Mutineers

• Many of those who were newly enlisted and ordered to shoot the demonstrators were themselves of peasant/worker background. 
• Furthermore their junior officers included men from the middle-ranking intellectual class, rather than from the traditional noble background. These were men who had joined the army from a sense of patriotism inspired by war. Their sympathies, like the sympathies of those they commanded, lay with the massses. 
• Under pressure from the soldiers and from mutineers, the Petrograd Soviet agreed that each regiment should elect committees and send representatives to the soviet. The 'Order No.I' , a charter of soldiers' rights was produced.
• Due to No.1, all agree to the political control of the Petrograd Soviet. All weapons to be controlled by elected soldier committees. No requirement to salute or stand to attention. No honorific titles to be used for officers. Officers are not to address soldiers in the 'ty' form.
• Nicholas never returned to Petrograd. His train was diverted by rebellious railway workers.The Tsar was under pressure from the Chief of General Staff, General Alekseev, to resign.
• Alekseev had been reassured by an agreement on 1 March that the Petrograd Soviet would recognise a Provisional Government formed by members of the Duma. The Tsar and his family were placed under house arrest, as were most of the members of the Tsar's Council of Ministers. Thus 304 years of the Romanov dynasty came to an end.