The fears of the Soviet Government were not completely allayed, however, for they began to remove the stocks of war material westward, with the result that on April 20 the Japanese landed still more marines to reenforce those already on guard ashore.

On April 26, 1918, Tchitcherin, the foreign minister of the Soviet Government, informed the representatives of the United States, Great Britain, and France that his Government desired the recall of their consuls stationed at Vladivostok on account of their participation in counter-revolutionary plots. He also asked them to set forth their attitudes toward the Soviet Government. An official report of the demand for the removal of John K. Caldwell, the American consul at Vladivostok, was received by the American State Department on May 6, 1918, from Ambassador Francis. The State Department replied that it had no definite information on which to base such charges and refused to remove the consul. These charges were largely in relation to the counter-revolutionary movement which had been instigated by General Seminov, who had established himself in the Transbaikal and had gathered around him a number of former officers in the Russian army of high rank and who were now inspired, either by a hope that a monarchial form of government might be reestablished, or at least that a less radical form of government than that of the Bolsheviki might take its place. Here were gathered also many civilian enemies of the Bolsheviki, with the same hope of overthrowing them by military force.

During the middle of April, 1918, hostilities were reopened by General Kornilov against the Soviet forces, but his campaign from the Cossack country in the south met with disaster in its incipiency, and Kornilov was himself badly wounded.

It was also stated that General Dutov, another anti-Bolshevist Cossack leader, was captured by the Bolshevist troops, and that Seminov, the leader of the anti-Soviet forces in Siberia, was killed.

Meanwhile the Germans were continuing their aggressive operations, largely through Ukrainia, where they were almost completely in possession of the country. The German Government was evidently keenly disappointed in its hopes of obtaining food supplies from this region.

If the demanded food supplies were to be had, it was obvious that stronger measures must be resorted to. In the latter part of April it was announced officially by the Washington State Department that the Ukrainian Rada was to be dissolved by the Teuton military commander in Kiev and another government established in its place.

The pretext came with the "arrest" on April 24, 1918, of a prominent pro-German banker by an organization calling itself the Committee of Ukrainian Safety. The German Vice Chancellor, Von Payer, said before the Main Committee of the Reichstag that this secret society had as its object the expulsion of the Germans from the country, which it proposed to accomplish by means of the old terrorist methods employed in the earlier days of the autocracy. Among the members of the organization were many men of public prominence, and it was said that its central executive committee had been meeting in the residence of the minister of war. The German ambassador had demanded an investigation, but the Rada would not, or could not, take action.

Within forty-eight hours the commander in chief of the Teuton forces in Ukrainia, General von Eichhorn, proclaimed a state of "enhanced protection," tantamount to martial law.

On April 28, 1918, while the Rada was in session, the doors to the assembly chamber were suddenly thrown open by German soldiers and a number of the members of the assembly were seized, among them being the minister of war. When the president of the Rada protested against the outrage, he was struck by a soldier and thrown to the floor.

On the following day a convention of wealthy peasants and landed gentry, who were holding a convention in the city, proclaimed itself the government of the land, declared the Rada non-existent, and proclaimed General Skoropadsky, a strong pro-German and a reactionary, hetman of Ukrainia, thus giving him practically dictatorial powers, subject to German approval. The German Government hastened to recognize the new governing power.