It is said that an officer who had followed the procession managed to enter the Palace, where the Grand Duke Vladimir was holding his council of war, and tried to persuade him that the best thing to do would be to tell the multitude that the Emperor was not in town, and induce the people to disperse. The Grand Duke would not hear of it. “Punished they must be,” he said, and thereupon gave the order to fire.

Meanwhile the workmen, not knowing what was going on, began shouting their desire to see the Tsar, their “little father.” No reply was given to these appeals, no word of warning was spoken, and suddenly, before these masses had been able to realise what was happening, the troops took to their rifles, and laid low as many of the now frightened creatures as they could.

It is useless to describe the panic that followed. After a few moments, when the smoke had dissipated, the square was found to be covered with dead bodies and wounded men, women, and children. The soldiers fired again and again, and when the crowds, struck with terror, fled in every direction, they were followed by mounted Cossacks, who pursued them all along the Nevski Prospekt, killing whom they could, either with their rifles or with their whips; and when all seemed to be over, a cannon was fired, sweeping the whole length of the long avenue, and laying low all who had succeeded in escaping the first charge of the cavalry.

Gapon had escaped. As the first volley was heard he managed to disappear, hidden from friends and foes, by the care of the police for whom he had worked so well. He escaped to Paris, where he tried to pass as a martyr of the cause which he had betrayed. When he returned to Russia, as everybody now knows, he was murdered; not by the order of the Revolutionary Executive Committee, but by agents of the Government. It was too dangerous to allow such a compromising accomplice to live.

On the evening of the day that had seen such bloody scenes enacted within the walls of St. Petersburg, the Grand Duke Vladimir went to Tsarskoe Selo, to report to his nephew the events that had taken place. Nicholas II. listened in silence to the details given to him by his uncle. When the latter had finished he is reported to have asked: “Are you sure that you have killed enough people?”

CHAPTER XIV
PEACE WITH JAPAN; WAR AT HOME

The butchery which took place on that sad day of January, 1905, marked the beginning of a period of unrest that is not yet at an end. It gave the signal for a manifestation of discontent such as Russia had not witnessed before, even during the last days of the reign of Alexander II.; and, what is more, afforded the excuse for it, because even the stanchest supporters of the Government were indignant at the recklessness with which it had tried to suppress what, after all, had not been a rebellion, but only a desire on the part of some workmen to see their Sovereign and lay before him their real or imaginary wrongs. It is probable that if Nicholas II. had only received these poor people there would have been no later Revolution, and the agents provocateurs, scattered everywhere by the police, would have failed to arouse the masses and persuade them to a rebellion which no one wanted, though everybody felt that a change in the methods of government must come. But that change, it had been hoped, would be brought about peacefully through the mutual efforts of the Tsar and his people. As it was, the events which took place on the 22nd of January proved to the masses that nothing could be expected voluntarily from the Sovereign; they had to shift for themselves if they wanted any amelioration of the system of government. The mistake which was committed on that day nearly overthrew the Romanoff Dynasty, and it shook their Throne perhaps more than the reverses of the war with Japan.

Gapon, nevertheless, did not lose his influence after the butchery in front of the Winter Palace. His mysterious disappearance from among the workmen, whose deputations he had headed when they started on their sadly momentous journey, had been attributed to the watchfulness of his friends, who had wanted to preserve him from the reprisals of the police. As a consequence, when he reappeared and tried to reorganise secret committees, and to devise new means of disseminating among the working classes the liberal opinions he was supposed to profess, he was received by them with great enthusiasm. He was a consummate actor, and possessed to perfection the art of advertising himself. He contrived to impress his victims with the idea that he was considered by the Government to be one of its most serious and dangerous adversaries.

Whilst he was doing his best to excite the masses, and urge them to violent measures, he was also in constant communication with M. Witte, whom he kept informed of all that was going on among the revolutionary secret societies, who were energetically preparing themselves for a struggle which, it was felt everywhere, could not be delayed for any length of time.

However, there were those among the enthusiasts who began to get suspicious as to the facility with which Gapon eluded the vigilance of the police. He constantly said that he was being shadowed, and so never could afford to spend two nights under the same roof. Yet, somehow, he contrived in a marvellous way to avoid the spies who followed him. Of course, it might have been his luck, but then it is not often that luck is so faithful to one person, and several leaders of the revolutionary movement which Gapon was supposed to favour began to watch him and follow his movements. They tried to find out what he was really doing, and who were the people he most frequently saw. But the police, who were shadowing Gapon the whole time, quickly noticed that he was no longer in possession of the same degree of confidence which he had previously enjoyed, and that the party to which he was supposed to belong began to take important decisions without consulting him, without even his being aware of them. M. Witte, who very soon was advised of this change in the feelings of the anarchists in regard to Gapon, determined then to send him abroad for some time. His mission was to find out from the leaders of the movement in London and Paris the information he had not succeeded in ascertaining in St. Petersburg.