similar action was taken in the building of the Smolny Institute and the Central Telegraph Agency.

THE

SOLDIERS REFUSE TO OBEY THE GOVERNMENT.

Against this hostile action the Provisional Government was unable to offer any immediate resistance, for the troops of the garrison showed themselves indisposed to obey commands. On the other hand, the Bolsheviki also refrained from a too active manifestation of force, for within the Soviet there was still a strong minority in favor of compromising with the Provisional Government.

It was not till the forces of the Soviet appeared before the Winter Palace, the headquarters of the Provisional Government, that the first actual fighting took place. As the Bolsheviki approached, shots were fired from within the grounds of the building, and the attacking party immediately took shelter behind the piles of firewood which had been stacked in the square before the gates. From here they opened a steady fire at the windows of the Palace. The cruiser Aurora, whose crew had gone over entirely to the Soviet, drew up off the Palace and opened a desultory fire. About thirty of the military cadets. defending the Palace were killed, and then, toward midnight, the rest surrendered.

Kerensky had failed to save Russia though he had striven with all his might. Sincerely devoted to the welfare of his country he had given all his energy and strength to the reconciliation of opposites which could not be reconciled, grasping at the shadow and losing the substance. He believed in the power of words, and often talked when he should have acted. Toward the end of his power he was possessed by "delusions of grandeur" and rebuffed men who might have aided him in saving Russia. He failed, but whether any one else could have succeeded is improbable.

The Bolsheviki had acted according to a general plan, for the same acts of rebellion occurred in all the principal centres of Russia simultaneously. Almost everywhere this second revolution was peacefully and bloodlessly accomplished, except in Moscow, where the military cadets offered a determined resistance.

IE BOLSHEVIKI PROCEED TO FORM A
GOVERNMENT.

THE

Having gained control of Petrograd, the revolutionary committee of the Soviet immediately issued a proclamation, announcing the "dictatorship of the proletariat"- the advent of the "real revolution of the Russian people." The programme which they published enunciated the following points:

First to open negotiations with all the belligerent states for the purpose of obtaining a democratic peace.

Second-to distribute land holdings. among the peasants.

Third-recognition of the Soviet as the supreme power in the government of Russia.

Fourth-the convocation of a genuine Constituent Assembly, representing the Russian democracy.

On the following day another proclamation announced the formation of a new cabinet, of which Nikolai Lenin was Premier, and Leon Trotzky Minister of Foreign Relations.

ALBERT SONNICHSEN.

A DETACHMENT OF THE WOMAN'S BATALLION OF DEATH RESTING IN THE FIELD

By Courtesy of the Red Cross Magazine

GREECE lies in the pathway from

Asia to Europe, and when East invaded West, and the Turk entered Europe, Greece became a subject nation for many centuries. Enslavement almost blotted out her previous history, and that any fraction of individuality and tradition survived is due to the fact that her mountain fastnesses and multitudinous islands preserved it from utter extinction. With the turn of the tide in the other direction in the nineteenth century, what was left of Greece began a new life in common with all the other subject races under Turkish rule in the Balkans.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY AND RUSSIA DESIRED

WEAK BALKAN STATES.

The history of the wars against Turkey has been told in a previous chapter (Chapter IV). Who should take the Turk's place in the peninsula was a complicated problem. From the point of view of Austria or Russia it was advantageous to maintain a balance of power among the Balkan States that would be so nicely poised as to keep all the rivals engaged in maintaining its equilibrium. It was a menace to this balance of power when Bulgaria precipitated the second Balkan War, ending in the Treaty of Bucharest which left her so angry. Stripped of the Dobrudja by Rumania,

and of Macedonia by Greece and Serbia, Bulgaria bided her time. She had brought on the war herself rather than submit her claims in Macedonia to arbitration, but she felt that she had been over-punished and her services against the Turk under-recognized by the terms of the treaty. On the other hand, Serbia and Greece knew they had reason to fear Bulgaria and had a treaty of mutual support in case of Bulgarian aggression.

THE

HE ALLIES SEEK TO WIN THE FAVOR
OF BULGARIA.

