The trouble at Bremen was merely a collision between the centre of the renascent reaction at Berlin and the original source of the revolution among the soldiers and sailors of the seaboard towns. The revolution first broke out at Bremen and was spread from there by parties of sailors who established themselves in the leading towns of the interior, including Berlin; and wherever they settled they became the "Red Guard" of the revolution. Bremen was therefore not only the Bethlehem of the new gospel, but was also the key position to the control of the coast. And this control was indispensable to the Government, which was negotiating with the Allies for the importation of foodstuffs in mitigation of the blockade. For the revolutionary extremists, recognising that the blockade was breeding revolt, kept throwing every difficulty in the way of importing food. They first refused to allow the German steamers to sail under the agreement, and then refused to allow foodstuffs to be unloaded. The Government were thus forced, probably not unwillingly, into military action against the revolution in the interests of famine relief. When Gerstenberg's flying column occupied Bremen in February with little serious fighting, the revolutionary policy of barring off Germany from the conservative West and turning it towards the Council government of Russia finally failed. The desperate plan of strangling and starving Germany into revolution was defeated by the German middle class, who preferred, even at the cost of immediate civil war, to go into economic slavery to France and England rather than to go into political outlawry with Russia. The fall of Bremen really finished all immediate chances of Russian "Bolshevism" in Germany.