CENTRAL EUROPE

Evening Star, Issue 17087, 4 July 1919, Page 6

CENTRAL EUROPE

POLES AND UKRAINIANS. HUNGARIANS AND RUMANIANS, Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. LONDON, July 3. (Reoedvedi July 4, at &40 a.m.) The Australian Press Association leaxns that, owing to General Petluxa. Ukrainian Hetman, making a compact with the Bolsheviks against" the Poles and collecting 10,000 troops at Broskurov (on the Bug, near the eastern frontier of Galicia\, the Peace Conference allowed General Haller's PoHsh army to occupy Galieia. pending the (people exercising the right of solf-deter-The Rumanians have informed the Entente that they will not withdraw from Hungary until Hungary carrier oat her engagements. RUSSIA. ANTI-BOLSHEVIK CAMPAIGN. DEN I KIN ENTERS UKRAINE, LONDON, July 5. (Recerred Juty 4, at 8.40 a-m.) The Australian Press Association learns that the situation in Russia remains generally ■unchanged. -There is such unrest that the Red Army leaders consider it dangerous to arm the newly mobilised men, and they are sending them to the front • -without rifles, weapons being issued to them after their arrival. General Deoakin. ia n0w.20 miles beyond Karkoff, and controls the mainland commxmicaiaon -with the Crimea, which the Bdlflhoviksare evacuating. It ia likely that Admiral Koltchak's aoothern anay "will soon junction with 2wj£lrin.'s right wing. CONSCRIPT RED ARMY. An TSngKWh writer, in analysing the Ruseaan fd&zsaczoo sets fcw-tii tlixee facta which, he says, no one can contradict s—(lJ Bolshevik rule is hated by a very great majority of the population of Russia. (2) The Red army consists of at least » million men, riot selected for their opinions, but drawn from, the general by conscription. It as organised and commanded mainly by officers of the old regime, who may be assumed to he asti-Bolshevik almost to a man. (5) The Red army obeys and fights for the Bolshevik Government, and, besides conducting campaigns with varying success against Koltchak's and Dendkm's Russian armies, has threatened oar own Archangel forces "with destruction, has forced the Allies to evacuate Odessa and the Crimea, and, by occupying the vast southern provineea. of the Ukraine, lias to a. large extent re-established the unity of European Russia—under Lsnin. How (he asks) are those facts to be reconciled? la_ it conceivable that a great national army, of which practically afl. the officers and probably nine-tenths of the men are anrfci-Bolshevik, can be "terrorised" by Leans or Trotsky or anyone else? And if mot, why does it consent to support e. Government whidh it hates? gome people would perhaps answer: " For the sake of the foodi with which it is supplied at the expense of the starving civil population.'' But this, ■whilst it may explain a certain number of voluntary enlistments, ia no explanation! o£ the action of the army aa a whole. Ftr it would obtain at least as good rations, if it deserted enmasse to the Allies, to Koltchak, ortoDenikin, or in the Ukraine to Petlura's forces; or if olternstively it turned out the Lenin Government and replaced it by a. new uul more moderate regime—military or civiL But it does not do any of these thongs. Sometimes, indeed, Red regiments desert—and. destroy the army to which they suraender; but the Red army as a whole lemaia loyal to Lenin. Surely thes3 facta can only be explained upon one hypothesis—namely, that Russia does net tran£ military intervenitian, whether by allied forces or by Russian forces commanded by Monarchifits (although Koltchak and Denildn disclaim this) and supported by allied mccey and arms. Therefore,, tq escape the greater evil, it rallies to a Government "which it hates, and which it wall not tolerate fox a month once these external threata are removed and normal condirtioiis are re-established.