I had ample opportunity of hearing many expressions of opinion. When the Revolution burst it came as a surprise, as although for the few months preceding the outbreak people of all classes talked freely of a possible revolution the general opinion was that nothing would take place until after the war. Professor Miliukov, in his famous speech delivered in the Duma on November 14, said: "You cannot conduct a domestic war when you are fighting an external enemy." Strikes and disturbances were feared at the opening of the Duma in February, but the streets were placarded with appeals to workmen to refrain from making demonstrations which might affect the efficient conduct of the war. It was thought inadvisable to hamper the Duma when it first met by riots which might provide the Emperor with an excuse for closing it altogether; an act which would probably have fanned the smouldering flame of discontent into a blaze of revolution all over the country.

All through the winter, which was of a severity unknown since the year of Napoleon's Russian campaign, the food question grew more and more acute. Owing, apparently, to bad organization and scarcity of transport there was a real shortage of bread. Prices had gone up by leaps and bounds. Some of the necessities of life were very difficult to obtain. It was a common sight to see long lines of women, children, and even well-dressed people outside a baker's shop waiting for bread or sugar. Frequently they waited patiently for hours, notwithstanding a bitter temperature of 30 to 50 degrees of frost, taking up their stand as early as 2 A. M. (the shops opened at 8 A. M.) in order to make certain of getting bread. All day these long queues of patient and shivering people were to be seen outside the

bread-shops. Small wonder that the people began to be restive with a Government that did nothing to ameliorate this stage of affairs.

For some time past the Government had been greatly discredited, especially since Rasputin's death, by revelations of the sinister and evil influence that he was known to have possessed with many high officials, in particular with Protopopoff, the much-hated and mistrusted Minister of the Interior, who was held responsible for the food shortage.

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The immediate incidents that led to the Revolution were comparatively trivial. On Thursday afternoon, March 8 (February 23, Russian date), a poor woman entered a bread shop on the Morskaia, the Bond Street of Petrograd, and asked for bread. She was told that there was none. leaving the shop she saw some in the window; she broke the window and took it. A general, passing in his motor, stopped and remonstrated with her. A crowd at once collected, and the incident ended by the general's motor being smashed. The crowd, increasing in size all the time, then paraded the streets, asking for bread. The same afternoon, on the other side of the river, where the working men and factories are, a factory hand on his return home beat his wife because she had failed to procure bread for his meal. The neighboring women ran in and confirmed the woman's story that she had waited several hours outside a bread-shop only to be told on gaining admission that there was none. The men joined in the discussion and agreed that it was not the woman's fault, and that it was better to strike and make a demonstration in the streets, demanding bread.

On Friday, March 9, nothing unusual happened until midday, when crowds began to collect, composed of a large number of well-to-do people as

well as workingmen. Strong patrols of Cossacks were in the streets quietly riding among the people, who were all in the best of humor. No greater acts of violence took place than the overturning of one or two trams, and the removal of the driving handles of many others, thereby causing the tram service to be very irregular during that day. In the afternoon on the Nevski, opposite the Kasan Cathedral, a big crowd assembled. The Prefect of Police, driving up in his car, ordered the officer commanding a patrol of Cossacks to charge the people with drawn swords. The officer replied, "Sir, I cannot give such an order, for the people are only asking for bread." Whereupon the people cheered loudly, and were cheered in return by the Cossacks.

On Saturday, March 10, the Duma had a more or less quiet sitting, at which the situation was discussed. The Minister of Agriculture made a speech, saying that there was plenty of bread in the town, but that through faulty distribution many of the small bakeries had been overlooked. organization of the food-supply was then handed over by the Government to the municipal authorities.

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Towards twelve o'clock great crowds collected again, the factory hands having all come out on strike. Cossacks treated the people with great gentleness and refused to charge or use their whips. In many places they received an ovation, such sympathetic conduct on their part being almost unknown in Russian history. On one occasion when a Cossack fell off his horse the crowd gently picked him up and put him on again. Very different was the behavior of the police, who used the backs of their swords in their efforts to prevent crowds assembling. In the afternoon an officer in an istvostchik, who had evidently annoyed the people,

was suddenly removed from his istvostchik and swallowed up by the crowd. We, who witnessed the scene, wondered what had happened to him, when his sword, bent double, was lifted over the heads of the crowd from hand to hand and dropped into the Fontanka Canal, after which he was allowed to go free. In the evening about five o'clock a man was killed on the Anitchkoff Bridge, probably by a shot from a policeman in a window. Half an hour later one of the heads of the police was killed by a bomb on the Nevski. Some shooting took place by the police in various parts of the town, and the Cossacks charged the crowds. Martial law was proclaimed and posters put up in the streets warning people to keep to their houses next day. At night the lights were extinguished on the Nevski, and a searchlight played down the street from the Admiralty.

