THE "WHITE" DISASTERS

Evening Star, Issue 17312, 27 March 1920, Page 8

THE "WHITE" DISASTERS

FAILURE DUE TO INEFFICIENCY AND SLACKNESS. Why the "White" Armies failed so completely in Russia? is a question to which a sensational answer is given in the ' Times ' by a correspondent signing himself " G." He writes : " Indiscipline in the field, inefficiency and slackness behind the line, ineptitude, and a more than Bourbon inability to learn and to forget in diplomatic dealings have sufficed to nullify the gallant self-sacrifice of innumerable Russians and the considerable efforts of their Allies to assist them. Ineptitude and inefficiency behind the line permitted glaring errors in the administration of re-occu-pied territories, and allowed complicated machinery and powerful engines of war to be spoiled owing to careless us 3 or lack of the necessary, attention. The faults and shortcomings of the men on the spot were numerous, but not insurmountable. It was the errors and blunders of the men not on the spot which are chiefly responsible for the dramatic collapse of the hopes for tho regeneration of Russia by means of the existing, or lately existing, ' White' armies. Those responsible for the policy of the 'White' armies could not, or would not, realise that time has not stood still in Russia since they left their native country. They still picture to themselves Russia as it was at least in 1914, perhaps as it was in 1905. . . . Pride forbids them _to consider an accommodation with the new States which have taken the liberty to save themselves. Yet these border peoples, while insisting upon their light to ' self-determine' themselves out from under any restored Russian bureaucracy, are willing to help the Russians to set their house in order. . . , How can armies in the field make head against an enemy when their division commander is arrested within an hour of the time fixed for their offensive, and his chief of staff has to be shot for being a Bolshevik intelligence officer? How can an offensive be carried through when a general who has given written assurances of his loyalty, and has undertaken certain important cooperation, makes a.n attack on the forces of his commander-in-chief instead? How can a commander-in-chief expect to maintain discipline when he declines to punish officers on his own stall who have conspired to arrest him, or to suppress the open sale to- civilians of military stores at his own headquarters by his own officers? Lastly, when all parties, of whatsoever political color, were united in considering the recovery of Petrograd to be vital to the cause of the ' White' Russians, what can be thought of the action of the absentee diplomatists in refusing the proffered cooperation of Finland in an attack which could hardly have failed to be successful, because acceptance involved the recognition of that independence of Finland which has been recognised by all th-a Allies of Russia?"