afternoon and Mr. Lansing called his attention to various facts which he had about the obstructive tactics of the Japanese military party in Siberia, pointing out the violation of the original agreement regarding the number of troops, showing how the settlement of the railroad problem was being postponed by Japan's opposition, and calling the Ambassador's attention to the work of General Takishima.

The Secretary of State pointed out the obvious outcome of the developments in Siberia if the Japanese military party was permitted by the Japanese Government to continue its policies and activities in Siberia. Just what words the Secretary used to impress Viscount Ishii with the seriousness of the situation I do not know. One version is that he told the Japanese Ambassador he hoped the work of the military party would not cause a break in the good relations between the United States and Japan, and another version says that the Secretary pointed out how the activities of the Japanese military party were very similar to those of the German war party and that the latter had already led to a war between Germany and the United States.

Viscount Ishii returned to the embassy in Washington and dispatched a long code message to Tokio, which arrived there on a Sunday night. As is customary, Secretary Lansing sent a copy of his remarks to United States Ambassador Roland S. Morris in Tokio for the information of the Ambassador. Mr. Morris was at this time acting as the chief diplomatic observer and official for the United States in Siberia. On Monday morning Ambassador Morris called at the Tokio Foreign Office, only to be informed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs could not see him for two or three days.

During these critical days of early November there developed a political storm in Japan. Information as to the attitude of the United States quickly reached the Japanese statesmen and business men through the Foreign Office. Word was sent, too, to the Japanese War and Navy Departments, and a series of conferences was begun to determine the future

relations between the United States and Japan. The war party was for defying America. The business interests and peace statesmen, who learned for the first time of the activities of the Japanese Army in Siberia, sided with the United States. For three days the debate continued, and during this period no one knew whether there was war or peace ahead.

SETBACK FOR WAR PARTY

But within four days the sane elements of Japan triumphed. The war party met its first great defeat at the hands of its own people. The Japanese Government telegraphed new orders to General Otani immediately. He was instructed to send back to Japan 35,000 soldiers. A few days later another order was sent to him in Vladivostok ordering the return of 17,000 men. Another order still was dispatched ordering General Takishima to Tokio, and, after most of these troops had left Siberia, General Inagaki, Chief of Staff of the Japanese General Staff in Vladivostok, a gentleman and a diplomat, who with General Otani was not in thorough sympathy with the tactics of General Takishima, called upon Major Gen. William S. Graves, the American commander in Siberia, to express the regrets of the Japanese staff for past practices and to state that thereafter Japan and the United States would work together in complete harmony in Siberia.

For the time being it looked as if the victory in Japan over the war party was complete, but those who thought all difficulties were at an end underestimated the influence of General Takishima. He was the chief politician of the Japanese military party. He was Japan's Ludendorff. When he arrived in Tokio another political storm appeared, which resembled a typhoon in its suddenness and effect. All the anti-American sentiment in Japan came to his support. The military and naval parties united, and, for a time, it looked as if the Cabinet might fall because of the opposition of these two groups. In the United States, perhaps, their power is not realized, but it can be readily explained.

According to the Japanese custom and

law, no Cabinet can be formed without a Secretary of War and a Secretary of the Navy chosen from the highest ranking officers in the War and Navy Departments. These two departments combined lead the war party. They control the Secretaries of War and Navy as long as they are members of the Ministry, and they decide whether a new Cabinet in process of formation shall have their support. Thus, in practice, no Cabinet can be formed and no Cabinet can live without the support of the War and Navy Departments or the war party.

EFFECT OF ARMISTICE

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This club was in the hands of General Takishima, and he was on the point of wielding it with great power when Germany collapsed and the armistice was signed. The fall of the German military party was something which the Japanese military and naval leaders never pected, and their power was so great, their astonishment so complete, that they would not believe the telegraphic news of Germany's humiliation. For twentyfour hours they prohibited the Japanese newspapers from printing the terms of the naval armistice, and withheld the details of the land armistice. Finally, when the news dispatches were firmed by official telegrams, they realized that, for the time being, their fight was at an end and the peace party in Tokio could not be overthrown.

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By the first part of February, however, the war party had again appeared on the political horizon, and had a sufficient amount of influence with the Tokio Cabinet to block still the efforts of the United States, acting on behalf of all the other Allies, to bring about an agreement as to the reorganization and operation of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The Japanese military party had been working secretly in Siberia despite the events of early November. Through financial and moral support of the Japanese, General Semenoff, the 28-year-old Cossack in Tchita, was interfering with the transportation of supplies to the Czechoslovak armies. Semenoff was refusing, also, to recog

nize the Kolchak dictatorship. At one time the Czechoslovaks were on the point of attacking Semenoff when the Japanese stopped the military trains.

Thus, in February, the State Department in Washington was compelled again to bring the issue of the operation of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to a decision. Again the attention of the Japanese Government was called to the fact that a policy which the Allies had agreed upon five months pervious was still undeveloped because of the opposition of Japan's war party.

At this time every Chamber of Commerce in Japan, every large importing and exporting house, every large financial institution, and every statesman who had been working for Japanese-American friendship united in supporting that party in Japan which sought a solution for the difficult Russian railroad problem, and an agreement was reached-the understanding which was but recently announced by Acting Secrtary of State Polk. Under this agreement the TransSiberian Railway is to be operated under the direction of an allied board and under the protection of an allied military staff. The Japanese war party, for the present at least, is impotent, but recent reports from the Far East indicate that this party is still active and that it is at work on a new plan of invasion to begin next Spring, according to which the 52,000 troops which were withdrawn from Siberia last November and December are to be sent back supported by 50,000 more.

