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Whilst the Allies in the West await the shock of the renewed German onslaught, events develop in the East which, if less spectacular and much slower in their pro- gress, are nevertheless of possibly even graver import to the fittliee of the new Europe than the issue of one battle out of many, which may not, after all, be a, real turning-point of the war. These events call urgently for a Russian policy on the part of the Allies in general, and a Near Emterri-- Central Asian policy on the part of the Brit- ish Government in particular. The Ger- mans have their policy; it is simple, easy of execution, and is progressing allace. The Allies have no common policy towards Rus- sia, and no measures to propose beyond the Idiea of a Japanese intervention in Siberia, which, it is understood, is blocked in America from quite good and disinterested Reasons. The enemy's policy is plain enough. A great belt of territory miming from ttte Arc- tic Ocean through Finland,. Esthonia, Litlm- j ania, Russian Poland, the Ukraine, the Crimea, the Russian Caucasus,, from the White Sea to the Caspian, is being seized and gripped tight by military, political, and economic infiltration. This area bars inland Russ ia from any access to the sea, any com- munication with Western friends except by the enormously long Siberian-Pacific Ocean route, and establishes a great highway to Central Asia. It includes the chief grain- growing region of Russia, the ore fields, and great mineral deposits. The Germans arc assured of many millions of new customers, of .grain in abundance -,when the harassed and distracted land has had a little order and scientific guidance, and, in brief, a vast reservoir of new strength, in men, in" food, in industry and commerce. By river, rail I,iid sea the Ger- mans control a route which runs from Berlin to the shores of the Caspian. It is for the time being impossible for the Allies even to approach it. The German stands upon the borders of Russian Central Asia, and his alliance with the Turk promises a favourable introduction to swarms of Mo- hammedans, who inhabit that zone. The menace to Europe and the world at large consists in the probability tha,t Ger- many, once she is consolidated in Russia, will not only greatly expand her present strength and permanently dispel any fear of the recurrence of her present chief weak- ness—shortness in men and food-but will pursue in another continent, Asia, the am- bitions that have made harvoc in Europe. Unless, moreover, some radical alteration as made in Russia, it is exceedingly hard to discover how a' situation could be reached after the war which would deprive Germany of the power for mischief implied in her future position of a big, solid State, whose people are endowed. with conspicuous abilities, standing alone on the borders of a. welter of little States, all more or less independent, but all liable to be drawn within her sphere, as the satel- lites revolve around the big planet. "Restoration" is one of the Allied princi- ples, and keystones of an Allied peace. But what do we propose to restore in Russia? Not Ozardom, which has fallen; not a re- sponsible, capable and liberal Government, for that has to be created, and cannot be restored because it never existed. Once the kard core of Czardom, with the system of Government which had crystallised around it and slowly developed since Peter the Great, had been cracked and 'crushed, there remained nothing. Rule in Russia drifted into the hands of a subversive and hope- lessly wrong-headed group of fanatics, w.ho brought all to ruin, and such educated and responsible middle-class as -existed between the fanatical demagogues and the bureaucrat of Ozardom proved utterly impoteftt and incapable. Russia disintegrated rapidly, and it hardly Heeded the exterior pressure applied from Germany to dissolve into a seething mob of peoples and revolutionaries which had once shown so smooth and bold a facade to the world, apparently solid as anite, as the Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks are re- ported to have shown latterly some sign of penitence and to lean more favourably to Alliim-whom they.have hitherto depicted as capitalists, neither more nor less the com- mon enemy than German capitalism. But when they request, should they request, practical support to enabLe them to recon- struct a Russia that could make head in the field against the small bUt audacious Ger- man units which do as they like in Russia, and in the Council Chamber against the more subtler and deadlier influence of the pro- German agent, all their past sins rise up in judgment against them—the squandered millions, the many thousands of British and French slain by the fire of the guns whom the Bolsheviks so basely abandoned to the German. The incompetence of the Bolshevik is de- monstrated beyond cavil; his good faith is, to put it mildly, more than suspect. The one practical measure which at the moment indubitably engages the attention of "the Allied Powers is the matter of preventing German penetration from proceeding beyond the Urals and mastering Siberia. This in its tarn has widened from an original project with the modest aim merely to preserve the vast accumulations of munitions at Vladivo- stok into the idea that via the Siberian railway—which ha.s been double-tracked- Japan could gi ve moral and military sup. port sufficient to enable a Russian Govern- TfJ^nt to stand up again and speak with the rltikrty within its gates without the dread of ?Bing over-run promptly by armies which, However email and poor in quality, are at stny rate in