New-York tribune., 1918-07-07
Who Backs the Czecho-Slovaks :?

Who Backs the Czecho-Slovaks?
Washington dispatches hint that the
Administration is now inclinlng toward
military intervention in Russia. 1t is an
nounced that the Inter-Allied War Coun-
ell has urgently recommended both eco
nomic and military intervention and
that General Foch joins in this view.
The need of military action, both on
the Siberian side and on the Arctic lit
toral, is obvious. The Allies are already
in Russia. They hold the port of Kola
and its approaches. Finland is threaten
ing to seize the Murmansk railroad and
the military supplies which have been ac-
cumulated at its northern terminal. If
the Firms, spurred on by Germany,
should invade Arctic Russia the Allies
would have to resist them. Russia can't,
and is doubtful whether the Lenine
government" would do anything more,
in any event, than issue paper protest.
In Siberia the case for intervention is
even clearer. The Czecho -Slovaks, whose
feats constitute one Of the thrilling
romances of the war, have seized the
vital parts of the Siberian railroad.
With the assent of the mass of the ST.
berian population they have taken pos
session of the great stretch of road from
Lake Baikal west to the Urals. They
also hold Vladivostok. With only mod
crate reinforcement of Allied troops
they could easily clear the whole Siberian
line up to and beyond the borders Of
Russia proper.
The Lenine government" still has a
few armed partisans in Siberia. But the
Siberians generally have washed their
hands of it. Siberia is practically an in
dependent political entity. 1t is new
state in process of formation. The Allies
do not violate Russian sovereignty-if
such thing any longer exists-by en-
tering Siberia. Washington dispatches
say that the inhabitants of Vladivostok
and the adjoining country welcomed the
ly as the Alsatians welcomed the French
armies in August, 1914.
1t must also be remembered that the
Czecho-Slovaks are Allied troops. They
are being paid by France. There are
$500 Dalmatians at Vladivostok now
serving under the Italian flag. British,
French American and japanese marines
are also there. 1t is, therefore, not
question of initiating intervention, but
of reaping the fruits Of an intervention
which is already under way.
If Russia had any sovereignty left the
restrictions Of international usage might
make us hesitate. But neither in ST.
IBERIA nor in the Kola Peninsula does the
Lenine government" any longer figure
as de facto sovereign. Nor does it fig
ure as such in any part of the former
Russian Empire which Germany pleases
to occupy. Finland, as preliminary to
seizing Carelia, the railroad to Kola and
kola itself, is about to declare war, not
on Lenine, but on the Allies.
In the military and political sense
Russia is sovereignty in suspense
There is no Russian nation. No one
knows it's boundaries. The only boundary
that counts any longer is that on which
opposition may be rallied to the German
ization of Russia. Russia in dissolution
can be saved and reestablished only by
undoing the work of Lenine and Kuhl-
mann at Brest-Litovsk.
The practical way to undo that work
is to set by military means limit to
German penetration. Allied intervention
alone can free the Russians from the
German grip. Facing the international
chaos existing in the former Russian
Empire, the Allied nations have no time
to bubble over inapplicable niceties.
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