Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/137

 The editor of a Labour Paper at Björneborg, Hannes Uksila, writes to the Red Government on the 27th March expressing his anxiety at the reverses in the war. He sees only one possibility of victory, viz., that he himself takes the command on the whole of the Western front. If he gets it, he intends to commence an offensive at Björneborg. In this place there are 7,000 Red, armed in the best manner, "though untrained and unaccustomed to discipline." The enemy's equipment is much poorer, "and," writes Uksila, "among their men there is no doubt one-third who would give themselves up, if only we could get our men to stop killing the prisoners, and if we could bring this to the knowledge of the White." The aspirer to the post as commander-in-chief could safely speak of this absolutely non-existent third of the White army, for he knew very well that the conditions for their surrender could not be fulfilled.

On the 12th February a communication is made at the meeting of the General Staff: the Lettish soldiers at the Savolaks front report that the Finnish Red, when they had got hold of prisoners taken by the Letts, had immediately shot them—without any trial. This has had a "disheartening effect on the Letts." The General Staff do not order any investigation, they only resolve to issue an order of the day containing a warning against violence to prisoners.

On the 8th February the Red papers have a great bulletin of victory. Near Björneborg the Red have vanquished a troop of White who had barricaded themselves in a farm. Eleven were made prisoners, and taken to Björneborg, where they were shot by Russian marines. The report, which only mentions the shooting of the prisoners quite casually, looked rather queer. Partly because the whole region round Björneborg was Red, partly because the farm which was the scene of the