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Show HARBIN EXTENDS AID TO REFUGEEBUSSIAfttS I Many Former Officers Seek to Enlist in British and American Armies. ALL HATE BOLSHEVIKI Tell Harrowing Tales in Connection With Their Escape From Siberia. HARBIN, Manchuria. April 15- (Correspondence of the Associated Press.) Officers of all ranks formerly in the Russian army have thronged the British and American consulates here seeking to enlist as private soldiers In the armies of those countries, since the Bolshevik revolutionaries extended their rule to Siberia. When they are told that I the regulations do not permit the con-I con-I suls to accept their offers, their disappointment disap-pointment ie painful. The hatred they express for the Bol-sheviki Bol-sheviki Indicated that they would do anything any-thing to counteract Bolshevik influence. All of those with whom the Associated Press correspondent has talked have been intensely pro-entente. What is to become be-come of them is one of the problems Russia will have to face in the future. Large numbers of them, In a pitiful state, are flocking into Harbin from all parts of Siberia. Many are without funds and the majority are poorly clad. They range In rank from lieutenants to generals and come from the finest Russian Rus-sian stock. Tell Harrowing Stories. Most of them have come from the large military centers in Siberia, from which they have escaped only after undergoing great hardship and much suffering. Many of those interviewed have related the most harrowing stories of murders and atrocities. They explained that when the Bolshevik Bolshe-vik agents had succeeded in converting the soldiers to their cause, the first move was to shoot the officers in command, and in many instances their families were treated in the same manner, or worse. In some regiments, where a certain semblance of discipline remained, the officers were at first only degraded and set to do the most menial tasks. Driven to Suicide. The indignities, however, became so bad that many officers committed suicide, sui-cide, while others, in attempting to resent re-sent them, were shot or tortured in the most cruel and brutal manner. The military centers such as Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Chita, Haborovsk and Blagoveschensk, are so widely distributed that the journey to Harbin is a very long one, with the result that many of those attempting to escape were murdered mur-dered en route, although every form of disguise was used. The local military organization In Harbin Har-bin is doing everything in its power to assist these refugee officers. Of the best families In Russia, and having been trained and educated solely with a view to becoming officers, they are not fitted to earn their living in any other walk of life. |