The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki

by Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns




[Transcriber’s Notes]


Here are the definitions of several unfamiliar (to me) words.

batmen: Soldier assigned to an officer as a servant.

batushka: Village priest.

drosky: Cart

felcher: Second-rate medical student or anyone with some medical
knowledge.

hors de combat: Out of the fight; disabled; not able to fight.

junker: Aristocratic Prussian landholder devoted to militarism and
authoritarianism, providing the German military forces with many of its
officers.

knout: Whip with a lash of leather thongs, formerly used in Russia for
flogging criminals. To flog with the knout.

mashie nib: Mashie-Niblick (mah-she nib-lik)—Wood shafted golf club
with about the same loft and length as today’s seven iron.

poilus: French common soldier, especially in World War I.

verst: Russian measure of distance; 3500 feet, 0.6629 mile, 1.067 km.

viand: Choice or delicate food.

volplane: Glide in an airplane without power.


I (Don Kostuch) am the son of John Kostuch, then from Detroit, who was
a Mechanic in the 339th, Company M. He saw some action in the fall of
1918 but due to flu, exposure and a dislocated joint, was evacuated to
England on December 1, 1918 before the gruesome winter described in the
book. {sources: “M” Company 339th records and Golden C. Bahr papers,
1918–1919.}

[Illustration]

Fort Snelling, Minnesota The following text is copied from a newspaper
clipping in the book. The Declaration of War is on one side and an
incomplete local news item is on the other side.

From The Indianapolis News, Monday, April 9, 1917

U. S. Declaration of War

Sixty-fifth Congress of the United States of America
At the First Session
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the second day of
April, one thousand nine hundred and seventeen

JOINT RESOLUTION

Declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial German
Government and the Government of the people of the United States and
making provision to the same.

Whereas the Imperial German Government has committed repeated acts of
war against the Government and the people of the United States of
America, Therefore be it

_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States_ _of America in Congress assembled_, That the state of war
between the United States and the Imperial German Government which has
thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared;
and that the President be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to
employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and
the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial
German Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful
termination all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by
the Congress of the United States.

?? Speaker of the House of Representatives

Thomas R. Marshall
Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate

Approved 6 April, 1917
Woodrow Wilson

From The Indianapolis News, Monday, April 9, 1917

COUNTY PLEDGES AID FOR FOOD MOVEMENT

RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED, AT COURTHOUSE MEETING.

APPEAL MADE TO PEOPLE

The movement to make the state of Indiana economically and
agriculturally prepared for war, as recommended by Governor James P,
Goodrich, had its beginning in Marion county at a meeting of farmers
and those interested in soil cultivation held Saturday afternoon in the
criminal courtroom.

The necessity for the efficient utilization of all the soil resources
of Indiana were emphasized in addresses at the meeting, which was the
beginning of a plan to create a county-wide interest in the movement.

Another Meeting Monday.

The general idea of the need for greater food production, as outlined
at the meeting, will be crystallized into definite plans for meeting
the situation at a meeting called for Monday night, to be held in the
criminal court room. Representatives of commercial, labor and civic
bodies and organizations of all kinds are invited and requested to
attend the meeting Monday night and assist in the work.

Stirring appeals to the people of Indianapolis and the county to
respond to the agricultural need which this country faces in the
present war period were made by speakers, including: Charles V.
Fairbanks, formerly Vice-president of the United States; the Rev. Frank
L. Loveland, pastor of the Meridian Street M. E. Church; H. Orme,
president of the Better Farming Association, and Ralph M. Gilbert,
county agricultural agent.

Resolutions Adopted.

Resolutions were adopted at the meeting pledging the support of the
citizens of Marion county in all measures taken for the defense of the
nation and urging the people to respond to the resolutions prepared for
greater and efficient food production. The resolutions prepared by a
committee composed of Mord Gardner, Ralph C. Avery, Fred L., Smock,
John E. Shearer, C. C. Osborn, Grace May Stutsman, Charles P. Wright
and Leo Fesler were as follows:

“Whereas, By joint resolution of congress and the proclamation of the
President, war has been declared on Germany, and

“‘Whereas, The President has earnestly appealed to all citizens to
support the government in every possible way, and our Governor has
called, for meetings in each county to plan preparedness in every
occupation. “Resolved, That we, the citizens of Marion county,
assembled in meetings at the courthouse do loyally pledge the
support... [torn]

The following map was provide by Mike Grobbel (http://grobbel.org) who
photographed it from the Frederick C. O’Dell Map Collection, Folder
Number 9, Map Number 1, Bentley Historical Library, University of
Michigan. Mr. Grobbel is the grandson of “CORP. C. A. GROBBELL, “I”
Co.” mentioned on page 284 as a recipient of the French _Croix de
Guerre._ The correct spelling is “Grobbel”.

Corp. Grobbel received the Distinguished Service Cross, not mentioned
in this book.


[Illustration: Sketch Showing Location of
FORTIFIED AREAS]


[End of Transcriber’s notes]




[Illustration: Hundreds of Miles Through Solid Forests of Pine and
Spruce.]




The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki

_Campaigning in North Russia
1918–1919_

_Compiled and Edited by_


CAPT. JOEL R. MOORE, 339th U. S. Infantry
LIEUT. HARRY H. MEAD, 339th U. S. Infantry
LIEUT. LEWIS E. JAHNS, 339th U. S. Infantry


_Published by_


The Polar Bear Publishing Co.
Detroit, Mich.


COPYRIGHT 1920
BY
JOEL R. MOORE


PRESS OF
TOPPING-SANDERS COMPANY
DETROIT




To the men who in North Russia died in battle and of wounds, or of
sickness due directly to hardship and exposure, this book is reverently
dedicated.




To Our Comrades and Friends


To our comrades and friends we address these prefatory words. The book
is about to go to the printers and binders. Constantly while writing
the historical account of the American expedition, which fought the
Bolsheviki in North Russia, we have had our comrades in mind. You are
the ones most interested in getting a complete historical account. It
is a wonderful story of your own fighting and hardships, of your own
fortitude and valor. It is a story that will make the eyes of the home
folks shine with pride.

Probably you never could have known how remarkably good is the record
of your outfits in that strange campaign if you had not commissioned
three of your comrades to write the book for you. In the national army,
we happened to be officers; in civil life we are respectively, college
professor, lawyer, and public accountant, in the order in which our
names appear on the title page. But we prefer to come to you now with
the finished product merely as comrades who request you to take the
book at its actual value to you—a faithful description of our part in
the great world war. We are proud of the record the Americans made in
the expedition.

We think that nothing of importance has been omitted. Some sources of
information were not open to us—will be to no one for years. But from
some copies of official reports, from company and individual diaries,
and from special contributions written for us, we have been able to
write a complete narrative of the expedition. In all cases except a few
where the modesty of the writer impelled him to ask us not to mention
his name, we have referred to individuals who have contributed to the
book. To these contributors all, we here make acknowledgment of our
debt to them for their cordial co-operation. For the wealth of
photo-engravures which the book carries, we have given acknowledgment
along with each individual engraving, for furnishing us with the
photographic views of the war scenes and folk scenes of North Russia.
Most of them are, of course, from the official United States Signal
Corps war pictures.

When we started the book, we had no idea that it would develop into the
big book it is, a _de luxe_ edition, of fine materials and fine
workmanship. We have not been able to risk a large edition. Only two
thousand copies are being printed. They are made especially for the
boys who were up there under the Arctic Circle, made as nice as we
could get them made. Of many of the comrades we have lost track, but we
trust that somehow they will hear of this book and become one of the
proud possessors of a copy. To our comrades and friends, we offer this
volume with the expectation that you will be pleased with it and that
after you have read it, you will glow with pride when you pass it over
to a relative or friend to read.

Detroit, Michigan,
September, 1920


JOEL R. MOORE
HARRY H. MEAD
LEWIS E. JAHNS




Table of Contents

 Index to Photo-Engravures
 Introduction
 U. S. A. Medical Units on the Arctic Ocean
 Fall Offensive on the Railroad
 River Push for Kotlas
 Doughboys on Guard in Archangel
 Why American Troops Were Sent to Russia
 On the Famous Kodish Front in the Fall
 Penetrating to Ust Padenga
 Peasantry of the Archangel Province
 “H” Company Pushes Up the Onega Valley
 “G” Company Far Up the Pinega River
 With Wounded and Sick
 Armistice Day with Americans in North Russia
 Winter Defense of Toulgas
 Great White Reaches
 Mournful Kodish
 Ust Padenga
 The Retreat from Shenkursk
 Defense of Pinega
 The Land and the People
 Holding the Onega Valley
 Ice-Bound Archangel
 Winter on the Railroad
 Bolsheozerki
 Letting Go the Tail-Holt
 The 310th Engineers
 “Come Get Your Pills”
 Signal Platoon Wins Commendation
 The Doughboy’s Money in Archangel
 Propaganda and Propaganda and—
 Real Facts about Alleged Mutiny
 Our Allies, French, British and Russian
 Felchers, Priests and Icons
 Bolshevism
 Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. with Troops
 “Dobra” Convalescent Hospital
 American Red Cross in North Russia
 Captive Doughboys in Bolshevikdom
 Military Decorations
 Homeward Bound
 In Russia’s Fields (Poem)
 Our Roll of Honored Dead
 Map of the Archangel Fighting Area




Index of Photo-Engravures

 Hundreds of Miles Through Solid Forests
 Surgical Operation, Receiving Hospital, Archangel
 Old Glory Protects Our Hospital
 Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital
 “Olympia” Sailors Fought Reds
 After 17-Hour March in Forest
 Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya
 Wireless Operators-Signal Platoon
 A Shell Screeched Over This Burial Scene
 Vickers Machine Gun Helping Hold Lines
 Our Armored Train
 First Battalion Hurries Up River
 Lonely Post in Dense Forest
 Statue of Peter the Great and Public Buildings, Archangel
 Drawing Rations, Verst 455
 List Honors to a Soldier
 Olga Barracks
 Street Car Strike in Archangel
 American Hospitals
 “Supply” Co. Canteen “Accommodates” Boys
 Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel
 “Cootie Mill” Operating at Smolny Annex
 Single Flat Strip of Iron on Plow Point
 Thankful for What at Home We Feed Pigs
 Artillery “O. P.” Kodish
 Mill for Grinding Grain
 Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane
 Testing Vickers Machine Gun
 Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pagosta, near Ust Padenga
 Cossack Receiving First Aid
 Ready for Day’s Work
 Flax Hung Up to Dry
 310th Engineers at Beresnik
 Joe Chinzi and Russian Bride
 Watching Her Weave Cloth
 Doughboy Attends Spinning Bee
 Doughboy in Best Bed—On Stove
 Defiance to Bolo Advance
 337th Hospital at Beresnik
 Onega
 Y. M. C. A., Obozerskaya
 Trench Mortar Crew, Chekuevo—Hand Artillery
 Wounded and Sick—Over a Thousand in All
 Bolo Killed in Action—For Russia or Trotsky?
 Monastery at Pinega
 Russian 75’s Bound for Pinega
 “G” Men near Pinega
 Lewis Gun Protects Mess Hall
 Something Like Selective Draft
 Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin
 Watch Tower, Verst 455
 Toulgas Outpost
 One of a Bolo Patrol
 Patrolling
 By Reindeer Jitney to Bakaritza
 Russian Eskimos at Home near Pinega
 Fortified House, Toulgas
 To Bolsheozerki
 Colonel Morris, at Right
 Russian Eskimo Idol
 Ambulance Men
 Practising Rifle and Pistol Fire, on Onega Front
 French Machine Gun Men at Kodish
 Allied Plane Carrying Bombs
 Dance at Convalescent Hospital—Nurses and “Y” Girls
 Subornya Cathedral
 Building a Blockhouse
 Market Scene, Yemetskoe
 Old Russian Prison—Annex to British Hospital
 Wash Day—Rinsing in River
 Archangel Cab-Men
 Minstrels of “I” Company Repeat Program in Y. M. C. A
 Archangel Girls Filling Christmas Stockings
 Y. M. C. A. Rest Room, Archangel
 Russian Masonry Stove—American Convalescent Hospital
 Comrade Allikas Finds His Mother in Archangel
 Printing “The American Sentinel”
 Flashlight of a Doughboy Outpost at Verst 455
 Bolo Commander’s Sword Taken in Battle of Bolsheozerki
 Eight Days without a Shave, near Bolsheozerki
 Woodpile Strong-Point, Verst 445
 Verst 455—“Fort Nichols”
 Back from Patrol
 Our Shell Bursts near the Bolo Skirmish Line
 Blockhouse at Shred Makrenga
 Hot Summer Day at Pinega before the World War
 Dvina River Ice Jam in April
 Bare Mejinovsky—Near Kodish
 Bolo General under Flag Truce at 445, April, 1919
 After Prisoner Exchange Parley
 Pioneer Platoon Has Fire
 310th Engineers Under Canvas near Bolsheozerki with “M” Co
 Hospital “K. P.’s”
 Red Cross Nurses
 Bartering
 Mascots
 Colonel Dupont (French) at 455 Bestows Many _Croix de Guerre_ Medals on Americans
 Polish Artillery and Mascot
 Russian Artillery, Verst 18
 Canadian Artillery—Americans Were Strong for Them
 Making _Khleba_—Black Bread
 Stout Defense of Kitsa
 Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital, Archangel
 “Come and Get It” at 455
 Doughboys Drubbed Sailors
 Yank and Scot Guarding Bolo Prisoners, Beresnik
 View of Archangel in Summer
 General Ironside Inspecting Doughboys
 Burial of Lt. Clifford Phillips, American Cemetery, Archangel
 Major J. Brooks Nichols in his Railway Detachment Field Hq
 Ready to Head Memorial Day Parade, Archangel, 1919
 American Cemetery, Archangel
 Soldiers and Sailors of Six Nations Reverence Dead
 Graves of First Three Americans Killed, Obozerskaya, Russia
 Sailors Parade on Memorial Day
 Through Ice Floes in Arctic Homeward Bound
 Out of White Sea into Arctic, under Midnight Sun




INTRODUCTION


The troopships “Somali,” “Tydeus,” and “Nagoya” rubbed the Bakaritza
and Smolny quays sullenly and listed heavily to port. The American
doughboys grimly marched down the gangplanks and set their feet on the
soil of Russia, September 5th, 1918. The dark waters of the Dvina River
were beaten into fury by the opposing north wind and ocean tide. And
the lowering clouds of the Arctic sky added their dismal bit to this
introduction to the dreadful conflict which these American sons of
liberty were to wage with the Bolsheviki during the year’s campaign.

In the rainy fall season by their dash and valor they were to expel the
Red Guards from the cities and villages of the state of Archangel,
pursuing the enemy vigorously up the Dvina, the Vaga, the Onega and the
Pinega Rivers, and up the Archangel-Vologda Railway and the
Kodish-Plesetskaya-Petrograd state highway. They were to plant their
entrenched outposts in a great irregular horseshoe line, one cork at
Chekuevo, the toe at Ust-Padenga, the other cork of the shoe at
Karpagorskaya. They were to run out from the city of Archangel long,
long lines of communication, spread wide like the fingers of a great
hand that sought seemingly to cover as much of North Russia as possible
with Allied military protection.

In the winter, in the long, long nights and black, howling forests and
frozen trenches, with ever-deepening snows and sinking thermometer,
with the rivers and the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean solid ice
fifteen feet thick, these same soldiers now seen disembarking from the
troopships, were to find their enemy greatly increasing his forces
every month at all points on the Allied line. Stern defense everywhere
on that far-flung trench and blockhouse and fortified-village battle
line. They were to feel the overwhelming pressure of superior artillery
and superior equipment and transportation controlled by the enemy and
especially the crushing odds of four to ten times the number of men on
the battle lines. And with it they were to feel the dogged sense of the
grim necessity of fighting for every verst of frozen ground. Their very
lives were to depend upon the stubbornness of their holding retreat.
There could be no retreating beyond Archangel, for the ships were
frozen in the harbor. Indeed a retreat to the city of Archangel itself
was dangerous. It might lead to revulsion of temper among the populace
and enable the Red Guards to secure aid from within the lines so as to
carry out Trotsky’s threat of pushing the foreign bayonets all under
the ice of the White Sea. And in that remarkable winter defense these
American soldiers were to make history for American arms, exhibiting
courage and fortitude and heroism, the stories of which are to
embellish the annals of American martial exploits. They were destined,
a handful of them here, a handful there, to successfully baffle the
Bolshevik hordes in their savage drives.

In the spring the great ice crunching up in the rivers and the sea was
to behold those same veteran Yanks still fighting the Red Guard armies
and doing their bit to keep the state of Archangel, the North Russian
Republic, safe, and their own skins whole. The warming sun and bursting
green were to see the olive-drab uniform, tattered and torn as it was,
covering a wearied and hungry and homesick but nevertheless fearless
and valiant American soldier. With deadly effect they were to meet the
onrushing swarms of Bolos on all fronts and slaughter them on their
wire with rifle and machine gun fire and smash up their reserves with
artillery fire. With desperation they were to dispute the overwhelming
columns of infantry who were hurled by no less a renowned old Russian
General than Kuropatkin, and at Malo Bereznik and Bolsheozerki, in
particular, to send them reeling back in bloody disaster. They were to
fight the Bolshevik to a standstill so that they could make their
guarded getaway.

Summer was to see these Americans at last handing over the defenses to
Russian Northern Republic soldiers who had been trained during the
winter at Archangel and gradually during the spring broken in for duty
alongside the American and British troops and later were to hold the
lines in some places by themselves and in others to share the lines
with the new British troops coming in twenty thousand strong “to finish
the bloody show.” Gaily decorated Archangel was to bid the Americanski
_dasvedanhnia_ and God-speed in June. Blue rippling waters were to meet
the ocean-bound prows. Music from the Cruiser “Des Moines” (come to see
us out) was to blow fainter and fainter in the distance as they cheered
us out of the Dvina River for home.

Now the troops are hurrying off the transport. They are just facing the
strange, terrible campaign faintly outlined. It is now our duty to
faithfully tell the detailed story of it—“The History of the American
North Russian Expedition,” to try to do justice in this short volume to
the gripping story of the American soldiers “Campaigning in North
Russia, 1918–1919.”

The American North Russian Expeditionary Force consisted of the 339th
Infantry, which had been known at Camp Custer as “Detroit’s Own,” one
battalion of the 310th Engineers, the 337th Ambulance Company, and the
337th Field Hospital Company. The force was under the command of Col.
George E. Stewart, 339th Infantry, who was a veteran of the Philippines
and of Alaska. The force numbered in all, with the replacements who
came later, about five thousand five hundred men.

These units had been detached from the 85th Division, the Custer
Division, while it was enroute to France, and had been assembled in
southern England, there re-outfitted for the climate and warfare of the
North of Russia. On August the 25th, the American forces embarked at
Newcastle-on-Tyne in three British troopships, the “Somali,” the
“Tydeus” and the “Nagoya” and set sail for Archangel, Russia. A fourth
transport, the “Czar,” carried Italian troops who travelled as far as
the Murmansk with our convoy.

The voyage up the North Sea and across the Arctic Ocean, zig-zagging
day and night for fear of the submarines, rounding the North Cape far
toward the pole where the summer sun at midnight scarcely set below the
northwestern horizon, was uneventful save for the occasional alarm of a
floating mine and for the dreadful outbreak of Spanish “flu” on board
the ships. On board one of the ships the supply of yeast ran out and
breadless days stared the soldiers in the face till a resourceful army
cook cudgelled up recollections of seeing his mother use drainings from
the potato kettle in making her bread. Then he put the lightening once
more into the dough. And the boys will remember also the frigid breezes
of the Arctic that made them wish for their overcoats which by order
had been packed in their barrack bags, stowed deep down in the hold of
the ships. And this suffering from the cold as they crossed the Arctic
circle was a foretaste of what they were to be up against in the long
months to come in North Russia.

We had thought to touch the Murmansk coast on our way to Archangel, but
as we zig-zagged through the white-capped Arctic waves we picked up a
wireless from the authorities in command at Archangel which ordered the
American troopships to hasten on at full speed. The handful of American
sailors from the “Olympia,” the crippled category men from England and
the little battalion of French troops, which had boldly driven the Red
Guards from Archangel and pursued them up the Dvina and up the
Archangel-Vologda Railway, were threatened with extermination. The Reds
had gathered forces and turned savagely upon them.

So we sped up into the White Sea and into the winding channels of the
broad Dvina. For miles and miles we passed along the shores dotted with
fishing villages and with great lumber camps. The distant domes of the
cathedrals in Archangel came nearer and nearer. At last the water front
of that great lumber port of old Peter the Great lay before us strange
and picturesque. We dropped anchor at 10:00 a. m. on the fourth day of
September, 1918. The anchor chains ran out with a cautious rattle. We
swung on the swift current of the Dvina, studied the shoreline and the
skyline of the city of Archangel, saw the Allied cruisers, bulldogs of
the sea, and turned our eyes southward toward the boundless pine forest
where our American and Allied forces were somewhere beset by the
Bolsheviki, or we turned our eyes northward and westward whence we had
come and wondered what the folks back home would say to hear of our
fighting in North Russia.




I
U. S. A. MEDICAL UNITS ON THE ARCTIC OCEAN


Someone Blunders About Medicine Stores—Spanish Influenza At Sea And No
Medicine—Improvised Hospitals At Time Of Landing—Getting Results In
Spite Of Red Tape—Raising Stars And Stripes To Hold The Hospital—Aid Of
American Red Cross—Doughboys Dislike British Hospital—Starting American
Receiving Hospital—Blessings On The Medical Men.


At Stoney Castle camp in England, inquiry by the Americans had elicited
statement from the British authorities that each ship would be well
supplied with medicines and hospital equipment for the long voyage into
the frigid Arctic. But it happened that none were put on the boat and
all that the medical officers had to use were three or four boxes of
medical supplies that they had clung to all the way from Camp Custer.

Before half the perilous and tedious voyage was completed, the dreaded
Spanish influenza broke out on three of the ships. On the “Somali,”
which is typical of the three ships, every available bed was full on
the fifth day out at sea. Congestion was so bad that men with a
temperature of only 101 or 102 degrees were not put into the hospital
but lay in their hammocks or on the decks. To make matters worse, on
the eighth day out all the “flu” medicines were exhausted.

It was a frantic medical detachment that paced the decks of those three
ships for two days and nights after the ships arrived in the harbor of
Archangel while preparations were being made for the improvisation of
hospitals.

On the 6th of September they debarked in the rain at Bakaritza. About
thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross Hospital,
such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder were temporarily put into
old barracks. What “flu”-weakened soldier will ever forget those double
decked pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans pillows? If
lucky, a man had two blankets. He could not take off his clothes. Death
stalked gauntly through and many a man died with his boots on in bed.
The glory of dying in France to lie under a field of poppies had come
to this drear mystery of dying in Russia under a dread disease in a
strange and unlovely place. Nearly a hundred of them died and the
wonder is that more men did not die. What stamina and courage the
American soldier showed, to recover in those first dreadful weeks!

No attempt is made to fasten blame for this upon the American medical
officers, nor upon the British for that matter. Many a soldier, though,
was wont to wish that Major Longley had not himself been nearly dead of
the disease when the ships arrived. To the credit of Adjutant Kiley,
Captains Hall, Kinyon, Martin and Greenleaf and Lieutenants Lowenstein
and Danzinger and the enlisted medical men, let it be said that they
performed prodigies of labor trying to serve the sick men who were
crowded into the five hastily improvised hospitals.

The big American Red Cross Hospital, receiving hospital at the base,
was started at Archangel November 22nd by Captain Pyle under orders of
Major Longley. The latter had been striving for quite a while to start
a separate receiving hospital for American wounded, but had been
blocked by the British medical authorities in Archangel. They declared
that it was not feasible as the Americans had no equipment, supplies or
medical personnel.

However, the officer in charge of the American Red Cross force in
Archangel offered to supply the needed things, either by purchasing
them from the stores of British medical supplies in Archangel or by
sending back to England for them. It is said that the repeated letters
of Major Longley to SOS in England somehow were always tangled in the
British and American red tape, in going through military channels.

At last Major Longley took the bull by the horns and accepted the aid
of the Red Cross and selected and trained a personnel to run the
hospital from among the officers and men who had been wounded and were
recovered or partially recovered and were not fit for further heavy
duty on the fighting line. He had the valuable assistance also of the
two American Red Cross nurses, Miss Foerster and Miss Gosling, the
former later being one of five American women who, for services in the
World War, were awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal.

On September 10th, we opened the first Red Cross Hospital which was
also used in connection with the Russian Red Cross Hospital and was
served by Russian Red Cross nurses. Captain Hall and Lieutenant Kiley
were in charge of the hospital.

A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and
Company “C” of the engineers at Solombola.

A good story goes in connection with this piece of history of the
little Red Cross hospital on Troitsky near Olga barracks. There had
been rumor and more or less open declaration of the British medical
authorities that the Americans would not be permitted to start a
hospital of their own in Archangel. The Russian sisters who owned the
building were interested observers as to the outcome of this clash in
authority. It was settled one morning about ten o’clock in a
spectacular manner much to the satisfaction of the Americans and
Russians. Captain Wynn of the American Red Cross came to the assistance
of Captain Hall, supplying the American flag and helping raise it over
the building and dared the British to take it down. Then he supplied
the hospital with beds and linen and other supplies and comfort bags
for the men, dishes, etc. This little hospital is a haven of rest that
appears in the dreams today of many a doughboy who went through those
dismal days of the first month in Archangel. There they got American
treatment and as far as possible food cooked in American style.

In October the number of sick and wounded men was so large that another
hospital for the exclusive use of convalescents was opened in an old
Russian sailor’s home in the near vicinity of American Headquarters.


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Surgical Operation American Receiving Hospital, Archangel, 1918._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Old Glory Protects Our Hospital._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital._]


[Illustration: U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Sailors from “Olympia” Fought Reds._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_After 17-Hour March in Forest._]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya_]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_Wireless operators—Signal Platoon_]


During this controversy with the British medical authorities, the head
American medical officer was always handicapped, as indeed was many a
fighting line officer, by the fact that the British medical officer
outranked him. Let it be understood right here that many a British
officer was decorated with insignia of high rank but drew pay of low
rank. It was actually done over and over again to give the British
officer ranking authority over the American officers.

What American doughboy who ever went through the old 53rd Stationary
hospital will ever forget his homesickness and feeling of outrage at
the treatment by the perhaps well-meaning but nevertheless callous and
coarse British personnel. Think of tea, jam and bread for sick and
wounded men. An American medical sergeant who has often eaten with the
British sergeants at that hospital, Sergeant Glenn Winslow, who made
out the medical record for every wounded and sick man of the Americans
who went through the various hospitals at Archangel, and who was
frequently present at the British sergeant’s mess at the hospital,
relates that there were plenty of fine foods and delicacies and drink
for the sergeant’s messes, corroborated by Mess Sgt. Vincent of. “F”
Company. And a similar story was told by an American medical officer
who was invalided home in charge of over fifty wounded Americans. He
had often heard that the comforts and delicacies among the British
hospital supplies went to the British officers’ messes. Captain Pyle
was in command on the icebreaker “Canada” and saw to it that the
limited supply of delicacies went to the wounded men most in need of
it. There were several British officers on the icebreaker enroute to
Murmansk who set up a pitiful cry that they had seen none of the extras
to which they were accustomed, thinking doubtless that the American
officer was holding back on them. Captain Pyle on the big ship out of
Murmansk took occasion to request of the British skipper that the
American wounded on board the ship be given more food and more
palatable food. He was asked if he expected more for the doughboy than
was given to the Tommie. The American officer’s reply was
characteristic of the difference between the attitude of British and
American officers toward the enlisted man:

“No, sir, it is not a question of different treatment as between Tommie
and doughboy. It is difference in the feeding of the wounded and sick
American officers and the feeding of wounded and sick American enlisted
men. My government makes no such great difference. I demand that my
American wounded men be fed more like the way in which the officers on
this ship are fed.”

Lest we forget, this same medical officer in charge at one time of a
temporary hospital at a key point in the field, was over-ranked and put
under a British medical officer who brought about the American
officer’s recall to the base because he refused to put the limited
American medical personnel of enlisted men to digging latrines for the
British officers’ quarters.

Many a man discharged from the British 53rd Stationary Hospital as fit
for duty, was examined by American medical officers and put either into
our own Red Cross Hospital or into the American Convalescent Hospital
for proper treatment and nourishment back to fighting condition. It was
openly charged by the Americans that several Americans in the British
hospital were neglected till they were bedsore and their lives
endangered. Sick and wounded men were required to do orderly work. When
a sturdy American corporal refused to do work or to supervise work of
that nature in the hospital, he was court-martialed by order of the
American colonel commanding the American forces in North Russia. Of
course it must needs be said that there were many fine men among the
British medical officers and enlisted personnel. But what they did to
serve the American doughboys was overborne by the mistreatment of the
others.

Finally no more wounded Americans were sent to the British hospital and
no sick except those sick under G. O. 45. These latter found themselves
cooped up in an old Russian prison, partially cleaned up for a hospital
ward. This was a real chamber of horrors to many an unfortunate soldier
who was buffetted from hospital to Major Young’s summary court to
hospital or back to the guardhouse, all the while worrying about the
ineffectiveness of his treatment.

So the American soldiers at last got their own receiving hospital and
their own convalescent hospital. Of course at the fighting fronts they
were nearly always in the hands of their own American medical officers
and enlisted men. The bright story of the Convalescent Hospital appears
in another place. This receiving hospital was a fine old building which
one time had been a meteorological institute, a Russian imperial
educational institution. Its great stone exterior had gathered a
venerable look in its two hundred years. The Americans were to give its
interior a sanitary improvement by way of a set of modern plumbing. But
the thing that pleased the wounded doughboy most was to find himself,
when in dreadful need of the probe or knife, under the familiar and
understanding and sympathetic eyes of Majors Henry or Longley or some
other American officer, to find his wants answered by an enlisted man
who knew the slang of Broadway and Hamtramck and the small town slang
of “back home in Michigan, down on the farm,” and to find his food
cooked and served as near as possible like it was “back home” to a sick
man. Blessings on the medical men!




II
FALL OFFENSIVE ON THE RAILROAD


Third Battalion Hurries From Troopship To Troop-Train Bound For
Obozerskaya—We Relieve Wearied French Battalion—“We Are Fighting An
Offensive War”—First Engagement—Memorable Night March Ends At Edge Of
Lake—Our Enemy Compels Respect At Verst 458—American Major Hangs
On—Successful Flank March Takes Verst 455—Front Line Is Set At 445 By
Dashing Attack—We Hold It Despite Severe Bombardments And Heavy
Assaults.


On the afternoon of September the fifth the 3rd Battalion of the 339th
Infantry debarked hurriedly at Bakaritza. Doughboys marched down the
gangplank with their full field equipment ready for movement to the
fighting front. Somewhere deep in the forest beyond that skyline of
pine tree tops a handful of French and Scots and American sailors were
battling the Bolos for their lives. The anxiety of the British staff
officer—we know it was one of General Poole’s staff, for we remember
the red band on his cap, was evidenced by his impatience to get the
Americans aboard the string of tiny freight cars.

Doughboys stretched their sea legs comfortably and formed in column of
squads under the empty supply shed on the quay, to escape the cold
drizzle of rain, while Major Young explained in detail how Captain
Donoghue was to conduct the second train.

All night long the two troop trains rattled along the Russki railway or
stood interminably at strange-looking stations. The bare box cars were
corded deep with sitting and curled up soldiers fitfully sleeping and
starting to consciousness at the jerking and swaying of the train. Once
at a weird log station by the flaring torchlights they had stood for a
few minutes beside a northbound train loaded with Bolshevik prisoners
and deserters gathered in that day after the successful Allied
engagement. Morning found them at a big bridge that had been destroyed
by artillery fire of the Red Guards the afternoon before, not far from
the important village of Obozerskaya, a vital keypoint which just now
we were to endeavor to organize the defense of, and use as a depot and
junction point for other forces.

No one who was there will forget the initial scene at Obozerskaya when
two companies of Americans, “I” and “L”, proceeded’ up the railroad
track in column of twos and halted in ranks before the tall station
building, with their battalion commander holding officers call at
command of the bugle. An excited little French officer popped out of
his dugout and pointed at the shell holes in the ground and in the
station and spoke a terse phrase in French to the British field staff
officer who was gnawing his mustache. The latter overcame his
embarrassment enough to tell Major Young that the French officer feared
the Bolo any minute would reopen artillery fire. Then we realized we
were in the fighting zone. The major shouted orders out and shooed the
platoons off into the woods.

Later into the woods the French officers led the Americans who relieved
them of their circle of fortified outposts. Some few in the vicinity of
the scattered village made use of buildings, but most of the men stood
guard in the drizzly rain in water up to their knees and between
listening post tricks labored to cut branches enough to build up a dry
platform for rest. The veteran French soldier had built him a fire at
each post to dry his socks and breeches legs, but “the strict old
disciplinarian,” Major Young, ordered “No fires on the outpost.”

And this was war. Far up the railroad track “at the military crest” an
outpost trench was dug in strict accordance with army book plans. The
first night we had a casualty, a painful wound in a doughboy’s leg from
the rifle of a sentry who cried halt and fired at the same time. An
officer and party on a handcar had been rattling in from a visit to the
front outguard. All the surrounding roads and trails were patrolled.

Armed escorts went with British intelligence officers to outlying
villages to assemble the peasants and tell them why the soldiers were
coming into North Russia and enlist their civil co-operation and
inspire them to enlist their young men in the Slavo-British Allied
Legion, that is to put on brass buttoned khaki, eat British army
rations, and drill for the day when they should go with the Allies to
clear the country of the detested Bolsheviki. To the American doughboys
it did not seem as though the peasants’ wearied-of-war countenances
showed much elation nor much inclination to join up.

The inhabitants of Obozerskaya had fled for the most part before the
Reds. Some of the men and women had been forced to go with the Red
Guards. They now crept back into their villages, stolidly accepted the
occupancy of their homes by the Americans, hunted up their horses which
they had driven into the wilderness to save them from the plundering
Bolo, greased up their funny looking little _droskies_, or carts, and
began hauling supplies for the Allied command and begging tobacco from
the American soldiers.

Captain Donoghue with two platoons of “K” Company, the other two having
been dropped temporarily at Issaka Gorka to guard that railroad repair
shop and wireless station, now moved right out by order of Colonel
Guard, on September seventh, on a trail leading off toward Tiogra and
Seletskoe. Somewhere in the wilds he would find traces of or might
succor the handful of American sailors and Scots who, under Col.
Hazelden, a British officer, had been cornered by the Red Guards.

“Reece, reece,” said the excited _drosky_ driver as he greedily
accepted his handful of driver’s rations. He had not seen rice for
three years. Thankfully he took the food. His family left at home would
also learn how to barter with the generous doughboy for his tobacco and
bully beef and crackers, which at times, very rarely of course, in the
advanced sectors, he was lucky enough to exchange for handfuls of
vegetables that the old women plucked out of their caches in the rich
black mould of the small garden, or from a cellar-like hole under a
loose board in the log house.

“Guard duty at Archangel” was aiming now to be a real war, on a small
scale but intensive. Obozerskaya, about one hundred miles south of
Archangel, in a few days took on the appearance of an active field base
for aggressive advance on the enemy. Here were the rapid assembling of
fighting units; of transport and supply units; of railroad repairing
crews, Russian, under British officers; of signals; of armored
automobile, our nearest approach to a tank, which stuck in the mud and
broke through the frail Russki bridges and was useless; of the feverish
clearing and smoothing of a landing field near the station for our
supply of spavined air-planes that had already done their bit on the
Western Front; of the improvement of our ferocious-looking armored
train, with its coal-car mounted naval guns, buttressed with sand bags
and preceded by a similar car bristling with machine guns and Lewis
automatics in the hands of a motley crew of Polish gunners and Russki
gunners and a British sergeant or two. This armored train was under the
command of the blue-coated, one-armed old commander Young, hero of the
Zeebrugge Raid, who parked his train every night on the switch track
next to the British Headquarters car, the Blue Car with the Union Jack
flying over it and the whole Allied force. Secretly, he itched to get
his armored train into point-blank engagement with the Bolshevik
armored train.

“All patrols must be aggressive,” directed a secret order of Col.
Guard, the British officer commanding this “A” Force on the railroad,
“and it must be impressed on all ranks that we are fighting an
offensive war, and not a defensive one, although for the time being it
is the duty of everybody to get the present area in a sound state of
defense. All posts must be held to the last as we do not intend to give
up any ground which we have made good.”

And within a week after landing in Russia the American soldier was
indeed making head on an offensive campaign, for on September 11th two
platoons of “M” Company reconnoitering in force met a heavy force of
Bolos on similar mission and fought the first engagement with the Red
Guards, driving the Reds from the station at Verst 466 and taking
possession of the bridge at Verst 464.

We had ridden out past the outguard on the armored train, left it and
proceeded along the railway. Remember that first Bolo shell? Well, yes.
That thing far down the straight track three miles away Col. Guard,
before going to the rear, derisively told Lieut. Danley could not be a
Bolo armored train but was a sawmill smoke stack. Suddenly it flashed.
Then came the distant boom. Came then the whining, twist-whistling
shell that passed over us and showered shrapnel near the trenches where
lay our reserves. He shortened his range but we hurried on and closed
with his infantry with the decision in the American doughboy’s favor in
his first fight. He had learned that it takes many shrapnel shells and
bullets to hit one man, that to be hit is not necessarily to be killed.

A few days later “L” Company supported in the nick of time by two
platoons of “I” Company repulsed a savage counter-attack staged by the
Red Guards, September 16th, on a morning that followed the capture of a
crashing Red bombing plane in the evening and the midnight
conflagration in “L” Company’s fortified camp that might have been
misinterpreted as an evacuation by the Bolo. In this engagement Lieut.
Gordon B. Reese and his platoon of “I” Company marked themselves with
distinction by charging the Reds as a last resort when ammunition had
been exhausted in a vain attempt to gain fire superiority against the
overwhelming and enveloping Red line, and gave the Bolshevik soldiers a
sample of the fighting spirit of the Americans. And the Reds broke and
ran. Also our little graveyard of brave American soldiers at
Obozerskaya began to grow.

It was the evening before when the Bolo airman, who had dropped two
small bombs at the Americans at Obozerskaya, was obliged to volplane to
earth on the railroad near the 464 outguard. Major Young was there at
the time. He declared the approaching bomb-plane by its markings was
certainly an Allied plane, ordered the men not to discharge their Lewis
gun which they had trained upon it, and as the Bolos hit the dirt two
hundred yards away, he rushed out shouting his command, which
afterwards became famous, “Don’t fire! We are Americans.” But the Bolo
did not _pahneemahya_ and answered with his own Lewis gun sending the
impetuous American officer to cover where he lay even after the Bolo
had darted into the woods and the doughboys ran up and pulled the moss
off their battalion commander whom they thought had been killed by the
short burst of the Bolo’s automatic fire, as the major had not arisen
to reply with his trusty six shooter.

Meanwhile “K” Company had met the enemy on the Seletskoe-Kodish front
as will be related later, and plans were being laid for a converging
attack by the Kodish, Onega and Railroad columns upon Plesetskaya. “L”
Company was sent to support “K” Company and the Railroad Force marked
time till the other two columns could get into position for the joint
drive. Machine gun men and medical men coming to us from Archangel
brought unverified stories of fighting far up the Dvina and Onega
Rivers where the Bolshevik was gathering forces for a determined stand
and had caused the digging of American graves and the sending back to
Archangel of wounded men. This is told elsewhere. Our patrols daily
kept in contact with Red Guard outposts on the railroad, occasionally
bringing in wounded Bolos or deserters, who informed us of
intrenchments and armored trains and augmenting Bolshevik regiments.

Our Allied force of Cossacks proved unreliable and officer’s patrols of
Americans served better but owing to lack of maps or guides were able
to gain but little information of the forest trails of the area.
British intelligence officers depending on old forester’s maps and on
deserters and prisoners and neutral natives allowed the time for “Pat
Rooney’s work,” personal reconnaissance, to go by till one day,
September 28th, General Finlayson arrived at Obozerskaya in person at
noon and peremptorily ordered an advance to be started that afternoon
on the enemy’s works at Versts 458 and 455. Col. Sutherland was caught
unprepared but had to obey.

Calling up one company of the resting French troops under the veteran
African fighter, Captain Alliez, for support, Col. Sutherland asked
Major Young to divide his two American companies into two detachments
for making the flank marches and attacks upon the Red positions. The
marches to be made to position in the afternoon and night and the
attacks to were be put on at dawn. The armored train and other guns
manned by the Poles were to give a barrage on the frontal positions as
soon as the American soldiers had opened their surprise flank and rear
attacks. Then the Bolos were supposed to run away and a French company
supported by a section of American machine guns and a “Hq.” section
that had been trained hastily into a Stokes mortar section, were to
rush in and assist in consolidating the positions gained.

But this hurriedly contrived advance was doomed to failure before it
started. There had not been proper preparations. The main force
consisting of “M” Company and two platoons of “I” Company and a small
detachment of Engineers to blow the track in rear of the Bolo position
at 455 was to march many miles by the flank in the afternoon and night
but were not provided with even a map that showed anything but the
merest outlines. The other detachment consisting of two remaining
platoons of “I” Company were little better off only they had no such
great distance to go. Both detachments after long hours were unable to
reach the objective.

This was so memorable a night march and so typical of the fall
operations everywhere that space has been allowed to describe it. No
one had been over the proposed route of march ordered by Col.
Sutherland. No Russian guide could be provided. We must follow the
blazed trail of an east-and-west forest line till we came to a certain
broad north-and-south cutting laid out in the days of Peter the Great.
Down this cutting we were to march so many versts, told by the decaying
old notched posts, till we passed the enemy’s flank at 455, then turn
in toward the railroad, camp for the night in the woods and attack him
in the rear at 6:00 a. m.

At five o’clock in the afternoon the detachment struck into the woods.
Lieut. Chantrill, the pleasant British intelligence officer who acted
as interpreter, volunteered to go as guide although he had no
familiarity with the swamp-infested forest area. It was dark long
before we reached the broad cutting. No one will forget the ordeal of
that night march. Could not see the man ahead of you. Ears told you he
was tripping over fallen timber or sloshing in knee-deep bog hole. Hard
breathing told the story of exertion. Only above and forward was there
a faint streak of starlight that uncertainly led us on and on south
toward the vicinity of the Bolo positions.

Hours later we emerge from the woods cutting into a great marsh. Far in
the dark on the other side we must hit the cutting in the heavy pine
woods. For two hours we struggle on. We lose our direction. The marsh
is a bog. To the right, to the left, in front the tantalizing optical
illusion lures us on toward an apparently firmer footing. But ever the
same, or worse, treacherous mire. We cannot stand a moment in a spot.
We must flounder on. The column has to spread. Distress comes from
every side. Men are down and groggy. Some one who is responsible for
that body of men sweats blood and swears hatred to the muddler who is
to blame. How clearly sounds the exhaust of the locomotives in the Bolo
camp on the nearby railroad. Will their outguards hear us? Courage,
men, we must get on.

This is a fine end. D—- that unverified old map the Colonel has. It did
not show this lake that baffles our further struggles to advance.
Detour of the unknown lake without a guide, especially in our present
exhausted condition, is impossible. (Two weeks later with two Russian
guides and American officers who had explored the way, we thought it a
wonderful feat to thread our way around with a column). Judgment now
dictates that it is best to retrace our steps and cut in at 461 to be
in position to be of use in the reserve or in the consolidation. We
have failed to reach our objective but it is not our fault. We followed
orders and directions but they were faulty. It is a story that was to
be duplicated over and over by one American force after another on the
various fronts in the rainy fall season, operating under British
officers who took desperate chances and acted on the theory that “You
Americans,” as Col. Sutherland said, “can do it somehow, you know.” And
as to numbers, why, “Ten Americans are as good as a hundred Bolos,
aren’t they?”

But how shall we extricate ourselves? Who knows where the cutting may
be found? Can staggering men again survive the treacherous morass? It
is lighter now. We will pick our way better. But where is the cutting?
Chantrill and the Captain despair. Have we missed it in, the dark? Then
we are done for. Where is the “I” Co. detachment again? Lost? Here
Corporal Grahek, and you, Sgt. Getzloff, you old woodsmen from north
Michigan pines, scout around here and find the cutting and that rear
party. Who is it that you men are carrying?

No trace of the rear part of the column nor of the cutting! One thing
remains to do. We must risk a shout, though the Reds may hear.

“Danley! eeyohoh!”

“Yes, h-e-e-e-r-r-e on the c-u-t-t-i-n-g!”

Did ever the straight and narrow way seem so good. The column is soon
united again and the back trail despondingly begun. Daylight of a
Sunday morning aids our footsteps. We cross again the stream we had
waded waist deep in the pitch dark and wondered that no one had been
drowned.

Zero hour arrives and we listen to the artillery of both sides and for
the rat-tat-tat of the Bolo machine guns when our forces move on the
bridgehead. We hurry on. The battle is joined. Pine woods roar and
reverberate with roar. By taking a nearer blazed trail we may come out
to the railway somewhere near the battle line.

At 8:40 a. m. we emerge from the woods near our armored train. At field
headquarters, Major Nichols, who in the thick of the battle has arrived
to relieve Major Young, orders every man at once to be made as
comfortable as possible. Men build fires and warm and dry their clammy
water-soaked feet, picture of which is shown in this volume. Bully and
tea and hard tack revive a good many. It is well they do, for the fight
is going against us and two detachments of volunteers from these men
are soon, to be asked for to go forward to the battle line.

Considerable detail has been given about this march of “I” and “M”
because writer was familiar with it, but a similar story might be told
of “H” in the swamps on the Onega, or of “K” or “L” and “M. G.” at
Kodish, or of “A,” “B,” “C” or “D” on the River Fronts, and with equal
praise for the hardihood of the American doughboy hopelessly mired in
swamps and lost in the dense forests, baffled in his attempts because
of no fault of his own, but ready after an hour’s rest to go at it
again, as in this case when a volunteer platoon went forward to support
the badly suffering line. The Red Guards composed of the Letts and
sailors were fiercely counter-attacking and threatening to sweep back
the line and capture field-headquarters.

During the preceding hours the French company had pressed in gallantly
after the artillery and machine gun barrage and captured the
bridgehead, and, supported by the American machine gun men and the
trench mortar men, had taken the Bolo’s first trench line, seeking to
consolidate the position.

Lieut. Keith of “Hq.” Company with twenty-one men and three Stokes
mortars had gone through the woods and taking a lucky direction,
avoided the swamp and cut in to the railroad, arriving in the morning
just after the barrage and the French infantry attack had driven the
Reds from their first line. They took possession of three Bolshevik
shacks and a German machine gun, using hand grenades in driving the
Reds out. Then they placed their trench mortars in position to meet the
Bolo counter-attack.

The Bolos came in on the left flank under cover of the woods, the
French infantry at that time being on the right flank in the woods, and
two platoons of Americans being lost somewhere on the left in the
swamp. This counterattack of the Reds was repulsed by the trench mortar
boys who, however, found themselves at the end of the attack with no
more ammunition for their mortars, Col. Sutherland not having provided
for the sending of reserve ammunition to the mortars from Obozerskaya.
Consequently the second attack of the Reds was waited with anxiety. The
Reds were in great force and well led. They came in at a new angle and
divided the Americans and French, completely overwhelming the trench
mortar men’s rifle fire and putting Costello’s valiant machine guns out
of action, too. Lieut Keith was severely wounded, one man was killed,
four wounded and three missing. Sgt. Kolbe and Pvt. Driscoll after
prodigies of valor with their machine guns were obliged to fall back
with the French. Kolbe was severely wounded. So the Bolo yells that day
sounded in triumph as they won back their positions from the Americans
and French.

The writer knows, for he heard those hellish yells. Under cover of the
single “M” Company platoon rushed up to the bridge, the Americans and
French whose gallant efforts had gone for naught because Col.
Sutherland’s battle plan was a “dud,” retired to field headquarters at
461. A half platoon of “I” men hurried up to support. The veteran
Alliez encouraged the American officer Captain Moore, to hang on to the
bridge. Lieut. Spitler came on with a machine gun and the position was
consolidated and held in spite of heavy shelling by the Bolo armored
trains and his desperate raids at night and in the morning, for the
purpose of destroying the bridge. His high explosive tore up the track
but did no damage to the bridge. His infantry recoiled from the Lewis
gun and machine gun fire of the Americans that covered the bridge and
its approaches.

The day’s operations had been costly. The French had lost eight, killed
and wounded and missing. The Americans had lost four killed, fourteen
wounded, among whom were Lieuts. Lawrence Keith and James R. Donovan,
and five missing. Many of these casualties were suffered by the
resolute platoon at the bridge. There Lieut. Donovan was caught by
machine gun fire and a private by shrapnel from a searching barrage of
the Bolos, as was also a sergeant of “F” Company who was attached for
observation. But the eight others who were wounded, two of them
mortally, owed their unfortunate condition to the altogether
unnecessary and ill-advised attempt by Col. Sutherland to shell the
bridge which was being held by his own troops. He had the panicky idea
that the Red Guards were coming or going to come across that bridge and
ordered the shrapnel which cut up the platoon of “M” Company with its
hail of lead instead of the Reds who had halted 700 yards away and
themselves were shelling the bridge but to no effect. Not only that but
when Col. Sutherland was informed that his artillery was getting his
own troops, he first asked on one telephone for another quart of whisky
and later called up his artillery officer and ordered the deadly fire
to lengthen range. This was observed by an American soldier, Ernest
Roleau, at Verst 466, who acted as interpreter and orderly in
Sutherland’s headquarters that day.

The British officer sadly retired to his Blue Car headquarters at Verst
466, thinking the Reds would surely recapture the bridge. But Major
Nichols in command at field headquarters at Verst 461 thought
differently. When the order came over the wire for him to withdraw his
Americans from the bridge, this infantry reserve officer whose
previously most desperate battle, outside of a melee between the Bulls
and Bears on Wall Street, had been to mashie nib out of a double
bunkered trap on the Detroit Country Club golf course, as usual with
him, took “plenty of sand.” He shoved the order to one side till he
heard from the officer at the front and then requested a countermanding
order. He made use of the veteran Alliez’s counsel. And for two dubious
nights and days with “M” and “I” Companies he held on to the scant
three miles of advance which had been paid for so dearly. And the Reds
never did get back the important bridge.

Now it was evident that the Bolshevik rear-guard action was not to be
scared out. It was bent on regaining its ground. During these last
September days of supposed converging drive in three columns on
Plesetskaya our widely separated forces had all met with stiff
resistance and been worsted in action. The Bolshevik had earned our
respect as a fighter. More fighting units were hurried up. Our “A”
Force Command began careful reconnaissance and plans of advance.
American officers and doughboys had their first experiences, of the
many experiences to follow, of taking out Russian guides and from their
own observations and the crude old maps and from doubtful hearsay to
piece together a workable military sketch of the densely forested area.

Artillery actions and patrol actions were almost daily diet till, with
the advance two weeks later on October thirteenth, the offensive
movement started again. This time French and Americans closely
co-operated. The Reds evidently had some inkling of it, for on the
morning when the amalgamated “M”-“Boyer” force entered the woods,
inside fifteen minutes the long, thin column of horizon blue and olive
drab was under shrapnel fire of the Bolo. With careful march this force
gained the flank and rear of the enemy at Verst 455, and camped in a
hollow square, munched on hardtack and slept on their arms in the cold
rain. Lieut. Stoner, Capt. Boyer, the irrepressible French fun-maker,
Capt. Moore and Lieut. Giffels slept on the same patch of wet moss with
the same log for a pillow, unregardful of the TNT in the Engineer
officer’s pocket, which was for use the next morning in blowing the
enemy’s armored train.

At last 5:00 a. m. comes but it is still dark and foggy. Men stretch
their cold and cramped limbs after the interminable night. No smokes.
No eats. In ten minutes of whispering the columns are under way. The
leading platoon gets out of our reach. Delay while we get a new guide
lets them get on ahead of the other platoons. Too bad. It spoils the
plan. The main part of the attacking forces can not press forward fast
enough to catch up. The engineers will be too late to blow the track in
rear of the Bolo train.

The Red Guard listening posts and his big tower on the flank now stand
him in good stead. He sees the little platoon of Franco-Americans
approaching in line, and sends out a superior force to meet the attack.
Ten minutes of stiff fire fight ensues during which the other attacking
platoons strive to get up to their positions in rear and rear flank.
But our comrades are evidently out-numbered and being worsted. We must
spring our attack to save them.

Oh, those bugles! Who ever heard of a half mile charge? And such a
melee. Firing and yelling and tooting like ten thousand the main party
goes in. What would the first “old man” of the 339th, our beloved
Colonel John W. Craig, have said at sight of that confused swarm of
soldiers heading straight for the Bolo positions. Lucky for us the Bolo
does not hold his fire till we swarm out of the woods. As it is in his
panic he blazes away into the woods pointblank with his artillery
mounted on the trains and with his machine guns, two of which only are
on ground positions. And his excited aim is characteristically high,
_Slavo Bogga_. We surge in. He jumps to his troop trains, tries to
cover his withdrawal by the two machine guns, and gets away, but with
hundreds of casualties from our fire that we pour into the moving
trains. Marvellous luck, we have monkeyed with a buzz saw and suffered
only slight casualties, one American killed and four wounded. Two
French wounded.

The surprise at 455 threw “the wind” up the Bolo’s back at his forward
positions, 457 and 457-1/2, and Lieuts. Primm and Soyer’s amalgamated
French-American attacking party won a quick victory. The armored train
came on through over the precious bridge at Verst 458, the track was
repaired and our artillery came up to 455 and answered the Red armored
train that was shelling us while we consolidated the position. Lieut.
Anselmi’s resolute American signal men unmindful of the straggling
Bolos who were working south in the woods along the railroad, “ran” the
railway telephone lines back to field headquarters at 458 and
established communications with Major Nichols.

As soon as transportation was open “I” Company and Apsche’s company of
French moved up and went on through to battle the Reds in the same
afternoon out of their position at Verst 450 where they had rallied and
to advance on the fifteenth to a position at 448, where the Americans
dug in. Trouble with the French battalion was brewing for the British
Command. The _poilus_ had heard of the proposed armistice on the
Western Front. “_La guerre finis_,” they declared, and refused to
remain with “I” Company on the line.

So on October sixteenth this company found itself single-handed holding
the advanced position against the counter-attack of the reinforced
Reds. After a severe artillery barrage of the Reds, Captain Winslow
pushed forward to meet the attack of the Bolos and fought a drawn
battle with them in the woods in the afternoon. Both sides dug in. “I”
Company lost one killed and four wounded.

Meanwhile “M” Company, after one day to reorganize and rest, hurried up
during the afternoon fight and prepared to relieve “I” Company.
Sleeping on their arms around the dull-burning fires at 448 between
noisy periods of night exchanges of fire by the Americans and Red
Guards, this company next morning at 6:00 a. m. went through under a
rolling barrage of Major Lee’s artillery, which had been able to
improve its position during the night, thanks to the resolute work of
Lieut. Giffels and his American Engineers on the railroad track.
Stoner’s platoon destroyed the heavy outpost of Bolos with a sharp fire
fight and a charge and swept on, only halting when he reached a large
stream. Beyond this was a half-mile square clearing with characteristic
woodpiles and station and woodmen’s houses, occupied by a heavy force
of six hundred Red Guards, themselves preparing for attack on the
Americans. Here Captain Moore timed his three platoons and Lieut.
Spitler’s machine guns for a rush on three sides with intent to gain a
foothold at least within the clearing. The very impetuosity of the
doughboy’s noisy attack struck panic into the poorly led Bolsheviks and
they won an easy victory, having possession of the position inside half
an hour. The Reds were routed and pursued beyond the objectives set by
Col. Sutherland. And the old company horse shoe again worked. Though
many men had their clothes riddled not a man was scratched.

The position was consolidated. An hour after the engagement two
sections of the French Company that had sulked the preceding day came
smilingly up and helped fortify the flanks. Their beloved old battalion
commander, Major Alabernarde, had shamed them out of their mutinous
conduct and they were satisfied again to help their much admired
American comrades in this strange, faraway side show of the great world
war.

One or two interesting reminiscences here crowd in. It was during the
charge on 445 that Lieut. Stoner missed a dugout door by a foot with
his hand grenade and his tender heart near froze with horror an hour
afterward when he came back from pursuit of the Reds to find that with
the one Bolo soldier in the dugout were cowering twenty-seven women and
children, one eight days old. The red-whiskered old Bolo soldier had a
hand grenade in his pocket and Sergeant Dundon nearly shook his yellow
teeth loose trying to make him reply to questions in English. And the
poor varlet nearly expired with terror later in the day when Lieut.
Riis of the American Embassy stood him up with his back against a
shack. “Comrades, have mercy on me! My wife and my children,” he begged
as he fell on his knees before the click of the camera.

Another good story was often told about the alleged “Bolo Spy Dog
Patrols” first discovered when the British officer led his Royal Scots,
most of them raw Russian recruits, to the front posts at 445 to
reinforce “M” Co. “Old Ruble” had been a familiar sight to the
Americans. At this time he had picked up a couple of cur buddies, and
was staying with the Americans at the front, having perpetual pass good
at any part of the four-square outpost. But the British officer
reported him to the American officer as a sure-enough trained Bolshevik
patrol dog and threatened to shoot him. And at four o’clock the next
morning they did fire at the dogs and started up the nervous Red Guards
into machine gun fire from their not distant trench line and brought
everyone out to man our lines for defense. And the heavy enemy shelling
cut up Scots (Russians) as well as Americans.

Here the fall advance on the Archangel-Vologda Railway ended. We were a
few versts north of Emtsa, but “_mnoga, mnoga versts_,” many versts,
distant from Vologda, the objective picked by General Poole for this
handful of men. Emtsa was a railroad repair shop village. We wanted it.
General Ironside who relieved Poole, however, had issued a general
order to hold up further advances on all the fronts. So we dug in.
Winter would soon be on, anyway.

The Red Guards, however, meant to punish us for the capture of this
position. He thoroughly and savagely shelled the position repeatedly
and the British artillery moved up as the Yankee engineers restored the
destroyed railroad track and duelled daily with the very efficient Red
artillery. We have to admit that with his knowledge of the area the Red
artillery officer had the best of the strategy and the shooting. He had
the most guns too.

Major Nichols was heard to remark the day after he had been through the
severe six gun barrage of the Reds who poured their wrath on the
Americans at 445 before they could but more than get slight shrapnel
shelters made, and had suffered four casualties, and the Royal Scots
had lost a fine Scotch lieutenant and two Russian soldiers. “This
shelling of course would be small peanuts to the French and British
soldiers who were on the Western Front, but to us Americans fresh from
the fields and city offices and shops of Michigan it is a little hell.”
And so the digging was good at 445 during the last of October and the
first of November while Major Nichols with “M” and “I” and French and
American machine gun sections held this front.

On the fourth of November “I” Company supported by the French machine
gunners sustained a terrific attack by the Reds in powerful force,
repulsed them finally after several hours, with great losses, and
gained from General Ironside a telegram of congratulations. “I” Co.
lost one killed, one missing, two wounded, one of which was Lieut.
Reese. After that big attack the enemy left us in possession and we
began to fear winter as much as we did the enemy. The only event that
broke the routine of patrols and artillery duels was the accidental
bombing by our Allied airplane of our position instead of the half-mile
distant enemy trenches, one of the two 112-lb. bombs taking the life of
Floyd Sickles, “M” Company’s barber and wounding another soldier.

Amusing things also are recalled. The American medical officer at the
front line one morning looked at a French soldier who seemed to be
coming down with a heavy cold and generously doped him up with hot
water and whiskey. Next morning the whole machine gun section of French
were on sick call. But Collins was wise, and perhaps his bottle was
empty.

One day a big, husky Yank in “I” Company was brokenly “parlevooing”
with a little French gunner, who was seen to leap excitedly into the
air and drape himself about the doughboy’s neck exclaiming with joy,
“My son, my son, my dear sister’s son.” This is the truth. And he took
the Yank over to his dugout for a celebration of this strange family
meeting, filled him up with sour wine, and his pockets with pictures of
dancing girls.

Of course we were to learn to our discomfort and peril that winter was
the time chosen by Trotsky for his counter-offensive against the Allied
forces in the North. Of that winter campaign we shall tell in later
chapters. We leave the Americans now on the railroad associated with
their French comrades and 310th Engineers building blockhouses for
defense and quarters to keep warm.




III
RIVER PUSH FOR KOTLAS


First Battalion Hurries Up The River—We Take Chamova—The Lay Of The
River Land—Battling For Seltso—Retire To Yakovlevskoe—That Most
Wonderful Smoke—Incidents Of The March—Sudden Shift To Shenkursk
Area—The Battalion Splits—Again At Seltso—Bolos Attack—Edvyinson A
Hero.


