page_title: Siege of Sidney Street
section_title: Events of 3 January
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Sidney Street / Events of 3 January
caption_attribution_description: English: Winston Churchill at the Siege of Sidney Street, 3 January 1911
context_page_description: The Siege of Sidney Street of January 1911, also known as the Battle of Stepney, was a gunfight in the East End of London between a combined police and army force and two Latvian revolutionaries. The siege was the culmination of a series of events that began in December 1910, with an attempted jewellery robbery at Houndsditch in the City of London by a gang of Latvian immigrants which resulted in the murder of three policemen, the wounding of two others, and the death of George Gardstein, the leader of the Latvian gang.
  An investigation by the Metropolitan and City of London Police forces identified Gardstein's accomplices, most of whom were arrested within two weeks. The police were informed that the last two members of the gang were hiding at 100 Sidney Street in Stepney. The police evacuated local residents from the environs, and on the morning of 3 January a firefight broke out. Armed with inferior weapons, the police sought assistance from the army. The siege lasted for about six hours. Towards the end of the stand-off, the building caught fire; no single cause has been identified. One of the agitators in the building was shot before the fire spread.
context_section_description: Just after midnight on 3 January, 200 police officers from the City of London and Metropolitan forces cordoned off the area around 100 Sidney Street. Armed officers were placed at number 111, directly opposite number 100, and throughout the night the residents of the houses on the block were roused and evacuated. Wensley woke the ground floor tenants at number 100 and asked them to fetch Gershon, claiming that she was needed by her sick husband. When Gershon appeared she was grabbed by the police and taken to the City of London police headquarters; the ground floor lodgers also evacuated. Number 100 was now empty of all residents, apart from Svaars and Sokoloff, neither of whom seemed to be aware of the evacuation.
  The police's operating procedure—and the law which governed their actions—meant they were unable to open fire without being fired upon first. This, along with the structure of the building, which had a narrow, winding stairwell up which police would have to pass, meant any approach to the gang members was too perilous to attempt. It was decided to wait until dawn before taking any action. At about 7:30 am a policeman knocked on the door of number 100, which elicited no response; stones were then thrown at the window to wake the men. Svaars and Sokoloff appeared at the window and opened fire at the police. A police sergeant was wounded in the chest: he was evacuated under fire across the rooftops, and taken to the London Hospital. Some members of the police returned fire, but their guns were only effective over shorter ranges, and proved ineffective against the comparatively advanced automatic weapons of Svaars and Sokoloff.
  By 9:00 am it was apparent that the two gunmen possessed superior weapons and ample ammunition. The police officers in charge on the scene, Superintendent Mulvaney and Chief Superintendent Stark, contacted Assistant Commissioner Major Frederick Wodehouse at Scotland Yard. He telephoned the Home Office and obtained permission from Churchill to bring in a detachment of Scots Guards, who were stationed at the Tower of London. It was the first time that the police had requested military assistance in London to deal with an armed siege. Twenty-one volunteer marksmen from the Guards arrived at about 10:00 am and took firing positions at each end of the street and in the houses opposite. The shooting continued without either side gaining any advantage.
  Churchill arrived on the scene at 11:50 am to observe the incident at first hand; he later reported that he thought the crowd were unwelcoming to him, as he heard people asking "Oo let 'em in?", in reference to the Liberal Party's immigration policy that had allowed the influx from Russia. Churchill's role during the siege is unclear. His biographers, Paul Addison and Roy Jenkins, both consider that he gave no operational commands to the police, but a Metropolitan police history of the event states that the events of Sidney Street were "a very rare case of a Home Secretary taking police operational command decisions". In a subsequent letter to The Times, Churchill clarified his role while he was present:
  I did not interfere in any way with the dispositions made by the police authorities on the spot. I never overruled those authorities nor overrode them. From beginning to end the police had an absolutely free hand. ... I did not send for the Artillery or the Engineers. I was not consulted as to whether they should be sent for.
  Shooting between the two sides reached a peak between 12:00 and 12:30 pm, but at 12:50 smoke was seen coming from the building's chimneys and from the second floor windows; it has not been established how the fire was started, whether by accident or design. The fire slowly spread, and by 1:30 it had taken a firm hold and had spread to the other floors. A second detachment of Scots Guards arrived, bringing with them a Maxim machine gun, which was never used. Shortly afterwards Sokoloff put his head out of the window; he was shot by one of the soldiers and he fell back inside. The senior officer of the London Fire Brigade present
caption: Churchill observing the events at Sidney Street
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