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tunity to do so and either fled far northward or surrendered. Especially to be noted was the fact that a greater part of the enemy forces threw down their arms and The disguised themselves as good citizens. detachment under the commander of the 3d reached Division, along about Sept. 20, Trans-Baikalia and replaced the detachment of the 7th Division.

Thereafter the Japanese expedition by command of the Emperor reorganized the occupied regions and endeavored to establish peace and order there. The commander of the Vladivostok Army, in the middle of September, dispatched two companies of infantry of the 12th Division to Nicholaievsk to replace the Japanese marine corps, which had been engaged in guarding that place since the first part of the month, and in protecting the Japanese residents there.

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In the latter part of October, the Japanese War Office, with the consent of the Government, for the purpose of guarding the land telegraph line from Vladivostok to the border of Korea, dispatched a force based upon one battalion of infantry (peace formation) from the 19th Division in Korea. That telegraph line is a main line of communication between Japan and Vladivostok. Along that line there are many Koreans who are imbued with anti-Japanese ideas, and the communication has frequently been broken. A need was felt to station regular guards along the line.

While the prestige of the enemy had been lowered in all quarters, small uprisings of Bolsheviki and local disturbances had not yet ceased altogether in November. Between December and the middle of January, 1919, the Bolsheviki rose SO often within the area guarded by the 12th Division that our Expeditionary Forces had to be sent out seven times. Again, about 300 Bolsheviki who rose on Jan. 10 along the upper part of the Blaya River attacked the Japanese guards. The guards at once repulsed the Bolsheviki, but there were a number dead and wounded on our side, so that we could not feel that peace and order had been fully established.

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At this juncture the Japanese Government decided that our military activities should be confined within the occupied territory.

The War Office, in view of the circumstances at home and abroad, recalled, after the end of October, the Commissariat and other forces, mountain guns, heavy guns, &c., which were necessary in offensive operations. This readjustment was completed by the middle of December, and in the latter part of December the War Office commenced recalling the soldiers, demobilizing the first and second reservists. The number of men who had taken part in the Japanese expedition, and those withdrawn in the readjustment, were as follows:

All told, including men engaged in
rear duties before the readjust-
ment.
Number recalled

....

About 73,400

after readjust

About 13,800

.About 34,000

ment in October...... Number to be recalled after further readjustment

(Of these, about 20,000 are to be recalled between the latter part of January and the middle of February, as the first period of recall.)

Number remaining........ ..About 25,000 The fundamental readjustment of the army at the front is now under consideration.

Unity of command: The 12th, the 7th, and the 3d Divisions, with the detachment sent to South Ussuri, have been variously engaged since August, 1918, in different duties under different systems of command. But now they are all engaged in the duty of watching and guarding. A need was felt to unify the administrative service. So on Dec. 6, the imperial sanction having been obtained, all the activities of the Japanese army within the area of military activities, the administrative affairs related with them, the service in connection with communications and transportation have been placed under the unified control of the commander of the Vladivostok Expeditionary Army. The detachments of the 7th Division and the 3d Division, the detachment dispatched to South Ussuri, and the communication corps have been newly placed under his command. The Governor General of Kwantung was instructed to return to the regular duties of his office.

A table of casualties appended to the report shows that the total of Japanese killed in action up to Dec. 31, 1918, was 77, died of illness 226, and wounded 183.

[graphic]

By HAIDAR BAMMATE

[TRANSLATED FROM LA REVUE POLITIQUE INTERNATIONALE FOR CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE]

T

the people of the Caucasus the world conflict seemed to present the most favorable moment for the realization of their aspirations for an independent national life. Unfortunately, however, those countries where liberalism was fostered-the great Western Powers, England and France, to whom the people of the Caucasus had been accustomed to turn, sometimes in their endeavors to strengthen their international position, sometimes in their attempts to throw off the Russian yoke -found themselves allied with Russian imperialism, while Turkey, which, in conjunction with France and England, had so often supported the people of the Caucasus, had allied itself with the Central Powers. This state of affairs prevented them from appealing to the Western Powers, for they could hardly be asked to work against their principal ally in Europe.

