Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/119

 were put into the Red ranks at the front. In other places they were only arrested and locked up.

If we now look over the still extant documents of the Red Guard, we receive a fair idea of the peculiar order and discipline reigning throughout it. Some interiors may also in this respect serve as an illustration of the military and moral level of the Guard.

In an order of the 26th February the Russian soldiers are admonished not to sell their rifles to the enemy.—1,079 parcels of food have been seized on the 13th March at Raumo. They belong to the Russian Red Cross, but the commissariat of the Red Guard decide that the Guard are to have them to eat, "although it may be contrary to international agreements."—The Red Guard Cashier at Helsingfors requests that the militia will work out a list of how many thieves and other professional criminals are found in the ranks of the Red Guard.

On the 7th April, when the German troops had already landed and were marching towards Helsingfors, the Supreme Command of the Red Guard—then a committee of three—together with the General Staff issue the following order to the Staff at Helsingfors: "You will have observed an aeroplane above the city with black crosses on the wings. Try and find out what it is. Place zenith guns in suitable places, and bring it down if it is an enemy." It must well be observed that aeroplanes with the not unfamiliar iron cross under the wings had at that time for weeks past been a not uncommon spectacle to the population of the city.—On the 27th March the Commander-in-Chief on the East Front sends a communication to all the troops under him with the request that it be made known to every man. Both as regards its tenor and style it is very characteristic, and, literally translated, runs as follows: "Whereas among the men in the parts of Kavantsaari such an