On the evening of August 30, 1918, Premier Lenine, while returning from a public meeting at which he had been a speaker, was shot by a woman and severely wounded. Lenine's place was immediately taken by Leo Kamenev, vice president of the Petrograd Soviet. The would-be assassin, a girl student by the name of Dora Kaplan, was a member of the Social Revolutionary Party, which had long since declared war against the Bolsheviki, but the Soviet officials apparently believed that the initiative for the attempt on Lenine's life came from outside sources.

On the following day, August 31, 1918, a search was ordered of the British embassy in Petrograd. One of the Bolshevist commissioners was instructed to conduct the search, it being reported that the Socialist Revolutionists, Savinkov and Filonenko, were hiding on the premises of the embassy. Accompanied by a detachment of Red Guards, the commissioner, Hillier, went to the embassy and, proceeding to the first floor, was met by shots which killed one of his escort and wounded another. A fight ensued in the corridor, in which Captain Francis Cromie, the British military attaché, was killed. The police then entered the embassy and arrested forty persons. As soon as the news of the attack reached London the British Government sent the following protest to the Soviet Government:

"An outrageous attack has been made on the British embassy in Petrograd, its contents have been sacked and destroyed, Captain Cromie, who tried to defend it, was murdered, and his body barbarously mutilated. We demand immediate reparation and the prompt punishment of anyone responsible for or concerned in this abominable outrage.

"Should the Russian Soviet Government fail to give complete satisfaction, or should any further acts of violence be committed against a British subject, His Majesty's Government will hold the members of the Soviet Government individually responsible and will make every endeavor to secure that they shall be treated as outlaws by the governments of all civilized nations, and that no place of refuge shall be left them. You have already been informed through M. Litvinov that His Majesty's Government was prepared to do everything possible to secure the immediate return of the official representatives of Great Britain and of the Russian Soviet Government to their respective countries. A guarantee was given by His Majesty's Government that as soon as the British officials were allowed to pass the Russo-Finnish frontier, M. Litvinov and all the members of his staff would have permission to proceed immediately to Russia.

"We have now learned that a decree was published on August 29, 1918, ordering the arrest of all British and French subjects between the ages of eighteen and forty, and that British officials have been arrested on trumped-up charges of conspiring against the Soviet Government.

"His Majesty's Government has therefore found it necessary to place M. Litvinov and the members of his staff under preventive arrest until such time as all British representatives are set at liberty and allowed to proceed to the Finnish frontier, free from molestation."

The protest had its effect, in so far that the subjects of the Allied Governments were gradually released and allowed to leave Russia, and late in September, 1918, the British Government allowed the Bolshevist representative, held under arrest in London, to proceed to Russia.

CHAPTER IX

THE BALTIC PROVINCES

On September 10, 1918, a consular report received in Washington stated that the German Government had finally completed a plan for dividing the Baltic provinces of the former Russian empire into administrative districts, all to constitute a single military administration of the Baltic provinces, with headquarters in Riga. They were to be placed under the authority of the commanding officer of the town and of Von Goesler, the administration chief, who had been at the head of the German administration in Courland. The administration of the provinces included a provincial administration for Courland, with its seat at Mitau; an administration for Livonia, with a seat at Riga; and another for Esthonia, with a seat at Reval. The town of Riga constituted in itself a special administration district, placed under the authority of the captain of the town. Lithuania constituted the military administration of Lithuania, the seat being at Vilna.