But Turkey, the former co-worker of England and France in the work of liberating the people of the Caucasus, Turkey, to whose territory had fled something like a million and a half of Georgian refugees, found itself once more at war with the Russian persecutors. Despite the absence of their former protectors, England and France, the people of the Caucasus were still able to appeal to Turkey and her new allies, who were not so well known or liked in the Caucasus. In December, 1915, a delegation consisting of representatives of different sections of the Caucasus presented itself at Berlin and at Vienna and depicted to the German and Austrian Governments the intolerable situation of these people and expressed their desire to be freed from Russian domination. In January, 1916, the delegation presented to the Central Powers a memorial, which contained a statement of conditions in the Caucasus, and an appeal for material and moral support for their liberation; it proposed the creation of a Caucasian

federation, consisting of three States, which would serve as a buffer State against imperialistic Russia.

GERMANY IN THE CAUCASUS

In its reply, the German Government expressed its sympathy for its project under consideration, declaring itself ready to support the demands of the people of the Caucasus as far as possible. However, after the collapse of Russia due to poor administration, and the many attempts on the part of the various oppressed non-Russian elements toward national independence, when she was called upon to carry her promises into effect, Germany, in order to gain the good graces of the Bolsheviki and the Cossacks, did not fulfill any of the promises made in January, 1916, and May, 1918. In order to secure a foothold in the Caucasus, she took in hand directly the affairs of Georgia, whose independence she compelled the Lenine Government to recognize, while leaving to their own devices and to the mercy of Bolshevist and Cossack terrorism the other people of the Caucasus, who had struggled alone for a century for the liberation of their country.

The people of the Caucasus continued to participate in the various efforts organized with a view to freeing oppressed nationalities. There was the conference of Lausanne, (June, 1916,) where the representatives of twenty-seven oppressed nations publicly condemned the domestic and foreign policy of Russia. The conference expressed its sympathy for the movement for independence among the people of the Caucasus by receiving with an enthusiastic ovation the speech of the grandson of the heroic Schamyl, who took part in the conference.

These are the principal stages in the movement for liberation on the part of the people of the Caucasus and their struggles for independence up to the revolution of 1917, which freed non

Slavic subjects of Russia from the yoke of Czarism and which put an end to the oppression of the various small nationalities comprised in the Russian Empire. During the first days of the Russian revolution the people of the northern part of the Caucasus established a political union in order to work together in the new order of things.

These people, closely allied, as much by their geographic situation as by their racial descent and their economic relations, and by the community of their historical life and their religion, Islamism, arose and set to work once more to attain their national happiness.

NORTH CAUCASUS UNION

At the first assembly of the people of the Caucasus, which took place in May, 1917, at the town of Vladicavkaz, the Union of the People of the North Caucasus and Daghestan was officially ratified and an executive body to represent it was appointed and named the "Central Committee of the Union of the People of North Caucasus and Daghestan."

Following the example of other nationalities in Russia, the people of the Caucasus headed their political program with the demand for the establishment in Russia of a federal republic in which the union should be included on an equal footing. Under the circumstances existing at the time, the demands of the people of the Caucasus could not make any headway.

From the very first days of its activity, the political relations of the committee representing the union in the Caucasus were extremely complicated, as much in the north as in the east. With regard to the Transcaucasian Tartars, who inhabited the territory bordering directly on Daghestan and even including a part of that country, (as, for example, the district of Kouba, inhabited by 200,000 Lesghians,) the situation of the people of the Caucasus was clear. At the time of the formation of the union they had already come into contact with the Transcaucasian Tartars at the first conference of the Mohammedans of the Caucasus, held at Baku in April, 1917, and had established friendly relations with them.