That dismal, gloomy day—September 6, 1915—the first battalion, under
Lt.-Col. James Corbley, spent on board transport, watching the third
battalion disembark and getting on board the freight cars that were to
carry them down to the Railroad Front. Each man on board was aching to
set foot on dry land once more and would gladly have marched to any
front in order to avoid the dull monotony aboard ship, with nothing of
interest to view but the gleaming spires of the cathedrals or the cold,
gray northern sky, but there is an end to all such trials, and late
that evening we received word that our battalion was to embark on
several river barges to proceed up the Dvina River.

The following day all hands turned to bright and early and from early
dawn until late that afternoon every man that was able to stand, and
some that were not, were busily engaged in making up packs, issuing
ammunition and loading up the barges. By six o’clock that evening they
had marched on board the barges—some of the men in the first stages of
“flu” had to be assisted on board with their packs. These barges, as we
afterward learned, were a good example of the Russian idea of
sanitation and cleanliness. They had been previously used for hauling
coal, cattle, produce, flax, and a thousand-and-one other things, and
in their years of usage had accumulated an unbelievable amount of filth
and dirt. In addition to all this, they were leaky, and the lower
holds, where hundreds of men had to sleep that week, were cold, dismal
and damp. Small wonder that our little force was daily decreased by
sickness and death. After five days of this slow, monotonous means of
travel, we finally arrived at the town of Beresnik, which afterward
became the base for the river column troops.

The following day “A” Company, 339th Infantry, under Capt. Otto Odjard,
took over the defense of the village in order to relieve a detachment
of Royal Scots who were occupying the town. All that day we saw and
heard the dull roar of the artillery further up the river, where the
Royal Scots, accompanied by a gunboat, were attempting to drive the
enemy before them. Meeting with considerable opposition in the vicinity
of Chamova, a village about fifty versts from Beresnik, a rush call was
sent in for American reinforcements.

The first battalion of the 339th Infantry left Beresnik about September
15th under command of Major Corbley, and started up the Dvina. The
first incident worthy of record occurred at Chamova. As advance company
we arrived about 1:00 a. m. at Chamova, which was garrisoned by a small
force of Scots. We put out our outposts in the brush which surrounded
the town, and shortly afterward, about 5:00 a. m., we were alarmed by
the sound of musketry near the river bank. We deployed and advanced to
what seemed to be a small party from a gunboat. They had killed two
Scots who had mistaken them for a supply boat from Beresnik and gone to
meet them empty-handed. The Bolo had regained his boat after a little
firing between him and the second platoon which was at the upper end of
the village. We were trying to locate oars for the clumsy Russian
_barzhaks_ on the bank, intending to cross to the island where the
gunboat was moored and do a little navy work, when the British monitor
hove into sight around a bend about three miles down stream, and opened
fire on the gunboat. The first shot was a little long, the second a
little short, and the third was a clean hit amid ship which set the
gunboat on fire. John Bolo in the meantime took a hasty departure by
way of the island. We were immensely disappointed by the advent of the
monitor, as the gunboat would have been very handy in navigating the
Russian roads.

This Monitor, by the way, was much feared by the Russians, but was very
temperamental, and if it was sadly needed, as it was later at Toulgas
when we were badly outranged, it reposed calmly at Beresnik. When the
Monitor first made its advent on the Dvina she steamed into Beresnik,
and her commander inquired loftily, “Where are the bloody Bolsheviks,
and which is the way to Kotlas?” Upon being informed she steamed boldly
up the Dvina on the road to Kotlas, found the Bolo, who promptly
slapped a shell into their internal workings, killing several men and
putting the Monitor temporarily _hors de combat_. After that the
Monitor was very prudent and displayed no especial longing to visit
Kotlas.

In order to better comprehend the situation and terrain of the river
forces, a few words regarding the two rivers and their surroundings
will not be without interest. This region is composed of vast tundras
or marshes and the balance of the entire province is covered with
almost impenetrable forests of pine and evergreen of different
varieties. The tundras or marshes are very treacherous, for the
traveler marching along on what appears to be a rough strip of solid
ground, suddenly may feel the same give way and he is precipitated into
a bath of ice cold muddy water. Great areas of these tundras are
nothing more than a thickly woven matting of grasses and weeds
overgrowing creeks or ponds and many a lonely traveler has been known
to disappear in one of these marshes never to be seen again.

This condition is especially typical of the Dvina River. The Dvina is a
much larger river than the Vaga and compares favorably to the lower
Mississippi in our own country. It meanders and spreads about over the
surrounding country by a thousand different routes, inasmuch as there
are practically no banks and nothing to hold it within its course. The
Vaga, on the other hand, is a narrower and swifter river and much more
attractive and interesting. It has very few islands and is lined on
either side by comparatively steep bluffs, varying from fifty to one
hundred feet in height. The villages which line the banks are larger
and comparatively more prosperous, but regarding the villages more will
be said later.


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_A Shell Screeched Over This Burial Scene._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Vickers Machine Gun Helping Hold Lines._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Our Armored Train._]


[Illustration: RENICKE
_First Battalion Hurries Up River._]


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Lonely Post in Dense Forest._]


[Illustration: MORRIS
_Statue of Peter the Great and State Buildings in Archangel._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Drawing Rations, Verst 455._]


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Last Honors to a Soldier._]


We continued our march up the Dvina, about two days behind the fleeing
Bolo, hoping that he would decide to make a stand. This he did at
Seltso. On the morning of September 19th, through mud and water, at
times waist deep and too precarious for hauling artillery, the advance
began on Seltso. At 1:00 p. m. the advance party, “D” Company, under
Captain Coleman, reached Yakovlevskaya, a village just north of Seltso
and separated from it by a mile of wide open marsh which is crossed by
a meandering arm of the nearby Dvina. A single road and bridge lead
across to Seltso. “D” Company gallantly deployed and wading the swamp
approached within one thousand five hundred yards of the enemy, who
suddenly opened up with machine guns, rifles, and Russian pom pom. This
latter gun is a rapid fire artillery piece, firing a clip of five
shells weighing about one pound apiece, in rapid succession. We later
discovered that they, as well as most of the flimsy rifles, were made
by several of the prominent gun manufacturers of the United States.

“D” Company found further advance impossible without support and dug
in. “C” Company under Capt. Fitz Simmons hurried up and took position
in a tongue of woods at the right of “D” and were joined after dark by
“B” Company. None of the officers in command of this movement knew
anything of the geography nor much of anything else regarding this
position, so the men were compelled to dig in as best they could in the
mud and water to await orders from Colonel Corbley, who had not come
up. At eleven o’clock that night a drizzling rain set in, and huddled
and crouched together in this vile morass, unprotected by even an
overcoat, without rations, tired and exhausted from the day’s march and
fighting, the battalion bivouacked. All night the enemy kept searching
the woods and marshes with his artillery, but with little effect.
During the night we learned that the Bolo had a land battery of
three-inch guns and five gunboats in the river at their flank with six
and nine-inch guns aboard rafts. This was none too pleasing a situation
for an infantry attack with no artillery preparation, coupled with the
miserable condition of the troops.

As daylight approached the shelling became more and more violent. The
Bolo was sending over everything at his command and it was decided to
continue the attack lest we be exterminated by the enemy artillery. At
daybreak Lt. Dressing of “B” Company took out a reconnaissance patrol
to feel out the enemy lines of defense, but owing to the nature of the
ground he had little success. His patrol ran into a Bolo outpost and
was scattered by machine gun fire. It was here that Corporal Shroeder
was lost, no trace ever being found of his body or equipment.

About noon two platoons of Company “B” went out to occupy a certain
objective. This they found was a well constructed trench system filled
with Bolos, and flanked by machine gun positions. In the ensuing action
we had three men killed and eight men wounded, including Lt. A. M.
Smith, who received a severe wound in the side, but continued handling
his platoon effectively, showing exceptional fortitude. The battle
continued during the afternoon all along the line. “C” and “D” were
supporting “B” with as much fire as possible. But troops could not stay
where they were under the enemy fire, and Col. Corbley, who had at last
arrived, ordered a frontal attack to come off after a preparatory
barrage by our Russian artillery which had at last toiled up to a
position.

Here fortune favored the Americans. The Russian artillery officer
placed a beautiful barrage upon the village and the enemy gunboats,
which continued from 4:45 to 5:00 p.m. At 5:00 o’clock, the zero hour,
the infantry made the attack and in less than an hour’s time they had
gained the village.

The Bolsheviks had been preparing to evacuate anyway, as the
persistence of our attack and effectiveness of our rifle fire had
nearly broken their morale. Americans with white, strained faces, in
contrast with their muck-daubed uniforms, shook hands prayerfully as
they discussed how a determined defense could have murdered them all in
making that frontal attack across a swamp in face of well-set machine
gun positions.

However, the Americans were scarcely better off when they had taken
Seltso, for their artillery now could not get up to them. So the enemy
gunboats could shell Seltso at will. Hence it appeared wise to retire
for a few days to Yakovlevskaya. In the early hours of the morning
following the battle the Americans retired from Seltso. They were
exceedingly hungry, dog-tired, sore in spirit, but they had undergone
their baptism of fire.

After a few days spent in Yakovlevskoe we set out again, and advanced
as far as a village called Pouchuga. Here we expected another encounter
with the Bolo, but he had just left when we arrived. We were fallen out
temporarily on a muddy Russian hillside in the middle of the afternoon,
the rain was falling steadily, we had been marching for a week through
the muddiest mud that ever was, the rations were hard tack and bully,
and tobacco had been out for several weeks. A more miserable looking
and feeling outfit can scarce be imagined. A bedraggled looking convoy
of Russian carts under Lt. Warner came up, and he informed us that he
could let us have one package of cigarettes per man. We accepted his
offer without any reluctance, and passed them out. To paraphrase Gunga
Din, says Capt. Boyd:

“They were British and they stunk as anyone who smoked British issue
cigarettes with forty-two medals can tell you, but of all the smokes
I’ve (I should say ‘smunk’ to continue the paraphrase) I’m gratefulest
to those from Lt. Warner. You could see man after man light his
cigarette, take a long draw, and relax in unadulterated enjoyment. Ten
minutes later they were a different outfit, and nowhere as wet, cold,
tired or hungry. Lucy Page Gaston and the Anti-Cigarette League please
note.”


After a long day’s march we finally arrived in a “suburb” of Pouchuga
about 7:00 p.m. with orders to place our outposts and remain there that
night. By nine o’clock this was done, and the rest of the company was
scattered in billets all over the village, being so tired that they
flopped in the first place where there was floor space to spread a
blanket. Then came an order to march to the main village and join Major
Corbley. At least a dozen of the men could not get their shoes on by
reason of their feet being swollen, but we finally set out on a pitch
black night through the thick mud. We staggered on, every man falling
full length in the mud innumerable times, and finally reached our
destination. Captain Boyd writes:


“I shall never forget poor Wilson on that march, cheery and
good-spirited in spite of everything. His loss later at Toulgas was a
personal one as well as the loss of a good soldier.

“I also remember Babcock on that march—Babcock, who was one of our best
machine gunners, never complaining and always dependable. We were
ploughing along through the mud when from my place at the head of the
column I heard a splash. I went back to investigate and there was
Babcock floundering in a ditch with sides too slippery to crawl up. The
column was marching stolidly past, each man with but one thought, to
pull his foot out of the mud and put it in a little farther on. We
finally got Babcock up to terra firma, he explained that it had looked
like good walking, nice and smooth, and he had gone down to try it. I
cautioned him that he should never try to take a bath while in military
formation, and he seemed to think the advice was sound.”


Now the battalion was needed over on the Vaga river front, the story of
whose advance there is told in another chapter. By barge the Americans
went down the Dvina to its junction with the Vaga and then proceeded up
that river as far as Shenkursk. To the doughboys this upper Vaga area
seemed a veritable land of milk and honey when compared with the
miserable upper Dvina area. Fresh meat and eggs were obtainable. There
were even women there who wore hats and stockings, in place of boots
and shawls. We had comfortable billets. But it was too good to be true.
In less than a week the Bolo’s renewed activities on the upper Dvina
made it necessary for one company of the first battalion to go again to
that area. Colonel Corbley saw “B” Company depart on the tug “Retvizan”
and so far as field activities were concerned it was to be part of the
British forces on the Dvina from October till April rather than part of
the first battalion force. The company commander was to be drafted as
“left bank” commander of a mixed force and hold Toulgas those long,
long months. The only help he remembers from Colonel Corbley or Colonel
Stewart in the field operations was a single visit from each, the one
to examine his company fund book, the other to visit the troops on the
line in obedience to orders from Washington and General Ironside. Of
this visit Captain Boyd writes:


“When Col. Stewart made his trip to Toulgas his advent was marked
principally by his losing one of his mittens, which were the ordinary
issue variety. He searched everywhere, and half insinuated that Capt.
Dean, my adjutant, a British officer, had taken it. I could see Dean
getting hot under the collar. Then he told me that my orderly must have
taken it. I knew Adamson was more honest than either myself or the
colonel, and that made me hot. Then he finally found the mitten where
he had dropped it, on the porch, and everything was serene again.

“Col. Stewart went with me up to one of the forward blockhouses, which
at that time was manned by the Scots. After the stock questions of
‘where are you from’ and ‘what did you do in civil life’ he launched
into a dissertation on the disadvantages of serving in an allied
command. The Scot looked at him in surprise and said, ‘Why, sir, we’ve
been very glad to serve with the Americans, sir, and especially under
Lt. Dennis. There’s an officer any man would be proud to serve under.’
That ended the discussion.”


After this slight digression from the narrative, we may take up the
thread of the story of this push for Kotlas. Royal Scots and Russians
had been left in quiet possession of the upper Dvina near Seltso after
the struggle already related. But hard pressed again, they were waiting
the arrival of the company of Americans, who arrived one morning about
6:00 a. m. a few miles below our old friend, the village of
Yakovlevskoe. We marched to the village, reported to the British
officer in command at Seltso, and received the order, “Come over here
as quick as you possibly can.” The situation there was as follows: The
Bolos had come back down the river in force with gunboats and
artillery, and were making it exceedingly uncomfortable for the small
British garrisons at Seltso and Borok across the river. We marched
around the town, through swamps at times almost waist deep, and
attacked the Bolo trenches from the flank at dusk. We were successful,
driving them back, and capturing a good bit of supplies, including
machine guns and a pom pom. The Bolos lost two officers and
twenty-seven men killed, while we had two men slightly wounded, both of
whom were later able to rejoin the company.

“We expected a counter attack from the Bolo, as our force was much
smaller than his, and spent the first part of the night making
trenches. An excavation deeper than eighteen inches would have water in
the bottom. We were very cold, as it was October in Russia, and every
man wet to the skin, with no blankets or overcoats. About midnight the
British sent up two jugs of rum, which was immediately issued, contrary
to military regulations. It made about two swallows per man, but was a
lifesaver. At least a dozen men told me that they could not sleep
before that because they were so cold, but that this started their
circulation enough so they were able to sleep later.

In the morning we advanced to Lipovit and attacked there, but ran into
a jam, had both flanks turned by a much larger force, and were very
fortunate to get out with only one casualty. Corporal Downs lost his
eye, and showed extreme grit in the hard march back through the swamp,
never complaining. I saw, after returning to the States, an interview
with Col. Josselyn, at that time in command of the Dvina force, in
which he mentioned Downs, and commended him very highly.”

The ensuing week we spent in Seltso, the Bolos occupying trenches
around the upper part of our defenses. They had gunboats and naval guns
on rafts, and made it quite uncomfortable for us with their shelling,
although the only American casualties were in the detachment of 310th
Engineers. Our victory was short lived, however, for in a few days our
river monitor was forced to return to Archangel on account of the
rapidly receding river, which gave the enemy the opportunity of moving
up their 9.2 inch naval guns, with double the range of our land
batteries, making our further occupation of Seltso impossible.

On the afternoon of October 14, the second and third platoons of
Company “B” were occupying the blockhouses when the Bolos made an
attack, which was easily repelled. As we were under artillery fire with
no means of replying, the British commander decided to evacuate that
night. It was impossible to get supplies out owing to the lack of
transportation facilities. That part of Company “B” in the village left
at midnight, followed by the force in the blockhouses at 3:00 a. m.
After a very hard march we reached Toulgas and established a position
there.

Our position at Toulgas in the beginning was very unfavorable, being a
long narrow string of villages along the Dvina which was bordered with
thick underbrush extending a few hundred yards to the woods. We had a
string of machine gun posts scattered through the brush, and when our
line of defense was occupied there was less than two platoons left as a
reserve. With us at this time we had Company “A” of the 2nd Tenth Royal
Scots (British) under Captain Shute, and a section of Canadian
artillery.

The Bolos followed us here and after several days shelling, to which
because of being outranged we were unable to reply, they attacked late
in the afternoon of October 23rd. Our outposts held, and we immediately
counter attacked. The enemy was repulsed in disorder, losing some
machine guns, and having about one hundred casualties, while we came
out Scot free.

It was during the shelling incidental to this that Edvinson, the
Viking, did his stunt. He was in a machine gun emplacement which was
hit by a small H. E. shell. The others were considerably shaken up, and
pulled back, reporting Edvinson killed, that he had gone up in the air
one way, and the Lewis gun the other. We established the post a little
farther back and went out at dusk to get Edvinson’s body. Much was the
surprise of the party when he hailed them with, “Well, I think she’s
all right.” He had collected himself, retrieved the Lewis gun, taken it
apart and cleaned it and stuck to his post. The shelling and sniping
here had been quite heavy. His action was recognized by the British,
who awarded him a Military Medal, just as they did Corporal Morrow who
was instrumental in reoccupying and holding an important post which had
been driven in early in the engagement. Corporal Dreskey and Private
Lintula also distinguished themselves at this point.

Here we may leave “B” Company and the Scots and Russians making a
fortress of Toulgas on the left bank of the Dvina. The Reds were busy
defending Plesetskaya from a converging attack and not till snow clouds
gathered in the northern skies were they to gather up a heavy force to
attack Toulgas. We will now turn to the story of the first battalion
penetrating with bayonets far up the Vaga River.




IV
DOUGHBOYS ON GUARD IN ARCHANGEL


Second Battalion Lands To Protect Diplomatic Corps—Colonel Tschaplin’s
Coup d’Etat Is Undone By Ambassador Francis—Doughboys Parade And
Practice New Weapons—Scowling Solombola Sailors—Description Of
Archangel—American Headquarters.


With the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force, the diplomatic
corps of the various Allied nations which had been compelled to flee
north before the Red radicals that had overthrown the Kerensky
provisional government, asked for troops in the city of Archangel
itself to stabilize the situation.

The second battalion of the 339th under command of Major J. Brooks
Nichols disembarked at Smolny Quay at four o’clock of the afternoon of
September 4th, the same day the ships dropped anchor in the harbor. A
patrol was at once put out under Lieut. Collins of “H” Company. It was
well that American troops were landed at once as will prove evident
from the following story.

The new government of Archangel was headed by the venerable
Tchaikowsky, a man who had been a revolutionary leader of the highest
and saneest type for many years. He had lived for a period of years in
America, on a farm in Kansas, and had been a writer of note in Russia
and England for many years. He was a democratic leader and his
government was readily accepted by the people. But as with all newly
constructed governments it moved very slowly and with characteristic
Russian deliberation and interminable talk and red tape.

This was too much for the impatient ones among the Russians who had
invited the Allied expedition. One Colonel Tschaplin (later to be
dubbed “Charley Chaplin” by American officers who took him humorously)
who had served under the old Czar and had had, according to his
yarns—told by the way in the most engaging English—a very remarkable
experience with the Bolsheviks getting out of Petrograd. He was, it is
said, influenced by some of the subordinate English officers to make a
daring try to hasten matters.

On the evening of the 5th of September, while the American soldiers
were patrolling the Smolny area, near Archangel proper, this Col.
Tschaplin executed his _coup d’etat._ He quietly surrounded the homes
of Tchaikowsky and other members of the Archangel State Government and
kidnapped them, hiding them away on an island in the Dvina River.

Great excitement prevailed for several days. The people declared
Tschaplin was moving to restore monarchy under aid of the foreign arms
and declared a strike on the street railroads and threatened to take
the pumping station and the electric power station located at Smolny.
American troops manned the cars and by their good nature and patience
won the respect and confidence of the populace, excited as it was. The
American ambassador, the Hon. David R. Francis, with characteristic
American directness and fairness called the impetuous Tschaplin before
him and gave him so many hours in which to restore the rightful
government to power. And Tchaikowsky came back into the State House on
September 11th much to the rejoicing of the people and to the harmony
of the Allied Expedition. The diplomatic and military authorities of
the American part of the expedition had handled the situation in a way
that prevented riot and gained esteem for Americans in the eyes of all
the Russians.

Archangel, Smolny and Bakaritza now were busy scenes of military
activity. Down the streets of Archangel marched part of a battalion of
doughboys past the State House and the imposing foreign Embassy
Building. Curious eyes looked upon the O. D. uniform and admired the
husky stalwarts from over the seas. Bright-eyed women crowded to the
edge of the boardwalks amongst the long-booted and heavily bewhiskered
men. Well-dressed men with shaven faces and marks of culture studied
the Americans speculatively. Russian children began making acquaintance
and offering their flattering _Americanski Dobra_.

At Solombola, Smolny, Bakaritza, sounds of firing were heard daily, but
the populace were quieted when told that it was not riot or Bolo attack
but the Americans practising up with their ordnance. In fact the
Americans, hearing of actions at the fronts, were desperately striving
to learn how to use the Lewis guns and the Vickers machine guns. At
Camp Custer they had perfected themselves in handling the Colt and the
Brownings but in England had been obliged to relinquish them with the
dubious prospect of re-equipping with the Russian automatic rifles and
machine gun equipment at Archangel. Now they were feverishly at work on
the new guns for reports were coming back from the front that the enemy
was well equipped with such weapons and held the Americans at great
disadvantage.

Here let it be said that the American doughboy in the North Russian
campaign mastered every kind of weapon that was placed in his hands or
came by fortune of war to his hand. He learned to use the Lewis gun and
the Vickers machine gun of the British and Russian armies, also the
one-pounder, or pom pom. He became proficient in the use of the French
Chauchat automatic rifle and the French machine gun, and their rifle
grenade guns. He learned to use the Stokes mortars with deadly effect
on many a hard-fought line. And during the winter two platoons of “Hq.”
Company prided themselves on the mastery of a battery of Russian
artillery patterned after the famous, in fact, the same famous French
75 gun.

While the 2nd Battalion under Major Nichols was establishing itself in
quarters at Smolny, where was a great compound of freshly unloaded
supplies of food, herring and whiskey (do not forget the hard stuff)
and, becoming responsible for the safety of the pumping station and the
electric power station and the ships in the harbor, Captain Taylor
established the big Headquarters Company at Olga barracks at the other
end of the city on September seventh where he could train his men for
the handling of new weapons and could co-operate with Captain Kenyon’s
machine gun men. They on the same day took up quarters in Solombola
Barracks and were charged with the duty of not only learning how to use
the new machine guns but to keep guard over the quays and prevent
rioting by the turbulent Russian sailors. Their undying enmity had been
earned by the well-meant but untactful, yes, to the sailors apparently
treacherous, conduct of General Poole toward them on the Russian ships
in the Murmansk when he got them off on a pretext and then seized the
ships to prevent their falling into the hands of the Red Guards. And
while the doughboys on the railroad and Kodish fronts in the fall were
occasionally to run up against the hard-fighting Russian sailors who
had fled south to Petrograd and volunteered their services to Trotsky
to go north and fight the Allied expeditionary forces, these doughboys
doing guard duty in Archangel over the remnants of stores and supplies
which the Bolo had not already stolen or sunk in the Dvina River, were
constantly menaced by these surly, scowling sailors at Solombola and in
Archangel.

Really it is no wonder that the several Allied troop barracks were
always guarded by machine guns and automatics. Rumor at the base always
magnified the action at the front and always fancied riot and uprising
in every group of gesticulating Russkis seen at a dusky corner of the
city.

The Supply Company of the regiment became the supply unit for all the
American forces under Captain Wade and was quartered at Bakaritza,
being protected by various units of Allied forces. “Finish” the package
of Russki horse skin and bones which the boys “skookled” from the
natives, that is, bought from the natives, became the most familiar
sight on the quays, drawing the strange-looking but cleverly
constructed _drosky_, or cart, bucking into his collar under the yoke
and pulling with all his sturdy will, not minding the American “whoa”
but obedient enough when the doughboy learned to sputter the Russki
“br-r-r br-r-r.”

Archangel is situated on one of the arms of the Dvina River which
deltas into the White Sea. Out of the enormous interior of North
Russia, gathering up the melted snows of a million square miles of
seven-foot snow and the steady June rains and the weeks of fall rains,
the great Mississippi of North Russia moves down to the sea, sweeping
with deep wide current great volumes of reddish sediment and secretions
which give it the name Dvina. And the arm of the Arctic Ocean into
which it carries its loads of silt and leachings, and upon which it
floats the fishermen’s bottoms or the merchantmen’s steamers, is called
the White Sea. Rightly named is that sea, the Michigan or Wisconsin
soldier will tell you, for it is white more than half the year with ice
and snow, the sporting ground for polar bears.

While we were fighting the Bolsheviki in Archangel, the National
Geographic Society, in a bulletin, published to our people certain
facts about the country. It is so good that extracts are in this
chapter included:


“The city of Archangel, Russia, where Allied and American troops have
their headquarters in the fight with the Bolshevik forces, was the
capital of the Archangel Province, or government, under the czar’s
regime—a vast, barren and sparsely populated region, cut through by the
Arctic Circle.

“West and east, the distance across the Archangel district is about
that from London to Rome, from New York to St. Louis, or from Boston to
Charleston, S. C. Its area, exclusive of interior waters, is greater
than that of France, Italy, Belgium and Holland combined. Yet there are
not many more people in these great stretches than are to be found in
Detroit, Mich., or San Francisco or Washington.

“Arable land in all this territory is less than 1,200 square miles, and
three-fourths of that is given over to pasturage. The richer grazing
land supports Holmagor cattle, a breed said to date back to the time of
Peter the Great, who crossed native herds with cattle imported from
Holland.

“About fifteen miles from the mouth of the Dvina River, which affords
an outlet to the White Sea, lies the city of Archangel. Norsemen came
to that port in the tenth century for trading. One expedition was
described by Alfred the Great. But first contact with the outside world
was established in the sixteenth century when Sir Richard Chancellor,
an English sailor, stopped at the bleak haven while attempting a
northeast passage to India. Ivan the Terrible summoned him to Moscow
and made his visit the occasion for furthering commercial relations
with England. Thirty years after the Englishman’s visit a town was
established and for the next hundred years it was the Muscovite
kingdom’s only seaport, chief doorway for trade with England and
Holland.

“When Peter the Great established St. Petersburg as his new capital
much trade was diverted to the Baltic, but Archangel was compensated by
designation as the capital of the Archangel government.

“Boris Godunov threw open to all nations, and in the seventeenth
century Tartar prisoners were set to work building a large bazaar and
trading hall. Despite its isolation the city thus became a cosmopolitan
center and up to the time of the world war Norwegian, German, British,
Swedish and Danish cargo vessels came in large numbers.

“Every June thousand of pilgrims would pass through Archangel on their
way to the famous far north shrine, Solovetsky Monastery, situated on
an island a little more than half a day’s boat journey from Archangel.

“The city acquired its name from the Convent of Archangel Michael. In
the Troitski Cathedral, with its five domes, is a wooden cross,
fourteen feet high, carved by the versatile Peter the Great, who
learned the use of mallet and chisel while working as a shipwright in
Holland after he ascended the throne.”


To the sailor looking from the deck of his vessel or to the soldier
approaching from Bakaritza on tug or ferry, the city of Archangel
affords an interesting view. Hulks of boats and masts and cordage and
docks and warehouses in the front, with muddy streets. Behind, many
buildings, grey-weathered ones and white-painted ones topped with many
chimneys, and towering here and there a smoke stack or graceful spire
or dome with minarets. Between are seen spreading tree tops, too. All
these in strange confused order fill all the horizon there with the
exception of one space, through which in June can be seen the 11:30 p.
m. setting sun. And in this open space on clear evenings, which by the
way, in June-July never get even dusky, at various hours can be seen a
wondrous mirage of waters and shores that lie on the other side of the
city below the direct line of sight.

Prominently rises the impressive magnitudinous structure of the
reverenced cathedral there, its dome of the hue of heaven’s blue and
set with stars of solid gold. And when all else in the landscape is
bathed in morning purple or evening gloaming-grey, the levelled rays of
the coming or departing sun with a brilliantly striking effect glisten
these white and gold structures. Miles and miles away they catch the
eye of the sailor or the soldier.

Built on a low promontory jutting into the Dvina River, the city
appears to be mostly water-front. In fact, it is only a few blocks
wide, but it is crescent shaped with one horn in Smolny—a southern
suburb having dock and warehouse areas—and the other in Solombola on
the north, a city half as large as Archangel and possessing saw-mills,
shipyards, hospitals, seminary and a hard reputation, Archangel is
convex westward, so that one must go out for some distance to view the
whole expanse of the city from that direction. A mass of trees, a few
houses, some large buildings and churches mainly near the river, with a
foreground of shipping, is the summer view. The winter view is better,
the bare trees and the smaller amount of shipping at the docks
permitting a better view of the general layout of the city, the
buildings and the type of houses used by the population as homes.

Along the main street, Troitsky Prospect, runs a two-track trolley line
connecting the north and south suburbs mentioned in the preceding
paragraph. The cars are light and run very smoothly. They are operated
chiefly by women. Between the main street and the river-front near the
center of the city is the market-place. This covers several blocks and
is full of dingy stalls and alleys occupied by almost hopeless traders
and stocks in trade. As new wooden ware, home-made trinkets,
second-hand clothing and fresh fish can be obtained there the year
around, and in summer the offerings of vegetables are plentiful and
tempting, the market-place never lacks shoppers who carry their paper
money down in the same basket they use to carry back their purchases.

Public buildings are of brick or stone and are colored white, pink,
grey or bright red to give a light or warm effect. Down-town stores are
built some of brick and some of logs. Homes are square in type, with
few exceptions, built of logs, usually of very plain architecture, set
directly against the sidewalks, the yards and gardens being at the side
or rear. For privacy, each man’s holdings are surrounded by a
seven-foot fence. Thus the streets present long vistas of wooden ware,
partly house and partly fence, with sometimes over-hanging trees, and
with an inevitable set of doorsteps projecting from each house over
part of the sidewalk. This set of steps is seldom used, for the real
entrance to the home is at the side of the house reached through a
gateway in the fence.

The houses in Archangel are usually of two stories, with double windows
packed with cotton or flax to resist the cold. When painted at all, the
houses have been afflicted by their owners with one or more coats of
yellowish-brown stuff familiar to every American farmer who has ever
“primed” a big barn. A few houses have been clap-boarded on the outside
and some of these have been painted white.

The rest of the street view is snow, or, lacking that, a cobbled
pavement very rough and uneven, and lined on each side—sometimes on one
side only, or in the centre—with a narrow sidewalk of heavy planks laid
lengthwise over the otherwise open public sewer, a ditch about three
feet wide and from three to six feet deep. Woe be to him who goes
through rotten plank! It has been done.

So much for general scenic effects at Archangel. The Technical
Institute, used as Headquarters by the American Forces, is worth a
glance. It is a four-story solid-looking building about one hundred and
fifty feet square and eighty feet high, with a small court in the
centre. The outside walls of brick and stone are nearly four feet
thick, and their external surface is covered by pink-tinted plaster
which catches the thin light of the low-lying winter sun and causes the
building to seem to glow. On the front of the building there are huge
pillars rising from the second story balcony to the great Grecian gable
facing the river.

Inside, this great building is simple and severe, but rather pleasing.
Windows open into the court from a corridor running around the building
on each floor, and on the other side of the corridor are the doors of
the rooms once used as recitation and lecture halls, laboratories,
manual training shops, offices, etc. Outside, it was one of the city’s
imposing buildings; inside, it was well-appointed. To the people of the
city it was a building of great importance. It was worthy to offer the
Commander of the American troops.

Here Colonel Stewart set up his Headquarters. The British Commanding
General had his headquarters, the G. H. Q., N. R. E. F., in another
school building in the centre of the city, within close reach of the
Archangel State Capitol Building. Colonel Stewart’s headquarters were
conveniently near the two buildings which afterward were occupied and
fitted up for a receiving hospital and for a convalescent hospital
respectively, as related elsewhere, and not far either from the
protection of the regimental Headquarters Company quartered in Olga
Barracks.

Here the Commanding Officer of this expeditionary force of Americans
off up here near the North Pole on the strangest fighting mission ever
undertaken by an American force, tried vainly to keep track of his
widely dispersed forces. Up the railroad he had seen his third
battalion, under command of Major C. G. Young, go with General
Finlayson whom General Poole had ordered to take Vologda, four hundred
miles to the south. His first battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel
Corbley he had seen hurried off up the Dvina River under another
British Brigadier-General to take Kotlas hundreds of miles up the
river. His second battalion under Major J. Brooks Nichols was on duty
in Archangel and the nearby suburbs. These forces, and his 310th
Engineer Battalion and his Ambulance and Hospital Units were shifted
about by the British Generals and Colonels and Majors often without any
information whatever to Colonel Stewart, the American commanding
officer. He lost touch with his battalion and company commanders.

He had a discouraging time even in getting his few general orders
distributed to the American troops. No wonder that often an American
officer or soldier reporting in from a front by order or permission of
a British field officer, did not feel that American Headquarters was
his real headquarters and in pure ignorance was guilty of omitting some
duty or of failure to comply with some Archangel restriction that had
been ordered by American Headquarters. As to general orders from
American Headquarters dealing with the action of troops in the field,
those were so few and of so little impressiveness that they have been
forgotten. We must say candidly that the doughboy came to look upon
American Headquarters in Archangel as of very trifling importance in
the strange game he was up against. He knew that the strategy was all
planned at British G. H. Q., that the battle orders were written in the
British field officer’s headquarters, that the transportation and
supplies of food were under control of the British that altogether too
much of the hospital service was under control of the British. Somehow
the doughboy felt that the very limited and much complained about
service of his own American Supply Unit, that lived for the most part
on the fat of the land in Bakaritza, should have been corrected by his
commanding officer who sat in American Headquarters. And they felt,
whether correctly or not, that the court-martial sentences of Major C.
G. Young, who acted as summary court officer at Smolny after he was
relieved of his command in the field, were unnecessarily harsh. And
they blamed their commanding officer, Colonel Stewart, for not taking
note of that fact when he reviewed and approved them. The writers of
this history of the expedition think the doughboy had much to justify
his feeling.




V
WHY AMERICAN TROOPS WERE SENT TO RUSSIA


This Was A Much Mooted Question Among Soldiers—Partisan Politicians
Attacked With Vitriol—Partisan Explanations Did Not Explain—Red
Propaganda Helped Confuse The Case—Russians Of Archangel, Too, Were
Concerned—We Who Were There Think Of Those Pitiable Folk And Their
Hopeless Military And Political Situation That Tried Our Patience And
That Of The Directors Of The Expedition Who Undoubtedly Knew No Better
Than We Did.


To many people in America and England and France the North Russian
Expedition appears to have been an unwarrantable invasion of the land
of an ally, an ally whose land was torn by internal upheavals. It has
been charged that commercial cupidity conceived the campaign. Men
declare that certain members of the cabinet of Lloyd George and of
President Wilson were desirous of protecting their industrial holdings
in North Russia.

The editors of this work can not prove or disprove these allegations
nor prove or disprove the replies made to the allegations. We have not
the time or means to do so even if our interests, political or
otherwise, should prompt us to try it. From discussion of the partisan
attacks on and defense of the administration’s course of action toward
Russia in 1918-19, both of which are erratic and acrimonious, we plead
to be excused.

We shall tell the story of the genesis of the expedition as well as we
can. We do not profess to know all about it. It will be some time
before the calm historian can possess himself of all the facts. Till
such time we hope that this brief statement will stand. We offer it
hesitatingly with keen consciousness of the danger that it will
probably suit neither of the two parties in controversy over the
sending of troops to North Russia.

But we offer this straightforward story confidently to our late
comrades. They have entrusted us with the duty of writing the history
of what they did in North Russia as their bit in the Great World War.
And we know our comrades, at least, and we hope the general reader,
too, will credit us with writing in sincerity and good faith.

Early in 1918, for the Allied forces, it looked dark. The Germans were
able to neglect the crumbled-in Eastern Front and concentrate a tornado
drive on the Western Front. It was at last realized that the
controlling Bolshevik faction in Russia was bent on preventing the
resumption of the war on the Eastern Front and possibly might play its
feeble remnants of military forces on the side of the Germans. The
Allied Supreme Council at Versailles decided that the other allies must
go to the aid of their old ally Russia who had done such great service
in the earlier years of the war. On the Russian war front Germany must
be made again to feel pressure of arms. Organization of that front
would have to be made by efforts of the Allied Supreme War Council.

They had some forces to build on. Several thousand Czecho-Slovak troops
formerly on the Eastern Front had been held together after the
dissolution of the last Russian offensive in 1917. Their commander had
led them into Siberia. Some at that time even went as far as
Vladivostok. These troops had desired to go back to their own country
or to France and take part in the final campaign against the Germans.
There was no transportation by way of the United States. Negotiations
with the Bolshevist rulers of Russia, the story runs, brought promises
of safe passage westward across central Russia and then northward to
Archangel, thence by ship to France.

This situation in mind the Allied Supreme War Council urged a plan
whereby an Allied expedition of respectable size would be sent to
Archangel with many extra officers for staff and instruction work, to
meet the Czechs and reorganize and re-equip them, rally about them a
large Northern Russian Army, and proceed rapidly southward to
reorganize the Eastern Front and thus draw off German troops from the
hard pressed Western Front. This plan was presented to the Allied
Supreme War Council by a British officer and politician fresh from
Moscow and Petrograd and Archangel, enthusiastic in his belief in the
project.

The expedition was to be large enough to proceed southward without the
Czechs, sending them back to the West by the returning ships if their
morale should prove to be too low for the stern task to be essayed on
the restored Eastern Front. General Poole, the aforementioned British
officer in command, seems to have been very sure that the Bolsheviks
who had so blandly agreed to the passage of the Czechs through the
country would not object to the passage of the expedition southward
from Archangel, via Vologda, Petrograd and Riga to fight the Germans
with whom they, the Bolsheviki, had compacted the infamous
Brest-Litovsk treaty.

All this while, remember, the old allies of Russia had preserved a
studied neutrality toward the factional fight in Russia. They steadily
refused to recognize the Bolshevik government of Lenine and Trotsky.

While this plan was still in the whispering stages, the activities of
the Germans in Finland where they menaced Petrograd and where their
extension of three divisions to the northward and eastward seemed to
forecast the establishment of submarine bases on the Murmansk and
perhaps even at Archangel where lay enormous stores of munitions
destined earlier in the war to be used by the Russians and Rumanians
against the Huns. At any rate, the port of Archangel would be one other
inlet for food supplies to reach the tightly blockaded Germans.

Since the autumn of 1914 military supplies of all kinds, chiefly made
in America and England, had been sent to Archangel for the use of the
Russian armies. At the time of the revolution against the old Czar
Nicholas, in 1917, there were immense stores in the warehouses of the
Archangel district and the Archangel-Vologda Railway had been widened
to standard gauge and many big American freight cars supplied to carry
those supplies southward. And these stores had been greatly augmented
during the Kerensky regime, the enthusiastic time immediately
subsequent to the fall of the Czar, when anti-German Russians were
exulting “Now the arch traitor is gone, we can really equip our
armies,” and when the Allies believed that after a few months of
confusion the revolutionary government would become a more trustworthy
ally than the old imperial government had been.


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_Olga Barracks._]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_Street Car Strike in Archangel._]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_American Hospitals and Headquarters._]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_“Supply” C. canteen “Accommodates” Boys._]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel._]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_“Cootie Mill” Operating at Smolny Annex of Convalescent Hospital._]


[Illustration: Wisckot
_Single Flat Strip of Iron on Plow point._]


[Illustration: Wagner
_Thankful for What at Home We Feed Pigs._]


Now, although Archangel was the chief port of entry for military
supplies to the new Russian government, the geographical situation of
the northern province, or rather state, of Archangel had left it rather
high and dry in the hands of a local government, which, so distantly
affiliated with Moscow and Petrograd, did not reflect fully either the
strength or weaknesses of the several regimes which succeeded one
another at the capital between the removal of the Czar and the machine
gun assumption of control by the bloody pair of zealots and tricksters,
Lenine and Trotzky. Consequently, when Kerensky disappeared the
government at Archangel did not greatly change in character.

To be sure, it had no army or military force of its own. The central
government sent north certain armed Red Guards, and agents of
government called “commissars,” who were to organize and control
additions to the Red Guards and to supervise also the civil government
of Archangel state, as much as possible. These people of the northern
state were indeed jealous of their rights of local government. And the
work of the Red agents in levying on the property and the man-power of
the North was passively resisted by these intelligent North Russians.

All this was of great interest to the Allied Supreme War Council
because of the danger that the war supplies would be seized by the
rapidly emboldened Bolshevik government and be delivered into the hands
of the Germans for use against the Allies. For since the Brest-Litovsk
treaty it had appeared from many things that the crafty hand of Germany
was inside the Russian Bolshevik glove.

Moreover, there were in North Russia, as in every other part, many
Russians who could not resign themselves to Bolshevik control, even of
the milder sort, nor to any German influence. Those in the Archangel
district banded themselves together secretly and sent repeated calls to
the Allies for help in ridding their territory of the Bolshevik Red
Guards and German agents, using as chief arguments the factors above
mentioned. While the anti-Bolshevists were unwilling to unmask in their
own state, for obvious reason, their call for help was made clear to
the outside world and furnished the Allied Supreme War Council just the
pretext for the expedition which it was planning for a purely military
purpose, namely, to reconstruct the old Eastern fighting front.

In fact, when a survey of the military resources of the European Allies
had disclosed their utter lack of men for such an expedition and it was
found that the only hope lay in drawing the bulk of the needed troops
from the United States forces, and when the statement of the cases in
the usual polite arguments brought from President Wilson a positive
refusal to allow American troops to go into Russia, it was only by the
emphasis, it is said, of the pathetic appeal of the North Russian
anti-Bolshevists, coupled with the stirring appeals of such famous
characters as the one-time leader of the Russian Women’s Battalion of
Death and the direct request of General Foch himself for the use of the
American troops there in Russia as a military necessity to win the war,
that the will of President Wilson was moved and he dubiously consented
to the use of American troops in the expedition.

Even this concession of President Wilson was limited to the one
regiment of infantry with the needed accompaniments of engineer and
medical troops. The bitter irony of this limitation is apparent in the
fact that while it allowed the Supreme War Council to carry out its
scheme of an Allied Expedition with the publicly announced purposes
before outlined, committing America and the other Allies to the
guarding of supplies at Murmansk and Archangel and frustrating the
plans of Germany in North Russia, it did not permit the Allied War
Council sufficient forces to carry out its ultimate and of course
secret purpose of reorganizing the Eastern Front, which naturally was
not to be advertised in advance either to Russians or to anyone. The
vital aim was thus thwarted and the expedition destined to weakness and
to future political and diplomatic troubles both in North Russia and in
Europe and America.

During the months spent in winning the participation of the United
States in an Allied Expedition to North Russia, England took some
preliminary steps which safeguarded the Murmansk Railway as far south
toward Petrograd as Kandalaksha.

Royal Engineers and Marines, together with a few officers and men from
French and American Military Missions, who had worked north with the
diplomatic corps, were thus for a dangerously long period the sole
bulwark of the Allies against complete pro-German domination of the
north of Russia. Some interesting stories could be told of the clever
secret work of the American officers in ferreting out the evidences in
black and white, of the co-operation of the German War Office with
Lenine and Trotsky. And stories of daring and pluck that saved men’s
lives and kept the North Russians from a despairing surrender to the
Bolsheviki.

Meanwhile England was taking measures herself to support these men so
as to form a nucleus for the larger expedition when it should be
inaugurated by the Allied Supreme War Council. But the total number of
British officers and men who could be spared for the purpose, in view
of the critical situation on the Western Front, was less than 1,200.
And these had to be divided between the widely separated areas of
Murmansk and Archangel. And the officers and men sent were nearly all,
to a man, those who had already suffered wounds or physical exhaustion
on the Western Front. This was late in June. About this time the plan
of the Allied Supreme War Council as already stated was, under strict
limitations, acceded to by President Wilson, and the doughboys of the
339th Infantry in July found themselves in England hearing about
Archangel and disgustedly exchanging their Enfields for the Russian
rifles.

For various reasons the command of the expedition was assigned by
General Foch to General Poole, the British officer who had been so
enthusiastic about rolling up a big volunteer army of North Russians to
go south to Petrograd and wipe out the Red dictatorate and re-establish
the old hard-fighting Russian Front on the East. Naturally, American
soldiers who fought that desperate campaign in North Russia now feel
free to criticize the judgment of General Foch in putting General Poole
in command. It appears from the experiences of the soldiers up there
that for military, for diplomatic and for political reasons it would
have been better to put an American general in command of the
expedition. And while we are at it we might as well have our little say
about President Wilson. We think he erred badly in judgment. He either
should have sent a large force of Americans into North Russia—as we did
into Cuba—a force capable of doing up the job quickly and thoroughly,
or sent none at all. He should have known that the American doughboy
fights well for a cause, but that a British general would have a hard
time convincing the Americans of the justice of a mixed cause. This is
confession of a somewhat blind prejudice which the American citizen has
against the aggressive action of British arms wherever on the globe
they may be seen in action, no matter how justifiable the ultimate turn
of events may prove the British military action to have been. We say
that this prejudice should have been taken into account when the
American doughboy was sent to Russia to fight under British command. It
might not be out of order to point out that the North Russian shared
with his American allies in that campaign the same prejudice,
unreasonable at times without doubt, but none the less painful
prejudice against the British command of the expedition. And all this
in spite of the fact that most of the British officers were personally
above reproach, and General Ironside, who soon succeeded the failing
Poole, was every inch of his six foot-four a man and a soldier, par
excellence.

The French were able to send only part of a regiment, one battalion of
Colonial troops and a machine gun company, who reached the Murmansk
late in July about the time the Americans were sailing from England.
They were soon sent on to Archangel, where political things were now
come to a head.

The Serbian battalion which had left Odessa at the time of the summer
collapse of the Russian armies in 1917 had gradually worked its way
northward from Petrograd on the Petrograd-Kola Railroad with the
intention of shipping for the Western fighting front by way of England.
They had been of potential aid to the Allied military missions during
the summer and now were permitted by the Serbian government to be
joined to the Allied expedition. They were accordingly put into
position along the Kola Railroad. These troops, of course, as well as
thousands of British troops which were stationed in the Murmansk and by
the British War Office were numbered in the North Russian Expeditionary
forces, were of no account whatever in the military activities of that
long fall and winter and spring campaign in the far away Archangel area
where the American doughboys for months, supported here and there by a
few British and French and Russians, stood at bay before the swarming
Bolos and battled for their lives in snow and ice.

The battalion of Italian troops with its company of skii troops which
sailed from England with the American convoy also went to the Murmansk
and all the American doughboy saw of Italians in the fighting area of
Archangel, North Russia, was the little handful of well dressed Italian
officers and batmen in the city of Archangel. Of course, we had plenty
of representation of Italian fighting blood right in our own ranks.
They were in the O. D. uniform and were American citizens. And of
course the same thing could be said of many another nationality that
was represented in the ranks of American doughboys and whose bravery in
battle and fortitude in hardships of cold and hunger gave evidence that
no one nationality has a corner on courage and “guts” and manhood. To
call the roll of one of those heroic fighting companies of doughboys or
engineers or medical or hospital companies in the olive drab would
evidence by the names of the men and officers that the best bloods of
Europe and of Asia were all pulsing in the American ranks.

The presence of British, French and American war vessels and the first
small bodies of troops encouraged the Murmansk Russian authorities to
declare their independence of the Red Moscow crowd and to throw in
their lot with the Allies in the work of combatting the agents of the
German War Office in the North. In return the Allies were to furnish
money, food and supplies. Early in July written agreement to this
effect had been signed by the Murmansk Russian authorities and all the
Allies represented, including the United States. It will be recalled
that Ambassador Francis had been obliged to leave Petrograd by the
Bolshevik rulers, and he had gone north into Murmansk.

The result of this agreement with the Murmansk and the arrival of
further troops at the Murmansk coast, together with the promise of more
to follow immediately, was to influence the Russian local government of
the state of Archangel to break with the hated Reds. And so, on August
1st, a quiet _coup d’etat_ was effected. The anti-Bolshevists came out
into the open. The Provisional North Russian Government was organized.
The people were promised an election and they accepted the situation
agreeably for they had detested the Red government. Two cargoes of food
had no little also to do with the heartiness of their acceptance of the
Allied military forces and the overturn of the Bolshevik government.

Within forty-eight hours came the military forces already mentioned,
the advance forces of the British that preceded the Allied expedition,
consisting of a huge British staff, a few British soldiers, a few
French and a detachment of fifty American sailors from the “Olympia.”
In a few days the battalion of French colonials sailed in from
Murmansk.

The coming of the troops prevented the counter _coup_ of the Reds. They
could only make feeble resistance. The passage up the delta of the
Dvina River and the actual landing while exciting to the jackies met
with little opposition. Truth to tell, the wily Bolsheviks had for many
weeks seen the trend of affairs, and, expecting a very much larger
expedition, had sent or prepared for hasty sending south by rail toward
Vologda or by river to Kotlas of all the military supplies and
munitions and movable equipment as well as large stores of loot and
plunder from the city of Archangel and suburbs. Count von Mirbach, the
German ambassador at Moscow, threatened Lenine and Trotsky that the
German army then glowering in Finland, across the way, would march on
Petrograd unless the military stores were brought out of Archangel.

The rearguard of the Bolshevik armed forces was disappearing over the
horizon when the American jackies seized engines and cars at Archangel
Preestin and Bakaritza, which had been saved by the hindering
activities of anti-Bolshevik trainmen, and dashed south in pursuit.
There is a heroic little tale of an American Naval Reserve lieutenant
who with a few sailors took a lame locomotive and two cars with a few
rifles and two machine guns, mounted on a flat car, and hotly gave
chase to the retreating Red Guards, routing them in their stand at
Issaka Gorka where they were trying to destroy or run off locomotives
and cars, and then keeping their rear train moving southward at such a
rate that the Reds never had time to blow the rails or burn a bridge
till he had chased them seventy-five miles. There a hot box on his
improvised armored train stopped his pursuit. He tore loose his machine
guns and on foot reached the bridge in time to see the Reds burn it and
exchange fire with them, receiving at the end a wound in the leg for
his great gallantry.

The Red Guards were able to throw up defenses and to bring up
supporting troops. A few days later the French battalion fought a
spirited, but indecisive, engagement with the Reds. It was seen that he
intended to fight the Allies. He retreated southward a few miles at a
time, and during the latter part of August succeeded in severely
punishing a force of British and French and American sailors, who had
sought to attack the Reds in flank. And it was this episode in the
early fighting that caused the frantic radiogram to reach us on the
Arctic Ocean urging the American ships to speed on to Archangel to save
the handful of Allied men threatened with annihilation on the railroad
and up the Dvina River. And we were to go into it wholehearted to save
them, and later find ourselves split up into many detachments and
cornered up in many another just such perilous position but with no
forces coming to support us.

The inability of the Allied Supreme War Council to furnish sufficient
troops for the North Russian expedition, and the delay of the United
States to furnish the part of troops asked of her, very nearly
condemned the undertaking to failure before it was fairly under way.
However, as the ultimate success of the expedition depended in any
event on the success of the Allied operations in far off Siberia in
getting the Czecho-Slovak veterans and Siberian Russian allies through
to Kotlas, toward which they were apparently fighting their way under
their gallant leader and with the aid of Admiral Kolchak, and because
there was a strong hope that General Poole’s prediction of a hearty
rallying of North Russians to the standards of the Allies to fight the
Germans and Bolsheviki at one and the same time, the decision of the
Supreme War Council was, in spite of President Wilson’s opposition to
the plan, to continue the expedition and strengthen it as fast as
possible. To the American soldier at this distance it looks as though
the French and British, perhaps in all good faith, planned to muddle
along till the American authorities could be shown the fitness or the
necessity of supporting the expedition with proper forces. But this was
playing with a handful of Americans and other Allied troops a great
game of hazard. Only those who went through it can appreciate the peril
and the hazard.

To the credit of the American doughboys and Tommies and Poilus and
others who went into North Russia in the fall of 1918 let it be said
that they smashed in with vim and gallant action, thinking that they
were going to do a small bit away up there in the north to frustrate
the military and political plans of the Germans. And although they were
not all interested in the Russian civil war at the beginning, they did
learn that the North Russian people’s ideal of government was the
representative government of the Americans, while the Red Guards whom
they were fighting stood for a government which on paper at its own
face value represented only one class and offered hatred to all other
classes. When it tried to put into effect its so-called constitution
that had been dreamed out of a nightmare of oppression and hate, it
failed completely. Machine gun beginning begot cruel offspring of
provisional courts of justice and sword-revised soviets of the people
so that packed soviets and Lenine-picked delegates and Trotsky-ridden
ministers made the actual soviet government as much resemble the ideal
soviet government as a wild-cat mining stock board of directors
resembles a municipal board of public works. And the world knows now,
if it did not in 1918-19, that the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet
Republic was, and is, a highly centralized tyranny, frankly called by
its own leaders “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” The Russian
people prayed for “a fish and received a serpent.”




VI
ON THE FAMOUS KODISH FRONT IN THE FALL


“K” Company Hurries To Save Force “B”—Importance Of Kodish
Front—Hazelden’s Force Destroyed—First Fight At Seletskoe—Both Sides
Burn Bridges—Desperate Fighting At Emtsa River—Capture Of
Kodish—Digging In—We Lose Village After Days Of Hard Fighting—Trenches
And Blockhouses.


Nowhere did the Yanks in North Russia find the fighting fiercer than
did those who were battling their way toward Plesetskaya on the famous
Kodish front. Woven into their story is that of the most picturesque
American fighter and doughtiest soldier of the many dauntless officers
and men who struggled and bled in that strange campaign. This man was
Captain Michael Donoghue, commanding officer of “K” Company, 339th
Infantry. He afterward was promoted in the field to rank of major and
his old outfit of Detroit boys proudly remember that “K” stands for
Kodish where they and their commander earned the plaudits of the
regiment.

It will be remembered that the third battalion was hurried from
troopship to troop train and steamed south as fast as the rickety
Russki locomotives of the 1880 type could wobble, and it will be
remembered that Captain Donoghue, the senior captain of that battalion,
was chosen to go with half of his “K” Company to the relief of a mixed
force of American sailors and British Royal Scots and French infantry
who had been surrounded, it was rumored, and were in imminent danger of
annihilation.

With his little force of one hundred and twenty men, including a
medical officer with eight enlisted medical men, transporting his
rations and extra munitions on the dumpy little Russki _droskie_, the
American officer led out of Obozerskaya at three o’clock in the
afternoon, bivouacked for the night somewhere on the trail in a cold
drizzle, and reached Volshenitsa, the juncture of the trails from
Seletskoe and Emtsa, about noon of the 8th of September.

Four versts beyond Volshenitsa the column passed the scene of the
battle between the Bolos and “B” Force. Gear and carts scattered around
and two or three fresh graves told that this was serious business. A
diary of an American sailor and the memoranda of a British officer,
broken off suddenly on the 30th of August, that were picked up told of
the adventures of the handful of men we were going to hunt. More
explanations of the genesis of this Kodish front is now in order.

Consideration of the map will show that Kodish was of great strategic
Importance. Truth to tell it was of more importance than our High
Command at first estimated. The Bolshevik strategists were always aware
of its value and never permitted themselves to be neglectful of it.
Trotsky knew that the strategy and tactics of the winter campaign would
make good use of the Kodish road. Indeed it was seen in the fall by
General Poole that a Red column from Plesetskaya up the Kodish road was
a wedge between the railroad forces and the river forces, always
imperiling the Vaga and Dvina forces with being cut off if the Reds
came strong enough.

The first movement on Kodish by the Allied troops had been made by “B”
force under the command of Col. Hazelden of the British army. With
about two hundred men composed of French soldiers, a few English
soldiers, American sailors from the Olympic, and some local Russian
volunteers, he had pushed up the Dvina and Vaga to Seletskoe and
operating from there had sent a party of French even as far as Emtsa
River, a few miles north of Kodish.

But before he could attack Kodish, Hazelden was ordered to strike
across the forest area and attack the Reds in the rear near Obozerskaya
where the Bolshevik rear guard with its excellent artillery strategist
was stubbornly holding the Allied Force “A.” Passing through Seletskoe
he left the Russian volunteers to oppose the Reds in Kodish, and guard
his rear. But these uncertain troops fled upon approach of the Bolos
and about the first of September Col. Hazelden instead of being in a
position to demoralize the Reds on the railroad by a swift blow from
behind, found himself in desperate defense, both front and rear, and
beleagured in the woods and swamps some twenty-seven versts east of
Obozerskaya.

He managed to get a message through to Sisskoe just before the Reds
closed in on him from behind. About a hundred English marines, a
section of machine gunners, a platoon of Royal Scots, and some Russian
artillery, all enroute to Archangel from their chase of the Reds up the
Dvina, were ordered off their barges at Sisskoe, were christened “D”
Force, and, under the command of Captain Scott, British officer, were
given the task of preventing the Reds from Kodish from cutting off the
river communications.

This force was also to help Col. Hazelden out. But as we have seen, his
force had been destroyed, and Americans hurriedly sent out. At
Volshenitsa Captain Donoghue received a message by aeroplane from Col.
Guard at Obozerskaya that “D” Force was held up at Tiogra by the Reds.
After patrolling the forest five days and finding the trail to Emtsa
impassable during the wet season, “K” Company received both the welcome
reinforcements of Lieut. Gardner and the twenty men who had been left
at Lewis gun School at Bakaritza, and orders to proceed on to
Seletskoe.

The Red Guards hearing of the American successes on the railway and
hearing of the approach of this force from the railroad in their rear
went back to Kodish, and on the morning of September 16th “K” Company
became a full-fledged member of “D” Force to be better known the world
over in the bitterest part of this campaign as the Kodish Force.

Here the doughboys got their baptism of fire when they took over under
fire the outposts of the village of Seletskoe. For the Bolos who had
retreated the week before had told the inhabitants they would be back
and they were making their threat, or promise, as you will have it,
good. For two days and nights the Americans beat off the attacks,
principally through the good work of Sgt. Michael Kinney, the gallant
soldier who fell at Kodish on New Year’s Day. Aided by the accurate
fire of the French machine gun section, the “K” men inflicted such
heavy penalties that the Reds quit in panic, assassinated their
commander and skurried south thirty miles. However, this victory was
not exploited by the Allied force. It seems that the commander of the
force had sent out a Russian patrol on the east bank of the Emtsa River
which brought back information that a heavy force of the enemy was
operating in the rear of “D” force.

Accordingly Captain Scott ordered a retreat from Seletskoe to Tiogra,
taking up a position on the north bank of the Emtsa River after burning
the bridge to prevent pursuit by the Reds who it was afterwards found
were fleeing in the opposite direction, after having burned another
bridge on the Emtsa further to the south to prevent the Americans from
pursuing them.

An interesting story was often repeated about this funny episode which
was due to the credence given by the British officer to the report of
the highly imaginative Russian patrol.

An English corporal on one of the outposts of Seletskoe was not
informed by Captain Scott of the retreat during the night. Next morning
he went forward and discovered that the Reds had burned their bridge.
But when he went to report that fact he found the village of Seletskoe
evacuated by his own forces, natives also having fled with everything
of value from the samovar to the cow. A few hours later the old
corporal appeared on the other bridgeless bank of the Emtsa across from
the “K” men who were digging in and said in a puzzled way, “I saiy, old
chap, wots the bloody gaime?”

Of course as soon as an improvised pontoon could be rigged up “K”
Company and the rest of the happily informed force were in pursuit
again of the Reds. The bridge was constructed by a detachment of the
310th American Engineers, who had come up with Col. Henderson, of the
famous “Black Watch,” the new commander.

The French machine gunners by this time were badly needed on the
railroad force. In their place came a company of the Russian Officers’
Training Corps.

On September 23rd Seletskoe was again occupied and the Yanks began
improving its defenses, taking much satisfaction in the arrival from
Archangel of Lieut. Ballard’s American machine gun platoon. Within two
days also their ranks were greatly strengthened by the arrival of
Lieut. Chappel from Issaka Gorka with the other two platoons of “K”
company closely followed by Captain Cherry with “L” Company from the
Railroad force.

