Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/64

 On account of the threatening situation, the city council at last acceded to the demands of the Red and were liberated.

On the 13th the city council at Björneborg were locked in, and liberated on the 14th.

This kind of farce was played all over the country, and the course it took was entirely dependent on how quick the threatened authorities were in acceding to the demands of the Red. But mob-rule reached its culminating point at Åbo. In this town the co-operation between the Red and the Russians had all the time been specially intimate, and the elements of pure ruffianism had also been unusually amply represented. The population of the town which had experienced an endless succession of threats and outrages groaned heavily under the yoke of terrorism, and showed signs of despair, a fact which as a matter of course increased the valour and exactions of the Red. They had taken over the police force and formed their own "militia." As the latter was of more than doubtful worth, the authorities of the town naturally wished to put in a word on the subject, but the Red would not agree to this. As their demands had been twice granted, but new demands were constantly forthcoming, the authorities thought it might now be reasonable to refuse and to propose a conference. This proposal was answered by the striking of the militia, and with a sufficiently plain threat that the state of the city would be made so unsafe that the effects could not be foreseen. On Saturday the 5th December the militia was withdrawn, and Sunday evening the mob was sent to show what could be arranged if desired. Riotous crowds, among them many Russian soldiers, swarmed towards the middle of the town, and began to loot the shops. The large show-windows were smashed, the fixtures destroyed, and the goods dragged off in