RUSSIA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 145996, 30 November 1917, Page 3

RUSSIA.

ALLIES’ EFFORTS. TO .COUNTER PEACE MOVES. (Received Nov. 30, 9.0 a.m.) WASHINGTON, N.ov. 29. Officials do not believe that the Allies will assums an .attitude of hostility to Russia because of the Bolsheviks’ peace moves to Gerraauy. The Paris Conference will endeavour to consolidate the elements opposed to the Bolsheviks. It is believed the Allies are wirelessly communicating with the Russian army leaders, including Generals Kaledin and Dukhoun, in order to offset the peace moves. PEACE CONFERENCE. TO MEET ON SUNDAY. WEI/KINGTON, Nov. 30. The High Commissioner reports under date London, November 29 (2.10 p.m.J • News from Petrograd states that M. Krylenko announces that the Germans consent to negotiate for peace. The plenipotentiaries will meet on Sunday. AUSTRIA READY TO NEGOTIATE. AMSTERDAM, Nov. 29. A message from Vienna states that Count Czernin. in the Tipper House of the Reichstrath, expressed Austria’s readiness to negotiate for an honourable peace with Russia. RUSSIAN FIFTH ARMY. TO DISCUSS ARMISTICE. (Received Nov. 30; 10.25 a.m.) LONDON, Nov. 29. The Daily Chronicle’s Petrograd correspondent says that M. Krylenko reports tliat three representatives of the 6th Army were admitted to the German trenches and received a reply from the commander on the German northern front. He states that lie is directed by the German Commander-in-Ohicf to accept the armistice proposals. Representatives of both sides are meeting on Sunday to conclude the armistice and make renewed appeals to the Allies to accept the Bolshevik peace platform and -h, f | 0 a general armistice on all the fronts. •• ijio position is extremely bizarre, as only three armies recognise Krylenko’s authority. LENIN’S BRILLIANT IDEA. REPUDIATION OF DEBTS. (Received Nov. 30, 9 a.m) LONDON, Nov. 29. The Daily Chronicle’s Petrograd cor. respondent interviewed Lenin, who said “Unless the proletariat in other countries support ue the revolution will achieve nothing. We possess a powerful means of compelling the Allies to obey our wishes. We can declare the State bankrupt invalidating our loans and obligations. SCARCITY OF FOOD. CAUSING SOLDIERS TO RETIRE, (Received Nov. 30. 9 a.m.) PETROGRAD, Nov. 29. The almost catastrophic position on the war fronts is owing to the food shortage. If not fed the soldiers will shortly start homewards without awaiting an armistice. The most trusted troops of the Petrograd garrisons are joining the revolutionaries en bloc, while from the Moscow garrisons men have gone to the villages by thousands, and only a few hundreds remain in the barracks. _ The Bolsheviks have introduced drastic house laws. Poorer tenants .are allowed naif a year rent free and evictions are forbidden. The Soviet of the Revolutionary Committee is personally supervising the removal of insanitary lodgers to wealthy households, who are forbidden to interfere with their guests’ ways of life under penalty of heavy fines and imprisonments. AN ARMY CONGRESS* TO ORGANISE FOOD SUPPLIES. PETROGRAD, Nov. 28. Russian Official; The Council of the People’s Commissaries of the Army and Navy convenes a general congress of the forces for December 2, at Petrograd, to organise arrangements regarding food supplies. LONDON, Nov. 28. The War Office reports that the chief of the Russian military mission to England has received a communication from Russian headquarters, dated November 22, as follows:—From November 6 to 13 there was no sea fighting. Seventeen hundred and thirty-four Turkish gendarmes surrendered at the Diala River. We lost a thonsand men during an attack in the Barahoviehi region, in which the enemy occupied our first line. Our fire dispersed the enemy, who was attempting to fraternise. THE PROBLEM OF PRISONERS. PARIS, Nov. 28. M. Marcel Hutin points out that Russia holds 1,700,000 Austro-German prisoners. The Allies’ Conference must give the greatest attention to any suggestion to exchange while anarchy and treachery dominate Russia,

FRATERNISATION GOING ON

EVEN UNDER SHELLFIRE,. ROUMANIA NOW ISOLATED. (Received Nov. 30, 10.25 a.m.) NEW YORK, Nov. 29. The Petrograd correspondent of the New York World says that Russian and German soldiers are fraternising even under occasional shell fire. Hordes of Russians are leaving the front and occupying the railways, making the provisioning of tho front lines most difficult. The Sun’s London correspondent says that tho serious effect of tho Russian crisis is that Roumania is cut off from her western allies, and therefore Balkan development will he most interesting. AN OLD AGREEMENT. PETROGRAD, Nov. 28. An agreement made in the spring of 1916, and ratified in February, 1917, between Russia, Franco and England, has been published. It gave to Russia Erzerum, Trebizond, Bitlis and Van villayots; France to receive the seaboard of Syria the Adana villayet, and lesser Armenia; England to receive lower Mesopotamia, with special rights at Haifa and Jaffa. Between the English and French zones there was to he an independent Iranian State, Alcxandretta to be a. free port, Palestine to be a protectorate under Russia, France and England. There was also to be a neutral zone in Persia, through Ispahan, within tho Russian sphere.