Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-08-03
BY ROBERT WELLS RICHIE.
Universal Service staff Correspondent.


no Russian Napoleon may arise"
was the cry of Sir Donald Maclean
in the House of Commons during a
passionate speech attacking the gov
ernment's policy of armed itnerven
ton in the, affairs of Russia
His hearers need no chart to see
the analogy between Russia in revo-
luton today and France in the
throes Of its republican rebirth more
than 100 years ago, when the rag
ged revolutionary legions of General
Dumouriez met the armies of the
allies dispatched to crush a govern
ment of regicides in France, scat
tered them to the winds and opened
the path for the ensuing conquests
of Napoleon.
1t is a significant thing that Brit
ish statesmen and publicists are be-
ginning to ask more and more in
sistently: What business have the
allied armies on Russian terrtiory?"
The same questions are being asked
in the senate of the United States,
in the Chamber of France-in every
legislative body representing a flag
flying on Russian soil except that
Of the empire of Japan. There the
answer is so obvious that none
raises a question, because in this in
stance, at least, the Japanese are
more straightforward than their al
lies. Their flag stands in Siberia
for revenue only"
Something "Put Over"
To put the matter very bluntly,
has something been put over" on
the peoples of Britain, the United
States and France by certain astute
statesmen having their own or init
mate allied interests to serve?
In common with other American
correspondents in London and Paris,
the writer remembers very poign-
antly certain circumstances occur
ring late in March. Out of clear
sky suddenly came the announce
ment from Winston Churchill, min
ister of war, that the allied forces
in the Murmansk and Archangel
sectors of North Russia were in
F"grave peril" Unless they were i'm
mediately reinforced, said the min-
lister, the bolshevik armies might be
able to drive them into the sea as
soon as the spring thaw permitted
the moving of their gunboats on the
rivers.
This astounding pronouncement
was followed shortly thereafter by
an official statement from that bu-
rsau of the War department in Lon
don which supplies communicates to
the press. This statement was in
| the nature of military technical
application of Mr.. Churchill
alarming speech in the Commons.
1t was couched in the typical re-
pressed phrases which correspond
ents who had not been in London
during the darkest days of the war
had learned to interpret as indicative
of the worst fears.
The correspondents put this com
munique on the cables in all good
faith. Obviously there was no pos
sible means of verifying the state
ments set forth: Murmansk and
Archangel were about as iuaccessi-
Bile as the moon.
Shortly thereafter a succession oil
refugees" from Russia arriving al
Helsingfors, Stockholm, Beku and
even at Ravens as far distant as
| Rome and Paris began to floor the
press with horrendous accounts OF
b | S h evik outrages-whole sale
slaughters, the gouging out of eyes
crucifixions and nameless outra ges
on women. From Geneva, if my me.
/ mory serves me, came the prize
story of all the account of the of.
fetal Naturalization" of women
under the Bolshevik government.
In April the foreign office here
published a white Book" of more
than so pages wherein all the storie:
of all the refugees were collated anc
set forth in full; a few of the ex
cerpts from testimony had The
names of the witnesses appended
most were on the authority "of {
person known to the foreign office
These so odd pages simply drippec
gore and the smell of slaughte,
arose from every one.
But by the fraction of hair tn.