The Washington herald., 1918-12-15
INFECTION RUNS
THROUGH VEINS OF EUROPE
American Food, Cash and Sanity Has New
Victory to Win for Democracy Over
the Menace of Anarchy.

! of the Bolsheviks, the arrival of allied
squadrOns.
Warships OF the entente will arEo
enter the Baltic, and, sailing over
the swept minefislds and past the
dismantled fortresses and coastal
batteries of Germany. pass into the
/ Gulf of Finland and assail the forth
( fed naval base of Kronstadt. whose
capture would seal the fate OF
Petrograd and bring promise of life
to its miserable million of starving
inha bitants.
Military critics here do not think
the Bolshevik government is in any
position to offer effective resistance
to these two indicated moves on the
military chessboard. The capture Of
Odessa and the deliveranCe of the
population of South Russia from
famine will at the same time cut
off the Bolsheviks in the North from
the bulk of food supplies which
must nourish European Russia,
while an allied army based on the
Gulf of Finland could be supplied
with great ease and could operate
with secure and ample lines OF COM
muniCation.
No tremendous campaigns in Rus
Id HFtu bt NOhAtll pldltu. DtCduSt
the fighting force of the Bolsheviks
is very small There have never
been more than $4,000 Red Guards
actually equipped and willing to
fight for their terrorist leaders,
whose sole strength has lain in the
fact that our forces hitherto could
not get them excepting by crossing
thousands of miles of Siberian ter
ritOry, or working from bases inside
the Arctic Circle down a single line OF
railway across wastes of frozen
desert and treacherous marsh.
Confusion in Germany.
The overthrow OF Germany, then.
I has sealed the doom OF the Bolshe-
vlks and after a few more months
at the most of torture and famine,
| the harassed people of Muscovy
may expect deliyerance and will at
once turn to America, the new
universal provlder, to tide them over
until transport and agriculture can
be Strengthened out sufficiently to
enable Russia. with her unlimited
resources, to provide for her own
needs.
In Germany the situation at pre-
sent is too confused to permit de-
Gus similarity to the earlier stages
of the Russian revolution. Just as
in Petrograd, Kerensky ousted
Prince Lvoff and formed a socialist
government upon which the extrem-
lists were given scanty recognition.
so in Berlin the Majority Socialists
under Ebert have dismissed with
scant ceremony Prince Max and
taken into their councils three indie
pendent Socialists who tend towards $
the extremist faction. As in Russia,
Lcnipe refused to join the "bour-
geois" government of Kerensky, so Is
Liebknecht now standing out
I have just seen an intercepted
wireless message from the Russian
terrorist junta to Liebknecht urging
him to rouse the German people to
real red revolution and Join hands
with Russia to overthrow the capi-
talist governments of the rest of
the world. Upon the stand taken
by Liebknect, upon his decision to
support a real moderate socialist
republic or to go in for terrorism,
depends the fate of Germany in the
coming months. And what line the
popular leader who was imprisoned
for two years by the Kaiser for his
outspoken criticisms in the Reichs-
tag will take Is yet to be deter
mined.
No Desire TO Police Germany.
The allies. however. must prepare
for the worst 1t is evident that II
the terrorist commune gets control
in Berlin, military Intervention, from
the Rhine line where our troops are
now advancing. can be undertaken
swiftly. for Germany is not pro-
tected by the vast wastes that make
the invasion of Russia so dif1cult.
Here and in France such a course
Oh action would hA viewed with