The British Army began its first battle of the war at Mons on August 22, 1914, and, by the grace of God, our troops stood in this same spot when the order came to cease fire. That the enemy had made up his mind that the end had come, our troops yesterday had ample evidence. On most of the front they marched and rode almost as they pleased. The news of the armistice was got forward to our far-flung patrols and batteries with great promptitude, and a great silence fell upon the land after 11 o’clock. There can be no harm now in saying that the message had been expected, and there had been ample time to signal the news beyond the points where telegraph and telephone cease. Our scattered troops were told to unfix bayonets and unload magazines and to stand to for further orders. No attempt was to be made to fraternize with the enemy. I believe there was some demonstrativeness on the German side, and I hear of German troops seen trying to break their rifles or throw them away. But, on the whole, the great tidings appear to have been taken pretty quietly. Amongst the troops in rest there was more jubilation. At headquarters close to the line parades had been arranged of all available troops as soon as the news was received, and at 11 o’clock the bugles sounded the “Cease fire” and the bands played the “Marseillaise” and “God Save the King”. Many then broke out into “Tipperary”, which the peasantry seem to imagine is our National Anthem, to judge by the respect with which they hearkened to the strains.
Shortly after 11 o’clock the roads presented an extraordinary scene. Refugees began to stream back in swarms. The Germans are manifestly anxious to show their good faith, for very shortly after the armistice dispatch riders were bringing into Corps Headquarters full details of the positions of all mines, booby traps, and leads, which had been sent over under the white flag by enemy commands.
The day is grey and drizzling, which does not conduce to outdoor demonstrations on the part of people who have suffered much, and many of whom cannot yet tell how many of their dear ones have fallen in the terrible struggle. Silent thankfulness is the prevailing sentiment today in the war area of Northern France.
Marshal Foch has lost no time in answering Germany’s petition for an armistice. Yesterday morning the delegates presented themselves at the Allied Headquarters, and he handed them the conditions on which their request will be conceded. At the same time he informed them that these terms must be accepted or refused within three days. He also told them that the cool suggestion of their Government for an immediate suspension of hostilities pending this decision could not be entertained. It was put forward, Prince Max and his colleagues affirmed, “in conformity with humanity”; but the advantages it would have conferred are so patent that it suggests either sheer impertinence or the necessity to convince the German people that every possible loophole of escape has been explored. Every hour of immunity from the converging attacks which threaten to cut off the enemy’s retreat would be invaluable to them. No respite can be thought of until they have agreed, formally and irrevocably, to the terms. Stringent as these must be, it hourly becomes clearer that the German Government must submit to them or incur a terrible responsibility. The delegates have dispatched a courier to convey them to the Chancellor and the German High Command at Spa, and an urgent request that he shall be sent back as quickly as possible with the latest instructions.
The signs increase that peace on any conditions grows more and more vital to the enemy. The Chancellor, Prince Max, has just declared in an address to Germans abroad that in the fifth year of the contest, and “abandoned by their allies” — a not very generous complaint — the German people “could no longer wage war against increasingly superior forces”, and he confesses that “the victory for which many had hoped has not been granted to us”.
The signs of internal commotion in Germany are growing more serious. The chief naval ports are in the hands of mutinous sailors and soldiers and revolutionary civilians, while the movement is spreading inland. Want and the collapse of all expectations of victory and plunder excited by the “militarists” have excited dangerous passions among the masses. Anger against the Emperor is fierce. His abdication is being called for upon all sides.
This week's chapter
examines the effects of the blockade, Ukrainian food supplies, war loans and
national credit, submarine failures, socialism in the army, moral weakening
of the people, Lichnowsky memoir, Herr von Kuhlmann and the peace offensive,
fall of von Kuhlmann, Admiral von Hintze Foreign Minister, a ministry of
failure, effect of the Battle of Amiens, Prince Max Chancellor, socialistic
participation, effect of Cambrai, Main Headquarters demands peace, the
Fourteen Points, socialist impatience, abdication of the Kaiser, the
Armistice
The Socialists of Bavaria passed a resolution that Germany
should be reconstituted into a people's State, and the Munich papers called
on the Kaiser to give a shining exampIe to his people by sacrificing himself
I hear that the Kaiser with a suite of 10 gentlemen, in two
court carriages, passed the Dutch frontier near Maastricht and close to
Eysden this morning. Secrecy is observed concerning his movements
The following news was transmitted on Saturday through the wireless stations of the German Government:
The German Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, has issued the following decree: The Kaiser and King has decided to renounce the Throne. The Imperial Chancellor will remain in office until the questions connected with the abdication of the Kaiser, the renouncing by the Crown Prince of the Throne of the German Empire and of Prussia, and the setting up of a Regency have been settled. For the Regency he intends to appoint Deputy Ebert as Imperial Chancellor [our Hague Correspondent gives the foregoing sentence as, “He contemplates proposing to the Regent the appointment of Deputy Ebert as Chancellor”], and he proposes that a Bill should be brought in for the establishment of a law providing for the immediate promulgation of general suffrage, and for a constitutional German National Assembly which will settle finally the future form of Government of the German nation and of those peoples which might be desirous of coming within the Empire.
