The German atrocities in White Russia are thus described in a Russian
Government dispatch received in London on May 14:
In the Bobrinsk district entire villages have been set afire
and plundered. In the village of Buda a Uhlan patrol extorted a
contribution of several thousand rubles, and, when the peasants
had paid part of it and were unable to pay more, the Uhlans
surrounded the village and bombarded it.
In other villages peasants, women, and children who endeavored to
escape from fires were pursued by Uhlans and cut to pieces with
swords or flogged with whips. In one village an old Jew was first
flogged and then hanged in the presence of all the villagers. Most
savage acts were perpetrated in Jewish villages. All persons
suspected of belonging to the Bolsheviki and those in military
uniforms were immediately shot.
In Finland the Germans helped the White Guards to suppress the
revolution, and strengthened their grip on the country. Some of the
captured Red Guards were shot--7,000 were reported executed on June
6--others were to appear before twenty-one specially created courts.
The reprisals of the White Guards were directed particularly against
the Russians in Finland. A Russian wireless, dated May 14, contained
the following statements: "Even 12-year-old children have been shot.
At Viborg one witness saw 200 corpses, mainly Russian officers and
mere schoolboys. According to other witnesses, more than 600 persons
were executed in two days." The German headquarters in Finland
estimated the number of persons massacred at 70,000. The Finnish
High Court of Justice ordered the arrest of all Socialist members of
the Finnish Diet. In contravention of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the
German commander demanded the control of the Russian war supplies at
Helsingfors, which were valued at 150,000,000 rubles.
On June 12 the Finnish Government introduced into the Diet a bill
providing for the establishment of a monarchic form of government in
Finland. The Finnish King, who is to be a hereditary ruler, shall be
invested with broad powers regarding treaties with foreign States, and
shall have the absolute veto in several important matters.
The new Finnish Government is emphatically pro-German. This was
illustrated by the membership of the new Cabinet formed by Paaskivi.
There were signs, however, that anti-German sentiment was developing
among the masses of the people. General Mannerheim, Commander of the
White Guard, resigned late in May, apparently as a protest against
the Germanization of the Finnish Army. This army is now commanded by
German officers. The Germans also took over the control of the Finnish
Military College, and undertook to organize the Finnish coast fleet.
They are constructing two railways in Northern Finland.
In the middle of May the White Russian Republic was proclaimed with the
consent of Germany. The new Government seemed to favor a union with
Lithuania, under the military protectorate of Germany. On June 4 it was
reported that the new republic had been recognized by the Ukraine.
Early in May the Tartar National Council met at Bakhchisaray, Crimea,
and issued a statement protesting against the entrance of the
Austro-German troops into the Crimea. The council declared that the
Crimea, whose population is 70 per cent. Tartar, intends to maintain
its complete independence till conditions in Russia grow more settled.
According to a London dispatch, dated June 7, fierce fighting was going
on between the troops of the Caucasian Government and the Turks. These
are reported to have massacred 10,000 Armenians in a fortnight. The
Government had ordered the mobilization of all men between the ages of
19 and 42.