General Finlayson, whose job it was to take Plesetskaya, now sought to
shove the Kodish force ahead rapidly so as to trap the Reds on the
railroad between the two forces. Accordingly the next morning,
September 26th, “K” Company and two platoons of “L” and the machine gun
section moved south toward Kodish to achieve the mission that had been
assigned to Col. Hazelden. The Bolshevik was found the next morning
strongly entrenched on the other side of the river Emtsa near the
burned bridge and after severe losses suffered in the gaining of a
foothold on the north side of the river by crossing on a raft, the
Americans had to dig in. In fact they lay for over a week in the swamp
hanging tenaciously to their position but unable to advance. Men’s feet
swelled in their wet boots till the shoes burst. But still they hung on
under the example of their game old captain, At this time Lieut.
Chappel was victim of a Bolo machine gun while trying to lead a raiding
squad up to its capture. Six others were killed and twenty-four were
wounded. _Droskies_ needed for transportation of supplies and
ammunition had to be used to take back the wounded and sick from
exposure to Seletskoe. No “K” or “L” or “M. G.” man who was there will
ever forget those days.

It was obvious that the Kodish force must be augmented. English marines
and a section of Canadian artillery came up. Headquarters was
established in the four-house village of Mejnovsky, eight miles back.
Steady sniping and patrol action was carried on actively by both
forces. Col. Henderson’s further attempt to throw a force across the
river by means of a raft was frustrated by the Reds. October 7th
Lieut.-Col. Gavin came up to assume command.

This energetic and keen British officer soon worked out plans for
effecting an advance. Using the American engineers, he soon had a ferry
in use three versts—about two miles—below Mejnovsky.

And on October the 12th “K” and “L” Companies crossed on that ferry and
marched up the left bank of the Emtsa till within one thousand yards of
the flank of the strong Bolo position, and bivouacked in the swamp for
the night. In the morning Captain Cherry took his company and two
platoons of “K” and struck south to pass by the flank and fall upon
Kodish in rear of the enemy who was holding the position in great force
at the river.

The remainder of “K” Company moved upon the right of the enemy front
line at the river crossing. At the time Donoghue struck, a frontal
demonstration was made upon the Reds by the English marines and
American machine guns firing across the river and by the Canadian
artillery shelling the woods where the Red reserves were thought to be.
The plan failed because of the inability of Captain Cherry to reach his
objective, on account of the bottomless swamps that he encountered.
Captain Donoghue gained a foot-hold and then was forced to dig in and
during the afternoon repulsed two counter attacks of the Bolos, having
paid for the capture of the two Bolo machine guns by severe losses.

During the night under cover of these two platoons, “L” and the English
marines crossed the river, where the Reds had held them so many days.
And during the following day the right of the Bolo position was turned
by a movement through the woods.

But at four o’clock in the afternoon the enemy’s second, position, a
mile north of the village, developed surprising strength. In fact, the
Reds counterattacked just at dark and once more the doughboys lay down,
on their arms, in the rain-flooded swamp, where the dark, frosty
morning would find them stiff and ugly customers for the Reds to
tackle. In fact they did rise up and smite the Bolshevik so swiftly
that he fled from his works and left Kodish in such a hurry that he
gave no forwarding address for his mail. Captain Donoghue set up his
headquarters in Kodish and sent detachments out to follow the Reds and
to threaten the Red Shred Makhrenga and Taresevo forces. During this
fight, or rather after it, the Canadians taught our boys their first
lesson in looting the persons of the dead. Our men had been rather
respectful and gentle with the Bolo dead who were quite numerous on the
Emtsa River battlefield. Can you call a tangle of woods a field? But
the Canadians, veterans of four years fighting, immediately went
through the pockets of the dead for roubles and knives and so forth and
even took the boots off the dead, as they were pretty fair boots.

The officer who reports this says he has often heard of dead men’s
boots but had to go to war to actually see them worn.

In passing let it be stated that many a footsore doughboy helped
himself to a dry pair of boots from a dead Red Guard or in winter to a
pair of _valenkas_, or warm felt boots. One of “Captain Mike’s” nervy
sergeants protested against being sent back to Seletskoe to get him a
new pair of shoes, for he hated the ill-fitting British army shoe, as
all Americans did, and prevailed upon Donoghue to let him wait a few
days till after a battle when he sure enough helped himself to a fine
pair of boots.

One thing the American never did take from the dead Bolo was his
Russian tobacco, for it was worse even than the British issue tobacco.
A good story is told on one of Donoghue’s lieutenants. During the
excitement of burning the bridge over the Emtsa at Tiogra, time when
the two forces fled from one another, the officer, greatly fatigued,
sat down on the bridge during the preparations by the men. He was
missed later on the march and the man whom the captain sent back to
find the lieutenant arrived just in time to keep what little hair the
popular bald-headed little officer had from being singed off by the
leaping flames. Lieut. Ryan does not like to be kidded about it.

The morning of the seventeenth of October saw the American forces again
on the advance. Good news had come of the successes on the railroad.

The Kodish force was in the strategic position now to force the Reds to
give up Emtsa and Plesetskaya. But Trotsky’s northern army commander
evidently well understood that situation, for he gave strict attention
to this Kodish force of Americans and at the fifteenth verst pole on
the main road his Red Guards held the Americans all day. Again the next
day he made Donoghue’s Yanks strive all day. Just at night successful
flanking movements caused the enemy to evacuate his formidable
position. It was here that Sgt. Cromberger, one of Ballard’s machine
gun men, distinguished himself by going single-handed into the Bolo
lines to reconnoiter.

The converging advances upon Plesetskaya by the three columns, up the
Onega Valley, on the railroad and on the Kodish-Plesetskaya-Petrograd
highway now seemed about to succeed. Hard fighting by all three columns
had broken the Bolshevik’s confidence somewhat.

Of course at this time of writing it can be seen better than it could
then. He did not make a stand at Avda. He was found by our patrols way
back at Kochmas, only a few miles from the railroad. Meanwhile the
Russian Officers’ Training Corps which was armed with forty Lewis guns
and acted rather independently, together with the Royal Scot platoon
and a large number of “partisans,” anti-Bolshevik volunteers of the
area, effected the capture of Shred Makhrenga, Taresevo and other
villages, which added to the threat of the Kodish force on Plesetskaya.

Plesetskaya at that moment was indeed of immense value to the Reds. It
was the railroad base of their four columns that were holding up the
left front of their Northern Army. But they were discouraged. Our
patrols and spies sent into Plesetskaya vicinity reported and stories
of deserters and wounded men all indicated that the Reds were getting
ready to evacuate Plesetskaya. A determined smash of the three Allied
columns would have won the coveted position. But the Kodish force now
received the same strange order from far-off Archangel that was
received on the other fronts:

“To hold on and dig in.” No further advances were to be made. Thinking
of their eleven comrades killed in this advance and of the thirty-one
wounded and of the many sick from exposure, the Americans on the Kodish
force as well as the English marines and Scots who also had lost
severely, were loath to stop with so easy a victory in sight.

Of course General Ironside’s main idea was right, but its application
at that time and place seemed to work hardship on the Kodish force. And
the sequel proves it. To add to their discomfort, the very size of this
force which had struggled so valiantly this little distance, was now
reduced by the withdrawal of the English marines and of “L” Company,
and by the ordering of the Canadian artillery guns to the Dvina front.
The remaining force with Captain Donoghue totalled one hundred and
eighty men, which seemed very small to them, in view of the fact that a
mere reconnoitering patrol from the Bolos now returning to activity
always showed anywhere from seventy-five to one hundred rifles and a
machine gun or two. However, they made the best of their remaining days
in October to fortify the Kodish-Avda front sector of the road. The
Yanks were to be prepared for the worst. And they got it. Let us take a
look at the position held by these Americans. It is typical of the
positions in which many of the far-flung detachments found themselves.

At the seventeenth verst pole was a four-man outpost. At the sixteenth
verst pole Lieut. Ballard had two of his machine guns, a Lewis gun crew
and some forty-six men from “K” Company. Four versts behind him on the
densely wooded road Lieut. Gardner with forty men and a Vickers gun was
occupying the old Bolo dugouts. One verst further back in the big
clearing was Kodish village, a place which by all the rules of field
strategy was absolutely untenable. Here with four Vickers guns were the
remainder of “K” Company along with the sick and the lame and the halt,
scarce forty men really able to do active duty, but obliged to stay on
to support their comrades. The nearest friendly troops, including their
artillery, were back at Seletskoe, thirty versts away. On October 29th
the Reds returned to Avda. The noise from that village and reports
brought by patrols indicated that this enemy who erstwhile was on the
run, and whom our high command now held lightly, was determined to
regain Kodish. And while striking heavily at their enemy on the
railroad as we have seen, the Red Guards now fell upon this single
company of Americans strung out along the Kodish-Avda road.

In the afternoon of November 1st the enemy drove in our cossack post of
“K” men at verst seventeen, began shelling us with his artillery and
for several days kept raiding Ballard heavier and heavier. Meanwhile
Captain Donoghue sent out from Kodish every available man to strengthen
the line. Night and day the men labored to erect additional defenses,
with scarcely time to close an eye in sleep, patrolling all the trails
on their flanks. On the fourth of November, the day the Reds were
massed in such numbers on the railroad, they succeeded in forcing
Ballard from his trenches at the sixteenth verst pole. He fell back to
the new defenses at the fifteenth verst. It is related by his men that
he passed between Bolo forces who lined the road but permitted the
Americans to escape.

Lieut. Gardner was now reinforced at the twelfth verst pole, for a
patrol had lost a man somewhere on the river flank and it was thought
that the enemy was preparing to pass by the flank and bag this body of
American fighters by taking the newly constructed bridge on the Emtsa
in the rear of Donoghue’s small force. This bridge was their “only way
home.”

Their worst fears came true. On the morning of the fifth of November
these Yanks way out at front of Kodish, holding the enemy off
desperately from the frontal attack, and endeavoring vainly to
frustrate the flank attacks of their enemy in greatly superior numbers,
suddenly heard great bursts of machine gun fire way towards the rear in
the vicinity of Kodish. Instantly they knew that Reds had worked down
the river by the flank from Avda or even from Emtsa on the railroad and
were attacking in force three miles to their rear. That made the
situation desperate. But the Yanks who had in the beginning of the
campaign been looked down upon by the Red Capped British High Command
because of their greenness, now showed their fineness of fighting stuff
by fighting on with undiminished vigor and effectiveness. Nowhere did
they give way. Day and night they were on the alert. Attacks from the
front, sly raids from the woods on each side of the road, heart
chilling assaults upon the cluster of houses in Kodish way in their
rear, and steady progress of the Red Guards toward the bridge on the
Emtsa, their only way out of the bag in which the worn and depleted
company was being trapped, brought the prolonged struggle to a crisis
in the middle of the afternoon of the eighth of November.

It came as follows: Colonel Hazelden, survivor of the disaster earlier
in the fall, as already related, had returned to command the
Kodish-Shred Makhrenga fronts, when Col. Gavin was sent to command the
railroad front where Colonel Sutherland had fizzled.

This gallant officer was on his way to the perilous front to see
Ballard. Just as he passed Gardner at the twelfth verst pole, he found
himself and the two detachments of Americans at last completely cut off
by a whole battalion of Red Guards fresh from the south of Russia, sent
up by Trotsky to brace his Northern Army. For half an hour there raged
a fight as intense as was the bitter reality of the emergency to the
forty Americans with Gardner in those dugouts. By almost miraculous
luck in directing their fire through the screen of trees that shielded
the Reds from view, Sgt. Cromberger’s Vickers gun and Cpl. Wilkie’s
Lewis gun inflicted terrible losses upon this fresh battalion just
getting into action against the Americanskis. It was massed preparatory
to the final dispositions of its commander to overwhelm the Americans.
But with the hail of bullets tearing through their heavy ranks, the
Bolos were unable long to stand it, and at last broke from control,
yelling and screaming, to suffer still more from the well-handled guns
when they left their cover and ran for the woods. And so the little
force was saved. But so loud and prolonged were the yells of the
frightened and wounded Reds that Captain Donoghue, a verst in the rear
at his field headquarters, he related afterwards, paced the floor of
the log shack in an agony of certainty that his brave men were all
gone. He had been sure that the howling of the scattered pack had been
the fervent yells of a last bayonet charge wiping out the Yankees.

The Reds could not get themselves together for another attack at this
point before dark but did drive Ballard back verst after verst that
afternoon. It was a grim handful of “M. G.” and “K” men who looked at
their own losses and counted the huge enemy losses of that desperate
day and wondered how many such days would whittle them off to the point
of annihilation. Col. Hazelden had gone back to headquarters. Captain
Donoghue now acted with his usual decisiveness.

The Americanskis had slipped out of the bag before the Red string was
tied. And in the morning of the 9th of November the good old Vickers
guns and Lewis guns were peeking from their old concealed strongholds
on the American side of the Emtsa. Artillery support was reported on
the way to argue with the Bolo artillery. A platoon of “L” Company
which had come up during the last of the fighting, together with a
platoon of replacement men from the old Division in France, who had
just come across the trail from the railroad, now took over the active
defense of the bridge.

Both sides began digging in. American Engineers came up to build block
houses. And the fagged warriors of machine gun and “K” infantry men now
retired a short distance to the rear to make themselves as comfortable
as possible in the woods, and try to forget their recent harrowing
experiences and the sight of the seven bleeding stretchers that were
part of the cost of trying to hold a place that was a veritable death
trap. Here it was that Major Nichols on a look-see from the railroad
detachments found them. He had been sent across by the French colonel
commanding Vologda force, under which this Kodish force had recently
been brought. He was the first American field officer that had come to
inspect this hard-battered outfit. And his report on their miserable
plight had no little influence in bringing them relief.

Shortly afterward “K” Company was relieved by “E” Company which had
come down from Archangel guard duty, and “K” Company went to reserve
position in Seletskoe and later marched across the trail to
Obozerskaya, took troop train to Archangel for a much needed and highly
deserved two weeks’ change of scenery and rest, arriving one evening in
November in an early winter’s snow storm at Smolny Quay where the “M”
Company men captured them and their luggage and carried them off to a
big feed, first one they had had in Russia. Lieut. Ballard’s heroic
machine gun platoon a few days later was also relieved, by Lieut.
O’Callaghan’s platoon. So ended the fall campaign on the famous Kodish
front.




VII
PENETRATING TO UST PADENGA


Taking Of Shenkursk On Vaga—“Horse Marines”—Battling At Puia—Bad
Position For Troops—Retirement To Ust Padenga—Critical Situation—“C”
Company Stands Heavy Losses—Lieutenant Cuff And Men Killed In Hand To
Hand Fighting—Bolshevik Patrols—Cossack Forces Weak On Defense.


While the old first battalion was, as we have seen, fighting up to
Seltso on the Dvina River, numerous reports were coming in daily that a
strong force of the Bolsheviki were operating on the Vaga River. This
river is a tributary of the Dvina and empties into it at a village
called Ust Vaga, about thirty versts below Beresnik and on which is
located the second largest town or city in the province of Archangel.
This river was strategically of more value than the upper Dvina,
because, as a glance at the map will show, its possession threatened
the rear of both the Dvina and the Kodish columns. Accordingly, on the
fifteenth day of September, accompanied by a river gunboat, the
remaining handful of Company “A”, comprising two platoons, under Capt.
Odjard and Lieut. Mead, went on board a so-called fast river steamer en
route to Shenkursk. On the seventeenth day of September this detachment
took possession of Shenkursk without firing a single shot, the
Bolsheviki having fled in disorder upon word of our arrival. The
citizens of this village turned out en masse to welcome us as their
deliverers, and the Slavo-British Allied Legion soon gained a
considerable number of new recruits.

Shenkursk is a village about one hundred and twenty-five versts up the
Vaga River from its junction with the Dvina River. It is by far one of
the most substantial and prosperous in the province of Archangel. It
differs very materially from all the surrounding country in that it is
located on good sandy soil on a high bluff overlooking the river and is
comparatively dry, even in wet weather. It is quite a summer resort
town, has a number of well constructed brick buildings, half a dozen or
more schools, a seminary, monastery, saw mill, and in many others
respects is far above the average Russian village.

Upon their arrival our troops were quartered in an old Cossack
garrison, reminiscent of the days of the Czar. We prepared to settle
down very comfortably for the winter. Our dream of rest and quiet was
rudely shattered, however, for two days later we were notified that the
British command for the Vaga River troops was on its way to Shenkursk,
and that we were to push further on down the river to stir up the
enemy. Without question we were quite willing to leave the enemy rest
in peace as long as he did not molest us, but such was not the fortune
nor luck of war, and therefore, on September 1st, the small detachment
of American troops, reinforced by some thirty or forty S. B. A. L.
troops, went steaming up the Vaga River on the good ship “Tolstoy,” a
decrepit old river steamer on which we had mounted a pom pom and
converted it into a “battle cruiser.” The troops immediately christened
themselves the horse “marines” and the name was quite an appropriate
one as later events proved.

About noon that day Capt. Odjard and Lieut. Mead with two platoons
arrived opposite a village named Gorka when suddenly without any
warning the enemy, concealed in the woods on both sides of the river,
opened up a heavy machine gun and rifle fire. Our fragile boat was no
protection from this fire. To attempt to run around and withdraw in the
shallow stream was next to impossible, so after a hasty consultation
the commander grasped the horns of the dilemma by running the boat as
close to the shore as possible, where the troops immediately swarmed
overboard in water up to their waists, quickly gained the protection of
the shore and spreading out in perfect skirmish order, poured a hot
fire into the enemy, who was soon on the run. This advance continued
for some several days until under the severe marching conditions, lack
of food, clothing, etc., a halt was made at Rovdinskaya, a village
about ninety versts from Shenkursk, and a few days later more
reinforcements arrived under Lieuts. McPhail and Saari.

A number of incidents on this advance clearly indicated that we were
operating in hostile and very dangerous country. Our only line of
communication with our headquarters was the single local telegraph
line, which was constantly being cut by the enemy. At one time a large
force of the enemy got in our rear and we were faced with the
unpleasant situation of having the enemy completely surrounding us.
Capt. Odjard determined upon a bold stroke. Figuring that by continuing
the advance and striking a quick blow at the enemy ahead of us, those
in the rear would anticipate the possibility of heavy reinforcements
bringing up our rear. On October 8th we engaged the enemy at the
village of Puiya. We inflicted heavy casualties upon him. He suffered
no less than fifty killed and several hundred wounded. As anticipated,
the enemy in our rear quickly withdrew and thus cleared the way for our
retreat. We retired to Rovdinskaya, which position we held for several
weeks. The situation was growing more desperate day by day. Our rations
were at the lowest ebb; cold weather had set in and the men were poorly
and lightly clad, in addition to which our tobacco ration had long
since been completely exhausted, which added much to the general
dissatisfaction and lowering of the morale of the troops.

With the approach of the Russian winter a new and dangerous problem
presented itself. At the outset of the expedition it had been planned
that the troops on the railroad front were to push well down the
railroad to or beyond Plesetskaya. The Vaga Column was to go as far as
Velsk and there establish a line of communication across to the
railroad front. Unfortunately, their well-laid plans fell through and
perhaps fortunately so. The forces of the railroad had been checked
near Emtsa, far above Plesetskaya. The other troops on the Dvina had by
this time retired to Toulgas and as a consequence the smallest force in
the expedition, the Vaga Column, was now in the most advanced position
of these three fronts, a very dangerous and poorly chosen military
position.


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Artillery “O. P.,” Kodish._]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_Mill for Grinding Grain._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane._]


[Illustration: U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Testing a Vickers Machine Gun._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (152813)
_Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pagosta—Near Ust Padenga._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Cossack Receiving First Aid, Vistavka._]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_Ready for Day’s Work._]


[Illustration: DOUD
_Flax Hung Up to Dry._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_310th Engineers at Beresnik._]


To make matters still worse, from the village of Nyandoma on the
Vologda railroad, there is a well defined winter trail, running
straight across country to the village of Ust Padenga, located on the
Vaga River, about half way between Shenkursk and Rovdinskaya. Rumors
were constantly coming in that the Bolo was occupying the villages all
along this trail in order to launch a big drive on Shenkursk as soon as
winter set in. On these frozen, packed trails, troops, artillery, etc.,
could be moved as easily and readily as by rail.

In order then to withdraw our lines and to add greater safety to the
columns, it was finally decided to withdraw from Rovdinskaya to Ust
Padenga.

At one o’clock on the morning of October 18th, as we lay shivering and
shaking in the cold and dismal marshes, which we chose to call our
front line, orders came through for us to hold ourselves in readiness
for a quick and rapid retreat the following morning. All that night we
had Russian peasants, interpreters, etc., scouring the villages about
us for horses and carts to assist in our withdrawal. At 6:00 a. m. that
morning the withdrawal began. The god of war, had he witnessed this
strange sight that morning, must have recalled a similar sight a
hundred years and more prior to that, at Moscow, when the army of the
great Napoleon was scattered to the winds by the cavalry and infantry
of the Russian hordes. Three hundred and more of the ludicrous
two-wheeled Russian carts preceded us with the artillery, floundering,
miring, and slipping in the sticky, muddy roads. Following at their
rear, came the tired, worn and exhausted troops—unshaven, unkempt and
with tattered clothing. They were indeed a pitiful sight. All that day
they marched steadily on toward Ust Padenga. To add to the difficulty
of the march, a light snow had fallen which made the roads a mere
quagmire. Late that night we arrived at the position of Ust Padenga,
which was to become our winter quarters and where later so many of our
brave men were to lay down their lives in the snow and cold of the
Russian forests.

With small delay for rest or recuperation we at once began preparation
for the defense of this position. Our main position and the artillery
were stationed in a small village called Netsvetyavskaya, situated on a
high bluff by the side of which meandered the Vaga River. In front of
this bluff flowed the Padenga River, a small tributary of the Vaga, and
at our right, all too close for safety, was located the forest. About
one thousand yards directly ahead of us was located the village of Ust
Padenga proper, which was garrisoned by a company of Russian soldiers.
To our right and about seventeen hundred yards ahead of us on another
bluff was located the village of Nijni Gora, to be the scene of fierce
fighting in the snow.

On the last day of October Company “A”, which had been on this front
for some forty days without a relief, were relieved by Company “C” and
a battery of Canadian Artillery was also brought up to reinforce this
position.

All was now rather quiet on this front, but rumors more and more
definite were coming in daily that the Bolo was getting ready to launch
a big drive on this front. From the location of our troops here,
several hundred miles and more from our base on the Dvina and with long
drawn out lines of communication, some of the stations forty miles or
so apart, it was apparent that if attacked by a large force, we would
have to give way. It was also plainly apparent that in case the Vaga
River force was driven back to the Dvina it would necessitate the
withdrawal of the forces on the Dvina from their strongly fortified
position at Toulgas—consequently, we received orders that this position
at Ust Padenga must be held at all cost. Such was the critical position
of the Americans sent up the river by order of General Poole on a
veritable fool’s errand. The folly of his so-called “active defense” of
Archangel was to be exposed most plainly at Ust Padenga and Shenkursk
in winter.

By the middle of November the enemy was becoming more and more active
in this vicinity. On the seventeenth day of November a small patrol of
Americans and Canadians were ambushed and only one man, a Canadian,
escaped. The ambush occurred in the vicinity of Trogimovskaya, a
village about eight versts below Ust Padenga, where it was known that
the Bolo was concentrating troops.

On the morning of November 29th, acting under orders from British
Headquarters, a strong patrol, numbering about one hundred men, was
sent out at daybreak, under Lieut. Cuff of “C” Company, to drive the
enemy out of this position. The only road or trail leading into this
town ran through a dense forest. The snow, of course, was so deep in
the forest that it was impossible to proceed by any other route than
this roadway or trail. As this patrol was approaching one of the most
dense portions of the forest they were suddenly met by an overwhelming
attacking party, which had been concealed in the forest. The woods were
literally swarming with them and after a sharp fight Lieut. Francis
Cuff, one of the bravest and most fearless officers in the expedition,
in command of the patrol, succeeded in withdrawing his platoon.

A detachment of the patrol on the edge of the woods skirting the Vaga
River was having considerable difficulty extricating itself, however,
and without faltering Lieut. Cuff immediately deployed his men and
opened fire again upon the enemy. During this engagement, he, with
several other daring men, became separated from their fellows and it
was at this time that he was severely wounded. He and his men, several
of whom were also wounded, although cut off and completely surrounded,
fought like demons and sold their lives dearly, as was evidenced by the
enemy dead strewn about in the snow near them. The remains of these
heroic men were later recovered and removed to Shenkursk, where they
were buried almost under the shadows of the cathedral located there.

During this period the thermometer was daily descending lower and
lower; snow was falling continually and the days were so short and dark
that one could hardly distinguish day from night. These long nights of
bitter cold, with death stalking at our sides, was a terrible strain
upon the troops. Sentries standing watch in the lonely snow and cold
were constantly having feet, hands, and other parts of their anatomy
frozen. Their nerves were on edge and they were constantly firing upon
white objects that could be seen now and then prowling around in the
snow. These objects as we later found were enemy troops clad in white
clothing which made it almost impossible to detect them.

About this time an epidemic of “flu” broke out in some of the villages.
In view of the Russian custom of keeping the doors and windows of their
houses practically sealed during the winter and with their utter
disregard for the most simple sanitary precautions, small wonder it was
that in a short time the epidemic was raging in practically every
village within our lines. The American Red Cross and medical officers
of the expedition at once set to work to combat the epidemic as far as
the means at their disposal would permit. The Russian peasant, of
course, in true fatalist fashion calmly accepted this situation as an
inevitable act of Providence, which made the task of the Red Cross
workers and others more difficult. The workers, however, devoted
themselves to their errand of mercy night and day and gradually the
epidemic was checked. This voluntary act of mercy and kindness had a
great effect upon the peasantry of the region and doubtless gave them a
better and more kindly opinion of the strangers in their midst than all
the efforts of our artillery and machine guns ever could have done. And
when in the winter horses and sleighs meant life or death to the
doughboys, the peasants were true to their American soldier friends.

After the fatal ambush of Lieutenant Cuff’s patrol at Ust Padenga, “C”
Company, was relieved about the first of December by Company “A.”
During the remainder of the month there was more or less activity on
both sides of the line. About the fifth or sixth of the month, the
enemy brought up several batteries of light field artillery in the
dense forests and begun an artillery bombardment of our entire line.
Fortunately, however, we soon located the position of their guns and
our artillery horses were immediately hitched to the guns, and
supported by two platoons of “A” Company under Captain Odjard and
Lieut. Collar, swung into a position from which they obtained direct
fire upon the enemy guns with the result that four guns were shortly
thereafter put out of commission.

From this time on, there were continual skirmishes between the outposts
and patrols. The Bolo’s favorite time for patrolling was at night and
during the early hours of the morning when everything was pitch dark.
They all wore white smocks over their uniforms and they could easily
advance within fifteen or twenty feet of our sentries and outposts
without being seen. They were not always so fortunate, however, in this
reconnoitering, as a picture on a following page proves which shows one
of their scouts clad in the white uniform and cap, who was shot down by
one of our sentries when he was less than fifteen feet away from the
sentry. Outside of the terrific cold and the natural hardships of the
expedition, the month of December was comparatively quiet on the
Padenga front.

However, in the neighborhood of Shenkursk there was a growing feeling
that a number of the enemy troops were in nearby villages and that the
enemy was constantly occupying more and more of them daily. In order to
break up this growing movement and to assure the natives of the
Shenkursk region that we would brook no such interference or happenings
within our lines, on the fifth of December, a strong detachment,
consisting of Company “C” under Lieut. Weeks, and Russian infantry,
mounted Cossacks, and a pom pom detachment, set out for Kodima about
fifty versts north and east of Shenkursk toward the Dvina River.

It was reported that there were about one hundred and fifty or two
hundred of the enemy located in this village, who were breaking a trail
through from the Dvina River in order that they could send across
supporting troops from the Dvina for the attack on Shenkursk. Our
detachment, after a day and a half’s march, arrived in the vicinity of
Kodima and prepared to take the position. At about the moment when the
attack was to begin, it was found that the pom poms and the Vickers
guns were not working. The thermometer at this time stood at fifty
below zero and the intense cold had frozen the oil in the buffers of
the pom poms and machine guns, rendering them worse than useless.
Fortunately, this was discovered in time to prevent any casualties, for
it was later found that there were between five hundred and one
thousand of the enemy located in this position and that they were
intrenched in prepared positions and well equipped with rifles, machine
guns and artillery.

Our forces, of course, were compelled to retreat, but this maneuver
naturally gave the enemy greater courage and the following week it was
reported that they were advancing from Kodima on Shenkursk. We at once
dispatched a large force of infantry, artillery, and mounted Cossacks
to delay this advance. This maneuver was also a miserable failure, and
it is not difficult to understand the reason for same when one
considers that this detachment was composed of Americans, Canadians,
and Russians, of every conceivable, type and description, and orders
issued to one body might be and usually were entirely misunderstood by
the others.

Shortly after this, however, the Cossack Colonel desired to vindicate
his troops and a new attack was planned in which the Cossacks,
supported by their own artillery, were to launch a drive against the
enemy at Kodima. After a big night’s pow-wow and a typical Cossack
demonstration of swearing eternal allegiance to their leader and
boasting of the dire punishment they were going to inflict upon the
enemy, they sallied forth from Shenkursk with their banners gaily
flying. No word was heard from them until the following evening when
just at dusk across the river came, galloping like mad, the first
news-bearers of our valiant cohorts. On gaining the shelter of
Shenkursk, most of them were completely exhausted and many of their
horses dropped dead from over-exertion on the way, while others died in
Shenkursk.

Our first informants described at great detail a thrilling engagement
in which they had participated and how they had fought until their
ammunition became exhausted, when they were forced to retreat. Others
described in detail how Prince Aristoff and his Adjutant, Captain
Robins, of the British Army, had fought bravely to the last and when
about to be taken prisoners, used the last bullets remaining in their
pistols to end their lives, thus preventing capture. More and more of
the scattered legion were constantly arriving, and each one had such a
remarkably different story to tell from that of his predecessor, that
by the following morning, we were all inclined to doubt all of the
stories.

However, it is true that Colonel Aristoff and Robins failed to return,
and we were compelled for the time being to assume that at least part
of the stories were true. The Cossacks immediately went into deep
mourning for the loss of their valiant leader and affected great grief
and sorrow. This, however, did not prevent them from ransacking the
Colonel’s headquarters and carrying off all his money and jewelry and,
in fact, about everything that he owned. Four days later, however, in
the midst of all this mourning and demonstrations, we were again
treated to a still greater surprise, for that afternoon who should come
riding into the village but the Colonel himself along with his
adjutant. It can be readily imagined what scrambling and endeavor there
was on the part of the sorrowing ones to return undetected to the
Colonel’s headquarters his stolen property and belongings. For days
thereafter, the garrison resounded to the cracking of the Colonel’s
knout, and this time the wailing and shedding of tears was undoubtedly
more real than any that had been shed previously to that time. These
various unfortunate affairs, while harmful enough in themselves, did
far greater harm than such incidents would ordinarily warrant, in this
respect, that they gave the enemy greater and greater confidence all
along, meanwhile lowering the morale of our Russian cohorts as well as
our own troops.

And here we leave these hardy Yanks, far, far to the south of
Archangel. When their story is picked up again in the narrative, it
will be found to be one of the most thrilling stories in American
military exploits.




VIII
PEASANTRY OF THE ARCHANGEL PROVINCE


Russian Peasant Born Linguist—Soldiers See Village Life—Communal Strips
Of Land Tilled By Grandfather’s Methods—Ash Manure—Rapid Growth During
Days Of Perpetual Daylight—Sprinkling Cattle With Holy Water—“Sow In
Mud And You Will Be A Prince”—Cabbage Pie At Festival—Home-Brewed
“Braga” More Villainous Than Vodka—Winter Occupations And Sports—North
Russian Peasants Less Illiterate Than Commonly Supposed.


The province of Archangel is in the far north or forest region of
Russia. It is a land of forest and morass, plentifully supplied with
water in the form of rivers, lakes and marshes, along the banks of
which are scant patches of cultivated land, which is invariably the
location of a village. Throughout the whole of this province the
climate is very severe. For more than half of the year the ground is
covered by deep snow and the rivers are completely frozen. The arable
land all told forms little more than two per cent of the vast area. The
population is scarce and averages little more at the most than two to
the square mile, according to the latest figures, about 1905.

During the late fall and early winter, shortly after Company “A” had
been relieved at Ust Padenga, we were stationed in the village of
Shegovari. Here we had considerable leisure at our disposal and
consequently the writer began devoting more time to his linguistic
studies. Difficult as the language seems to be upon one’s first
introduction to it, it was not long before I was able to understand
much of what was said to me, and to express myself in a vague
roundabout way. In the latter operation I was much assisted by a
peculiar faculty of divination which the Russian peasant possesses to a
remarkably high degree. If a foreigner succeeds in expressing about
one-fourth of an idea, the Russian peasant can generally fill up the
remaining three-fourths from his own intuition. This may perhaps be
readily understood when one considers that a great majority of the
upper classes speak French or German fluently and a great number
English as well. Then, too, the many and varied races that have united
and intermingled to form the Russian race may offer an equally
satisfactory explanation.

Shegovari may be taken as a fair example of the villages throughout the
northern half of Russia, and a brief description of its inhabitants
will convey a correct notion of the northern peasantry in general. The
village itself is located about forty versts above Shenkursk on the
banks of the Vaga river, which meanders and winds about the village so
that the river is really on both sides. On account of this location
there is more arable land surrounding the village than is found in the
average community and dozens of villages are clustered about this
particular location, the villages devoting most of their time to
agricultural pursuits.

I believe it may safely be said that nearly the whole of the female
population and about one-half the male inhabitants are habitually
engaged in cultivating the communal land, which comprises perhaps five
hundred acres of light, sandy soil. As is typical throughout the
province this land is divided into three large fields, each of which is
again subdivided into strips. The first field is reserved for one of
the most important grains, i.e., rye, which in the form of black bread,
is the principal food of the population. In the second are raised oats
for the horses and here and there some buckwheat which is also used for
food. The third field lies fallow and is used in the summer for
pasturing the cattle.

This method of dividing the land is so devised in order to suit the
triennial rotation of crops, a very simple system, but quite practical
nevertheless. The field which is used this year for raising winter
grain, will be used next summer for raising summer grain and in the
following year will lie fallow. Every family possesses in each of the
two fields under cultivation one or more of the subdivided strips,
which he is accountable for and which he must cultivate and attend to.

The arable lands are of course carefully manured because the soil at
its best is none too good and would soon exhaust it. In addition to
manuring the soil the peasant has another method of enriching the soil.
Though knowing nothing of modern agronomical chemistry, he, as well as
his forefathers, have learned that if wood be burnt on a field and the
ashes be mixed with the soil, a good harvest may be expected. This
simple method accounts for the many patches of burned forest area,
which we at first believed to be the result of forest fires. When
spring comes round and the leaves begin to appear, a band of peasants,
armed with their short hand axes, with which they are most dextrous,
proceed to some spot previously decided upon and fell all trees, great
and small within the area. If it is decided to use the soil in that
immediate vicinity, the fallen trees are allowed to remain until fall,
when the logs for building or firewood are dragged away as soon as the
first snow falls. The rest of the piles, branches, etc., are allowed to
remain until the following spring, at which time fires may be seen
spreading in all directions. If the fire does its work properly, the
whole of the space is covered with a layer of ashes, and when they have
been mixed with the soil the seed is sown, and the harvest, nearly
always good, sometimes borders on the miraculous. Barley or rye may be
expected to produce about six fold in ordinary years and they may
produce as much as thirty fold under exceptional circumstances!

In most countries this method of treating the soil would be an absurdly
expensive one, for wood is entirely too valuable a commodity to be used
for such a purpose, but in this northern region the forests are so
boundless and the inhabitants so few that the latter do not make any
great inroad upon the former.

The agricultural year in this region begins in April, with the melting
snows. Nature which has been lying dormant for some six months, now
awakes and endeavors to make up for lost time. No sooner does the snow
disappear than the grass immediately sprouts forth and the shrubs and
trees begin to bud. The rapidity of this transition from winter to
spring certainly astonished the majority of us, accustomed as we were
to more temperate climes.

On the Russian St. George’s Day, April 23rd, according to the old
Russian calendar, or two weeks later according to our calendar, the
cattle are brought forth from their winter hibernation and sprinkled
with holy water by the priest. They are never very fat at any time of
the year but at this particular period of the year their appearance is
almost pitiful. During the winter they are kept cooped up in a shed,
usually one adjoining the house or under the porch of same with very
little, if any, light or ventilation, and fed almostly exclusively on
straw. It is quite remarkable that there is one iota of life left in
them for when they are thus turned out in the spring they look like
mere ghosts of their former selves. With the horses it is a different
matter for it is during the winter months in this region that the
peasants do most of their traveling and the horse is constantly exposed
to the opposite extreme of exposure and the bleak wind and cold, but is
well fed.

Meanwhile the peasants are impatient to begin the field labor—it is an
old Russian proverb known to all which says: “Sow in mud and you will
be a prince,” and true to this wisdom they always act accordingly. As
soon as it is possible to plough they begin to prepare the land for the
summer grain and this labor occupies them probably till the end of May.
Then comes the work of carting out manure, etc., and preparing the
fallow field for the winter grain which will last until about the
latter part of June when the early hay making generally begins. After
the hay making comes the harvest which is by far the busiest time of
the year. From the middle of July—especially from St. Elijah’s day
about the middle of July, when the Saint according to the Russian
superstition, may be heard rumbling along the heavens in his chariot of
fire—until the end of August or early September the peasant may work
day and night and yet find that he has barely time to get all his work
done. During the summer months the sun in this region scarcely ever
sets below the horizon and the peasant may often be found in the fields
as late as twelve o’clock at night trying to complete the day’s work.
In a little more than a month from this time he has to reap and stack
his grain, oats, rye and whatever else he may have sown, and to sow his
winter grain for the next, year. To add to the difficulty both grains
often ripen about the same time and then it requires almost superhuman
efforts on his part to complete his task before the first snow flies.

When one considers that all this work is done by hand—the planting,
plowing, reaping, threshing, etc., in the majority of cases by home
made instruments, it is really a more remarkable thing that the Russian
peasant accomplishes so much in such a short space of time. About the
end of September, however, the field labor is finished and on the first
day of October the harvest festival begins. At this particular season
of the year our troops on the Vaga river were operating far below
Shenkursk in the vicinity of Rovdinskaya and it was our good fortune to
witness a typical parish fete—celebrated in true Russian style. While
it is true during the winter months that the peasant lives a very,
frugal and simple life, it is not in my opinion on account of his
desire so to do but more a matter of necessity. During the harvest
festivals the principal occupation of the peasant seems to be that of
eating and drinking. In each household large quantities of _braga_ or
home brewed beer is prepared and a plentiful supply of meat pies are
constantly on hand. There is also another delectable dish, which I am
sure did not appeal to our troops to the fullest extent. It was a kind
of pie composed of cabbage and salt fish, but unless one was quite
accustomed to the odor, he could not summon up sufficient courage to
attack this viand. It, however, was a very popular dish among the
peasants.

After a week or so of this preparation the fete day finally arrives and
the morning finds the entire village attending a long service in the
village church. All are dressed in their very best and the finest
linens and brightest colors are very much in evidence. After the
service they repair to their different homes—of course many of the
poorer ones go to the homes of the more well to do where they are very
hospitably received and entertained. All sit down to a common table and
the eating begins. I attended a dinner in a well-to-do peasant’s house
that day and before the meal was one-third through I was ready to
desist. The landlord was very much displeased and I was informed
confidentially by one of the Russian officers who had invited me that
the landlord would take great offense at the first to give up the
contest—and that as a matter of fact instead of being a sign of poor
breeding, on the contrary it was considered quite the thing to stuff
one’s self until he could eat no more. As the meal progressed great
bowls of _braga_ and now and then a glass of vodka were brought in to
help along the repast. After an almost interminable time the guests all
rose in a body and facing the icon crossed themselves—then bowing to
the host—made certain remarks which I afterward found out meant,
“Thanks for your bread and salt”—to which the host replied, “Do not be
displeased, sit down once more for goodluck,” whereupon all hands fell
to again and had it not been for a mounted messenger galloping in with
important messages, I am of the opinion that we would probably have
spent the balance of the day trying not to displease our host.

If the Russian peasant’s food were always as good and plentiful as at
this season of the year, he would have little reason to complain, but
this is by no means the case. Beef, mutton, pork and the like are
entirely too expensive to be considered as a common article of food and
consequently the average peasant is more or less of a vegetarian,
living on cabbage, cabbage soup, potatoes, turnips and black bread the
entire winter—varied now and then with a portion of salt fish.

From the festival time until the following spring there is no
possibility of doing any agricultural work for the ground is as hard as
iron and covered with snow. The male peasants do very little work
during these winter months and spend most of their time lying idly upon
the huge brick stoves. Some of them, it is true, have some handicraft
that occupies their winter hours; others will take their guns and a
little parcel of provisions and wander about in the trackless forests
for days at a time. If successful, he may bring home a number of
valuable skins—such as ermine, fox and the like. Sometimes a number of
them associate for the purpose of deep sea fishing, in which case they
usually start out on foot for Kem on the shores of the White Sea or for
the far away Kola on the Murmansk Coast. Here they must charter a boat
and often times after a month or two of this fishing they will be in
debt to the boat owner and are forced to return with an empty pocket.
While we were there we gave them all plenty to do—village after village
being occupied in the grim task of making barb wire entanglements,
etc., building block houses, hauling logs, and driving convoys. This
was of course quite outside their usual occupation and I am of the
impression that they were none to favorably impressed—perhaps some of
them are explaining to the Bolo Commissars just how they happened to be
engaged in these particular pursuits.

For the female part of the population, however, the winter is a very
busy and well occupied time. For it is during these long months that
the spinning and weaving is done and cloth manufactured for clothing
and other purposes. Many of them are otherwise engaged in plaiting a
kind of rude shoe—called _lapty_, which is worn throughout the summer
by a great number of the peasants—and I have seen some of them worn in
extremely cold weather with heavy stockings and rags wrapped around the
feet. This was probably due to the fact, however, that leather shoes
and boots were almost a thing of the past at that time, for it must be
remembered that Russia had been practically shut off from the rest of
the world for almost four years during the period of the war. The
evenings are often devoted to _besedys_—a kind of ladies’ guild
meeting, where all assemble and engage in talking over village gossip,
playing games and other innocent amusements, or spinning thread from
flax.

Before closing this chapter, I wish to comment upon an article that I
read some months ago regarding what the writer thought to be a
surprising abundance of evidence disproving the common idea of
illiteracy among the Russian peasants. It is admitted that the peasants
of this region are above the average in the way of education and
ability, but as I have later learned they are not an average type of
the millions of peasants located in the interior and the south of
Russia, whose fathers and forefathers and many of themselves spent the
greater part of their lives as serfs. While the peasants of this region
nominally may have come under the heading of serfs, yet when they were
first driven into this country for the purpose of colonization and
settlement by Peter the Great, they were given far greater liberties
than any of the peasants of the south enjoyed. They were settled on
State domains and those that lived on the land of landlords scarcely
ever realized the fact, inasmuch as few of the landed aristocracy ever
spent any portion of their time in the province of Archangel unless
compelled to do so. In addition to this liberty and freedom, there was
also the stimulating effect of the cold, rigorous climate and therefore
it is more readily understood why the peasants of this region are more
energetic, more intelligent, more independent and better educated than
the inhabitants of the interior to the south.

After becoming somewhat acquainted with the family life of the
peasantry, and no one living with them as intimately as we did, could
have failed to have become more than ordinarily acquainted, we turned
our attention to the local village government or so-called Mir. We had
early learned that the chief personage in a Russian village was the
_starosta_, or village elder, and that all important communal affairs
were regulated by the _Selski Skhod_ or village assembly. We were also
well acquainted with the fact that the land in the vicinity of the
village belonged to the commune, and was distributed periodically among
the members in such a way that every able bodied man possessed a share
sufficient for his maintenance, or nearly so. Beyond this, however, few
of us knew little or nothing more. We were fortunate in having with us
a great number of Russian born men, who of course were our
interpreters, one of whom, by the way, Private Cwenk, was killed on
January 19th, 1919, in the attack of Nijni Gora when he refused to quit
his post, though mortally injured, until it was too late for him to
make his escape.

Through continual conversations and various transactions with the
peasants (carried on of course through our interpreters) the writer
gradually learned much of the village communal life. While at first
glance there are many points of similarity between the family life and
the village life, yet there are also many points of difference which
will be more apparent as we continue. In both, there is a chief or
ruler, one called the _khozain_ or head of the house and the other as
above indicated, the _starosta_ or village elder. In both cases too
there is a certain amount of common property and a common
responsibility. On the other hand, the mutual relations are far from
being so closely interwoven as in the case of the household.

From these brief remarks it will be readily apparent that a Russian
village is quite a different thing from a provincial town or village in
America. While it is true in a sense that in our villages the citizens
are bound together in certain interests of the community, yet each
family, outside of a few individual friends, is more or less isolated
from the rest of the community—each family having little to interest it
in the affairs of the other. In a Russian village, however, such a
state of indifference and isolation is quite impossible. The heads of
households must often meet together and consult in the village assembly
and their daily duties and occupations are controlled by the communal
decrees. The individual cannot begin to mow the hay or plough the
fields until the assembly has decided the time for all to begin. If one
becomes a shirker or drunkard everyone in the village has a right to
complain and see that the matter is at once taken care of, not so much
out of interest for the welfare of the shirker, but from the plain
selfish motive that all the families are collectively responsible for
his taxes and also the fact that he is entitled to a share in the
communal harvest, which unless he does his share of the work, is taken
from the common property of the whole.

As heretofore stated on another page of this book, the land belonging
to each village is distributed among the individual families and for
which each is responsible. It might be of interest to know how this
distribution is made. In certain communities the old-fashioned method
of simply taking a census and distributing the property according to
same is still in use. This in a great many instances is quite unfair
and works a great hardship—where often the head of the household is a
widow with perhaps four or five girls on her hands and possibly one
boy. Obviously, she cannot hope to do as much as her neighbor, who,
perhaps, in addition to the father, may have three or four well-grown
boys to assist him. It might be logically suggested, then, that the
widow could rent the balance of her share of the land and thus take
care of same. If land were in demand in Russia, especially in the
Archangel region, as it is in the farming communities of this country,
it might be a simple matter—but in Russia often the possession of a
share of land is quite often not a privilege but a decided hardship.
Often the land is so poor that it cannot be rented at any price, and in
the old days it was quite often the case that even though it could be
rented, the rent would not be sufficient to pay the taxes on same.
Therefore, each family is quite well satisfied with his share of the
land and is not looking for more trouble and labor if they can avoid
it, and at the assembly meetings, when the land is distributed each
year, it is amusing to hear the thousand-and-one excuses for not taking
more land, as the following brief description will illustrate.

It is assembly day, we will imagine, and all the villagers are
assembled to do their best from having more land and its consequent
responsibilities thrust upon them. Nicholas is being asked how many
shares of the communal land he will take, and after due deliberation
and much scratching of the head to stir up the cerebral processes (at
least we will assume that is the function of this last movement) he
slowly replies that inasmuch as he has two sons he will take three
shares for his family to farm, or perhaps a little less as his health
is none too good, though as a matter of fact he may be one of the most
ruddy-faced and healthiest individuals present.

This last remark is the signal for an outburst of laughter and ridicule
by the others present and the arguments pro and con wax furious. Of a
sudden, a voice in the crowd cries out: “He is a rich moujik, and he
should have five shares of the land as his burden at the least.”

Nicholas, seeing that the wave is about to overwhelm him, then resorts
to entreaty and makes every possible explanation now why it will be
utterly impossible for him to take five shares, his point now being to
cut down this allotment if within his power. After considerable more
discussion the leader of the crowd then puts the question to the
assembly and inquires if it be their will that Nicholas take four
shares. There is an immediate storm of assent from all quarters and
this settles the question beyond further argument.

This native shrewdness and spirit of barter is quite typical of the
Russian peasant in all matters—large or small—and he greets the outcome
of every such combat with stoical indifference, in typical fatalist
fashion.

The writer recalls one experience in the village of Shegovari on the
occasion of our first occupation of this place. It was before the
rivers had frozen over and headquarters at Shenkursk was getting ready
to install the sledge convoy system which was our only means of
transportation during the long winter months. Shegovari being a large
and prosperous community and there being a plentiful supply of horses
there, we were accordingly dispatched to this place to take over the
town and buy up as many horses as could be commandeered in this
section. In company with a villainous looking detachment of Cossacks we
set out from Shenkursk on board an enormous barge being towed by the
river steamer “Tolstoy.” On our way we became pretty well acquainted
with Colonel Aristov, the commander of the Cossacks, who, through his
interpreter, filled our ears with the various deeds of valor of himself
and picked cohorts. He further informed us that the village where we
were going was hostile to the Allied troops, and that there was some
question just at that time as to whether it was not in fact occupied by
the enemy. Consequently he had devised a very clever scheme, so he
thought, for getting what we were after and incidentally putting horses
on the market at bargain rates.

We were to bivouac for the night some ten miles or so above the town
and at early dawn we would steam down the river on our gunboat. If
there were any signs of hostility we were at once to open up on the
village with the pom pom mounted on board our cruiser, and the infantry
were to follow up with an attack on land. The colonel’s idea was that a
little demonstration of arms would thoroughly cow the native villagers
and therefore they would be willing to meet any terms offered by him
for the purchase of their horses. Fortunately or unfortunately (which
side one considers) the plan failed to materialize, for when we
anchored alongside the village the peasants were busily occupied in
getting their supply of salt fish for the winter and merely took our
arrival as one of the usual unfortunate visitations of Providence. The
colonel at once sent for the _starosta_ (the village elder as
heretofore explained) who immediately presented himself with much
bowing and scraping, probably wondering what further ill-luck was to
befall him. The colonel with a great display of pomp and gesticulating
firmly impressed the _starosta_ that on the following day all the
peasants were to bring to this village their horses, prepared to sell
them for the good of the cause. ... The following morning the streets
were lined up with horses and owners, and they could be seen corning
from all directions. At about ten o’clock the parade began. Each
peasant would lead his horse by the colonel, who would look them over
carefully and then ask what the owner would take for his horse. Usually
he would be met with a bow and downcast eyes as the owner replied: “As
your excellency decides.” “Very well, then, you will receive nine
hundred roubles or some such amount.” Instantly the air of
submissiveness and meekness disappears and a torrent of words pours
forth, eulogizing the virtues of this steed and the enormous sacrifice
it would be to allow his horse to go at that price. After the usual
haggling the bargain would be closed—sometimes at a greater figure and
sometimes at a lesser.

Now the amusing part of this transaction to me was that with my
interpreter we moved around amongst the crowd and got their own values
as to some of these horses. What was our amazement some moments later
to see them pass before the colonel who in a number of cases offered
them more than their estimates previously given to myself, whereupon
they immediately went through the maneuvers above described and in some
cases actually obtained increases over the colonel’s first hazard.

This lesson later stood us in good stead, for some weeks later it
devolved upon us to purchase harnesses and sleds for these very horses
and the reader may be sure that such haggling and bargaining (all
through an interpreter) was never seen before in this part of the
country. Somehow the word got around that the Amerikanskis who were
buying the sleds and harness had gotten acquainted with the horse
dealing method of some weeks past and therefore it was an especial
event to witness the sale and purchase of these various articles, and,
needless to say, there was always an enthusiastic crowd of spectators
present to cheer and jibe at the various contestants. All these various
transactions must have resulted with the balance decidedly in favor of
the villagers, for they were extremely pleasant and hospitable to us
during our entire stay here and instead of being hostile were exactly
the opposite, actually putting themselves to a great amount of trouble
time after time to meet with our many demands for logs and laborers,
although they were in no way bound to do these things.

In our dealings with the community here, as elsewhere, all transactions
were carried on with the _starosta_ or village head. We naturally
figured that this officer was one of the highest and most honored men
of the village, probably corresponding to the mayor of one of our own
cities, but we were later disillusioned in this particular. It seems
that each male member of the community must “do time” some time during
his career as village elder, and each one tried to postpone the task
just as long as it was in his power to do so. True it is that the
_starosta_ is the leader of his community during his regime, but
therein is the difficulty, for coupled with this power is the further
detail of keeping a strict and accurate account of all the business
transactions of the year, all the moneys, wages, etc., due the various
members for labors performed and services rendered. This, of course, is
due to the fact that everything is owned in common by the community:
Land, food products, wood, in short, practically all tangible property.

Imagine, then, the _starosta_ who, we will say, at eight or nine
o’clock on a cold winter’s night is called upon to have a dozen or more
drivers ready the next morning at six o’clock to conduct a sledge
convoy through to the next town, another group of fifty or a hundred
workmen to go into the forests and cut and haul logs for
fortifications, and still others for as many different duties as one
could imagine during time of war. He must furthermore see, for example,
that the same drivers are properly called in turn, for it is the
occasion of another prolonged verbal battle in case one is called out
of his turn. During the day he is probably busily occupied in
commandeering oats and hay for the convoy horses and when night comes
he certainly has earned his day’s repose, but his day does not end at
nightfall as in the case of the other members of the commune.

During our stay here, practically every night he would call upon the
commanding officer to get orders for the coming day, to check over
various claims and accounts and each week to receive pay for the entire
community engaged in these labors. One occasion we distinctly recall as
a striking example of this particular _starosta’s_ honesty and
integrity. He had spent the greater part of the evening in our
headquarters, checking over accounts involving some three or four
thousand roubles for the pay roll the following day. Finally the matter
was settled and the money turned over to him, after which we all
retired to our bunks. At about one o’clock that morning the sentry on
post near headquarters awakened us and said the _starosta_ was outside
and wished to see the commander, whereupon the C. O. sent word for him
to come up to our quarters. After the usual ceremony of crossing
himself before the icon the _starosta_ announced that he had been
overpaid about ninety roubles, which mistake he found after reaching
his home and checking over the account again. We were too dumfounded to
believe our ears. Here was this poor hard-working moujik who doubtless
knew that the error would never have been discovered by ourselves, and,
even if it had, the loss would have been trifling, yet he tramped back
through the snow to get this matter straightened out before he retired
to the top of the stove for the night. Needless to say, our C. O.
turned the money back to him as a reward for his honesty, in addition
to which he was given several hearty draughts of rum to warm him up for
his return journey, along with a small sack of sugar to appease his
wife who, he said, always made things warmer for him when he returned
home with the odor of rum about him.


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (159458)
_Joe Chinzi and Russian Bride._]


[Illustration: DOUD
_Watching Her Weave Cloth._]


[Illustration: U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Doughboy Attends Spinning-Bee._]


[Illustration: DOUD
_Doughboy in the Best Bed—On Stove._]


[Illustration: MORRIS
_Defiance to Bolo Advance._]


[Illustration: DOUD
_337th Hospital at Beresnik._]


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Onega._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Y M. C. A., Obozerskaya._]




IX
“H” COMPANY PUSHES UP THE ONEGA VALLEY


Two Platoons Of “H” Company By Steamer To Onega—Occupation Of
Chekuevo—Bolsheviki Give Battle—Big Order To Little Force—Kaska Too
Strongly Defended—Doughboys’ Attack Fails—Cossacks Spread False
Report—Successful Advance Up Valley—Digging In For Winter.


Meanwhile “H” Company was pushing up the Onega Valley. Stories had
leaked out in Archangel of engagements up the Dvina and up the railroad
where American soldiers had tasted first sweets of victory, and “H” men
now piled excitedly into a steamer at Archangel on the 15th of
September and after a 24-hour ride down the Dvina, across the Dvina Bay
up an arm of the White Sea called Onega Bay and into the mouth of the
Onega River, landed without any opposition and took possession. The
enemy had been expelled a few days previously by a small detachment of
American sailors from the “Olympia.”

The “H” force consisted of two platoons commanded by Lieuts. Phillips
and Pellegrom, who reported to an English officer, Col. Clark.

The coming of Americans was none too soon. The British officer had not
made much headway in organizing an effective force of the
anti-Bolshevik Russians. The Red Guards were massing forces in the
upper part of the valley and, German-like, had sent notice of their
impending advance to recapture the city of Onega.

On September 18th Lieut. Pellegrom received verbal orders from Col.
Clark to move his platoon of fifty-eight men with Lieut. Nugent, M. R.
C., and one man at once to Chekuevo, about fifty miles up the river.

Partly by boat and partly by marching the Americans reached the village
of Chekuevo and began organizing the defenses, on the 19th. Three days
later Lieut. Phillips was hurried up with his platoon to reinforce and
take command of the hundred and fifteen Americans and ninety-three
Russian volunteers. At dawn on the twenty-fourth the enemy attacked our
positions from three sides with a force of three hundred and fifty men
and several machine guns.

The engagement lasted for five hours. The main attack coming down the
left bank of the Onega River was held by the Americans till after the
enemy had driven back the Allies, Russians, on the right bank and
placed a machine gun on our flank.

Then the Americans had to give ground on the main position and the Reds
placed another machine gun advantageously. Meanwhile smaller parties of
the enemy were working in the rear. Finally the enemy machine guns were
spotted and put out of action by the superior fire of our Lewis
automatics, and the Bolshevik leader, Shiskin, was killed at the gun.
This success inspirited the Americans who dashed forward and the Reds
broke and fled. A strong American combat patrol followed the retreating
Reds for five miles and picked up much clothing, ammunition, rifles,
and equipment, and two of his dead, ten of his wounded and one prisoner
and two machine guns. Losses on our side consisted of two wounded. Our
Russian allies lost two killed and seven wounded.

The action had been carried on in the rain under very trying conditions
for the Americans who were in their first fire fight and reflected
great credit upon Lieut. Phillips and his handful of doughboys who were
outnumbered more than three to one and forced to give battle in a place
well known to the enemy but strange to the Americans and severely
disadvantageous.

Outside of a few patrol combats and the capture of a few Bolshevik
prisoners the remainder of the month of September was uneventful.

The Onega Valley force, like the Railway and Kodish forces, was
sparring for an opening and plans were made for a general push on
Plesetskaya. On September 30th Lieut. Phillips received an order as
follows:


“The enemy on the railway line is being attacked today (the 29th) and
some Cossacks are coming to you from Obozerskaya. On their arrival you
will move south with them and prevent enemy from retiring across the
river in a westerly direction.

“Open the wire to Obozerskaya and ascertain how far down the line our
troops have reached and then try to keep abreast of them but do not go
too far without orders from the O/CA force (Col. Sutherland at
Obozerskaya). I mean by this that you must not run your head against a
strong force which may be retiring unless you are sure of holding your
ground. There is a strong force at Plesetskaya on the railway and it is
possible that they may retire across your front in the direction of the
line running from Murmansk to Petrograd. The commandant of Chekuevo
must supply you with carts for rations and, as soon as you can, make
arrangements for food to be sent to you from the railway. The S. S.
service can run up to you with supplies and can keep with you until you
reach the rapids, if you go so far. Don’t forget that the enemy has a
force at Turchesova, south of you. Keep the transports in the middle of
your column so that no carts get cut off, and it would be a good thing
if you could get transport from village to village.

“Captain Burton, R. M. L. I., will remain in command at Chekuevo.”


W. J. CLARK, Lieut.-Col.


The Americans knew that this was a big contract, but let us now look at
the map and see what the plan really called for. Forty miles of old
imperial telegraph and telephone line to the eastward to restore to use
between Chekuevo and Obozerskaya. No signal corps men and no telling
where the wires needed repair. And sixty miles more or less to the
south and eastward on another road to make speed with slow cart
transport with orders to intercept an enemy supposed to be preparing to
flee westward from the railway. Not forgetting that was to be done in
spite of the opposition of a strong force of Red Guards somewhere in
the vicinity of Turchesova thirty-five miles up the valley. “A little
job, you know,” for those one hundred and fifteen Americans, veterans
of two weeks in the wilds of North Russia.

The American officer from his reconnaissance patrols and from friendly
natives learned that the enemy instead of seeking escape was massing
forces for another attack on the Americans.

About seven hundred of the Red Guards were heavily entrenched in and
around Kaska and were recruiting forces. In compliance with his orders,
Lieut. Phillips moved out the next morning, October 1st, with the
eighteen mounted Cossacks, joined in the night from Obozerskaya, and
his other anti-Bolshevik Russian volunteer troops. Movement began at
2:30 a. m. with about eight miles to march in the dark and zero hour
was set for five o’clock daybreak. Two squads of the Americans and
Russian volunteers had been detached by Lieut. Phillips and given to
the command of Capt. Burton to make a diversion attack on Wazientia, a
village across the river from Kaska. Lieut. Pellegrom was to attack the
enemy in flank from the west while Lieut. Phillips and the Cossacks
made the frontal assault.