[By March 15, 1919, American troops had begun taking control of strategic points on the Trans-Siberian Railway west of Vladivostok as far as Tchita. On the Ussuri branch they had already been stationed at Spasske and Khabarovsk. Czech troops were guarding the line from Irkutsk to Cheliabinsk, and Japanese troops were guarding the Chinese Eastern Railway. The whole railway system was being rapidly reorganized by Mr. Stevens with the various allied contingents all assisting in apparent harmony.]

OLAND

GERMANY/

in North Russia were 460, of which 192 were killed or missing.

IN THE BALTIC PROVINCES The Bolshevist advance into Esthonia lagged somewhat. An official statement issued by the Esthonian Army Headquarters Feb. 27 reported severe fighting near Narva, Pskov, Volmar, and Salisburg, and claimed that the Esthonians had repulsed the Bolsheviki, inflicting serious losses in killed and wounded. Bolshevist newspapers, commenting anxiously upon the reverses sustained in the fighting against the Esthonians, ascribed the Bolshevist defeats fatigue, bad equipment, inferior supplies, and poor transportation. Advices from Stockholm, however, dated March 2, said that the Bolsheviki had bombarded Narva, using 5,000 shells. They had destroyed 175 farms, and killed twentyfour civilians. The population was reported to be in flight.

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The ports of Libau and Windau in Courland, which were taken by the Bolsheviki on Jan. 31, were reported to have been recaptured by the Germans. Windau was retaken in a simultaneous land and sea attack. The Bolsheviki were driven out of towns northeast of Libau. The German Legation at Libau reported on Feb. 25 that the Bolsheviki had occupied the island of Oesel, and had assassinated the Secretary of the German Legation, his wife and a courier. On March 11 a British squadron arrived at Libau with a British commission on board.

In Lithuania the Bolsheviki suffered defeat, and requested a suspension of hostilities, which the victorious Lithuanians, who had reached a point about thirteen miles east of Vilna, refused. The Bolsheviki were quiet on the Lithuanian front up to March 2.

The Ukraine disappointed both the Germans and the Allies, and her for

tunes with the Bolsheviki are still in doubt. Splitting off from Russia, she made a separate peace at Brest-Litovsk with the Germans, who expected great receipts of grain from the Ukrainian harvests. But the Germans did not get the grain, and when they came to take it, the peasants burned it up rather than give it to them. Germany forced the Bolsheviki to make peace with the Ukraine, but when the German troops withdrew, the Bolsheviki at once invaded the country and captured Kiev, the capital of the Ukrainian Republic. Part of General Petlura's troops went over to the Bolsheviki, and the rest were forced to withdraw.

A new factor was injected into the Ukrainian situation by the appearance of General Denikine, former Chief of Staff of the Russian Army, and the military power behind the anti-Bolshevistic Government of Ekaterinodar, affiliated with the Omsk Government against the Bolshevist régime. Denikine had been actively engaged for several months; on Jan. 14 he administered a severe defeat to the Bolsheviki on the River Kuma, in the Caucasus. In a dispatch dated Feb. 13 it was reported that Denikine's army had reached the Caspian Sea, having advanced 350 versts, (about 231 miles,) and captured 31,000 prisoners, 95 guns, and eight armored trains. A Bolshevist force of more than 100,000 was routed.

During the period between Feb. 10 and March 4 the Bolsheviki again occupied Kiev. They levied a contribution of 200,000,000 rubles on Kiev, and forced the bourgeois class to exchange houses with the population of the slums and ghetto quarter of the town. The whole of the Kiev-Kovel line is in Bolshevist hands. Petlura, the Ukrainian dictator, a strong pro-ally, is inadequately supported. Odessa and a small belt around that city are held by French troops.

The fighting between the Ukrainians and the Poles at Lemberg is described elsewhere in the article on Poland. The negotiations between the Interallied Mission and the Ukrainians finally led to a short armistice, which the Ukrainians themselves denounced. The

failure of the armistice negotiations in Galicia is attributed to the great confusion in the internal political situation in the Ukraine.

THE EASTERN FRONT

According to a dispatch of Feb. 13, the Omsk Government accepted the offer of Japan to furnish men, money, and arms to use against the Bolsheviki. The Japanese Staff at Vladivostok, Feb. 19, requested Colonel Henry D. Styer to turn over to the Japanese the arms, horses, and equipment of the Cossack troops of General Kalmikoff, who mutinied late in January and surrenderd their arms and horses to the Americans. Kalmikoff, it was reported, had carried out a reign of terror in the Ussuri district. Early last December the American and Japanese authorities were forced to warn Kalmikoff to cease his harsh treatment of the inhabitants of this district. Late in January 1,500 of his troops, the bulk of his force, revolted against Kalmikoff and surrendered their arms and horses to the Americans. Major Gen. Graves, the American commander, refused a verbal demand of the Japanese Staff that he cease to protect these mutineers, in view of the danger of a resumption of the former terrorism. Attacks made against the Americans because of this alleged protection" were answered by Colonel Styer in the following official explanation:

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The American troops have no intention of defending or sheltering political parties or groups, whether they are called Bolshevist or other names. The Americans recently disarmed the Cossack deserters for the sole purpose of avoiding blooshed and disorder. We are keeping them under guard while the Allied Council at Vladivostok decides what is to be done with them. The American troops are always ready to act conjointly with the commander of the allied forces in the defense of safety.

Brig. Gen. Inagaki of the Japanese Staff in Siberia later explained that the disposition of these deserters was wholly in the hands of the Americans, but that the arms and equipment demanded had been furnished to Kalmikoff by the Japanese. The matter was adjusted later by the gradual release of the deserters.