The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-28
RUSSIANS ID BLAME FOR M|SFORTUNES IN POLISH TERRITORY
Officials Carelessly Allowed Germans to Settle in Best GrOund-Changed Sides
 With Every Occupation
By FREpERIck WERNER

Berlin, March 21.-fSpecial. .)-Nisitine the other day one of the places where Russian officers are kept prisoners had the opportunity of a long conversa- ton with a high Russian officer When l asked this highly cultured Russian how he explained that the Germans had stayed for SO many months in Polish territory, he smiled and said that the cafelessness of Russian officials in the past was the cause
 At the beginning of the war he said,
 Novoe Nremya published a map show Ing Russian soil in the hands of German proprietors. It was like an immense black ribbon encrclng all European Russia from the shore of the Baltic. along the Austrian frontier and even along Turkey to the Caucasus.
 If the Germans have stayed so Ions in Poland instead of concentrating in the west and breaking through to Paris before the large British endorsements arrive, it is not merely from strategic reasons but much because they want ed to settle down permanently in a dis trict which they have long considered a new East Prussia.
 Sympathies With Berlin
 Everywhere the Germans are mast CTS, and the Russians their slaves, mere 'Russenknechts,' and Russen- naeSue. The people speak nothing bul German, their habits and customs are German, and their sympathies are with Berlin.
 Before the war their German military bodies openly paraded everywhere on German national holidays and loudly af- firmed their loyalty to the Kaiser, while our easy going Russian officials did not consider it worth while to interfere.
 Then the war came, and it became too dangerous to glorify the 'Deutsche Heinmath. Our Russian papers talked Of sweeping the frontier clear of these obnoxious guests of forcing them to sell the estates of which they had robbed the chldlike Russian peasants and sending them back to the "vaterand" forever But everywhere the portraits of the Kaiser had disappeared as if by magic and the Russian coors were flying every where over the German settlements. In every village bills were posted forbid ding the use of the German language and towneries went through the streets loudly proclaiming that in three days everybody must speak Russian As, however, the women understood nos single word Russian and the men spoke it badly these announcements were made in German
 The glorifiers of the vaterland had suddenly become Russian patriots until the first German troops crossed the
 
 the enemy in every way.
 The recent bombardment of the Dardanelles has given rise to dis cussion here as to whether the Brit ish fleet perhaps eff the worst should happen) strengthened by American warships, might not be able to force a way into Wilhelmshaven and destroy the German navy.
 Military experts, however. ridicule the idea of such a thing and with a smile of contempt they add that hap oily British shortsightedness in cading the island of Heligoland to Germany has made such a catastrophe impos- Sible.
 Is Anything Impregnable?
 Heligoiand, German experts agree, makes the chief naval base of Germany absolutely impregnable since German ingenuity has transformed the island with it's inaccessible cliffs into a sec end Gibraltar.
 In the center of the island stands tlfe most powerful lighthouse in the world and forts of the strength of which no one has any idea make a successful naval attack utterly impossible. Since the war began the entire civilian pop ulation has been ordered out of the island and every house and tree has been leveled with the ground to give absolute freedom to the enormous guns. The beach below the island is an enormous fortress bristling with countless guns. Twelve hundred me tres from the island of Heligoland lies a barren sand island which during the last months has been strengthened