Sunday was a glorious, sunny, cloudless day, and as on the two previous mornings no crowd collected until midday. Everything seemed quiet, and although we had been told that something would happen at three o'clock, we hoped a peaceful arrangement would be arrived at, as the municipality had been entrusted with the distribution of food. About three o'clock, on looking out of the hospital windows on the Nevski, we saw crowds walking about in the same rather aimless, good-humored way as on Friday and Saturday, and although when lined up across the Nevski about ten deep they could easily have been moved by half a dozen men on horseback riding through them, the police, one hundred yards farther down the road, lay down in the snow and fired a volley into the people, who all fell on to their faces and crawled away on their hands and knees into the side streets, leaving about a dozen killed and wounded. It was a case of quite

unnecessary provocation on the part of the police, as the people had done nothing to merit the attack, and until we saw the killed and wounded we thought the police had fired blank cartridges. At the same hour all the way up the Nevski and also in other parts of Petrograd the soldiers and police took similar action. There was a rumor that the police were dressed up as soldiers in order to make the people believe that it was the troops who fired upon them, and not the police. Whether this was true or not I do not know. Ambulances were carrying wounded up and down the Nevski all the afternoon. The bridges over the Neva were guarded with machine-guns and troops, but this did not prevent the workmen coming over from the other side, across the frozen river.

On Monday, at about 10 A. M. two regiments revolted. They killed one or two of their officers and disarmed the rest. The crowds were very great, and one long procession composed of regiments without officers, and hundreds of workmen marched up the Nevski to the Duma. Many were carrying red flags. News had come that the Duma had been closed by the Emperor. The revolutionaries surrounded the building and refused to allow the deputies to leave before a solution had been found for the existing state of affairs. From about midday Monday there was heavy fighting all over the town, especially round the Duma, the Nevski, and the streets leading into it. Early in the day, after a short resistance, the revolutionaries seized the Arsenal, and General Matusoff, head of the Arsenal Stores, was killed. They also broke into the prisons, releasing not only all the political prisoners, but the criminal prisoners as well. They burned the Court of Justice with all the records, and

destroyed many of the police stations. The fire-engines were turned back and not allowed to extinguish fires.

Since Friday the Anglo-Russian Hospital, situated on the Nevski, where the Anitchkoff Bridge crosses the Fontanka Canal, had had a guard of about seventy of the Simennovsky Guards. The hospital occupies a part of the palace of the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch, who had been banished to Persia by the Emperor owing to his having been implicated in Rasputin's murder. At one o'clock on Monday these men left the palace and joined the revolutionaries, and the following regiments went over to the side of the people: Volynsky, Preobrazhensky, Kekholmsky, Livtosky, and Sappers, making altogether about 25,000 men. During the afternoon there was a stiff fight between two regiments who had remained loyal and the revolutionaries, but it ended in their joining the rebel troops.

All through Monday and the following forty-eight hours there was a great deal of fighting. It was interesting to see big motor-lorries going round the town distributing arms and ammunition to soldiers and civilians alike. Red flags were now to be seen everywhere. The soldiers tied strips of red to their bayonets; the civilians wore red armlets or streamers from their buttonholes. The police were armed with machine-guns which had been placed several weeks before on roofs and in attics of houses commanding the principal thoroughfares. Machine-guns had also been placed on the Duma building, and even on the churches and on St. Isaac's Cathedral. Ample supplies of provisions had been stored so as to enable the police to hold out any length of time. Νο doubt Protopopoff thought that by these precautions he would be able to control any rising that might occur, whether it was due to the

policy of the Government or not. It was very difficult to locate the machineguns, and on Monday night the crowd broke into a part of Dmitri Pavlovitch's palace, thinking that the police were firing a machine-gun from the roof. A general belonging to the Grand Duke's suite, after having given them his sword and revolver, assured them that there was no gun on the roof, but that they were welcome to go and search for themselves. This they were unwilling to do, for it was not very healthy during these days to be seen on the roof of a house, as a fresh crowd coming up the street were apt immediately to open fire. Two or three different crowds came that night, all thinking the same thing, but they were very good and went peaceably away on hearing that it was English hospital. Red Cross flags were hung outside the hospital, and the doors left open all night so that anyone could come in who wished to do so.

