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.
