Page images
PDF
EPUB

that Messrs. Lenin and Trotsky have accepted them, so for the time being they hold the field, though Germany is leaving nothing to chance and continues her invasion. These latest terms are conclusive as to the treatment which any Power at the mercy of Pan-Germany may expect from that pirate, and even Mr. Henderson and Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, enamoured as they were of Bolshevikism, must be staggered at the plight to which it has brought this unhappy country within a year of the day when the much-belauded Revolution was supposed to have brought the millennium to Russia, whence it would spread over Europe.

THE Bolsheviks thus announced their acceptance of the dismemberment of Russia:

Our Parlementaires left Petrograd to-day, February 24, at noon, in the direction of Dvinsk, for the purpose of transmitting to the German Government, through the Dvinsk High Command, the official reply of the Russian Government to the Peace conditions offered by the German Government which had been communicated to Berlin by wireless from Tsarskoe (Signed) GORBUNOFF

Terms
Selo to-day at 7.32.

Secretary of the Council of People's Commissioners

The following has been sent to the German Government at Berlin :

According to the decision taken by the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets', Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates on February 24, at 4.30 a.m., the Council of People's Commissioners has decided to accept the Peace conditions offered by the German Government, and to send a Delegation to Brest-Litovsk.

(Signed) President of the Council of People's Commissioners,
VL. ULIANOFF LENIN
People's Commissioner for Foreign Affairs,

L. TROTSKY

The delegation leaves for Brest-Litovsk at 8 p.m., February 24.

N. GORBUNOFF, Secretary of the Council According to the text of the Bolshevik version of the German terms, to which a forty-eight hours' notice was attached and which the Bolsheviks hastened to comply with, Germany undertook to renew peace negotiations with Russia "and will conclude peace upon the following terms":

(1) The state of war to be declared at an end; "both nations believe that in the future they will live in peace and amity."

(2) Regions west of a line as indicated at Brest-Litovsk to the Russian Delegation," and which formerly belonged to the Russian State, are no longer under the territorial protection of Russia. In the region of Dvinsk this line shall be advanced to the eastern frontier of Courland; the former attachment of these regions to the Russian State shall in no case involve for them an obligation towards Russia." Russia to renounce every

EPISODES OF THE MONTH

21

claim to intervene in the internal affairs of these regions. Germany and Austria-Hungary will define " the further fate of these regions in agreement with their populations." When Russia is completely demobilized " Germany is ready. to evacuate regions which are east of the above-named line, so far as it is not stated otherwise in Article 3."

[ocr errors]

(3) Livonia and Esthonia to be immediately cleared of Russian troops and Red Guards, " and will be occupied by German police until the date when the Constitution of the respective countries will guarantee their social security and political order."

(4) Russia to conclude peace with the Ukranian Peoples Republic, and Ukraine and Finland to be immediately evacuated by Russian troops and Red Guards.

(5) Russia "will do all in her power to secure for Turkey the due return of its Eastern Anatolian frontiers," and to recognize the annulment of the Turkish capitulations.

(6) "Complete demobilization of the Russian Army, inclusive of detachments newly formed by the present Government, must be carried out immediately."

(7) Russian warships in the Black Sea, Baltic, and Arctic Ocean to be interned in Russian harbours "till the conclusion of a general peace, or be disarmed "-Entente warships to be treated as Russian ships.

(8) The Russo-German commercial treaty of 1904 to come into force except in so far as it was affected by the Peace Treaty with Ukraine. There must be "a guarantee for the free, untariffed export of ores, the immediate commencement of negotiations for the conclusion of a new commercial treaty, the guarantee of the most-favoured-nation treaty at least until 1925," with recognition of the commercial clauses in the Ukraine Treaty.

(9) Legal and political relations to be regulated according to the first version of the German-Russian Convention, "especially in regard to indemnities for civil damages," together with "indemnification, with expenses, for war prisoners, in accordance with the Russian proposal. Russia will permit and support, as far as she can, German commissions for war prisoners, civil prisoners, and war refugees."

(10) "Russia promises to put an end to every propaganda and agitation either on the part of the Government, or on the part of persons supported by the Government, against the members of

[ocr errors]

the Quadruple Alliance and their political and military institutions, even in localities occupied by the Central Powers."

(11) The above-named conditions to be accepted in forty-eight hours. Russian plenipotentiaries must start immediately for Brest-Litovsk and there sign the Peace Treaty within three days, which must be ratified within two weeks."

