“You are scoundrels!” I shouted with all my strength. “You are idiots! I myself am for peace, but we shall never have peace till we have driven the Germans out of Russia. They will make slaves of us and ruin our country and our freedom. You are traitors!” Suddenly I was kicked violently in the back. Some one dealt me a second blow from the side. “Fire!” I shouted to my girls at the windows as I was knocked down, mindful that I had instructed them always to shoot in the air first as a warning. Several hundred rifles rang out in a volley. My assailants quickly dispersed, and I was safe. However, they returned during the night and stoned the windows, breaking every pane of glass fronting the street. CHAPTER XII MY FIGHT AGAINST COMMITTEE RULE It was after midnight when I entered the barracks. The officer in charge reported to me the events of the evening. It appeared that at first one of the group, a Bolshevik agitator, had made his way inside by telling the sentry that he had been sent by me for something. As soon as he was admitted he got the women together and began a speech, appealing to them to form a committee and govern themselves, in accordance with the new spirit. He scoffed at them for submitting to the system of discipline which I had established, calling it Tsaristic, and expressing his compassion for the poor girls whom I had punished. Declaiming against the war, appealing for peace at any price, he urged my recruits to act as free citizens, depose their reactionary chief and elect a new one in democratic fashion. The result of the address was a split in the ranks of my Battalion. More than half of them approved of the speaker, crying: “We are free. This is not the old régime. We want to be independent. We want to exercise our own rights.” And they seceded from the troop, and finding themselves in the majority after taking votes, elected a committee. I was deeply agitated, and in spite of the late hour ordered the girls to form into ranks. As soon as this was accomplished I addressed the following command to the body: “Those who want a committee move over to the right. Those who are against it go to, the left.” The majority went to the right. Only about three hundred stood at the left. “Now those of you who are willing to be treated by me as you have been treated hitherto, to receive punishment when necessary, to maintain the severest possible discipline in the Battalion and to be ruled without a committee, say yes,” I exclaimed. The group of three hundred on the left shouted in a chorus: “Yes, we consent! We are willing, Commander.” Turning to the silent crowd on the right I said: “Why did you join? I told you beforehand that it would be hard. Did you not sign pledges to obey? I want action, not phrases. Committees paralyse action by a flood of words.”