Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-09-01

and swamp-and swamp of the va
riety that sucked up those lost
legions of Russia in the Manchurian
lakes region in the early days of
the war. Except along the streams,
the country was very sparsely popu-
lated. Here and there one finds a
small clearing, inhabited by a few
wood cutters or trappers, or few
peasants. 1t is indeed forest
primeval, with untapped treasures
beyond the dreams of man.
Revolt Prevented.
Immediately after the bolsheviki
departed from Archangel, a provin-
cial government was established,
which was practically the same as
had existed under the Kerensky re-
gime. A few days after the Amer
leans arrived this provincial gov
ernment was kidnapped by a Rus
sian colonel named Chaplain, bodily
taken aboard a boat, and shipped
out into the White sea. This coup
d'etat was really engineered by the
British. who we're finding some
trouble in getting the government
to do Just what they wished them
to do, and they desired to estab-
fish one more to their own liking.
In the meantime the street car EN-
ployes went on a strike in protest,
and the British Immediately ordered
! the American engineers to work
running the street cars to break the
strike. At this un-American act, our
ambassador, David R. Francis, edit
or of The St. Louis Republic, pro-
tested in words both forceful and
full of meaning and foot sweet"
forced Chaplain to return the gov
eminent and the strikers went back
to work. Thus the first revolution
was nipped in the bud before it
really got good start. Other at
tempts were made to overthrow the
government, but met with no better
success.
There seemed to be an impress
sion among those who had been in
Russia the longest, that the mere
sight of the allies, with their pres
ence and food, would cause the Rus
SLAMS to wildly scramble over one
another in a magnificent rush to
arms against the mob that was
strangling their country, and who,
it was stated, were being urged on
by Germans and by German propas
ganda. Such evidently had been the
report of these first corners to the
supreme allied command in France
But the Russians did not flock to
arms. No, there was not the
slightest scramble noticeable.
The English had sent up prob
ably 500 officers and as many non
CONS to organize this vast Russian
army that was supposed to spring
to arms at the sight of the allies
and didn't spring. The feelers of the
pulse of Russia had just made an
other wild guess.
The truth is that the average Rus,
sian was pretty we'll "fed up" on
fighting. He'd beent through the
war on the eastern front and a cou-
pie of revolutions thrown in, and he |
couldn't see where he had benefited |
materially, and he wasn't exactly
what you could call enthusiastic. |
This new-found freedom, with it's
utter chaos, was something he
couldn't just understand. 1t was too
different from what he'd been used
to. What wanted was enough
grub to live on and no work to do.
Wasn't that the bolshevik promise?
Then again, the Russian had a mis-
giving as to just why the allies were
in Russia. He had been sold out so
many times in the last couple of
years that he wasn't quite sure just
who he could trust, and was reluc-
tant to take chances.
Rumors were rampant that the
allies were in Russia to get a slice