George Matulaitis Journal

that later they succeeded in coming to an agreement with the Germans who returned their weapons and took them to Bia =y stok by rail. From there they were permitted to go to Poland. For the time being that is how the Legionnaires’ campaign has ended. People are speculating about what they had been trying to achieve. Some thought they wanted to show the world that Vilnius is a Polish city. It was even announced that the Lithuanian Council and the Poles had come to an agreement and the Legionnaires had been allowed to operate in Lithuania, that Lithuania and Poland were now acting in concert. Another idea was that the Germans allowed the Legionnaires to mobilize and take control of Vilnius so that the unruly elements which irritated the Germans would thus be forced into the open and eliminated more easily. And yet again, it is rumored that the Germans wanted to create a demonstration for the benefit of the Allies to show they were acting justly and did not support the Bolsheviks. January 8 The Bolsheviks are solemnly burying their fallen comrades, both those killed by the Legionnaires and those who had committed suicide under siege. They buried them near the Cathedral, close to the spot where the monument to Catherine II 1 once stood. The bodies were carried through the streets all around the city. Quite a few people had gathered, mostly Jews. The Cathedral square and part of the street were crowded. A few speeches were addressed to the crowd in Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian. The speaker who addressed the crowd in Polish vehemently attacked the clergy. He said that the appearance of the Legionnaires had been the work of the priests and that everything that happened here is their fault. The Bolshevik newspapers reported these events in a subdued manner, saying that although there was a natural desire to take revenge, they would not do so since there was no time for such things. It is better for the Red Army to continue its work of liberating 175 1 Yekaterina in Russian; Empress of Russia (1762-1796). During her reign, in 1795, the Kingdom of Poland-Lithuania was finally partitioned. Lithuania became part of Russia, ruled by a Russian governor. This situation lasted until 1918, when Lithuania declared its independence. The statue of Catherine in the Vilnius Cathedral square was a hated symbol of oppression and had been demolished.