Such a fiasco would have been enough to discredit the movement in any other country. But the Bolsheviks die hard, and they are quick to profit, not only by other people’s mistakes, but by their own. They saw that it was useless to attempt anything in Irkutsk without getting the artillery over to their side. So they set to work systematically to detach each battery from its allegiance to the Provisional Government. I used to hear through the German agent how they were getting on, how first one battery and then another succumbed, till at last only one was left on which the authorities could rely. In time this also was won over. The work required patience, and it was not until Christmas week that the Bolsheviks were ready to turn out the Government. The officers in the army, of course, knew what was happening, but they were powerless. In any case they were not trained political agitators, and they had received no political education. They knew little of the lives of their men, they had no especial sympathy with their desires for more freedom and power, and the inner meaning of what was going on before their eyes escaped them. It will probably be so in every army infected by Bolshevik agitators. From the outset their privileges, and the distance enjoined by their rank, handicap the officers in dealing with these men. As usual, treachery was everywhere. Kerenski had sent down an emissary with instructions to watch the situation for him. The man’s name was Strendberg, which looks German-Jewish, but he professed to be a Finn. He spoke German fluently; but when the Allied officers came to Irkutsk to investigate the arming of the prisoners of war, he denied that he knew a word of German. After the Revolution he acknowledged that he had played Kerenski false, and had used his influence to pervert the army still more thoroughly. The Bolsheviks rewarded him by making him their Commander-in-Chief for a time. It is curious that the German prisoners of war at Krasnoyarsk had planned an insurrection to take place on the very day that fighting began at Irkutsk. A War Staff had been formed, every German officer had his task assigned to him, and if the coup had succeeded, it must have thrown the whole of Siberia into confusion. A Russian officer, who understood German, overheard the prisoners speaking about it and reported the matter to Irkutsk. The last act of the Provisional Government was to take severe measures to punish the offenders, and to make a repetition of the offence impossible. If it was a coincidence, it was surely a most remarkable one, that the Germans should have hit upon the same date as the Bolsheviks for their rising. [SN: THE STORM BURSTS]