When I attended a revolutionary meeting and listened to the singing of the _Marseillaise_ within the very walls of the fortress, there was large promise of a successful uprising when the time should come. This was the second week in June. Two days after my visit a committee of “sailors and soldiers of the St. Petersburg and Kronstadt garrisons” forwarded to the Group of Toil in the Duma a telegram of support and appeal, closing with the following sentence: “Though you are in the Duma in the minority, still you must firmly remember that you express the will of the whole peasantry and laboring class; that is, all of the toilers of the land. “But if on account of small numbers you are not able to carry through and realize all these reforms which are indispensable and which you are empowered by the people to obtain, then you must sound a call to the people and army, calling them to rise for the struggle. “Your call will not be a voice in the desert, but, on the contrary, it will sound like thunder through the whole land and all as one will arise--all of the enslaved and oppressed--for the defense of their trampled rights, for land, and for freedom.” Coming when they did these were foolish words. As subsequent events proved “all of the enslaved and oppressed” did not rise, nor were they in a position to rise at that time. The publication of this telegram did not advance the cause one iota, but it did put the government on guard. Kronstadt was doubly watched from that moment. The Duma was dissolved just one month later, and three weeks after the dissolution Kronstadt tried to rise--a costly, futile effort. In early June the garrison consisted of about twenty thousand sailors, four thousand heavy artillery, and two thousand infantry. In August the sailors and artillery numbered approximately the same, but more infantry had been brought down from Peterhof. This alone should have been a warning to the military organization, but the roster of the revolutionary sympathizers was apparently so long, the outlook so encouraging, that the force of the loyal men was hopelessly under-estimated. In this particular bad generalship was to blame.