Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1917-12-28

&N CtAiC " Will ah VI NCAAi1
charge of the ordnance bureau. The
energy and ability Of these two men
lead to the confident belief that here
after war supplies will come forward
more rapidly. The soldiers they have
temporarily replaced, Generals Sharpe
and Crozier, have been ousted upward
into the superior wal council.
Much of the testimony of red tape
delays and mistaken judgments of
war department officials heard by the
senate committee is not pleasant read
ing and 1t is needless to rehearse it.
The remedy for the conditions revealed
is being applied, though rather late.
Surgeon General Gorgas added to the
uncomfortable feeling by a frank re-
port showing health conditions In
some of the training camps are very
bad, due in part TO shortage of warm
clothing and tents, and to poor heat
ing plants. For the delay in supply
ing winter clothing the war depart
ment said the national council of de-
Tense must be blamed.
AS for the navy, the first day of the
house committees inquiry showed that
1T was in full fighting trim and that In
the matter of supplies little attention
was being paid to red tape. After AID
miral MCGOWAN had been heard, Rep
r%esentative Britten remarked: II
thought we might find some soft spots
in this bureau of supplies and accounts,
but we don't seem to get at them"
Secretary Daniels told the committee
he was rather proud of the way the
navy has met the actual test of war.
Russo-German Peace Plans.
The spotlight was centered on Rus
STA again last week and every develop
ment of the complicated situation
there was watched with the greatest
interest. The negotiations between
Germany and the bolsheviki govern
ment went forward and 1t was evident
the kaiser was hurrying matters so
as to have a peace treaty signed be-
fore the Lenine crowd should fall.
Trotzky still insisted that they sought
a general and not a separate peace,
and in pursuance of that he invited
the entente allies to take part in the
negotiations. Meanwhile trade rela-
tons between the Germans and the
Russians were reopened and the for
mer began getting fats, vegetables and
other things for which they have been
suffering.
One obstacle to the separate peace
plan has sprung up In the central
powers, where the Socialists have de-
lclared their opposition to 1t, fearing
that 1t will strengthen German imper-
ialists and forcibly wipe out German
socialism. The Hungarian socialists
at a great meeting declared the plan
presented the greatest possible danger
to democracy. The Russian govern
ment was said to have been notified
by Germany hat it Intended to make
peace proposals to all the allies.
Civil War Continues.
Fighting between the boisheviki
and the Cossacks continued through
the week and the most reliable adj
vices indicate the latter generally
were victors. Ensign Kreylenko, the
bolsheviki commander in chief, was
enabled by the armistlee to withdraw
lage forces from the front but his eff
forts to send them after the Cossacks
were blocked by the Ukrainians. The
Ukraine rada refused to permit max
imalist troops to cross Its territory and
when b~olshevlki troops attacked the
rada as 1t was sitting In Odessa they
were defeated by Ukrainian forces.
The Orenburg Cossacks occupied
Tcheliabinsk, a junction point on the
Traps-Siberian railway, and the Don
Cossacks under Kaledines We're re-
perated by the persistence of their op-
ponents, the bolsheviki are adopting
drastic methods against them, includ-
ing the reinstatement of the death
penalty. The disorders in Petrograd
were so serious that a state of siege
was proclaimed.
The latest information concerning
Kerensky was a dispatch from Hapa-
randa saying that he was marching
against Moscow at the head Of an ar
my, and from the same source came
the statement that Grand Duke Mich
olas had gathered a great army Of roy
allsts in the Caucasus. One Petrograd
correspondent says there are signs of
an attempt inspired by Germany to re-
place the former czar on the throne {;
another thinks the bolsheviki have
such q plan, and the Siberians have
been said to favor Nicholas. 1t may
well be the widespread belief that the
Russian monarchy viii be restored
will be justified.