66

[ocr errors]

THERE is little to be said with regard to this document except that it deprives a number of well-meaning people of the last shadow of an excuse for misreading Bolshevikism Dismemberment or minimizing German war aims-to which Lord Lansdowne and others who might have been expected to know better had perversely shut their eyes. While our Whigs and Defeatists have been summoning us to commit ourselves to no annexations and no indemnities" in order that we might give a chance to "moderate" Germans to assert themselves, the Berlin Government is preparing to grasp no less than onequarter of the total area of European Russia, embracing about one-third of its population, including these historic regions, which are in one shape or another to be at Germany's disposal: Finland, Esthonia, Livonia, Courland, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine. According to the Daily News, which would be among the last newspapers to exaggerate the catastrophe produced by Bolshevikism, Russia will lose 381,000 square miles, containing a population of 48,000,000, i.e. an area three times greater than the United Kingdom. It will also be noted that Turkey's victims are to be restored to her so far as Russia can co-operate, and that not only are the Russian navy and any stray Entente warships to be interned or disarmed and Russia to be commercially exploited for the benefit of the enemy-this is perhaps the unkindest cut of all from the Bolshevik point of view-but all propaganda against the Central Empires, with which Messrs. Lenin and Trotsky professed to hope to convert to the wickedness of their Governments, must forthwith cease. What had hitherto been called

Great Russia" would be practically reduced to Muscovite proportions with " Peter's window " as its only outlook on Europe. These terms, be it noted, have already been accepted by the Bolsheviks, who had put it out of the power of themselves or any one else in Russia to decline them, though to make assurance doubly sure German troops continue to advance upon various vital

points, while the Bolshevik " Dictators" return to Brest-Litovsk. Such a tragedy as we are now witnessing has never before been seen in the history of the world, nor are there any signs of daylight anywhere on the Russian horizon.

Tragedy of
Rumania

TERRIBLE as may be the tragedy of Russia, which at the hour of writing contains no ray of hope, at least Russians—a minority, it is true-have brought their fate on themselves. It is a combination of an active handful of miscreants and a passive majority of fatalists. But the plight of Rumania is in one respect worse, because no section. of the Rumanian people have any responsibility for it, not even the political traitors who deserted their country and went over to the enemy when the Germans took Bukarest. The nation generally, headed by their devoted Sovereign, have nothing to reproach themselves with. Their offence consists in having thrown in their lot with the just and great cause of Civilization against Kultur in company with Allies whom they had every right to trust. That they were unduly pressed by us or by France, or by any other Ally, to come in at the wrong moment against their own better judgment is, we believe, untrue. That they would have remained neutral, as they must and should have done, had they foreseen-as no one foresaw-that an impending Russian Revolution involved their betrayal to the German Autocracy, is no reflection on Rumanian policy; no one foresaw or imagined anything so demented. The Bolsheviks have, if possible, treated Rumania, to whom Russia was under special obligations, even worse than their other Allies, and this unfortunate countryisolated, helpless, surrounded by enemies--finds herself reduced to "negotiating" with the enemy; we all know what that means, but we hope, as we believe, that this eclipse will be temporary, and that in a happier future this gallant little nation will come into her own with Belgium. The honour of five Great Powers is involved in this act of reparation.

As our orators publicly complain of the lack of imagination in our soldiers, and their henchmen in the Press preach from this text,

What of Japan?

it may be hoped that they are not devoid of this divine attribute. So far, however, we have enjoyed few manifestations of the higher political imagination with which the hangers-on of Downing Street credit that

sacred spot. We note in particular a painful failure to utilize the full resources of the mighty alliance which embraces the United States and Japan. We cannot help feeling that a really resourceful, skilful, and industrious statesmanship-which was less taken up with manoeuvre-would have done many things that have remained undone through minor preoccupations and lack of perspective. The Russian anarchy-the development of which has been supinely watched as though it were no concern of ours endangers every civilized Power, not only because it strengthens the enemies of civilization, but because a community in that condition might literally poison the planet by some horrible pestilence. This affects Japan equally with ourselves and our other Allies, and we cannot help wondering how much longer the far-seeing statesmen of Tokyo will be content with partial partnership in the great struggle in which our common civilization is at stake. In the earlier stages of the war, when many illusions abounded, our attitude towards Japan left much to be desired. Now that Japan and the United States understand one another and realize that their former rivalry was made in Berlin, there is no shadow of an excuse for any aloofness. What has been the War Cabinet's policy on this question? Will not Lord Milner devote one of his careful speeches to this pregnant topic? No soldier can be made to bear the blame for any failure on this purely political question.

A Disappoint

ment

WHATEVER View be taken of the military situation and the immediate prospects of the Allies, there can be no two opinions as to the desirability and, indeed, urgency of our having the best possible Government in power at this juncture. In this respect it must be said that the Parliamentary system has failed miserably. There has not been so much as a serious attempt in either House to secure an efficient War Cabinet. Individual Peers have, it is true, fought splendidly with every other class of the community, and have generally set an admirable standard of public service and private sacrifice, but the House of Lords as an institution cannot be said to have risen to the occasion. In a hundred ways it might have helped the national cause by inspiration and leadership on the many questions that have been muddled or neglected. It has been content to drift along, only really exciting itself when the

« PreviousContinue »