Phillip’s platoon was early deserted by the Cossacks and, after
advancing along the side of a sandy ridge to within one hundred yards
of the enemy, found it necessary to dig in. Lieut. Pellegrom on the
flank on account of the nature of the ground brought his men only to
within three hundred yards of the enemy lines and was unable to make
any communication with his leader. Captain Burton was deserted by the
volunteers at first fire and had to retreat with his two squads of
Americans. The fire fight raged all the long day. Phillips was unable
to extricate his men till darkness but held his position and punished
the enemy’s counter attacks severely. The enemy commanded the lines
with heavy machine guns and the doughboys who volunteered to carry
messages from one platoon to the other paid for their bravery with
their lives. Believing himself to be greatly outnumbered the American
officer withdrew his men at 7:30 p. m. to Chekuevo, with losses of six
men killed and three wounded. Enemy losses reported later by deserters
were thirty killed and fifty wounded.

Again the opposing sides resorted to delay and sparring for openings.
At Chekuevo the Americans strengthened the defenses of that important
road junction and kept in contact with the enemy by daily combat
patrols up the valley in the direction of Kaska, scene of the
encounter. It was during this period that one day the “H” men at
Chekuevo were surprised by the appearance of Lieut. Johnson with a
squad of “M” Company men who had patrolled the forty miles of
Obozerskaya road to Chekuevo looking for signs of the enemy whom a
mounted patrol of Cossacks sent from Obozerskaya had declared were in
possession of the road and of Chekuevo. They learned from these men
that on the railway, too, the enemy had disclosed astonishing strength
of numbers and showed as good quality of fighting courage as at Kaska
and had administered to the American troops their first defeat. They
learned, too, that the French battalion was coming back onto the
fighting line with the Americans for a heavy united smash at the enemy.

A new party of some fifteen Cossacks relieved the eighteen Cossacks who
returned to Archangel. The force was augmented materially by the coming
of a French officer and twenty-five men from Archangel.

The same boat brought out the remainder of “H” Company under command of
Capt. Carl Gevers, who set up his headquarters at Onega, October 9th,
under the new British O/C Onega Det., Col. (“Tin Eye”) Edwards, and
sent Lieut. Carlson and his platoon to Karelskoe, a village ten miles
to the rear of Chekuevo, to support Phillips.

Success on the railroad front, together with information gathered from
patrols led Col. Edwards to believe the enemy was retiring up the
valley. An armed reconnaissance by the whole force at Chekuevo moving
forward on both sides of the Onega River on October 19th, which was two
days after the Americans on the railroad had carried Four Hundred and
Forty-five by storm and the Bolo had “got up his wind” and retired to
Emtsa. Phillips found that the enemy had indeed retired from Kaska and
retreated to Turchesova, some thirty-five miles up the valley.

Phillips occupied all the villages along the river Kachela in force,
sending his combat patrols south of Priluk daily to make contact.
Winter showed signs of early approach and, in compliance with verbal
orders of Col. Edwards at Onega, Phillips withdrew his forces to
Chekuevo on October 25th. This seems to have been in accordance with
the wise plan of the new British Commanding General to extend no
further the dangerously extended lines, but to prepare for active
defense just where snow and frost were finding the various widely
scattered forces of the expedition. On the way back through Kaska it
was learned that two of the “H” men who had been reported missing in
the fight at Kaska, but who were in fact killed, had been buried by the
villagers. They were disinterred and given a regular military funeral,
and graves marked.

Outside of daily patrols and the reliefs of platoons changing about for
rest at Onega there was little of excitement during the remainder of
October and the month of November. Occasionally there would be a
flurry, a “windy time” at British Headquarters in Onega and patrols and
occupying detachments sent out to various widely separated villages up
the valley. There seems to have been an idea finally that the village
of Kyvalanda should be fortified so as to prevent the Red Guards from
having access to the valley of the Chulyuga, a tributary of the Onega
River, up which in the winter ran a good road to Bolsheozerke where it
joined the Chekuevo road to Oborzerskaya. Wire was brought up and the
village of Kyvalanda was strongly entrenched, sometimes two platoons
being stationed there.

Captain Gevers had to go to hospital for operation. This was a loss to
the men. Here old Boreas came down upon this devoted company of
doughboys. They got into their winter clothing, gave attention to
making themselves as comfortable shelters as possible on their advanced
outposts, organized their sleigh transport system that had to take the
place of the steamer service on the Onega which was now a frozen
barrier to boats but a highway for sleds. They had long winter nights
ahead of them with frequent snow storms and many days of severe zero
weather. And though they did not suspect it they were to encounter hard
fighting during and at the end of the winter.




X
“G” COMPANY FAR UP THE PINEGA RIVER


Reds Had Looted Villages Of Pinega Valley—Winter Sees Bolsheviks
Returning To Attack—Mission Of American Column—Pinega—Pinkish-White
Political Color—Yank Soldiers Well Received—Take Distant
Karpogora—Greatly Outnumbered Americans Retire—“Just Where Is Pinega
Front?”


In making their getaway from Archangel and vicinity at the time the
Allies landed in Archangel, the Reds looted and robbed and carried off
by rail and by steamer much stores of furs, and clothing and food, as
well as the munitions and military equipment. What they did not carry
by rail to Vologda they took by river to Kotlas. We have seen how they
have been pursued and battled on the Onega, on the Railroad, on the
Vaga, on the Dvina. Now we turn to the short narrative of their
activities on the Pinega River. As the Reds at last learned that the
expedition was too small to really overpower them and had returned to
dispute the Allies on the other rivers, so, far up the Pinega Valley,
they began gathering forces. The people of the lower Pinega Valley
appealed to the Archangel government and the Allied military command
for protection and for assistance in pursuing the Reds to recover the
stores of flour that had been taken from the co-operative store
associations at various points along the river. These co-operatives had
bought flour from the American Red Cross. Accordingly on October 20th
Captain Conway with “G” Company set off on a fast steamer and barge for
Pinega, arriving after three days and two nights with a force of two
platoons, the other two having been left behind on detached service,
guarding the ships in the harbor of Bakaritza. Here the American
officer was to command the area, organize its defense and cooperate
with the Russian civil authorities in raising local volunteers for the
defense of the city of Pinega, which, situated at the apex of a great
inverted “V” in the river, appeared to be the key point to the military
and political situation.

Pinega was a fine city of three thousand inhabitants with six or seven
thousand in the nearby villages that thickly dot the banks of this
broad expansion of the old fur-trading and lumber river port. Its
people were progressive and fairly well educated. The city had been
endowed by its millionaire old trader with a fine technical high
school. It had a large cathedral, of course. Not far from it two hours
ride by horseback, an object of interest to the doughboy, was the three
hundred-year-old monastery, white walls with domes and spires, perched
upon the grey bluffs, in the hazy distance looking over the broad
Pinega Valley and Soyla Lake, where the monks carried on their fishing.
In Pinega was a fine community hall, a good hospital and the government
buildings of the area.

Its people had held a great celebration when they renounced allegiance
to the Czar, but they had very sensibly retained some of his old
trained local representatives to help carry on their government. Self
government they cherished. When the Red Guards had been in power at
Archangel they had of course extended their sway partially to this
far-off area. But the people had only submitted for the time. Some of
their able men had had to accept tenure of authority under the nominal
overlordship of the Red commissars. And when the Reds fled at the
approach of the Allies, the people of Pinega had punished a few of the
cruel Bolshevik rulers that they caught but had not made any great
effort to change all the officers of civil government even though they
had been Red officials for a time. In fact it was a somewhat confused
color scheme of Red and White civil government that the Americans found
in the Pinega Valley. The writer commanded this area in the winter and
speaks from actual experience in dealing with this Pinega local
government, half Red as it was. The Americans were well received and
took up garrison duty in the fall, raising a force of three hundred
volunteers chiefly from the valley above Pinega, whose people were in
fear of a return of the Reds and begged for a military column up the
valley to deliver it from the Red agitators and recover their flour
that had been stolen.

November 15th Captain Conway, acting under British G. H. Q., Archangel,
acceded to these requests and sent Lieut. Higgins with thirty-five
Americans and two hundred and ten Russian volunteers to clear the
valley and occupy Karpogora.

For ten days the force advanced without opposition. At Marynagora an
enemy patrol was encountered and the next day the Yanks drove back an
enemy combat patrol. Daily combat patrol action did not interfere with
their advance and on Thanksgiving Day the “G” Company boys after a
little engagement went into Karpogora. They were one hundred and twenty
versts from Pinega, which was two hundred and seven versts from
Archangel, a mere matter of being two hundred miles from Archangel in
the heart of a country which was politically about fifty-fifty between
Red and White. But the Reds did not intend to have the Americans up
there. On December 4th they came on in a much superior force and
attacked. The Americans lost two killed and four wounded out of their
little thirty-five Americans and several White Guards, and on order
from Captain Conway, who hurried up the river to take charge, the
flying column relinquished its hold on Karpogora and retired down the
valley followed by the Reds. A force of White Guards was left at
Visakagorka, and one at Trufanagora, and Priluk and the main White
Guard outer defense of Pinega established at Pelegorskaya.

Like the whole expedition into Russia of which the Pinega Valley force
was only one minor part, the coming of the Allied troops had quieted
the areas occupied but, in the hinterland beyond, the propaganda of the
wily Bolshevik agents of Trotsky and Lenine succeeded quite naturally
in inflaming the Russians against what they called the foreign
bayonets.

And here at the beginning of winter we leave this handful of Americans
holding the left sector of the great horseshoe line against a gathering
force, the mutterings of whose Red mobs was already being heard and
which was preparing a series of dreadful surprises for the Allied
forces on the Pinega as well as on other winter fronts. Indeed their
activities in this peace-loving valley were to rise early in the winter
to major importance to the whole expedition’s fate and stories of this
flank threat to Archangel and especially to the Dvina and Vaga lines of
communication, where the Pinega Valley merges with the Dvina Valley,
was to bring from our American Great Headquarters in France the terse
telegram: “Just where is the Pinega Front?”

It was out there in the solid pine forests one hundred fifty miles to
the east and north of Archangel. Out where the Russian peasant had
rigged up his strange-looking but ingeniously constructed _sahnia_, or
sledge. Where on the river he was planting in the ice long thick-set
rows of pines or branches in double rows twice a sled length apart.
These frozen-in lines of green were to guide the traveller in the long
winter of short days and dark nights safely past the occasional open
holes and at such times as he made his trip over the road in the
blinding blizzards of snow. Out there where the peasant was changing
from leather boots to felt boots and was hunting up his scarfs and his
great _parki_, or bearskin overcoat. That is where “G” Company, one
hundred strong, was holding the little, but important, Pinega Front at
the end of the fall campaign.




XI
WITH WOUNDED AND SICK


Lest We Forget S. O. L. Doughboy—Column In Battle And No Medical
Supplies—Jack-Knife Amputation—Sewed Up With Needle And Thread From Red
Cross Comfort Kit—Diary Of American Medical Officer—Account Is Choppy
But Full Of Interest.


Some things the doughboy and officer from America will never have grace
enough in his forgiving heart to ever forgive. Those were the
outrageous things that happened to the wounded and sick in that North
Russian campaign. Of course much was done and in fact everything was
meant to be done possible for the comfort of the luckless wounded and
the men who, from exposure and malnutrition, fell sick. But there were
altogether too many things that might have been avoided. Lest we forget
and go off again on some such strange campaign let us chronicle the
story of the grief that came to the S. O. L. doughboy.

One American medical officer who went up with the first column of
Americans in the Onega River Valley in the fall never got through
cussing the British medical officer who sent him off with merely the
handful of medical supplies that he, as a medical man, always carried
for emergencies of camp. Story has already been told of the lack of
medical supplies on the two “flu”-infected ships that took the soldiers
to Russia. Never will the American doughboy forget how melancholy he
felt when he saw the leaded shrouds go over the side of the sister ship
where the poor Italians were suffering and dying. And the same ill-luck
with medical supplies seemed to follow us to North Russia.

Dr. Nugent, of Milwaukee, writes after the first engagement on the
Onega front he was obliged to use needle and thread from a doughboys’
Red Cross comfort kit to take stitches in six wounded men.

Lieut. Lennon of “L” Company reports that during the first action of
his Company on the Kodish Front in the fall, there was no medical
officer with the unit in action. The American medical officer was miles
in rear. Wounded men were bandaged on the field with first aid and
carried back twenty-six versts. And he relates further that one man on
the field suffered the amputation of his leg that day with a pocket
knife. The officer further states that the American medical officer at
Seletskoe was neglectful and severe with the doughboys. At one time
there was no iodine, no bandages, no number 9’s at Kodish Front. The
medical officer under discussion was never on the front and gained the
hearty dislike of the American doughboys for his conduct.

This matter of medical and surgical treatment is of such great
importance that space is here accorded to the letter and diary notes of
an American officer, Major J. Carl Hall, our gallant and efficient
medical officer of the 339th Infantry, who from his home in Centralia,
Illinois, August 6th, 1920, sends us a contribution as follows:

“Take what you can use from this diary. Thought I would avoid the
English antagonism throughout but later have decided to add the
following incident at Shenkursk, December 12, 1918. I was ordered by
the British General, Finlayson, to take the duties of S. M. O. and
sanitary officer of Vaga Column, that all medical and sanitary
questions, including distribution of American personnel would be under
the British S. M. O. Dvina forces—right at the time the American
soldiers were needing medical attention most. This order absolutely
contradicted my order from the American headquarters at Archangel,
making me powerless to care for the American soldiers. I wired the
British I could not obey it, unless sent from American headquarters.
Col. Graham, British officer in charge of Shenkursk column, informed me
that I was disobeying an order on an active front, for which the
maximum punishment was death. I immediately told him I was ready to
take any punishment they might administer and sooner or later the news
would travel back to U. S. A. and the general public would awaken to
the outrageous treatment given the American soldiers by the hands of
the British. This affair was hushed and I received no punishment, for
he knew that there would have to be too many American lives accounted
for. I returned to the base at Archangel and was then placed in charge
of the surgery of the American Red Cross Hospital.

“The Russian-English nurse story you know and also add that 75% of all
medical stores obtained from the British on the river front, if not
stolen by myself and men, were signed over to us with greatest
reluctance, red tape, and delay. It was a question of fight, quarrel,
steal and even threaten to kill in order to obtain those supplies
justly due us.

“Would like very much to have given you a more satisfactory report—but
right now am rushed for time—anyway, probably you can obtain most of
the essential points.

“Yours very truly,
(Signed) JOHN C. HALL.”


This faithful and illuminating diary account of Major Hall’s is typical
of the story on the other four fronts, except that British medical
officers dominated on the Railroad front and on the Onega front and at
Kodish.

Upon arrival of 339th Infantry in Russia on Sept. 4th, 1918, as
Regimental Surgeon, established an infirmary in Olga Barracks,
Archangel. After taking over civilian hospital by American Red Cross, I
then established a twenty bed military hospital and an infirmary at
Solombola.

On Sept. 10th I was ordered to report to Major Rook, R. A. M. C, at
Issakagorka, on railroad front, four miles south of Bakaritza, for
instructions regarding medical arrangements on River and Railroad
fronts.

On Sept. 11th I reported to Col. McDermott, R. A. M. C., A. D. M. S.,
North Russian Expeditionary Force, and there received instructions that
I should leave immediately for Issakagorka.

Accompanied by my interpreter, Private Anton Russel, and Sgt. Paul
Clark, boarded Russian launch for Bakaritza six miles up the Dvina and
on the opposite bank of the river, where we transferred to train and
proceeded to Issakagorka. Upon arrival there and reporting to Major
Rook, R. A. M. C., I was informed that I should go armed night and day
for they were having trouble with local Bolsheviks and expected an
attack any time.

Issakagorka is a village located in a swamp with about 2,000
population, and every available room occupied. The overcrowded
condition due to the presence of many refugees from Petrograd and
Moscow and other Bolshevik territories. The streets deep. An odor of
decaying animal matter, stagnant water and feces is to be had on the
streets and in all the homes. At the house in which I was billeted, a
fair example of practically all Russian homes, the toilet was inside.

On Sept. 14th I was ordered to railroad front to inspect medical
arrangements. Arrived at Obozerskaya and found that Lieut. Ralph Powers
had taken over the railroad station and had almost completed
arrangements for a Detention Hospital of forty beds. He had just
evacuated thirty sick and wounded. The first aid station being in a log
hut, one-quarter mile west of station, in charge of Capt. Wymand Pyle,
M. C. In this there were ten stretchers which they had used for
temporary beds until cases could be evacuated to the rear.

Pits had been dug for latrines daily because the ground was so swampy
the pit would fill with water by night. The Americans had been
instructed to boil water before drinking, but after investigating I
found it had been almost impossible for they had no way to boil it only
by mess cup, and the officers found it difficult to get the men to
strictly observe this order. The return trip from the front to
Issakagorka was made on the ambulance train. This train consisted of
five coaches, which had been used in the war against Germany, and all
badly in need of repair. Two were nothing more than box cars fitted
with stretchers. Two were a slight improvement over these, having
double-decked framework for beds, which were fitted with mattresses and
blankets. The other coach was divided into compartments. One an
operating room, which was built on modern plans, and the other
compartment was built on the style of the American Pullman, and
occupied by the Russian doctor in charge of train, one felcher or
assistant doctor (a sanitar), which is a Russian medical orderly, and
two Russian female nurses.

Our sick and wounded were being evacuated by this train from the front
to Bakaritza; there kept at the Field Hospital 337th or taken by boat
to Archangel.

I reported to General Finlayson on Sept. 16 and was given 50,000
roubles to be delivered to Col. Joselyn, then in charge of river
forces, and informed to leave for river front to make medical
arrangements for the winter drive.

At noon Sept. 18th, with Lieut. Chappel and two platoons of
infantrymen, boarded a box car, travelled to Bakaritza, where we
transferred to a small, dirty Russian tug. The day was spent going
south on Dvina River, toward Beresnik. At the same time Lieut. Chappel
with the platoons of infantrymen boarded a small boat and proceeded up
the river.

The tug on which we were had no sleeping accommodations and on account
of the number aboard we had to sleep the first night sitting erect.

The cockroaches ran around in such large numbers that when we ate it
was necessary to keep a very close watch, or one would get into the
food. The following day the infantrymen were left at Siskoe and we went
on to Beresnik. Lieut. Chappel was killed two days after leaving us.

Arrived at Beresnik, which is about one hundred and fifty miles from
Archangel, after a thirty-eight-hour trip; reported to Major Coker, and
then visited British Detention Hospital in charge of Capt. Watson, R.
A. M. C. The hospital being a five-room log building with the toilet
built adjoining the kitchen.

In this hospital there were twenty sick and wounded Americans and Royal
Scots. The beds were stretchers placed on the floor about one and
one-half feet apart. The food consisted of bully beef, M and V, hard
tack, tea and sugar, as reported by the patients stationed there. The
pneumonia patients, Spanish influenza and wounded were all fed alike.

It was here that I met Capt. Fortescue, R. A. M. C. A general
improvement in sanitation was ordered and Capt. Watson instructed to
give more attention to the feeding of patients. With Capt. Fortescue I
visited civilian hospital two miles northwest of Beresnik; found
Russian female doctor in charge, and, looking over buildings, decided
to take same over for military hospital. Conditions of buildings fair;
five in number, and would accommodate one hundred patients in an
emergency. The equipment of the hospital was eight iron beds. Vermin of
all kinds, and cockroaches so thick that they had to be scraped from
the wall and shovelled into a container. The latrines were built in the
buildings, as is Russian custom, and were full to overflowing. The four
patients who were there were retained and cared for by the civilian
doctor. While at Beresnik we stayed at the Detention Hospital.

The following morning, Sept. 21st, with Capt. Fortescue, boarded
British motor launch. After travelling for about thirty versts we
transferred on to several tugs and barges, and on Sept. 23rd boarded
hospital boat “Vologjohnin,” and left for front after hearing that
there were eight or ten casualties, several having been killed, but
unable to ascertain name of village where the wounded were.

After an hour slowly moving up stream, because of sand bars and mines,
the tug was suddenly stranded in mid-stream. After trying for two hours
the captain gave up in despair. We then arranged with engineers (a
squad on board same tug) to make a raft with two barrels. When this was
about completed two boats approached from opposite directions. We then
transferred to the “Viatka” and proceeded to Troitza and there
succeeded in commandeering twenty horses.

The following day with Capt. McCardle, American Engineer, Capt.
Fortescue and Pvt. Russel, with our horses, we crossed the river by
ferry and then proceeded to the front. Traveling very difficult on
account of the swampy territory and lack of information from natives
who seemed afraid of us. The horses sank in the mud and water above
their knees. The Bolos had told natives that the Allies would burn
their homes and take what little food they had.

Arrived at Zastrovia and saw American troops who informed us that the
hospital was located in the next village. Lower Seltso about three
miles farther. Upon arrival there we located the hospital, which was in
a log hut, considered the best the village afforded, in charge of Capt.
Van Home and Lieut. Katz with eight enlisted Medical detachment men.
Lieut. Goodnight with twenty or thirty Ambulance men had just arrived
at this place. Eight sick and wounded Americans were being treated in
hospital. Arranged for two more rooms so capacity of hospital might be
increased.

It was vitally important that these cases be evacuated at once, but
there was no possible way except by river, which was heavily mined.
Decided it best to attempt evacuation by rowboat. Sgt. Clair Petit
volunteered to conduct convoy to hospital boat at Troitza. Convoy was
arranged and patients safely placed on board hospital boat, where they
were hurriedly carried to Archangel.

Returned to headquarters boat the following morning and all seemed to
be suffering from enteritis, due to the water not being boiled.
Sanitation in these villages almost an impossibility. Barn built in one
end of home, with possibly a hallway between it and the kitchen. The
hay loft is usually on a level with the kitchen floor, a hole in many
houses is cut through this floor and used as a toilet. Or it quite
often is nothing more than a two-inch board nailed over the sills. In
the very best southern villagers’ homes there may be a closed toilet in
the hallway between the barn and kitchen. These are the billets used by
the Allied troops on the river front in North Russia. The native seldom
drinks raw water, but nearly always quenches his thirst by drinking
tea. Wired Major Longley at base Sept. 22nd for one-half of 337th Field
Hospital to be sent to Beresnik, to take over civilian hospital.
Communication with the base was very poor. Unable to get any definite
answer to my telegrams.

Another trip was made from Troitza to Beresnik with hospital boat
“Currier.” Sick and wounded Royal Scots taken to Field Hospital at
Beresnik. After arrival they were loaded on two-wheeled carts and
hauled two miles to the hospital.

Upon arrival at Beresnik found Capt. Martin, with one-half of Field
Hospital 337th, had taken over civilian hospital.

On Sept. 28th it was decided to establish a detention hospital at
Shenkursk, so Capt. Watson and twelve R. A. M. C. men with medical
supplies for a twenty-bed hospital were placed on board hospital boat
“Currier.” After posting two guards with machine guns on the boat we
started on the trip to Shenkursk. A distance of about ninety-five
versts from Beresnik on the Vaga River.

All along the way the boat stopped to pick up wood and at each stop
natives would come down to the river banks with vegetables and eggs,
willing to trade most anything for a few cigarettes or a little
tobacco.

Arrived at Shenkursk at 5:00 p. m., Sept. 29th, and about one-half hour
later the American Headquarters boat docked next to the hospital boat.
When the various boats docked at Shenkursk all the natives of the town
came down to the banks of the river and were very curious as well as
friendly. The village of Shenkursk is situated on a hill and surrounded
by forest. One company of Americans and a detachment of Russians in
control of town. It had been taken only a few days before.

Capt. Fortescue and I looked over civilian hospital and found it to be
very filthy. Owing to the fact that it was so small and occupied to its
full capacity, decided to look further. Directing our steps to the
school, we found a very clean, desirable building, large enough to
accommodate at least one hundred patients.

After consulting the town commandant, were given permission to take
over building for military hospital. Capt. Watson and Capt. Daw, with
equipment for thirty beds, were placed in charge. Stretchers were used
as beds, until it was possible to make an improvement or procure some
from base. Employed two Russian female nurses. Wired to Major Longley
for one-half of Field Hospital 337th to take over this hospital, and in
addition more medical officers and personnel, for Ambulance work. On
Oct. 2nd Capt. Fortescue returned to Beresnik, which left me as A. D.
A. D. M. S. river forces. The same day we took quarters with Russian
professor and established an office in same building.

Upon investigation we found that the American troops had not been
issued any tobacco or cigarettes for several weeks and were smoking tea
leaves, straw or anything that would smoke. The paper used for these
cigarettes was mostly news and toilet paper.

On Oct. 3rd, with Russian medical officer and six American enlisted
medical men, we proceeded to Rovidentia, the advance front, about
thirty-five miles from Shenkursk on Vaga River. Established a small
detention hospital here of ten beds, leaving the Russian medical
officer and six American enlisted medical men in charge. This village
was occupied by two platoons of Americans and about one hundred
Russians.

In comparison to previous villages I visited in Russia, Shenkursk was
an improvement over most of them. Mainly because of its location, there
being a natural drainage, and the water was much better, containing
very little animal and vegetable matter.

On Oct. 7th with Pvts. Russel and Stihler again embarked on hospital
boat “Vologjohnin,” and the following morning at 8:00 a.m. proceeded to
Beresnik with a few Russian wounded, arriving at 2:00 p.m. Made
inspection of hospital. Capt. Martin with one-half of Field Hospital
working overtime, making beds, cleaning wards and hospital grounds, and
at the same time caring for thirty sick and wounded patients. Marked
improvement over previous condition.

Left Beresnik Oct. 9th on hospital boat “Vologjohnin” with headquarters
boat and small gunboat. Downpour of rain. Gunboat landed on sand bar
and headquarters boat turned back, but the “Vologjohnin” kept on going
until dark. Anchored opposite an island and at daybreak proceeded
further, finally reaching the only boat, the “Yarrents,” left on the
river front.

Before leaving Beresnik three more men were placed on board the boat.
The personnel aboard at this time consisted of Capt. Hall in charge,
two Russian female nurses, five American medical men and two British.

Upon arrival at Toulgas I received word from Major Whittaker that
sixteen wounded and six sick Royal Scots were located in the hospital
at Seltso, but that Seltso had been under shell fire that day and would
be too dangerous to bring hospital boat up. That night, under the cover
of darkness with all lights extinguished, I ordered hospital boat to
Seltso. We arrived at Seltso but the British troops who were stationed
there stated they knew nothing of the sick and wounded Royal Scots, but
that Royal Scots were stationed across the river. They stated that it
would be very dangerous to attempt to go across the river, and no one
on the hospital boat knew the exact location of the Royal Scots. After
a while a British sergeant stated that he would go along and direct the
way, but when the boat pulled out the sergeant was not to be found. But
we went across the river. The barge directly opposite was empty, so we
went to the next barge about two versts farther up. That one had been
sunk, so we went a few more versts to the third barge which had been
used by the Royal Scots but which had been evacuated by them that day.
I decided that we had gone far enough, and we returned to Toulgas. On
the way back we picked up two wounded officers of the Polish Legion,
who had just come from the Borak front, in a small rowboat, and stated
it was at that place that they had the sick and wounded Scots. It would
be impossible to reach this place by boat, because they had quite a
time in getting through with a small boat. They would not believe that
we had come up the river so far, and made the remark that we had been
within a few yards of the Bolshevik lines.

On Oct. 11th, after getting in touch with Major Whittaker, who stated
that the Royal Scots would be placed on the left bank of the river
opposite Seltso, I ordered the boat to Seltso to make another attempt
to get the Royal Scots. Although we had the window well covered, the
Bolsheviks must have seen the light from a candle which was used to
light the cabin. They began firing, but could not get the range of the
boat. We then returned without success.

On the afternoon of Oct. 12th, while Seltso was under shell fire, the
“Vologjohnin” was docked about twenty-nine yards behind the Allied
barge with the big naval gun, and did not leave until the shell fire
became heavy. About 8:00 p.m., after transferring the sick troops and
female nurses from the “Vologjohnin,” another attempt was made,
although the Russian crew refused to make another trip, and would not
start until I insisted that the trip had to be made and placed several
armed guards, American Medical men, on the boat. On this night the
medical supplies were handed over to Capt. Griffiths, R. A. M. C, and
casualties were safely placed on board. After returning to Toulgas the
female nurses and sick troops who had been left there were again placed
on board. The “Vologjohnin” proceeded to Beresnik where all casualties,
totaling forty-three, were handed over to the 337th Field Hospital.

(The Major modestly omits to tell that he with his pistol compelled the
crew to run the boat up to get the wounded men. General Pershing
remembered Major Hall later with a citation. He repeated the deed two
days later, that time for Americans instead of Scots.)

Left Beresnik Oct. 14th with hospital boat for Seltso and upon arrival
there, the town was again under shell fire. All afternoon and evening
the hospital boat was docked within twenty-five yards of the big gun.
Received reports that several Americans had been wounded so I ordered
the Russian crew and medical personnel of boat, with stretchers, to
upper Seltso to get the wounded. The seriously wounded had to be
carried on stretchers through mud almost knee deep, while the others
were placed on two-wheeled carts and brought to the boat, a distance of
two miles. After two hours they succeeded in getting six wounded
Americans on board, one dying, another almost dead, and a third in a
state of shock from a shrapnel wound in thigh. Necessary to ligate
heavy bleeders. Bolo patrol followed along after bearers.

That night the Allies retreated on both sides of the river. British
Commanding Officer taken aboard hospital boat. Remained over night
anchored in mid-stream. Nothing could have prevented the Bolo boats
from coming down stream and either sink our boat or take us prisoners,
for our guns were left in the retreat. Several wounded on opposite bank
but it was necessary for them to be evacuated overland for several
versts under most extreme difficulties on two-wheeled carts through mud
in many places to the horses’ bellies. By moving up and down stream
next day the wounded were found. It was necessary to have the boat
personnel serve what extra tea and hard tack they had to the weary,
mud-spattered Royal Scots.

Americans retreated to Toulgas on right bank of river where Lieut.
Katz, M. C., with medical detachment men established a detention
hospital.

On Oct. 16th thirty-five sick and wounded patients were transferred to
Field Hospital 337th, Beresnik. Capt. Kinyon, M. C.., Lieut. Danziger,
M. C., Lieut. Simmons, D. C., and one-half of Field Hospital 337th
arrived at Beresnik from base, and placed on board hospital boat
“Currier.” Arranged to take personnel and supplies to Shenkursk and
establish hospital there, at this time occupied by Capt. Watson and
fourteen R. A. M. C. men. Pvt. Stihler transferred to British hospital
barge “Michigan” to work in office of D. A. D. M. S. In addition to
being used for the office of the D. A. D. M. S., the barge was also
used for a convalescent hospital of forty beds, in charge of Capt.
Walls, R. A. M. C.

Left Beresnik Oct. 18th with complete equipment and personnel for
hospital of one hundred beds, also medical and Red Cross supplies. Many
refugees and several prisoners on board. Placed guards from medical
personnel over stores and prisoners. One prisoner tried to escape
through window of boat but was caught before he could get away.


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Trench Mortar Crew, Chekuevo—Hand Artillery._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (152755)
_Wounded and Sick—Over a Thousand in All._]


[Illustration: U S OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Bolo Killed in Action—For Russia or Trotsky?_]


[Illustration: ROULEAU
_Monastery at Pinega._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Russian 75’s Bound for Pinega._]


[Illustration: HILL
_“G” Men Near Pinega._]


[Illustration: HILL
_Lewis Gun Protects Mess Hall, Pinega._]


He was reported later as Bolshevik spy, another as a Lett officer.
Travel by night is against the rules of Russian river boat crew. Had to
use force to get them to continue moving. Arrived at Shenkursk Oct.
19th and delivered prisoners. Relieved Capt. Watson, R. A. M. C., and
personnel from duty at detention hospital, and started Field Hospital
337. Returned to Beresnik and found that hospital now working about
full capacity. After placing all seriously sick and wounded on board
hospital ship “Currier” we proceeded to Archangel, and arrived there
Oct. 22nd. Boat greatly in need of repairs.

Arranged with Major Longley to get Red Cross and medical supplies, and
had them placed aboard. Among the Red Cross supplies were ten bags of
sugar to be divided between the hospitals and used for the purpose of
bartering natives for vegetables, eggs and chickens.

Oct. 25th, 1918, weather growing colder. Departed for Beresnik on
hospital boat. The Russian crew did not want to travel at night but I
insisted and we kept on going. Awakened by cooties. After lighting my
candle found quite a number.

Oct. 26th, 1918, stopped for a short time to pick up wood. Awakened by
rumbling and cracking noise against boat and upon looking out saw we
were running through floating ice. This condition persisted for
thirty-five versts until we reached Beresnik. Crew stopped boat and
refused to go any farther. Necessary to use some moral “suasion.” When
we arrived at Beresnik found that one paddle was out of order and bow
of boat dented in many places and almost punctured in one place.

Reported to General Finlayson, who ordered me to proceed with boat
after unloading medical and Red Cross supplies, to Pianda, which is
about twelve versts back up river on a tributary of the Dvina River,
and report on the situation at Charastrovia for billets or building for
convalescent hospital. Left Bereznik for Pianda Oct. 28th and had to
run boat through two miles of almost solid ice, four inches thick. At
the mouth of this tributary had to make three attempts before
successfully penetrating ice enough to get into channel of stream.

The following day after leaving a few medical supplies with Canadian
Artillery Headquarters and arranging transportation for myself and
personnel, with a few cooking utensils and blankets, we started for
Beresnik. Stopped at Charastrovia and looked over several buildings but
nothing available worth while. Natives very unfriendly and suspicious.
Arrived at Beresnik, reported to the General and spent the night at
Field Hospital 337.

Oct. 30th left on tug “Archangel” for Kurgomin with dentist. Received
report that several casualties were there to be evacuated. Reached
Pless but found the river full of ice again. Captain of boat stated
that he could not get to Kurgomin, but within about three miles of the
place. Docked boat and walked through mud and water to my knees to
Kurgomin. Found there had been a small detention hospital of fifteen
beds established by Capt. Fortescue in charge of Capt. Watson, R. A. M.
C. Good building at Pless for a hospital of fifty or seventy-five beds,
which was necessary to be taken over and used as advance base
evacuating hospital after Dvina froze. Sent dentist with equipment over
to opposite bank to take care of men’s teeth of Co. “B”, then holding
the front on the left bank. Getting his field equipment together and
using cabin as his office, he was able to care for twenty men. All to
be evacuated were walking cases. Very dark and mud twelve inches deep.
Officially reported that Bolos were coming around the rear that night.
We arrived tired, but safely, where the boat was waiting and returned
eight miles through ice. Waited until morning before going farther and
at daybreak started for Chamova. Stopped there while dentist cared for
several Co. “D” men. Finally reached Beresnik after being stuck on sand
bars many times, as river was very shallow at that time of the year and
channel variable. Handed patients over and spent night at Field
Hospital 337.

Following day found it necessary to be deloused. We had nothing but
Serbian barrels for clothing disinfectors at that time. Reported that a
thresh delouser had been started for Beresnik. Sanitation greatly
improved.

After a few days’ rest and arranging with engineers to make ambulance
sled, started again on tug “Archangel” for Dvina front. On the way only
one hour when boat ran aground, and after two hours’ work (pushing with
poles by all on board) we succeeded getting into channel and anchored
for the night.

Started again at daybreak and stopped at Chamova. “D” Company 339th
Infantry at that place with one medical enlisted man, who had taken
three years in medicine. The only man with medical knowledge available.
He had established an aid station with two stretchers for beds. Place
comfortable and clean. General sanitation and billeting the same as in
all other Russian villages.

Reached Pless and left some medical stores with Capt. Watson, then
proceeded to Toulgas with medical and Red Cross supplies. On way to
headquarters a few stray shots were fired by snipers, but no harm done.

Left medical and Red Cross supplies at Lower Toulgas and took aboard
eight sick and wounded troops. Started for Beresnik. Stopped at Chamova
to pick up one sick and one wounded American.

Arrived at Beresnik Nov. 8th. With medical and Red Cross supplies left
for Shenkursk on hospital ship “Currier.” Natives very friendly along
the Vaga River and anxious to barter. Arrived at Shenkursk Nov. 11th.

Over one hundred patients in hospital. Officers had taken over an
additional building for contagious ward which was full of “flu” and
pneumonia cases. With every caution against the spread of the disease,
the epidemic was growing. Russian soldier seems to have no resistance,
probably due to the lack of proper kind of food for the last four
years. Seven at hospital morgue at one time, before we could get
coffins made. People were dying by hundreds in the neighboring
villages. Found it necessary to try and organize medical assistance in
order to combat the epidemic. Funerals of three or four passed wailing
through the streets every few hours.

The Russian funeral at Shenkursk was as follows: Corpse is carried out
in the open on the lid of the coffin, face exposed, and a yellow robe
(used for every funeral) is thrown over the body. The body is then
carried to the church where there is little or no ventilation except
when the doors are opened. Here during the chants every member of the
funeral party, at different times during the service, proceeds to kiss
the same spot on an image, held by the priest. It is their belief that
during a religious service it is impossible to contract disease.

Visited civilian hospitals Nov. 16th, which were in a most horrible
state. No ventilation and practically all with Spanish influenza and,
in addition, many with gangrenous wounds. Tried to enlighten the
Russian doctor in charge with the fact that fresh air would be
beneficial to his cases. But he seemed to think I was entirely out of
my sphere and ignored what I said. I reported the situation to British
headquarters and thereafter he reluctantly did as I suggested. Then
arranged with headquarters to send Russian medical officer and felchers
with American medical officers out to villages where assistance was
needed most, instructing each to impress on the natives the necessity
of fresh air and proper hygiene. They found there was such a shortage
of the proper kind of food that the people had no resistance against
disease, and were dying by the hundreds. In the meantime established
annex to civilian hospital in a school building. Had wooden beds made
and placed felchers in charge.

Tried to segregate cases in Shenkursk and immediate vicinity as much as
possible. After getting everything in working order I found a shortage
of doctors. So I proceeded to villages not yet reached by others.
Report from Ust Padenga that Lieut. Cuff and fourteen enlisted men
killed or missing on patrol Nov. 29th; some of the bodies recovered.

Weather growing colder. Twenty degrees below zero, with snow four
inches deep. Evacuated sick and wounded from Ust Padenga eighteen
versts beyond Shenkursk in sleds filled with hay and blankets necessary
for warmth. Shakleton shoes had not arrived at that time. Most cases
coming back in good condition, but pneumonia cases would not stand the
exposure. Condition at Ust Padenga very uncertain. Lieut. Powers and
Lieut. Taufanoff in charge of ten-bed detention hospital. Advised them
to keep their hospital clear for an emergency.

Action reported on Dvina and hospital captured; later retaken. Slight
action every day or so at Ust Padenga. Lieut. Powers caring for all
civilians in and around that place. Visited one home where I found the
father sick and in adjoining room the corpse of his wife and two
children. In another village I found twenty-four sick in four families;
eight of which were pneumonia cases. In one peasant home, six in
family, all sick with a child of eight years running a fever, but
trying to care for others. All sleeping in the same room; three on the
floor and balance together in a loft made by laying boards between the
sills. They informed me that no food had been cooked for them for three
days. The child eight years old was then trying to make some tea. This
same room was used as a dining room and kitchen. It had double windows,
all sealed air-tight.

Russian troops very difficult to discipline along sanitary or hygienic
lines and have no idea of cleanliness. A guard on the latrine was an
absolute necessity. I adopted this plan in hospital, but impossible to
get their officers to follow this rule at their barracks latrines.
Reported it to British headquarters but they stated that they could not
do anything.

Dec. 8th, 1918. Left by sled for Ust Padenga to inspect hospital.
Arrived at 11:00 a.m. Very cold day. General conditions very good
considering circumstances. Using pits out in open for latrines. Men
living in double-decker beds, and as comfortable as possible in the
available billets. Hospital consisted of two rooms in a log hut, but
light, dry and comfortable. Beds improvised with stretchers laid across
wooden horses. Had three casualties which they were evacuating that
day.

Started for Shenkursk at 3:00 p.m. Began snowing and my driver
proceeded in circles leaving the horse go as he chose. A Russian custom
when they lose their bearings. I got somewhat anxious and had been
trying to inquire with the few Russian terms I had been forced to
learn. Driver stated that he did not know the way, and we ran into snow
drifts, into gullies, over bluffs, through bushes, and after
floundering around in the snow for six hours I heard the bugle from
Shenkursk which was just across the river. I then started the direction
which I thought was up the river and by good luck, ran into the road
that led across the Vaga to Shenkursk.

December 12th, 1918. Hospital inspected by Major Fitzpatrick of
American Red Cross.

December 14th, 1918. Left Shenkursk for Shegovari where Lieut.
Goodnight and 337th Ambulance men were running a detention hospital of
eight beds and infirmary for American platoon, stationed at that place
which is forty versts down Vaga river from Shenkursk toward Beresnik,
where we arrived at 6:00 p.m. Looked over his hospital and continued on
to Kitsa. Remained over night and left at daylight December 15th, going
across Vaga through woods to Chamova, arriving at noon. Very cold day.

Here given a team of horses and proceeded to Toulgas, the farthest
Dvina front. Found small hospital with several sick at Lower Toulgas in
charge of British medical officer. Stayed over night at headquarters
two versts further up the river. The following day some artillery
firing. Proceeded to front line dressing station in charge of Lieut.
Christie and ten 337th Ambulance men. One from advance headquarters on
left bank, British holding front. One company of Americans and one of
Scots on right bank. Stopped at Shushuga on return, eight versts from
Toulgas. Across the river from this place is Pless where an evacuation
hospital was conducted by Capt. Watson, R. A. M. C., with fourteen
British and one American Ambulance man, used as a cook and interpreter.
Stretchers used for beds. Casualties held here for two or three days
and evacuated by sled to Beresnik about fifty versts to the rear. At
Shushuga there were two Ambulance men conducting a first aid station.
Village held by one platoon of Americans.

Returned to Beresnik making a change of horses at Chamova and Ust Vaga.
The latter place held by twenty-eight American engineers and about one
hundred Russians. First aid given by a Russian felcher.

Inspected wards, kitchen, food, etc. Found there was no complaint as to
treatment received. December 16th, 1918. With rations for five days
left for Archangel by sleigh, making a change of horses about every
twenty versts. Arrived at Archangel at 2:00 p.m., December 23, 1918.




XII
ARMISTICE DAY WITH AMERICANS IN NORTH RUSSIA


“B” And “D” Busy With Attacking Bolos—“L” Vigilantly Holding Front Near
Kodish—Quiet On Other Fronts—Engineers Building Blockhouses With
Willing Assistance Of Doughboys—How Was Our Little War Affected—“We’re
Here Because We’re Here”—No Share In Victory Shouting—“F” On Lines Of
Communication.


Armistice Day, November 11th, 1918, with American soldiers in North
Russia, was a day of stern activity for continued war. A great thrill
of pride possessed the entire force because the Yanks on the Western
Front had been in at the death of Hun militarism. The wonderful drives
of our armies under Pershing which crushed in the Hindenberg Lines, one
after another, had been briefly wirelessed and cabled up to Russia. We
got the joyful news in Archangel on the very day the fighting ceased on
the Western Front.

But the “B” and “D” Company men were too busy on Armistice Day to
listen to rumors of world peace. The Reds had staged that awful
four-day battle, told next in this story, and the American medical and
hospital men were sadly busy with thirty bleeding and dead comrades who
had fallen in defending Toulgas. “C” was far out at Ust Padenga
earnestly building blockhouses. “A” was at Shenkursk with Colonel
Corbley, resting after two months stiff fighting and with American
Engineers of the 310th building blockhouses. For they correctly
suspected that the Reds would not quit just because of the collapse of
the Germans.

“L” Company and Ballard’s Machine Gun platoon were hourly prepared to
fight for their position at the Emtsa River against the Red force
flushed with the victorious recapture of Kodish. 310th Engineers were
skillfully and heartily at work on the blockhouses and gun emplacements
and log shelters for this Kodish force, doomed to a desperate winter,
armistice or no armistice. Old “K” Company, breathless yet from its
terrific struggle to hold Kodish, was back at base headquarters at
Seletskoe waiting patiently for “E” Company to relieve them.

Captain Heil’s company had left Archangel by railroad and was somewhere
on the cold forest trail between Obozerskaya and Seletskoe.

“F” Company, as we have seen, was now on the precious lines of
communication, now more subject to attack because of the numerous
winter trails across the hitherto broad, impassable expanses of forest
and swamp, which were now beginning to freeze up. Far out on their left
flank and to their rear was the little force of “G” Company who were
holding Pinega and a long sector of road which was daily becoming more
difficult to safeguard. And hundreds of miles across this state of
Archangel in the Onega Valley our “H” Company comrades felt the
responsibility of wiring in themselves for a last ditch stand against
the Reds who might try to drive them back and flank their American and
Allied comrades on the railroad.

On the railroad the 3l0th Engineers were busy as beavers building, with
the assistance of the infantrymen, blockhouses and barracks and gun
emplacements and so forth. For, while the advanced positions on the
railroad were of no value in themselves, it was necessary to hold them
for the sake of the other columns. Obozerskaya was to be the depot and
sleigh transportation point of most consequence next to Seletskoe,
which itself in winter was greatly dependent on Obozerskaya.

“I” and “M” Companies were resting from the hard fall offensive
movement, the former unit at Obozerskaya, the latter just setting foot
for the first time in Archangel for a ten day rest, the company having
gone directly from troopship to troop train and having been “shock
troops” in everyone of the successive drives at the Red army positions.

In Archangel “Hq.” Company units were assisting Machine Gun units in
guarding important public works and marching in strength occasionally
on the streets to glare down the scowling sailors and other Red
sympathizers who, it was rumored persistently, were plotting a riot and
overthrow of the Tchaikowsky government and throat-cutting for the
Allied Embassies and military missions.

Oh, Armistice Day in Archangel made peace in our strange war no nearer.
It was dark foreboding of the winter campaign that filled the thoughts
of the doughboy on duty or lying in the hospital in Archangel that day.
Out on the various fronts the American soldiers grimly understood that
they must hold on where they were for the sake of their comrades on
other distant but nevertheless cotangent fronts on the circular line
that guard Archangel. In Archangel the bitter realization was at last
accepted that no more American troops were to come to our assistance.

Of course every place where two American soldiers or officers exchanged
words on Armistice Day, or the immediate days following, the chief
topic of conversation was the possible effect of the armistice upon our
little war. Vainly the scant telegraphic news was studied for any
reference to the Russian situation in the Archangel area. Was our
unofficial war on Russia’s Red government to go on? How could armistice
terms be extended to it without a tacit recognition of the
Lenine-Trotsky government?

As one of the boys who was upon the Dvina front writes: “We would have
given anything we owned and mortgaged our every expectation to have
been one of that great delirious, riotous mob that surged over Paris on
Armistice Day; and we thought we had something of a title to have been
there for we claimed the army of Pershing for our own, even though we
had been sent to the Arctic Circle; and now that the whole show was
over we wanted to have our share in the shouting.”

But the days, deadly and monotonous, followed one another with ever
gloomy regularity, and there was no promise of relief, no word, no news
of any kind, except the stories of troops returning home from France.
Doubtless in the general hilarity over peace, we were forgotten. After
all, who had time in these world stirring days to think of an
insignificant regiment performing in a fantastic Arctic side show.

Truth to tell, the Red propagandists on Trotsky’s Northern Army staff
quickly seized the opportunity to tell the Allied troops in North
Russia that the war was over and asked us what we were fighting for.
They did it cleverly, as will be told elsewhere. Yet the doughboy only
swore softly and shined his rifle barrel. He could not get information
straight from home. He was sore. But why fret? His best answer was the
philosophic “We’re here because we’re here” and he went on building
blockhouses and preparing to do his best to save his life in the
inevitable winter campaign which began (we may say) about the time of
the great world war Armistice Day, which in North Russia did not mean
cease firing.

Before passing to the story of the dark winter’s fighting we must
notice one remaining unit of the American forces, hitherto only
mentioned. It is the unit that after doing tedious guard duty in
Archangel and its suburbs for a couple of months, all the while
listening impatiently to stories of adventure and hardship and heroism
filtering in from the fronts and the highly imaginative stories of
impending enemy smashes and atrocities rumoring in from those same
fronts and gaining color and tragic proportions in the mouth-to-mouth
transit, that unit “F” Company, the prize drill company of Camp Custer
in its young life, now on October 30th found itself on a slow-going
barge en route to Yemetskoe, one hundred and twenty-five versts, as the
side wheeler wheezed up the meandering old Dvina River.

There in the last days of the fall season this company of Americans
took over the duty of patrolling constantly the line of communications
and all trails leading into it so that no wandering force of Red Guards
should capture any of the numerous supply trains bound south with food,
powder and comforts—such as they were—for the Americans and Allied
forces far south on the Dvina and Vaga fronts.

It was highly important work admirably done by this outfit commanded by
Captain Ralph Ramsay. Any slackening of alertness might have resulted
disastrously to their regimental comrades away south, and while this
outfit was the last of the 339th to go into active field service it may
be said in passing that in the spring it was the last unit to come away
from the fighting front in June, and came with a gallant record, story
of which will appear later. Winter blizzards found the outfit broken
into trusty detachments scattered all the way from Kholmogori, ninety
versts north of Yemetskoe, to Morjegorskaya, fifty-five versts south of
company headquarters in Yemetskoe. And it was common occurrence for a
sergeant of “F” Company with a “handful of doughboys” to escort a mob
of Bolshevik prisoners of war to distant Archangel.




XIII
WINTER DEFENSE OF TOULGAS


General Ironside Makes Expedition Aim Defensive—Bolsheviki Help Give It
Character—Toulgas—Surprise Attack Nov. 11th By Reds—Canadian Artillery
Escapes Capture—We Win Back Our Positions—“Lady Olga” Saves Wounded
Men—Heroic Wallace—Cudahy And Derham Carry Upper Toulgas By
Assault—Foukes—A Jubilant Bonfire—Many Prisoners—Ivan Puzzled By Our
War—Bolo Attack In January Fails—Dresing Nearly Takes Prisoner—Winter
Patrolling—Corporal Prince’s Patrol Ambushed—We Hold Toulgas.


General Ironside had now taken over command of the expedition and
changed its character more to accord with the stated purpose of it. We
were on the defensive. The Bolshevik whose frantic rear-guard actions
during the fall campaign had often been given up, even when he was
really having the best of it, merely because he always interpreted the
persistence of American attack or stubbornness of defense to mean
superior force. He had learned that the North Russian Expeditionary
Force was really a pitifully small force, and that there was so much
fussing at home in England and France and America about the justice and
the methods of the expedition, that no large reinforcements need be
expected. So the Bolsheviks on Armistice Day, November 11, began their
counter offensive movement which was to merge with their heavy winter
campaign. So the battle of November 11th is included in the narrative
of the winter defense of Toulgas.

Toulgas was the duplicate of thousands of similar villages throughout
this province. It consisted of a group of low, dirty log houses huddled
together on a hill, sloping down to a broad plain, where was located
another group of houses, known as Upper Toulgas. A small stream flowed
between the two villages and nearly a mile to the rear was another
group of buildings which was used for a hospital and where first aid
was given to the wounded before evacuating them to Bereznik, forty or
fifty miles down the river.

The forces engaged in the defense of this position consisted of several
batteries of Canadian artillery, posted midway between the hospital and
the main village. In addition to this “B” Company, American troops, and
another company of Royal Scots were scattered in and about these
positions. From the upper village back to the hospital stretched a good
three miles, which of course meant that the troops in this position,
numbering not more than five hundred were considerably scattered and
separated. This detailed description of our position here is set forth
so specifically in order that the reader may appreciate the attack
which occurred during the early part of November.

On the morning of November 11th, while some of the men were still
engaged in eating their breakfasts and while the positions were only
about half manned, suddenly from the forests surrounding the upper
village, the enemy emerged in attack formation. Lieut. Dennis engaged
them for a short time and withdrew to our main line of defense. All
hands were immediately mustered into position to repel this advancing
wave of infantry. In the meantime the Bolo attacked with about five
hundred men from our rear, having made a three day march through what
had been reported as impassable swamp. He occupied our rearmost
village, which was undefended, and attacked our hospital. This forward
attack was merely a ruse to divert the attention of our troops in that
direction, while the enemy directed his main assault at our rear and
undefended positions for the purpose of gaining our artillery. Hundreds
of the enemy appeared as if by magic from the forests, swarmed in upon
the hospital village and immediately took possession. Immediately the
hospital village was in their hands, the Bolo then commenced a
desperate advance upon our guns.

At the moment that this advance began, there were some sixty Canadian
artillery men and one Company “B” sergeant with seven men and a Lewis
gun. Due to the heroism and coolness of this handful of men, who at
once opened fire with their Lewis guns, forcing the advancing infantry
to pause momentarily. This brief halt gave the Canadians a chance to
reverse their gun positions, swing them around and open up with muzzle
bursts upon the first wave of the assault, scarcely fifty yards away.
It was but a moment until the hurricane of shrapnel was bursting among
solid masses of advancing infantry, and under such murderous fire, the
best disciplined troops and the most foolhardly could not long
withstand. Certain it was that the advancing Bolo could not continue
his advance. The Bolos were on our front, our right flank and our rear,
we were entirely cut off from communication, and there were no
reinforcements available. About 4:00 p. m. we launched a small counter
attack under Lt. Dennis, which rolled up a line of snipers which had
given us considerable annoyance. We then shelled the rear villages
occupied by the Bolos, and they decamped. Meanwhile the Royal Scots,
who had been formed for the counter attack, went forward also under the
cover of the artillery, and the Bolo, or at least those few remaining,
were driven back into the forests.

The enemy losses during this attack were enormous. His estimated dead
and wounded were approximately four hundred, but it will never be known
as to how many of them later died in the surrounding forests from
wounds and exposure. This engagement was not [only] disastrous from the
loss of men, but was even more disastrous from the fact that some of
the leading Bolshevik leaders on this front were killed during this
engagement. One of the leading commanders was an extremely powerful
giant of a man, named Melochofski, who first led his troops into the
village hospital in the rear of the gun positions. He strode into the
hospital, wearing a huge black fur hat, which accentuated his
extraordinary height, and singled out all the wounded American and
English troops for immediate execution, and this would undoubtedly have
been their fate, had it not been for the interference of a most
remarkable woman, who was christened by the soldiers “Lady Olga.”

This woman, a striking and intelligent appearing person, had formerly
been a member of the famous Battalion of Death, and afterwards informed
one of our interpreters that she had joined the Soviets out of pure
love of adventure, wholly indifferent to the cause for which she
exposed her life. She had fallen in love with Melochofski and had
accompanied him with his troops through the trackless woods, sharing
the lot of the common soldiers and enduring hardships that would have
shaken the most vigorous man. With all her hardihood, however, there
was still a touch of the eternal feminine, and when Melochofski issued
orders for the slaughter of the invalided soldiers, she rushed forward
and in no uncertain tones demanded that the order be countermanded and
threatened to shoot the first Bolo who entered the hospital. She
herself remained in the hospital while Melochofski with the balance of
his troops went forward with the attack and where he himself was so
mortally wounded that he lived only a few minutes after reaching her
side. She eventually was sent to the hospital at the base and nursed
there. Capt. Boyd states that he saw a letter which she wrote,
unsolicited, to her former comrades, telling them that they should not
believe the lies which their commissars told them, and that the Allies
were fighting for the good of Russia.

At daybreak the following day, five gun boats appeared around the bend
of the river, just out of range of our three inch artillery, and all
day long their ten long ranged guns pounded away at our positions,
crashing great explosives upon our blockhouse, which guarded the bridge
connecting the upper and middle village, while in the forests
surrounding this position the Bolo infantry were lying in wait awaiting
for a direct hit upon this strong point in order that they could rush
the bridge and overwhelm us. Time after time exploding shells threw
huge mounds of earth and debris into the loop holes of this blockhouse
and all but demolished it.

Here Sergeant Wallace performed a particularly brave act. The
blockhouse of which he was in command was near a large straw pile. A
shell hit near the straw and threw it in front of the loop holes.
Wallace went out under machine gun fire from close range, about
seventy-five yards, and under heavy shelling, and removed the straw.
The same thing happened a little later, and this time he was severely
wounded. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal by the British.
Private Bell was in this blockhouse when it was hit and all the
occupants killed or badly wounded. Bell was badly gashed in the face,
but stuck with his Lewis gun until dark when he could be relieved,
being the only one in the shattered blockhouse which held the bridge
across the small stream separating us from the Bolos.

For three days the gun boats pounded away and all night long there was
the rattle and crack of the machine guns. No one slept. The little
garrison was fast becoming exhausted. Men were hollow-eyed from
weariness and so utterly tired that they were indifferent to the
shrieking shells and all else. At this point of the siege, it was
decided that our only salvation was a counter attack. In the forests
near the upper village were a number of log huts, which the natives had
used for charcoal kilns, but which had been converted by the enemy into
observation posts and storehouses for machine guns and ammunition. His
troops were lying in and about the woods surrounding these buildings.
We decided to surprise this detachment in the woods, capture it if
possible and make a great demonstration of an attack so as to give the
enemy in the upper village the impression that we were receiving
reinforcements and still fresh and ready for fighting. This maneuver
succeeded far beyond our wildest expectations.

Company “B,” under command of Lt. John Cudahy, and one platoon of
Company “D” under Lt. Derham, made the counter attack on the Bolo
trenches. Just before dawn that morning the Americans filed through the
forests and crept upon the enemy’s observation posts before they were
aware of any movement on our part. We then proceeded without any
warning upon their main position. Taken as they were, completely by
surprise, it was but a moment before they were in full rout, running
panic-stricken in all directions, thinking that a regiment or division
had followed upon them. We immediately set fire to these huts
containing their ammunition, cartridges, etc., and the subsequent
explosion that followed probably gave the enemy the impression that a
terrific attack was pending. As we emerged from the woods and commenced
the attack upon upper Toulgas we were fully expecting stiff resistance,
for we knew that many of these houses concealed enemy guns. Our plans
had succeeded so well, however, that no supporting fire from the upper
village came and the snipers in the forward part of the village seeing
themselves abandoned, threw their guns and came rushing forward
shouting _“tovarish, tovarish,”_ meaning the same as the German
“_kamerad._” As a matter of fact, in this motley crew of prisoners were
a number of Germans and Austrians, who could scarcely speak a word of
German and who were probably more than thankful to be taken prisoners
and thus be relieved from active warfare.

During this maneuver one of their bravest and ablest commanders, by the
name of Foukes, was killed, which was an irreparable loss to the enemy.
Foukes was without question one of the most competent and aggressive of
the Bolo leaders. He was a very powerful man physically and had long
years of service as a private in the old Russian Army, and was without
question a most able leader of men. During this four days’ attack and
counter attack he had led his men by a circuitous route through the
forests, wading in swamps waist deep, carrying machine guns and
rations. The nights were of course miserably cold and considerable snow
had fallen, but Foukes would risk no fire of any kind for fear of
discovery. It was not due to any lack of ability or strategy on his
part that this well planned attack failed of accomplishment. On his
body we found a dramatic message, written on the second day of the
battle after the assault on the guns had failed. He was with the rear
forces at that time and dispatched or had intended to dispatch the
following to the command in charge of the forward forces:

“We are in the two lowest villages—one steamer coming up river—perhaps
reinforcements. Attack more vigorously—Melochofski and Murafski are
killed. If you do not attack, I cannot hold on and retreat is
impossible. (Signed) FOUKES.”


Out of our force of about six hundred Scots and Americans we had about
a hundred casualties, the Scots suffering worse than we. Our casualties
were mostly sustained in the blockhouses, from the shelling. It was
here that we lost Corporal Sabada and Sergeant Marriott, both of whom
were fine soldiers and their loss was very keenly felt. Sabada’s dying
words were instructions to his squad to hold their position in the rear
of their blockhouse which had been destroyed.

It was reported that Trotsky, the idol of the Red crowd, was present at
the battle of Toulgas, but if he was there, he had little influence in
checking the riotous retreat of his followers when they thought
themselves flanked from the woods. They fled in wild disorder from the
upper village of Toulgas and for days thereafter in villages far to our
rear, various members of this force straggled in, half crazed by
starvation and exposure and more than willing to abandon the Soviet
cause. For weeks the enemy left the Americans severely alone. Toulgas
was held.

