with the administration of their properties. Therefore, the peasants no longer leased directly from the landowner, but sub-leased it from an intermediary lessor (arendaș). The fall of the price of grain on the world markets meant that the lessors would demand ever greater rents in order to make ends meet. The blame for the revolt was initially put on Jewish intermediaries, given that many of the lessors were of Jewish background, especially in Northern Moldavia. The revolt quickly spread southward, losing some of its anti-Semitic character and becoming basically a protest against the existing system of land tenure. Course of events The revolt began on the lands administered by one lessor, Mochi Fischer, in the village of Flămânzi by Trifan Roman Grosu, Ion Dolhescu and Grigore Roman, due to Fischer's refusal to renew the leases of the local peasants. Fischer used to lease about 75% of the arable land in three Romanian counties in Moldavia (the so-called "Fischerland"). The peasants, fearing that they would remain without work and, more importantly, without food, began to act violently. Scared, Fischer fled to a friend in Cernăuți, leaving the peasants without signed contracts. The fear of remaining out of work, combined with the activities of alleged Austro-Hungarian instigators, led the peasants to revolt. The revolt soon spread across most of Moldavia, with several landowners' properties destroyed and many lessors killed or wounded. The Conservative government (Partidul Conservator) couldn't handle the situation and resigned, and the Liberals (Partidul Național-Liberal) of Dimitrie Sturdza assumed power. On 18 March a state of emergency was declared, and then a general mobilization, with 140,000 soldiers being recruited by 29 March. The Romanian Army began firing on the peasants; thousands of peasants perished and more than 10,000 were arrested. Casualties Peasants The exact number of peasant deaths is unknown, and even the course of events are not clear, because the government, to hide the size of the massacre, ordered the destruction of all documents relating to the uprising. Historian Markus Bauer mentions a greatly underestimated official figure of 419 deaths, while an unofficial figure, circulated by the press and widely accepted, of about 10,000 peasants killed, has never been proven to be true. The same figure of 419 deaths was mentioned by Ion I. C. Brătianu in the Romanian Parliament. The data available to the Prime Minister Dimitrie Sturdza indicated 421 deaths between 28 March and 5 April 1907.