The constant exchange of protests between Berlin and Moscow is partly caused by the ambiguous wording of the Brest treaty. On April 24 Adolf Joffe, the Bolshevist Ambassador in Berlin, telegraphed to Moscow that the Russian translation of the treaty was considered by the German authorities incorrect, and that the publication of the final draft of the document was postponed until the receipt of an authentic version. DISMEMBERING RUSSIA It appears that Germany has been making further attempts to encourage the separatist tendency in Russia, in contravention of the Brest treaty. The German Government is reported to have inquired of the local Crimean authorities concerning the nationalization of their flag. The Bolsheviki interpreted this step as indicative of the German desire to separate the Taurida Republic from the Russian Federation. According to a communication issued by the Rumanian Chargé d'Affaires, the National Assembly of Bessarabia voted, on April 9, the union of the province to Rumania by 86 against 3. Thereupon, the Rumanian Premier, amid enthusiastic acclamation, proclaimed the union to be "definitive and indissoluble," and a delegation was sent to Jassy to present the homage of the people of Bessarabia to the King. Rumania seems to have acted at the suggestion of Germany. It is known that the latter proposed to Rumania to annex a part of Bessarabia and thus compensate herself for Rumanian territory taken by Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. It is also known that (on March 22?) Russia signed a treaty with Rumania regarding Bessarabia. The province was to be evacuated by the Rumanian troops, which had occupied it at the request of the population, and the guarding of Bessarabia was to pass into the hands of local militia, while all evacuated places were to be immediately occupied by Russian troops. Russia undertook to leave Rumania the surplus of Bessarabian grain remaining after the local population and Russian troops had been provided for. The Ukrainian Government refused to recognize the step taken by Bessarabia. According to the terms of the Brest treaty the Baltic Provinces Esthonia and Livonia were to remain under Russian sovereignty, but three weeks later Germany began intriguing for a union of these countries with the Kingdom of Russia. The falsity of the assertion that the people of Esthonia favored a Baltic monarchy was exposed by the following protest of the Esthonian Provisional Government, published April 22: Regarding the communication from Berlin that the joint Landtag of Esthonia, Livonia, Riga, and Oesel has decided upon the separation of Baltic provinces from Russia and the creation of a Baltic monarchy in personal union with Prussia, I declare, as representative of the Esthonian Republic, that this resolution does not constitute an expression of opinion of the Esthonian people, but only that of a German nobility minority and its adherents.