But it was decided to burn Upper Toulgas, which was a constant menace
to our security, as we had no men to occupy it with sufficient numbers
to make a defense and the small outposts there were tempting morsels
for the enemy to devour. Many were reluctant to stay there, and it was
nervous work on the black nights when the wind, dismal and weird,
moaned through the encompassing forest, every shadow a crouching
Bolshevik. Often the order came through to the main village to “stand
to,” because some fidgety sentinel in Upper Toulgas had seen
battalions, conjured by the black night. So it was determined to burn
the upper village and a guard was thrown around it, for we feared word
would be passed and the Bolos would try to prevent us from
accomplishing our purpose. The inhabitants were given three hours to
vacate. It was a pitiful sight to see them turned out of the dwellings
where most of them had spent their whole simple, not unhappy lives,
their meagre possessions scattered awry upon the ground.

The first snow floated down from a dark foreboding sky, dread announcer
of a cruel Arctic winter. Soon the houses were roaring flames. The
women sat upon hand-fashioned crates wherein were all their most prized
household goods, and abandoned themselves to a paroxysm of weeping
despair, while the children shrieked stridently, victim of all the
realistic horrors that only childhood can conjure. Most of the men
looked on in silence, uncomprehending resignation on their faces, mute,
pathetic figures. Poor moujiks! They didn’t understand, but they took
all uncomplainingly. _Nitchevoo_, fate had decreed that they should
suffer this burden, and so they accepted it without question.

But when we thought of the brave chaps whose lives had been taken from
those flaming homes, for our casualties had been very heavy, nearly one
hundred men killed and wounded, we stifled our compassion and looked on
the blazing scene as a jubilant bonfire. All night long the burning
village was red against the black sky, and in the morning where had
stood Upper Toulgas was now a smoking, dirty smudge upon the plain.

We took many prisoners in this second fight of Toulgas. It was a trick
of the Bolos to sham death until a searching party, bent on examining
the bodies for information, would approach them, when suddenly they
would spring to life and deliver themselves up. These said that only by
this method could they escape the tyranny of the Bolsheviki. They
declared that never had they any sympathy with the Soviet cause. They
didn’t understand it. They had been forced into the Red Army at the
point of a gun, and were kept in it by the same persuasive argument.
Others said they had joined the Bolshevik military forces to escape
starvation.

There was only one of the thirty prisoners who admitted being an ardent
follower of the cause, and a believer in the Soviet articles of
political doctrine, and this was an admission that took a great deal of
courage, for it was instilled universally in the Bolos that we showed
no mercy, and if they fell into the hands of the cruel Angliskis and
Americanskis there was nothing but a hideous death for them.

Of course our High Command had tried to feed our troops the same kind
of propaganda. Lenine, himself, said that of every one hundred
Bolsheviks fifty were knaves, forty were fools, and probably one in the
hundred a sincere believer. Once a Bolshevik commander who gave himself
up to us said that the great majority of officers in the Soviet forces
had been conscripted from the Imperial Army and were kept in order by
threats to massacre their families if they showed the slightest
tendency towards desertion. The same officer told me the Bolshevik
party was hopelessly in the minority, that its adherents numbered only
about three and a half in every hundred Russians, that it had gained
ascendancy and held power only because Lenine and Trotsky inaugurated
their revolution by seizing every machine gun in Russia and steadfastly
holding on to them. He said that every respectable person looked upon
the Bolsheviks as a gang of cutthroats and ruffians, but all were
bullied into passive submission.

We heard him wonderingly. We tried to fancy America ever being
brow-beaten and cowed by an insignificant minority, her commercial life
prostrated, her industries ravished, and we gave the speculation up as
an unworthy reflection upon our country. But this was Russia, Russia
who inspired the world by her courage and fortitude in the great war,
and while it was at its most critical stage, fresh with the memories of
millions slain on Gallician fields, concluded the shameful treaty of
Brest Litovsk, betraying everything for which those millions had died.
Russia, following the visionary Kerensky from disorder to chaos, and
eventually wallowing in the mire of Bolshevism. Yes, one can expect
anything in Russia.

They were a hardboiled looking lot, those Bolo prisoners. They wore no
regulation uniform, but were clad in much the same attire as an
ordinary moujik—knee leather boots and high hats of gray and black
curled fur. No one could distinguish them from a distance, and every
peasant could be Bolshevik. Who knew? In fact, we had reason to believe
that many of them were Bolshevik in sympathy. The Bolos had an uncanny
knowledge of our strength and the state of our defenses, and although
no one except soldiers were allowed beyond the village we knew that
despite the closest vigilance there was working unceasingly a system of
enemy espionage with which we could never hope to cope.

Some of the prisoners were mere boys seventeen and eighteen years old.
Others men of advanced years. Nearly all of them were hopelessly
ignorant, likely material for a fiery tongued orator and plausible
propagandist. They thought the Americans were supporting the British in
an invasion of Russia to suppress all democratic government, and to
return a Romanoff to the throne.

That was the story that was given out to the moujiks, and, of course,
they firmly believed it, and after all why should they not, judging by
appearances? We quote here from an American officer who fought at
Toulgas:

“If we had not come to restore the Tsar, why had we come, invading
Russia, and burning Russian homes? We spoke conciliatingly of ‘friendly
intervention,’ of bringing peace and order to this distracted country,
to the poor moujik, when what he saw were his villages a torn battle
ground of two contending armies, while the one had forced itself upon
him, requisitioned his shaggy pony, burned the roof over his head, and
did whatever military necessity dictated. It was small concern to Ivan
whether the Allies or the Bolsheviks won this strange war. He did not
know what it was all about, and in that he was like the rest of us. But
he asked only to be left alone, in peace to lead his simple life,
gathering his scanty crops in the hot brief months of summer and
dreaming away the long dreary winter on top of his great oven-like
stove, an unworrying fatalistic disciple of the philosophy of
nitchevoo.”


After the fierce battle to hold Toulgas, the only contact with the
enemy was by patrols. “D” Company came up from Chamova and relieved “B”
Company for a month. Work was constantly expended upon the winter
defenses. The detachment of 310th Engineers was to our men an
invaluable aid. And when “B” went up to Toulgas again late in January,
they found the fortifications in fine shape. But meanwhile rumors were
coming in persistently of an impending attack.

The Bolo made his long expected night attack January 29, in conjunction
with his drive on the Vaga, and was easily repulsed. Another similar
attack was made a little later in February, which met with a similar
result. It was reported to us that the Bolo soldiers held a meeting in
which they declared that it was impossible to take Toulgas, and that
they would shoot any officer who ordered another attack there.

It was during one of the fracases that Lt. Dressing captured his
prisoner. With a sergeant he was inspecting the wire, shortly after the
Bolo had been driven back, and came upon a Bolo who threw up his hands.
Dressing drew his revolver, and the sergeant brought his rifle down to
a threatening position, the Bolo became frightened and seized the
bayonet. Dressing wishing to take the prisoner alive grabbed his
revolver by the barrel and aimed a mighty swing. Unfortunately he
forgot that the British revolver is fastened to a lanyard, and that the
lanyard was around his shoulder. As a result his swing was stopped in
midair, nearly breaking his arm, the Bolo dropped the bayonet and took
it on the run, getting away safely, leaving Dressing with nothing to
bring in but a report.

March 1st we met with a disaster, one of our patrols being ambushed,
and a platoon sent out to recover the wounded meeting a largely
superior force, which was finally dispersed by artillery. We lost eight
killed and more wounded. Sergeant Bowman, one of the finest men it has
been my privilege to know, was killed in this action and his death was
a blow personally to every man in the company.

Corporal Prince was in command of the first patrol, which was ambushed.
In trying to assist the point, who was wounded, Prince was hit. When we
finally reached the place of this encounter the snow showed that Prince
had crawled about forty yards after he was wounded and fired his rifle
several times. He had been taken prisoner.

From this time on the fighting in the Upper Dvina was limited to the
mere patrol activities. There to be sure was always a strain on the
men. Remembering their comrades who had been ambushed before, it took
the sturdiest brand of courage for small parties to go out day and
night on the hard packed trails, to pass like deer along a marked
runway with hunter ready with cocked rifle. The odds were hopelessly
against them. The vigilance of their patrols, however, may account for
the fact that even after his great success on the Vaga, the commander
of Bolshevik Northern Army did not send his forces against the
formidably guarded Toulgas.

One day we were ordered by British headquarters to patrol many miles
across the river where it had been reported small parties of Bolos were
raiding a village. We had seventeen sleighs drawn by little shaggy
ponies, which we left standing in their harnesses and attached to the
sleighs while we slept among the trees beside a great roaring blaze
that our Russian drivers piled high with big logs the whole night
through; and the next morning, in the phantom gloom we were off again,
gliding noiselessly through the forest, charged with the unutterable
stillness of infinite ethereal space; but, as the shadows paled, there
was unfolded a fairyland of enchanted wonders that I shall always
remember. Invisible hands of artistry had draped the countless pines
with garlands and wreaths of white with filmy aigrettes and huge,
ponderous globes and festoons woven by the frost in an exquisite and
fantastic handiwork; and when the sun came out, as it did for a few
moments, every ornament on those decorated Christmas trees glittered
and twinkled with the magic of ten thousand candles. It was enchanted
toyland spread before us and we were held spell bound by a profusion of
airy wonders that unfolded without end as we threaded our way through
the forest flanked by the straight, towering trunks.

After a few miles the ponies could go no further through the high
drifts, so we left them and made our way on snowshoes a long distance
to a group of log houses the reported rendezvous of the Bolsheviks, but
there were no Bolos there, nor any signs of recent occupancy, so we
burned the huts and very wearily dragged our snow shoes the long way
back to the ponies. They were wet with sweat when we left them belly
deep in the snow; but there they were, waiting with an attitude of
patient resignation truly Russian and they made the journey homeward
with more speed and in higher spirits than when they came. There is
only one thing tougher than the Russian pony and that is his driver,
for the worthies who conducted us on this lengthy journey walked most
of the way through the snow and in the intense cold, eating a little
black bread, washed down with hot tea, and sleeping not at all.


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Something Like a Selective Draft._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_Watch-Tower, Verst 455._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_Toulgas Outpost._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_One of a Bolo Patrol._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_Patrolling._]


Those long weeks of patrol and sentry duty were wearing on the men.
Sentinels were continually seeing things at night that were not. Once
we were hurried out into the cold darkness by the report of a great
multitude of muttering voices approaching from the forest, but not a
shot answered our challenge and the next morning there in the snow were
the fresh tracks of timber wolves—a pack had come to the end of the
woods—no wonder the Detroit fruit salesman on guard thought the Bolos
were upon us.

But not long afterwards the Bolos did come and more cunningly and
stealthily than the wolf pack, for in the black night they crept up and
were engaged in the act of cutting the barbed wire between the
blockhouses, when a sentinel felt—there was no sound—something
suspicious, and sped a series of machine gun bullets in the direction
he suspected. There was a fight lasting for hours, and in the morning
many dead Bolos were lying in the deep snow beyond the wire defenses.
They wore white smocks which, at any distance, in the dim daylight,
blended distinctly with the snow and at night were perfectly invisible.
We were grateful to the sentinel with the intuitive sense of impending
danger. Some soldiers have this intuition. It is beyond explanation but
it exists. You have only to ask a soldier who has been in battle combat
to verify the truth of this assertion.

Still we decided not to rely entirely upon this remarkable faculty of
intuition, some man might be on watch not so gifted; and so we tramped
down a path inside the wire encompassing the center village. During the
long periods between the light we kept up an ever vigilant patrol.

The Bolos came again at a time when the night was blackest, but they
could not surprise us, and they lost a great many men, trying to wade
through waist deep snow, across barbed wire, with machine guns working
from behind blockhouses two hundred yards apart. It took courage to run
up against such obstacles and still keep going on. When we opened fire
there was always a great deal of yelling from the Bolos—commands from
the officers to go forward, so our interpreters said, protests from the
devils, even as they protested, many were hit; but it is to be noted
that the officers stayed in the background of the picture. There was no
Soviet leader who said “follow me” through the floundering snow against
those death scattering machine guns—it did not take a great deal of
intelligence to see what the chances were.

So weeks passed and we held on, wondering what the end would be. We did
not fear that we should lose Toulgas. With barbed wire and our
surrounding blockhouses we were confident that we could withstand a
regiment trying to advance over that long field of snow; but the danger
lay along our tenuous line of communication.

The plight of the Yankee soldier in North Russia fighting the
Bolsheviki in the winter of 1918-19 was often made the subject of
newspaper cartoon. Below is reproduced one of Thomas’ cartoons from
_The Detroit News_, which shows the doughboy sitting in a Toulgas
trench—or a Kodish, or Shred Makrenga, or Pinega, or Chekuevo, or
Railroad trench. Of course this dire position was at one of those
places and at one of those times before the resourceful Yanks had had
time to consolidate their gains or fortify their newly accepted
position in rear of their former position. In a few hours—or few days
at most, the American soldier would have dug in securely and made
himself rudely comfortable. That rude comfort would last till some
British officer decided to “put on a bit of a show,” or till the Reds
in overwhelming numbers or with tremendous artillery pounding or both
combined, compelled the Yanks to fight themselves into a new position
and go through the Arctic rigors of trench work again in zero weather
for a few days. The cartoonist knows the unconquerable spirit of humor
with which the American meets his desperate situations; for he puts
into the soldier’s mouth words that show that although he may have more
of a job than he bargained for, he can joke with his buddie about it.
As reserve officers of that remarkable North Russian expeditionary
force the writers take off their hats in respect to the citizen
soldiers who campaigned with us under conditions that were, truth to
say, usually better but sometimes much worse than the trench situation
pictured by the cartoon below. With grit and gumption and good humor
those citizen soldiers “endured hardness as good soldiers.”

[Illustration: Well, Bill, we certainly got a job after the war.
“Peace Conference News: After War Labor Problem.”]




XIV
GREAT WHITE REACHES


Lines Of Communication Guarded Well—Fast Travelling Pony Sleighs—Major
Williams Describes Sled Trip—A Long Winter March—Visiting Three Hundred
Year Old Monastery—Snowshoe Rabbit Story—Driving Through
Fairyland—Lonely, Thoughtful Rides Under White North Star—Wonderful
Aurora Borealis.


We left “F” Company in the winter, swirling snows guarding the many
points of danger on the long lines of communication. They were in
December scattered all the way from Archangel to Morjegorskaya. For a
few weeks in January, Lieut. Sheridan with his platoon sat on the Bolo
lidtilters in Leunova in the lower Pinega Valley and then was hurried
down the Dvina to another threatened area. The Red success in pushing
our forces out of Shenkursk and down the Vaga made the upper Dvina and
Vaga roads constantly subject to raiding parties of the Bolsheviki.

Early in February “K” Company came up from Archangel and took station
at Yemetskoe, one platoon being left at Kholmogori. “F” Company had
been needed further to the front to support the first battalion
companies hard pressed by the enemy. Nervous and suspected villages
alike were vigilantly visited by strong patrols. On February 12th
Captain Ramsay hurried up with two platoons to reinforce Shred
Mekhrenga, traveling a distance of forty versts in one day. But the
enemy retired mysteriously as he had oft before just when it seemed
that he would overpower the British-Russian force that had been calling
for help. So the Americans were free to go back to the more ticklish
Vaga-Dvina area.

From here on the story of “F” Company on the lines of communication
merges into the story of the stern rear guard actions and the final
holding up of the advance of the Reds, and their gallant part will be
read in the narrative related elsewhere.

Mention has already been made of the work of “G” and “M” Company
platoons on the isolated Pinega Valley lines and of “H” Company
guarding the very important Onega-Obozerskaya road, over which passed
the mails and reinforcements from the outside world. The cluster of
villages called Bolsheozerki was on this road. Late in March it was
overpowered by a strong force of the Reds and before aid could come the
Bolshevik Northern Army commander had wedged a heavy force in there,
threatening the key-point Obozerskaya. This point on the line of
communication had been guarded by detachments from the Railroad force
at Obozerskaya, Americans alternating with French soldiers, and both
making use of Russian Allied troops. At the time of its capture it was
occupied by a section of French supported by Russian troops. The story
of its recapture is told elsewhere.

The trail junction point Volshenitsa, between Seletskoe and
Obozerskaya, was fitted up with quarters for soldiers and vigilantly
guarded against surprise attacks by the Reds from 443, or Emtsa.
Sometimes it was held by British and Russians from Seletskoe and
sometimes by Americans from Obozerskaya.

It sounds easy to say “Guarding lines of communication.” But any
veteran of the North Russian expedition will tell you that the days and
nights he spent at that duty were often severe tests. When that Russki
thermometer was way below forty and the canteen on the hip was solid
ice within twenty minutes of leaving the house, and the sleigh drivers’
whiskers were a frozen Niagara, and your little party had fifteen
versts to go before seeing another village, you wondered how long you
would be able to handle your rifle if you should be ambushed by a party
of Bolos.

With the settling down of winter the transportation along the great
winter reaches of road became a matter of fast traveling pony sleighs
with frequent exchange of horses. Officers and civil officials found
this travel not unpleasant. The following story, taken from the _Red
Cross Magazine_ and adapted to this volume, will give the doughboy a
pleasing recollection and the casual reader a vivid picture of the
winter travel.

This might be the story of Captain Ramsay driving to Pinega in January
to visit that front. Or it might be old “Three-Hair” Doc Laird sledging
to Soyla to see “Military Pete” Primm’s sturdy platoon. Or it might be
Colonel Stewart on his remarkable trip to the river winter fronts.
However, it is the story of the active American Red Cross Major
Williams, who hit the long trails early and showed the rest the way.

“I have just returned from a trip by sled up the Pinega River, to the
farthest point on that section where American troops are located. The
trip consumed six days and this, with the trip to the Dvina front,
makes a total of twenty days journeying by sled and about eight hundred
miles covered. Horses and not reindeer are used for transport. The
Russian horse, like the peasant, must be a stout breed to stand the
strain and stress of existence. They are never curried, are left
standing in the open for hours, and usually in spots exposed to cruel
winds when there is a semblance of shelter available within a few feet.
The peasants do not believe in ‘mollycoddling’ their animals, nor
themselves.

“On the return trip from Dvina I had a fine animal killed almost
instantly by his breaking his neck. It was about five o’clock in the
afternoon, pitch dark of course, and our Russian driver who, clad in
reindeer skin and hood, resembled for all the world a polar bear on the
front of the sled shouted meaningless and unnecessary words to our two
horses to speed them on their way.

“All sexes and ages look alike in these reindeer _parkis._ We were in a
semi-covered sled with narrow runner, but with safety skids to prevent
it from completely capsizing. At the foot of every Russian hill the
road makes a sharp turn. For a solid week we had been holding on at
these turns, but finally had become accustomed, or perhaps I should say
resigned, to them. Going down a long hill the horse holds back as long
as he can, the driver assisting in retarding the movement of the sled.
But on steep hills, where this is not possible, it is a case of a run
for life.

“Our horse shied sharply at a sleeping bag which had been thrown from
baggage sled ahead. The safety skids could not save us, but made the
angle of our overturn more complete. Kirkpatrick, several pieces of his
luggage, and an abnormal quantity of hay added to my discomfort. His
heavy blanket roll, which he had been using as a back rest, was thrown
twenty feet. The top of the sled acted as an ideal snow scoop and my
head was rubbed in the snow thoroughly before our little driver, who
was hanging on to the reins (b-r-r b-r-r b-r-r) could hold down the
horse. It was not until an hour later, when our driver was bringing in
our baggage, that I discovered that our lives had been in the hands of
a thirteen-year-old girl.

“After a trip of this sort one becomes more and more enthusiastic about
his blanket roll. Sleeping at all times upon the floor, and
occasionally packed in like sardines with members of peasant families
all in the same room, separated only by an improvised curtain, we kept
our health, appetites and humor.

“A small village of probably two hundred houses. The American soldiers
have been in every house. At first the villagers distrusted them. Now
they are the popular men of the community with the elders as well as
children. Their attitude toward the Russian peasant is helpful,
conciliatory, and sympathetic. One of these men told me that on the
previous day he had seen a woman crying on the street, saying that
their rations would not hold out and they would be forced to eat straw.
The woman showed me a piece of bread, hardly a square meal for three
persons, which she produced carefully wrapped as if worth its weight in
gold from a box in the corner. They had been improvident in the use of
their monthly ration of fifteen pounds of flour per person and the end
of the month, with yet three days to go, found them in a serious
dilemma. When the hard tack and sugar were produced they were
speechless with astonishment. And the satisfaction of the American
soldier was great to see.

“Up on the Pinega River, many miles from any place, we passed a
considerable body of American soldiers headed to the front. Every man
was the picture of health, cheeks aglow, head up, and on the job. These
same men were on the railroad front—four hundred miles in another
direction—when I had seen them last. There they were just coming out of
the front line trenches and block houses, wearing on their heads their
steel hats and carrying on their backs everything but the kitchen
stove.

“Now they were rigged more for long marching, in fur caps, khaki coats
of new issue with woollen lining, and many carried Alpine poles, for in
some places the going was hard.

“From our sled supply every man was given a package of Red Cross
cigarettes, and every man was asked if he had received his Christmas
stocking. They all had. I dined, by the way, with General Ironside last
night, and he was very strong in his praise for this particular body of
men who have seen strenuous service and are in for more.”

One of the most memorable events in the history of a company of
Americans in Russia was the march from Archangel to Pinega, one hundred
and fifty miles in dead of winter. The first and fourth platoons made
the forced march December 18th to 27th inclusive, hurrying to the
relief of two platoons of another company with its back to the wall.

Two weeks later the second and third platoons came through the same
march even faster, although it was forty degrees below zero on three
days, for it was told at Archangel that the other half of “M” Company
was in imminent danger of extermination.

The last instructions for the march, given in the old Smolny barracks,
are typical of march orders to American soldiers:

“We march tomorrow on Pinega. Many versts but not all in one day. We
shall quarter at night in villages, some friendly, some hostile. We may
meet enemy troops. We march one platoon ahead, one behind the 60-sleigh
convoy. Alert advance and rear parties to protect the column from
surprise.

“Ours is a two-fold mission: First, to reinforce a half of another
company which is now outnumbered ten to one; second, to raise a
regiment of loyal Russian troops in the great Pinega Valley where half
the people are loyal and half are Bolo sympathizers. We hold the
balance of power. Hold up your chins and push out your chests and bear
your arms proudly when passing among the Russian people. You represent
the nation that was slow to wrath but irresistible in might when its
soldiers hit the Hindenburg Line. Make Russians respect your military
bearing. The loyal will breathe more freely because you have come. The
treacherous Bolo sympathizers will be compelled to wipe off their
scowls and will fear to try any dirty work.

“And further, just as important, remember not only to bear yourselves
as soldiers of a powerful people, but bear yourselves as men of a
courteous, generous, sympathetic, chivalrous people. Treat these simple
people right and you win their devoted friendship. Respect their
oddities. Do not laugh at them as do untactful soldiers of another
nation. Molest no man’s property except of military necessity. You will
discover likable traits in the character of these Russians. Here, as
everywhere in the world, in spite of differences of language and
customs, of dress and work and play and eating and housing, strangers
among foreign people will find that in the essentials of life _folks is
folks._

“You will wear your American field shoes and Arctics in preference to
the clumsy and slippery bottomed Shackleton boot. Overcoats will be
piled loosely on top of sleighs so as to be available when delay is
long. Canteens will be filled each evening at Company “G-I” can. Drink
no water in villager’s home. You may buy milk. Everyone must protect
his health. We have no medical man and only a limited supply of number
nines.

“Tomorrow at noon we march. Prepare carefully and cheerfully.”

The following account of the march is copied from the daily story
written in an officer’s diary:

To OUIMA—FIRST DAY, DECEMBER 18TH

After the usual delay with sleigh drivers, with shoutings and “brrs”
and shoving and pullings, the convoy was off at 11:55 a. m. December
18. The trail was an improved government road. The sun was on our right
hand but very low. The fire station of Smolny at last dropped out of
the rearward view. The road ran crooked, like the Dvina along whose
hilly banks it wound. A treat to our boys to see rolling, cleared
country. Fish towns and lumber towns on the right. Hay stacks and
fields on the left, backed by forests. Here the trail is bareswept by
the wind from across the river. Again it is snow blown and men and
ponies slacken speed in the drifts. Early sets the sun, but the white
snow affords us light enough. The point out of sight in front, the rear
party is lost behind the curve. Tiny specks on the ice below and
distant are interpreted to be sledges bound for some river port. Nets
are exposed to the air and wait now for June suns to move out the
fetters of ice. Decent looking houses and people face the strange
cavalcade as it passes village after village. It is a new aspect of
Russia to the Americans who for many weeks have been in the woods along
the Vologda railroad.

Well, halting is a wonderful performance. The headman—_starosta_—must
be hunted up to quarter officers and men. He is not sure about the
drivers. Perhaps he fears for the great haystacks in his yard. We
cannot wait. In we go and Buffalo Bill’s men never had anything on
these Russki drivers. But it all works out, _Slava Bogga_ for army
sergeants. American soldiers are quick to pull things through anyway.
Without friction we get all in order. Guard is mounted over the
sleighs. Now we find out that Mr. Poole was right in talking about
“friendly Russians.” Our lowly hosts treat us royally. Tea from the
samovar steams us a welcome. It is clean homes, mostly, soldiers find
themselves in,—clean clothing, clean floors, oil lamps, pictures on the
walls.

To LIABLSKAYA—SECOND DAY, DECEMBER 19TH

Crawled out of our sheepskin sleeping bags about 6:00 o’clock well
rested. Breakfasted on bacon and bread and coffee. Gave headman ten
roubles. Every soldier reported very hospitable treatment. Tea for all.
Milk for many. Some delay caused by the sledge drivers who joined us
late at night from Bakaritza with oats. Left at 8:40. Billeting party
given an hour’s start, travelling ahead of the point to get billets and
dinner arranged. Marching hard. Cold sleet from southeast with drifting
snow. The Shackelton boot tricky. Men find it hard to navigate. Road
very hilly. Cross this inlet here. Down the long hill and up a winding
hill to the crest again which overhangs the stream that soon empties
into the big Dvina. To the left on the ice-locked beach are two scows.
It is warmer now for the road winds between the pines on both sides.
The snow ceases gradually but we do not see the least brightness in the
sky to show location of old Sol. We are making four versts an hour in
spite of the hills and the cumbrous boots. The drivers are keeping up
well. Only once is the advance party able to look back to the rear
guard, the caravan being extended more than a verst. Here is another
steep hill. See the crazy Russki driver give his pony his head to dash
down the incline. Disaster hangs in a dizzy balance as he whirls round
and round and the heavily loaded sled pulls horse backwards down the
hill. Now we meet a larger party of dressed-up folks going to church.
It is holy day for Saint Nicholas.

The long hill leading into Liablskaya is a good tester for courage.
Some of the men are playing out—eight versts more will be tough
marching. Here is the billeting officer to tell us that the eight
versts is a mistake—it is nineteen instead. We must halt for the night.
No one is sorry. There is the blazing cook’s fire and dinner will be
ready soon. It is only 12:15, but it seems nearly night. Men are
quickly assigned to quarters by the one-eyed old headman, Kardacnkov,
who marks the building and then goes in to announce to the householder
that so many _Amerikanski soldats_ will sleep there. Twenty-five
minutes later the rear guard is in. Our host comes quickly with samovar
of hot water and a pot of tea. He is a clerical man from Archangel, a
soldier from the Caucasus. With our M. & V. we have fresh milk.

It is dark before 3:00 p.m. We need a lamp. All the men are well
quartered and are trying to dry their shoes. We find the sergeants in a
fine home. A bos’n of a Russian vessel is home on leave. We must sit in
their party and drink a hop-ferment substitute for beer. Their coffee
and cakes are delicious and we hold converse on the political
situation. “American soldiers are here to stop the war and give Russia
peace” is our message. In another home we find a war prisoner from
Germany, back less than a week from Petrograd front. He had to come
around the Bolsheviki lines on the Vologda R. R. He says the B.
government is on its last legs at Petrograd.

To KOSKOGOR—THIRD DAY, DECEMBER 20TH

Oh, you silvery moon, are you interested in that bugle call? It is
telling our men to come to breakfast at once—6:45, for we start for
Koskogor at 8:00 a. m. or before. The start is made at 7:45. Road is
fine—well-beaten yesterday by marketing convoys and by Russians bound
for church to celebrate Saint Nick’s Day. Between the pines our road
winds. Not a breath of air has stirred since the fine snow came in the
night and “ridged each twig inch deep with pearl.” What a sight it
would have been if the sun had come up. Wisconsin, we think of you as
we traverse these bluffs. You tenth verst, you break a beautiful scene
on us with your trail across the valley. You courageous little pony,
you deserve to eat all that hay you are lugging up that hill. Your load
is not any worse than that of the pony behind who hauls a giant log on
two sleds. You deserve better treatment, _Loshad. _When Russia grows up
to an educated nation animal power will be conserved.

Here we see the primitive saw mill. Perched high on a pair of horses is
a great log. Up and down cuts the long-toothed saw. Up pulls the man on
top. Down draws the man on the ground. Something is lacking—it is the
snap-ring that we so remember from boyhood wood-cutting days in
Michigan.

Here we are back to the river again and another picturesque scene with
its formidable hill—Verst 18. But we get on fast for the end is in
sight. The windmill for grinding grain tells us a considerable village
is near. We arrive and stop on the top of the hill in the home of a
merchant-peasant, Lopatkin: a fine home—house plants and a big clock
and a gramophone. It is cold, for the Russian stove has not been fired
since morning—great economy of fuel in a land of wood.

To KHOLMOGORA—FOURTH DAY, DECEMBER 21ST

Harbinger of hope! Oh you red sky line! Shall we see the sun today?

It is 8:00 a. m. and from our hill top the wide red horizon in the
south affords a wonderful scene. In the distance, headlands on the
Dvina cut bold figures into the red. Far, far away stretches the flat
river. Now we are safely down the long, steep hill and assembled on the
river. Sergeant Getzloff narrowly escapes death from a reckless
civilian’s pony and sleigh. We crawl along the east shore for a verst
and then cross squarely to the other side, facing a cold, harsh wind.
What a wonderful subject for a picture. Tall pines—tallest we have yet
seen in Russia, on the island lift their huge trunks against the red,
the broad red band on the skyline. And now, too, the upland joins
itself to the scene.

The going is drifty and sternly cold. Broad areas allow the biting wind
full sweep. Ears are covered and hands are thrashed. That “stolen
horse” pole there may be a verst post. Sure enough, and “5,” it says,
“16 to go.” Look now for the barber poles. We are too late to get a
glimpse of the sun. Red is the horizon yet but the sun has risen behind
a low cloud screen. The advance guard has outwalked the convoy and
while ponies toil up the hill, we seek shelter in the lee of a house to
rest, to smoke. The convoy at last comes up. One animal has a ball of
ice on his foot. We make the drivers rest their ponies and look after
their feet. Ten minutes and then on.

It is a desperate cold. A driver’s ears are tipped with white. The
bugler’s nose is frozen on the windward side. Everyone with yarn
mittens only is busy keeping fingers from freezing. Here it is good
going for the long straight road is flanked by woods that protect road
from drifts and traveller from icy blasts. This road ends in a half
mile of drifts before a town on the bank of a tributary to the Dvina.
We descend to the river.

So there you are, steamboat, till the spring break-up frees you and
then you will steam up and down the river with logs and lumber and hemp
and iron and glass and soldiers perhaps—but no Americans, I hope. What
is this train that has come through our point? Bolshevik? Those
uniforms of the Russki M. P.’s are alarmingly like those we have been
shooting at. Go on with your prisoners. Now it is noon. The sun is only
a hand high in the sky. The day has grown grey and colder. Or is it
lack of food that makes us more susceptible to winter’s blasts? A bit
of hard tack now during this rest while we admire the enduring red of
the sky. We are nearing our objective. For several versts we have
skirted the edge of the river and watched the spires and domes of the
city come nearer to us. We wind into the old river town and pass on for
a verst and a half to an old monastery where we find quarters in a
subsidiary building which once was an orphan’s home. The old women are
very kind and hospitable. The rooms are clean and airy and warm.

AT MONASTERY—FIFTH DAY, DECEMBER 22ND

We spend the day at rest. Men are contented to lie on the warm floors
and ease their feet and ankles. We draw our rations of food, forage and
cigarettes. It is bitterly cold and we dread the morrow. The Madam
Botchkoreva, leader of the famous women’s Battalion of Death, comes to
call on us. She excites only mild interest among the soldiers.

To UST PINEGA—SIXTH DAY, DECEMBER 23RD

Zero is here on the edge of a cutting wind. But we dash around and
reorganize our convoy. Five sleds and company property are left at the
monastery in charge of two privates who are not fit to march further.
Five horses are unfit to go. Billeting party leaves about 8:00 a. m.
The convoy starts at 8:40. Along the river’s edge we move. A big
twelve-verst horseshoe takes us till noon. Men suffer from cold but do
not complain. We put up in village. People are friendly. Officers are
quartered with a good-natured peasant. Call up Pinega on long distance
phone. We are needed badly. Officer will try to get sleighs to come to
meet us forty versts out of Pinega. Maj. Williams, Red Cross, came in
to see us after we had gone to bed, on his way to Pinega.

To VERKHNE PALENGA—SEVENTH DAY, DECEMBER 24TH

At breakfast telegram came from Pinega promising one hundred horses and
Red Cross Christmas dinners. Get away at 7:50 a. m. The lane is full of
snow but the winding road through the pines is a wonderfully fine road.
For thirteen versts there is hardly a drift. The hills are very
moderate. Wood haulers are dotting the river. Stores are evidently
collecting for scow transport in the summer. No, do not take to the
ice. Keep on to the left, along the river. This hill is not so bad. We
lost our point on a tortuous road, but find that we have avoided a
ravine. The fourteenth verst takes us across the river—follow the
telephone wires there. Come back, you point, and take the road to the
left that climbs that steep bluff yonder. What a sight from the top!
The whole convoy lies extended from advance guard on the hill to rear
guard on the river.

Up and down our winding pine-flanked road takes us. It is hard going
but the goal is only a few versts away. Now we are in sight of the
village and see many little fields. Oh boy! see that ravine. This town
is in two parts. Hospitable is the true word. Men turn out and cut
notches in the ice to help the ponies draw the sleds up the hill. It is
some show. Several of the ponies are barely able to make the grade. The
big man of the village is Cukov. We stay in his home—fine home. Headman
Zelenian comes to see us. Opened our Red Cross Christmas stockings and
doughboys share their meagre sweets with Russki children.

To LEUNOVO—EIGHTH DAY, DECEMBER 25TH

Up at 6:00 for a Merry Christmas march. Away at 8:05. Good road for
thirteen versts, to Uzinga. Here we stop and call for the headman who
gets his men to help us down the hill to the river. Not cold. Holes in
the river for washing clothes. Officer reported seeing women actually
washing clothes. Found out what the high fences are for. Hang their
flax up to dry. The twenty-fourth verst into Leunovo is a hard drag.
Quarters are soon found. People sullen. Forester, Polish man who lives
in house apart at north end of village, tells me there are many
Bolsheviki sympathizers in the town. Also that Ostrov and Kuzomen are
affected similarly. This place will have to be garrisoned by American
soldiers to protect our rear from treachery.

TO GBACH—NINTH DAY, DECEMBER 26TH

Delay in starting due to necessity for telephoning to Pinega in regard
to rations and sleighs. Some error in calculations. They had sleighs
waiting us at Gbach this morning instead of tomorrow morning. Snow
falling as we start on the river road at 8:25. We find it _glada_
(level) nearly all the way but drifty and hard walking. Nevertheless we
arrive at end of our twenty-one verst march at 1:25. Met by friendly
villagers and well quartered. These people need phone and a guard the
same as at Verkne Palenga. Find that people here view the villages of
Ostrov and Kuzomen with distrust. Kulikoff, a prominent leader in the
Bolo Northern army, hails from one of these villages. Spent an hour
with the village schoolmaster. Had a big audience of men and boys. Sgt.
Young and interpreter came through from Pinega to untangle the sleigh
situation. We find that it is again all set here for an early start
with one hundred sleighs. A spoiled can of M. & V. makes headquarters
party desperately sick.

TO PINEGA—TENTH DAY, DECEMBER 27TH

Hard to get up this morning. Horses and sleighs came early as promised.
Put one man and his barrack bag and equipment into each sleigh and in
many sleighs added a light piece of freight to lighten our regular
convoy sleds. Got away at 9:00 a. m. Nice day for driving. The Russian
sleigh runs smoothly and takes the bumps gracefully. It is the first
time these solders have ridden in sleighs. Urgency impels us. Light
ball snow falls. Much hay cut along this valley. We meet the genial Red
Cross man who passes out cigarettes and good cheer to all the men.

Arrive at Soyla at noon. Some mistake made. The hundred horses left
yesterday and the headman goes out to get them again for us to go on
this evening. Seventeen sleighs got away at 3:00 p. m. Twenty-five more
at 7:00 p. m. At 9:30 we got away with the remainder of company. Have a
good sleigh and can sleep. Here is Yural and I must awake and telephone
to Pinega to see how situation stands. Loafer in telegraph office
informs us of the battle today resulting in defeat of White Guards, the
volunteers of Pinega who were supporting the hundred Americans. Bad
news. It is desperately cold. No more sleeping. The river road is
bleak. We arrive at last—3:00 a. m. In the frosty night the hulks of
boats and the bluffs of Pinega loom large. So endeth diary of the
remarkable march.

No group of healthy men anywhere in the world, no matter what the
danger and hardships, will long forego play. It is the safety valve. It
may be expressed in outdoor sports, or indoor games, or in hunting,
fishing or in some simple diversion. It may be in a tramp or a ride
into some new scenery to drink in beauty, or what not, even to getting
the view-points of strange peoples. What soldier will ever forget the
ride up to the old three-hundred-year-old monastery and the simple feed
that the monks set out for them. Or who will forget the dark night at
Kodish when the orator called out to the Americans and they joshed him
back with great merriment.

Often the soldier on the great line of communication duty whiled away
an hour helping some native with her chores. “Her” is the right word,
for in that area nearly every able-bodied man was either in the army,
driving transport, working in warehouses, or working on construction,
or old and disabled. Practically never was a strong man found at home
except on furlough or connected with the common job of the peasants,
keeping the Bolo out of the district.

For a matter of several weeks in weather averaging twenty-four degrees
below zero three American soldiers were responsible for the patrol of
seven versts of trail leading out from a village on the line of
communication toward a Bolo position which was threatening it. One or
all of them made this patrol by sleigh every six or eight hours,
inspecting a cross-trail and a rest shack which Bolo patrols might use.
Their plan was never to disturb the snow except on the path taken by
themselves, so that any other tracks could be easily detected. One day
there were suspicious signs and one of the men tramped a circle around
the shack inspecting it from all sides before entering it.

Next morning, before daylight, another one of the trio made the patrol
and being informed of the circle about the shack, saw what he took to
be additional tracks leading out and into the shack and proceeded to
burn the shack as his orders were, if the shack were ever visited and
promised to be of use to the enemy. Later by daylight a comrade making
the patrol came back with the joke on his buddie who in the darkness
had mistaken a huge snowshoe rabbit’s tracks, made out of curiosity
smelling out the man’s tracks. Often the patrol sled would travel for
hours through a fairy land. The snow-laden trees would be interlaced
over the trail, so that the sled travelled in a wonderful crystal,
grey, green and golden tunnel. Filtering beams of sunlight ahead of it.
A mist of disturbed snow behind it. No sound save from the lightly
galloping pony, the ooh-chee-chee of the driver or the bump of the
sleigh against a tree or a root, or the occasional thunder of a
_rabchik_ or wild turkey in partridge-like flight. Beside the trail or
crossing might be seen the tracks of fox and wolf and in rare instances
of reindeer.

Or on the open road in the night: solemn again the mood of the doughboy
as he recollects some of those lonely night rides. Here on his back in
the hay of the little sled he reclines muffled in blankets and robes,
his driver hidden in his great bearskin _parki_, or greatcoat, hidden
all but his two piercing eyes, his nose and whiskers that turned up to
shield his face. With a jerk the fiery little pony pulls out, sending
the two gleaming sled tracks to running rearward in distant meeting
points, the woods to flying past the sleigh and the snow to squealing
faintly under the runners; sending the great starry heavens to sweep
through the tops of the pine forest and sending the doughboy to long
thoughts and solemn as he looks up at the North Star right above him
and thinks of what his father said when he left home:

“Son, you look at the North Star and I’ll look at it and every time we
will think of one another while you are away, and if you never come
back, I’ll look at the North Star and know that it is looking down at
your grave where you went with a purpose as fixed as the great star and
a motive as pure as its white light.” Oh, those wonderful night heavens
to the thoughtful man!

Every veteran at this point in the narrative thinks now of the
wonderful nights when the Northern Lights held him in their spell.
Always the sentry called to his mates to come and see. It cannot be
pictured by brush or pen, this Aurora Borealis. It has action, it has
color, sheets of light, spires, shafts, beams and broad finger-like
spreadings, that come and go, filmy veils of light winding and drifting
in, weaving in and out among the beams and shafts, now glowing, now
fading. It may be low in the north or spread over more than half the
heavens. It may shift from east to western quarter of the northern
heaven. Never twice the same, never repeating the delicate pattern, nor
staying a minute for the admirer, it brightens or glimmers, advances or
retreats, dies out gradually or vanishes quickly. Always a phenomenon
of wonder to the soldier who never found a zero night too cold for him
to go and see, was the Aurora Borealis.




XV
MOURNFUL KODISH


Donoghue Brings Valuable Reinforcements—Bolshevik Orator On Emtsa
Bridge—Conditions Detrimental To Morale—Preparations For Attack On
Kodish—Savage Fighting Blade To Blade—Bolsheviks Would Not Give
Way—Desperately Bitter Struggle—We Hold Kodish At Awful Cost—Under
Constant And Severe Barrage—Half-Burned Shell-Gashed Houses Mark Scene
Of Struggle—We Retire From Kodish—Again We Capture Kodish But Can Not
Advance—Death Of Ballard—Counter Attack Of Reds Is Barely Stemmed—Both
Sides See Futility Of Fighting For Kodish—“K” Means Kodish Where Heroic
Blood Of Two Continents Stained Snows Richly.


We left “K” Company and Ballard’s platoon of machine gun men, heroes of
the fall fighting at Kodish, resting in Archangel. We have seen that
the early winter was devoted to building defenses against the Reds who
showed a disposition to mass up forces for an attack. “K” Company had
come back to the force in December and with “L” Company gone to reserve
in Seletskoe. Captain Donoghue had become “Major Mike” for all time and
Lt. Jahns commanded the old company. Donoghue had taken back to the
Kodish Force valuable reinforcements in the shape of Smith’s and
Tessin’s trench mortar sections of “Hq” Company.

It had been in the early weeks of winter during the time that Captain
Heil with “E” Company and the first platoon machine gunners were
holding the Emtsa bridge line, that the Bolsheviki almost daily tried
out their post-armistice propaganda. The Bolo commander sent his
pamphlets in great profusion; he raised a great bulletin board where
the American troops and the Canadian artillery forward observers could
read from their side of the river his messages in good old I. W. W.
style and content; he sent an orator to stand on the bridge at midnight
and harangue the Americans by the light of the Aurora Borealis.

He even went so far as to bring out to the bridge two prisoners whom
the Bolos had had for many weeks. One was a Royal Scot lad, the other
was Pvt. George Albers of “I” Company who had been taken prisoner one
day on the railroad front. These two prisoners were permitted to stand
near enough their comrades to tell them they were well treated.

Captain Heil was just about to complete negotiations for the exchange
of prisoners one day when a patrol from another Allied force raided the
Bolos in the rear and interrupted the close of the deal. The Bolos were
occupied with their arms. And shortly afterward Donoghue heard of the
negotiations and the wily propaganda of the Reds and put a stop to it.
On another page is told the story of similar artifices resorted to by
the Reds on the Toulgas Front to break into the morale of the American
troops.

It was well that the American officer adopted firm measures.

To be sure the great rank and file of American soldiers like their
people back home could not be fooled by propaganda. They could see
through Red propaganda as well as they could see through the old German
propaganda and British propaganda and American for that matter. Of
course not always clearly. But it was wise to avoid the stuff if
possible, and to discount it good-humoredly when it did contact with
us. The black night and short, hazy days, the monotonous food, the
great white, wolf-howling distances, and the endless succession of one
d—- hardship after another was quite enough. Add to that the really
pathetic letters from home telling of sickness and loneliness of those
in the home circle so far away, and the uselessly sobful letters that
carried clippings from the partisan papers that grossly exaggerated and
distorted stories of the Arctic campaign and also carried suggestions
of resistance to the military authorities, and you have a situation
that makes us proud at this time of writing that our American men
showed a real stamina and morale that needs no apology.

The story of this New Year’s Day battle with the Bolos proves the
point. For six weeks “E” Company had been on the line. Part of “L”
Company had been sent to reinforce Shred Makrenga and the remainder was
at Seletskoe and split up into various side detachments. Now they came
for the preparations for their part in the united push on Plesetskaya,
mentioned before. “K” Company came up fresh from its rest in Archangel
keen to knock the Bolo out of Kodish and square the November account.
Major Donoghue was to command the attacking forces, which besides “E”
and “K” consisted of one section of Canadian artillery, one platoon of
the “M. G.” Company, one trench mortar section, a medical detachment
and a detachment of 310th Engineers who could handle a rifle if
necessary with right good will. Each unit caught a gleam of fire from
the old Irishman’s eye as he looked them over on December 28th and
29th, while “L” Company came up to take over the front so as to relieve
the men for their preparations for the shock of the battle.

The enemy was holding Kodish with two thousand seven hundred men,
supported by four pieces of artillery and a reserve of seven hundred
men. Donoghue had four hundred fifty men. At 6:00 a. m. “E” and “K”
Companies were on the east bank of the Emtsa moving toward the right
flank of the Bolos and firing red flares at intervals with Very pistol
to inform Donoghue of their progress.

Meanwhile the seven Stokes mortars were putting a fifteen-minute
barrage of shells, a great 1000-shell burst, on the Bolo trenches,
which added to the 20-gun machine and Lewis gun barrage, demoralized
the Red front line and gave the two infantry companies fifteen minutes
later an easy victory as they swung in and on either side of the road
advanced rapidly toward Kodish village. Meanwhile the Canadian
artillery pounded the Bolo reserves in Kodish.


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_By Reindeer Jitney to Bakaritza._]


[Illustration: PRIMM
_Russian Eskimos at Home, Near Pinega._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Fortified House, Toulgas._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_To Bolskeozerki._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Colonel Morris—at Right._]


[Illustration: RED CROSS
_Russian Eskimo Idol._]


[Illustration: DOUD
_Ambulance Men._]


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Practising Rifle and Pistol Fire Oil Onega Front._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_French Machine Gun Men at Kodish._]


[Illustration: U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Allied Plane Carrying Bombs._]


The Reds tried to rally at a ridge of ground a verst in front of Kodish
but the dreadful trench mortars again showered them at eight hundred
yards with this new kind of hell and they were easily dislodged by the
infantry and machine gun fire. At 1:00 p. m. after seven hours hard
fighting the Americans were again in possession of Kodish. An
interesting side incident of this recapture of Kodish was the defeat of
a company of Reds occupying a Kodish flank position at the church on
the river two versts away. The Reds disputed but Sergeant Masterson and
fifteen men of “E” Company dislodged them. But time was valuable.
Donoghue’s battle order that day called for his force to take Kodish
and its defenses, Avda and its defenses and to occupy Kochmas. Only a
matter of twenty miles of deep snow and hard fighting.

So the enemy was attacked again vigorously at one of the old fighting
spots of the fall campaign, at Verst 12. As in the previous fighting
the Red Guards, realizing the strategic value of this road fought
tenaciously for every verst of it. They had been prepared for the loss
of Kodish village itself; it was untenable. But they refused to budge
from Verst 12. The trench mortars could not reach their dugout line.
And the Red machine guns poured a hot fire into the village of Kodish
as well as into the two platoons that forced their way a half a verst
from the village toward this stubborn stronghold of the Reds.

Darkness fell on the combatants locked in desperate fight. All the
American forces were brought up into Kodish for they had expected to
get on to Avda as their order directed. Out in front the night was made
lurid by flares and shell fire and gun fire where the two devoted
platoons of “K” and “E” Companies with two machine guns of the first
platoon of “M. G.” Company hung on. Lts. Jahns, Shillson and Berger
were everywhere among their men and met nothing but looks of resolution
from them, for if this little force of less than a hundred men gave way
the whole American force would be routed from Kodish. There could be no
orderly retreat from the village under such desperate conditions in the
face of such numbers. They had to stick on. Half their number were
killed and wounded, among whom was the gallant Lt. Berger of “E”
Company who had charged across the bridge in the morning in face of
machine gun fire. Sergeants Kenney and Grewe of “K” Company gave their
lives that night in moving courageously among their men. Frost bites
cruelly added to the miseries of those long night hours after the
fighting lulled at eleven o’clock.

Morning discovered the force digging in. The odds were all against
them. Again they were standing in Kodish where after personal
reconnaisance Col. Lucas, their nominal superior officer, commanding
Vologda Force, had said no troops should be stationed as it was
strategically untenable. But a new British officer had come into
command of the Seletskoe detachment, and perhaps that accounts for the
foolhardy order that the doughty old Donoghue received; “Hold what you
have got and advance no further south; prepare defenses of Kodish.”
What an irony of fate. His force had been the only one of the various
forces that had actually put any jab into the push on Plesetskaya. Now
they were to be penalized for their very desperately won success.

The casualties had been costly and had been aggravated by the rapid
attacks of the frost upon hands and feet. In temperature way below zero
the men lay in the snow on the outskirts and in that lowly village
under machine gun fire and shrapnel. They undermined the houses to get
warmth and protection in the dugouts thus constructed under them.
Barricades they built; and chipped out shallow trenches in the frozen
ground. Again the trench mortar came into good use. A platoon of “K”
and a platoon of “E” found themselves partly encircled by a strong
force of Reds, with a single mortar near them to support. This mortar
although clogged repeatedly with snow and ice worked off two hundred
fifty shells on the Reds and finally spotted the enemy machine gun
positions and silenced them, contributing greatly to the silencing of
the enemy fire and to his discouragement.

The firer of this mortar, Pvt. Barone of “Hq” Company, who worked
constantly, a standing target for the Bolos, near the end of the fight
fell with a bullet in his leg. And so the Americans scrapped on. And
they did hold Kodish. Seven were killed and thirty-five wounded, two
mortally, in this useless fight. Lt. O’Brien of “E” Company was
severely wounded and at this writing is still in hospital. “The
memories of these brave fellows,” says Lt. Jack Commons, “who went as
the price exacted, Lt. Berger of “E” Company, Sgts. Kenney and Grewe
and many other steady and courageous and loyal pals through the months
of hardship that had preceded, made Kodish a place horrible, detested,
and unnerving to the small detachment that held it.”

Meanwhile their fellows at the river bank with the engineers were
slashing down the trees on the Bolo side clearing the bank to prevent
surprise of the Allied position over the seven foot ice that now made
the river into a winding roadway. More blockhouses and gun positions
were put in. It was only a matter of time till they would have to
retreat to the old position on the river.

On January 4th Donoghue sent “E” Company back to occupy and help
strengthen the old position at the river, from where they sent
detachments forward to help “K” and “M.G.” and trench mortar hold the
shell-shattered village of Kodish. The enemy confined himself chiefly
to artillery shelling, always replied to vigorously by our gallant
Canadian section who, though outgunned, sought to draw part of the
enemy fire their way to lighten the barrage on their American comrades
caught like rats in the exposed village. From their three hills about
the doomed village of Kodish the Reds kept up a continuous
sharpshooting which fortunately was too long range to be effective. And
the enormous losses which the Reds had suffered on their side that
bloody New Year’s Day made them hesitate to move on the village with
infantry to be mowed down by those dreadful Amerikanski fighters, when
a few days of steady battering with artillery would perhaps do just as
well.

Flesh and blood can stand only so much. Terrible was the strain. No
wonder that on the seventh day of this hell a lieutenant with a single
platoon holding the village after receiving magnified reports from his
patrols of strong Bolo flanking forces, imagined a general attack on
Kodish. The French Colonel, V. O. C. O., had said Kodish should not be
held. And in the night he set fire to the ill-fated village and
retreated to the river. Swift came the command from the fiery old
Donoghue: “Back to that village with me, the Reds shall not have it.”
And his men reoccupied it before dawn. But no one but they can ever
know how they suffered. The cold twenty below zero stung them in the
village half burned. Their beloved old commander’s words stung them.
Hateful to them was the certainty that he was grimly carrying out a
written order superior indeed to the French Colonel’s V. O. but which
was not based on a true knowledge of the situation by the far-distant
British officer who went over Col. Lucas’ head and ordered Kodish held.
Could they hold on? They did, with a display of fortitude that became
known to the world and which makes every soldier who was in the
expedition thrill with honest pride and admiration for them. The
Americans held it till they were relieved by a company of veteran
fighters, the King’s Liverpools, supported by a half company of “Dyer’s
Battalion” of Russians.

In passing let it be remarked that the English officer, Captain
Smerdon, soon succeeded in convincing the British O. C. Seletskoe that
Kodish was no place for any body of soldiers to hold. He gallantly held
it but only temporarily, for soon he and the Canadians and trench
mortar and machine gun men and the Dyer’s Battalion men were back under
Major Donoghue holding the old Emtsa river line and its two supporting
blockhouse lines.

Our badly shattered “E” Company and “K” Company went to reserve in
Seletskoe. The former company in the middle of January went to
Archangel for a ten day rest, and will be heard of later in the winter
on another desperate front. Old “K” Company was glad to just find warm
bunks in Seletskoe and regain their old fighting pep that had been
exhausted in the New Year’s period of protracted fighting under
desperate odds. Here let us insert the story of a two-man detachment of
those redoubtable trench mortar men who rivaled their comrades’
exploits with rifle and bayonet or machine gun. Corp. Andriks and Pvt.
Forthe of “Hq” Company trench mortar platoon were loaned for a few days
to the British officer at Shred Makrenga to instruct his Russian troops
in the use of the Stokes mortars. But the two Yanks in the two months
they were on that hard-beset front spent most of their time in actually
fighting their guns rather than in teaching the Russians. This is only
one of many cases of the sort, where small detachments of American
soldiers sent off temporarily on a mission, were kept by the British
officers on active duty. They did such sterling service.

Ever hear of the “lost platoon of “D” Company?” Like vagabonds they
looked when finally their platoon leader, Lt. Wallace, cut loose from
the British officer and reported back to Lieut.-Col. Corbley on the
Vaga. But the erratic Reds would not settle down to winter quarters.
They had frustrated the great push on Plesetskaya with apparent ease.
They had the Allied warriors now ill at ease and nervous.

The trench mortar men and the machine gun men can tell many an
interesting story of those January days on the Kodish Front serving
there with the mixed command of Canadians and King’s Liverpools and
Dyer’s Battalion of Russians. These latter were an uncertain lot of
change-of heart Bolshevik prisoners and deserters and accused spies and
so forth, together with Russian youths from the streets of Archangel,
who for the uniform with its brass buttons and the near-British rations
of food and tobacco had volunteered to “help save Russia.” By the
rugged old veteran, Dyer, they had been licked into a semblance of
fighting trim. This was the force which Major Donoghue had at command
when again came the order to take Kodish. This time it was not a great
offensive push to jab at the Red Army vitals, but it was a defensive
thrust, a desperate operation to divert attention of the Reds from
their successful winter operations against the Shred Makrenga front.
Two platoons of Couriers du Bois, the well trained Russian White Guards
under French tutelage, and those same Royal Marines that had been with
him the first time Kodish was taken in the bloody fight in the fall.
And Lt. Ballard’s gallant platoon of machine gun men came to relieve
the first “M. G.” platoon and to join the drive. They had an old score
to settle with the Bolos, too.

Again the American officer led the attack on Kodish and this time
easily took the village, for the Reds were wise enough not to try to
hold it. Their first lines beyond the village yielded to his forces
after stiff fighting, but the old 12th Verst Pole position held three
times against the assaults of the Allied troops.

Meanwhile the courageous “French-Russians” had marched fourteen miles
through the woods, encircling the Bolo flank, and fell upon his
artillery position, captured the guns and turned them upon the Red
reserves at Avda. But the other forces could not budge the Reds from
Verst 12 and so the Couriers du Bois, after holding their position
against counter attack all the afternoon, blew up the Red field pieces
and retreated in the face of a fresh Bolo battalion from Avda.

And during the afternoon the Americans who were engaged in this fight
lost an officer whose consummate courage and wonderful cheerfulness had
won him the adoration of his men and the respect and love of the
officers who worked with him.

Brave, energetic, cheerful old Ballard’s death filled the Machine Gun
Company and the whole regiment with mingled feelings of sorrow and
pride. Over and beyond the call of duty he went to his death while
striving to save the fortune of the day that was going against his
doughty old leader Donoghue. He did not know that the Liverpool Company
had left a hole in the line by finding a trail to the rear after their
second gallant but fruitless assault, and he went forward of his own
initiative, with a Russian Lewis gun squad to find position where he
could plant one of his machine guns to help the S. B. A. L. platoons
and Liverpools whom old Donoghue was coming up to lead in another
charge on the Bolo position.

Lt. Ballard ran into the exposed hole in the line and pushed forward to
a place where his whole squad was ambushed and the Russian Lewis gunner
was the only one to get out. He returned with his gun and dropped among
the Americanski machine gunners, telling of the death of Ballard and
the Russian soldiers at the point of the Bolshevik bayonets. Lt.
Commons of “K” Company declares that Ballard met his death at that
place by getting into the hole in the line which he supposed was held
by English and Russians and by being caught in a cross fire of Bolo
Colt machine guns. Whichever way it was, his body was never seen nor
recovered. Hope that he might have been taken as a wounded prisoner by
the Reds still lived in the hearts of his comrades. And all officers
and men of the American forces who came into Detroit the following July
vainly wished to believe with the girl who piteously scanned every
group that landed, that Ballard might yet be heard from as a prisoner
in Russia. No doubt he was killed.

The battle continued. Finally the withdrawal of the Couriers du Bois
and the coming through of the Avda Battalion of the Reds, together with
Red reinforcements from Kodlozerskaya-Pustin, reduced Donoghue’s force
to a stern defensive and he retreated at five o’clock in good order to
the old lines on the river.

The half-burned and scarred buildings of Kodish mournfully reminded the
soldier of the losses that had decimated the ranks of the forces that
fought and refought over the village. Into their old strongholds they
retired, keeping a sharp lookout for the expected retaliation of the
Reds. It came two days later. And it nearly accounted for the entire
force, although that was not so remarkable, Lt. Commons, the Major’s
adjutant, says, because so many even of the shorter engagements on this
and other fronts had been equally narrow squeaks for the Americans and
their Allies.

The Reds in this fight reached the second line of defense with their
flanking forces, and bombarded it with new guns brought up from
Plesetskaya. Meanwhile, all along the front they attacked in great
force and succeeded in taking one blockhouse, killing the seven gallant
Liverpool lads who fought up all their ammunition and defied the Bolo
steel to steel. But the remainder of the front held, largely through
the effective work of the American trench mortar and the deadly machine
gunners shooting for revenge of the death of Ballard, their nervy
leader, held fast their strongholds.

At last the Reds found their losses too severe to continue the attack.
And they had been constantly worried by the gallant Russian Couriers du
Bois, who fearlessly stayed out in the woods and nipped the Bolo forces
in flank or rear. And so they withdrew. There was little more fighting
on this front. The Reds were content to let well enough alone. Kodish
in ruins was theirs. Plesetskaya was safe from threats on that hard
fought road.

This was the last fight for the Americans on the Kodish Front. “K”
Company had already looked for the last time on the old battle scenes
and at the wooden crosses which marked the graves of their heroic dead,
and had gone to Archangel to rest, later to duty on the lines of
communication at Kholmogori and Yemetskoe. Now the trench mortar
platoon and “M. G.” platoon went to the railroad front, and Major
Donoghue was the last one to leave the famous Kodish Front, where he
had won distinction. It was now an entirely British-Russian front and
the American officer who had remained voluntarily to lead in the last
big fight because of his complete knowledge of the battle area now went
to well-earned rest in Archangel.

In closing the story of the Americans on the Kodish Front we turn to
the words written us by Lt. John A. Commons:

“Thus the Kodish Front was really home to the men of “K” Company, for
most of their stay in the northern land. To “E” and “L” and Machine Gun
and Trench Mortar “Hq” platoon it was also, but for a shorter period,
their only shelter from the rains of the fall and the bite of the
winter. “K”, however, meant Kodish. There they had their first fight,
there their dead were buried. There they had their last battle. And
there their memories long will return, mostly disagreeable to be sure,
but still representing very definitely their part, performed with
honesty, courage and distinction, in the big work that was given the
Yankee doughboys to do ‘on the other side.’

