Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/85

 fighting spread in the city, the Red sent out patrols everywhere, and searched all pedestrians. Those who carried arms were arrested. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday passed in comparative quiet, i.e., the Red and the Russians were masters in the city, gave chase to the Protective Corps, instituted house-searches and arrests. The Red took up their quarters in the Russian barracks, and were thus ready to sally forth at any time. On Monday night two young men, clerks, travelling on business, were murdered just outside the city. In the meanwhile the peasants in the neighbourhood had become exasperated, and, on the Tuesday evening, marched into the city under arms, and took possession of the railway station. They met with no resistance, but the Red and the Russians demonstrated their power by opening a lively fire in the central part of the town, both with rifles and machine guns. In order to improve the effect some cannon shot were also fired. Four persons were killed, amongst them two women. One received a bullet in the abdomen on coming out from the theatre, another a bullet in the neck while leaning out of the window to look at the riots. Many were wounded. The peasant Protective Corps received a visit at the station from a deputation of soldiers, who declared that the Corps must retire, or else the city would be shot to ruins by artillery fire. In face of this threat, the Protective Corps thought itself compelled to retire, and the soldiers now took possession of the station.

Wednesday proved a melancholy day. Sixty-eight persons were arrested and taken to the barracks, two prisoners were murdered quite meaninglessly, a commercial traveller, aged thirty-seven, in whose breast a Red Guardsman suddenly planted a bayonet, and a student, aged twenty, who was shot without the least reason. At 12 o'clock in the night the whole city was proclaimed