Zagreb, Jan. 16.
An address formal} proclaiming Croat allegiance to the Yugoslav monarchy was made by Vice-Premier Vladimir Matchek, Croat leader, today on the occasion of an official visit to Zagreb, chief Croat city, by Prince Paul, Regent of Yugoslavia, and Princess Olga. The royal visitors arrived here at 330 pin. today.—Havas. turns out to be an infinitely sad experience. The seven men all from the Leningrad district, men between the ages of 18 and 28, were in a condition of extreme exhaustion. Starved and frost-bitten, they surrendered to a Finnish watch patrol and were assisted into this shelter. Their boots are without soles, they wear cotton underwear and their uniforms are of the poorest quality, baggy khaki coatees and trousers stuffed with cotton were dangling about their feet like wet rags after three consecutive days and nights out in the snow. Their clothes had soaked up water like blotting paper.
With the Russian-speaking correspondent of the "Christian Science Monitor" acting as interpreter they gave us a brief description of their fate: On September 7 they were mobilized and sent off without knowing where, on "manœuvres" They arrived at a point west of Leningrad where after a while they were informed that an enemy people, the Finns, had commenced to attack their country. Their political commissers then told them that their task was to drive the Finnish army out from the Soviet Union, and they had not the faintest idea of the fact that they had crossed the border and the whole time had stood on Finnish territory.
They naturally praised the food and clothing and the treatment which they had received from the Finns, and they maintained that if their distressed comrades knew what sort of food they could get in Finland they would all come over. One of them: even asked if he could be permitted to bring his family along. This conversation with the prisoners was extremely depressing. The poor Russians were obviously entirely bewildered as to the world where they had arrived. One need not be a expert to see that such military personnel is anything but first-class. Even in great masses they can never become anything else but objects of slaughter, and one must ask oneself what sort of conscience the rulers of Russia really possess towards these people whom in the first instance they ought to "protect."
Finnish Voice to Russian Soldiers Out in No Man's Land stands a Finnish loud-speaker.. When opportunity presents itself, in the interval between the Russian bombardments, the liberty-loving Finns speak to those on the other side of the front. They endeavour to tell them the truth as it really is, and to explain that Finland harbours no evil intentions towards the Russian Soviet Republics, and that both nations wilh be best served by settling their differences peacefully, The loudspeaker is busy today, and specially in the evenings when the Russian soldiers huddle together in the snow, without as much asa camp-fire by which to warm themselves, they hear the Finnish voice in the dark of the night on the Karelian Isthmus.
One of the appeals is as follows: conte thet bruta assaut which you have diers Red Army: Commenced against the people of Finland, turn back to your fields and other avocations. turn back and we shall do the same."
This is the message on the Karelian Isthmus today, ten days before Christmas,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.