Bolshevist soldiers have broken into and sacked the British Embassy at Petrograd, looted the Embassy, destroyed the papers, murdered Captain Cromie, the British Naval Attache, who gallantly defended the building, mutilated his body, and even refused an English clergyman leave to pray over the dead. Our Government telegraphed to the People’s Commissary for Foreign Affairs a demand for immediate reparation and for the prompt punishment of all concerned. By the immemorial law of all communities who have emerged from primitive barbarism the persons and domiciles of foreign representatives are sacrosanct. The British people will regard this infamous act with the deepest horror and indignation, and require that searching and impartial investigation shall be made as to responsibility for the deed. We do not want hecatombs of the ruling party’s political enemies, such as they offered to the Germans after the murder of Count Mirbach, or executions confined to insignificant underlings. The report of the murder given in the official Bolshevist organ shows that the armed invasion of the Embassy was the considered act of the Soviet Government, and not a mere outbreak of irresponsible brigandage.
The Government have warned of the measures they will take if the Soviet Government fail to give complete satisfaction. About a hundred of our fellow-countrymen, including our distinguished Petrograd Correspondent, are believed to be still in Bolshevist Russia. There are also Bolshevists in England, among them M Litvinoff, the representative of the Soviet Government, and his staff. They have been placed under arrest until all British subjects under Bolshevist control have been set at liberty and allowed to proceed to the Finnish frontier. A group of 25 were to have left our shores on Tuesday, as a token of our good will, although negotiations for the mutual repatriation of British and Russian citizens had not been concluded. The treaties signed by the Bolshevists with Germany on Tuesday provide, we are told, that Russia will fight against the Entente in Northern Russia. If this is correct, they would seem to regard themselves as in a state of war with us. But only savages begin war by assassination.
The Germans are retreating as fast as they dare, as fast, that is, as they can without retreat degenerating into a rout. They are covering the same ground as that over which they retired in the spring of 1917 about as quickly as they did then, but with this great difference — that this time the Allies are close on their heels.
The towns and villages that fall one by one into the hands of the advancing troops are a sorry sight. They are battered out of all recognition. Most of them I know, some of them well. When I went to Moreuil and Montdidier I simply did not recognize them. I could not place any of the houses and not many of the streets I had known. Looked at from the west, Montdidier is a particularly gruesome spectacle. It is not only that the insides of the houses are exposed. The very foundations of the town are laid bare. They seem to have been turned inside out, and upside down. It is like looking at a grave that has been burst open and violated. The naked cliff of sandstone on which it stands is thrown open to view instead of being hidden by a clustering mass of houses, and cliff and fallen stonework form a formless jumble of chaos and destruction which in no way suggests that it could ever have been the handiwork of man.
Roye, fortunately, is not so bad. Some of the streets have been blown up by mines; the church and a certain number of houses have been destroyed by shells, but it still looks like a town, and there are still houses standing, on the walls of which the Germans have left characteristic inscriptions as a trace of their occupation. The brick ramparts overhanging the Avre facing west across the Santerre Plateau have suffered particularly badly, but they are picturesque in their ruin. It is not much consolation to reflect that in the case of these recently destroyed places the ruin is mostly the result of the fair wear and tear of war. But it is in a way comforting to feel that the Germans must by now be bitterly regretting the wantonness with which they blotted out of existence with fire and dynamite during their last retreat the towns and villages of behind their present line. They are in something the same plight as the ancient wanderers in the wilderness, whose soul fainted within them because they found no city to dwell in. And it is their own doing.
