NOVEMBER 1, 1918
Turkey has capitulated
At noon yesterday an armistice between the Allies and Turkey brought our campaigns in Syria and Mesopotamia to a happy and victorious conclusion. The one has ended with the brilliant capture of Aleppo by General Allenby, and the other by General Marshal’s capture of the entire Turkish force opposed to him on the Tigris, on the very day on which the armistice was signed. Turkey has thus yielded to an overwhelming military defeat in both Eastern theatres of war. Her Palestine Army has been entirely destroyed and a similar fate has befallen the limited forces she put into Mesopotamia. This point should be emphasized. Turkey did not surrender in consequence of events in Europe, though the collapse of Bulgaria hastened her decision. She hoisted the white flag because she had been conclusively beaten in the field, and could look for no help from her defeated confederates. In its later stages her overthrow has been almost exclusively the work of Great Britain, and it was fitting that she should tender her submission to a British Admiral, for it is the power of the Royal Navy which has made possible the splendid triumphs of the British and the Indian Arnies in the East. The full terms of the armistice are not yet disclosed, but they include free passage for the Allied Fleets through the Bosporus to the Black Sea; occupation of the forts in the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus necessary to secure their passage; and immediate repatriation of all Allied prisoners of war. The number of British and Indian prisoners in Turkish hands is said to be between nine and ten thousand.
Great Britain already holds Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia. The hour of Rumania’s rescue is at hand, and Allied command of the Black Sea should sound the death-knell of the Bolshevist tyranny in Russia. The Pan-German plot in the East is shattered, we think forever. The Baghdad Railway is in Allied hands. Whatever the future of Turkey may be, it is unlikely that Germany will again have any part or lot in it. The peoples of Arabia, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Syria are delivered from the duress of centuries, and it is imperative that the remnant of the Armenian nation, whose sufferings no words can tell, shall be given equally full freedom at once.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-10-31/register/the-terror-in-russia-wxxcdmqbm
OCTOBER 31, 1918
The terror in Russia
Our Petrograd Correspondent, who has just reached this country, supplies us with a detailed account of his arrest and imprisonment by the Bolshevists - a terrible experience, which he underwent in common with many other Englishmen. To the best of our belief, no such story has been placed on record since the episode of the Black Hole of Calcutta. He and many others were packed into cells in the Fortress of St Peter and St Paul which were meant for only one inmate. There was “only about a foot of standing room for each of us, and it was difficult to move arms or legs when we lay packed together on the bare cold floor”. The atmosphere “was awful”. There were 75 or 80 of these cells in the corridor in which he was confined, and each similarly crammed with captives. There were large numbers of Russians undergoing the same detention, from princes, generals, and statesmen down to thieves and murderers. The fortress appears to be packed to its utmost limits with the victims of the Russian Terror, and when more accused persons are brought in room is made for them by the simple expedient of taking out a few prisoners and shooting them. The food is scanty and repellent, and often there is none. These privations were endured for weeks.
Although the release of our Correspondent and others has been happily effected, a number of Englishmen, including the correspondents of the Daily Express and the Morning Post, are still suffering this horrible fate. It is difficult to understand why M Litvinoff and over forty of his associates, none of whom had any diplomatic status, were allowed to return to Russia while any Englishmen remain captive in Petrograd. It is time the world understood more clearly the nature of the infamies which the Bolshevist leaders are perpetrating.
The first impulses of the Russian Revolution were fine and noble, but the results, since Lenin and Trotsky and other German agents perverted the uprising to suit German ends, have been nothing less than appalling.
The uncoloured story of our Correspondent sheds a clear light on the Russian situation, and shows Bolshevism to be a thing accursed which the nations of the world cannot suffer to exist.
OCTOBER 30, 1918
Victory beyond all argument
The breakdown of Austria-Hungary has a very direct bearing on the progress of the war, and therefore on the terms of any armistice with Germany. It must be brought home to every man, woman, and child in Germany that they are beaten - that their philosophy is false and unprofitable, and that their idols are shattered beyond the possibility of their ever being set up again. That is what we mean by destroying German militarism. The most obvious means of achieving it is to make the German people suffer themselves the terrors of invasion which they have carried into the countries of our Allies, and that is the form of conversion that has always been uppermost in the minds of the Allies. Because Germany knows what that means, she is feverishly anxious to avoid it.
Even before this last breakdown Germany was anxious for peace, because the continuance of the war threatened her with invasion. She ought to be doubly anxious now that Austria promises to uncover another frontier and to defeat what we must suppose to be the plan of those in Germany who want to continue the war. Yet Ludendorff, whose reports led to the German overtures for peace, is believed latterly to have changed his mind and advocated a continuance of the struggle. He has been driven to resign, but it may be doubted whether the military ideas for which he stood have been destroyed. If he wanted to continue the war, it can only have been in the hope that if only the frontier were sufficiently contracted the German Army might keep up a defensive war so long as to secure more favourable terms and to save the reputation of the military rulers of Germany. Now this saving of their reputation is precisely what we are above all things interested to prevent.
Our anxiety being to convince the enemy that its doctrines are not only morally bad, but politically ruinous, there is a great deal to be said for a continuance of the war for another season. The chief military advantage of Austria’s breakdown to the Allies is that it will give us a new front on which to deploy our superior numbers should Germany elect to continue the struggle. Of this advantage we must in no case allow ourselves to be deprived. In other words, the break between Austria and Germany must be complete.
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