861.00/5774: Telegram
The Commission to Negotiate Peace to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:12 a.m.]
5467. From [Gade at] Riga.
“21, November 27, 11 p.m. Regarding Yudenitsch, best information Russian military circles state Yudenitsch’s present indecisive, irresolute frame of mind and lack of requisite future foodstuffs principal danger to Northwestern Army. They advise Yudenitsch’s remaining commander in chief partly owing to his holding purse strings London deposit of £700,000. Being called through Allied advice to Paris by Sazonoff for a conference. Yudenitsch has 128,000 mouths to feed including 15,000 active and 13,000 inactive troops, 13,000 Bolshevik prisoners of war, railroad and civilian personnel and large mass Russian fugitives. Four thousand soldiers passed into Narva, condition of remainder pitiful in the extreme, some 400 frozen to death last week. Some 8,000 tons foodstuffs remaining at Viborg will not go far. Situation acute and must be met immediately or army be disarmed and great many people starve. If there is no alternative Russian General Staff and soldiers willing to place themselves under Esthonian General Laidoner’s orders. Any Allied demand for nondisarmament Russian Army will imply Allied policy of further military opposition to Bolshevism, a Russian Staff reorganized. Gade.”