Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-09-15 | Page 9 | Officer Gives First Account of the Outbreak

OFFICER GIVES FIRST ACCOUNT ' OF THE OUTBREAK PETROGRAD, Sept. 14. An officer who arrived here today from General Korniloff' s headquarters at Mobile v gave the first authoritative account of the events there at the outbreak of the rebellion. re-bellion. The officer said that last Saturday a number of Infantry, "striking battalions," volunteers and picked men, the backbone of General Korniloff's brief Galician offensive of-fensive early last summer, arrived at headquarters. They had been Informed that they were needed to reinforce the Riga front, but the real aim was to march them against Petrograd. .That night Korniloff prepared his first proclamation to the army, ordering the printing of vast numbers of it. The Socialist So-cialist compositors later received Premier Kerensky 's proclamation, and while diligently dili-gently printing that of Korniloff also printed secretly Kerensky 's and circulated circu-lated it everywhere. Meanwhile the local council of deputies began a vigorous demonstration among the "striking battalions." The Kerensky proclamation caused dissension among the troops and a majority of them sent a demand to Korniloff that they immediately immedi-ately be sent back to the front. The battalion bat-talion of the Cavaliers of St. George seceded se-ceded from the rebellion and announced that they would die for the provisional government and issued orders to attack Korniloff. The local civilians were anti-Korniloff, but the local union of officers of the larmv and the fleet appealed to them to I support Korniloff. declaring that he was Russia's only salvation. Another officer says that he. with one officer from the All-Moscow regiments, was summoned to Mohilev. "Tn Petrograd." the officer said he was told, "there has been planned a new Bolsheviki rising, in which are implicated some of the ministers, and the object of i which is (o conclude a separate peace and I send disbanded soldiers from house to house to massacre the bourgeolse. With-I With-I out help from the front It Is impossible to defeat the plot. General Korniloff already al-ready has sent part of the army to Petrograd Pet-rograd and his plan is to appoint himself temporarv dictator." This officer says that every officer was given 150 rubles for expenses. The officers, offi-cers, ho added, on Monday returned to Moscow, where' they read Kerensky's proclamations and realized the truth of the situation.