As to the Georgians, the people of the northern part of the Caucasus followed a policy of friendship and neighborliness with regard to them, despite the quarrels arising from the delimitation of the frontiers. The Georgians coveted the southern iron region, basing their claims upon historical and territorial principles, as well as the district of Zakataly, under the pretext that this latter district, because of economic reasons, was drawn toward Transcaucasia. They desired, moreover, the district of Souhom because of the civilizing influence in this quarter claimed by Georgia. No concession whatever in regard to these questions was made to the Georgians by the people of the Caucasus, but, for diplomatic reasons, the latter did not wish to carry the discussion further, preferring to allow time to find a solution for their differences.

ARMENIANS AND COSSACKS

As to the Armenian question, the people of the northern part of the Caucasus are not directly interested in this, because of the small number of Armenians inhabiting that region. Still the union endeavors to preserve the best relations with them. Many Armenians who could not remain in Armenia or in Georgia because of the war found refuge and asylum among the people of the union. The relations of the union with its Cossack neighbors were recognized as extremely heated because of the long-standing emnity, referred to above, which had been created by the policy of the Russian Government. It was the fact that the economic and political advantages of the region had been centralized in the hands of the Cossacks that gave birth to this antagonism. With the revolution came up all the questions of national and economic oppression, all the political injustice which separate the people of the Caucasus and the Cossacks.

In its very first days the Russian revolution presented two questions of the greatest urgency-the question of independent nationalities and the agrarian question. In the declarations of the first President of the Provisional Government, Prince Lvoff, (appointed April 9, 1917,) we already find a negative answer to the

THE LAND QUESTION

question as to the right of individual to worse. Along the Sounja River and nationalities to determine their fate. in some sections of the province of Terek small engagements took place between the people of the Caucasus and the Cossacks, murders occurred, and villages were pillaged and devastated. At times, these small engagements spread from one place to another, resulting in real battles extending over considerable territory, artillery playing a regular part in them. The people of the Caucasus, crowded together because of their lack of territory, made an onrush into the valleys located at the base of the mountains, which had been taken from them but lately by force. The Cossacks naturally did all they could to defend the invaded territory and endeavored to make the movement undertaken by the inhabitants of the Caucasus appear to the world as an act of brigandage.

The agrarian problem, fundamental to the Russian peasant, who has suffered throughout his history from an insufficiency of soil or it unjust apportionment, found a most radical solution in the demands of the revolutionary parties. The cry, “The land to those who cultivate it!" met with general approval. The parties of the Right and of the Left were divided only on the means to this end, the first desiring the purchase and division of the soil in a legal manner, while the others called for its free allotment. It followed, accordingly, that the masses of the people in the Caucasus assumed as their own the aims and problems of the revolution and became its most ardent supporters. That is the reason why the attempt on the part of the Russian counter-revolutionists to overthrow the Provisional Government with the aid of the national cavalry division of the Caucasus and restore the old régime was so easily defeated by the Central Committee of the Caucasus. This committee, through its representatives, explained to the soldiers of the division, practically at the gates of Petrograd, the true aim of the revolution and of the Provisional Government, and succeeded by this means in halting the soldiers of the Caucasus at the very threshold of the Russian capital, which was about to surrender.

The Cossacks, who enjoyed all the rights of a privileged class, conducted themselves with much reserve toward this change of government. But, as the Government came to acknowledge the justice of the demands bearing on the agrarian question and that of nationalization, promising, under pressure from the revolutionary parties, to find a solution in the general interest and in an equitable manner, the Cossacks openly assumed an attitude hostile to the Provisional Government. For the same reason the relations of the people of the Caucasus with the Cossacks, who are in possession of the greatest part of the fertile lands formerly belonging to the people of the Caucasus, went from bad

Since the Cossacks served as a rampart for reactionaries and for Czarism, the Provisional Government, though entertaining relations with them, regarded them with suspicion, and, as can be well understood, it gave them neither the authority nor the necessary aid toward crushing the movement in the Caucasus. The Provisional Government found that as a result of its abolishment of class distinctions and the establishment of the equality of all citizens before the law, the Cossacks of Terek, of Kuban, and of the Don were arising and beginning to refer to their historical independence, their native customs, and other nationalistic matters, distinguishing themselves from the Cossacks of the rest of Russia in order to secure themselves against the proposed reforms. Thus, the Cossacks assumed a policy of decentralization which sought nothing but selfish ends.

