11 March 1917. Alfred Knox

Petrograd, Russian Empire

I got up at 6 a.m. on Monday, March 12th, as the Ambassador had asked me to go with his car to the Baltic Station to meet Miss Buchanan, who was returning from a visit to the neighbourhood of Reval. I returned to the Embassy at 9.30a.m.and about an hour later drove to the Artillery Department, a large building on the Liteini Prospekt. I was talking to friends there in the corridor on the first floor, outside the office of General Manikovski, the Chief of the Department, when General Hypatiev, the chemical expert, and M. Tereshchenko arrived with the news that the depot troops of the garrison had mutinied and were coming down the street. I heard for the first time that a company of the Pavlovski Regiment had fired on the police on the previous evening and had been disarmed and confined in the Preobrajenski barracks.

The Preobrajenski and Volinski Regiments had now mutinied. We went to the window and waited. Outside there was evident excitement, but no sound came to us through the thick double windows. Groups were standing at the corners gesticulating and pointing down the street. Officers were hurrying away, and motor-cars, my own amongst the number, were taking refuge in the courtyards of neighbouring houses. It seemed that we waited at least ten minutes before the mutineers arrived. Craning our necks, we first saw two soldiers a sort of advanced guard—who strode along the middle of the street, pointing their rifles at loiterers to clear the road. One of them fired two shots at an unfortunate chauffeur. Then came agreat disorderly mass of soldiery, stretching right across the wide street and both pavements. They were led by a diminutive but immensely dignified student. There were no officers. All were armed,and many had red flags fastened to their bayonets. They came slowly and finally gathered in a compact mass in front of the Department. They looked up at the windows,which were now crowded with officers and clerks, but showed no sign of hostility. What struck me most was the uncanny silence of it all. We were like spectators in a gigantic cinema. Tereshchenko, who stood beside me, told me later that as he looked down on the disorderly crowd, he foresaw all the quarrels and licence and indiscipline that were to follow. General Manikovski came out and invited Tereshchenko and me into his room. We were soon joined there by General Hypatiev, and by General Lekhovich, who a few hours before had been appointed Assistant Minister of War. Hypatiev asked me if I reported such things to England, and I said that I certainly did. He seemed overcome by the shame of the mutiny.

Soon we heard the windows and door on the ground floor being broken in, and the sound of shots reached us. The telephone rang and Manikovski took up the receiver. “ They are shooting at the Sestroretsk Works, are they ? He roared in his great voice. «Well, God be with them! They are shooting at the Chief Artillery Department too»

An exited orderly rushed in: “ Your High Excellency! They are forcing their way info the building. Shall we barricade your door? ” But Manikovski had kept his nerve,and said: “No. Open all the doors. Why should we hinder them ? ” As the orderly turned away, astonished at this new complaisance, Manikovski sighed, and said to me with the characteristic Russian click of worried anger : «Look what our Ministry has brought us to» !

Tereshchenko went out, and most of the officers were leaving the Department by a back door. Hypatiev and I went to the staircase and looked over the banisters. Down on the ground floor, soldiers were taking the officers’ swords, and a few hooligans were going through the pockets of coats left in the vestibule. I went down and found a N.C.O. of the Preobrajenskis, who was ordering his men to take only the swords and to steal nothing. I told him who I was, and he helped me on with my coat. I returned upstairs and found Manikovski had gone.

A party of soldiers was almost timidly breaking the glass of one of the arm-stands to take out the rifles—specimens of the armament of other nations, that were without ammunition and would be of no use to them. As they went off, proud of their capture, an officer caught the arm of one of them—a young soldier with a straight, honest face—and remonstrated with him, and I heard the boy reply : “I could not help it. They forced me.” I descended the stairs and my N.G.O. gave me a couple of men to escort me through the crowd. Out in the street a ragged individual expressed his delight with much gesticulation. He yelled : “ They used to beat our friends in the prison over there, to beat them with rods ! A hundred yards further we met the French Military Attache, Colonel Lavergne, who was on his way to the Artillery Department in search of some prosaic details regarding the output of shell. My escort recommended him to turn back and we walked together to the French Embassy. There, as the men left us, we stood a moment on the Quay, and looked back at the stream of troops now crossing the bridge to liberate the prisoners in the Krestovski prison, and Lavergne suddenly asked me if those men

were mutineers and if my escort had been mutineers. They had been so orderly and friendly that he had never dreamed that they were anything but loyal troops !

I walked on to the British Embassy. The Ambassador had gone, as usual, with the French Ambassador to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I telephoned to him that a large part of the garrison had mutinied and was in undisputed control of the Liteini Prospekt. I heard him repeat my message in French to the Foreign Minister M. Pokrovski, and to the French Ambassador.

I expected Colonel Engelhardt to lunch, so walked back to my flat. Engelhardt, of course, did not come, for he, with other prominent members of the Duma, was busy trying to bring the torrent of anarchy under control. He had been appointed Commandant of Petrograd

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