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We saw two interesting things on Monday across the Anitchkoff Bridge on the Nevski. The first was a company of men coming up the Fontanka Canal with an officer at their head, whilst from the opposite direction came a motor-lorry crowded with revolutionary troops. Before they met it was evident that the revolutionaries did not know on which side the soldiers were. The latter hesitated, and their officer turned round and spoke to them. There was a dramatic pause, and then the officer took off his belt and his sword, cut the belt into little pieces, stamped it in the snow, and walked off at the head of his men, in company with the motor-lorry. The other incident occurred as а regiment of Cossacks rode up the Nevski at a walk. The light was just fading and they looked almost ghostlike, coming out of the gray mist on their gray horses, with their lances at

rest. We were admiring the picture they made, when a machine-gun close at hand opened fire. Instantly the men galloped off, lying low on their horse's necks, but not before two saddles were emptied.

On Tuesday morning all the workmen were armed. Practically all the troops in Petrograd had sided with the revolutionaries, but three companies and some light artillery defended the Admiralty, where most of the Cabinet Ministers were in hiding. These troops did not join the Revolution until Wednesday morning. There was an amusing sight of a motor-lorry careering down the Nevski at 7 A. M. with a machine-gun on it, an hour when the street was practically deserted, but this did not prevent the men from firing the machine-gun as hard as they could as they went along. They with their machine-gun were having a "joy ride!"

At eight o'clock on Tuesday the crowd attacked the Astoria Hotel, the biggest hotel in Petrograd, which had been taken over by the Government several months before and turned into a military hotel. At 2 A. M. that morning the revolutionaries had threatened the hotel, but had gone away after having received three guarantees: (1) That nobody would fire from the hotel; (2) that there were only officers on leave, Allied officers, and women and children in the building; (3) that no anti-revolutionary meetings would be held there. Six hours later, as a big crowd of troops and workmen were passing, the police, or German agents, hidden in the roof of the building, fired on them with machine-guns! The revolutionaries, infuriated, stormed the building, and after an hour and a half of hot fighting took the hotel. They rushed in, a howling, raging mob, armed to the teeth, sacked the ground floor, killed some Russian officers, and surged up

the staircase, shooting up the lift and in every direction. The Allied officers were standing on the first floor, and naturally thought their last hour had come, for some of the crowd were already drunk, and by this time the criminal prisoners were mixed up with the revolutionaries. To the amazement of the officers the moment the crowd saw the English uniforms they stopped. Some of them even took off their hats, and said, "English officers! Forgive us, we do not wish to bother you," and passed on in the most courteous manner possible to do more destruction to the hotel and its inmates. They got into the cellars, where there were thousands of bottles of wine and many barrels of spirit. A few of them were just beginning to drink when some soldiers coming in said, "No, my friends, do not let us spoil our fight for freedom by drinking and looting," and they straightway broke all the bottles with the butt-end of their rifles. This and similar magnificent examples of self-restraint saved the town, for had all the wine-shops been looted and the people drunk their contents, nothing could have averted a second French Revolution.

All Tuesday the fighting was at its height. The police with their machineguns all over the town had to be located and taken. The whole day a procession of motors and motorlorries drove up and down the streets, crowded with armed men. Not only were these motors decorated with red flags, but they generally flew the Red Cross as well, and as rifles and bayonets were sticking out of every imaginable corner, and a machine-gun frequently fastened on the back, it was rather incongruous. Hospital sisters were also often seen sitting next the driver, and every car had a couple of soldiers lying on the splashboard over the front wheels, holding their rifles and bayonets out in front

of them; a curiously picturesque sight. One limousine had no less than two machine-guns fixed on behind, and hundreds of soldiers walked about wreathed in machine-gun belts. Every man, and every boy from the age of twelve, was armed that day. They were firing off rifles and revolvers quite vaguely, for many of them probably had never had a firearm in their hands before. Others were brandishing most murderous-looking Cossack swords. A certain number of drunken people were noticed, for the first time, in the streets. There were continual rumors of fresh troops coming into the town to put down the rebellion. Two regiments from Finland were supposed to be arriving, but luckily some rails had been removed and a bridge blown up to prevent their coming. Three regiments from the Riga front were sent for, and there was a certain amount of anxiety as to which side their sympathies would be on, but they all joined the revolutionaries as soon as they entered the town, as did every other regiment. At the beginning of the Revolution there were 30,000 troops in Petrograd, which by the end of the week had reached 100,000.

The Duma was having great difficulty in forming an Executive Committee, as there were three parties: (1) For the Republic; (2) for a compromise with the Emperor; and (3) for the Tsarevitch, with a regency of the Grand Duke Michael, or Rodzianko. Fortunately Rodzianko came to an understanding with the extreme left on Tuesday night, and thereby kept control of the people. Had the Duma been unable to regain control, the fears shared by many, that anarchy must reign on the morrow, might have been realized. Instead of this, a very great improvement in the way of order was discernible on the Wednesday. There was much