Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/118

 before the General Staff. At Viborg Russian soldiers have been enlisted, and these have just arrived. But now they have "taken" a whole hotel, and refuse to go to the front before they get new rifles and new clothes from head to heel. From the Björneborg front the further communication is received that a band of sailors that have arrived here have quite suddenly turned back, and have begun to rob the peaceful population of objects of gold and silver and other things. The reason was that they had heard there was some wine in a church. They had then broken into the church, drunk the communion wine, and gone out on an expedition of pillage. Neither their Russian nor their Finnish comrades dared hinder them—"as a great conflict might have arisen."

According to the budget of the 2nd February the Red Guard consisted of 30,000 men. If we assume that the Reserve received half-pay it amounted to 10,000. We have thus an army of 40,000 men. But, according to official documents from the Red, the Guard amounted to 75,000 in March. The augmentation must mainly be put down to the forced mobilisation which was carried out. Already earlier "moral pressure" of every kind had of course been brought to bear in order to get the working-men into the Guard, which does not seem to have been very popular. When the revolution broke out, the men were tempted with the particularly high salary, to which was further added free board and in part free clothing. But now even such working-men as had not volunteered were forced into the Guard. In the first place the municipal workmen and the unemployed were selected. Later the forced mobilisation of all men was ordered—they were taken in the street—but it was only in East Finland the proposal was properly carried through, so that, in fact, "bourgeois" in large numbers