When the people of Manchester awoke on Monday, 16 August 1819, it was already shaping up to be a fine, hot day. By mid-morning thousands of people were streaming past the mills and chimneys towards St Peter’s Field in the town centre. To the watching townsfolk they presented an extraordinary spectacle. Each local village had sent its own contingent, but far from being the disorderly rabble of press hysteria, they seemed remarkably well turned out. Many were women, dressed all in white. And everywhere were flags and banners, woven in bright silk. “No Corn Laws”, they read, “Annual Parliaments”, “Universal Suffrage”, “Vote by Ballot”. The only banner that survives today was carried by Thomas Redford of Middleton. “Liberty and Fraternity” read the message on one side, picked out in gold letters. “Unity and Strength” it read on the other.
The following news is transmitted through the wireless stations of the Russian Government: “At the first session of the Central Executive Committee elected by the Fifth Congress of the Councils a message was made public, received by direct wire from the Ural Regional Council, concerning the shooting of the ex-Tsar, Nicholas Romanoff. “Recently Ekaterinburg, the capital of the Red Ural, was seriously threatened by the approach of the Czecho-Slovak bands. A counter-revolutionary conspiracy was discovered, having for its object the wresting of the tyrant from the Council’s authority by armed force. “In view of this fact the Presidium of the Ural Regional Council decided to shoot the ex-Tsar, Nicholas Romanoff. This decision was carried out on July 16. The wife and son of Romanoff have been sent to a place of security. Documents concerning the conspiracy have been forwarded to Moscow by a special messenger.
“It had been recently decided to bring the ex-Tsar before a tribunal, to be tried for his crimes against the people, and only later occurrences led to delay in adopting this course. The Presidency of the Central Executive Committee, after having discussed the circumstances which compelled the Ural Regional Council to take the decision to shoot Nicholas Romanoff, decided as follows: The Russian Central Executive Committee, in the persons of the Presidium, accept the decision of the Ural Regional Council as being regular. “The Central Executive Committee has now at its disposal extremely important material and documents concerning the Nicholas Romanoff affair; his diaries, which he kept almost to the last days; the diaries of his wife and children; his correspondence, amongst which are letters by Gregory Rasputin to Romanoff and his family. All these materials will be examined and published in the near future.”
There is now no question about it. The Germans are in retreat. South of Fere-en-Tardenois, the one railhead that is left them — and that has been heavily shelled by the French — they have been busily burning stores too bulky to be quickly removed, and not only most of their guns but the greater part of their infantry have gone. Some of those who have been left behind seem to have little stomach left for fighting. One member of the Staff, who had seen columns of troops and supply convoys moving away to the north, told me of an incident which gives a picture of the state of mind to which some of them have been brought. They did not appreciate the efforts of the French gunners, and a number of them near whom a shell fell scattered, as he said, like a flock of sparrows, and refused to come back to their posts till their Unteroffziere had beaten them with canes. It happened not once but four or five times to the same lot of men.
It was a more dangerous enemy, however, that the French had to deal with yesterday. In every possible hole or corner in the woods the Germans as they fell back had left squads of machine-gunners to gain delay for the troops in retreat. To attempt to clear out these nests of wasps by frontal attacks would have meant great loss of life. The alternative was to advance in the open on each side of the woods, leaving them for other troops to deal with later on from the flank and from the rear. Today, the Bois de Chatelet and the Bois de la Tournelle, which were passed in yesterday’s advance, will be cleaned up by Americans and tirailleurs.
I stopped yesterday on the near side of the Bois de Chatelet, near enough to appreciate one striking proof of the difference of the fighting in this open warfare from what it was even a year ago. Whereas the woods in the old days were shelled till there was not a stick left, the Chatelet Wood and others that I passed still had their coating of leaves, and though here and there a trunk was cut through, you would hardly have suspected that war had passed their way. And yet the plan of turning them during an advance and clearing them out afterwards with grenades and bayonets from the rear is far more effective than the old-fashioned shelling in ridding them of their destructive occupants.
Initially dismissed as ‘trivial matters’, the arts soon became a vehicle for political advantage in the new Soviet Union
Michael Tillotson
Soviet soldiers reenact the storming of the Winter Palace ten years to the day after it happened
When one looks at any illustration of the storming of St Petersburg’s Winter Palace in October 1917 — and there are many, varying from those based on the original photographs to more dramatic representations — one might ask: “Where were the artists, ballerinas, poets, sopranos and writers on that historic evening?” The answer is “cheering on the mob”, either actually or in their hearts.
The Bolshevik-led revolution struck Russia in the middle of the so-called Silver Age, in which the artistic avant-garde were producing work in an iconoclastic surge, ridiculing the bourgeois and forecasting a new society of realism and “the people”. Unsurprisingly this phenomenon was seized upon by the Bolsheviks as a public relations vehicle for the propagation of their aims, principles and programmes.
