Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/84

 all those who had not been drawn into the whirlpool of anarchy now prepared in real earnest to beat down this loathsome régime that infested the country like a plague. Some acts of violence were still committed. In the middle of January the Red committed two murders, while the soldiers, sometimes in uniform but with masks before their faces, sometimes furnished with cotton saturated with chloroform, committed robbery and pillage. At Åbo the Red had chosen for their head-quarters a navigation school lying on a hill, and taken possession of it without ceremony; at Kaskø the soldiers celebrated the Russian new year by seizing upon 400 litres of brandy from a bonded warehouse, making themselves drunk on it and fighting. They did not settle down until they had two killed and several wounded.

Soon the state of affairs becomes very critical. The Red take up the offensive in real earnest in order to draw the Protective Corps and then destroy them. On the 21st January two trains with soldiers are sent from St. Petersburg to Østerbotten, the centre of the Protective Corps, most singular tactics, considering the acknowledged independence of Finland, and the many promises that the soldiers should be withdrawn from the country. And at Viborg serious disturbances break out.

On Saturday, the 19th January, the Red in that city suddenly surround a factory, and try to break in with a force of 100 men. Seventeen persons, the owner of the factory, his sons and others, offer resistance inside the building. A violent firing ensues. Russian soldiers come flocking to the assistance of the Red, who, at last, on the Sunday morning, succeed in forcing their way into the house and taking captive its defenders, a couple of whom were severely wounded. It had been the intention of the Red to search the factory. The