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CHAPTER TWELVE

THE ARMY AND THE REVOLUTION

THE army came out in support of the Revolution and went over to the side of the people. It was one of those impalpable miracles of history which are impossible to grasp and to estimate; any attempt to explain it rationally or on purely logical grounds is bound to fail. Whole books will be written on this marvellous conversion. Every detail in the life of the Russian soldiers will be told; the tragic story of their sufferings, of their cruel and incompetent commanders who led them to slaughter without adequate equipment, and of their continual betrayal by treason at the front and marauders at the rear. The story will be told of all their hopes and their despondencies; and the more we know about these terrible three years of war, the more we understand the life of the Russian soldier, the more clearly we shall realise how this regeneration came about, transforming in a flash the Russian soldiers, the slaves of the Tsar and of the landowners, into the zealous supporters of the Revolution. But even then we shall not know the whole movement in the soul of the Russian soldiers during those few hours when their participation in the Revolution was decided.^[1]`

↑ Mr. Wilton evidently sees no difficulty in explaining how and why the soldiers joined the Revolution. After describing mutinies of the Guard Battalions at Petrograd "amid scenes of the greatest atrocity" and telling how the men of the Litovsky guards murdered their officers, Mr. Wilton says: "After satiating themselves with blood and slaughter, the Litovtzy poured out into the street. There they heard that the Duma had been closed. Here was a convenient means of justifying their crime. They had slain their 'oppressors.' It was all in defence of the people. Now they would rally round the Duma. 'To the Duma! To the Duma!' they cried…"—"Russia's Agony." Page 116.

I do not know whether such an explanation, which in style and character resembles a detective novel, will satisfy the English reader. In Russia such nonsense could not be found, even in the worst sheets of newspapers of the "Black Hundred."

[1] Mr. Wilton evidently sees no difficulty in explaining how and why the soldiers joined the Revolution. After describing mutinies of the Guard Battalions at Petrograd "amid scenes of the greatest atrocity" and telling how the men of the Litovsky guards murdered their officers, Mr. Wilton says: "After satiating themselves with blood and slaughter, the Litovtzy poured out into the street. There they heard that the Duma had been closed. Here was a convenient means of justifying their crime. They had slain their 'oppressors.' It was all in defence of the people. Now they would rally round the Duma. 'To the Duma! To the Duma!' they cried…"—"Russia's Agony." Page 116.

I do not know whether such an explanation, which in style and character resembles a detective novel, will satisfy the English reader. In Russia such nonsense could not be found, even in the worst sheets of newspapers of the "Black Hundred."

[1]