Turmoil in Russia

A section of the battlefield after a recent advance: a village captured by the British on the...
A section of the battlefield after a recent advance: a village captured by the British on the Western Front. — Otago Witness, 14.11.1917.
The fog that is enveloping the progress of events in Russia will gradually lift, no doubt, but it is particularly thick at present, and, in the circumstances, clearness of vision is out of the question.

The frequently conflicting statements contained in despatches from various correspondents at Petrograd, and in reports from other sources, serve only to accentuate the bewildering character of the story, as it has so far been supplied, of the "second revolution" in Russia. The one gleam of satisfaction be be derived from the latest cablegrams is afforded in certain statements that seem to indicate that the revolutionaries are, after all, not so strong as they have been represented to be. The "perfect order" which the Maximalists were reported to have established in Petrograd has turned out, as might have been anticipated, to be distinctly a fiction. If it is not a fiction, then we must disregard entirely the report that a veritable battle is being fought in the streets of the city. Not that, in any case, we can implicitly trust the more recent reports. We are told, for instance, that the Cossacks and the Maximalist troops have placed the Leninist troops in a very difficult position. When the Maximalists are credited with co-operating with the Cossacks against the Leninists, we may as well abandon the attempt to straighten out the tangle.

That the vast majority of the population of Russia are fully prepared to obey and be perfectly loyal to any Government which will ensure order is the opinion of the Daily Telegraph’s Russian correspondent, and it only indicates how ripe the Russian masses are to be played upon and led as easily to their national undoing as to their welfare.

Value of tanks

In his despatches around Ypres early in August, Mr H. Perry Robinson made special reference to the good work done by the tanks. Their service, he said, was not general or equal on all parts of the battle front, because in many places there was no need of them, for our infantry swept on unchecked. It is only where a trench is obstinate, or where a very strong redoubt resists the immediate attack of our infantry, that the tanks get their chance. Wherever that chance came the tanks took it in spite of bad ground and sometimes heavy gunfire. Some of the landships were fighting and under gunfire for 17 hours at a stretch, and one stayed out and made a night of it, having 24 hours continuous work before it got home to breakfast. The ground in places was much too soft for such elephantine beasts as tanks.

Use of Anzac

Apparently it has so far been beyond the wit of man to devise a descriptive name which shall include Australians and New Zealanders in happy union. "Australasian" is a clumsy word, and most people in the Home Country regard it simply as a variant of "Australian". The crisp felicitiousness of "Anzac" is, or should be, sacred to the glories of one immortal episode, and its use in a wide connotation carries a suspicion of charlatancy. Besides, we require a word to serve in the coming years of peace as well as during the brilliant and tragic co-operation of war. In the meantime, the people of this dominion must tolerate the slovenly practice of English writers who mention "Australians" when they mean "Australians and New Zealanders". — ODT, 13.11.17

 

• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ

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