During World War I in 1914, the native population of Naissaar island was expelled from the island and it was turned into a military base. A narrow-gauge railway network was built on the island. Tallinn was the site for the very beginning of the October Revolution when the Estonian Bolshevik Jaan Anvelt took power in Tallinn on 5 November 1917, two days before the Revolution started in Petrograd. On 9 November 1917, the Bolsheviks took power from Governor Jaan Poska. After the coup, refusing to cooperate with the Estonian Soviet Executive Committee, the Estonian Provincial Assembly (Estonian: "Maanõukogu") in Tallinn declared sovereignty from the Russian Empire on 28 November 1917. In December 1917, Russian sailors under the leadership of Stepan Maximovich Petrichenko declared the "Soviet Republic of Soldiers and Fortress-Builders of Naissaar". They were ousted by German forces on 26 February 1918.