Ten German trawlers were sunk by the British in the Cattegat on April 15.
RUSSIA, RUMANIA, AND POLAND
Leon Trotzky asked the American military mission for ten American officers to aid as inspectors in organizing and training a new volunteer army, and requested the aid of American railway engineers and transportation experts in the reorganization of the railways, March 20. The same day he addressed the Moscow Soviet, calling for a new army of from 300,000 to 750,000, commanded by trained officers.
Japanese and British marines were landed at Vladivostok on April 5, following the invasion of a Japanese office by five armed Russians, who killed one Japanese and wounded two others. The Siberian Council of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates protested to the Consular Corps, but the Japanese representatives at Vologda explained that the landing was only a local incident and that Admiral Kato had acted on his own initiative.
The Trans-Caucasian Constituent Assembly, in session at Tiflis on March 21, refused to ratify the peace treaty with Germany, and urged immediate war. On March 29 the Caucasus Diet approved the basis of a separate peace agreement with Turkey, including autonomy for Armenia and the restoration of old frontiers.
The Armenians and Georgians refused to recognize the cession of territory made under the Brest-Litovsk treaty, and on April 3 fierce fighting broke out in the districts of Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, as the Turks began military occupation. The Georgians seized most of the Russian warships in the Harbor of Batum and took them into the Black Sea. On April 4 the Armenians recaptured Erzerum from the Turks, and on April 7 the Turks took Ardahan from the Armenian forces.
Alexander Marghiloman, leader of the Conservatives, was appointed Premier of Rumania March 20. On the same day Germany announced the extension of the armistice until March 22.
On March 21 Germany increased her demands on Rumania, calling for the surrender of all war munitions. Austria demanded the surrender of all territory west of a line extending from a point east of Red Tower Pass to a point on the Danube near Ghilramar, and also a strip of country eighty miles long and ten miles wide in the region of Predeal. On March 23 Germany again extended the armistice because of a delay in the formation of the Rumanian Cabinet. On March 29 Germany demanded that the Rumanian oil wells be turned over to a German-controlled corporation.
German forces continued their advance in Ukraine, taking Kherson on March 21 and burning Poltava on March 31. The Ukrainian Rada protested against the German demand for 85 per cent. of the country's grain supply and practically all of the sugar supply, March 27. On April 5 the Bolshevist Government protested against the invasion by German and Ukrainian troops of Kursk Province.
Finland protested to the German Government, March 29, against the arrest of Major Henry Crosby Emery, representative of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, and his detention on the Aland Islands.