FIERCE FIGHTING AT IRKUTSK.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14492, 2 January 1918, Page 4

FIERCE FIGHTING AT IRKUTSK.

THE CITY IN FLAMES. (AustroUan and N.„. Cable Association.) (Keceived Jan. 2, 2.45 p.m.) TOKIO, Jan. 1. Despatches from Harbin report fierce fighting at Irkutsk between the Bolsheviki and regular Cadets and Cossacks. Tlie Bolsheviki murdered the French Consular agent and two other. French residents. y The town of Irkutsk is aflame. . The Maximalists are "being reinforced from Karshojursk. [Irkutsk, in Eastern Siberia, is the best-built town in Siberia, with straight, wide streets and handsome public buildings. It possesses a cathedral, public library, national history museum, etc. \ The population numbers 55,000 and con- ' sists mostly of Russians and Buriats. Owing to its position on the great Siberian highway between China and Russia it had become the commercial . centre of Siberia, especially fbr the tea trade; • the annual value of its trade amounting to over one million pounds. A fire in 1879 did £2,000,000 worth of damage.] THE UKRAINE. The hope that Russia, may be brought to its senses seems (says the Christ--church Press) still to reset partly with the 'Cossacks and partly with the Ukraine, the great district in Southern Russia, which by the terms of peace laid before Lenin by the Germans was to be ceded in its entirety to Austria. Before the war little was ever heard of the Ukraine. "The very name," remarked a recent contributor to the New Europe magazine, "has fallen into oblivion in the West, but that it is not a mere modern invention is shown by the numerous : books devoted to Ukraine events which were published in English as long ago as tho 17th century. The word signifies 'border,' and took its origin from the debatable country which then lay between the three unweildy rivals of those days, Turkey, Poland, and Muscovy. But the territory inhabited by Ukranians stretches far beyond this border country, and its inhabitants were commonly known as Little Russians, or in Austria as Ruthenes, until gradually ; 'Ukranian' has como to be accepted as the national name. To-day their numbers are estimated at some 20 to 25 millions, on Russian soil, occupying Pbdolia, Volhynia, Kieff, and Cholm, and stretching far to the east of the Dnieper to the Sea of Azov and beyond ; four millions in Eastern Galicia and Bukovina, and half a million in the Carpathian districts of Hungary." The Ukraine comprises the rich grain-growing districts of which Odessa is the centre, and would make a very welcome addition to Austrian territory. But though the Ukranians have litt.e for which tp thank Russia, which under the old regime. oppressed the people, and for many years not only forbade the use of the Ukranian language but decreed that such a language did not exist, and never had existed, they have no particular reason to welcome the idea of being thrown into Austria's hands. Whatever, therefore, 1 might have been the attitude which they adopted if circumstances had been different, opposition to the Austrians and to the Bolsheviki, who <want to conclude peace with both Austria and Germany, was more or less forced upon the Ukranians, and* their combination with the Cossacks of the Don, Kuban, Orenburg, and,Ural*3, would provide an army of fighters who would probably be more than "a niatcli for any force that the Bolsheviki could send against them. GERMAN COMMUNIQUE. « (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) ' Renter's Telegram.) (Received January 2, 2.10 p.ip.) LONDON, Jan. 1. German loGi-cial : We extended bur gains south of Marcoing. There were violent artillery actions in the Tomba region. HUNGARIAN SOCIALISTS OPPOSE SEPARATE PEACE. (Australian and N.Z. Cabl*. Association.) (Received Jan. 2, 2.45 p.m.) STOCKHOLM, Jan. 1. Hungarian Socialists adopted a resolution opposing a separate peace and approving of an international conference.