Ostend, Westende, and Zeebrugge were attacked by British seaplanes on May 6.
Many notable air battles occurred on the western front in connection with the fighting in Picardy and Flanders. In one day, May 15, fifty-five German airplanes were brought down by British and French aviators, and on May 16 forty-six German machines were brought down by the British.
NAVAL RECORD.
Early in the morning of April 23 British naval forces, in co-operation with French destroyers, carried out a raid against Zeebrugge and Ostend, with the object of bottling up German submarine bases. Five obsolete British cruisers, which had been filled with concrete, were run aground, blown up, and abandoned by their crews, and two old submarines were loaded with explosives for the destruction of the Zeebrugge mole. A German destroyer was sunk and other ships were shelled. Twenty yards of the Zeebrugge mole were blown up, and the harbor was blocked completely. On May 10 the obsolete cruiser Vindictive was sunk at the entrance to Ostend Harbor, practically completing the work.
An Austrian dreadnought of the Viribus Unitis type was torpedoed by Italian naval forces in Pola Harbor on the morning of May 14.
RUSSIA.
On April 20, Japan ordered reinforcements sent to Vladivostok, as the Bolsheviki had directed the removal of munitions westward. On the same day diplomatic representatives of the allied powers were formally informed by the Siberian Provincial Duma of the formation—by representatives of the Zemstvos and other public organizations—of the Government of Autonomous Siberia.
The Bolshevist Foreign Minister, George Tchitcherin, on April 26, addressed representatives in Moscow of the United States, England, and France, requesting the speedy recall of their Consuls from Vladivostok and the investigation of their alleged participation in negotiations said to have been conducted between their Peking embassies and the Siberian Autonomous Government. He also asked them to explain their attitude toward the Soviet Government and the alleged attempts of their representatives to interfere with the internal life of Russia. Japan was asked to explain the participation of Japanese officials in the counter-revolutionary movement. An official report of the demand for the removal of John K. Caldwell, the American Consul at Vladivostok, was received by the American State Department on May 6, from Ambassador Francis. The State Department announced that Mr. Caldwell had done nothing wrong and that he would not be removed. On the same day a report was received that the Russian authorities at Irkutsk had arrested the Japanese Vice Consul and the President of the Japanese Association on the charge of being military spies.
At a meeting of several thousand peasants of the Ukraine, held on April 29, a resolution was passed calling for the overthrow of the Government, the closing of the Central Rada, the cancellation of the Constituent Assembly convoked for May 12, and the abandonment of land socialization. General Skoropauski was proclaimed Hetman and was recognized by Germany.
The German advance into the Ukraine continued, military rule was established in Kiev, and several members of the Government, including the Minister of War, were removed on the ground that the Government had proved too weak to maintain law and order. Vice Chancellor von Payer, speaking before the Main Committee of the German Reichstag on May 4, attempted to justify Germany's use of the iron hand by declaring that grain had been withheld and that prominent Ukrainians, members of the Committee of Safety, had been caught planning the assassination of German officers.