The elements that had long been working to bring about a revolution had for months been nearer their goal than even they themselves suspected, but they were nevertheless not ready for the final step when events, taking the bit into their teeth, ran away with the revolutionists along the very road which they had wanted to follow. It lies in the nature of the employment of those that go down to the sea in ships that they are more resolute and reckless than their shore-keeping brothers, and less amenable to discipline. They are also subject to certain cosmopolitan, international influences which do not further blind patriotism. Furthermore, the percentage of rude, violent and even criminally inclined men is proportionately higher afloat than ashore. The Russian revolution of 1905 started among the sailors in Cronstadt. The same men set the example in atrocities against officers in the Russian revolution of 1917. Sailors played a prominent part in the Portuguese revolution, and there are few fleets in the world without their history of rough deeds done by mutinous mariners. On October 28th there came an order from the Admiralty at Berlin that the fleet was to be prepared for a cruise into the North Sea. Just what this cruise was intended to accomplish is not clear. High naval officers have assured the writer that it was to have been primarily a reconnaissance, and that no naval battle was intended or desired. The report circulated among the crews, however, that a last desperate stand was to be made, in which the whole fleet would be sacrificed, but in which as great losses as possible were to be inflicted on the British Fleet. This was not at all to the liking of men demoralized by long idleness--an idleness, moreover, in which Bolshevist Satans had found much work for them to do. Just at this time, too, came a gruesome story which further unfavorably affected the crews' morale. A submarine cruiser, it was reported, had become entangled in a net, but had freed itself and reached port, dragging the net with it. When the net was pulled ashore, it was declared, three small U-boats were found fast in it, their crews dead of suffocation. The story was probably false, but it increased the men's opposition to the cruise ordered. They were also disquieted by the fact that large numbers of floating mines were being brought aboard the speedier cruisers. Rumblings of the coming storm were heard first on board the battleships _Thueringen_ and _Helgoland_, a part of whose crews flatly refused to obey orders to carry out the cruise ordered by the Admiralty. The mutiny was not general even aboard these ships, and it was quickly quelled. The embers, however, smouldered for three days and then burst into flame.