Not a single prisoner of war was allowed through the German lines. I know of one sergeant who escaped and reached the German lines in Central Russia. He was warned to go back, but he could not believe his ears; he thought the Germans would be certain to welcome their own men. He insisted on advancing, and was shot dead. Later in the summer I was informed that the Germans were shooting all returned prisoners who could be proved to have had anything to do with the Bolsheviks. The success of the Revolution in Germany proves that some, at any rate, managed to get through. The Austrians put their Bolsheviks in internment camps. Meanwhile strange things were happening at Irkutsk itself. Although peace had been signed, prisoners of war from Russia were being concentrated at Irkutsk. Two or three hundred of them were armed and were set to guard not only their own encampment, but also the munition stores of the Bolsheviks. The Russians had no faith in their own men, and insisted on having Germans. Many prisoners in the town were instructing the Red Guards and Anarchists in the various branches of war--artillery, cavalry, and the machine-gun. Two or three flying machines were brought to Irkutsk, to be flown, it was said, by German aviators. Transports of prisoners from the east were held up indefinitely in the town. They came with the soldiers, subject to military discipline as at the front. Within a day all that was changed. Saluting ceased and discipline existed no longer. In one case the leader of a transport was arrested because he was paying the officers more per day than the men. All his money, to the amount of several thousands of pounds, was taken from him. All the protocols that had been collected against the prisoners were destroyed. A German sergeant was killed in the streets of Irkutsk for refusing to remove the badges of his rank. The Allies took alarm at the concentration of such large armed forces, and sent officers to investigate the movement. They were put off with bare-faced lies. At a time when at least ten thousand prisoners were under arms, they were assured that only fifteen hundred of them were so. In April there was a great meeting of delegates from all the associations of prisoners in Siberia. The rules of membership were decided upon, and among them was the following: “The members are pledged to take up arms whenever the Central Committee calls upon them to do so, or if there is no time to appeal to the Central Committee, whenever the Local Committee calls upon them to do so.” In addition to those already enrolled in the Red Army, the Association gave the Bolsheviks an enormous number of men pledged to support them with arms when called upon. I say enormous advisedly. An Austrian with whom I talked reckoned the number at a million. This is certainly too large, but in any case the Association doubled, if it did not treble, the number of soldiers at the Soviet’s disposal.