The Imperial government still held a redoubt in the administrative heart of the capital; outlying garrisons that theoretically were loyal to the autocracy ringed the city; the Czarina was safe in Tsarskoe Selo (by March 12 she was so busy looking after her children who had all come down with measles that she had little time for suppressing the revolution, but the revolutionists were not aware of this); the Czar was at Headquarters nominally in command of all his armies. It was hard for anyone to realize after only five days of intermittent street turmoil in Petrograd that the iron despotism of
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