direction and leadership far more than a match for any rabble that could be put in the field against them. America, however, does not adhere to the generally favourable view of the idea which is takeii in Europe. The point of the Ameri- can objection is that the Russians, fearing aggrandisement by the Japanese called in to help them in their troubles, may receive the Japanese with active hostility, or may re- gard their intervention as proof that the Allies have, like the Germans, resolved to partition and spoliate downcast and helpless Russia for their own profit and gain. It is a Serious objection in view of the irrational suspicion with which so much of Russian opinion regards the Allies. For the moment It prevents any active step, and the field is prieanwhile left open to the Germans. It is the obligation of Allied representatives who remain in Russia to ascertain and to con- vince the present rulers that the Allied iu- tentions a.re purely disinterested, and it is through friendship, and a desire to raise up ii, Russia herself despairing of her own cause, that they contemplate an' invasion from the East to offset the invasion from the West. The Chinese and Japanese Governments have, however, between themselves, drafted the lines upon which they will take joint Paction to check further anarchy or a Ger- 1-nic advance in Siberia; and the Coosack leader, Somenoff, is gradually restoring some sort of control which is at any rate Rmbi-C-rrnan as well as anti-Bolshevik, Kbrougjh Eastern Siberia. And in Mr. Wil- Jwn the Allies possess an advocate who may yet be persuasive and convincing in Russia tohere they themselves, through the voice of Jiheir European counsellors, have faiiled. For khe moment German activity, moreover, may pe concentrated upon Russian Central Asia. ttreaty of peace is being concluded with he Caucasian peoples who might have threatened communications over the Black tea, south of the Caucasus, to the Caspian nd northern Persia, a/nd in this case Russia ind Siberia may obtain a deliberately ar. janged respite. It is in this quarter that the glisf peril to the British Empire lies. Ih« wa,r is rapidliy creating wholly new %Mditiew in Asiatio warfare. Tracks whjfj$' can carry motor traffic do away with much of the obstacles that the great distances for- merly presented to the movements of armies encumbered with an elaborate equipment. A road, railway and inland sea system of communication exists between Russia, Turkey and Central Asia, and there are upon I the road thithor a. large number of fighting tribes who could be drawn upon to provide the nucleus for enemy-led native armies. Germany, installed in Tashkend and Khiva, would be a far more real peril to the Indian Empire than ever Russia even was in the days of Skobeloff. The potential enemy is sb much mora dangerous in quality, science has abolished so many of the handi- caps which formerly safeguarded India tlia great trackless aud almost waterless and foodless spaces—and an avenue of approach also lies open through North Persia. Pushed away from the line of direct; access to the Persian Gulf by our success- ful campaigns in Mesopotamia, the Germans, with their customary strategy of testing another weak spot, are now likely to ex- pend their Eastern energies upon a new line of advance south of and across the Caspian. If our Indian resources had been adequately drawn upon we could probably place in the field in Persia an army amply sufficient to deal with any effort that the Germans are likely to instigate in that quarter for a. long time to come. A decisive military victory in the West would solve many of, our difficulties in the East, but it would still leave the Allies confronted with a disintegrated Russia misruled by a dozen incompetent govern- ments with no visible sign of capable and sagacious successors. If would still leave? the Russian Empire severed into so many units that they would jointly offer no prospect. of that restraint upon Germany which the Russian Empire used to exerelse; until the outbreak of war in 1914. Never- theless, whilst-straining every nerve to at- lain the end of the overthrow of the German legions 'in the field--ai)d we do not share General Smuts' apparent belief that other methods must supplement purely military means to attain that end—we have to de- vise a policy of encouraging Russian inde- I pendence, of resisting the multifarious and insidious German infiltration, and of takr ing in time due military measures to thwart further German progress, either in the north in Siberia, in the centre towards Middle Asia, or in the south through Persia. The breaking down of German military resistance, and the securing of a remodelled Europe can be effected by force, but it will assure no guarantee against the recru-des- ceiice in the future of new German ambi- tions and plottings unless there is a revo- lution in the entire Rental attitude of the German people, upon which we find it diffi- cult to calculatev We have not only to pull down a German imperialism which' rests upon military autocracy, but to build. up a Russian liberal and orderly govern- ment upon the ruins of Czardom and Bol- shevism. In the long run we see no reason to despair of either aim. Historical expe- rience is that, whether the impulse towards aggrandisement Conies from men or sys- I, tems, conquerors or philosophers, it does not long survive defeat in the field. It promises also that in time the Russian people will revert to a government based upon the only lines upon which a country can survive, with a prosperous and pro- gressive people. I

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