revolution without. This was early in the afternoon, and the Duma held
off for hours. Even when it was known that the Preobarzhenski regiment,
which began its career with Peter the Great, had turned revolutionary,
the Duma insisted on waiting. But at nine o'clock in the evening, when
every police station, every court, was on fire and the revolutionists
completely controlled the city, President Rodzianko decided that the
Duma must take command.

[Sidenote: Automobiles dart boldly everywhere.]

It is interesting to watch a revolution grow, and even at this time,
early Monday afternoon, the revolutionists controlled only a corner of
Petrograd. They were working up excitement, and, as often before in the
war, the motor trucks played an important part. They thundered back and
forth through doubtful streets, students, soldiers, and workmen standing
tight and bristling with bayonets like porcupines. They carried
conviction of force, and, as each foray met with less resistance, it was
not long before they were dashing boldly everywhere. That accounts for
the rapid control of the city. It could not have been done afoot.

[Sidenote: The revolutionists take the arsenal.]

All day, from the time the arsenal fell into their hands, the
revolutionists felt their strength growing, and from noon on no attack
was led against them. At first the soldiers simply gave up their guns
and mixed in the crowd, but they grew bolder, too, when they saw the
workmen forming into regiments and marching up the Fourshtatzkaya, still
fumbling with the triggers of their rifles to see how they met the enemy
at the next corner. The coolness of these revolutionists, their
willingness to die for their cause, won the respect of a small group of
us who were standing before the American Embassy. The group was
composed chiefly of Embassy attaches who wanted to go over to the old
Austrian Embassy, used by us as the headquarters for the relief of
German and Austrian prisoners in Russia; but though it was only a five
minutes' walk, the hottest corner in the revolution lay between.

[Sidenote: Soldiers ground arms and become revolutionists.]

When we left the Embassy, Captain McCulley, the American Naval Attache,
said he knew a way to get out of the revolutionary quarter without
passing a line of fire. So he edged us off toward the distant Nevsky
along several blood-blotched streets in which there were occasional
groups of soldiers who did not know which way to