“The scraps mentioned here were the tougher part of the actions at the
front. In between the line should be read first the cold as it was felt
only out in the Arctic woods, away from the villages and their warm
houses. Then, too, everything was one ceaseless and endless repetition
of patrolling and scouting. Many were the miles covered by these lads
from Detroit and other cities and towns of America among the soft snow
and the evergreens. Many a time did these small parties have their own
little battles way out in the woods. Much has been said here and there
of the influence of Bolshevik propaganda upon the American forces. It
is true that these soldiers got a lot of it, and it is true that these
soldiers read nearly all that they got. But it is true also that there
was not a single incident of the whole campaign which could with
honesty be attributed to this propaganda. On the Kodish Front it is
quite safe to say that there was more of this ludicrous literature—not
ludicrous to the Russian peasant, but very much so to the average
American—taken in than on any other. Scarce a patrol went out which did
not bring back something with which to while away a free hour or so, or
with which to start a fire. It was always welcome.

“But it was seriously treated in the same spirit that moved a corporal
of Ballard’s machine gun platoon who felt strongly the discrepancy
between the remarks of the Bolshevik speaker on the bridge to the
effect that his fellows were moved by brotherly love for the Yanks and
the FACT that nine out of every ten Bolshevik cartridges captured had
the bullets clipped. The corporal reciprocated later with a machine
gun, not for the love but for the bullets.

“So they stuck and fought, suffering through the bitter months of
winter just below the Arctic Circle, where the winter day is in minutes
and the night seems a week. And there is not one who is not proud that
he was once a “side kicker” and a “buddy” to some of those fine fellows
of the various units who unselfishly and gladly gave the last that a
man has to give for any cause at all.”




XVI
UST PADENGA


Positions Near Ust Padenga In January—Bolo Patrols—Overwhelming Assault
By Bolos January Nineteenth—Through Valley Of Death—Canadian Artillery
And Machine Gun Fire Punishes Enemy Frightfully When He Takes Ust
Padenga—Death Of Powers—Enemy Artillery Makes American Position
Untenable—Escaping From Trap—Retreating With Constant Rear-Guard
Actions—We Lose Our Last Gun—“A” Company Has Miraculous Escape But
Suffers Heavy Losses.


Outside of routine patrolling, outpost duties and intermittent shelling
and sniping, the early part of the month of January, 1919, was
comparatively quiet on the Ust Padenga front. The troops now engaged in
the defense of this sector were Company “A,” 339th Infantry, a platoon
of “A” Company, 310th Engineers, Canadian Artillery, English Signal
Detachment and several companies of Russians and Cossacks.

It will be recalled that the main positions of our troops was in
Netsvetiafskaya, on a high bluff overlooking Ust Padenga and Nijni
Gora—the former about a thousand yards to our left front on the bank of
the Vaga, and the latter about a mile to our right front located on
another hill entirely surrounded by a deep ravine and valleys. In other
words our troops were in a V-shaped position with Netsvetiafskaya as
the base of the V, Ust Padenga as the left fork, and Nijni Gora as the
right fork of same. The Cossack troops refused to occupy the position
of Nijni Gora, claiming that it was too dangerous a position and almost
impossible to withdraw from in case they were hard pressed.
Consequently, orders were issued from British headquarters at
Shenkursk, ordering an American platoon to occupy Nijni Gora and the
Cossacks to occupy Ust Padenga.

On the afternoon of January 18, the fourth platoon of Company “A,” with
forty-six men under command of Lieut. Mead, relieved the second platoon
and took over the defense of Nijni Gora. The weather at this time was
fearfully cold, the thermometer standing about forty-five degrees below
zero. Rumors after rumors were constantly coming in to our intelligence
section that the enemy was preparing to make a desperate drive on our
positions at this front. His patrols were getting bolder and bolder. A
few nights before, one of the members of such a patrol had been shot
down within a few feet of Pvt. George Moses, one of our sentinels, who,
single handed, stood his post and held off the patrol until assistance
arrived. We had orders to hold this front at all cost. By the use of
field glasses we could see considerable activity in the villages in
front of us and on our flanks, and during the night the inky blackness
was constantly being illuminated by flares and rockets from many
different points. It is the writer’s opinion that these flares were
used for the purpose of guiding and directing the movements of the
troops that on the following day annihilated the platoon in Nijni Gora.

On the morning of that fatal nineteenth day of January, just at dawn
the enemy’s artillery, which had been silent now for several weeks,
opened up a terrific bombardment on our position in Nijni Gora. This
artillery was concealed in the dense forest on the opposite bank of the
Vaga far beyond the range of our own artillery. Far in the distance at
ranges of a thousand to fifteen hundred yards, we could see long
skirmish lines of the enemy clad in ordinary dark uniforms. Whenever
they got within range we would open fire with rifles and machine guns
which succeeded in repelling any concerted movement from this
direction. At this time there were twenty-two men in the forward
position in command of Lt. Mead and about twenty-two men in command of
the platoon sergeant in the rear position, After about an hour’s
violent shelling the barrage suddenly lifted, Instantly, from the deep
snow and ravines entirely surrounding us, in perfect attack formation,
arose hundreds of the enemy clad in white uniforms, and the attack was
on.

Time after time well directed bursts of machine gun fire momentarily
held up group on group of the attacking party, but others were steadily
and surely pressing forward, their automatic rifles and muskets pouring
a veritable hail of bullets into the thin line of the village
defenders. Our men fought desperately against overwhelming odds.
Corporal Victor Stier, seeing a Russian machine gun abandoned by the
panic-stricken Russians in charge of same, rushed forward and manning
this gun single-handed opened up a terrific fire on the advancing line.
While performing this heroic task he was shot through the jaw by an
enemy bullet. Still clinging to his gun he refused to leave it until
ordered to the rear by his commanding officer. On his way back through
the village he picked up the rifle of a dead comrade and joined his
comrades in the rear of the village determined to stick to the end. It
was while in this position that he was again hit by a bullet which
later proved fatal—his death occurring that night. He was an example of
the same heroic devotion to duty that marked each member of this
gallant company throughout the expedition. Being thus completely
surrounded, the enemy now advancing with fixed bayonets, and many of
our brave comrades lying dead in the snow, there was nothing left for
those of us in the forward position to do but to cut our way through to
the rear position in order to rejoin our comrades there. The enemy had
just gained the street of the village as we began our fatal
withdrawal—fighting from house to house in snow up to our waists, each
new dash leaving more of our comrades lying in the cold and snow, never
to be seen again. How the miserable few did succeed in eventually
rejoining their comrades no one will ever know. We held on to the crest
of the hill for a few moments to give our artillery opportunity to open
up on the village and thus cover our withdrawal. Again another
misfortune arose to add more to the danger and peril of our withdrawal.
A few days previously our gallant and effective Canadian artillery had
been relieved by a unit of Russian artillery and during the early
shelling this fateful morning, the Russian artillerymen deserted their
guns—something that no Canadian ever would have done in such a
situation. By the time the Russians were forced back to their guns at
the point of a pistol in the hands of Captain Odjard, our little
remaining band had been compelled to give way in the face of the
terrific fire from the forests on our flanks and the oncoming advance
of the newly formed enemy line. To withdraw we were compelled to march
straight down the side of this hill, across an open valley some eight
hundred yards or more in the terrible snow, and under the direct fire
of the enemy. There was no such thing as cover, for this valley of
death was a perfectly open plain, waist deep with snow. To run was
impossible, to halt was worse yet and so nothing remained but to plunge
and flounder through the snow in mad desperation, with a prayer on our
lips to gain the edge of our fortified positions. One by one, man after
man fell wounded or dead in the snow, either to die from the grievous
wounds or terrible exposure. The thermometer still stood about
forty-five degrees below zero and some of the wounded were so terribly
frozen that their death was as much due to such exposure as enemy
bullets. Of this entire platoon of forty-seven men, seven finally
succeeded in gaining the shelter of the main position uninjured. During
the day a voluntary rescue party under command of Lieut. McPhail,
“Sgt.” Rapp, and others of Company “A” with Morley Judd of the
Ambulance Corps, went out into the snow under continuous fire and
brought in some of the wounded and dead, but there were twelve or more
brave men left behind in that fatal village whose fate was never known
and still remains unknown to the present day, though long since
reported by the United States War Department as killed in action. Many
others were picked up dead in that valley of death later in the day and
others died on their way back to hospitals. These brave lads made the
supreme sacrifice, fighting bravely to the last against hopeless odds.
Through prisoners later captured by us, we learned that the attacking
party that morning numbered about nine hundred picked troops—so the
reader will readily appreciate what chance our small force had.

All that day and far into the night the enemy’s guns continued
hammering away at our positions. Under cover of darkness the Russians
and Cossacks in the village of Ust Padenga withdrew to our lines—a move
which the enemy least suspected. The following days were just a
repetition of this day’s action. The enemy shelled and shelled our
position and then sent forward wave after wave of infantry. The
Canadian Artillery under command of Lieut. Douglas Winslow rejoined us
and, running their guns out in the open sight, simply poured muzzle
burst of shrapnel into the enemy ranks, thus breaking up attack after
attack. Two days later after a violent artillery preparation, the
enemy, still believing our Russian comrades located in the village of
Ust Padenga, started an open attack upon this deserted position over
part of the same ground where so many of our brave comrades had lost
their lives on the nineteenth. They advanced in open order squarely in
the face of our artillery, machine gun, and rifle fire, but by the time
they had gained this useless and undefended village, hundreds of their
number lay wounded and dying in the snow. The carnage and slaughter
this day in the enemy’s ranks was terrific, resulting from a most
stupid military blunder, but it atoned slightly for our losses previous
thereto. The valley below us was dotted with pile after pile of enemy
dead, the carnage here being almost equal to the terrific fighting
later at Vistavka. When he discovered his mistake and useless sacrifice
of men, and seeing it was hopeless to drive our troops from this
position by his infantry, the enemy then resorted to more violent use
of his artillery. Shells were raining into our position now by the
thousands, but our artillery could not respond as it was completely
outranged. By the process of attrition our little body of men was
growing smaller day by day, when to cap the climax late that day a
stray shell plunged into our little hospital just as the medical
officer, Ralph C. Powers, who had been heroically working with the dead
and dying for days without relief and who refused to quit his post, was
about to perform an operation on one of our mortally wounded comrades.
This shell went through the walls of the building and through the
operating room, passing outside where it exploded and flared back into
the room. Four men were killed outright, including Sgt. Yates K.
Rodgers and Corp. Milton Gottschalk, two of the staunchest and most
heroic men of Company “A.” Lieutenant Powers was mortally wounded and
later died in the hospital at Shenkursk, where he and many of his brave
comrades now lie buried in the shadow of a great cathedral.

This was the beginning of the end for us in this position. The enemy
was slowly but surely closing in on Shenkursk as evidenced by the
following notation, made by one of our intelligence officers in
Shenkursk, set forth verbatim:

“January 22, Canadian artillery and platoon of infantry left of
Nikolofskia at 6:30 a.m., spent the day there establishing helio
communication between church towers, here and there. All quiet there.
At 10:00 a. m. one of the mounted Cossack troopers came madly galloping
from Sergisfskia saying that the Bolos were approaching from there and
that he had been fired upon. He was terrified to death; other arrivals
verify this report. The defenses are not all manned and a patrol sent
in that direction. They are sure out there in force right enough. The
clans are rapidly gathering for the big drive for the prize, Shenkursk.
Later—Orders from British Headquarters for troops at Ust Padenga to
withdraw tonight. 10:00 p. m.—There is a red glare in the sky in the
direction of Ust Padenga and the flames of burning buildings are plain
to be seen. There is —— a popping down there and the roar of artillery
is clearly heard.”


That night, January 22nd, we withdrew from this shell-torn and flaming
village, leaving behind one of our guns which the exhausted horses
could not move. We did not abandon this position a moment too soon, for
just as we had finished preparations for withdrawal an incendiary shell
struck one of the main buildings of the village, and instantly the
surrounding country was as bright as day. All that night, tired,
exhausted and half-starved, we plodded along the frozen trails of the
pitch black forest. The following morning we halted for the day at
Shelosha, but late that day we received word to again withdraw to
Spasskoe, a village about six versts from Shenkursk. Again we marched
all night long, floundering through the snow and cold, reaching
Spasskoe early that morning. On our march that night it was only by
means of a bold and dangerous stroke that we succeeded in reaching
Spasskoe. The enemy had already gotten between us and our objective and
in fact was occupying villages on both sides of the Vaga River, through
one or the other of which we were compelled to pass. We finally decided
that under the cover of darkness and in the confusion and many
movements then on foot, we could possibly march straight up the river
right between the villages, and those on one side would mistake us for
others on the opposite bank. Our plan worked to perfection and we got
through safely with only one shot being fired by some suspicious enemy
sentry, but which did us no harm, and we continued silently on our way.

For days now we had been fighting and marching, scarcely pausing for
food and then only to force down a ration of frozen bully beef or piece
of hard tack, and we expected here at least to gain a short breathing
spell, but such was not fate’s decree. About 4:00 a.m. we finally
“turned in,” but within a couple of hours we were again busily occupied
in surveying our positions and making our plans. About 7:30 a. m.
Lieut. Mead and Capt. Ollie Mowatt, in command of the artillery,
climbed into a church tower for observation, when to our surprise we
could plainly see a long line of artillery moving along the Shenkursk
road, and the surrounding villages alive with troops forming for the
attack. Scarcely had we gotten our outposts into position when a shell
crashed squarely over the village, and again the battle was on. All
that day the battle raged, the artillery was now shelling Shenkursk as
well as our own position. The plains in front of us were swarming with
artillery and cavalry, while overhead hummed a lone airplane which had
travelled about a hundred and twenty-five miles to aid us in our
hopeless encounter, but all in vain.

At 1:30 p. m. an enemy shell burst squarely on our single piece of
artillery, putting it completely out of action, killing several men,
seriously wounding Capt. Otto Odjard, as well as Capt. Mowatt, who
later died from his wounds. While talking by telephone to our
headquarters at Shenkursk, just as we were being notified to withdraw,
a shell burst near headquarters, demolishing our telephone connections.
Again assembling our men we once more took up our weary retreat,
arriving that evening in Shenkursk, where, worn and completely
exhausted, we flung ourselves on floors and every available place to
rest for the coming siege, about to begin.




XVII
THE RETREAT FROM SHENKURSK


Shenkursk Surrounded By Bolsheviki—Enemy Artillery Outranged
Ours—British General At Beresnik Orders Retreat—Taking Hidden Trail We
Escape—Shenkursk Battalion Of Russians Fails Us—Description Of Terrible
March—Casting Away Their Shackletons—Resting At Yemska Gora—Making
Stand At Shegovari—Night Sees Retreat Resumed—Cossacks Cover
Rear—Holding Ill-Selected Vistavka—Toil, Vigilance And Valor Hold
Village Many Days—Red Heavy Artillery Blows Vistavka To Splinters In
March—Grand Assault Is Beaten Off For Two Days—Lucky Cossacks Smash In
And Save Us—Heroic Deeds Performed—Vistavka Is Abandoned.


After five days and nights of ceaseless fighting and marching, it is
necessary to say that we were soon sleeping the sleep of utterly
exhausted and worn out soldiers, but alas, our rest was soon to be
disturbed and we were to take up the weary march once more. Immediately
after our arrival within the gates of Shenkursk, the British High
Command at once called a council of war to hastily decide what our next
step should be. The situation briefly stated was this: Within this
position we had a large store of munitions, food, clothing, and other
necessaries sufficient to last the garrison, including our Russian
Allies, a period of sixty days. On the other hand, every available
approach and trail leading into Shenkursk was held by the enemy, who
could move about at will inasmuch as they were protected by the
trackless forests on all sides, and thus would soon render it
impossible for our far distant comrades in Archangel and elsewhere on
the lines to bring through any relief or assistance. Furthermore, it
was now the dead of the Arctic winter and three to four months must yet
elapse before the block ice of the Vaga-Dvina would give way for our
river gunboats and supply ships to reach us.

Between our positions and Beresnik, our river base, more than a hundred
miles distant, were but two occupied positions, the closest being
Shegovari, forty-four miles in rear of us, with but two Russian
platoons, and Kitsa, twenty miles further with but one platoon and a
few Russian troops. There were hundreds of trails leading through the
forests from town to town and it would be but a matter of days or even
hours for the enemy to occupy these positions and then strike at
Beresnik, thus cutting off not only our forces at Shenkursk but those
at Toulgas far down the Dvina as well. Already he had begun destroying
the lines of communication behind us.

That afternoon at 3:10 p. m. the last message from Beresnik arrived
ordering us to withdraw if possible. While this message was coming over
the wire and before our signal men had a chance to acknowledge it, the
wires suddenly “went dead,” shutting off our last hope of communication
with the outside world. We later learned from a prisoner who was
captured some days later that a strong raiding party had been
dispatched to raid the town of Yemska Gora on the line and to cut the
wires. Fortunately for us they started from their bivouac on a wrong
trail which brought them to their objective several hours later, during
which time the battle of Spasskoe had been fought and we had been
forced to retire, all of which information reached Beresnik in time for
the general in command there to wire back his order of withdrawal, just
as the wires were being cut away.

With this hopeless situation before us, and the certain possibility of
a starvation siege eventually forcing us to surrender, the council
decided that retreat we must if possible and without further delay. All
the principal roads or trails were already in the hands of the enemy.
However, there was a single, little used, winter trail leading straight
back into the forest in rear of us which, with devious turns and
windings, would finally bring us back to the river trail leading to
Shegovari, about twenty miles further down the river. Mounted Cossacks
were instantly dispatched along this trail and after several hours of
hard riding returned with word that, due to the difficulty of travel
and heavy snows, the enemy had not yet given serious consideration to
this trail, and as a consequence was unoccupied by them.

Without further delay English Headquarters immediately decided upon
total evacuation of Shenkursk. Orders were at once issued that all
equipment, supplies, rations, horses, and all else should be left just
as it stood and each man to take on that perilous march only what he
could carry. To attempt the destruction of Shenkursk by burning or
other means would at once indicate to the enemy the movement on foot;
therefore, all was to be left behind untouched and unharmed. Soon the
messengers were rapidly moving to and fro through the streets of the
village hastily rousing the slumbering troops, informing them of our
latest orders. When we received the order we were too stunned to fully
realize and appreciate all the circumstances and significance of it.
Countless numbers of us openly cursed the order, for was it not a
cowardly act and a breach of trust with our fallen comrades lying
beneath the snow in the great cathedral yard who had fought so
valiantly and well from Ust Padenga to Shenkursk in order to hold this
all important position? However, cooler heads and reason soon prevailed
and each quickly responded to the task of equipping himself for the
coming march.

Human greed often manifests itself under strange and unexpected
circumstances, and this black night of January 23, 1919, proved no
exception to the rule. Here and there some comrade would throwaway a
prized possession to make more room for necessary food or clothing in
his pack or pocket. Some other comrade would instantly grab it up and
feverishly struggle to get it tied onto his pack or person, little
realizing that long before the next thirty hours had passed he, too,
would be gladly and willingly throwing away prize after prize into the
snow and darkness of the forest.

At midnight the artillery, preceded by mounted Cossacks, passed through
the lane of barbed wire into the forests. The Shenkursk Battalion,
which had been mobilized from the surrounding villages, was dispatched
along the Kodima trail to keep the enemy from following too closely
upon our heels. This latter maneuver was also a test of the loyalty of
this battalion for there was a well defined suspicion that a large
portion of them were at heart sympathizers of the Bolo cause. Our
suspicions were shortly confirmed; very soon after leaving the city
they encountered the enemy and after an exchange of a few shots two
entire companies went over to the Bolo side, leaving nothing for the
others to do but flee for their lives.

Fortune was kind to us that night, however, and by 1:00 a. m. the
infantry was under way. Company “A”, which had borne the brunt of the
fighting so many long, weary days, was again called upon with Company
“C” to take up the rear guard, and so we set off into the blackness of
the never ending forest. As we marched out of the city hundreds of the
natives who had somehow gotten wind of this movement were also
scurrying here and there in order to follow the retreating column.
Others who were going to remain and face the entrance of the Bolos were
equally delighted in hiding and disposing of their valuables and making
away with the abandoned rations and supplies.

Hour after hour we floundered and struggled through the snow and bitter
cold. The artillery and horses ahead of us had cut the trail into a
network of holes, slides and dangerous pitfalls rendering our footing
so uncertain and treacherous that the wonder is that we ever succeeded
in regaining the river trail alive. Time after time that night one
could hear some poor unfortunate with his heavy pack on his back fall
with a sickening thud upon the packed trail, in many cases being so
stunned and exhausted that it was only by violent shaking and often by
striking some of the others in the face that they could be sufficiently
aroused and forced to continue the march.

At this time we were all wearing the Shackleton boot, a boot designed
by Sir Ernest Shackleton of Antarctic fame, and who was one of the
advisory staff in Archangel. This boot, which was warm and comfortable
for one remaining stationary as when on sentry duty, was very
impracticable and well nigh useless for marching, as the soles were of
leather with the smooth side outermost, which added further to the
difficulties of that awful night. Some of the men unable to longer
continue the march cast away their boots and kept going in their
stocking feet; soon others were following the example, with the result
that on the following day many were suffering from severely frostbitten
feet.

The following morning, just as the dull daylight was beginning to
appear through the snow-covered branches overhead, and when we were
about fifteen versts well away from Shenkursk, the roar of cannon
commenced far behind us. The enemy had not as yet discovered that we
had abandoned Shenkursk and he was beginning bright and early the siege
of Shenkursk. Though we were well out of range of his guns the boom of
the artillery acted as an added incentive to each tired and weary
soldier and with anxious eyes searching the impenetrable forests we
quickened our step.

At 9:00 a. m. we arrived at Yemska Gora on the main road from
Shenkursk, where an hour’s halt was made. All the samovars in the
village were at once put into commission and soon we were drinking
strong draughts of boiling hot tea. Some were successful in getting
chunks of black bread which they ravenously devoured. The writer was
fortunate in locating an old villager who earlier in the winter had
been attached to the company sledge transport and the old fellow
brought forth some fishcakes to add to the meagre fare. These cakes
were made by boiling or soaking the vile salt herring until it becomes
a semi-pasty mass, after which it is mixed with the black bread dough
and then baked, resulting in one of the most odoriferous viands ever
devised by human hands and which therefore few, if any, of us had
summoned up courage enough to consume. On this particular morning,
however, it required no courage at all and we devoured the pasty mass
as though it were one of the choicest of viands. The entire period of
the halt was consumed in eating and getting ready to continue the
march.

At 10:00 a. m. we again fell in and the weary march was resumed. The
balance of the day was simply a repetition of the previous night with
the exception that it was now daylight and the footing was more secure.
At five o’clock that afternoon we arrived at Shegovari, where the
little garrison of Company “C” and Company “D”, under command of Lieut.
Derham, was anxiously awaiting us, for after the attack of the
preceding day, which is described in the following paragraph, they were
fearful of the consequences in case they were compelled to continue
holding the position through the night without reinforcements.

Shortly after the drive had begun at Ust Padenga marauding parties of
the enemy were reported far in our rear in the vicinity of Shegovari.
On the night of January 21st some of the enemy, disguised as peasants,
approached one of the sentries on guard at a lonely spot near the
village and coldly butchered him with axes; another had been taken
prisoner, and with the daily reports of our casualties at Ust Padenga,
the little garrison was justly apprehensive. On the morning of January
23rd a band of the enemy numbering some two hundred men emerged from
the forest and had gained possession of the town before they were
detected. Fortunately the garrison was quickly assembled, and by
judicious use of machine guns and grenades quickly succeeded in
repelling the attack and retaining possession of the position, which
thus kept the road clear for the troops retreating from Shenkursk. Such
was the condition here upon our arrival.

Immediately we at once set up our outposts and fortunately got our
artillery into position, which was none too soon, for while we were
still so engaged our Cossack patrols came galloping in to report that a
great body of the enemy was advancing along the main road. Soon the
advance patrols of the enemy appeared and our artillery immediately
opened upon them. Seeing that we were thus prepared and probably
assuming that we were going to make a stand in this position, the enemy
retired to await reinforcements. All through the night we could see the
flames of rockets and signal lights in surrounding villages showing
them the enemy was losing no time in getting ready for an attack. Hour
after hour our guns boomed away until daylight again broke to
consolidate our various positions.


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Holiday Dance at Convalescent Hospital—Nurses and “Y” Girls._]


[Illustration: ROZANSKEY
_Subornya Cathedral._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Building a Blockhouse._]


Our position here was a very undesirable one from a military
standpoint, due to the fact that the enemy could approach from most any
direction under cover of the forest and river trails. Our next position
was Kitsa, which was situated about twenty miles further down the river
toward Beresnik, the single trail to which ran straight through the
forests without a single house or dwelling the entire way. This would
have been almost impossible to patrol, due to the scarcity of our
numbers, consequently, it was decided to continue our retreat to this
position.

At 5:00 p. m., under cover of darkness, we began assembling and once
more plunged into the never-ending forest in full retreat, leaving
Shegovari far behind. We left a small body of mounted Cossacks in the
village to cover our retreat, but later that night we discovered a
further reason for this delay here. At about eleven that night, as we
were silently pushing along through the inky blackness of the forest,
suddenly far to the south of us a brilliant flame commenced glowing
against the sky, which rapidly increased in volume and intensity. We
afterward learned that our Cossack friends had fired the village before
departing in order that the enemy could not obtain further stores and
supplies which we were compelled to abandon.

At midnight of January 26th the exhausted column arrived in Vistavka, a
position about six versts in advance from Kitsa, and we again made
ready to defend this new position.

The next day we made a hasty reconnaissance of the place and soon
realized that of all the positions we had chosen, as later events
conclusively proved, this was the most hopeless of all. Vistavka,
itself, stood on a high bluff on the right bank of the Vaga.
Immediately in front of us was the forest, to our left was the forest,
and on the opposite bank of the river more forest. The river wound in
and around at this point and at the larger bends were several
villages—one about five versts straight across the river called
Yeveevskaya—and another further in a direct line called Ust Suma. About
six or seven versts to our rear was Kitsa and Ignatevskaya lying on
opposite sides of the river—Kitsa being the only one of all these
villages with any kind of prepared defenses at all. However, we at once
set to work stringing up barbed wire and trying to dig into the frozen
snow and ground, which, however, proved adamant to our shovels and
picks. To add further to the difficulty of this task the enemy snipers
lying in wait in the woods would pick off our men, so that we finally
contented ourselves with snow trenches, and thus began the defense of
Vistavka, which lasted for about two months, during which time
thousands upon thousands of shells were poured into the little village,
and attack after attack was repulsed.

Within two days after our occupation of this place the enemy had gotten
his light artillery in place and with his observers posted in the trees
of the surrounding forest he soon had our range, and all through the
following month of February he continued his intermittent shelling and
sniping. Night after night we could hear the ring of axes in the
surrounding woods informing us that the Bolo was establishing his
defenses, but our numbers were so small that we could not send out
patrols enough to prevent this. Our casualties during this period were
comparatively light and with various reliefs by the Royal Scots, Kings
Liverpools, “C” and “D” Companies, American Infantry, we held this
place with success until the month of March.

By constant shelling during the month of February the enemy had
practically reduced Vistavka to a mass of ruins. With no stoves or fire
and a constant fare of frozen corned beef and hard tack, the morale of
the troops was daily getting lower and lower, but still we grimly stuck
to our guns.

On the evening of March 3rd the Russian troops holding Yeveevskaya got
possession of a supply of English rum, with the result that the entire
garrison was soon engaged in a big celebration. The Bolo, quick to take
advantage of any opportunity, staged a well-planned attack and within
an hour they had possession of the town. Ust Suma had been abandoned
almost a month prior to this time, which left Vistavka standing alone
with the enemy practically occupying every available position
surrounding us. As forward positions we now held Maximovskaya on the
left bank and Vistavka on the right.

The following day the enemy artillery, which had now been reinforced by
six and nine-inch guns, opened up with renewed violence and for two
days this continued, battering away every vestige of shelter remaining
to us. On the afternoon of the fifth the barrage suddenly lifted to our
artillery about two versts to our rear, and simultaneously therewith
the woods and frozen river were swarming with wave after wave of the
enemy coming forward to the attack. To the heroic defenders of the
little garrison it looked as though at last the end had come, but with
grim determination they quickly began pouring their hail of lead into
the advancing waves. Attack after attack was repulsed, but nevertheless
the enemy had succeeded in completely surrounding us. Once more he had
cut away our wires leading to Kitsa and also held possession of the
trails leading to that position. For forty-eight hours this awful
situation continued—our rations were practically exhausted and our
ammunition was running low. Headquarters at Kitsa had given us up for
lost and were preparing a new line there to defend. During the night,
however, one of our runners succeeded in getting through with word of
our dire plight. The following day the Kings Liverpools with other
troops marched forth from Kitsa in an endeavor to cut their way through
to our relief. The Bolo, however, had the trails and roads too well
covered with machine guns and troops and quickly repulsed this attempt.

Late that afternoon those in command at Kitsa decided to make another
attempt to bring assistance to our hopeless position and at last
ordered a mixed company of Russians and Cossacks to go forward in the
attempt. After issuing an overdose of rum to all, the commander made a
stirring address, calling upon them to do or die in behalf of their
comrades in such great danger. The comrades in question consisted of a
platoon of Russian machine gunners who were bravely fighting with the
Americans in Vistavka. Eventually they became sufficiently enthusiastic
and with a great display of ceremony they left Kitsa. As was to be
expected, they at once started on the wrong trail, but as good fortune
would have it this afterward proved the turning point of the day. This
trail, unknown to them, led into a position in rear of the enemy and
before they realized it they walked squarely into view of a battalion
of the enemy located in a ravine on one of our flanks, who either did
not see them approaching or mistakenly took them for more of their own
number advancing. Quickly sensing the situation, our Cossack Allies at
once got their machine guns into position and before the Bolos realized
it these machine guns were in action, mowing down file after file of
their battalion. To counter attack was impossible for they would have
to climb the ravine in the face of this hail of lead, and the only
other way of escape was in the opposite direction across the river
under direct fire from our artillery and machine guns. Suddenly,
several of the enemy started running and inside of a minute the
remainder of the battalion was fleeing in wild disorder, but it was
like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, for as they retreated
across the river our artillery and machine guns practically annihilated
them. Shortly thereafter the Cossacks came marching through our lines
where they were welcomed with open arms and again Vistavka was saved.
That night fresh supplies and ammunition were brought up and the little
garrison was promised speedy relief.

Our total numbers during this attack did not amount to more than four
hundred men, including the Cossack machine gunners and Canadian
artillery-men. We afterward learned that from four to five thousand of
the enemy took part in this attack.

The next day all was quiet and we began to breathe more easily,
thinking that perhaps the enemy at last had enough. Our hopes were soon
to be rudely shattered, for during this lull the Bolo was busily
occupied in bringing up more ammunition and fresh troops, and on the
morning of the seventh he again began a terrific artillery preparation.
As stated elsewhere on these pages, our guns did not have sufficient
range to reach the enemy guns even had we been successful in locating
them, so all we could do was to lie shivering in the snow behind logs,
snow trenches and barbed wire, hoping against hope that the artillery
would not annihilate us.

The artillery bombardment continued for two days, continuing up to noon
of March 9th, when the enemy again launched another attack. This time
we were better prepared and, having gotten wind of the plan of attack,
we again caught a great body of the infantry in a ravine waist deep in
snow. We could plainly see and hear the Bolo commissars urging and
driving their men forward to the attack, but there is a limit to all
endurance and once again one or two men bolted and ran, and it was but
a matter of minutes until all were fleeing in wild disorder.

Space does not permit the enumeration of the splendid individual feats
of valor performed by such men as Lieuts. McPhail of Company “A”, and
Burns of the Engineers, with their handful of men—nor the grim tenacity
and devotion to duty of Sgts. Yarger, Rapp, Garbinski, Moore and Kenny,
the last two of whom gave up their lives during the last days of their
attacks. Even the cooks were called upon to do double duty and, led by
“Red” Swadener, they would work all night long trying to prepare at
least one warm meal for the exhausted men, the next day taking their
places in the snow trenches with their rifles on their shoulders
fighting bravely to the end. Then, too, there were the countless
numbers of such men as Richey, Hutchinson, Kurowski, Retherford,
Peyton, Russel, De Amicis, Cheney, and others who laid down their lives
in this hopeless cause.

The attack was not alone directed against the position of Vistavka, for
on the opposite bank of the river the garrison at Maximovskaya was
subjected to an attack of almost equal ferocity. The position there was
surrounded by forests and the enemy could advance within several
hundred yards without being observed. The defenders here, comprising
Companies “F” and “A”, bravely held on and inflicted terrific losses
upon the enemy.

It was during these terrible days that Lt. Dan Steel of Company “F”
executed a daring and important patrol maneuver. This officer, who had
long held the staff position of battalion adjutant, feeling that he
could render more effective service to his comrades by being at the
front, demanded a transfer from his staff position to duty with a line
company, which transfer was finally reluctantly given—reluctantly
because of the fact that he had virtually been the power behind the
throne, or colonel’s chair, of the Vaga River column. A few days later
found him in the thick of the fighting at Maximovskaya, and when a
volunteer was needed for the above mentioned patrol he was the first to
respond. The day in question he set forth in the direction of
Yeveevskaya with a handful of men. The forests were fairly alive with
enemy patrols, but in the face of all these odds he pushed steadily
forward and all but reached the outskirts of the village itself where
he obtained highly valuable information, mapped the road and trails
through the forests, thus enabling the artillery to cover the same
during the violent attacks of these first ten days of March.

By five o’clock of that day the attack was finally repulsed and we
still held our positions at Vistavka and Maximovskaya—but in Vistavka
we were holding a mere shell of what had once been a prosperous and
contented little village. The constant shelling coupled with attacks
and counter attacks for months over the same ground had razed the
village to the ground, leaving nothing but a shell-torn field and a few
blackened ruins. It was useless to hold the place longer and
consequently that night it was decided to abandon the position here and
withdraw to a new line about three versts in advance of Kitsa.

Under cover of darkness on the night of March 9th we abandoned the
position at Vistavka, and as stated in the previous chapter,
established a new line of defense along a trail and in the forests
about three versts in advance of Kitsa. While our position at Vistavka
was practically without protection, this position here was even worse.
We were bivouacked in the open snow and woods where we could only dig
down into the snow and pray that the Bolo artillery observers would be
unable to locate us. Our prayers in this respect were answered, for
this position was not squarely in the open as Vistavka was, and
therefore not under the direct fire of his artillery. The platoons of
“F” Company at Maximovskaya were brought up here to join the balance of
their company in holding this position, “A” Company being relieved by
“D” Company and sent across the river to Ignatovskaya. “F” Company
alternated with platoons of the Royal Scots in this position in the
woods for the balance of the month, during which there was constant
shelling and sniping but with few casualties among our ranks. The
latter part of March “F” Company was relieved for a short time, but the
first week in April were again sent back to the Kitsa position. By this
time the spring thaws were setting in and the snow began disappearing.
Our plans now were to hold these positions at Kitsa and Maximovskaya
until the river ice began to move out and then burn all behind us and
make a speedy getaway, but how to do this and not reveal our plans to
the enemy a few hundred yards across No Man’s Land was the problem.




XVIII
DEFENSE OF PINEGA


Kulikoff And Smelkoff Lead Heavy Force Against Pinega—Reinforcements
Hastened Up To Pinega—Reds Win Early Victories Against Small Force Of
Defenders—Value Of Pinega Area—Desperate Game Of Bluffing—Captain
Akutin Reorganizes White Guards—Russians Fought Well In Many
Engagements—Defensive Positions Hold Against Heavy Red Attack—Voluntary
Draft Of Russians Of Pinega Area—American Troops “G” And “M” Made
Shining Page—Military-Political Relations Eminently Successful.


The flying column of Americans up the Pinega River in late fall we
remember retired to Pinega in face of a surprisingly large force. The
commander of the Bolshevik Northern Army had determined to make use of
the winter roads across the forests to send guns and ammunition and
food and supplies to the area in the upper valley of the Pinega. He
would jolt the Allies in January with five pieces of artillery, two
75’s and three pom poms, brought up from Kotlas where their stores had
been taken in the fall retreat before the Allies. One of his prominent
commanders, Smelkoff, who had fought on the railroad in the fall, went
over to the distant Pinega front to assist a rising young local
commander, Kulikoff. These two ambitious soldiers of fortune had both
been natives and bad actors of the Pinega Valley, one being a noted
horse thief of the old Czar’s day.

With food, new uniforms and rifles and common and lots of nice crisp
Bolshevik money and with boastful stories of how they had whipped the
invading foreigners on other fields in the fall and with invective
against the invaders these leaders soon excited quite a large following
of fighting men from the numerous villages. With growing power they
rounded up unwilling men and drafted them into the Red Army just as
they had done so often before in other parts of Russia if we may
believe the statements of wounded men and prisoners and deserters. Down
the valley with the handful of Americans and Russian White Guards there
came an ever increasing tide of anti-Bolshevists looking to Pinega for
safety.

The Russian local government of Pinega, though somewhat pinkish, did
not want war in the area and appealed to the Archangel state government
for military aid to hold the Reds off. Captain Conway reported to
Archangel G. H. Q. that the population was very nervous and that with
his small force of one hundred men and the three hundred undisciplined
volunteer White Guards he was in a tight place. Consequently, it was
decided to send a company of Americans to relieve the half company
there and at the same time to send an experienced ex-staff officer of
the old Russian Army to Pinega with a staff of newly trained Russian
officers to serve with the American officer commanding the area and
raise and discipline all the local White Guards possible.

Accordingly, Capt. Moore with “M” Company was ordered to relieve the
Americans at Pinega, and Capt. Akutin by the Russian general commanding
the North Russian Army was ordered to Pinega for the mission already
explained. Two pieces of field artillery with newly trained Russian
personnel were to go up and supplies and ammunition were to be rushed
up the valley.

On December 18th the half company of American troops set off for the
march to the city of Pinega. The story of that 207-verst march of
Christmas week, when the days were shortest and the weather severe,
will be told elsewhere. Before they reached the city, which was
desperately threatened, the fears of the defenders of Pinega had been
all but realized. The Reds in great strength moved on the flank of the
White Guards, surrounded them at Visakagorka and dispersed them into
the woods. If they had only known it they might have immediately
besieged the city of Pinega. But they respected the American force and
proceeded carefully as far as Trufanagora.

On the very day of this disaster to the White Guards the Americans on
the road were travelling the last forty-six versts rapidly by sleigh.
News of this reinforcing column reached the Reds and no doubt slowed up
their advance. They began fortifying the important Trufanagora, which
was the point where the old government roads and telegraph lines from
Mezen and Karpogora united for the Pinega-Archangel line.

Reference to the war map will show that this Pinega area gave all the
advantages of strategy to the Red commander, whose rapid advance down
the valley with the approach of winter had taken the Archangel
strategists by surprise. His position at Trufanagora not only gave him
control of the Mezen road and cut off the meats from Mezen and the
sending of flour and medical supplies to Mezen and Petchura, in which
area an officer of the Russian Northern Army was opposing the local Red
Guards, but it also gave him a position that made of the line of
communication to our rear a veritable eighty-mile front.

In our rear on the line of communication were the villages of Leunova,
Ostrov and Kuzomen, which were scowlingly pro-Bolshevik. One of the
commanders, Kulikoff, the bandit, hailed from Kuzomen. He was in
constant touch with this area. When the winter trails were frozen more
solidly he would try to lead a column through the forest to cut the
line.

Now began a struggle to keep the lower valley from going over to the
Bolsheviki while we were fighting the Red Guards above the city. It was
a desperate game. We must beat them at bluffing till our Russian forces
were raised and we must get the confidence of the local governments.

Half the new American force was sent under Lt. Stoner to occupy the
Soyla area on the line of communication, which seemed most in danger of
being attacked. The men of this area, and the women and children, too,
for that matter, were soon won to the cordial support of the Americans.
Treacherous Yural was kept under surveillance and later subsided and
fell into line with Pinega, which was considerably more than fifty per
cent White, in spite of the fact that her mayor was a former Red.

The rout of the White Guards at Visakagorka had not been as bad as
appeared at first. The White Guards had fought up their ammunition and
then under the instructions of their fiery Polish leader, Mozalevski,
had melted into the forest and reassembled many versts to the rear and
gone into the half-fortified village of Peligorskaya. Here the White
Guards were taken in hand by their new commander, Capt. Akutin, and
reorganized into fighting units, taking name from the villages whence
they came. Thus the Trufanagora Company of White Guards rallied about a
leader who stimulated them to drill for the fight to regain their own
village from the Reds who at that very moment were compelling their
Trufanagora women to draw water and bake bread and dig trenches for the
triumphant and boastful Red Guards.

This was an intense little civil war. No mercy and no quarter. The Reds
inflamed their volunteers and conscripts against the invading Americans
and the Whites. The White Guards gritted their teeth at the looting
Reds and proudly accepted their new commander’s motto: White Guards for
the front; Americans for the city and the lines of communication.

And this was good. During the nine weeks of this successful defense of
the city the Russian White Guards stood all the casualties, and they
were heavy. Not an American soldier was hit. Yankee doughboys supported
the artillery and stood in reserves and manned blockhouses but not one
was wounded. Three hospitals were filled with the wounded White Guards.
American soldiers in platoon strength or less were seen constantly on
the move from one threatened spot to another, but always, by fate it
seemed, it was the Russian ally who was attacked or took the assaulting
line in making our advances on the enemy.

On January 8th and again on January 29th and 30th we tried the enemy’s
works at Ust Pocha. Both times we took Priluk and Zapocha but were held
with great losses before Ust Pocha. At the first attempt Pochezero was
taken in a flank attack by the Soyla Lake two-company outguard of
Soyla. But this emboldened the Reds to try the winter trail also. On
January 24th they nearly took our position.

News of the Red successes at Shenkursk reached the Pinega Valley. We
knew the Reds were now about to strike directly at the city. Capt.
Akutin’s volunteer force, although but one-third the size of the enemy,
was ready to beat the Reds to the attack. With two platoons of
Americans and seven hundred White Guards the American commander moved
against the advancing Reds. Two other platoons of Americans were on the
line of communications and one at Soyla Lake ready for counter-attack.
Only one platoon remained in Pinega. It was a ticklish situation, for
the Red agitators had raised their heads again and an officer had been
assassinated in a nearby village. The mayor was boarding in the
American guardhouse and stern retaliation had been meted out to the Red
spies.

The Reds stopped our force after we had pushed them back into their
fortifications and we had to retire to Peligora, where barbed wire,
barricades, trenches and fortified log houses had been prepared for
this rather expected last stand before the city of Pinega. For weeks it
had looked dubious for the city. Enemy artillery would empty the city
of inhabitants, although his infantry would find it difficult to
penetrate the wire and other fortifications erected by the Americans
and Russians under the able direction of a British officer, Lieut.
Augustine of a Canadian engineer unit. Think of chopping holes in the
ice and frozen ground, pouring in water and freezing posts in for wire
supports! Then came the unexpected. After six days of steady fighting
which added many occupants to our hospital and heavy losses to the
enemy, he suddenly retreated one night, burning the village of Priluk
which we had twice used as field base for our attack on him.

From Pinega we looked at the faint smoke column across the forest deep
with snow and breathed easier than we had for many anxious weeks. Our
pursuing forces came back with forty loads of enemy supplies they left
behind in the various villages we had captured from his forces. Why?
Was it operations in his rear of our forces from Soyla, or the American
platoon that worried his flank near his artillery, or Shaponsnikoff in
the Mezen area threatening his flank, or was it a false story of the
arrival of the forces of Kolchak at Kotlas in his rear? Americans here
at Pinega, like the vastly more desperate and shattered American forces
on the Vaga and at Kodish at the same time, had seen their fate
impending and then seen the Reds unaccountably withhold the final blow.

The withdrawal of the Reds to their stronghold at Trufanagora in the
second week in February disappointed their sympathizers in Pinega and
the Red Leunova area, and from that time on the occupation of the
Pinega Valley by the Americans was marked by the cordial co-operation
of the whole area. During the critical time when the Reds stood almost
at the gates of the city, the Pinega government had yielded to the
demands of the volunteer troops that all citizens be drafted for
military service. This was done even before the Archangel authorities
put its decree forth. Every male citizen between ages of eighteen and
forty-five was drafted, called for examination and assigned to recruit
drill or to service of supply or transportation. There was enthusiastic
response of the people.

The square opposite the cathedral resounded daily to the Russki recruit
sergeant’s commands and American platoons drilling, too, for effect on
the Russians, saw the strange new way of turning from line to column
and heard with mingled respect and amusement the weird marching song of
the Russian soldier. And one day six hundred of those recruits, in
obedience to order from Archangel, went off by sleigh to Kholmogora to
be outfitted and assigned to units of the new army of the Archangel
Republic. Among these recruits was a young man, heir-apparent to the
million roubles of the old merchant prince of Pinega, whose mansion was
occupied by the Americans for command headquarters and billets for all
the American officers engaged in the defense of the city. This young
man had tried in the old Russian way to evade the local government
official’s draft. He had tried again at Capt. Akutin’s headquarters to
be exempted but that democratic officer, who understood the real
meaning of the revolution to the Russian people and who had their
confidence, would not forfeit it by favoring the rich man’s son. And
when he came to American headquarters to argue that he was needed more
in the officers’ training camp at Archangel than in the ranks of
recruits, he was told that revolutionary Russia would surely recognize
his merit and give him a chance if he displayed marked ability along
military lines, and wished good luck. He drilled in the ranks. And
Pinega saw it.

The Americans had finished their mission in Pinega. In place of the
three hundred dispirited White Guards was a well trained regiment of
local Russian troops which, together with recruits, numbered over two
thousand. Under the instruction of Lieut. Wright of “M” Company, who
had been trained as an American machine gun officer, the at first
half-hearted Russians had developed an eight-gun machine gun unit of
fine spirit, which later distinguished itself in action, standing
between the city and the Bolsheviks in March when the Americans had
left to fight on another front. Also under the instruction of a veteran
Russian artillery officer the two field-pieces, Russian 75’s, had been
manned largely by peasant volunteers who had served in the old Russian
artillery units. In addition, a scouting unit had been developed by a
former soldier who had been a regimental scout under the old Russian
Government. Pinega was quiet and able to defend itself.

Compared with the winter story of wonderful stamina in enduring
hardships at Shenkursk and Kodish and the sanguine fighting of those
fronts, this defense of Pinega looks tame. Between the lines of the
story must be read the things that made this a shining page that shows
the marked ability of Americans to secure the co-operation of the
Russian local government in service of supply and transportation and
billeting and even in taking up arms and assuming the burdens of
fighting their own battles.

Those local companies of well-trained troops were not semi-British but
truly Russian. They never failed their _dobra Amerikanski soldats_,
whose close order drill on the streets of Pinega was a source of
inspiration to the Russian recruits.

Furthermore, let it be said that the faithful representation of
American ideals of manhood and square deal and democratic courtesy,
here as on other fronts, but here in particular, won the confidence of
the at first suspicious and pinkish-white government. Our American
soldiers’ conduct never brought a complaint to the command
headquarters. They secured the affectionate support of the people of
the Pinega Valley. Never was any danger of an enemy raiding force
surprising the American lieutenant, sergeant or corporal whose
detachment was miles and miles from help. The natives would ride a pony
miles in the dark to give information to the Americans and be gratified
with his thanks and cigarettes.

Freely the Pinega Russians for weeks and weeks provided sleighs and
billets and trench-building details and so forth without expecting pay.
An arrogant British officer travelling with a pocket full of imprest
money could not command the service that was freely offered an American
soldier. The doughboy early learned to respect their rude homes and
customs. He did not laugh at their oddities but spared their sensitive
feelings. He shook hands a dozen times heartily if necessary in saying
_dasvedania_, and left the Russian secure in his own self-respect and
fast friend of the American officer or soldier.

For his remarkable success in handling the ticklish political situation
in face of overwhelming military disadvantages, and also in rallying
and putting morale into the White Guard units of the Pinega area,
during those nine desperate weeks, the American officer commanding the
Pinega forces, Captain Joel R. Moore, was thanked in person by General
Maroushevsky, Russian G. H. Q., who awarded him and several officers
and men of “M” and “G” Russian military decorations. And General
Ironside sent a personal note, prized almost as highly as an official
citation, which the editors beg the indulgence here of presenting
merely for the information of the readers:

Archangel, March 18, 1919. My Dear Moore: I want to thank you for all
the hard work you did when in command of the Pinega area. You had many
dealings with the Russians, and organized their defense with great care
and success.

All the reports I have received from the Russian authorities express
the fact that you dealt with them sympathetically under many difficult
circumstances.

As you probably found, responsibility at such a distance from
headquarters is difficult to bear, even for an experienced soldier, and
I think you carried out your duties as Commander with great credit.

I am especially pleased with the manner in which you have looked after
your men, which is often forgotten by the non-professional soldier. In
such conditions as those prevailing in Russia, unless the greatest care
is taken of the men, they lose health and heart and are consequently no
good for the job for which they are here.

Believe me yours very sincerely,

(Signed) EDMOND IRONSIDE, _Major-General._

When the Americans left the Pinega sector of defense in March, they
carried with them the good wishes of the citizens and the Russian
soldiers of that area. The writer travelled alone the full length of
the lower Pinega Valley after his troops had passed through, finding
everywhere the only word necessary to gain accommodations and service
was the simple sentence uttered in broken Russian, _Yah Amerikanski
Kapitan, Kammandant Pinega_. The American soldiers, hastening
Archangel-ward so as to be ready for stern service on another
hard-beset front, found themselves aided and assisted cheerfully by the
Pinega Valley peasants who were grateful for the defense of their area
in the desperate winter campaign.

During those ticklish weeks of Bolshevik pressure of greatly superior
numbers constantly threatening to besiege Pinega, and of a political
propaganda which was hard to offset, the Americans held on
optimistically. If they had made a single false step politically or if
their White Guards had lost their morale they would have had a more
exciting and desperate time than they did have in the defense of
Pinega.




XIX
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE


Archangel Area—Occupations Of People—Schools—Church—Dress—In Peasant
Homes—Great Masonry Stove—Best Bed In House On Stove—Washing Clothes In
River Below Zero—Steaming Bath House—Festivals—Honesty Of Peasants.


To the doughboy penetrating rapidly into the interior of North Russia,
whether by railroad or by barge or by more slow-going cart transport,
his first impression was that of an endless expanse of forest and swamp
with here and there an area of higher land. One of them said that the
state of Archangel was 700 miles long by 350 wide and as tall as the
50-foot pine trees that cover it. Winding up the broad deep rivers he
passed numerous villages with patches of clearings surrounding the
villages, and where fishing nets, or piles of wood, numerous hay stacks
and cows, and occasionally a richer area where high drying-racks held
the flax, told him that the people were occupied chiefly in fishing,
trapping, wood-cutting, flax raising, small dairying, and raising of
limited amounts of grain and vegetables. He was to learn later that
this north country raised all kinds of garden and field products during
the short but hot and perpetually daylight summer.

Between villages the forest was broken only by the hunter or the
woodchopper or the haymaker’s trails. The barge might pass along beside
towering bluffs or pass by long sandy flats. Never a lone peasant’s
house on the trail was seen. They lived in villages. Few were the
improved roads. The Seletskoe-Kodish-Plesetskaya-Petrograd highway on
which our troops fought so long was not much of a road. These roads ran
from village to village through the pine woods, crossing streams and
wide rivers by wooden bridges and crossing swamps, where it was too
much to circuit them, by corduroy. North Russia’s rich soil areas, her
rich ores, her timber, her dairying possibilities have been held back
by the lack of roads. The soldier saw a people struggling with nature
as he had heard of his grandfathers struggling in pioneer days in
America.

To many people, the mention of North Russia brings vision of wonderful
furs in great quantity. In normal times such visions would not be far
wrong. But under the conditions following the assumption of central
control by the Bolsheviks and the over-running of large sections of the
north country by their ravenous troops, few furs have been brought to
market in the ordinary places. In order to find the fur-catches of the
winters of 1917, 1918 and 1919 before the peaceful security of the
settled sections of Russia has been restored, it will be necessary to
travel by unusual routes into the country far to the northeast of
Archangel—into the Mezen and Pechura districts. There will be found
fur-clad and half-starved tribes cut off from their usual avenues of
trade and hoarding their catches of three seasons while they wonder how
long it will be until someone opens the way for the alleviation of
their misery. Information travels with amazing speed among these simple
people, and they will run knowingly no risk of having their only wealth
seized without recompense while en route to the distant markets. The
Bolshevik forces have been holding a section of the usual road to
Pinega and Archangel, and these fur-gathering tribes are wise and
stubborn even while slowly dying. They absolutely lack medicine and
surgical assistance, and certain food ingredients and small
conveniences to which they had become accustomed through their contact
with more settled peoples during the last half-century.

For those Americans in whose minds Russia is represented largely by a
red blank it would mean an education of a sort to see the passage of
the four seasons, the customs and life of the people, and the scenery
and buildings in any considerable section of Russia.

In the north, the division of the year into seasons is rather uncertain
from year to year. Roughly, the summertime may be considered to last
from May 25th to September 1st, the rainy season until the freeze-up in
late November, the steady winter from early December until early April,
and the thaw-season or spring to fill out the cycle until late May. The
summer may break into the rainy season in August, and the big freeze
may come very early or very late. The winter may be extreme, variable
or steady, the latter mood being most comfortable; and the thaw season
may be short and decisive or a lingering discouraging clasp on the
garments of winter. Summers have been known to be very hot and free
from rain, and they have been known to be very cloudy and chilly.
Indeed, twelve hours of cloud in that northern latitude will reduce the
temperature very uncomfortably. The woodsmen and peasants can foretell
quite accurately some weeks ahead when the main changes are due, which
is of great help to the stranger as well as to themselves.

A little inquiry by American officers and soldiers brought out the
information that the great area lying east, south and west of Archangel
city has been gradually settled during four hundred years by several
types of people, most of them Russians in the sense in which Americans
use the word, but most of them lacking a sense of national
responsibility. Throughout this long time, people have settled along
the rivers and lakes as natural avenues of transportation. They sought
a measure of independence and undisturbed and primitive comfort. Such
they found in this rather isolated country because it offered good
hunting and fishing, fertile land with plenty of wood, little
possibility of direct supervision or control by the government, refuge
from political or civil punishment, few or no taxes, escape from
feudalism or from hard industrial conditions, and—more recently—grants
by the government of free land with forestry privileges to settlers.

Notwithstanding all this, the Government of Archangel State, with its
hundreds of thousands of square miles, has never been self-supporting,
but has had to draw on natural resources in various ways for its
support. This has been done so that there is as yet not noticeable
depletion, and the people have remained so nearly satisfied—until
recently aroused by other inflammatory events—that it is safe to say
that no other larger section of the Russian Empire has been so free
from violence, oppression and revolution as has the North.

It has been so difficult to visit this northern region in detail that
knowledge of it has been scant and meagre. Although many reports have
been forwarded by United States agents to various departments of their
government ever since Russia began to disintegrate, such was the lack
of liaison between departments, and so great the disinclination to take
advantage of the information thus accumulated, that when the small body
of American troops was surprised by orders to proceed to North Russia
there was no compilation of information concerning their theatre of
operations available for them. An amusing error was actually made in
the War Department’s ordering a high American officer to proceed to
Archangel via Vladivostok, which as a cursory glance at the map of the
world would discover, is at the far eastern, _vostok_ means eastern,
edge of Siberia, thousands of miles from Archangel. And similar stories
were told by British officers who were ordered by their War Office to
report to Archangel by strange routes. England, who has lived almost
next door to North Russia throughout her history, and who established
in the 16th century the first trading post known in that country, seems
to have been in similar difficulties. The detailed information
regarding the roads, trails and villages of the north country which
filtered down as far as the English officers who controlled the various
field operations of the Expedition turned out to be nil or erroneous.
Thereby hang many tales which will be told over and over wherever
veterans of that campaign are to be found.

The lack of transportation within this great hinterland of Archangel,
as can be verified by any doughboy who marched and rassled his supplies
into the interior, is an immediate reason for the comparative
non-development of this region. It has not been so many years since the
first railroad was run from central Russia to Archangel. At first a
narrow-gauge line, it was widened to the full five-foot standard
Russian gauge after the beginning of the great war. It is a
single-track road with half-mile sidings at intervals of about seven
miles. At these sidings are great piles of wood for the locomotives,
and at some of them are water-tanks. While this railroad is used during
the entire year, it suffers the disadvantage of having its northern
terminal port closed by ice during the winter. After the opening of the
great war a parallel line was built from Petrograd north to Murmansk, a
much longer line through more unsettled region but having the advantage
of a northern port terminal open the year around. These two lines are
so far apart as to have no present relation to each other except
through the problem of getting supplies into central Russia from the
north. They are unconnected throughout their entire length.

Similarly, there is a paucity of wagon-roads in the Archangel district,
and those that are passable in the summer are many miles apart, with
infrequent cross-roads. Roads which are good for “narrow-gauge” Russian
sleds in the winter when frozen and packed with several feet of snow,
are often impassable even on foot in the summer. And dirt or corduroy
roads which are good in dry summer or frozen winter are impassable or
hub-deep in mud in the spring and in the fall rainy season. For
verification ask any “H” company man who pulled his army field shoes
out of the sticky soil of the Onega Valley mile after mile in the fall
of 1918 while pressing the Bolsheviki southward. Good roads are
possible in North Russia, but no one will ever build them until
industrial development demands them or the area becomes thickly
populated; that is, disregarding the possibility of future
road-building for military operations. Military roads have, as we know,
been built many times in advance of any economic demand, and have later
become valuable aids in developing the adjacent country.

Another reason for the non-development of the north country in the past
is the lack of available labor-supply. People are widely scattered. The
majority of the industrious ones are on their own farms, and of the
remainder the number available for the industries of any locality is
small. Added to this condition is a very noticeable disinclination on
the part of everybody toward over-exertion at the behest of others;
coupled with a responsiveness to holidays that is incomprehensible to
Americans who believe in making time into money. While the excessive
proportion of holidays in the Russian calendar is deprecated by the
more far-sighted and educated among the Russians, there is no
hesitation on that score noticeable among the bulk of the people.
Holidays are holy days and not to be neglected. Consequently the supply
of labor for hire is not satisfactory from the employer’s standpoint,
because it is not only small but unsteady. The Russian workman is
faithful enough when treated understandingly. But if allowance is not
made beforehand for his limitations and his customs, those who deal
with him will be sorely disappointed.

It is said that there are upwards of seventy regular holidays, most of
them of church origin, aside from Sundays; and in addition, holidays by
proclamation are not infrequent. Some holidays last three days and some
holiday seasons—notably the week before Lent—are celebrated in a
different village of a group each day. The villagers in all perform
only the necessary work each day and flock in the afternoon and
evenings to the particular village which is acting as host and
entertainment center for that day. It is all very pleasant, but it is
no life for the solid business man or the industrious laborer.
Fortunately the agricultural and forestry areas of the north, of which
this passage is written, yield a comfortable, primitive living to these
hardy people without constant work. The needs of modern industry as we
understand it, have not entered to cause confusion in their social
structure. The sole result has been to delay the development of
resources and industry by deterring the application of capital and
entrepreneurship on any large scale.

Before the war the English had active interest in flax and timber and
some general trading, and the Germans flooded the North with
merchandise, but these activities were more in the nature of utilizing
the opportunities created by the needs of the scattered population than
of developing rapidly a great country.

Soldiers in Archangel saw American flour being unloaded from British
ships in Archangel and sliding down the planks from the unloading quay
into the Russian boats. And at the other side they saw Russian bales of
flax being hoisted up into the ship for transport to England. England
was energetically supplying flour and food and other supplies for an
army of 25,000 anti-Bolsheviki and aid to a civil population of several
hundred thousand inhabitants and refugees in the North Russian area.
This taking of the little stores of flax and lumber and furs that were
left in the country by the English seemed to the suspicious
anti-British of Russia and America to be corroboration of the
allegations of commercial purpose of the expedition, though to the
pinched population of England to let those supplies of flour and fat
and sugar leave England for Russia meant hardship. In all fairness we
can only say that Russia was getting more than England in the exchange.


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Market Scene, Yemetskoe—Note Primitive Balances Weighing Beef._]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_Old Russian Prison, Annex to British Hospital._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Wash Day—Rinsing Clothes in River._]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_Archangel Cab-Men._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Minstrels of “I” Company Repeat Program in Y. M. C. A._]


[Illustration: U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Archangel Girls Filling Xmas Stockings._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Y. M. C. A. Rest Room, Archangel._]


Outside of the cities in the life and customs of the people exists a
broad simplicity which is unlike the social atmosphere of most of the
districts of rural America. Persons, however, who are acquainted with
the rural districts of Norway and Sweden feel quite at home in the
atmosphere of the North Russian village life.

