ordering agents to encourage the enlistment of foreign nationals by every means in their power. Tho result has boon whispered approaches to ex-officers iv the drawing-rooms of Mayfair, hotels, Chelsea coffee houses, and Soho." ! An ex-regular officer informed the j "Dispatch":—"A Soviet agent, awaro that I had been an outspoken critic of tho War Office, aud also the author of a confidential memorandum on gunnery instruction, intimated that I would be paid a substantial amount in Paris, where a contract could be signed for the purpose of evading the Foreign Enlistment Act. The two essentials were that I spoke French and was unmarried. " The "Dispatch" learns that 100 Englishmen arc serving in Russia, but the pay does not exceed £400 yearly. They are liable to ail kinds of .unpleasantness if they return to BritainOne of the Soviet's most prominent air experts is an Englishman. The Soviet is using principally British and Italian aircraft, but the chemical warfare is chiefly in the hands" of Germans. The Soviet badly need staff officers,, the Tsarist school having boon almost entirely wiped out.