THE SOVIET ARMY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 29 November 1926, Page 5

THE SOVIET ARMY.

BUILDING IT UP. OFFERS TO ENGLISH OFFICERS. \ Press Association-Electric Telegraph-Copyrigli. (Received Monday, 9.5 a.m.) LONDON, Sunday. The Despatch states that the .Soviet is secretly offering salaries from £IOOO to £ISOO yearly, and other inducements to unemployed discontented British exofficers, principally gunnery, aviator and gas experts, to join the Red Army ’s headquarters at Moscow, where there is a sort of Foreign Legion base. The recruiting campaign is conducted quite apart from the activities ot Soviet missions abroad. This is doubtless the outcome of a decree signed by Trotsky’s deputy, Skiliansky, ordering agents to encourage the enlistment of foreign nationals by every means in their power. The result has been whispered approaches to ex-officerS in the drawingrooms of Mayfair, thet hotels of Chelsea, and the coffee houses of Soho. An ex-regular officer informed the Dispatch: “A Soviet agent, aware that 1 have been an outspoken critic of the War Office, and also the author of confidential memorandum on gunneiy and instruction, intimated that I would be paid a substantial sum in Paris, where a contract would be signed for the purpose of evading the Foreign Enlistment Act. Two essentials were to speak French and be unmarried.”

The Dispatch learns that 100 Englishmen arc serving in Russia, but that the pay does not exceed £4OO yearly. They are liable to all kinds of unpleasantness if they return to Britain.

One of tlie Soviet’s' most prominent air experts is an Englishman. The Soviet is principally using British and Italian aircraft, but (lie chemical warfare is chiefly in the hands of Germans.

The Soviet badly needs Staff officers, the Czarist school having been almost entirely wiped out. —Sun.