Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1921-09-03
Young Semenof's Career Is
Full of Ugly Adventure

$500 40 S1y $3.50
Semenoff is a figure that can hardly be
paralleled In European history Of any later
date than the wars of the Spanish Success
sion. He Is "throwback" produced by
the complete decentralization Of Russia and
by the abrupt retrogression Of all Europe
as result Of the great war. That retro
erosion has gone on to an extent which
would have been considered quite tmpos-
sible ten years ago. 1t has brought back
the powerful German people to the stage
in which they we're warning with the
Poles, and the Austrian people to the stage
in which they were contending not with
the French and the English but with the
scattered Slavonic tribes on their frontier.
Highwaymen are now the curse Of several
remote parts Of Germany, as they were
three hundred years ago, and some Of the
country houses have had meats built
around them again and watchmen sta.
toned on the walls in order to give warn.
ing Of the approach of raiders. Isolated
villages in the PrussoP Polish debatable land
have had to fortify themselves like Eng
lish villages on the Scottish border in the
year 1900.
Even as I write this there comes news
to me of the appearance Of a robber band
in one of the large forests which new re-
public in this part of Europe is trying to
sell to foreign capitalists 1t Ia not In
Esthonia, and am not going to say where
It is for these young states are extremely
ayerse to the circulation of reports which
might keep out foreign capital, but It
~ In Sor ypaI1 ad
gentleman from Wall Street, coming to
eastern Europe to inspect some property
to be strung up to one Of his own trees
by regular Robin Hood band Of outlaws.
Warfare in South Russia
Sinks to Level of 600 Years Ago
In the same way the warfare in Siberia,
South Russia, Poland. the Ukraine and the
Caucasus sank during the last three years
to the level of the warfare waged 900 years
ago The Ukrainian villages are all forti.
fled and fighting against each other, the
fighting being often for cattle and pigs in
stead of for high purposes Of imperial
policy, and being sometimes conducted
(this, admit, Is an anachronism) with
artillery and machine guns and armored
motor cars abandoned by the wreck OF the
Cars great army and worked by peasants
who served as artillerists, machine gunners
and motor drivers In that innumerable
host. The military leaders are very often
private soldiers, whose staff work is as
primitive as Tamerlane's.
Budenny the Bolshevik cavalry leader, Is
a Caucasian Cossack who can neither read
nor write, and the majority Of the other
leaders on both sides two years ago In
South Russia and Siberia had never risen
In the pre-war army above the rank Of Cap
tain, while very many of them had been
only N. C. O.s, privates and officers ser
wants. Gen. Gaida, the great Czecho-Slovak
leader in Siberia, had been only stretcher
bearer. Gen. Sirovi had been lawyers
clerk. Gen. sakharov the commander in
chief Of all Kolchak's armies, had never
been considered fit for more than cap
taincy during the great war. and his han
ding of the Omsk retreat showed that ne
ought never to have been anything more.
Sometimes good men rose to the top, al
always happens during revolutions. but al
rule 1t was the mud at the bottom thai
rose, owing to the complete decentralization
of the armies, on the principle, / suppose
that a brawny teamster with voice like 9
foghorn Is better fitted to control mule
outfit on corduroy forest tracks than an ex
merit and gentle voiced motor driver. accus