Their rest cut
short by disturbing news. Kerensky and Konovalov return to General Polkovnikov’s
headquarters. Maybe the phones were working there….
But the situation
was deteriorating. The junkers were nervous: the Bolsheviks had told them to
move off. Armored cars intended for the defense of the Winter Palace seemed to
have gone missing. No news from the front. At any rate the officers ejected
from their regiments had found somewhere else to hide.
Now Kerensky
wanted the cabinet to join him at headquarters. Most of them, for one reason or
another, didn’t have automobiles; only Kishkin and one other minister paid
attendance. Though he didn’t have a quorum of the cabinet, Kerensky did have
one last card to play: he himself would go forth and hasten the echelons
advancing to the rescue of the Provisional Government. They sent for Kerensky’s
touring car.
Then another
automobile arrived, bearing the stars and stripes of the American embassy. In
Kerensky’s version of events, the American and British embassies had heard of
his plan to go to the front, and put the car at his disposal. The American
ambassador’s version is less generous. A Russian officer followed the car to
the embassy and demanded to use it for Kerensky’s trip to the front. That much,
the ambassador said, the embassy might be willing to acquiesce in, but then the
Russian officer left the American flag in place.
Kerensky got into
his own car; the embassy car followed. People seemed to recognize him; Kerensky
says he saluted “a little carelessly and with an easy smile.” The Red Guards
did not know what to make of it as the cars rushed past; at any rate they did
not fire.
In the result,
the Third Bicycle Battalion, expected at the Winter Palace, telegraphed Smolny
instead and were invited to send a delegation there. Kerensky did not find them
and so was unable to change their minds. He did find some troops at the
Gatchina station at about 10:00 a.m., but his harangue was unsuccessful.
Thereafter his movements are lost to history. The next day General Kornilov,
supposedly under guard in Bhykov, also dropped out of sight. Trotsky says
Kerensky must have tipped Kornilov off.
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