THE SECOND ASSEMBLY

The people of the Caucasus, while lending their interest to the revolutionary ideas, at the same time directed their own political program, seeking in their own territory the creation of a federal union of the people of the northern part of the Caucasus, in order to guarantee to themselves the possibility of living in accordance with their national aspirations. But the rapid

course of the revolution precipitated events, broadened perspectives, required great creative efforts, and by the force of circumstances, the activities of the Central Committee of the Caucasus, which had grown in importance meanwhile, passed the limits of the authority with which it had been vested by the first assembly in the North Caucasus. Accordingly, a second assembly of the delegates of the union met on Sept. 20, 1917, at Vladicavkaz to discuss existing questions and to amend the resolutions of the first assembly. In the meantime, the Nogais and Turkomans of the Stavropol Government (who, not having had time to join the union, had formed a separate alliance with the Karanogais) also joined the Central Committee. The Abkhasians did the same.

The second assembly, therefore, represented all the peoples of the northern part of the Caucasus consolidated into a single nation composed of the following: The peoples of Daghestan, Zakataly, and Terek, the Kabardians, the Balkars, the Ossetinians, the Ingushes, the Chechinzes, the Kumyks, and the Salatais; the tribes of the country of Kuban, the Karatchais, the Abkhasians, the Circassians, the Nogais, the people of the district of Souhoum; the Abkhasians and tribes of the steppes of Terek; the Nogais and Karanogais of the province of Stavropol, and the Turkomans. As is apparent from the foregoing enumeration, the union, through the recognition of the right of self-determination and the absence of any attempt at domination, came to embrace a large amount of territory and realized substantially the ideal of unification for which Schâmyl and his followers had struggled.

DRAFT OF CONSTITUTION Besides the definite consolidation of the union, the second assembly marked also a new step in their political organization. The Central Committee, which already had at its disposal the experience of work along executive and administrative lines presented to the second assembly a draft of a Constitution for the union. The fundamental principles upon which this draft was based are summarized in the following articles:

1. The people of North Caucasus and Daghestan hereby form a political union. 2. Each nation within the limits of the union shall enjoy absolute autonomy.

3. Two legislative bodies in the form of chambers shall be established for action regarding the general affairs of the union; one of these shall be a lower chamber representing the idea of self-government and composed of Deputies elected to the number of one for every 30,000 men of the population; the other shall be a higher chamber representing the integral parts of the union, and composed of two representatives for each nation included therein.

4. The members of the legislative bodies shall choose from their own number the members for the Executive Council; the latter shall elect a President, who will fulfill the functions of the chief of the union.

5. A supreme tribunal shall be established, under the jurisdiction of which will come the determination of questions of constitutionality, included in which is the authority to decide on the constitutionality of measures enacted by the legislative chambers, as well as on the acts of the Executive Council and of other integral parts of the union.

The draft was approved, and it was decided to organize, in accordance with the exigencies of the times, Governmental institutions conforming to the principles set forth, the definite ratification being a matter for the Constitutional Assembly. The Central Committee, composed of fifteen members, was reorganized and fortified with extraordinary powers in order to be prepared to face a most dangerous situation.

AVERTING A CATASTROPHE

The clashes between the people of the Caucasus and the Cossacks threatened to result in a catastrophe; the strife of political parties, threatening new entanglements, the devastation in the wake of a demoralized army returning from the front; the complete disorganization of the railroads and of the sources of supply and of the finances -such were a few phases of the complex problem.

Kerensky's Government had aroused opposition on both sides; on the right, from the Cossacks and the Cadets, for a while so powerful; on the left, from the revolutionary Socialists, the Internationalists, and the Maximalists, with

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