Mr William Orpen, ARA, has been to the war, and many will go to Messrs Agnew’s Gallery to see how he has adjusted himself to it. As a matter of fact, he has adjusted the war to himself. He can always find a formula for anything; and even for the war he has found formulae such as he used to find for Irish scenes, for fashionable ladies, for anything he chose to paint. He has merely applied an old formulae to a new subject. There is the falling bomb, with a Goya formula. It was real when Goya used it; but it is not real in Mr Orpen’s hands. He gives us horror, in his “Dead Germans in a Trench”. The Censor has passed this, though he would not pass a picture by Mr Nevinson of a dead Englishman, his aim being apparently to persuade us that only Germans die in this war. On the whole we feel that Mr Orpen has remained too much a master of himself and his theme. We wish the theme had sometimes mastered him.
Mr Paul Nash, who has also been to the war, and whose war pictures are at the Leicester Galleries, has adjusted himself to it much more. He is usually a romantic artist: in these works his romance has turned to irony. This is a beautiful and wonderful world, he seems to say; and see what man has made of it. See also how even man’s insanity cannot rob the tortured and battered earth of its beauty. In many of his drawings he has been struck by the strange, unaccountable beauty of the meaningless shapes of things so tortured and battered. They make an abstract music of their own, like that abstract music of form that the cubist tries to make for himself. Mr Nash has not had to make it; it was there for him to see; utter chaos, as of a world dead for a million years, frozen and without atmosphere, and yet beautiful to frightened human eyes. You feel that it has been seen with frightened eyes, frightened at the inhumanity of it. It is waste — the waste of worlds, of ages, which looks as if it had been made by some indifferent will of Nature. Then we remember that it has been made by man in his babyish will to power. That is the effect these drawings have on us. Like all good drawings of the war, they might be used in the propaganda of a league of peace. They might appal even a Junker, if he were not too stupid to think of anything but the word of command.
We have been informed by a British journalist who suffered internment in Ruhleben for two-and-a-half years that, owing to the fact that the prisoners receive no vegetables at all and no fats — practically living only on tinned stuff — the condition into which the prisoners have fallen is appalling. In his own case the entire absence of these necessary food constituents caused prolapsus of the stomach, the body commencing to feed on its own tissues and muscles. Ruptures were frequent. If the prisoners requested a belt they were given one, but the German “doctors” never inquired into the cause.
A wealthy man can — as some did — by giving a big commission to the camp commandant, get clothes, bedding, and a little furniture. These fortunate ones would pay to get their horse stall or shed cleaned out, and then install their heavily paid-for bits of furniture. These were the places shown to the American Ambassador on his visits, and on which his earlier reports as to the condition of British prisoners were founded. He was carefully piloted to that part of the camp where the prisoners had been allowed to make the best of their plight and was guided away from places it was undesirable he should see. The Germans always knew beforehand of these visits, and made preparations. But one day Mr Jackson, of the United States Embassy in Berlin, after being carefully engineered through the “show part,” evinced a desire to see another part of the camp. In spite of the efforts of the German Staff to prevent him, he walked to that part of the camp which had heretofore been avoided. He was greeted with cries of “Bravo, Jackson!” by the unlucky men imprisoned there, who shouted, “See Barrack No 6! See Barrack No 5!” as the officials again tried to get him away. The report Mr Jackson made of this part of the camp brought an immediate visit from the Ambassador, who was most indignant, and there and then (in our correspondent’s words) “went for” the Germans. Our informant, in spite of the fact that he has now been back for nearly a year, is still in a deplorable physical state. He has four ruptures, his body and arms are covered with sores, and he is semi-blind. All the deaths that occurred, including those due to neglect and ill-treatment, were put down to typhus by the Germans.
The famine in Petrograd is becoming alarming. There is practically no food on the markets or in the shops. There is no flour, no sugar, potatoes, cheese, or milk, no grains and very little meat. The necessaries of life have to be got through friends at enormous cost, if you have the money, as the meagre rations doled out by the authorities are absolutely inadequate. The ration of indigestible black bread, half-baked, with water in it to increase the weight, is only one-eighth of a pound per day, and often that is not forthcoming on account of the hopeless disorder and universal thieving. Relatives and dependents rob one another of food without compunction. Hunger has no conscience. In spite of stringent measures against hoarding and speculation, profiteering goes on among all classes. In fact, food is a far more valuable commodity than paper money. Half the working day is wasted in pursuit of sufficient to eat. No fewer than 15 cartloads of rotten hares were recently brought into the town and several attempts were made to foist them onto the municipal executive, but they were finally rejected. Good hares are being sold at £2 10s apiece.
