WITH THE RUSSIANS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3215, 27 October 1915, Page 21

WITH THE RUSSIANS.

SUBMARINES IN THE BALTIC. GERMAN CRUISER SUNK. RETRO GRAD, October 24. Official: A British submarine near Libau sank a German cruiser of the Prinz Adalbert tyjie. [There are two armoured cruisers of the type mentioned- —the Prince Adalbert (1903] and the Friedrich Karl (1904), each of 8858 tons displacement, 21 knots speed, and carry four B.2in, 10 bin, 10 3.4 in, and 14 smaller quick-firing- guns. Their complement was 557 men.] LONDON, October 24. A Russian official message states that a British submarine near Libau sank a German cruiser of the Prince Adalbert type (8858 tons).

ENEMY REVERSES. BOTH NORTH AND SOUTH. PETROGRAD, October 24. A communique states: We captured 85 officers, 3225 men, and a number of machine guns on the left bank of the Styr, in the Komarovo and Kolki districts (north of Lutsk). Our landing party at Dome Ness (Gulf of Riga) beat off a German detachment protecting that point. COPENHAGEN, October 24. The Russian expedition in Courland is stronger than the Germans imagined, and it has pressed forward since Saturday morning. The Germans are now falling back. It is believed that the British Baltic submarines have scared off the German warships. PETROGRAD, October 25. A communique states : The Germans captured the village of Repe, south-east of Riga. Our fire near Klange, north of Repe, inflicted enormous enemy losses. A Zeppelin bombed several parts of Riga, but did not damage the military buildings. There is vigorous fighting on the Dvinsk front. The Germans occupied Illukst after desperate street fighting and terrible enemy losses. We captured several villages east and south of Lake Grath, and our fire shattered the enemy’s furious coun-ter-attacks in the Novo Alexinatz district. RUSSIAN FOREIGN LOAN. PETROGRAD, October 25. A ukase authorises credit operations abroad amounting to £550,000,000. The Minister of Finance foreshadows a reformation of the fiscal system on the basis of an income tax. State monopolies of tea, sugar, and matches, and a tax upon tiles.MEAT SHORTAGE AT BERLIN. SCENES AT THE MARKETS. LONDON, October 24. Extraordinary scenes are taking place in the meat markets of Berlin. They are thus described by the Socialist paper Vorwarts : “At one market near the central slaughterhouse, where inferior—‘ but still quite fit ’ —meat is sold, although it is open at 7 o’clock in the morning, 800 women assembled on the previous afternoon and waited all night. Only a maximum 61b weight of meat is sold to each customer. Sometimes soldiers push the women aside and insist on being served first. Only 100 women daily are supplied. Several hundreds of women are compelled to wait for three nights to procure meat. ‘ At the Andreas Hallo the crush is tremendous. The police are swept aside and flattened against the walls. Women’s hats and clothes are torn off. These scenes occur weekly. “The -prices of commodities are becoming higher and higher. A roast joint or a steak or a cutlet seldom appears on a middle-class table. Beef has doubled in price. “ Eggs are very difficult to obtain, and bread is nf inferior quality and insufficient in quantity,”

NETHERLANDS TRADE. COPENHAGEN, October 24. The Swedish steamer Hugo has left Trondhjem with 800 bales of rubber bound for Archangel. The Norwegian authorities, suspecting she was going to Germany, sent a torpedo boat to follow her, and the latter found the Hugo was changing her course southwards. The Hugo was therefore arrested and brought to Christiansand. Her captain gave as a pretext that he intended to complete his cargo at Bergen. The Swedish steamer Rumina, with a cai-go of wood pulp, bound for London, was captured by a German submarine in the Baltic, and was proceeding under a German officer to Libau when she was blown up by a mine, and six of the crew were drowned. Her captain and 10 of the crew, also the German officer, landed at Gothland. NORSE VESSEL SUNK. COPENHAGEN, October 24. The German representative at the Nore, in Norway, justifies the sinking of the Sveinjarl, because she had not any neutral marks painted on her that were visible to the submarine, which was thus obliged to consider her an enemy ship. He agrees that an indemnity should be paid to the losers, but asserts his inability in future to accept responsibility for such mistakes in cases where neutrals challenge the dangers of the German submarine warfare and neglect the precautions recommended by Berlin. THE KAISER’S RHAPSODY. AMSTERDAM, October 24. The Kaiser, in the course of a rhapsodical speech to the Prussian Guards, said they had had 70 days’ fighting, and their storming of 29 enemy T positions assisted in bringing an end to a campaign costing the enemy all their frontier fortresses and countless booty, war material, and pn soners. He added: “We are fighting a just cause. God is with us, and will be with us further.” WRECKING AMERICAN AMMUNITION FACTORIES. NEW YORK, October 25. In the arrest of Robert Fay, a lieutenant in the German army, and Walter Scholz, his brother-in-law, the Federal Secret Service believes it has detained the leaders of the plot to wreck American munition factories and ships carrying munitions. Fay is said to have confessed to a plan for stopping the shipment of munitions. He said he was supplied with 2000 dollars for carrying out the operations. Papers found show him to be a German Secret Service agent. Vast quantities of explosives, and survey maps of New York Harbour, were found in his rooms.