The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-02-17

| the bolshevik were defeated, but Ker- enskys forces were too small, it was | then realized. to justify an advance against the capital.
 There had been no such accessions as were expected by Kerensky when he | fled to Gatchina He fancied that thou sands would draw about him to restore I the revolution. No man ever suffered bitterer disappointment.
 A little later he came to see that Rus sia had passed him by, that Russia had lost confidence in his judgment and common sense. Few men desired to do him bodily harm, but they had come to have a sort of pity for him. He was an example so tremendous of the what might have been of politics, of revolu ton.
 Chernoff, the social revolutionary leader, arrived at Gatchina immediate ly after this brief and indecisive con- flict. Kerensky sent him to the front 10 appeal for endorsements. ChernoT discovered that the soldiers in the trenches were hostile toward Kerensky. They had no more belief in him. Some distrusted him for one reason, some for another. Scarcely any man could be found to praise him. Yet these were the same troops who had wept and sung and gone half delirious with enthusiasm only few months before when Keren- sky had flashed like meteor among them.
 Chernoff knew then and there that the fight was lost, that the situation was virtually hopeless He returned to Gatchina and reported the truth 10 Kerensky, concealing nothing whatever. Then Kerensky's spirit began to break. That day he did not speak to 1 any man.a That night he said to his aide-de-camp: An army to crush the | bolsheviki, or suicide; that Is the only way out'
 TRIP TO GALCHINA Meantime in these anxious and ! troubled hours following the storming of the Winter palace, the scenes of blood and disorder in the capital and Ikerensky's intellectual efforts to gain ! control of the situation, had been waiting in Petrograd observing de- velopments. The social revolutionarles instructed me to go to Gatchina to cop | fer with Kerensky. It was a perilous mission obviously. Everywhere were guards of the bolsheviki, and these guards scrutinized or searched every | traveller News had reached them that Kerensky was reassem bling his forces | near Gatchina for an attack on Pet l roSrad, and they were on the qui vive. | I arrived at Gatchina at 8 o'clock on the evening of October 30. 1917. learned that Kerensky was at the headquarters of the Fourteenth army corps in the Alexandra palace. I pre- sented my credentials to M Votinsky,
 the army commissary, and he told me 1 confidentially that Kerensky's cause
 was hopeless; that from 65 to 70 per | cent of the army at the front was on the side of the bolsheviki and that it
 was difficult to find one complete reg
 lment loyal to the provisional govern ment and willing to go to the rescue l of Kerensky.
 At the time I heard these gloomy
 t,dings with some astonishment, could scarcely believe the situation to 1 De so hopeless. It seemed to me that 1 kerensky so truly represented the fine
 ideals of the Russian people that it
 was impossible for the people to turn
 asainst him. I told Voitinsky that
 was eager to see Kerensky at once.
 T have message for him." I said
 All of the officers are with him. They
 are ready to take rifles and fight as
 privates in his army. Let him take
 command over us. We will disperse
 this brutal mob"
 Voitinsky shook his head negatively,
 ous made no answer in words. It was
 late at night. l went to the quarters
 assigned me. In the next room but
 one sat Kerensky himself, as I knew. was so full of my mission that I
 could scarcely restrain myself from
 hnocking at his door and compelling
 ms attention. Voitinsky came to my
 room at o'clock in the morning and
 Ihiormed mo that Kerensky was very
 tired but would see me later in the
 morning.
 Al a. m. my name was taken in to the premier. Shall ever forget the mans
 race as he turned it to me! Could this
 De hefensky? Was 1t possible that this weak man, who leaned with thin, bony
 hands upon the wooden table. whose face was chalk white, whose voice was shaky. "hose eyes were dull, who seemed without
 amoition or animation-was it possible
 that this could be the great Kerensky,
 the nope of Russia, the hope of democ- racy?
 re scarceiy even glanced at me as recited to him briefly, but very ca gerlv. the message which I ca rred from, tha ao