The Bolsheviks, through M. Krassin, have expressed their " deep
regret and surprise" at Lord Curzon's warning that any Bolshevik submarines found in the Baltic or the Black Sea would be attacked at sight. They went so far as to deny that they had ever declared war on Great Britain, although their words and their actions over a long period have shown the most bitter hostility to this country. They professed their inability to control the Azerbaijan Administration in regard to the British prisoners at Baku, although Russian Bolshevik troops occupy that region. They complained of the seimre by British warships of an Italian vessel, the 'Ancona,' on a voyage from Datum to Novorossisk, which is in Bolshevik hands, and asked that the British Navy should withdraw from the Black Sea. Lord Curzon in reply said that the Bolsheviks had threatened to sink Allied vessels and that they were displaying open hostility to British interests in the Black Sea, so that the British Navy could take no risks with Bolshevik submarines.
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