Toward the end of August, 1918, the British Government had released Litvinov, the Bolshevist representative in London, and the Soviet Government had freed the British subjects under arrest in Moscow, by mutual agreement; relations seemed about to improve. But on August 31, 1918, occurred an incident in Moscow which rendered the situation worse than ever, rousing very strong feeling against the Bolsheviki in Great Britain. On the evening of August 30, 1918, Premier Lenine, while returning from a public meeting at which he had been a speaker, was shot by a woman and severely wounded. Lenine's place was immediately taken by Leo Kamenev, vice president of the Petrograd Soviet. The would-be assassin, a girl student by the name of Dora Kaplan, was a member of the Social Revolutionary Party, which had long since declared war against the Bolsheviki, but the Soviet officials apparently believed that the initiative for the attempt on Lenine's life came from outside sources. On the following day, August 31, 1918, a search was ordered of the British embassy in Petrograd. One of the Bolshevist commissioners was instructed to conduct the search, it being reported that the Socialist Revolutionists, Savinkov and Filonenko, were hiding on the premises of the embassy. Accompanied by a detachment of Red Guards, the commissioner, Hillier, went to the embassy and, proceeding to the first floor, was met by shots which killed one of his escort and wounded another. A fight ensued in the corridor, in which Captain Francis Cromie, the British military attaché, was killed. The police then entered the embassy and arrested forty persons. As soon as the news of the attack reached London the British Government sent the following protest to the Soviet Government: "An outrageous attack has been made on the British embassy in Petrograd, its contents have been sacked and destroyed, Captain Cromie, who tried to defend it, was murdered, and his body barbarously mutilated. We demand immediate reparation and the prompt punishment of anyone responsible for or concerned in this abominable outrage.