The prices of other articles are fabulous. Hams are £40 and £60 each. Butter costs 42s a lb. The British community of Petrograd, which is now reduced to about 500 persons who were unable, for various reasons, to leave Russia, have felt obliged to induce the British Consul and the incumbent of the English church to wire to London for a few supplies to tide us over this crisis. I am told that a telegram has been sent to the Foreign Office, but so far no assistance is forthcoming. We do not want luxuries, but a few cases of oats, some sugar, margarine and flour, would be a godsend.
The only change for the better has been in the weather. The ice and frozen filth covering the roads two or three feet deep was broken up by gangs of men and women with whom the bourgeois were requisitioned to cooperate, and at some places they were to be seen plying pick and shovel under the supervision of armed soldiers of the Red Guard. Resisting or, as the revolutionary jargon now goes, “sabotaging” persons who objected to take part were threatened with heavy fines and imprisonment.
An open-mindedness towards Muslim issues by the Bolshevik leader was welcomed during the early days of the revolution
Michael Tillotson
The Times
Lenin sweeps away the old ways, including in 1917 removing special privileges based on faith or nationalityREX FEATURES
Writing in the Bolshevik newspaper Novaya Zhizn (New Life) in 1905, Vladimir Lenin pronounced: “As a system of belief, religion adds to the oppressive woes of the exploited, coarsening and darkening the spiritual and moral life of the masses.”
An atheist from age 16, this reflected his thinking of religion broadly and did not take account of the likely obstacles that Islam would place on the spread of Bolshevism. This was a surprising omission because the census of 1897 revealed almost 14 million Muslims mainly living in the Caucasus, the Volga-Ural regions and Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. These regions considered themselves suppressed by the tsars and the widespread rejoicing that greeted the fall of Nicholas II might have given Lenin grounds for optimism for their willing adoption of his political and social convictions. When conflict between Bolshevism and religion began to emerge as an issue of importance, he was to prove more pragmatic in his approach to Islam than to the various schisms of the Christian faith.
Shortly before he moved the Congress of Soviets from Petrograd to Moscow in March 1918, Lenin was reported to be furious when a mob bawling the Internationale burnt down a Russian Orthodox church in Petrograd. Clearly his fury had not arisen from any religious consideration. He simply did not wish to alienate the churches of Russia while his grip on the country was still tenuous and regional.
After the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, the British cabinet struggled to decide what to do about Russia. Robert Bruce Lockhart was the man tasked with making sense of the chaos
Michael Tillotson
A painting by Nikolai Lukich Babasyuk of Lenin during the 1917 revolution
When Robert Bruce Lockhart, the former vice-consul in Moscow and future author of the bestselling Memoirs of a British Agent, returned to Petrograd on his way to Moscow in February 1918 he found the streets piled with blackening snow and mobs singing The Internationale. The tune was instantly identifiable but, although he was a fluent Russian speaker, the words were not.
At least not until he realised that each group had its own version. There was a soldiers’ Internationale, a workers’ variety and peasant interpretations. All was chaos and he welcomed the rumour, shortly to be confirmed, that the Bolshevik leadership was about to move to the old capital.
A German bombing raid on Petrograd on March 2 hastened the move and dispatch to London of the veteran social democrat Lev Kamenev to request British aid. In what must have appeared as a speedy demonstration of international solidarity, a company of Royal Marines was landed at the Barents Sea port of Murmansk a few days later. As we shall see, this was in response to an entirely different threat, but it looked good at the time.
Bruce Lockhart had been sent home from Moscow towards the end of 1917 to recover from mental and physical exhaustion brought about by struggling to grapple with and report sequential events in Petrograd. His period of “quiet reflection” was subjected to frequent interruption for interviews with cabinet members and businessmen with interests in Russia.
“Ah, the Mr Lockhart,” prime minister Lloyd George had exclaimed on meeting him; and it was not long before Lord (George) Curzon — that “very special person” and foreign secretary — was briefing him about his mission as an unofficial agent to the Bolsheviks in the Russian capital, after the withdrawal of the experienced ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, and his military attaché.
The British cabinet was in a quandary as to what to do about Russia after the indecisive — as they perceived it — Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917. There were members primarily concerned about maintaining the Eastern Front against Germany, who were led by Winston Churchill (returned from the Western Front and now minister for munitions); and there was the more pragmatic Lloyd George, who feared for Allied prospects in the war if — through its continuation in the east — Russian oil and wheat lands fell into German hands, not to mention the stocks of warlike stores dumped by British ships in her northern ports and Vladivostok.
Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart at his home in Edinburgh in 1955GETTY IMAGESBruce Lockhart’s task was to try to make sense of all this and advise the cabinet whether it should support the Bolsheviks in the hope of restoring the Eastern Front and keeping the Germans out of Russia, or abandon them as a potential ally and economise on stores and shipping in futile attempts to support them.
Marshal Gustav MannerheimAt the time of the Bolshevik coup in October 1917, Major-General Frederick Poole of the British Supply Mission had wired the Foreign Office: “Disabuse your minds and that of all others in London as to the idea of a ‘war party’ in Petrograd. A few stalwarts talk big about wanting to go on with the war, but it is all talk with no chance off action. The people are tired and will never fight again.”
During the pause in peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk he changed his mind and advised the director of military operations at the War Office: “If the (Western) Allies once recognised the Bolsheviks, they would turn anti-German and (re)-join us.”
Lloyd George was not impressed, noting that in the 12-day pause in peace negotiations the Germans had advanced 150 miles into Russia and needed only to turn south to threaten the oil fields on the Caspian Sea.
Lenin, left, and the social democrat Lev KamenevALAMYOn his way from England to Petrograd in February, Bruce Lockhart had crossed from Sweden to Haparanda on the northern shore of the Gulf of Bothnia to find Finland in a fast-spreading civil war. On Lenin’s declaration of the various freedoms the Bolsheviks would grant, the prime minister and half the cabinet of Finland, at that time a tsarist grand duchy, took the train to Finland Station in Petrograd and politely asked for theirs. Perhaps flushed with success and real power at last Lenin agreed, but the announcement of national independence led the “Red Finns”, influenced by the blandishments offered by the Bolsheviks over the border, to rise in revolt.
The government “White Finns” opposed them, but were in danger of being overwhelmed until the future Marshal Gustav Mannerheim was appointed to command the government forces. A former corps commander in the Russian army, Mannerheim had concentrated and organised the White forces in the west of the country, but the north and southeast initially remained largely in the hands of the Reds. This caused alarm in the mind of General Poole of the British Supply Mission in Archangel and it was his plea to London that brought the Royal Marines to Murmansk.
British reinforcements guard locomotives damaged by Bolsheviks during the Allied intervention on the Archangel and Murmansk fronts during 1918-19GETTY IMAGESArchangel could receive Allied supplies only during the summer months because the White Sea, on which the port stands, froze in winter. This threw reliance on the less developed port of Murmansk on the Barents Sea that remained ice-free and connected to Petrograd by a recently completed railway. Inconveniently, in view of events in Finland, the railway ran parallel with the Russo-Finnish frontier lying a hundred miles or so to the west and it was not long before news reached Bruce Lockhart that Mannerheim, who spoke five languages including German, had asked Berlin to provide him with troops to help him clear the Reds out of southern Finland. He expressly intended no threat to Petrograd that lay only 15 miles beyond the Finnish frontier, but who was to say what the German general staff might have in mind? There was little to deter their troops from crossing the frontier and cutting the railway.
Moreover, the White Finns were closing in on the fishing port of Pechenga, a mere 60 miles west of Murmansk. General Poole had cause for concern for his line of supply from England and onwards to Petrograd. He urged London to disembark a fighting force at Murmansk and to reinforce him at Archangel. The landing of 130 Royal Marines at Murmansk by the Royal Navy on March 6, 1918, was London’s first demonstration in response.
As the war on the Eastern Front came to an end with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, focus switched to the Western Front, with the American Expeditionary Force making an impression as the Allies’ morale ebbed
Allan Mallinson
An artist’s impression of the sinking of the TuscaniaALAMY
The Pope had made his appeal for peace in August 1917, declaring his neutrality to be “appropriate to him who is the common father and who loves all his children with equal affection”. It brought him little filial warmth by reply.
In February 1918 it would be the turn of the Kaiser to speak of sacred matters. “War is a disciplinary action by God to educate mankind,” he told the citizens of Bad Homburg gathered in the courtyard of the castle, his summer residence for 30 years and now the place of his February kur (spa treatment) at the spa town.
