Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/159

 valuable objects cheap that had been taken from the bodies. Thus all became participants in the crime; thus one defended oneself against the cowards and timid persons. And when the murderers were allowed free play it became the general opinion that all who had not joined the Red movement were legitimate sport. Their homes might be plundered, their lives taken; they were butchers and the enemies of the people, no matter what position they filled in society.

However, it was not until defeat began to be obvious to all that the thefts, murders, and general ravages began with unequalled fury. The destruction of the last weeks can only be conceived as the work of mobs worked up into a state of frenzy.

In the following these ravages will be briefly touched upon.

By the peace with Germany Russia pledged herself to remove immediately both the Russian troops and the Russian Red Guard Corps from Finland. This obligation was not, however, fulfilled. On the contrary, huge bands of Bolsheviks poured into Helsingfors at the fall of Reval, and Russian officers continued as hitherto to direct the war operations of the Red. The decision of the peace treaty could thus only be carried through by force, and when the Government of Finland requested armed help from Germany, this request was complied with: Germany sent troops to Finland.

It would have been only natural if the Red had laid down their arms before such a prospect. General Mannerheim issued a proclamation to them adjuring them to give up their mad enterprise now that their defeat was unavoidable. But the leaders of the Red thought of no such thing. They would not, or perhaps they