In the carrying out of this several civilians were shot at and wounded,
either by accidental shots meant for soldiers or for refusing obedience
to the new self-constituted authorities.

Great carts, filled presumably with ammunition, were next escorted into
the Green, and then the doors were locked and barred and tied very
strongly, and finally the ropes greased--which shows how carefully
almost any eventuality had been planned.

Whether their danger on the Green dawned upon them in time I cannot say,
but when they saw themselves dominated by the great roof of the
Shelbourne Hotel--about half an hour after the seizure of the open
square for a camp--a rush was made for the hotel, which luckily had just
been captured in the nick of time by a few of the military, who
immediately began to fire on the rebels below, at the same time guarding
the doors. A short while afterwards the main body of new Sinn Fein
arrivals were noticed to make their way, instead, to the Royal College
of Surgeons at the opposite end, which became one of their most stoutly
defended strongholds under the famous Countess Markievicz.

Two further mistakes of the most vital importance were made in the
rebels' plan for the capture of Dublin, however, which were eventually
to be the deciding factor of the whole situation, and to which more than
anything they must be said to owe the sudden collapse of their movement
as well in the capital as in the provinces. The first was the omission
to capture the telephone system after securing the telegraphs so
completely.

This meant not only that the military authorities could still keep in
touch with the few troops that still remained in Ireland, but it meant
that the authorities at the Castle were able to get into touch with
London.

One can hardly imagine the chaos that would have ensued if, for example,
a delay of a couple of days had had to intervene between the occurrence
of the rising and communication with London--which might have been quite
possible, since they held the wireless stations as well as the cables,
and German submarines were supposed to be watching the mail boats.

The other great mistake was to allow Trinity College, which was the
strategic key to Dublin City, to fall into the hands of a few of the
Officers' Training Corps, who must be given the credit of saving the
capital from total capture and Grafton Street from pillage.

For as long as this was held by soldiers all the internal li