The villages are composed of the houses of the small farmers who till
the surrounding land, together with church, school, store, and grain
and flax barns. Except for a few new villages along the railways, all
are to be found along some watercourse navigable at least for small
barges. For the waterways are the first, and for a long time the only
avenues of communication and trade. In the winter they make the very
best roadways for sleds. Wherever there was a great deal of open farm
land along a river several of these village farm centers grew up in
close proximity. The villages in such a group often combine for
convenience, in local government, trading, and support of churches and
schools. The majority of the villagers belong to a few large family
groups which have grown in that community for generations and give it
an enviable permanence and stability.

Family groups are represented in the councils of the community by their
recognized heads, usually active old men. In these later troublous
times, when so many of the men have disappeared in the maelstrom of the
European war or are engaged in the present civil strife, women are
quite naturally the acting heads of many families; and the result has
led some observers to conclude that the women have better heads for
business and better muscles for farming than have the men. It is
certain that in some communities the women outshine in those respects
the men who still remain. The same council of family heads which guides
the local affairs of each village, or group of villages, also attends
through a committee to the affairs of the local cooperative store
society which exists for trading purposes and acts in conjunction with
the central society of Archangel. Each little local store has a
vigilant keeper now frequently some capable young widow, who has no
children old enough to help her to till some of the strips of land.

The election and the duties of the headman have been dealt with
heretofore. His word is law and the soldiers came to know that the
proper way to get things was to go through the _starosta_. In every
village is a teacher, more or less trained. Each child is compelled to
attend three years. If desirous he may go to high schools of liberal
arts and science and technical scope, seminaries and monastic schools.

Of course, some children escape school, but not many, and the number of
absolute illiterates under middle age who have been raised in North
Russia is comparatively small. The writer well recalls that peasants
seldom failed to promptly sign their names to receipts. Around our
bulletin boards men in Russian camp constantly stood reading. One of
the requests from the White Guards was for Archangel newspapers. One of
the pleasantest winter evenings spent in North Russia was at the time
of a teachers’ association meeting in the Pinega Valley. And one of the
cleanest and busiest school-rooms ever visited was one of those little
village schools. To be sure the people were limited in their education
and way behind the times in their schools but they were eager to get
on.

Also, in every small center of population there is a Russian State
Church. In America we have been accustomed to call these Greek Catholic
Churches, but they are not. The ritual and creed are admittedly rather
similar, but the church government, the architecture, the sacred
pictures and symbols, and the cross, are all thoroughly Russian. Until
the revolution, the Czar was the State head of the Church, and the
Ecclesiastical head was appointed by him. In the North at present
whatever aid was extended in times past from the government to the
churches—and to the schools as well—is looked for from the Provisional
Government at Archangel; and under the circumstances is very meagre if
not lacking altogether for long periods. The villagers do not close the
churches or schools for such a minor reason as that, however. They feed
and clothe the teacher and heat the church and the school. The priest
works his small farm like the rest of them—that is, if he is a “good”
priest. If he is not a “good” priest he charges heavily for special
services, christenings, weddings or funerals, and begs or demands more
for himself than the villagers think they can afford (and they afford a
great deal, for the villagers are very devout and by training very long
suffering), and the next year finds himself politely kicked upstairs to
another charge in a larger community which the villagers quite
logically believe will better be able to support his demands. Such an
affair is managed with the utmost finesse.

Within the family all share in the work—and the play. The grown men do
the hunting, fishing, felling of timber, building, hauling, and part of
the planting and harvesting. The women, boys and girls do a great deal
toward caring for the live-stock, and much of the work in the field.
They also do some of the hauling and much of the sawing and splitting
of wood for the stoves of the house, besides all of the housework and
the spinning, knitting, weaving and making of clothing. The boys’
specialty during the winter evenings often is the construction of
fishnets of various sized meshes, and the making of baskets, which they
do beautifully.

On Sundays and holidays, even in these times of hardship, the native
dress of the northern people is seen in much of its former interesting
beauty. The women and girls in full skirts, white, red or yellow waists
with laced bodices of darker color, fancy head-cloths and startling
shawls, tempt the stares of the foreigner as they pass him on their way
to church or to a dance. The men usually content themselves with their
cleanest breeches, a pair of high boots of beautiful leather, an
embroidered blouse buttoning over the heart, a broad belt, and a woolly
angora cap without a visor. Suspenders and corsets are quite absent.

On week-days and at work the dress of the North Russian peasant is,
after five years of wartime, rather a nondescript collection of
garments, often pitiful. In the winter the clothing problem is somewhat
simplified because the four items of apparel which are customary and
common to all for out-of-doors wear are made so durably that they last
for years, and when worn out are replaced by others made right in the
home. They are the padded over-coat of coarse cloth or light skins, the
_valinka_ of felt or the long boot of fur, the _parki_—a fur great coat
without front opening and with head-covering attached, and the heavy
knitted or fur mitten. In several of the views shown in this volume
these different articles of dress may be seen, some of them on the
heads, backs, hands and feet of the American soldiers.

What American soldier who spent days and days in those Russian log
houses does not remember that in the average house there is little
furniture. The walls, floors, benches and tables are as a rule kept
very clean, being frequently scrubbed with sand and water. In the
house, women and children are habitually bare-footed, and the men
usually in stocking-feet. The _valinka_ would scald his feet if he wore
them inside, as many a soldier found to his dismay. Sometimes chairs
are found, but seldom bed-steads except in the larger homes. Each
member of the family has a pallet of coarse cloth stuffed with fluffy
flax, which is placed at night on the floor, on benches, on part of the
top of the huge stone or brick stove, or on a platform laid close up
under the ceiling on beams extending from the stove to the opposite
wall of the living-room. The place on the stove is reserved for the
aged and the babies. It was the best bed in the house and was often
proffered to the American with true hospitality to the stranger. The
bed-clothes consist of blankets, quilts and sometimes robes of skins.
Some of the patch-work quilts are examples of wonderful needle-work. In
the day-time it is usual to see the pallets and rolls of bedding stored
on the platform just mentioned, which is almost always just over the
low, heavy door leading in from the outer hall to the main living-room.

In North Russia the one-room house is decidedly the exception, and
because of the influence of the deep snows on the customs of the people
probably half the houses have two stories. One large roof covers both
the home and the barn. The second story of the barn part can be used
for stock, but is usually the mow or store-room for hay, grains, cured
meat and fish, nets and implements, and is approached by an inclined
runway of logs up which the stocky little horses draw loaded wagons or
sleds. When the snow is real deep the runway is sometimes unnecessary.
The mow is entered through a door direct from the second story of the
home part of the building, and the stable similarly from the ground
floor.

The central object, and the most curious to an American, in the whole
house is the huge Russian stove. In the larger houses there are
several. These stoves are constructed of masonry and are built before
the partitions of the house are put in and before the walls are
completed. In the main stove there are three fire-boxes and a maze of
surrounding air-spaces and smoke-passages, and surmounting all a great
chimney which in two-story houses is itself made into a heating-stove
with one fire-box for the upper rooms. When the house is to be heated a
little door is opened near the base of the chimney and a damper-plate
is removed, so that the draft will be direct and the smoke escape
freely into the chimney after quite a circuitous passage through the
body of the stove. A certain bunch of sergeants nearly asphyxiated
themselves before they discovered the secret of the damper in the
stove. They were nearly pickled in pine smoke. And a whole company of
soldiers nearly lost their billet in Kholmogori when they started up
the sisters’ stoves without pulling the plates off the chimney.

Then the heating fire-box is furnished with blazing pine splinters and
an armful of pine stove-wood and left alone for about an hour or until
all the wood is burnt to a smokeless and gasless mass of hot coals and
fine ash. The damper plate is then replaced, which stops all escape of
heat up the chimney, and the whole structure of the stove soon begins
to radiate a gentle heat. Except in the coldest of weather it is not
necessary to renew the fire in such a stove more than once daily, and
one armful of wood is the standard fuel consumption at each firing.

Another of the fire-boxes in the main stove is a large smooth-floored
and vaulted opening with a little front porch roofed by a hood leading
into the chimney. This is the oven, and here on baking days is built a
fire which is raked out when the walls and floor are heated and is
followed by the loaves and pastry put in place with a flat wooden
paddle with a long handle. See the picture of the stove and the pie
coming out of the oven in the American convalescent hospital in
Archangel. The third fire-box is often in a low section of the stove
covered by an iron plate, and is used only for boiling, broiling and
frying. As there is not much food broiled or fried, and as soup and
other boiled food is often allowed to simmer in stone jars in the oven,
the iron-covered fire-box is not infrequently left cold except in
summer. The stove-structure itself is variously contrived as to outward
architecture so as to leave one or more alcoves, the warm floors of
which form comfortable bed-spaces. The outer surface of the stove is
smoothly cemented or enameled. So large are these stoves that
partition-logs are set in grooves left in the outer stove-wall, and a
portion of the wall of each of four or five rooms is often formed by a
side or corner of the same stove. And radiation from the warm bricks
heats the rooms.

Washing of clothes is done by two processes, soaping and rubbing in hot
water at home and rinsing and rubbing in cold water at the river-bank
or through a hole cut in the ice in the winter. Although the result may
please the eye, it frequently offends the nose because of the common
use of “fish-oil soap.” Not only was there dead fish in the soap but
also a mixture of petroleum residue. No wonder the soldier-poet
doggereled:

“It’s the horns of the cootie and beg-bug,
The herring and mud-colored crows,
My strongest impression of Russia,
Gets into my head through my nose.”


Bathing is a strenuous sport pursued by almost every individual with
avidity. It is carried on in special bath-houses of two or more rooms,
found in the yard of almost every peasant family. The outer door leads
to the entry, the next door to a hot undressing-room, and the inner
door to a steaming inferno in which is a small masonry stove, a
cauldron of hot water, a barrel of ice-water, a bench, several
platforms of various altitudes, several beaten copper or brass basins,
a dipper and a lot of aromatic twigs bound in small bunches. With these
he flails the dead cuticle much to the same effect as our scouring it
off with a rough towel. Such is the grandfather of the “Russian Bath”
found in some of our own cities. After scrubbing thoroughly, and
steaming almost to the point of dissolution on one of the higher
platforms, a Russian will dash on cold water from the barrel and dry
himself and put on his clothes and feel tip-top. An American would make
his will and call the undertaker before following suit. In the summer
there is considerable open-air river bathing, and the absence of
bathing-suits other than nature’s own is never given a thought.

The people of this north country are shorter and stockier than the
average American. The prevailing color of hair is dark brown. Their
faces and hands are weather-beaten and wrinkle early. Despite their
general cleanliness, they often look greasy and smell to high heaven
because of their habit of anointing hair and skin with fats and oils,
especially fish-oil. Not all do this, but the practice is prevalent
enough so that the fish-oil and old-fur odors are inescapable in any
peasant community and cling for a long time to the clothing of any
traveler who sojourns there, be it ever so briefly. American soldiers
in 1918–1919 became so accustomed to it that they felt something
intangible was missing when they left the country and it was some time
before a clever Yank thought of the reason.

Before the great world war, a young peasant who was unmarried at
twenty-two was a teacher, a nun, or an old maid. The birth-rate is
high, and the death-rate among babies not what it is in our proud
America. Young families often remain under the grandfather’s rooftree
until another house or two becomes absolutely necessary to accommodate
the overflow. If through some natural series of events a young woman
has a child without having been married by the priest, no great stir is
made over it. The fact that she is not thrown out of her family home is
not consciously ascribed to charity of spirit, nor are the villagers
conscious of anything broad or praiseworthy in their kindly attitude.
The result is that the baby is loved and the mother is usually happily
wed to the father of her child. The North Russian villager is an
assiduous gossip, but an incident of this kind receives no more
attention as an item of news that if its chronology had been thoroughly
conventional by American standards.

Marriages are occasions of great feasting and rejoicing; funerals
likewise stir the whole community, but the noise of the occasion is far
more terrifying and nerve-wracking. Births are quiet affairs; but the
christening is quite a function, attended with a musical service, and
the “name-day” anniversary is often celebrated in preference to the
birthday anniversary by the adult Russian peasant. Everybody was born,
but not everybody received such a fine name from such a fine family at
such a fine service under the leadership of such a fine priest; and not
everybody has such fine god-parents. The larger religious festivals are
also occasions for enjoyable community gatherings, and especially
during the winter the little dances held in a large room of some
patient man’s house until the wee small hours are something not to be
missed by young or old. Yes, the North Russian peasant plays as well as
works, and so keen is his enjoyment that he puts far more energy into
the play. Because of his simple mode of existence it is not necessary
to overwork in normal times to obtain all the food, clothing, houses
and utensils he cares to use. Ordinarily he is a quiet easy-going
human.

Perhaps there is more of sense of humor in the apparently phlegmatic
passivity of the Russian _nitchevo_ than is suspected by those not
acquainted with him. There is also a great timidity in it; for the
Russian moujik or christianik (peasant farmer) has scarcely been sure
his soul is his own, since time immemorable. But his sense of humor has
been his salvation, for it has enabled him to be patient and pleasant
under conditions beyond his power to change. Courtesy to an extent
unknown in America marks his daily life. He is intelligent, and is
resourceful to a degree, although not well educated.

The average North Russian is not dishonest in a personal way. That is,
he has no personal animus in his deviousness unless someone has
directly offended him. He will haul a load of small articles unguarded
for many versts and deliver every piece safely, in spite of his own
great hunger, because he is in charge of the shipment. But he will
charge a commission at both ends of a business deal, and will accept a
“gift” almost any time for any purpose and then mayhap not “deliver.”
Only a certain small class, however, and that practically confined to
Archangel and environs, will admit even most privately that any gift or
advantage is payment for a given favor which would not be extended in
the ordinary course of business. This class is not the national
back-bone, but rather the tinsel trimmings in the national show-window.

One time a passing British convoy commandeered some hay at
Bolsheozerki. Upon advice of the American officer the _starosta_
accepted a paper due bill from the British officer for the hay. Weeks
afterward the American officer found that the Russian had been up to
that time unable to get cash on his due bill. Naturally he looked to
the American for aid. The officer took it up with the British and was
assured that the due bill would be honored. But to quiet the feeling of
the _starosta_ he advanced him the 92 roubles, giving the headman his
address so that he could return the 92 roubles to the American officer
when the British due bill came cash. Brother officers ridiculed the
Yank officer for trusting the Russian peasant, who was himself waiting
doubtfully on the British. But his judgment was vindicated later and
the honesty of the _starosta_ demonstrated when a letter travelled
hundreds of miles to Pinega with 92 roubles for the American officer.




XX
HOLDING THE ONEGA VALLEY


December Fighting—Drawn Struggle Near Turchesova—Fighting Near Khala In
February—Corporal Collins And Men Are Ambushed Near Bolsheozerki—“H”
Company In Two Savage Battles—Lieuts. Collins And Phillips Both
Mortally Wounded.


The enemy, who was massing up forces in the upper Pinega valley and, as
we have seen, caused British G. H. Q. to send one company of Americans
hurrying up the valley for a 150-mile march Christmas week, was also
fixing up a surprise for the G. H. Q. on the other end of the great
line of defense. That same Christmas week “H” Company found itself
again up against greatly superior forces who, as they boasted, were
commencing their winter campaign to drive the invaders of Russia to the
depths of the White Sea.

On December 20th one squad of “H” men were in a patrol fight with the
enemy which drove the Reds from the village of Kleshevo. On the
following day Lt. Ketcham with twenty Americans and a platoon of R. A.
N. B., Russian Allied Naval Brigade, proceeded south for reconnaissance
in force and engaged a strong enemy patrol in Priluk, driving the Reds
out, killing one, wounding one, and taking one prisoner. On December
22nd Lt. Carlson’s platoon occupied Kleshevo and Lt. Ketcham’s platoon
occupied the village on the opposite side of the river. The next day at
a village near Priluk Lt. Carlson’s men on patrol encountered a Bolo
combat patrol and inflicted severe losses and took five prisoners.

Christmas Day and several other days were occupied with these patrol
combats by the two opposing forces, each of which thought the other had
gone into winter quarters.

In conformity with the general advance planned on all fronts by the
British Command to beat the enemy to the attack and to reach a position
which would nullify the enemy’s tremendous advantage of position with
his base at Plesetskaya, the British Officer in command of the Onega
Valley Detachment, planned an attack on Turchesova. Lt. E. R. Collins
with the second fourth platoons left Pogashitche at 4:00 a. m. December
29, proceeding up the Schmokee River in an attempt to get around
Turchesova and strike the enemy in the flank. It was found, however,
that the woods on this side were impassable and so the force left the
river by a winter trail for Pertema, proceeding thence to Goglova, to
reinforce the Polish company of Allies who had captured that village on
the same morning.

This was wise. The next morning the enemy counter-attacked Goglova in
great force, but, fortunately, was repulsed without any casualties on
our side. He had, however, a threatening position in the village of
Zelyese, about a mile to the left flank and rear of our position and
was discovered to be preparing to renew the battle the next day. Lt.
Collins was obliged to divide his force just as again and again the
American officers all along that great Russian winter front again and
again were compelled to divide in the face of greatly superior and
encircling forces.

Taking Lt. Ketcham’s platoon early the next morning, he boldly struck
at the enemy force in his rear and after an hour’s fighting the “H” men
had possession of the village. But the enemy was at once reinforced
from Turchesova and delivered a counter-attack that the “H” men
repulsed with severe losses. Our wounded in the action were two; none
killed. Horseshoes again. The enemy dead and wounded were over fifty.
The enemy continued firing at long range next day, New Years of 1919,
and wounded one “H.”

Indications pointed toward an inclination of the enemy to evacuate
Turchesova. Therefore, a message received by Lt. Collins at 5:00 p. m.,
January 1, from British O. C. Onega Det., ordering a withdrawal within
two hours to Kleshevo, came as a surprise to the American soldiers. In
this hasty retreat much confusion arose among the excited Russian
drivers of sleighs. Some horses and drivers were injured; much
ammunition, equipment, and supplies were lost.

The enemy did not follow and for the remainder of January and up to
February 9th the “H” Company men performed the routine duties of patrol
and garrison duties in the Onega Valley in the vicinity of Kleshevo
without any engagement with the enemy who seemed content to rest in
quarters and keep out of the way of the Americans and Allies.

On February 10th Lt. Ketcham with a combat patrol drove the enemy from
Khala whom he encountered with a pair of machine guns on patrol. He
defeated the Reds without any casualties, inflicting a loss on the
enemy of one killed and two wounded.

For more than a month the sector of defense was quiet except for an
occasional rise of the “wind.” Active patrols were kept out. Captain
Ballensinger assumed command of the company and moved his headquarters
from Onega to Chekuevo. As the mail from and to Archangel from the
outside world as well as supplies and reinforcements of men were now
obliged to use the road from Obozerskaya to Bolsheozerki to Chekuevo to
Onega to Kem and so on to Kola and return, it became part of the duty
of “H” Company to patrol the road from Chekuevo to Obozerskaya; taking
two days coming and two days going with night stops at Chinova or
Bolsheozerki.

The last of these patrols left Chekuevo on Sunday, March 16, fell into
the hands of the advance patrols of the Bolo General who had executed a
long flank march, annihilated the Franco-Russian force at Bolsheozerki,
and occupied the area with a great force of infantry, mounted men, skii
troops, and both light and heavy artillery, as related elsewhere in
connection with the story of the defense of the railroad.

The next day Lt. Collins with thirty men and a Lewis gun started toward
Bolsheozerki to discover the situation with orders to report at Chinova
to Col. Lucas, the French officer in command of the Vologda Force.
Travelling all night, he reached Col. Lucas in the morning and the
latter determined to push on under escort of the Americans and attempt
to reach Bolsheozerki and Oborzerskaya, being at that time ignorant of
the real strength of the force of Reds that had interrupted the
communications.

About noon, March 18th, the detachment in escort formation left Chinova
and proceeded without signs of enemy till within four versts of
Bolsheozerki, where they were met by sudden burst of a battery of
machine guns. Luckily the range was wrong. The horses bolted upsetting
the sleighs and throwing Col. Lucas into the neck-deep snow. The
Americans returned the fire and slowly retired with the loss of but one
man killed. Crawling in the snow for a great distance gave many of them
severe frost bites, one of the most acute sufferers being the French
Col. Lucas. The detachment returned to Chinova to report by telephone
to Chekuevo and to organize a defensive position in case the enemy
should advance toward Chekuevo. The enemy did not pursue. He was
crafty. That would have indicated his great strength.

By order of Col. Lawrie, British O. C. Onega Det., Lt. Phillips was
sent with about forty “H” Company men to reinforce Lt. Collins. It was
the British Colonel’s idea that only a large raiding party of Bolos
were at Bolsheozerki for the purpose of raiding the supply trains of
food that were coming from Archangel to Chekuevo. Phillips reached
Chinova before daybreak of the twentieth. Lt. Collins was joined at the
little village of Chinova by three companies of Yorks, enroute from
Murmansk to Obozerskaya, a U. S. Medical corps officer, Lt. Springer,
and four men joined the force and an attack was ordered on Bolsheozerki
by these seventy Americans and three hundred Yorks. They did not know
that they were going up against ten times their number.

At 2:00 a. m. the movement started and at nine in the morning the
American advance guard drew fire from the enemy. Deploying as planned
on the left of the road the “H” men moved forward in line of battle.
One company of Yorks moved off to the right to attack from the woods
and one on the left of the Americans. One York company was in reserve.
After advancing over five hundred yards in face of the enemy machine
gun fire, the Americans were exhausted by the deep snow and held on to
a line within one hundred yards of the enemy. The Yorks on the right
and left advanced just as gallantly and were also held back by the deep
snow and the severity of the enemy machine gun fire.

The fight continued for five hours. Lovable old Lt. Collins fell
mortally wounded by a Bolo bullet while cheering his men on the
desperate line of battle. At last Lt. Phillips was obliged to report
his ammunition exhausted and appealed for reinforcements and
ammunition. Major Monday passed on the appeal to Col. Lawrie who gave
up the attack and ordered the forces to withdraw under cover of
darkness, which they all did in good order. Losses had not been as
heavy as the fury of the fight promised. One American enlisted man was
killed and Lt. Collins died of hemorrhage on the way to Chekuevo. Eight
American enlisted men were severely wounded. The Yorks lost two
officers and two enlisted men killed, and ten enlisted men wounded.
Many of the American and British soldiers were frostbitten.

During the next week the enemy, we learned later, greatly augmented his
forces and strengthened his defenses of Bolsheozerki with German wire,
machine guns, and artillery. He was evidently bent on exploiting his
patrol action success and aimed to cut the railroad at Obozerskaya and
later deal with the Onega detachment at leisure. Our troops made use of
the lull in the activities to make thorough patrols to discover enemy
positions and to send all wounded and sick to Onega for safety,
bringing up every available man for the next drive to knock the Bolo
out of Bolsheozerki. This was under the command of Lt.-Col. Morrison
(British army).

Meanwhile the Bolo General had launched a vicious drive at the
Americans and Russians who stood between him and his railway objective,
encircling them with three regiments, and on April 2, after two days of
continuous assault was threatening to overpower them. In this extremity
Col. Lawrie answered the appeal of the British officer commanding at
Obozerskaya by ordering another attack on the west by his forces.
Captain Ballensinger reports in substance as follows:

In compliance with orders he detailed April 1, one N. C. O. and ten
privates to man two Stokes mortars, also one N. C. O. and seven
privates for a Vickers gun. Both these details reported to a Russian
trench mortar officer and remained under his command during the
engagement. The balance of the available men at the advance base Usolia
was divided into two platoons, the first under Lt. Phillips and the
other under the First Sergeant. These platoons under Capt.
Ballensinger’s command, as part of the reserve, joined the column on
the road at the appointed time.

They arrived at their position on the road about four versts from
Bolsheozerki about 1:00 a. m. April 2. Zero hour was set at daybreak,
3:00 a. m. The first firing began about thirty minutes later, “A”
Company of the Yorks drawing fire from the northern or right flank of
the enemy. They reported afterward that the Bolos had tied dogs in the
woods whose barking had given the alarm. That company advanced in the
face of strong machine gun fire and Capt. Bailey, a British officer
went to his death gallantly leading his men in a rush at the guns on a
ridge. But floundering in the snow, with their second officer wounded,
they were repulsed and forced to retire.

At 5:00 a. m. Lt. Pellegrom, having hurried out from Archangel,
reported for duty and was put in command of a platoon.

At 6:00 a. m. “A” Company Yorks was in desperate straits and by verbal
order of Col. Lund one platoon of Americans was sent to support their
retirement. Lt. Phillips soon found himself hotly engaged.

The original plan had been to send the Polish Company in to attack the
southern villages or the extreme left of the Bolo line, but owing to
their lateness of arrival they were not able to go in there and were
held for a frontal attack, supported by the American trench mortars.
They were met by a severe machine gun fire and after twenty minutes of
hot fire and heavy losses retired from action.

Meanwhile “C” Company Yorks which had been sent around to attack on the
north of Bolsheozerki got lost in the woods in the dark, trying to
follow an old trail made by a Russian officer and a few men who had
come around the north end of the Bolsheozerki area a few days
previously with messages from Obozerskaya. The company did not get into
action and had to return. Thus the attack had failed, and the force
found itself on a desperate defensive.

The “A” Yorks, who had suffered severely, retired from action
immediately after the first counter-attack of the Bolo had been
repulsed. Then the whole defense of this messed-up attacking force fell
upon the American platoon and a dozen Yorks with a doughty British
officer. Phillips, through the superb control of his men, kept them all
in line and his Lewis guns going with great effectiveness and gave
ground slowly and grudgingly, in spite of casualties and great severity
of cold.

When Phillips fell with the wound which was later to prove fatal,
Pellegrom came up with his platoon to relieve the exhausted platoon,
and “C” Company Yorks arrived on the line from their futile flank march
just in time to join the Americans at 9:00 a. m. in checking the
redoubled counterattack of the hordes of Bolos.

Meanwhile the Polish troops refused to go back into the fighting line
to help stem the Bolo attack. Peremptory order brought two of their
Colt automatics up to the line where for forty-five minutes they
engaged the enemy, but again retired to the rear and assisted only by
firing their machine gun over the heads of the Americans and British
battling for their very lives all that afternoon in the long thin line
of American O. D. and British Khaki.

The Bolo was held in check and at dusk the Americans and British and
Poles withdrew in good order.

This ill-fated attack had met with a savage repulse but no doubt it had
a great effect upon the Bolshevik General at Bolsheozerki. On his right
he had himself met bloody disaster from a company of Americans who had
fought his attacking battalions to a standstill for sixty hours and
here on his left flank was another Company of Americans who had twice
attacked him and seemed never to stay defeated. April sun was likely to
soften his winter road to mush very soon and then these Americans and
their allies would have him at their mercy.

The losses of the enemy were not known but later accounts from
prisoners and from natives of the village, who were there, placed them
very high. In this last attack “H” lost one officer, who died of wounds
later, also one man killed, one mortally wounded and seven others
wounded. The British lost one officer killed, one wounded, two privates
killed, two missing and ten wounded. The Polish Company lost five
killed, eight missing and ten wounded.

Of the gallant Phillips who fell at Bolsheozerki we are pleased to
include the following from his company commander:


“But when he went forward something made me look him over again, and
the look I saw on his face and especially in his eyes, I shall never
forget.

“I have never seen a look like it before or since. It was by no means
the look of a man being afraid (I have seen those looks) nor was it a
look of ‘I don’t care what happens.’ It was a look that made me watch
him all the way out. It made me hunt him up with my glasses, while I
was watching the enemy. The latter was pressing us awfully hard that
day, and when I observed our troops slowly giving ground, I went out in
person to see if the look on Phillip’s face had something to do with
it. But I soon changed my mind. He was all along the line encouraging
his men to hold on, he helped to put new Lewis guns in position. In
short, he was everywhere without apparent thought of the bullets flying
all around him. He pulled back wounded men to be carried back behind
the lines. I know that his men would have held every bit of ground, had
the British who were holding the flanks not fallen way back behind
them.

“When the fateful bullet struck him, it knocked him down as if a ton of
brick had fallen on him. He said to me, ‘My God, I got it. Captain,
don’t bother with me, I am done for, just look after the boys’.”


Let us here relate the story of his plucky fight for life after a Bolo
bullet tore through his breast.

Borne tenderly in the arms of his own men to a sleigh which was gently
drawn to Chanova and thence to Chekuevo, he rallied from his great loss
of blood. Apparently his chances for recovery were good. He sat up in
bed, ate with relish and exchanged greetings with his devoted “H”
company men who to a man would gladly have changed places with him—what
a fine comradeship there was between citizen-officer and
citizen-soldier. Contrary to expectations Phillips was soon moved from
Chekuevo to Onega for safety and for better care. But very soon after
reaching Onega hemmorhage began again. Then followed weeks of struggle
for life. Everything possible was done for him with the means at hand.
Although the hospital afforded no X-ray to discern the location of the
fatal arterial lesion through which his life was secretly spurting
away, the post mortem revealed the fact that the Bolshevik rifle bullet
had severed a tiny artery in his lung.

Care-worn American medical men wept in despair. Wireless messages
throbbed disheartening reports on his condition to anxious regimental
comrades on other fronts and at Archangel. At last the heroic struggle
ended. On the tenth of May Phillips bled to death of his wound.

The valiant company had done its best in the fall and winter fighting.
The company retired to Chekuevo and Onega, doing guard duty and patrols
during the spring. The only event of note was the midnight game of
baseball between the medics and doughboys. The medics could not hit the
pills as hard as the doughboys. They left Onega June 5th, by steamboat
for Economia Island and left Russia June 15th.




XXI
ICE-BOUND ARCHANGEL


Ferry Boat Fights Ice—Archangel Cosmopolitan—Bartering For Eats—Strange
Wood Famine—Entertainment At American Headquarters—Doughboy
Minstrelsy—Reindeer Teams—Russian Eskimo—Bolshevik Prisoners—S. B. A.
L. Mutiny—Major Young’s Scare At Smolny—Shakleton Boots—British Rations
For Yank Soldiers—Corporal Knight Writes Humorous Sketch Of Ice-Bound
Archangel.


On the ferry boat the troops speculated whether or not we would get
stuck in the ice before we could cross the river to Archangel Preestin.
It was November 22nd, 1918. The Dvina ran under glass. On the streets
of Archangel sleighs were slipping. Winter was on and Archangel in a
few days would be ice-bound. For a few days more the ice-breakers would
keep the ferry going across the Dvina and would cut for the steamships
a way out to sea. Then the White Sea would freeze solid for six months.
In a few days the Archangel-Economia winter railroad would be running.
Icebreakers would for a while brave the Arctic gales that swept the
north coast. Then they would surrender and the great white silence
would begin.

Varied and interesting are the tales that are told of that winter in
Archangel. They are descriptive as well as narrative but there is not
much coherence to the chapter. However, to the soldiers who were there,
or who were out and in Archangel during the winter of 1918-19 this
chapter will be pleasing.

In from a far-off front for a few days rest, or in on some mission such
as the bringing of Bolshevik prisoners or to get some of the company
property which had been left behind when in the fall the troops left
troopships so hurriedly, these groups of American soldiers from the
fighting fronts always found Archangel of interest. They found that it
was a half-modern, half-oriental city, half-simple, half-wicked, with
the gay along with the drab, with bright lights along with the gloom.

In Archangel were all kinds of people—whiskered moujiks beating their
ponies along the snow-covered streets, sleek-looking people of the
official class, well-dressed men and women of cultured appearance,
young women whose faces were pretty and who did not wear boots and
shawls but dressed attractively and seemed to enjoy the attention of
doughboys, and soldiers of several nations, veterans of war and
adventure in many climes. What a cosmopolitan crowd it was in that
frozen-in city of the North!

The doughboy from the front soon learned that the city had its several
national centers—the British quarters, French, Italian, and so forth,
where their flags denoted their headquarters and in vicinity of which
would be found their barracks and quarters and clubs. The Yank found
himself welcome in every quarter of the city but hailed with most
camaraderie in the French quarter. With the Russian night patrols he
soon came to an amicable understanding and Russian cafes soon found out
that the Yanks were the freest spenders and treated them accordingly.
Woe to the luckless “Limmey” who tried to edge in on a Yank party in a
Russian place.

When the doughboy returned to his company at the front he had a few
great tales to tell of the eats he had found at some places. Some
companies had done well. On the market-place and elsewhere the
resourceful Amerikanski looking for food, especially vegetables, to
supplement his mess, learned his first word of _Russian—Skulka
rouble._In spite of the watchful British M. P.’s, Ruby Queens and
Scissors cigarettes were soon bringing in small driblets of cabbage and
onions and potatoes. Happy the old mess sergeant who got his buddies
expert at this game. And much more contented were the men with the
mess. In another chapter read the wonderful menu of the convalescent
hospital.

In the city the doughboy found the steaming _bahnya_ or bathhouse, and
at the “cootie mill” turned in his shirt to rid himself of the “seam
squirrels.” All cleaned up, with little gifts and cheery words he
sought his buddies who were in hospital sick or wounded. He got books
and records and gramaphones and other things at the Red Cross and “Y”
to take back to the company. He accumulated a thousand rumors about the
expedition and about happenings back home. He tired of the gloom and
magnified fears of Archangel’s being overpowered by the Bolos and
usually returned to the front twice glad—once that he had seen
Archangel and second that he was back among his comrades at the front.

During those weary ice-bound months it was a problem to keep warm. Poor
management by high American and British officers at one time, to the
writer’s knowledge, suffered American soldiers at Smolny to be actually
endangered in health. As far as proper heating of quarters was
concerned men at the front provided better for themselves than did the
commander at Smolny, Major Young, provide for those fighters in from
the fighting front for rest. And that might be said too for his
battalion mess. No wonder the doughboy set out to help himself in these
things.

Strange to the American soldiers was the fact that at Archangel, a city
of saw-mills, sitting in a nick of a great forest that extended for
hundreds of miles south, east and west, there was such difficulty in
getting supplies of fuel. A desperate sergeant took a detail of men and
salvaged a lot of logs lying near the river’s edge, borrowed some
Russki saws with a few cigarettes, commandeered some carts and brought
to the cook’s kitchen and to the big stoves in the barracks a fine
supply of wood. But the joke of it was that the watchful Russian owner
of the logs sent in his bill for the wood to the British G. H. Q. And a
ream of correspondence was started between Major Young and G. H. Q.,
the typewriter controversy continuing long, like Katy-did and
Katy-didn’t, long after the sergeant with diplomacy, partial
restoration, and sugar had appeased the complaining Russian.

At American headquarters in the Technical Institute was held many a
pleasant entertainment to while away the winter hours. The auditorium
possessed a stage and a good dance floor. The moving picture machine
and the band were there. Seated on the backless wooden benches soldiers
looked at the pictures or listened to the orchestra or to their own
doughboy talent showing his art at vaudeville or minstrelsy.

Or on officers’ entertainment night they and their guests chosen from
charming Russian families, joyfully danced or watched the antics of
Douglas Fairbanks, Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, and even our dear
deceased old John Bunnie. Not a silver lining but has its cloudy
surface, and many were the uncomfortable moments when the American
officer found himself wishing he could explain to his fair guest the
meaning of the scene. More than rumor spread through that North
country, attributing wonderful powers to the Americans based on some
Douglas Fairbanks exploit. Can it be that the enemy heard some of these
rumors and were unwilling at times to go against the Americans?

Enlisted men’s entertainments by the “Y” and their own efforts to
battle ennui with minstrel show and burlesque and dances have already
been mentioned. The great high _Gorka_ built by the American engineers
in the heart of the city afforded a half-verst slide, a rush of
clinging men and women as their toboggan coursed laughing and screaming
in merriment down to the river where it pitched swiftly again down to
the ice. Here at the _Gorka_ as at “the merry-go-round,” the promenade
near Sabornya, the doughboy learned how to put the right persuasion
into his voice as he said Mozhna, barishna, meaning: Will you take a
slide or walk with me, little girl? At Christmas, New Year’s and St.
Patrick’s Day, they had special entertainments. Late in March “I”
Company three times repeated its grand minstrel show.

Many a doughboy in Archangel, Kholmogora, Yemetskoe, Onega or Pinega,
at one time or another during the long winter, got a chance to ride
with the Russian Eskimo and his reindeer. Doughboys who were supporting
the artillery the day that the enemy moved on Chertkva and threatened
Peligorskaya, can recall seeing the double sled teams of reindeer that
came flashing up through the lines with the American commanding officer
who had been urgently called for by the Russian officer at
Peligorskaya. Sergeant Kant will never forget that wild ride. He sat on
the rear sled, or rather he clung to the top of it during that hour’s
ride of twelve miles. The wise old buck reindeer who was hitched as a
rudder to the rear of his sled would brace and pull back to keep the
sergeant’s sled from snapping the whip at the turns, and that would
lift the sled clear from the surface. And when the old buck was not
steering the sled but trotting with leaping strides behind the sled
then the bumps in the road bounced the sled high. Out in front the
reindeer team of three strained against their simple harness and
supplied the rapid succession of jerks that flew the sleds along toward
the embattled artillery. The reindeer travelled with tongues hanging
out as if in distress; they panted; they steamed and coated with frost;
they thrust their muzzles into the cooling snow to slake their thirst;
but they were enjoying the wild run; they fairly skimmed over the snow
trail. The Eskimo driver called his peculiar moaning cry to urge them
on, slapped his lead reindeer with the single rein that was fastened to
his left antler, or prodded his team on the haunches with the long pole
which he carried for that purpose and for steering his light sled, and
with surprising nimbleness leaped on and off his sled as he guided the
sled past or over obstructions. A snow-covered log across the trail
caused no delay. A leap of three antlered forms, twelve grey legs
flashing in the air, a bump of the light sled that volplanes an instant
in a shower of snow, a quick leap and a grab for position back on the
sled, the thrilling act is over, and the Eskimo has not shown a sign of
excitement in his Indian-like stoic face. On we skim at unbroken pace.
We soon reach the place.

One of the views shown in this volume is that of a characteristic
reindeer team and sled. Another shows the home of the North Russian
branch of the Eskimo family. The writer vividly recalls the sight of a
semi-wild herd of reindeer feeding in the dense pine and spruce woods.
They were digging down through the deep snow to get the succulent
reindeer moss. We approached on our Russian ponies with our, to them,
strange-looking dress. What a thrill it gave us to see them, as if at
signal of some sentry, raise their heads in one concerted, obedient
look for signal of some leader, and then with great bounds go leaping
away to safety, flashing through the dark stems of the trees like a
flight of grey arrows discharged from a single bow. Further on we came
upon the tented domiciles of the owners of this herd. Our red-headed
Russian guide appeased the clamors of the innumerable dogs who
bow-wowed out from all sides of the wigwam-like tents of these North
Russian nomad homes, while we Americans looked on in wonder. Here was
the very counterpart of the American Indian buck and squaw home that
our grandads had seen in Michigan. The women at last appeared and
rebuked the ragged half-dressed children for their precipitate rushing
out to see the strangers. For a little tobacco they became somewhat
talkative and willingly enough gave our guide information about the
location of the hidden still we were going to visit, where pine pitch
was baked out and barrelled for use in repairing the steamboats and
many fishing boats of the area. We studied this aborigine woman and
questioned our guide later about these people. Like our Indians they
are. Pagans they are and in this volume is a picture of one of their
totem poles. Untouched by the progress of civilization, they live in
the great Slavic ocean of people that has rolled over them in wave
after wave, but has not changed them a bit. Space can not be afforded
for the numerous interesting anecdotes that are now in the mind of the
writer and the doughboy reader who so many times saw the reindeer and
their Russian Eskimo owners in their wilds or in Archangel or other
cities and villages where they appear in their annual winter
migrations.

Probably the one most interesting spot in the frozen port city was the
American expeditionary post-office. Here at irregular intervals, at
first via ice-breaker, which battled its way up to the edge of the ice
crusted coast north of Economia, came our mail bags from home. Later
those bags came in hundreds of miles over the winter snow roads, hauled
by shaggy ponies driven by hairy, weather-beaten moujiks. Mail-letters,
papers, little things from home, the word still connotes pleasure to
us. Mail days were boon days, and at the mail-place a detail always
arrived early and cheerful.


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Russian Masonry Stove—American Convalescent Hospital._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Pvt. Allikas Finds His Mother in Archangel._]


[Illustration: U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Printing “The American Sentinel.”_]


Familiar sights in the streets of winter Archangel were the working
parties composed of Bolshevik prisoners of war. Except for the doughboy
guard it might have been difficult to tell them from a free working
party. They all looked alike. In fact, many a scowling face on a
passing sled would have matched the Bolo clothes better than some of
those boyish faces under guard. And how the prisoners came to depend on
the doughboy. Several times it was known and laughingly told about that
Bolo prisoners individually managed to escape, sneak home or to a
confederate’s home, get food, money and clean clothes, and then report
back to the American guards. They preferred to be prisoners rather than
to remain at large. Once a worried corporal of a prisoner guard detail
at the convalescent hospital was inventing a story to account to the
sergeant for his A. W. O. L. prisoner when to his mingled feeling of
relief and disgust, in walked the lost prisoner, _nitchevo, khorashaw._

The corporal felt about as sheepish as a sergeant and corporal of
another company had felt one night when they had spent an hour and a
half outmaneuvering the sentries, carrying off a big heavy case to a
dark spot, and quietly opening the case found that instead of Scotch
“influenza cure” it was a box of horseshoes. In that case horseshoes
meant no luck.

Is war cruel? In that city of Archangel with nowhere to retreat,
nervous times were bound to come. “The wind up their back,” that is,
cold shivers, made kind-hearted, level-headed men do harsh things.
Comrade Danny Anderson of “Hq” Company could tell a blood-curdling
story of the execution he witnessed. Six alleged agents of the German
war office, Russian Bolo spies, in one “windy” moment were brutally put
away by British officers. Their brains spattered on the stone wall.
Sherman said it. We are glad to say that such incidents were remarkably
rare in North Russia. The Allied officers and troops have a record of
which they may be justly proud.

Here we may as well tell of the S. B. A. L. mutiny in Archangel in
early winter. It is the story of an occurrence both pitiful and
aggravating. After weeks of feeding and pampering and drilling and
equipping and shining of brass buttons and showing off, when the order
came for them to prepare to march off to the fighting front, the S. B.
A. L. held a soviet in their big grey-stone barracks and refused to get
ready to go out because they had grievances against their British
officers. This was aggravatingly unreasonable and utterly unmilitary.
Severe measures would have to be used. They were given till 2:00 p. m.
to reconsider their soviet resolution.

Meanwhile G. H. Q. had ordered out the American “Hq” Company trench
mortar section and a section of the American Machine Gun Company to try
bomb and bullet argument on the S. B. A. L.’s who were barricading
their barracks and pointing machine guns from their windows. Promptly
on the minute, according to orders, the nasty, and to the Americans
pitifully disagreeable job, was begun. In a short time a white flag
fluttered a sign of submission. But several had been killed and the
populace that swarmed weeping about the American soldiers reproachfully
cried: “_Amerikanski nit dobra_.” And they did not feel at all
glorious.

A few minutes later to the immense disgust of the doughboys, a company
of English Tommies who by all rules of right and reason should have
been the ones to clean up the mutinous mess into which the British
officers had gotten the S. B. A. L.’s, now hove into sight, coming up
the recently bullet-whistling but now deadly quiet street, with rifles
slung on their shoulders, crawling along slowly at sixty to the minute
pace—instead of a riot-call double time, and singing their insulting
version of “Over There the Yanks are Running, Running, everywhere,
etc.” And their old fishmonger reserve officer—he wore Colonel’s
insignia, wiped off his whiskey sweat in unconcealed relief. His battle
of Archangel had been cut short by the Americans who had eagerly
watched for the first sign of surrender by the foolish Russian
soldiers. The finishing touch was added to the short-lived S. B. A. L.
mutiny when the tender-hearted but severe old General Maroushevsky
punished the thirteen ring-leaders of the S. B. A. L. soviet with death
before a Russian firing squad. This mutiny was described in various
ways and use was made of it by agitators in Archangel. The writer has
followed the account given to him by a machine gun sergeant who was
handling one of the guns that day. His story seemed to contain the
facts and feelings most commonly expressed by American officers and
enlisted men who were in Archangel when the unfortunate incident took
place.

We are bound to comment that we believe it never would have occurred if
a tactful, honest American officer had been in charge of the S. B. A.
L. Americans know how tactless and bull-dozing some British orders—not
many to be sure—could be. We fortunately had bluffs enough to offset
the bull-dozings. A stormy threat by a sneering, drunken officer to
turn his Canadian artillery on the bloomin’ Yanks could be met by a
cold-as-steel rejoiner that the British officer would please realize
his drunken condition, and take back the sneering threat and come
across with a reasonable order or suffer the immediate consequences.
And then usually the two could cooperate. Such is a partnership war
incident.

Late in winter, after the success of the enemy in the Shenkursk area
had given the secret sympathizers in Archangel renewed hope that
Trotsky’s army would at last crush the Allies before Archangel, rumor
persistently followed rumor that Archangel was being honeycombed with
spies. The sailors at Solombola wore darker scowls and strange faces
began to appear at Smolny where the city’s power station lay. In the
Allied intelligence staff, that is secret information service, there
was redoubled effort. We smile as we think of it. About the time of the
Bolo General’s brilliant smash through our line and capture of
Bolsheozerki, menacing Obozerskaya, a few little outbursts were put
down in Archangel. A few dozen rusty rifles were confiscated. Major
Young laid elaborate plans for the, to him, imminent riot at Smolny.
Soldiers who had learned from experience how difficult it was for their
enemy to keep a skirmish line even when his officers were behind with
pistol and machine gun persuasion, now grew sick of this imaginary war
in Archangel. One company going out to the front on March 27th, was
actually singing in very jubilation because they were getting away from
battalion mess and “stand-to” for riot-scare.

A distinguished citizen of the world, Sir Ernest Shakleton, visited the
city of Archangel in the winter. But no one ever saw him try to
navigate Troitsky Prospect in his own invention, the Shakleton boot.
How dear to his heart are the thoughts of that boot, as the doughboy
recalls his first attempts to walk in them. The writer’s one and only
experience with them resulted in his taking all the road for steering
his course and calling for the assistance of two brother officers—and
“Chi” was the strongest he had drunk, too. Of course the doughboy
mastered the art of navigating in them. For downright laughableness and
ludicrity the Charlie Chaplin walk has nothing on the Shakleton
gliding-wabble. The shimmy and the cheek dance would not draw a second
look while a stranger could grin audibly at the doughboy
shuffle-hip-screwing along in Shakleton’s. Many a fair barishna on
Troitsky Prospect held her furs up to conceal her irrepressible mirth
at the sight. Aw, Shakletons.

Allusion has been made to the battalion mess of bully and “M. and V.”
Another part of the British issue ration was dried vegetables, which
the soldiers nicknamed “grass stew,” much to the annoyance of one Lt.
Blease, our American censor who read all our letters in England to see
that we did not criticise our Allies. One day at Soyla grass stew was
on the menu, says a corporal. One of the men offered his Russian
hostess a taste of it. She spat it out on the hay before the cow. The
cow was insulted and refused either stew or hay. Much was done to
improve the ration by General Ironside who accepted with sympathy the
suggestions of Major Nichols. Coffee finally took the place of tea.
More bread and less hard tack was issued. Occasionally fresh meat was
provided. But on the whole the British ration did not satisfy the
American soldier.

This leads to a good story. One day during the Smolny riot-scare the
writer with a group of non-commissioned officers in going all over the
area to discover its possibilities for tactics and strategy, visited
the Russian Veterinarian School. Here we saw the poor Russki pony in
all stages of dissection, from spurting throat to disembowelment and
horse-steaks. “Me for the good old bully,” muttered a corporal
devoutly, as he turned his head away. Here we remember the query of a
corporal of Headquarters Company who said: “Where is that half million
dogs that were in Archangel when we landed last September?” The
Russians had no meat market windows offering wieners and bologny but it
sure was a tough winter for food in that city congested with a large
refugee population. And dogs disappeared.

Of the purely military life in Archangel in the long winter little can
be said. The real work was done far out at the fronts anyway. No
commander of a company of troops fighting for his sector of the line
ever got any real assistance from Archangel except of the routine kind.
Many a commendatory message and many a cheering visit was paid the
troops by General Ironside but we can not record the same for Colonel
Stewart. He was not a success as a commanding officer. He fell down
weakly under his great responsibility. Before the long winter was over
General Richardson was sent up to Archangel to take command.

During the early winter a doughboy in Archangel in this spirit of good
humor wrote a letter published later in _The Stars and Stripes_ in
France. It is so good that we include it here.

“Sometimes, about once or twice every now and then, copies of _The
Stars and Stripes_ find their way up here to No Woman’s Land and are
instantly devoured by the news-hungry gang, searching for information
regarding their comrades and general conditions in France, where we
belong, but through Fate were sent up to this part of the world to
quell Bolshevism and guard the Northern Lights.

“We are so far north that the doggone sun works only when it feels
inclined to do so, and in that way it is like everything else in
Russia. The moon isn’t so particular, and comes up, usually backwards,
at any time of the day or night, in any part of the sky, it having no
set schedule, and often it will get lost and still be on the job at
noon. Yes, we are so far north that 30 degrees below will soon be
tropical weather to us, and they will have to build fires around both
cows before they can milk them. Probably about next month at this time
some one will come around and say we will be pulling out of here in a
day or so, but then, the days will be six months long.

“In our issue of your very popular paper we noticed a cartoon, “Pity
the boys in Siberia,” but what about us, Ed? Now, up here in this tough
town there are 269,83l. inhabitants, of which 61,329 are human beings
and 208,502 are dogs. Dogs of every description from the poodle to the
St. Bernard and from the wolfhound to the half-breed dachshund, which
is half German and half Bolshevik and looks the part.

“The wind whistles across the Dvina River like the Twentieth Century
Limited passing Podunk, and snowflakes are as numerous as retreating
Germans were in France a few weeks ago. We have good quarters when we
are here, thank fortune for that, and good food, when it comes up. If
we can stand the winter we will be all jake, for a Yank can accustom
himself to anything if he wants to. But just the same, we would like to
see your artists busy on “The Boys in Northern Russia” and tell them
not to leave out the word “Northern.”

“We also read in _The Stars and Stripes_ that the boys in Italy had
some tongue twisters and brain worriers, but listen to this: Centimes
and sous and francs may be hard to count, but did you ever hear of a
rouble or a kopec? A kopec is worth a tenth of a cent and there are a
hundred of them in a rouble. As you will see, that makes a rouble worth
a dime, and to make matters worse all the money is paper, coins having
gone out of circulation since the beginning of the mix-up. A kopec is
the size of a postage stamp, a rouble looks like a United Cigar Store’s
Certificate, a 25-rouble note resembles a porous plaster and a
100-rouble note the Declaration of Independence.

“When a soldier in search of a meal enters a restaurant, he says to the
waitress, ‘Barishna, kakajectyeh bifstek, pozhalysta,’ which means ‘An
order of beefsteak, lady, please: You see, you always say to a woman
‘barishna’ and she is always addressed in that manner. She will answer
the hungry customer with, ‘Yah ochen sojalaylu, shto unaus nyet yestnik
prepasov siechas’ (a simple home cure for lockjaw), meaning, “I am very
sorry, but we are right out of food today.’ He will try several other
places, and if he is lucky he is apt to stumble across a place where he
can get something to eat, but when he looks at the bill of fare and
learns that it cost him about $7.50 for a sandwich and a cup of coffee,
he beats it back to the barracks.

“Every time you get on a street car (‘dramvay’) you have to count out
60 kopecs for your fare, and most of us would rather walk than be
jammed in the two-by-four buses and fish for the money. Before boarding
a car each passenger usually hunts up a couple of five gallon milk
cans, a market basket or two and a bag of smoked herring, so they will
get their kopec’s worth out of the ride, besides making the atmosphere
nice and pleasant for the rest of the passengers. If you should see a
soldier walking down the street with his nose turned up and his mouth
puckered in apparent contempt, you would be wrong in thinking he was
conceited, for if the truth be known he has probably just got his shirt
back from the washwoman, and she has used fish-oil instead of soap and
he is trying to escape the fumes. When you take your clothes to have
them laundered and tell the woman to please omit the odor, she’ll tell
you that she has no soap and if you want them washed to your
satisfaction please send in a cake. Anything in the world to keep your
clothes from smelling of fish-oil, so you double-time back and get her
the soap, and then she gives the kids a bath, and that’s the end of
your soap.

“When a Russian meets another man he knows on the street, both lift
hats and flirt with each other. If they stop to talk, they always shake
hands, even if they haven’t seen each other for fully twenty minutes.
Then they simply must shake hands again when they leave. When a man
meets a lady friend he usually kisses her hand and shows her how far he
can bend over without breaking his suspenders. ‘Ah,’ he will say, ‘yah
ochen rrad vasveedyat, kak vui pazhavaetye?’ which in the United States
means ‘How do you do?’ to which she will reply, ‘Blogadaru vas, yah
ochen korosho,’ or ‘very well, thank you.’ It is the knockout. A fellow
has to shake hands so much that some of them are getting the habit
around the company.

“And another thing, Ed, are they really holding a separate war up here
for our benefit? Just because we weren’t in on the big doings in France
is no reason why they should run a post-season series especially for
us. We appreciate the kindness and honor and all that, but what we want
to know is where everybody gets that stuff. Believe me, after all the
dope we got on the trenches, about pianos and wooden floors, steam
heat, and other conveniences, when we see ourselves on outpost duty
with one blanket and a poncho, sleeping (not on duty, of course) in
twenty-eight inches of pure ooooozy mud, which before we awaken turns
into thin, fine ice, it makes us want to cry out and ask the universe
what we have done to deserve this exile.

“Now don’t think, dear old Ed. that we are kicking. American soldiers
never do. We just wanted to have something to write you about, to
remind you that we ARE a part of the American E. F., although
‘isolated.’

“With best wishes to your paper and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year to all the boys, I’ll close with the consoling assurance in my
heart that we’ll meet you back on Broadway, anyway.

C. B. KNIGHT, Corp. “Hq” Co., 339th Inf.,
American E. F., Archangel, Russia.”




XXII
WINTER ON THE RAILROAD


We Come Under French Flag—Thanksgiving Day At Verst 455—Exploration And
Blockhouse Building—First Occupation Of Bolsheozerki—Airplane Bombs Our
Own Front Line Troops—Year’s End Push On Plesetskaya Fiasco—Nichols
Makes Railroad Sector Impregnable—Bolo Patrol Blows Up Our Big
Six—Heavy Drive By Reds At Winter’s End—“I” Company Relieves
French-Russian Force—Valorous Conduct Of Men Gives Lie To Charges Of
Loss Of Morale.


In the narrative telling of the fighting on the Vaga and Dvina, we have
already seen that the Red Guards had disillusioned us in regard to the
quiet winter campaign we hoped and expected. Now we shall resume the
story of the Railroad, or Vologda Force, as it had become known, and
tell of the attempted Allied push on Plesetskaya to relieve the
pressure on the River Fronts.

After our digging in at Verst 445 in early November, a Company of
Liverpools came from Economia to aid the French infantry and American
and French machine gunners, supported by French artillery, to hold that
winter front. The American units who had fought on the railroad in the
fall were all given ten days rest in Archangel. Soon the Americans were
once more back on the front. And it started off uneventful. A French
officer, Colonel Lucas, had come into command of the Vologda Force.
American units were generously supplied with the French Chauchat
automatic rifles, and ammunition for them, and with French rifles and
tromblons to throw the rifle grenades. Earnest business of learning to
use them.

Those who were stationed at field headquarters of the Front Sector of
the Vologda Force, which was at Verst 455, will recollect with great
pleasure the Thanksgiving Day half-holiday and program arranged by
Major Nichols, commanding the American forces. He gave us Miss Ogden,
the Y. W. C. A. woman from d. o. U. S. A. to read President Wilson’s
proclamation. How strange it seemed to us soldiers standing there under
arms. And Major Moodie the old veteran of many a British campaign, and
friend of Kitchener, the good old story teller praised the boys and
prayed with them. Major Nichols and Major Alabernarde spoke cheering
and bracing words to the assembled American and French soldiers. It was
an occasion that raised fighting morale.

The President’s Thanksgiving proclamation was transmitted to the
American troops in Russia through the office of the American Embassy.
The soldiers listened intently to the words of Mr. De Witt C. Poole,
Jr., the American Charge d’Affaires who since the departure of
Ambassador Francis, was the American diplomatic representative in
European Russia. His message was as follows:


“The military Command has been asked to make this day a holiday for the
troops, so far as military requirements permit, and to communicate to
them upon an occasion fraught with tradition and historical memories,
the hearty greetings of all Americans who are working with them in
Northern Russia.

“The American Embassy desires the troops to know that both here and at
Washington there is a full understanding of the difficulties of the
work which they are being called upon to do and a desire no less ardent
than their own that they should realize as soon as possible the
blessings of the peace which is foreshadowed by the armistice on the
Western Front.”


The chief note in the President’s proclamation which lingered on the
doughboy’s ear was as follows:

“Our gallant armies have participated in a triumph which is not marred
or stained by any purpose of selfish aggression. In a righteous cause
they have won immortal glory and have nobly served their nation in
serving mankind.”


Work of building blockhouses went rapidly forward under the steady work
of the 310th Engineers and the cheerful labor of the infantrymen who
found the occupation of swinging axes and hauling logs through the snow
to be not unpleasant exercise in the stinging winter weather that was
closing down. A commodious building began to go up at 455 for the Y. M.
C. A. French-Russian force under a terrific bombardment and barrage of
machine to use for winter entertainments for the men stationed in that
stronghold.

Exploration of the now more available winter swamp trails went on
carefully. The chain of lakes and swamps several miles to the west ran
north from Sheleksa concentration camp of the Bolos to Bolsheozerki,
parallel to the Railroad line of operations. This Bolsheozerki was an
important point on the government road which went from Obozerskaya to
Onega. It was thought wise to protect this village as in winter mail
would have to be sent out of Archangel by way of Obozerskaya, via
Onega, via Kem, via Kola, the open winter port on the Murmansk coast
hundreds of miles away to the west and north. And troops might be
brought in, too. A look at the map will discover the strategic value of
this point Bolsheozerki. American and French troops now began to
alternate in the occupation of that cluster of villages.

A sergeant of “M” Company might tell about the neat villages, about the
evidences of a higher type than usual of agriculture in the broad
clearing, about the fishing nets and wood cutters’ tools, and last, but
not least about the big schoolhouse and the winsome _barishna_ who
taught the primary room.

Nothing more than an occasional patrol or artillery exchange took place
on the railroad although there was an occasional flurry when the
British intelligence officers found out that the Reds were plotting a
raid or a general attack. It was known that they had begun to augment
their forces on our front. Sound of their axes had been as constant on
the other side of No Man’s Land as it had on our side. They were
erecting blockhouses for the winter. Occasionally their airplanes
exchanged visits with ours, always dropping a present for us. No
casualties resulted from their bombs directed at us. Unfortunately one
day our bombing plane mistook our front line for the Red front line and
dropped two big bombs on our own position and caused one death and one
severe wound.

The accident happened just as an American company was being relieved by
a French company. And it was a good thing the commander of the company
consumed the remainder of the day in getting his excited and enraged
men back to Obozerskaya because by that time the men were cooled off
and the nervous Royal Air Force had no occasion to use its rifles in
self-defense as it had prepared to do. They wisely stayed inside, as in
fact did the few other English sergeants and enlisted men at
Obozerskaya that ticklish night. The few wild Yanks who roamed the
dark, without pass, had all the room and road. There was a particularly
good mission at once found for this American company on another front,
whether by design or by coincidence. A board of officers whitewashed
the Canadian flyers of the Royal Air Force and the incident was closed.

Of course all the accidents did not happen to Americans. During the
winter on the Railroad, a sad one happened to a fine British officer. A
brooding enlisted man of the American medical corps went insane one
dark night and craftily securing a rifle held up the first Englishman
he found. He roundly berated the British officer with being the cause
of the North Russian War on the Bolsheviki, told the puzzled but
patiently listening officer to say a prayer and then suddenly blew off
the poor man’s head and himself went off his nut completely.

With the beginning of the winter campaign Pletsetskaya’s importance to
the Red Army began to loom up. Trotsky’s forces could be readily
supplied from that city and his forces could be swiftly shifted from
front to front to attack the widely dispersed forces of the Allied
Expedition. It was seen now clearly that the fall offensive should have
been pushed through to Plesetskaya by the converging Onega, Railroad
and Kodish Forces. And plans were made to retrieve the error by putting
on a determined push late in December to take Plesetskaya and reverse
the strategic situation so as to favor the Allied Expeditionary Forces.

