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Updated: June 27, 2025
When some of them had been thoroughly tortured, the authority of the state would be secured forever among them. And so that was why the Governor of Toula was going in his turn with his subordinate officials, officers, and soldiers to carry out a similar measure. By precisely the same means, i. e., by murder and torture, obedience to the decision of the higher authorities was to be secured.
Meanwhile those who remain at home not only feel this, but know and express it. Yesterday in the high road I met some peasants returning from Toula. One of them was reading a leaflet as he walked by the side of his cart. I asked, "What is that a telegram?" "This is yesterday's, but here is one of to-day." He took another out of his pocket. We stopped. I read it.
Allegations had been made by General Petrovsky, later Chief of the Fortifications Department, to the effect that the general had only twice visited the artillery administration during the whole time he held his portfolio as Minister, while Colonel Balvinkine, one of the heads of the Artillery Administration, had asserted that Soukhomlinoff had insisted upon important contracts for machine-guns being given to the Rickerts factory at a cost of two thousand roubles each, while the Toula factory could turn out excellent machine-guns at nine hundred roubles.
And so this governor precisely as the governor of Toula was doing on that day with a battalion of soldiers with guns and rods, hastily brought together by means of telegraphs and telephones and railways, proceeded by a special train to the scene of action, with a learned doctor whose duty it was to insure the flogging being of an hygienic character.
He was pulling on his gloves as he spoke, and turned quickly on his heel when the innkeeper entered the room, as if he had expected one of those dread Cossacks of Toula who were half savage. But the innkeeper carried nothing more lethal in his hand than a yellow mug of beer, which he offered to Barlasch. And the old soldier only shook his head. "There is poison in it," he muttered.
And now we have to describe one of the strangest sieges in the annals of history. Shakhofskoi, finding himself threatened by a powerful army, took refuge in the fortified town of Toula. Here he was soon joined by Bolotnikof, a Polish general who had come to Russia with a commission bearing the imperial seal of Dmitri.
"Simon Petrov Kartinkin," he said, rapidly, with a cracked voice, having evidently prepared the answer. "What class do you belong to?" "Peasant." "What government, district, and parish?" "Toula Government, Krapivinskia district, Koupianovski parish, the village Borki." "Your age?" "Thirty-three; born in the year one thousand eight " "What religion?" "Of the Russian religion, orthodox." "Married?"
This was an additional motive against the expedition to Petersburg; there was a threefold reason for marching upon this beaten army for the purpose of extinguishing it; to secure his right flank and his line of operation; to possess himself of Kalouga and Toula, the granary and arsenal of Russia; and lastly, to open a safe, short, new, and virgin retreat to Smolensk and Lithuania.
It was enough for a few men, some personally concerned in the affair and others simply outsiders, to express their disapproval of floggings that had taken place elsewhere, and their contempt and loathing for those who had taken part in inflicting them, for a few persons in the Toula case to express their repugnance to having any share in it; for a lady traveling by the train, and a few other bystanders at the station, to express to those who formed the expedition their disgust at what they were doing; for one of the commanders of a company, who was asked for troops for the restoration of order, to reply that soldiers ought not to be butchers and thanks to these and a few other seemingly insignificant influences brought to bear on these hypnotized men, the affair took a completely different turn, and the troops, when they reached the place, did not inflict any punishment, but contented themselves with cutting down the forest and giving it to the landowner.
"It is a Russian stiletto of Toula manufacture. It belongs to Ivan, he lent it to me day before yesterday, when we were out walking, to uproot a plant with. He has forgotten to take it back." "You will oblige me by returning it to him," answered Gilbert; "it is a plaything I don't like to see in your hands." Stephane gave a sign of assent, and bent over the paper.
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