“(8) Military discipline to be preserved on parade and on duty. The soldiers, however, are to be free to enjoy all social rights enjoyed by other citizens.
“The Provisional Government deems it its duty to add that it has no intention of taking advantage of wartime to delay carrying out the aforesaid reforms and measures.”
This Declaration was quite obviously drafted under pressure from the “parallel power.”
In his book, Mes Souvenirs de Guerre, General Ludendorff says: “I often dreamt of that Revolution which was to alleviate the burdens of our war. Eternal chimera! To-day, however, the dream suddenly and unexpectedly came true. I felt as if a heavy load had fallen off my shoulders. I could not, however, foresee that it would be the grave of our might.”
One of the most prominent leaders of Germany—the country that had worked so hard for the poisoning of the soul of the Russian people—has come to the belated conclusion that “Our moral collapse began with the beginning of the Russian Revolution.”
[CHAPTER V.]
The Revolution and the Imperial Family.
Alone in the Governor’s old Palace at Mohilev the Czar suffered in silence; his wife and children were far away, and there was no one with him in whom he was able or willing to confide.
Protopopov and the Government had at first represented the state of affairs as serious, but not alarming—popular disturbances to be suppressed with “a firm hand.” Several hundred machine-guns had been placed at the disposal of General Habalov, Commander of the troops of the Petrograd district. Both he and Prince Golitzin, President of the Cabinet, had been given full authority to make use of exceptional means of quelling the riots. On the morning of the 27th General Ivanov had been despatched with a small detachment of troops and a secret warrant, to be made public after the occupation of Czarskoe Selo. The warrant invested him with full military and civic powers. No one could have been less fitted than General Ivanov to occupy so highly important a position, which amounted actually to a Military Dictatorship. Ivanov was a very old man—an honest soldier, unfitted to cope with political complications and no longer in possession of strength, energy, will-power, or determination.... His success in dealing with the Kronstadt disturbances of 1906 most probably suggested his present nomination.