Some History:
The article in The Maitland Daily Mercury, May 17, 1919
"
A GERMAN BOAST.
"I MADE THE UKRAINE"
(By F. SEFTON DELMER, a Special Cor-
respondent of London "Daily Mail,"
who recently returned from Germany).
In Berlin I fell into the habit of receiv-
ing German generals as if it were the most
natural thing in the world. On these oc-
casions I sometimes thought of that picture
of the British tar who, after one of Nelson's
victories, stands stolidly tucking away un-
der his arm, one after another, a whole gal-
axy of swords belonging to the enemy's
surrendering captains and admirals.
But my sense of irony and humour was
touched to the quick a few days ago, at the
beginning of the recent troubles, when no
less a person than General Hoffmann, the
conqueror of Lenin and Trotsky at Brest-
Litovsk and the wanton nourisher of Bol-
shevism in Russia, came to my room in the
Hansa Sanatorium, where I was just re-
covering from an attack of influenza, to
complain that England alone could save
Germany from a similar danger of Bol-
shevlsm.
As if to emphasise his complaint, the
machine guns began tick-tacking through
the twilight over towards Alexanderplatz.
A sinister comment.
He stood there, a tall, square-shouldered,
six-foot man, clean-shaven, with close-
cropped grey hair, and a certain naval air
as if he were a Brummagem German edi-
tion of Lord Beresford. Curious, too, his
bull-dog way of showing his teeth, in a sud-
den smile just when he was saying his most
sinister things.
We spoke about Russia, which is Hoff-
mann's speciality. "Russia," he said, "can-
not possibly remain split up into several
States. It must sooner or later come toge-
ther again as a political unity. The Uk-
raine and its secessionists are a mere pass-
ing phase. In fact, the Ukraine was my
suggestion, and my creation"—here he
showed his teeth—"and not a spontaneous
wish of its inhabitants at all, although the
Ukrainians may choose to think so.
DUTCH COURAGE FOR AUSTRIA.
"I created the Ukraine, to put it bluntly,
merely in order to have a part of Russia
to make peace with. For at that special
moment I had to make peace with somebody
in order that Czernin, the Austrian Minis-
ter, might return home with something in
hand to show to his down-hearted people
and check them in the dry rot that had set
in among them. Austria was in a state of
absolute desperation, especially about food.
So, the Ukraine and the Treaty of Ukraine
had willy-nilly to be manufactured in order
to put some Dutch courage into the quaking
Austrians.
"It goes without saying," Hoffmann
continued, "that the creation of a separate
Southern Russia with political independ-
ence is a rank absurdity—an absolutely
artificial and temporary thing; and this
for the simple reason that you cannot have
a country with its industries in one place
and its coal districts a thousand miles away
in another. The centre of whatever in-
dustries Russia possesses is Moscow, and
these industries are dependent upon the
coal of the River Don basin. It is a truly
Russian piece of unpracticality not to
bring the industries to the coal, instead of
trying to take the coal to the industries, as
we Germans shall no doubt do if we ever
got the economic management of Russian
affairs.
"That is the main point for Europe to
think of at present. Russia is down. Her
leaders and her intellectual classes have
been murdered and annihilated. Now is
the chance for non-Russian Europe to step
in and seize control of the whole of the Rus-
sian resources. Germany would willingly
do the work and share the profits with the
Entente if it would help in the plan.
"Now is the chance which may never
occur again. Germany is full of young
men, excellently trained in technical know-
ledge and skill in engineering, chem-
istry, and all the rest of the arts and
crafts of a modern nation"—he did not
mention poison gas—"and Russia would be
a wonderful field for their activities, and
a safety valve to prevent their explosion
elsewhere in Europe. In the meantime
Germany is threatened with the overwhelm-
ing dangers of Bolshevism."
Outside the machine guns still kept rat-
tling their ironic comment.
I told Hoffmann that he himself was
credited abroad with havlng lit the confla-
gration which now threatened to involve
Germany in its flames.
"This is a mistake," he said. "The
spreading of Leninism in Russia was done
not at [a]my instigation but by the orders of
Ludendorff and his Staff. Ludendorff's ob-
Fix this textject, of course, was to paralise Russia as a
military Power and release the German
armies from the east for the west front. I
merely carried out these orders, regarding
myself as bound to obey as a military man,
even when the orders did not appeal to me
as wise in their tendency."
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