The Knoxville independent. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1918-08-24

Geneva dispatches said the Austria
Swiss frontier was closed for some
days and all trains were full of Aus
trian troops going to the Italian front,
which was taken to mean another COM
ing offensive there However, the Ital-
ians were ready for 1t and daily I'M
proved their positions, especially in
the mountains.
In Albania the Austrians evacuated
all points held by them south of the
Semeni river.
An amazing development is the seiz-
ure of Baku, center of the Caspian sea
oil district. by a British force which
made US way up through Mesopotamia
9yn ana Persia.
The parlous condition of the central
powers resulted in kaiser confer
ence" at German main headquarters
which was attended by the rulers OF
Germany and Austria and their Chief
advisers and by representatives ofYfhe
Turks, Bulgarians and Russian Dolsne-
Wiki. The internal situation In hus-
tria-Hungary especially is growing
worse-or rather better-daily PIX
plosion there almost any day WpQid
not greatly surprise anyone BulaHfla
Of EinU 1U1V H{5fn
its confederates, and as for Turkey ne
general public knows nothing OF at
is going on there or what Is expeRled
IA
The situation in Russia, inclHllng
Siberia also is improving, fofnfhe
FORCES Jppcse1 70 tlis D6zs
the Germans are growing strongly sani
amalgamating- The possibility of es
tablishing an eastern front that Twill
seriously worry the Huns is being con
sidered, especially since the supreme
government Of the northern Territory,
embracing half a dozen districts, has
declared itself opposed to the Germ bans
and ready to fight them. Possession
of the port of Archangel and the 4lur-
man coast gives the allies an inlet
for troops to help this movement. That
Germany recognizes the menace is evil
dent from the facts that she Is sending
more soldiers from the west front to
Russia, and has ordered Finland to
prepare to make war on the people OF
Murmansk and the allies there. Dis
patches from Helsingfors declared the
Germans intend to occupy Petrograd
though what they would gain by pos
session of that hunger-stricken city is
not apparent. Lenine and Trotsky
and their soviet government were re-
ported to have fled from Moscow to
KrOnstadt, the great fortress near
Petrograd, and to have placed the exc
cution of power in the hands Of tri.
umvirate composed Of Lenine, Trotsky
and Zinovieff. Lenine also issued q
manifesto urging the pitiless annihila.
ton of all er-revolutionaries
Moscow being admittedly in the con.
troll of the counter-revolutionlst the
German embassy also fled from that
city to Pskov, which greatly perturbed
the German press.
The diplomats of all the allied pow.
ers, now living on warships at Arch.
angel, have demanded of Trotsky an
explanation of his threat that Russia
would declare war against Anglo
French Imperialism"
-n-
The first American regiment sent tC
Siberia, the Twenty-seventh regular In.
fantry from Manila, landed at Vladi
vostok Thursday, and other Yankees
are on the way.
The CzechO-Slovaks In eastern ST.
IBERIA now have the assistance of Brit
ish and French forces which landed al
Vladivostok and Joined them In the
Usuri river valley. Those In western
Siberia were last reported as engaged
in desperate battle with q large boil.
shevill army.
A long step forward in the moral
support of these fighting Czechs and
of their fellow nationals who are in
rebellion against Austria Hungary was
the formal recognition by Great Brit,
ain of the Czecho-Slovaks as an al
lied nation and of their armies as an
allied force regularly waging warfare
against the central powers. 1t Is
hoped and believed America and other
allied nations will follow the example
of Great Britain.
Last weeks dispatches told Of furi
GUS and bloody riots against the Ger
mans in several Russian cities, caused
by the attempts of the Huns to seize
foodstuffs.
81
! The activities of German U-boats of
the Atlantic coast have grown SO an
noying that the cabinet is said to have
| 6av0fad a Inu0 rsnoatipo ~ 5san,...s :, ,