Bulgaria was the pivot upon which the whole question of the Near East turned, and their mistaken attitude. toward that country is the cause of the failure of the Allies in the Balkans. They thought to recast the Treaty of Bucharest and cut up Macedonia into slices, apportioning with a fair consideration for racial distribution slices of it among Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria, hoping to establish a united action of the Balkans against the Austro-Germanic League. Thus Serbia and Greece-their certain friendswere to be made to pay to placate Bulgaria a possible enemy. So thinking, Allied diplomacy ignored two facts: the ambition of Bulgaria towards the hegemony of the peninsula, and her strongly developed Austro-Germanic leanings. But Serbia saw these

things and to Greece they were particularly distinct. When the Triple Entente pressed concessions to Bulgaria upon Greece and Serbia, an atmosphere of doubt was created in the Greek mind which the Central Powers were quick to foster by vigorous propaganda. Further, not content with blinding itself as to the signs of the times in Bulgaria, Allied diplomacy neglected all means of cultivating popular support in Greece, or of counteracting German propaganda. With the failure at the Dardanelles, the tragedy of Serbia, and the sacrifice of Rumania before her eyes, was it astonishing that Greece held back and hesitated to pay the debts of honor and of gratitude that she owed to Serbia and professed to Russia, England and France?

At the beginning of the war, popular sympathy had been with the Allies, for Greece and Serbia had been allies in the last war, Russia, France, and England had set Greece up as a nation, and their Premier, M. Venizelos, was popular and pro-ally. But the Greek Queen, Sophia, was the Kaiser's sister and she exercised a powerful influence with all members of the governing classes, and was moreover clever enough to take advantage of political divisions to aid the German cause. In the tangle there was only one man who in spite of Allied blunders saw and persisted in seeing that the cause of liberty must be that of Greece.

VENIZ

ENIZELOS THE GREATEST STATESMAN
OF MODERN GREECE.

That man was Eleutherios Venizelos, premier of Greece and leader of the Liberal party. In 1864, in the little. village of Murniaes on the island of Crete, was born the greatest statesman modern Greece has known. He was christened Eleutherios, meaning Liberty, and the name seems to have influenced his vocation in life through the years he struggled for the liberation of Hellas and to free Christendom from Prussian militarism. His father had first intended him to follow in his own steps as a merchant, but gave the boy a liberal education in the University of Athens, where he passed his

examinations brilliantly, and returned to Crete to practice as a lawyer. When only twenty-three he entered the Cretan Assembly and soon succeeded M. Mitsotakis as leader of the Liberal party. It seemed to be the Turkish policy to stir up factions among the population so as to involve them in internal political struggles. When strife flared into bloodshed in 1889, Turkey stepped in and took sanguinary reprisal. Again in 1895 revolution broke out, and in the following year Turkey laid more massacres to her account. At last the Greek governIment asked the Great Powers to intervene on behalf of their little neighbor, and through their concerted action for a time Crete had a measure of autonomy under the Sultan.

Self-government afforded little protection against the Turk, however, and when further massacres took place the Cretans proclaimed their union. with Greece. Leaving his practice, Venizelos placed himself at the head of the insurgents who resisted the interference of the Great Powers with obstinate intrepidity until they were obliged to yield. In 1897, war, which the Powers had striven to avert, broke out between Greece and Turkey because of Crete. Greece was obliged to withdraw her forces from the island, and the Cretans were again forced to accept autonomy, though Venizelos and his supporters did so conditionally, claiming it was only a stage towards the national aim of final union with Greece.

THROU

HROUGH VENIZELOS CRETE BECOMES
GREEK TERRITORY.

The Powers appointed as High Commissioner of the island Prince George, son of the King of Greece, and in 1898 he took over the reins of government. Time passed, however, the goal of union seemed no nearer, and administrative mistakes added to general dissatisfaction. A general rising at Therisso broke out in 1903. Venizelos led with the mountaineers their rough life and shared their fortunes until Prince George resigned in July, 1904. The rebels had taken a vow to recognize no ruler save one