66
during the enquiry which I conducted (for I wanted to clear up once for all the calumnious reports spread about and which had for so long already obscured and perverted my judgment) could not possibly be more consistent and conclusive. Not only had the Bolsheviks not solicited the aid of German Imperialism, as „our commercial and industrial friends“ had done: not only had they not accepted the disguised aid of Berlin, as our people tried to make belief, but they had the courage, the energy to take supreme measures, despite the formidable danger which they were threatened by, in order to maintain their independence at all costs, and to defend their territory from any encroachment from whatever side it might come. In the same manner they categorically refused the demand made by Germany, after the assassination of Count Mirbach, to be. allowed to send a German battalion to Moscow for the protection of the Embassy. They took all the necessary measures to oppose by force even the passage of German troops through the old Russian capital in the event of the Supreme German Command deciding to despatch military forces to the north against the Allies. They did not shrink from the possibility of having to destroy railways, military defence works, depots and important factories of Petrograd and its suburbs for this purpose. Besides this, they had again mined a whole part of the Gulf of Finland which comes within the zone of defence of Kronstadt. This provoked reiterated and violent protests on the part of the German diplomatic representatives at Moscow.
In addition to all this, I had the opportunity