He had good news for them: the new People’s Republic of Ukraine, detached from the Russian empire in the wake of the Bolshevik takeover, had signed a peace treaty the day before. It signalled ultimate victory, he said, and in the meantime would bring them more bread, because Ukraine always had a surplus of grain. (In many parts of Germany the flour was being supplemented with potato peelings and sawdust.) It was, indeed, the Brotfrieden, the bread peace. However, he warned them that Ukraine was “shaken by a civil war . . . [and] could be overrun by the Bolsheviks and large parts of the grain could be carried away by the Red Army”.
“Their knees are on our chest and our position is hopeless.” That is the argument by which the Bolshevist chief Lenin urged the Soviet to submit to the terms dictated by Germany. Harsher terms have seldom been imposed upon a conquered foe by the unbridled will of triumphant “militarism”. But the argument was unanswerable, and the body which has filled the world for months with its protestations of undying devotion to the extremest development of ultra-democracy and with its pledges to fight to the last in the sacred cause has meekly yielded to the Kaiser’s orders.
Lenin’s pretence that the peace is accepted only “as a respite” until the Bolshevists can make ready their “decisive resistance to the bourgeoisie and to Imperialism” can hardly have deceived the silliest of his comrades. Their defeat at the conference table has been not less shameful than their defeat in the field. In a few short months this self-constituted Government of talkers and doctrinaires have brought Russia to her present plight. She lies, crushed and humiliated, at the feet of foes who trembled before the impending advance of her armies but a year ago. They are driving her soldiers before them like sheep, they advance where they please into what were her territories, and they insolently tell her that, if she desires to escape further chastisement she must sign without demur the conditions laid before her.
The Bolshevists have posed before the world as the high priests of a pure and fiery brand of super-Socialism. Not many weeks ago M Trotsky was adjuring the “working democracies of the Central Powers” to “put in a weighty word” on their behalf. Only a few days back he and Lenin were talking about the time when the German proletariat “shall rise and conquer”. Even now Lenin proclaims that “the proletariat of the whole world will come to our aid.”
The men who deliberately flung away the well-tempered Russian sword and bade their fellow-citizens rely exclusively upon oratory and idealism against the “militarism and imperialism” of the enemy have been forced to promise silence. They have riveted German fetters on the land they undertook to guide in the paths of freedom. They have plunged it into civil war. They have reduced it to anarchy and to ruin.
The news today indicates that the Germans continue to advance along the line to Reval, Pskoff, and Minsk, while the Austrians and Ukrainians are verging on Kieff. The Russian soldiers are offering little or no resistance. According to one of tonight’s papers, no less than 27 trains have been seized by them, and are conveying some 40,000 demobilized men back to Moscow. The Germans are not taking any prisoners; they only disarm the Russians and set them free. German proclamations are being distributed by aeroplanes calling upon the inhabitants to remain calm and to preserve order as the Germans are coming to suppress anarchy and will even introduce food supplies as soon as possible.
Great perturbation and pessimism reign in Bolshevist circles. Meetings of the Council of Commissioners and Bolshevist partisans, together with members of the Left wing of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, are taking place at Smolny and in the Tauris Palace day and night. M Trotsky is reported to be ill and unable to attend, owing to the effect upon his health of the German renewal of hostilities.
The People’s Commissioners have decided to order a general mobilization of the whole male population. The appeal orders the formation of a Red National Army, with iron discipline and free from hooligans and marauders, for the purpose of defending the Revolution with the last drop of Russian blood.
The conviction that Petrograd is the ultimate objective of the German advance has produced considerable commotion and no little anxiety among the remaining members of the British colony here. The British Consulate is crowded with agitated inquirers desirous of getting away as soon as possible. A certain number will, of course, be obliged to stay in any case owing to family or business ties, old age, or illness. It is hoped that the Germans will not repeat the atrocities practised at the beginning of the war. A British military order has been issued for all British subjects of military age in Petrograd who hitherto have enjoyed exemption on various grounds to hold themselves ready to start home at six hours’ notice. Other British subjects who are able to go, especially women and children, are advised to leave without delay.
For the last week Russia has been cut off from Western Europe by revolution and civil war in Finland. Outgoing passenger traffic has been suspended or greatly inconvenienced by damage to the railways. British and other travellers anxious to leave Russia are deterred by accounts of the spread of Russian revolutionary methods and hooliganism in Finland. Armed men enter trains to examine luggage and help themselves to anything that pleases them. An officer here in hospital tells me that he was wounded at Viborg while rescuing a lady from a party of armed ruffians who were robbing her of her money and her overcoat. The officer shot two of them with his revolver, but received a bayonet wound in the breast, and was dragged insensible by the lady into a yard. Efforts are being made to provide steamer accommodation from the southern Finnish coast, but it is only safe for neutrals.
