A few weeks before these outrages, Toulgas was given over to a defense that was entirely Russian. Shortly afterward, in the uncertain light of early morning, on the 25th April, there was a wild commotion, and, following interminable confused firing that sounded from all quarters of the village streets, a lamp message flashed across the Dvina to the Allied position at Kurgoman: "We are completely surrounded; the Bolos are attacking in five places." Shortly thereafter, through a fusillade of bullets, a Russian officer, with two men, effected a passage of the river in a small boat, and told the shameful story of how nine officers had been murdered as they slept and bloody Toulgas delivered by faithless Russian soldiers to the waiting Bolsheviks in the woods. Through a prodigy of bravery by a handful of loyal artillery men, the guns were pulled back to Shusiga, ten miles downstream, but it was not until the middle of May that Toulgas was retaken, and while it stayed in enemy hands, the Allied position was alarmingly critical with the right flank over the Dvina completely turned. [Illustration: Major-General Sir William E. Ironside] Thus, with mutiny breaking out in all quarters, the virulent propaganda of the Bolsheviks bore malignant fruit beyond their most sanguine hopes, and the situation was menacing enough to alarm the most conservative in Allied Councils. Had it not been for the two splendid reinforcing brigades, the often imperiled life of the Expedition would have been destroyed at last. The British War Office for once became thoroughly apprehensive. General, Lord Rawlinson was sent to preside over the leavetaking, and fresh reinforcements, two battalions of infantry, two machine gun companies, two batteries of Royal Field Artillery, one engineer company, and five tanks were rushed to Archangel from England. The intention had been to complete the evacuation just before the closing of navigation in late October, but now it was seen that this might be too late, and in the present urgency no time could be lost. "The disengaging blow" was delivered on the 10th August by Jackson's sterling brigade, a little beyond Seltzo, the furthermost south achieved on the Dvina by the little River Column almost a year before. Two thousand prisoners were captured, eighteen guns and many machine guns, and the rout was complete. With the enemy now safely at bay, the British turned the defenses over to the Archangel authorities, who persisted in staying, although they were advised that it was suicidal to do so, and "friendly intervention" was brought to an inglorious, albeit an unbloody, close on the 27th September, eleven months after the Armistice that had outlawed the rule of warring strife as the arbitrament of discordant nations.