OCR Text |
Show SAYS EXAGGERATION 13 FAULT IN RUSSIA Berlin Newspaper Declares Army Officials Falsify in Reports. TO MAINTAIN COURAGE j Misrepresentation Resorted to When People Exhibit Impatience. BERLIN, Doc. 0. A neutral war correspondent cor-respondent who returned recently alter a year with the Russian armies furnishes fur-nishes some interesting information about the official reports of the Russian Rus-sian general staff. The correspondent writes to the Kreuz Zeitung: . The Russian official reports are worked out at headquarters in a lit- tie town west of Kishineff by a number of high army officers and officials of the foreign office, head-I head-I ed by Privy Councillor of State Palen. After the daily reports from the different fronts are received they are compiled by the army officers, of-ficers, who draw up a summary which is turned over to Palen, edited by this powerful official and forwarded to the general staff at Petrograd. Prom the general staff the report goes to the foreigu office and the ministry of the interior, where it is carefully examined as to its possible pos-sible effect on the Russian people, peo-ple, the allied countries and the neutrals. neu-trals. The report is published only after all responsible officials are satisfied with it and sometimes it is "edited" three or four times. Some Are Invented. Whenever the Russian government govern-ment for internal or foreign politi-cial politi-cial reasons need victories they are promptly forthcoming. Generally Gener-ally the glowing accounts of disastrous dis-astrous defeats of the Teutonic allies are made up at headquarters, but sometimes this is done at Petrograd. Pet-rograd. The commanding generals gener-als have nothing to do with these fabrications ana are not responsible responsi-ble for them, because they only seo the reports after their publication. Many of the honest Russian army leaders, like General Russky and and General Kuropatkin, have repeatedly re-peatedly protested against the falsification fal-sification of official reports. General Gen-eral Russky early last spring was greatly surprised when the general ' staff credited him with a great victory vic-tory in which he was said to have captured 5000 prisoners, fourteen guns and over fifty machine guns. As no battle had taken plae on his front and he did not want to appear ap-pear in a wrong light in the eyes of the foreign officers and correspondents corre-spondents at his headquarters, he telegraphed to Petrograd and demanded de-manded a correction. He was informed in-formed that the report had been given out for good and sufficient reasons and could not be retracted. re-tracted. Report Is Exaggerated. General Kuropatkin had a similar simi-lar experience several months earlier. ear-lier. The former war minister, who has since been relieved of his command com-mand and sent to Turkestan as governor-general, reported a Bmall engagement' south of Dvinsk in which about 400 prisoners were made. When he saw the report of the general staff he learned to his astonishment that he had completely complete-ly broken the front of Von Hinden-burg Hinden-burg and captured more than 4000 Germans. He also protested, but did not even receive an answer from Petrograd. The Russian reports are always entirely unreliable as far as the number of prisoners mentioned in them is concerned. On June 16, 1916, when the Russians were in full retreat, the general staff officially offi-cially reported the capture of 18,-000 18,-000 Germans and Austrians near Lemberg. To Revive Courage. Such outright falsifications are only resorted to when the courage of "the Russian people and their allies al-lies needs stimulation, but the general gen-eral staff always exaggerates the number of prisoners. The captured officers and soldiers are seldom counted. The commanders of the different divisions content themselves them-selves with ascertaining to which German or Austrian regiments their captives belong and they take it for f ranted that these entire units have alien into their hands. In an engagement en-gagement in Galicia seventy Austrians Aus-trians belonging to four different companies were brought in, an the next day the general staff reported the capture of four whole companies, or 1200 men. The number of officers reported captured by the Russian general staff is in every case entirely out of proportion with the number of men said to have been taken. This is explaiued by the fact that all noncommissioned non-commissioned . officers, even lance corporals, are classed as officers. |