KOLCHAK BEATEN

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12718, 13 August 1919, Page 4

KOLCHAK BEATEN

OPPOSED BY IMMENSE FORCES. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Australian and 1 N.Z. Cable Association. NEW YORK, August 12. I he position of the forces under Com--1 Rdcuak is so precarious that ofucial American circles tear the utter collapse or the anti-Bolshevist movement. Reliable information received bv the Government indicates that Kolchak is being badly beaten, having been compelled to grauually retire 800 miles east ol the position he hold last spring. Kolchak’s forces are estimated to total a hundred thousand ill-equipped men, and ho is opposed by a force of half a million -well-equipped .Bolsheviks. ARCH ENEMY OF TROTSKY. Kolchak, tile anti-Bolshevik commander, was living in a railway carriage in Harbin when I iirst met him last year (writes Bernard Balk in the ‘‘ Daily Mail '). Hotel accommodation in the metropolis of North Manchuria is even scarcer_than in London, tlie limpets there being birght-cyed damsels who live on their wits. During our conversation, which was about the future of Russia and the Russians, the Admiral, a wiry, spare man of medium height, gave me the impres-

sion of being on pins and needles. Never bad I met anybody so restless. His nervous irritability betrayed itself in his maimer of speech—a string of short, sharp, stabbing sentences. Thus: “ I do not despair of Russia. She can be saved. How P By her own exertions, but the Allies must help. “ Rebuilding the Russian moral is necessary. This the Allies can do by showing they are with us by practical, effective help. Alter what our people have been through they want encouraging. Do not the Allies realise this?'” And so on.

T said to myself, as I watched bis feverish movements, “ If ever that man gets Ins chance he will make short work of the dullards, intriguers, and counterintriguers with which this place is infested ; ho will kick out the idle, plea-sure-loving officers parasitically clinging to him Kolchak at the time had some mission oi sorts—and lie "will be the deadliest cnem.v of the Bolsheviks.”

1 was right. Some months ago ho got his chance. He threw over all the political ha.sheens posing as saviours of Russia, developed the nucleus of tho sound army furnished by the Siberian recruits, and ever since then tho Bolsheviks have been fleeing before bin like chaff before the wind.

w Kolchak told me he believed in us. “Give me British co-operation.” was Ins invariable pica. “We Russians trust the British the most of all the Allies.”

Such is the personality of Kolchak that the men of the Soviotised Black Sea Fleet were afraid to kill him. They let him go, ,and with his 'Word. He offered us his services iu the Caucasus being a real Russian patriot. ’ When I was in Vladivostok the y were in certain timid Allied codes that Kolchak was a monarchic icactjonavy. My conversation with him did not lend mo to that opinion. 1 was persuaded. that he would stand no nonsense from the Bolsheviks, and that is not being a reactionary.

. Among a multitude of sentimentalists and worthless hangers-on, exploit-

ers, beairx viveins, in Siberia and Manchuria, Kolchak showed himself that rare product, a patriot and a worker devoted solely to ins country’s interest. Adding to this untiring energy and an invincible will, his success is understandable' when flip Avkenzsieffs. Kerenskys and Tchaikowskys could not help but fall.