Various

In the press of the United States on May 4, 1918, there appeared a notice that President Wilson had given audience to the Lithuanian delegation, recognizing the Lithuanians as a distinctively separate race having rights of self-determination.

At the time of the upheavals in Russia, during the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, Lithuanians, irrespective of political affiliations, held a convention in their capital, Vilna, over 2,000 delegates participating, where they unanimously asserted their right of self-government; also expressing a strong desire to form one political body with their half-brothers, the Letts.

Again in October, 1917, a convention was held in Vilna with about 250 delegates from those parts of Lithuania occupied by German forces, to press their claim of independence for Lithuania. In January, 1918, representative Lithuanians assembled in the same city proclaimed independent Lithuania. Another convention of Lithuanian representatives from Russia and from Lithuanian communities in the United States, England, and Argentina, held in the same month in Stockholm, Sweden, approved the act of their countrymen under German domination. On March 13 and 14 American Lithuanians held a convention in New York City, giving their unanimous approval to the proclaiming of an Independent Lithuanian Republic; here a unanimous resolution was passed protesting against any Polish aspirations or claims to Lithuania, and demanding the inclusion of the Lithuanian part of East Prussia, with the old Lithuanian city of Karaliauchus (KÖnigsberg,) in the Lithuanian Republic.

Lithuanians claim those parts of the neighboring provinces where their language is spoken and where the inhabitants consider themselves Lithuanians. They claim the eastern part of East Prussia—about 13,500 square miles, with 700,000 or 800,000 inhabitants—and parts of the provinces of Minsk and Vitebsk; thus the Lithuanian-Lettish Republic would stretch over 131,000 square miles and have a population of over 11,500,000, inhabiting five centres—Karaliauchus, (KÖnigsberg,) Klaipeda, (Memel,) Libau, Windau, and Riga.

The country is very rich for agriculture, though it contains much undeveloped land, with many rivers, lakes, and large forests. Along the River Nieman in Druskeniki, Government of Goodns, and in Birchtany, Government of Vilna, there are salt springs of high healing qualities, but on account of a corrupt Russian Government they remain undeveloped and unexploited. The seabeach around Palanga, a little distance above Germany's border on the Baltic, could be turned into another Atlantic City, according to the opinion of experts, but the place remains neglected. Lithuania's soil is very rich in aluminium and in material for manufacturing glass. During my last visit to Lithuania, in 1914, the discovery of radium was reported in the vicinity of the mineral springs at Birchtany, but the war came on very soon and nothing further was heard of it.

BRITISH LEADERS ON LAND AND SEA

Gen. F. B. Maurice Formerly Director of Operations at the British War Office, now holding a high position abroad (Press Illustrating Service)

In March, 1918, Lithuanians demanded that Germany recognize their Provisional Government. The Tevyne of New York, official organ of the Lithuanian Alliance of America, received the following from its correspondent in Russia, relayed from Yokohama, March 26:

In Lithuania there has been formed a Provisional Government consisting of the following: A. Smetona, Premier; P. Dovydailis, Minister of Education; J. Shaulys, Minister of Foreign Affairs; M. Smilgevichus, Minister of Finances; M. Birzhishka, Minister of Justice; J. Vileishis, Minister of Public Works; D. Malinauskas, Minister of Public Safety. Dr. J. Shlupas, well known among American Lithuanians, has been appointed Envoy Plenipotentiary to the United States; J. Aukshtuolis, President of the Lithuanian Committee in Stockholm, is made Ambassador to the Scandinavian countries; M. Ychas, member of the last Russian Duma, Ambassador to England and France; J. Gabrys, manager of the Lithuanian Information Bureau in Switzerland, Ambassador to the Central Powers. A national army is being organized. Lithuania's absolute neutrality was proclaimed. Drafted a political and economic treaty with Sweden.

Lithuanians fought in the Russian Army against the Germans, and now large numbers of them are joining the military and naval forces of the United States to fight the common foe; some are already in the English Army. Lithuania has suffered not for her own faults, but because she was situated between two belligerents. In the Government of Suvalki the German and Russian Armies chased each other nine times backward and forward; one may imagine how much is left there. Nothing but excavations, trenches, heaps of ruins, crumbling chimneys indicate where previously were large and prosperous villages. The world is yet to hear more about German requisitions, German devastations, and German rapine in Lithuania. Not only forests were denuded, but even fruit trees on the farms were cut down and shipped to Germany. The remaining inhabitants are forced to raise crops for the invaders, and for their various products they must accept, under penalty, specially printed money for local use—money that Germans themselves would not accept.

Notwithstanding reports to the contrary, the Lithuanians were with the Allies all the time, and will stand by them to the end. They have faith that the Allies, when the proper time comes, will recognize their just claims.

Germany to Impose "War Burdens" on Lithuania

Emperor William on May 12, 1918, issued the following proclamation regarding Lithuania:

We, Wilhelm, by God's grace German Emperor, King of Prussia, &c., hereby make known that, whereas the Lithuanian Landsrat, as the recognized representative of the Lithuanian people, on Dec. 12 announced the restoration of Lithuania as an independent State allied to the German Empire by an eternal, steadfast alliance, and by conventions chiefly regarding military matters, traffic, customs, and coinage, and solicited the help of the German Empire; and,

Whereas, further, Previous political connections in Lithuania are dissolved, we command our Imperial Chancellor to declare Lithuania on the basis of the aforementioned declarations of the Lithuanian Landsrat, in the name of the German Empire, as a free and independent State, and we are prepared to accord the Lithuanian State the solicited help and assistance in its restoration.

We assume that the conventions to be concluded will take the interests of the German Empire into account equally with those of Lithuania, and that Lithuania will participate in the war burdens of Germany, which secured her liberation.

The Lithuanian National Council, with headquarters at Washington, replied to the foregoing proclamation on May 14 as follows:

The assumption that Lithuania "will participate in the war burdens of Germany" means a contribution of three things: Money, munitions, and men. The first we have not, as Germany has already impoverished us; the second, we have no means of supplying, because we lack the first. Therefore, Germany can have reference only to men. Men from a self-declared democracy to fight in the ranks of autocracy? Unthinkable. Lithuania would not consent. Are her citizens to be dragooned into the ranks of the Kaiser? This would be an abridgment of the sovereignty which Germany has already recognized, for Chancellor von Hertling's reply stated, "We hereby recognize Lithuania as free and independent."

Germany knows that ultimate defeat is unavoidable, but she would compensate losses in the west with gains in the east, among which Lithuania is gambled on as an asset. No recognition of Lithuanian independence can be sincere when coupled with the von Hertling terms, but if this sop will add to Prussian man power it may postpone somewhat the inevitable day of reckoning and give her more time to Germanize in the east with a view of confederating the new republics under Junker rule.