There is great uncertainty as to the contending forces in Finland. According to one version, the White Guards are being driven northwards, and pushed back to the Bothnian Gulf by the Red Guards. Another version represents the Red Guards as being pressed on all sides by White Guards.
A large proportion of the working proletariat in the urban and industrial centres of Southern Finland is thoroughly leavened by germs of Russian Bolshevism. These are the Red Guards. The White Guards in the north and west represent bourgeois classes, and the latter are aided by the return of Finns through Riga, who have served and been trained in German Finnish battalions. It is said that there are German officers amongst the White Guards, and that they receive instructions from Germany.
An alarming rumour circulated here this evening that German troops have landed on the Finnish coast. Dvinsk was occupied by the Germans yesterday afternoon. This places them 330 miles from Petrograd on the main line railway. The burning question is: will they come here or not?
Detachments of partisans are to be formed for the purpose of harassing the invaders. The Russian troops in retreat have been ordered to destroy everything, so that more frightful devastation will be committed in this already ruined country.
War correspondents’ headquarters. The German offensive is now undoubtedly very near. Evidence accumulates daily, especially convincing being the statements of prisoners taken recently. The German army firmly believes the event to be immediately impending.
An immense amount of training for the attack has been going on. Of that we have been assured by our airmen. To escape observation, much of the training is being done in remoter areas. Troops must be brought up at the last moment and largely during the night before. So they are being trained to make long marches of perhaps 20 miles to the hypothetical scene of action.
So far as our front is concerned, especial attention is being given to sectors between Arras and St Quentin. The training is largely in the nature of open fighting, for the Germans seem to count on breaking our lines and getting the warfare into the open country behind, in which they are going to be aided by the use of gas, tanks and trench mortars. There will probably be no obliterating bombardment such as has preceded most of our great attacks, but in the days before the assaultcounter-battery shooting, both with gas and high-explosive shells, and long spells of destructive fire on trenches, communications, billets, and so forth. Immediately before the attack there will be only a short burst of fire, behind which men are to come over in one grand rush, while immense numbers of mobile guns and trench mortars will push up behind the supporting troops.
Having just returned to the front, I would like to mention that people, especially women, at home seem to be writing to their men out here absurdly exaggerated stories of the hardships of queueing, and of the inadequate supplies of butter and margarine. Of course, it is nice to make interesting letters, and women are not exempt from the human love of exaggeration. But it is very unkind to the men. I am sure that if the women were really suffering they would conceal it from their men. It is only because it is the first inconvenience from the war that people at home make too much of it. But it is neither kind nor wise, for telling men depressing things cannot make them better soldiers, and the men out here are entitled to all the cheery news they can get.
M Trotsky is endeavouring to carry off with a high hand the humiliation of Bolshevism at Brest-Litovsk. In a characteristic message addressed to the world in general he explains that the tacit acquiescence of the Entente bourgeoisie enabled the German capitalists to impose upon the Bolshevists terms which they could not accept. At the same time the Bolshevists could not think of continuing to make war against their German and Austrian “comrades”. Orders have accordingly been issued for the complete demobilization of the Russian Army. The disciplined mind of the German bureaucracy, confronted with a vacuum, is beginning to exhibit symptoms of irritation, and M Trotsky is threatened with direct consequences if he persists in his refusal to “sign”.
The following Russian Wireless message, addressed “to all whom it may concern”, was received in London yesterday: Comrades, The peace negotiations are at an end. German capitalists, bankers, and landlords, supported by the silent cooperation of the English and French bourgeoisie, submitted to our comrades, the members of the peace delegation at Brest-Litovsk, conditions such as could not be subscribed to by the Russian Revolution. The Governments of Germany and Austria desire to possess countries and peoples vanquished by the force of arms. To this the authority of the Russian peoples of workmen and peasants could not give its acquiescence. We could not sign a peace which would bring with it sadness, oppression, and suffering to millions of workmen and peasants. But we also will not continue a war which was begun by Tsars and capitalists in alliance with Tsars and capitalists. We will not, and we must not, continue to be at war with Germans and Austrians — workmen and peasants like ourselves. We are not signing the peace of landlords and capitalists. Let German and Austrian soldiers know who are placing them in the field of battle, and let them know for what they are struggling. Let them know also that we refuse to fight against them. Russia, for her part, declares the present war with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria at an end. (Signed) L. Trotsky, President of the Russian Peace Delegation, and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs.
