Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/26

 cities by belts of forts, blasted into the mountains, by lines of trenches and barbed wire defences, as well as in the building of lines of defence virtually throughout the whole of the country. How much work these fortifications have cost is best seen from the observations of an officer of the German general staff on the defences round Helsingfors. He says that these fortifications surpassed everything German soldiers had seen during the world-war, as well Liège as Verdun, as well Kovno as Warsaw, nay, even the mountain fortresses in the Italian Alps. These huge positions were built by Finnish labourers under Russian command. Enormous crowds of working-men overran the parts where the work was carried on, the pay was good, discipline there was none, the claims made on individual effort were the least possible. Innumerable were the anecdotes related about bribes, cheating, faked pay-bills, etc., in connection with this work. But one melancholy result they had. The labourers became corrupted, and were thought to fraternise with the Russian soldiers. A friendship was struck up between the worst elements within each group, and the compact was soon sealed by pillage, theft, robbery and murder, all in concert. The tracts where the fortification-work had been carried on became the worst haunts of Finno-Russian bands of ruffians in the winter of 1917–1918, and, from the ranks of those fortification workers who had been led astray, the most licentious bands of the reviving Red Guard were recruited.

During the war Finland's Lantdag had not been permitted to assemble. But in the summer of 1916 the new general elections took place. These were not able to create any very great interest, as it was impossible to foresee under what conditions the assembly would meet, and what problems would then be set before it. Only the Labour Party succeeded as before in rallying