The Onega Force was to make a strong diversion toward the Bolo extreme
left; the Kodish Force was to smash through Kodish to Kochmas assisted
by a heavy force of Russians and English operating on and through Gora
and Taresevo, and thence to Plesetskaya; the French-trained company of
Russian Courier-du-Bois were to go on snow shoes through the snow from
Obozerskaya to the rear of Emtsa for a surprise attack; and timed with
all these was the drive of the Americans and British Liverpools on the
Railroad straight at the Bolo fortifications at Verst 443 and Emtsa.
Study of the big map will show that the plan had its merits.

There were one or two things wrong with the plan. One was that it
underestimated the increased strength of the Bolshevik forces both in
numbers and in morale and discipline. The other was the erroneous
estimate of the time required to make the distances in the deep snow.
Of course it was not the fault of the plan that the information leaked
out and disaffected men deserted the Allied Russian auxiliaries’ ranks
and tipped off the push to the Bolsheviki.

The story of the New Year’s battles by “H” on the one hand and “K” on
the other have been told. It remains to relate here the “railroad push”
fiasco. The Courier-du-Bois got stuck in the deep snow, exhausted and
beaten before they were anywhere near Emtsa. American Machine Gun men
at Verst 445 front reported that S. B. A. L. deserters had gone over to
the Bolo lines. The Reds on December 29th and 30th became very active
with their artillery. Reports came in of the failure of the
Russian-British force that was to attack Tarsevo, and of the counter
attack of the Reds in the Onega Valley. So the Liverpools and the
French company and Winslow’s “I” Company and Lt. Donovan’s combination
company of two platoons of “G” and “M” who were all set for the smash
toward Emtsa and Plesetskaya found their orders suddenly countermanded
on December 31st and settled down to the routine winter defensive.

In order to facilitate troop movements and to make command more
compact, the French Colonel in command of the railroad force arranged
that the Americans should man the sectors of defense during the month
of February all alone and that the French battalion should occupy in
March. This worked out fairly satisfactory. “L” Company and half of “E”
Company, after rest at Archangel from their desperate work at Kodish,
joined “I” Company and half of “G” Company on the railroad under Major
Nichols, where an uneventful but busy month was passed in patrolling,
instruction and so forth.

Every sector of the railroad front was made practically impregnable to
infantry attack by the energetic work of “A” and “B” Company engineers
and the Pioneer platoon of Headquarters Company. And the dugouts which
they constructed at Verst 445 proved during the intermittent artillery
shelling of January-March to be proof against the biggest H. E. the
Bolo threw. Major Nichols sure drove the job of fortification through
with thoroughness and secured a very formidable array of all sorts of
weapons of defense. A great naval gun that could shoot twenty versts
was mounted on an American flat car and taken to his popular field
headquarters at Verst 455, where it was the pet of the crew of Russian
sailors. And constant instruction and practice with the various weapons
of the British, French and Russian types, which were in the hands of
the Americans gave them occupation during the many days of tension on
this winter front, where they daily expected the same thing to happen
that was overpowering their comrades on the River Fronts. And when at
the very end of the winter and the break of spring, the Reds did come
in great force the defenses were so strong and well manned that they
held at every point.

In March the French had a little excitement while the battalion of
Americans were at rest in Archangel. A daring Bolshevik patrol in force
circumnavigated through the deep snow of the pine woods on skiis and
surprised the _poilu_ defenders of their favorite howitzer on the
railway track, killing several and capturing the big six-inch trouble
maker. They destroyed it by feeding it a German hand grenade and then
made their getaway. Successes on other fronts seemed to stimulate the
Bolos to try out the defenses on this hitherto very quiet front. They
gave the Frenchies lots of trouble with their raiding parties. Whether
the fact that the French had local Russian troops with them had
anything to do with the renewal of activity is not provable, but it
seems probable, judging from the hatred seen expressed between Bolos
and anti-Bolsheviks on other fronts that winter.

And before the month of March was gone, Major Nichols was hurried back
to the Railroad Front, taking “L” and “E” Companies with him. The
French-Russian forces were in trouble. They had lost the strategic
Bolsheozerki, story of the severe fighting about which will form a
separate chapter. Rumor has it that the Russian troops on the front
were demoralized and that the enemy would strike before the Americans
could get there to relieve the French-Russian force.

General Ironside himself went to the railroad and the new Bolsheozerki
front and saw that quick action only could save the situation. He gave
Major Nichols free hand with his battalion and released “E” Company
which was on the Bolsheozerki front by sending “M” Company to the
desperate spot. Nichols with characteristic decisiveness determined to
make the relief before the set time and have his own men meet the
attack. It worked at all points. At Verst 445, the very front, “I”
Company gallantly went in to relieve the French and Russian under
artillery barrage and a heavy machine gun barrage together with a heavy
infantry attack on one flank. This company which has been unjustly
accused of having mutinied the day before at Archangel, was on this day
and three succeeding days subjected to all the fury of attack that the
Red Army commander had been mustering up for so many days to crush the
French-Russian force. And “I” Company supported by the French
artillery, by machine gun and trench mortar men, stood the Reds off
with great resolution and inflicted terrible losses. The railroad front
line was saved. The flank position gained by the Reds at Bolsheozerki
would be of doubtful value to them as long as the railroad sectors
held. The stoutness of the American defenses and the stoutness of their
morale had both been vindicated in terrific battle action.

And hereafter any veteran of the winter campaign fighting the
Bolsheviki, who still meets the false story of alleged mutiny of one of
the companies of the 339th Infantry in Archangel, a false story that
will not down even after emphatic denial by high army authorities who
investigated the reports that slipped out to the world over the British
cables, may ignore the charges as distortions which partisans who are
pro-Bolshevik are in the habit of giving currency with the vain idea of
trying to show that the Bolshevik propaganda convinced the American
soldier. They may refer to this valorous battle action of the alleged
mutinous company and to shining examples of its morale and valor in the
long fall and winter campaign fighting the Bolsheviki. The story of the
discontent which gave rise to the false story is told elsewhere.

In this connection the editors wish to add further that in their
estimation the morale of this fighting company and of the other
American units was remarkably good. And the story of this “I” Company
going in to relieve the French-Russian force under a terrific
bombardment and barrage of machine guns, the distant roar of which was
heard for three days and nights by the writer who was on an adjoining
front, has not been told with complete emphasis to the good fighting
spirit of Captain Winslow’s men. We would like to make it stronger.

The winter drive of the Reds on the Railroad merged into their spring
raids and threats. The French soldiers did not return again to the
front and the Americans stayed on. Major Nichols began breaking in
units of the new Archangel government troops who served alongside the
Yanks and were in the spring to relieve the American entirely.




XXIII
BOLSHEOZERKI


Bolsheozerki One-Reel Thriller—Brilliant Strategy Of Trotsky’s Northern
Army Commander—General Ironside And Major Nichols Take Personal Command
Of Critical Situation—Twelve Miles Out In Woods With Five Pieces Of
Artillery—“M” Company Relieves “E”—Little Force Beleaguered For
Days—Three Invincible Days And Nights—Reds Ambush Several Parties—Enemy
Baffled And Punished Dreadfully—American Pluck And Luck Triumph.


Bolsheozerki was a one reel thriller. Kodish had been a repetition of
nightmares both for the Reds and the Yanks. Shenkursk had been a five
act drama the tragic end of which had been destined when the Americans
were ordered to dig in so far forward, isolated from the supporting
forces. This last front, Bolsheozerki, sprang suddenly into acute
importance in March just at the end of winter and was savagely fought.

The brilliant strategy of the Bolo Northern Army commander, General
Kuropatkin, in sending a Bolo general with a great flying wedge between
the Onega Force and the Railroad Force was executed with a surprisingly
swift flank movement that caught the French napping at the lightly held
Bolsheozerki position, March 16-17. Their force was annihilated, a
convoy was captured, and the old priest of the area came fleeing to
Obozerskaya with news of this enemy drive that would soon, unless
checked, capture Obozerskaya, and thus pierce a vital point of the
whole Archangel defense. The railroad front sectors would be cut off,
Seletskoe would be pinched, and the River Fronts taken in rear if
Obozerskaya with its stores, munitions and transportation fell into the
hands of the Bolsheviki.

General Ironside hastened to Obozerskaya to take personal command. The
French Colonel commanding there had himself been cut off at Chinova on
the west side of Bolsheozerki and had failed to fight his way through
the next day, March 18th, with an escort of “H” Company men, story of
which is related elsewhere. Ironside ordered up three Companies of
Yorks and a Polish Company, who had been on the road from Onega to
Bolsheozerki to join the Americans at Chinova for a smash at the
gathering Reds in Bolsheozerki. Their gallant but futile fight with its
hard losses on March 23rd, from the enemy fire and winter frost has
been told. Meanwhile General Ironside hurried out an American company
from Archangel together with an Archangel Regiment Company and eighty
Yorks and some of the French Legion Courier du Bois to make an attack
on the Reds at the same time on their other flank. But the Reds had
their artillery all set to command the road at Verst 19 and threw the
Russian troops into confusion with severe losses. “E” Company of
Americans resolutely floundered for hours through the five-foot snow to
reach a distant viewpoint of the village of Bolsheozerki where they
could hear the furious action between “H” and the Reds on the farther
side, but by field telephone, were ordered by Colonel Guard to return
to Verst 18 on the road and dig in.

For a few days both sides used the winter sleigh roads for all they
were worth in bringing up artillery and supplies and men and wire, and
so forth. The Reds had sixty versts to haul their loads but they had
the most horses, which they used without mercy. An American soldier who
was ambushed and taken prisoner during this fighting says that he never
saw before nor since so many dead horses, starved and overdriven, as he
saw on the winter trail south from Bolsheozerki. The Reds brought up
artillery enough to cover approaches to both their west and east fronts
where the Allied forces were menacing them.

Ironside ordered out five pieces of French-Russian artillery, a
hazardous but necessary move. These guns were set along the snowpacked
broad corduroy highway near Verst 18, twelve miles from Obozerskaya,
and four miles from the overwhelming force of Bolsheviks. Day and night
the old howitzer, with airplane observation, roared defiance at
Bolsheozerki and the Russian 75’s barked viciously first at the village
positions of the Reds and then at their wood’s artillery and infantry
positions which the Reds were pushing forward at this devoted Allied
force that stood resolutely between them and Obozerskaya.

Fresh companies of Americans and Russians relieved those who were
shivering and exhausted in the snow camp at Verst 18. Company “C,”
310th Engineers platoon, hastily threw up barricades of logs for the
doughboys and before the day of attack, had completed two of the
several projected blockhouses. Part of them, who had not been sent back
to build the second defense position that now seemed inevitable, were
found with the doughboys, rifle in hand, during the desperate days that
followed. The company of Yanks who now took over the active defense of
this camp, “M” Company, was a resourceful outfit which soon improved
its barricades and built brush shelters within which they could conceal
their warm fires. By their reputation as fighters and by their optimism
they won the spirited support of the green Russian supporting company.
And the machine gun crews of Russians who stood with the Americans at
the critical front and rear road positions did themselves proud.

Every day made the Verst 18 position less hazardous. The Reds made a
mistake in waiting to mass up a huge force, seven thousand—their
prisoners and their own newspapers afterward admitted. If they had
struck quickly after March 23rd the Allied force would have soon been
out of ammunition and been compelled to retire. But during the days
devoted to massing up the Red forces and working around through the
deep snow to attack the rear of the Verst 18 camp, the Allied force of
two hundred Americans and four hundred Allied troops, mostly Russians,
were stocked up with food and munitions and artillery shells sufficient
to stand against a desperate, continuous onslaught. And they did.

Came then the three days’ continuous attack by the enemy in his
determined attempt to gain possession of the road so as to be able to
move his artillery over it to attack Obozerskaya. His men could travel
light through the woods on skiis but to get artillery and the heavy
munitions across he must have that one road. He must first dispose of
the stubborn force in the road at Verst 18. For this attack, he used
three regiments. The 2nd Moscow, whose Commissar we took prisoner the
first day; the 90th Saratov whose commanding officer was shot from his
white horse the second day; and the 2nd Kasan.

The first day’s fight began, on the morning of the last day of March
with a surprise attack at the rear, cutting our communications off,
ambushing two parties of officers and men, and threatening to capture
the two 75’s which were guarded by a single platoon of “M” Company and
two Russian machine guns. The artillery officer reversed his guns and
gave the enemy direct fire, shrapnel set for muzzle burst. Another
platoon reinforced the one and a Lewis gun Corporal distinguished
himself by engaging the two Bolo machine guns that had been set in the
road to the rear. The guns were held.

Meanwhile under cover of this attack at the rear a heavy assault was
delivered against the forward blockhouses and barricades. Fortunately
the Reds directed their attack at the points held by the Americans
rather than at the four flank positions held by the green Archangel
troops. The shooting was good that day for the veteran Yanks and they
repulsed all attacks at front and rear with terrible losses to the
enemy. Night found the Americans shaking hands with themselves for
being in a tightly fortified place and carrying plenty more ammunition
to every firing point where the enemy was expected to appear again the
next day. According to the prisoners taken this was only a preliminary
attack to develop our lines of fire. The next day he would envelop the
little force in great numbers.

He did. At day-break, 3:30 a. m., April 1st, he threw his weight into
three waves of assault on the front line and attacked later in the
rear. The stoutly fortified men did not budge but worked every death
dealing weapon with great severity. Rifle grenades came into use as the
enemy by sheer weight of masses surged within their 200-yard range. The
machine guns faltered only once and then a Yankee Corporal, William
Russell, Company “M” 339th Infantry, won for himself a posthumous
American citation and D. S. C. for his heroic deed in regaining fire
control by engaging the enemy machine gun which crawled up to short
range in the thick woods with his Lewis gun. The Russian artillery
observer distinguished himself by his accuracy in covering the enemy
assaulting lines with shrapnel. As on the preceding day every attacking
line of the enemy was repulsed. And darkness closed the scene at 9:00
p. m. with the little force still intact but standing to arms all
night, front, flanks and rear.

The cold was severe but the Bolsheviki lying on their arms out in the
snow where their assaulting lines faltered and dug in, suffered even
more and many crawled in to give themselves up rather than freeze. Back
to their camp they could not go for they had been promised the usual
machine gun reception if they retired from the fight. That probably
accounts for their commanding officer’s riding up on his white horse to
his death. He thought his men had won their objective when fire ceased
for an hour in the middle of the day, and he rode almost to our
barricade.

This was the fiercest fighting. The all night’s vigil did not bring a
renewal of the attack till after the Bolo artillery gave the position
two thorough rakings which destroyed one of the barricades and drove
everyone to shelter behind the pine trees. Then the infantry attack
petered out before noon. This was the day that “H” Company and the
Yorks again attacked on the other side of Bolsheozerki, with the severe
losses mentioned elsewhere. But their attack helped the badly wearied
“M” Company who stood bearing the brunt of attack in the Bolo’s road to
Obozerskaya. Their artillery vigorously shelled the Reds in
Bolsheozerki and felt out his advance lines with patrols but were
content mainly to stand fast to their works and congratulate themselves
that their losses had been so slight after so terrific a struggle. The
horse shoes had again been with that outfit of Americans. Three dead,
three missing in action, one wounded and three shell shocked. The Yorks
and Russians suffered no casualties. The ground was covered with
Bolshevik dead.

On the night of April 4th the American Company was relieved by a
company of Yorks and an additional company of Russians, and for a few
more days the Bolos occupied Bolsheozerki but they had shot their bolt.
They made no more attempts to break through to the railroad and take
Obozerskaya. Savagely the Red Guards had three times resisted attempts
to dislodge them from Bolsheozerki. Just as stubbornly and with
terrible deadliness the little force at Verst 18 had held the Reds in
Bolsheozerki when they tried to move upon Obozerskaya. And when the
April sun began to soften the winter roads into slush he had to feint
an attack on Volshenitsa and escape between two days from Bolsheozerki,
returning to Shelaxa.

The Americans had never had such shooting. They knew the enemy losses
were great from the numbers of bodies found and from statements of
prisoners and deserters. Later accounts of our American soldiers who
were ambushed and captured, together with statements that appeared in
Bolshevik newspapers placed the losses very high. The old Russian
general massed up in all over seven thousand men in this spectacular
and well-nigh successful thrust. And his losses from killed in action,
wounded, missing and frost-bitten were admitted by the Bolshevik
reports to be over two thousand.

It was in this fighting that Bolshevik prisoners were taken in almost
frozen condition to the American Y. M. C. A. man’s tent for a drink of
hot chocolate which he was serving to the Americans, Yorks, Russians
and all during those tight days. And the genial Frank Olmstead was
recognized by the prisoners as a “Y” man who had been in the interior
of Russia in the days when Russians were not fighting Americans but
Germans.

To the doughboy or medic or engineer who stood there at bay those three
invincible days, Bolsheozerki means deep snow, bitter cold, cheerless
tents, whiz-bangs, high explosive, shrap, rat-tat-tat interminable,
roar and crash, and zipp and pop of explosive bullet, with
catch-as-catch-can at eats, arms lugged off with cases of ammunition,
constant tension, that all ended up with luck to the plucky.


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Flashlight of a Doughboy Outpost at Verst 455._]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_Bolo Commander’s Sword Taken in Battle of Bolsheozerki_]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo 158853
_After Eight Days—Near Bolsheozerki_]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo
_Wood Pile Strong Point—Verst 445_]


[Illustration: U.S. Official Photo 161108
_Verst 455—“Fort Nichols”_]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Back from Patrol._]


[Illustration: U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Our Shell Bursts Near Bolo Skirmish Line._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Blockhouse, Shred Makrenga._]




XXIV
LETTING GO THE TAIL-HOLT


Preparing For Spring Defensive—River Situation Ticklish—Must Hold Till
Our Gunboats Can Get Up—“F” Company Crosses River On Cracking
Ice—Canadian Artillery Well Placed And Effectively Handled Holds Off
Red Flotilla—Engineers Help Clear Dvina With Dynamite—Joyful Arrival Of
British Gunboat “Glow Worm”—We Retake Ignatavskaya—Amusing Yet
Dangerous Fishing Party—British Relief Forces Arrive On Vaga—Toulgas Is
Lost And Retaken—British-Russian Drive At Karpogora Fails—Old White
Guard Pinega Troops Hold Their City Against Red Drive Again—Kodish And
Onega Fronts Quiet—Railroad Front Active But No Heavy Fighting—General
Richardson Helps Us Let Go Tail-Holt.


Many an uncomfortable hour in the winter General Ironside and his staff
spent studying over the spring defense against the Reds. It was well
known that the snows would melt and ice would loosen on the distant
southern river valley heights and as customary the river from Kotlas to
Toulgas would be open to the Red gunboats several days before the ice
would be released in the lower river stretches, necessary to permit the
Allied fleets of gunboats to come in from the Arctic Ocean and go up to
help defend the advanced positions on the Dvina and Vaga upper river
fronts. It was feared that Red heavy artillery would blow our fortified
positions into bits, force our evacuation at a time when there was no
such thing as transportation except by the rivers. These would be for a
few days in control of the Reds. Thus our Americans and Allies who had
so gallantly reddened the snows with their stern defense in the winter
might find themselves at the mercy of the Reds.

Every effort was made to improve the shell-proof dugouts. Engineers and
doughboys slaved at the toil. Wire was hurried for the double apron
defenses on which to catch the mass attacks of the Bolsheviki. Supplies
were stored at every point for sixty days so that a siege could be
stood. And an Allied fleet was arranged to come as soon as the
icebreakers could get them through the choked-up neck of the White Sea.
And meanwhile the Canadian artillery was strengthened with the hope
that they could oppose the Red fleets and delay them till the river
opened to passage of the Allied fleets coming to save the troops.

The battle-worn veterans of “A” and “D” were strengthened by the men of
“F” Company who had come into the front lines in March and now were
bearing their full share and then some of the winter’s end defense
against the Red pressure. Cossack allies and Archangel regiments also
were added to the Russian quotas that had done service on those fronts
in the winter. Russian artillery units also were sent to Toulgas. In
every way possible these desperate fronts were prepared to meet the
heralded spring drive of the Red Guards.

As the ice and snow daily disappeared more and more Americans began
arranging “booby traps” and dummy machine gun posts in the woods. These
machine gun posts were prepared by fastening a bucket of water with a
small hole punched in the bottom above another bucket which was tied to
the trigger of a machine gun or rifle. The amount of water could be
regulated so as to cause the gun to fire at regular intervals of from
thirty minutes to an hour. Through the woods we strung concealed wires
and sticks attached to hand grenades, the slightest touch of which
would cause them to explode. Meanwhile in the rear, “B” Company
Engineers, who had relieved “A” Company Engineers, were busily engaged
in stuffing gun cotton, explosives and inflammable material in every
building and shed at Kitsa and Maximovskaya.

On April nineteenth the ice in the Vaga was heaving and cracking.
Kitsa, the doomed Kitsa, where the Yanks and Scots and Canadians
alternately had held on so many days, expecting any time another
overwhelming attack, was at this time being held by “F” Company. But
the British officer in command had delayed his order to evacuate till
Captain Ramsay was barely able to lead his men across. One more
foolhardy day of delay would have lost the British officer a company of
much needed troops.

Sharp on the hour of midnight April 19th “F” Company silently withdrew
from the front line positions and started across the river, the ice of
which was already beginning to move. As they marched through the inky
darkness of the woods the dummy guns began discharging which kept the
enemy deceived as to our movements.

As the last man crossed the river a rocket went up as a signal to the
Engineers that “F” Company and the other infantry units had arrived
safely at Ignatavskaya. The following moment the entire surrounding
country shook to a series of terrific explosions both at Kitsa and
Maximovskaya and then a great red glare emblazoned the sky as the two
oil soaked villages burst into flame. The engineers quickly joined the
party and from then on until the following morning they continued in a
forced march back to prepared positions at Mala-Beresnik and Nizhni
Kitsa on opposite sides of the river about eight versts in rear of
Kitsa.

The positions here were a godsend after our experience of the past two
months in the open and exposed positions further up the river. Here for
more than two months hundreds of Russian laborers had been busily
engaged in stringing mile after mile of barbed wire about the positions
and constructed practically bomb-proof shelters. Furthermore, our
artillery commanded a good view of the river, which was all important,
for as the ice was now moving out we knew that the enemy gunboats would
soon come steaming down river with nothing but land batteries to stop
them since the mouth of the Dvina and the White Sea would not be free
from ice for several weeks to come, thus making it impossible for our
gunboats there to get down to these positions.

And the ice went out of the upper river with a crunching roar. The Reds
came on with their water attacks, but with little success. The Canadian
artillery was well prepared and so well manned that it beat the Red
flotilla badly. Fortunately the Bolo gunners were not as accurate as on
former occasions. So losses from this source were comparatively few.

The lower Dvina was unusually rapid in clearing this spring. The 310th
Engineers had assisted by use of dynamite. The Red army command had
counted on three weeks to press his water attacks. But by May tenth
gunboats had gone up the Dvina to help batter Toulgas into submission.
And when on May seventeenth Commander Worlsley of Antarctic fame went
steaming up the Vaga on board the “Glow Worm,” a heavily armed river
gunboat, the worries of the Americans in the battle-scarred Vaga column
were at an end.

With the gunboats now at their disposal the morale of all ranks was
greatly improved and it was thereupon decided to retake the position at
Ignatavskaya immediately across the river from Kitsa, which position
was held by the enemy, giving him the opportunity of sheltering
thousands of his troops there with his artillery on the opposite side
of the river to further protect them.

On the morning of May 19th several strong patrols went forward into the
woods in the direction of the enemy and quickly succeeded in gaining
contact with his outposts. The Bolo must have sensed some activity for
at 10:30 a. m. he commenced a violent artillery bombardment. Shortly
thereafter his airplanes came flying over our lines and machine-gunned
our trenches. The men had long since become so accustomed to this
little by-play that they gave it little consideration other than
keeping well under cover. Others even gave it less regard, as the
following amusing incident indicates:

During the shelling of that morning a great number of enemy shells
exploded in the river and these explosions immediately brought large
numbers of fish to the surface. The company cook, seeing such a
splendid opportunity to replenish the company larder, crawled down to
the edge of the river, jumped into a rowboat and soon was occupied in
filling his boat with fish, utterly disregardful of the intermittent
shelling and sniping. That evening, needless to say, the cook was the
most popular man in his company.

At 9:30 p. m. the boats brought down battalion after battalion of fresh
Russian troops from Zaboria who were landed near our positions under
cover preparatory to the attack on Ignatavskaya. It might be well to
mention here that at this time of the year the Arctic sun was
practically shining the entire twenty-four hours, only about midnight
barely disappearing below the rim of the horizon, making it dark enough
in the woods in the dull twilight to advance without observation. At
midnight the infantry pushed forward along the road toward the Bolo
outpost positions. American infantry also covered the opposite bank of
the river.

Our guns on the river in conjunction with the land batteries
immediately opened up with a terrific bombardment, shelling the Bolo
positions for twenty minutes until the infantry had gained the outposts
of the village and a few moments later when the barrage had lifted they
entered Ignatavskaya, which had been in the hands of the enemy for more
than a month. Our attack took the enemy clearly by surprise, for in the
village itself we found great numbers of enemy dead and wounded, who
had been caught under our curtain of fire from the artillery, and for
the next several days we were busy in bringing in other wounded men and
prisoners from the surrounding woods, estimated at more than two
hundred alone.

We quickly consolidated the new position with our old ones and
patiently sat tight, awaiting the coming of the new British
reinforcements, which had by this time landed in Archangel. From this
time on our fighting was practically at an end on the Vaga River.

Over on the Dvina during the months of March and April, “B” and “C”
Company were still holding forth at Toulgas and Kurgomin far up the
river. They were daily employed in patrol and defensive duty. The Bolo
had acquired a healthy respect for these positions after his terrible
repulses on this front during the winter.

In fact, so strong was this position here that by April we had
gradually begun relieving American troops at Toulgas and supplanting
them, about five to one, by fresh Russian troops from Archangel, who
subsequently fell before the most vicious and deadly of all the enemy
weapons—Bolshevik Propaganda.

During the night of April 25 and 26, these Russian troops who had been
secretly conniving with the Red spies and agents, suddenly revolted,
turned their guns on their own as well as the British officers there,
and allowed the enemy lurking in the woods to walk unmolested into the
positions that months of shelling and storm attacks had failed to
shake. True, some of the Russians, especially the artillery men,
remained loyal and by superhuman efforts succeeded in withdrawing with
some equipment and guns to Shushuga on the same side of the river.
Yorkshire troops and machine gunners were quickly rushed up to bolster
up these loyal men and a few days later retribution swift and terrible
was visited upon the deserters and their newly made comrades.

Shortly prior to the defection of the troops in Toulgas, and unknown to
them, a battery of large six-inch guns had been brought up to the
artillery position at Kurgomin on the opposite side of the river,
which, with the guns already in position there, made it one of our
strongest artillery positions. The enemy was given ample time in which
to fully occupy the position at Toulgas, which he at once proceeded to
do.

On the 26th day of April our artillery suddenly opened fire on Toulgas
and at the same time dropped a curtain barrage on the far side of the
village, making retreat practically impossible. During this time
thousands of shells of high explosive gas and shrapnel were placed in
the village proper with telling effect. Unable to go forward or back,
we inflicted enormous losses upon the enemy, and shortly thereafter the
loyal Russians, supported by English infantrymen, entered the village,
putting the remaining numbers to flight and once again Toulgas was
ours.

With the settling of the roads and trails the enemy was able to mass up
forces and continue his harrying tactics but could make no impression
on the Allied lines. Americans were gradually withdrawn from the front
lines and Russians served along with the Liverpools and Yorks, who were
now looking every week for the promised volunteers from England who
were to relieve not only the Americans but the Liverpools and Yorks and
other British troops in North Russia. “F” Company was active in
patrolling during the month of May and reported last combat patrol with
enemy near Kitsa on May twentieth. This company of Americans had been
the last one to get into action in the fall and enjoyed the distinction
of being the last one to leave the front, leaving on June 5 for
Archangel.

Meanwhile the spring drive of the Red Guards who had massed up near
Trufanagora on the Pinega River was menacing Pinega. After the
Americans had been withdrawn from that area in March for duty on
another front, Pinega forces under command of Colonel Deliktorski were
augmented by the previously mentioned “Charlie” Tschaplan, now a
Russian colonel with three companies, and supported by another section
of Russian artillery. Also an old British veteran of the Mesopotamian
campaign, personal friend of General Ironside, was sent out to Leunova
to take command of a joint drive at the Bolsheviki. He had with him the
well-known Colonel Edwards with his Asiatic troops, the Chinese coolies
who had put on the S. B. A. L. uniform, and a valorous company of
British troops equipped with skiis and sleds to make the great
adventurous forest march across the broad base of the big inverted V so
as to cut the Reds off far in their rear near Karpogora.

But that British-Russian adventure resulted disastrously. Two British
officers lost their lives and their troops were nearly frozen in the
woods and badly cut up by the Reds who had been all set for them with a
murderous battery of machine guns. Too late the British-Russian command
of the Pinega Valley found that the Americans had been right in their
strategy which had not failed to properly estimate the Bolo strength
and to properly measure the enormous labor and hardship of the
cross-forest snows. Again the enthusiastic and fearless but woefully
reckless Russian Colonel and English Colonel threw their men into death
traps as they had done previously on other fronts. With success in
defense the Reds gained their nerve back and again, as in December,
January and February, began a drive on Pinega.

Then the stoutness of the city’s White Guard defenses and their morale
was put to the test. “K” Company men at Kholmogori waited with anxiety
for the decision, for if Pinega fell then, Red troops would press down
the river to threaten Kholmogori, which, though safe from winter attack
because of the blockhouses built by American Engineers and doughboys,
would be at the mercy of the gunboats the Reds were reported to have
rigged up with guns sent over from Kotlas. But the Pinega artillery and
machine guns and the stout barricades of the Pelegor and Kuligor
infantrymen held out, though one of the gallant Russian officers, who
had won the admiration of the Americans in the winter by continuing
daily on duty with his machine gun company after he had been wounded
severely in the arm, now fell among his men.

Later Allied gunboats ascended the Pinega River and that area was once
more restored to safety. Spring thaw-up severed the Red communications
with Kotlas, which was on the Dvina. The Bolsheviki in the upper Pinega
could no longer maintain an offensive operation. Archangel was relieved
from the menace on its left.

With the Vaga and Dvina Rivers now so well protected by the naval
forces of the Allies, the Bolo drives up the Kodish-Seletskoe road were
now no longer of much strategic importance to them. In the latter part
of the winter they had hopes of themselves controlling the water. Then
they had put on drives at Shred Mekhrenga and at the Kodish front but
with severe losses and no gains. Now in the spring the warfare was
reduced to combat patrol actions with an occasional raid, most of the
aggressive being taken by our Allies, the Cossacks, and Russian
Archangel troops.

On the Onega the spring was very quiet after the Reds withdrew their
huge force from Bolsheozerki April 19. They withdrew under cover of a
feinted attack in force on Volshenitsa, which was on the other flank of
the railroad force. With the opening of Archangel harbor the
Onega-Oborzerskaya road was no longer of so vital importance to us and
the Reds’ one savage thrust at it just at the close of winter, as
related already, was their last drive. “H” Company had a quiet time
during the remaining April and May days. And that company of men
deserved the rest.

On the railroad the coming of spring meant the renewal of activities.
For us it meant constant combat patrols and daily artillery duels.
However, the Bolshevik seemed to be discouraged over his failure at the
end of winter. His heralded May Day drive did not materialize. We
brought our Russian infantrymen and machine gunners up to the front
sectors, gradually displacing Americans until finally on May seventh
Major Nichols was relieved at Verst 455—it should have been
re-christened Fort Nichols—by Colonel Akutin, whose Russian troops took
over the active defense of the front, with the Americans at Obozerskaya
in reserve. At this place and at Bolsheozerki, “G”, “L”, “M”, “I”, and
“E” Companies in the order named at the end of May, together with
machine gun company platoons, were relieved by British and Russian
troops. American Engineers also withdrew from this front just about the
time that the First Battalion and “F” Company were embarking from
Beresnik and “K” Company was steaming out of Yemeskoe and Kholmogori
for Archangel. Most of the boys of the First Battalion had been up the
river for months and had never seen the streets of Archangel.

One of the interesting features of the spring defensive was the arrival
of General Wilds P. Richardson from France to take command of all
American forces during the remainder of the time we were in North
Russia. He arrived on a powerful ice-breaker which cut its way into
Archangel on April seventeenth. At that time we were still running
trains across the Dvina River on the railroad track laid on the ice,
and continued to do so for several days.

General Richardson, veteran of many years of service in Alaska,
immediately made his way to the various fronts. At Verst 455 on the
railroad he said in part to the soldiers assembled there for his
inspection:


“When I was detailed to come to North Russia, General Pershing,
Commander-in-Chief of the A. E. F., told me that he desired me to come
up to command the troops, help out if I could, and to cheer them up, as
he had an idea that you thought you had been overlooked and forgotten,
and were not part of the A. E. F. When I arrived here I found a
telegram from General Pershing stating briefly all that I could have
said, more and, better, and I only want to emphasize to you that which
was sent out and published, that your comrades in France have been
doing wonderful work just as well as you have up here. Your people are
pleased and proud of you. They have not forgotten you, nor has the A.
E. F. in France. They want to see you come home as soon as you can,
with the right spirit and without any act by company or individual that
you will be ashamed of. You are here to do a certain duty, determined
by the highest authority in our country and in others of our Allies,
and by the best minds in the world in connection with this great war
which we have been waging and were drawn into through no fault of our
own.

“While the 339th and other detachments that have come with them to
perform a share of the work in North Russia seemed far away and at
times you perhaps felt lonely and that you were not getting the same
consideration, you still were as much a part of the game, as far as
forces stand, as any portion of the Western Front.

“Remember, you are Americans in a foreign country taking part in a
great game, making history which will be written and talked of for
generations, doing your duty as best you can so as to maintain the
highest standard that the Army has attained in Europe.”


General Pershing’s telegram as transmitted to the Americans fighting
the Bolsheviki in, North Russia was as follows:

“Inform our troops that all America resounds with praise of the
splendid record that the American Expeditionary Forces have made. The
reputation of the American soldier for valor and for splendid
discipline under the most trying conditions has endeared every member
of the Expeditionary Forces not only to his relatives and friends but
to all Americans. Their comrades in France have not forgotten that the
Americans in Northern Russia are part of the American Expeditionary
Forces, and we are proud to transmit to you the generous praise of the
American people. I feel sure that every soldier in Northern Russia will
join his comrades here in the high resolve of returning to America with
unblemished reputations. I wish every soldier in Northern Russia to
know that I fully appreciate that his hardships have continued long
after those endured by our soldiers in France and that every effort is
being made to relieve the conditions in the North at the earliest
possible moment.”


The Americans had let go the tail holt. The spring defensive had been
surprisingly easy after the desperate winter defensive with the
persistently heralded threats of Trotsky’s Northern Army to punish the
invaders with annihilation. In fact, there was a suspicion that the
Reds were content to merely harry the Americans, but not to take any
more losses going against them, preferring to wait till they had gone
and then deal with the Archangel regiments of some twenty-five thousand
and the British troops coming out from England. Probably if the truth
were known Kolchak and Denikin were in the spring of 1919 taking much
of Trotsky’s attention. They were getting the grain fields of Russia
that the Reds needed, which was of more importance than the possession
of the Archangel province.

Then there was the political side of the case. The Peace Conference was
struggling with the Russian problem. Lenine and Trotsky could well
afford to deal not too violently and crushingly with the Allied troops
in the North of Russia while they were with both open and underground
diplomacy and propaganda seeking to get recognition of their rule.

Anyway, we found ourselves letting go that tail holt which in the
winter had seemed to be all that the _Detroit News_ cartoonist pictured
it, “H—- to hang on, and death to let loose.” And we did not get many
more bad scratches or bites from the Bolo bob-cat.

[Illustration: “Come on home, Yank! What did you grab him for in the
first place?”
“It is hell to hang on, but it’s death to let loose.”
_The Hard Job Is To Let Go. From Detroit News._]




XXV
THE 310TH ENGINEERS


Engineers Busy Right From Start—Seen On All Fronts—Great Aid To
Doughboys—Occasionally Obliged To Join Firing Line—Colonel Morris Gives
Interesting Summary Of Engineer Work—General Ironside Pays Fine Tribute
To 310th Engineer Detachment.


The 310th Engineers went into quarters at Bakaritza, September 7th,
where it was said German agents two years before had blown up Russian
munitions even as they had blown many a dock in our own country. They
looked mournfully at the potato fields the retreating Bolos had robbed
and destroyed and they fished for the one hundred motor trucks said to
have been sunk in the Dvina River by the Reds, hoping to get the reward
offered by the British.

They fixed up their quarters, built sheds for the commissary and
quartermaster stores of the Americans and began preparations for their
construction work upon the Railroad and River fronts. On a dark night
in October one platoon crossed the Dvina in the storm thinking of G. W.
crossing the Delaware, and took station in Solombola and began building
“Camp Michigan.” The third week in October the engineers saw the Russki
sleighs running about, but then came an Indian Summer-like period. The
greater part of November was spent in making the Russian box cars
habitable for the soldiers and engineers on the Railroad front.

One American company on the railroad had hated to give up its
_taploo-shkas_ which they had fitted up for quarters, to the British
units that had been weeks at Archangel while they were overworked at
the front. But Col. Stewart raised a fine hope. He ordered a detail of
men from that company, resting ten days at Archangel, to go to
Bakaritza to assist the American Engineers to make a protected string
of troop taplooshkas for the company. And while they were at it the
engineers “found” an airplane motor and rigged up electric lights for
the entire train. They set up their tiny sheet iron stoves, built there
three tiers of bunks and were snug, dry, warm and light for the winter.
Some proud company that rode back to the front, feeling grateful to the
engineers.

It was zero weather when they went south just before Thanksgiving to
help build blockhouses and hospitals, Y. M. C. A. and so forth, on the
Railroad. Christmas found them at Obozerskaya holding mass in a Y. M.
C. A. to usher in the day. In January this Company “B” exchanged places
with “A” Company 310th Engineers, who had been further forward on the
railroad. There they constructed for Major Nichols the fine dugouts and
the heavy log blockhouses which were to defy the winter’s end drive and
the spring shelling of the Bolsheviki. On January 19th and 20th they
found themselves under shell fire but suffered no casualties.

In the latter part of February this “B” Company of Engineers responded
to the great needs for new defenses on the Vaga front, travelling by
way of Kholmogorskaya, Yemetskoe and Beresnik to reinforce the
hard-working engineers then assisting the hard-pressed doughboys
fighting their bitter retreat action.

They were building defenses at Kurgomin and getting ready for the
opening of the river when Toulgas fell, due to the treachery of the
disaffected Archangel Russian troops. They saw the ice go out of the
Dvina, April 26th, snap shot of which is shown, and witnessed the first
engagement between the British boat fleet and the Red fleet in May.

The greatest of _camaraderie_ and loyalty were manifested between
engineers of the 310th and doughboys of the 339th. They have been
mentioned repeatedly in the narrative of battles and engagements. From
the official report of Lt.-Col. P. S. Morris, who commanded the 310th
Engineer Detachment in North Russia, we present the following facts of
interest:

The 310th Engineers arrived in England, August 3rd, 1918. The First
Battalion, under Major P. S. Morris, was detached from the regiment by
verbal order of Major-General Biddle immediately upon arrival to
Cowshot Camp, Surrey, England, where we were equipped for the
expedition. We remained under canvas until August 26th, 1918, at which
time we entrained for Newcastle, England. On August 27th, the entire
command left England on board H. M. S. “Tydeus.” The mess and quarters
were clean and the food was good. The health of the men was
exceptional, as none of the men contracted influenza which was very
prevalent on the other three ships of the convoy. We anchored at
Archangel on September 4th, 1918. and debarked on September 7th.

When detached from the 310th Engineers the entire Headquarters
detachment was taken with the Second Battalion, leaving this battalion
without a non-com staff for headquarters; even the Battalion
Sergeant-Major was taken, as we were told there was no place in the
table of organization for a battalion sergeant-major when the battalion
is acting separately. No extra officers were furnished us. Upon our
arrival it was found necessary to open an Engineer depot. Capt. William
Knight, Battalion Adjutant, was put in charge. Lieut. R. C. Johnson,
Company “C,” was detached from his company and assigned to duty as
Regimental Adjutant, Topographical Officer and Personnel Adjutant.
Lieut. M. K. Whyte, Company “B,” was assigned as Supply and
Transportation Officer. As the Northern Russian Expedition covers a
front of approximately five hundred miles and the 310th Engineers were
the only engineering troops with the expedition, the shortage of
officers was a very great handicap. It was necessary to put sergeants
first-class and sergeants in charge of sectors, with what engineers
personnel could be spared. The shortage of officers was not relieved
until April 17th, 1919, when six engineer officers reported.

All the engineering equipment went straight to France. We were
re-equipped in England with English Field Company tools. The English
table of organization does not include mapping or reconnaissance
supplies, which were purchased in small quantities in London.

Upon arrival, the battalion was placed under the direction of
Lieut.-Col. R. G. S. Stokes, C. R. E., Allied Forces, North Russia, for
Engineer operations and distributions of personnel. We remained under
command of Col. Stewart, 339th Infantry, senior American officer, for
all administrative matters.

There were very few engineers here at the time of our arrival and an
immense amount of work to be done at the base besides furnishing
engineer personnel for the forward forces in operation at the time. It
was decided to place one company at the front and the two companies at
the base until some of the important base work could be finished. “A”
Company was then ordered to the front and “B” and “C” Companies
remained at the Base. “B” Company at Bakaritza and “C” Company at
Solombola.

On our arrival the forward forces consisted of three main columns or
forces known as “A” force, operating on the Archangel-Vologda Railroad,
with Obozerskaya as a base; “C” force, operating on the Dvina and Vaga
Rivers, with Beresnik as a base; and “D” force, with Seletskoe as a
base. It was necessary to attach engineers to each of these forces; so
one platoon of “A” Company, commanded by an officer, joined “A” force;
one sergeant and ten men joined “D” force, and the remainder of “A”
Company consisting of five officers and approximately one hundred
eighty men joined “C” force, where they were divided into small
detachments with each operating force.

The base work consisted mainly of construction of warehouses and
billets and operation of sawmills, street car systems, water works and
power plants. This work was divided among “B” and “C” Companies.

Later in the fall it became necessary to have two more columns in the
field, one on the Onega River with Onega as a base and one on the
Pinega River with Pinega as a base. By the time this became necessary,
the rush on base work was over and “B” Company was moved forward,
having one detachment of one sergeant and twelve men with “D” force and
one platoon with Onega River Column. The remainder of the company was
doing construction and fortification work on the lines of communication
along the railroad and roads to flanking forces.

In spite of our shortage of personnel and equipment, the morale of the
engineers has been the highest. They have gone about their work in a
most soldier-like manner and have shown extreme gallantry in the
actions in which they have participated.

The engineers were found on every front, as well as at Archangel, the
various sub-bases, the force headquarters of the various columns, and
also were found in winter at work on second and third line defenses.
They often worked under fire as the narrative has indicated. At night
they performed feats of engineering skill. Never was a job that
appalled or stumped them. They generally had the active and willing
assistance of the doughboys in doing the rough work with axe and shovel
and wire. The writers themselves have killed many a tedious hour out
helping doughboy and engineer chop fire lanes and otherwise clear land
for the field of fire.

Here is Colonel Morris’ summary of the engineer work done. This
includes much but not all of the doughboy engineering also. One thing
the engineers, doughboys and medics did do in North Russia was to
demonstrate American industry:


Blockhouses (some of logs and some of lumber)      316
Machine gun emplacements                           273
Dugouts                                            167
Double Apron Wire                                  266,170 yards
Knife Rests (wire entanglement)                    2,250 yards
Concertinas (wire entanglement)                    485
Barricades (some of earth, some logs)              46
Billets (mostly of lumber)                         151
Standard Huts (of lumber)                          42
Latrines                                           114
Washhouses (of lumber)                             33
Warehouses (of lumber)                             30
Stables (of lumber)                                14
Clearing (fire lanes and field of fire)            1,170 acres
Railroad Cars (lined and remodelled)               257
Rafts                                              12
Bridges (of lumber and of logs)                    4,500 lineal feet
Roads                                              11,000 lineal yards
Trenches                                           14,210 yards
Topography—total copies of maps and designs        109,145
Topography—plane table road traverses              1,200 miles

In connection with their mapping work engineers took many pictures,
several of which are included in this volume. All the mapping work of
the expedition was done by the American engineers. See the one in this
volume.

The longest bridge constructed was the 280-foot wooden bridge which
spanned the Emtsa River. At Verst 445, close to No Man’s Land, a
sixty-foot crib bridge was constructed by Lieut. W. C. Giffels. This
work was completed in two nights and was entirely finished before the
enemy knew that an advance was anticipated. Not a single spike or bolt
was driven on the job. Railway spikes were driven into the ties behind
our own lines and ties carried up and placed. Finally the rails were
forced in under the heads of the spikes and were permanently fastened.

In this district there are three types of road—mail roads, winter
roads, and trails. The mail roads are cleared about eighty feet wide
through the woods. An attempt has been made at surfacing and ditching,
and the bad places corduroyed. The winter roads are cleared about
twenty feet wide. Wherever possible they go through forestry clearings,
swamps and lakes, or down rivers. For this reason they can only be used
after a solid freeze-up. The trails are only cleared about six feet
wide and are often impassable for a horse and sleigh. Approximately
four and one-half miles of road have been corduroyed by this regiment,
and a considerable part of the front line roads were drained.

This battalion was called upon for a great diversity of work, which it
would have been impossible to do had not the men been carefully
selected in the United States. Company “C” was called upon to help
operate the Archangel power plant and street railway system the day
they arrived. This they were able to do very successfully.

Shortly afterwards they raised and spliced a submerged power cable,
used for conducting electricity under the river; one platoon was on
railroad maintenance and construction work; and one platoon operated
the saw mill. All the companies have been in action and have done
construction work under fire.

Two main features have governed all our construction work; first, the
large supply of timber, and second, the very cold climate. All of our
barracks, washhouses, latrines, blockhouses, and stables, were designed
to use available timber stocks. For a form of rapid construction we
used double walls six inches apart and filled the spaces with sawdust.
This proved very satisfactory and much faster than the local method
which calls for a solid log construction.

The supply of engineer material has presented many problems of
difficulty and interest. The distance to the nearest home base,
England, was two to three weeks voyage. The port was not opened to
supplies until after the 1st of June. Coupled with the necessary
reshipment to the various fronts by barge and railway before the
freeze-up, this caused a tremendous over-crowding of the dockage and
warehouse facilities. The congestion and inevitable confusion at the
port and warehouses has sometimes made it impossible to ever ascertain
what had arrived.

The local stocks of engineer materials are limited to what can be found
in Archangel itself and in the subsidiary ports of Economia and
Bakaritza. In 1916 and 1917, tremendous stocks of all sorts of war
material were to be found here, mostly brought from England and
destined for the Rumanian and Russian fronts. In the spring of 1918,
the Bolsheviks, anticipating the Allies landing, moved out to Vologda
and Kotlas as much as they could rush out by the railway and river, and
on the arrival of the first troops here not more than five per cent of
the military material still remained.

The materials of most use to the engineers, which still remained, were
forty thousand reels of barb wire and cable. A large amount of heavy
machinery was also left behind, from which we have been able to locate
and put in use a considerable number of various sized electric
generators. A dozen complete searchlight sets, somewhat damaged by
weather, were among this equipment. We overhauled these and used them
for night construction work and also used several of the generator
units of these sets to illuminate the headquarters train, work train,
and hospital trains employed on the railway front.

The problem of transportation was one of the most difficult for us to
contend with. The rail and road situations have already been explained.
The country is very short of horses, the best specimens having long
since been mobilized in the old Russian Army.

With motor transportation, the situation is no better. The Bolsheviks
evacuated the best cars to Vologda before the arrival of the expedition
and it is alleged that most of those they did not get away, were run
into the Dvina River. The few trucks that did remain behind were in
wretched condition. The British turned over two Seabrook trucks to us.
We made all repairs and furnished our own drivers. In addition to these
two trucks, the battalion supply officer secured five more, four
independently. The owners were willing to give them to us, without
cost, in order to forestall their being requisitioned by the Russian
Motor Battalion. The condition of these trucks was poor. During the
construction of the “Michigan” Barracks, the transportation was so
inadequate that we were compelled to run both night and day. Through
our control of the Makaroff sawmill, we had two tug-boats belonging to
the mill, but it was only rarely that we could use them for other
purposes.

It was a fine record our comrades, the engineers, made in the
expedition. As the ribald old marching song goes:

“Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with dirt behind their ears,
The infantry, the infantry, that drink their weight in beers,
Artillery, the cavalry, the doggoned engineers,
They could never lick the infantry in a hundred thousand years.”


But just the same the doughboy was proud to see the 310th Engineers
cited as a unit by General Ironside who called the 310th Engineers the
best unit, bar none, that he had ever seen soldier in any land. He
knows that without the sturdy and resourceful engineer boys with him in
North Russia the defense against the Bolshevik army would have been
impossible.




XXVI
“COME GET YOUR PILLS”


Medical Units Do Fine Work—Volunteers Of Old Detroit Red Cross Number
Eight Appear In North Russia As 337th Ambulance—Some Unforgettable
Stories That Make Our Teeth Grit—Wonderful Work Of 337th Field Hospital
Unit—Death Of Powers—Medical Men Do Heroic Duty.


Owing to the nature of the country in which the campaign was fought,
the 337th Ambulance Company was not able to function as an ambulance
company proper. It was split up into fifteen detachments serving in
various parts of the area under conditions exactly as difficult as
those described for the medical and hospital units. In fact, the three
companies of men—medical, hospital, and ambulance—who ministered to the
needs of the wounded and sick were very soon hopelessly mixed up on the
various fronts.

At first among the officers there were some heart-burnings as to the
apparent incongruity of a hospital man doing field duty and an
ambulance man doing hospital duty and so forth, but their American
sense of humor and of humanity soon had each doing his level best
wherever he might be found, whether under American or British senior
officers or none. The writer remembers many a medical—or was he
hospital or ambulance—man that did effective and sympathetic field
service to wounded comrades with no medical officer to guide the work.

The 337th Ambulance Company was originally a volunteer outfit known as
No. 8 Red Cross Ambulance Company of Detroit. Early in the history of
the 85th Division it came to Camp Custer and was trained for duty
overseas. After a month in the Archangel field several national army
men were transferred to fill up again its depleted ranks.

It was the commanding officer of this Ambulance Company, Captain
Rosenfeld, who, though too strict to be popular with his outfit, was
held in very high esteem by the doughboys for his vigilant attention to
them. It was a sight to see him with his dope bottle of cough syrup
going from post to post dosing the men who needed it. He will not be
forgotten by the man who was stricken with acute appendicitis at a post
where no medical detachment was stationed. He commandeered an engine
and box car and ran out to the place and took the man into the field
hospital himself and operated inside an hour, saving the man’s life.
For his gallantry in going to treat wounded men at posts which were
under fire, the French commander remembered him with a citation. He is
the officer whom the Bolshevik artillery tried to snipe with three-inch
shells, as he passed from post to post during a quiet time at Verst
445.

At Yemetskoe in February, one night just after the terrible retreat
from Shenkursk, forty wounded American, British, and Russian soldiers
lay on stretchers on the floor in British field hospital. They were
just in from the evacuation from Shenkursk front, cold and faint from
hunger. There was no American medical personnel at that village. They
were all at the front. Mess Sgt. Vincent of “F” Company went in to see
how the wounded soldiers were getting along. He was just in time to see
the British medical sergeant come in with a pitcher of tea, tin cups,
hard tack, and margarine and jam. He put it on the floor and said;
“Here is your supper; go to it.”

Sgt. Vincent protested to the English sergeant that the supper was not
fit for wounded men and that they should be helped to take their food.
The British sergeant swore at him, kicked him out of the hospital and
reported him to the British medical officer who attempted, vainly, to
put the outraged American sergeant under arrest.

Sergeant Vincent then reported the matter to Captain Ramsay of “F”
Company, who ordered him to use “F” Company funds to buy foods at the
British N. A. C. B. canteen. This, with what the Y. M. C. A. gave the
sergeant, enabled him to feed the American and Russian wounded the day
that they rested there. This deed was done repeatedly by Mess Sgt.
Vincent during those dreadful days. In all, he took care of over three
hundred sick and wounded Americans and Russians that passed back from
the fighting lines through Yemetskoe.

Doughboys at Seletskoe tell of equally heartless treatment. There at 20
degrees below zero they were required one day to form sick call line
outside of the British medical officer’s nice warm office. This was not
necessary and he was compelled to accede to the firm insistence of the
American company commander that his sick men should not stand out in
the cold. That was only one of many such outrageous incidents. And the
doughboys unfortunately did not always have a sturdy American officer
present to protect them as in this case.

Corporal Simon Bogacheff states that he left Archangel December 8th or
9th with seventy-three other wounded men and “flu” victims. After
fifteen days the “Stephen” landed at Dundee after a very rough voyage
in the pitching old boat. He had to buy stuff on the side from the
cooks as he could not bear the British rations. Men were obliged to
steal raw potatoes and buy lard and fry them. The corporal, who could
talk the Serbian language, fraternized with them and gained entrance to
a place where he could see English sergeants’ mess. Steaks and
vegetables for them and cases of beer.

Alfred Starikoff of Detroit states that he was sent out of Archangel in
early winter suffering from an incurable running sore in his ear. He
boarded an ice-breaker at the edge of the frozen White Sea. After a
four-hour struggle they cleared the icebound shore and made the open
sea, which was not open but filled with a great floe of polar ice. At
Murmansk he was transferred to a hospital ship and then without
examination of his ear trouble was sent to shore. There he put in five
protesting weeks doing orderly work at British officers’ quarters.
Finally he was allowed to proceed to England, Leith, Liverpool,
Southampton, London, Notty Ash, and thence to Brest, thence to the U.
S. in May to Ford Hospital. The delay in Murmansk did him no good.
American veterans of the campaign know that this is not the only case
of where sick and wounded doughboys were delayed at Murmansk, once
merely to make room for British officers who were neither wounded nor
sick. Let Uncle Sam remember this in his next partnership war.


[Illustration: ROULEAU
_Hot Summer Day at Pinega Before War._]


[Illustration: DOUD
_Dvina River Ice Jam._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Mejinovsky—Near Kodish._]


[Illustration: MCKEE
_Bolo General Under Flag Truce Near 445—April 1919._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_After a Prisoner Exchange Parley._]


Only on the Pinega front did the American medical officer enjoy free
action. An interesting story could be told of the American hospital and
the two Russian Red Cross (local) hospitals and the city civil hospital
which were all under control of Capt. C. R. Laird, the red-haired,
where he had any, unexcitable old doctor from Nebraska, who treated one
hundred and fourteen wounded Russian soldiers in one night.

And a romantic thread in the narrative would be the story of Sistra
Lebideva, the alleged Bolshevik female spy, who was released from
prison in Pinega by the American commanding officer and given duty as
nurse in the Russian receiving hospital. She was a trained nurse in an
apron, and a Russian beauty in her fine clothes. The Russian lieutenant
who acted as intelligence officer on the American commander’s staff in
investigating the nurse’s case, fell hopelessly in love with her. An
American lieutenant, out of friendship for the Russian officer, several
weeks later took the nurse to Archangel disguised as a soldier. Then
the Russian lieutenant was ordered to Archangel to explain his conduct.
He had risked his commission and involved himself in appearances of
pro-Bolshevism by disobeying an order to send the suspected nurse in as
a spy. He had connived at her escape from her enemies in Pinega, who,
when the Americans left, would have ousted her from the hospital and
thrust her back into prison. He was saved by the intercession of the
American officer and she was set free upon explanations. But the
romance ended abruptly when Sistra Lebideva threw the Russian
lieutenant over and went to nurse on another front where later the
Russians turned traitor.

The 337th Field Hospital Company was trained at Camp Custer as a part
of the 310th Sanitary Train, was detached in England and sent to North
Russia with the other American units. It was commanded by Major Jonas
Longley, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, who till April was the senior American
medical officer. The enlisted personnel consisted of eighty men.

The first duty of the unit in Russia was caring for “flu” patients. It
went up the Dvina River to Beresnik on September 22nd, taking over a
Russian civilian hospital, Three weeks later the hospital barge dubbed
“The Michigan” came up from Archangel with the “B” section of Field
Hospital Company. Five days later this section of the field hospital
proceeded by hospital sidewheeler to Shenkursk and took over a large
high school building for a permanent field hospital. Here the unit gave
service to the one hundred and fifty cases of “flu” among the Russians.
This was where Miss Valentine, the English girl who had been teaching
school for several years in Russia, came on to nurse the Russians
during the “flu” and later became very friendly with the Americans, and
was accused of being a Bolshevik sympathizer, which story is wound all
around by a thread of romance clean and pretty.

During the Bolo’s smashing in of the Ust Padenga front and the
subsequent memorable retreat from Shenkursk this section of field
hospital men had their hands full. It was in the field hospital at
Shenkursk that the gallant and beloved Lt. Ralph G. Powers of the
Ambulance Corps died and his body had to be left to the triumphant
Bolos. Powers had been mortally wounded by a shell that entered his
dressing station at Ust Padenga where he was alone with six enlisted
men. His wounds were dressed by a Russian doctor who was with the
Russian company supporting “A” Company. Lt. Powers had gone to the
railroad front in September, shifted to the Kodish front during severe
fighting, and then to the distant Shenkursk front. He was never
relieved from front line duty, although three medical officers at this
time were in Shenkursk. Capt. Kinyon immediately sent Lt. Katz to Ust
Padenga upon the loss of Powers, who will always be a hero to the
expeditionary veterans.

It was at Ust Padenga that Corp. Chas. A. Thornton gave up his chair to
a weary Supply Company man, Comrade Carl G. Berger, just up from
Shenkursk with an ambulance, and a Bolo three-inch shell hurled through
the log wall and decapitated the luckless supply man. In the hasty
retreat the hospital men, like the infantry men, had to abandon
everything but the clothes and equipment on their backs.

During the holding retreat of the 1st Battalion of the Vaga a small
hospital was established temporarily at Kitsa.

Later during the slowing up of the retreat, hospitals were opened at
Ust Vaga and Osinova. Here this section stayed. The other section had
been at Beresnik all the time. During the latter days of the campaign
the field hospital company took over the river front field medical
duties so that the medical detachments of the 339th and the detachments
of the 337th Ambulance Company could be assembled for evacuation at
Archangel. And the 337th Field Hospital Company itself was assembled at
Archangel June 13th and sailed June 15th. Their work had for the most
part been under great strain in the long forest and river campaign,
always seeing the seamy side of the war and lacking the frequent
changes of scenery and the blood-stirring combats which the doughboy
encountered. It took strong qualities of heart and nerve to be a field
hospital man, or an ambulance or medical man.




XXVII
SIGNAL PLATOON WINS COMMENDATION


Learning Wireless In A Few Weeks—Sterling Work Of Field Buzzers—With
Assaulting Columns—Wires Repaired Under Shell Fire—General Ironside’s
Commendatory Official Citation.


In the North Russian Expedition the doughboy had to learn to do most
anything that was needful. A sergeant, two corporals and four men of
the Headquarters Company Signal Platoon actually in four months time
mastered the mysteries of wireless telegraphy. This is usually a year’s
course in any technical school. But these men were forced by necessity
to learn how to receive and to send messages in a few weeks’ time.

They were trained at first for a few days at Tundra, the wireless
station used by the British and French for intercepting messages. Later
at Obozerskaya and at Verst 455 they gained experience that made them
expert in picking messages out of the air. At one time the writer was
shown a message which was intercepted passing from London to Bagdad. It
was no uncommon thing for a doughboy to intercept messages from Egypt
or Mesopotamia and other parts of the Mediterranean world, from Red
Moscow, Socialist Berlin, starving Vienna and from London.

At one period in the spring defensive of the Archangel-Vologda
Railroad, this American wireless crew was the sole reliance of the
force, as the Obozerskaya station went out of order for a time, and the
various points, Onega, Seletskoe and Archangel were kept in
communication by this small unit at Verst 455. “H” Company men will
recall that out of the blue sky from the east one day came a message
from Major Nichols asking if their gallant leader, Phillips, had any
show of recovering from the Bolo bullet in his lung. The message sent
back was hopeful.

The record of the signal platoon under Lieutenant Anselmi, of Detroit,
shows also that several of these signal men rendered great service as
telegraphers. One of the pleasant duties of the doughboy buzzer
operators one day in spring was to receive and transmit to Major J.
Brooks Nichols the message from his royal majesty, King George of Great
Britain and Ireland, that for gallantry in action he had been honored
with election to the Distinguished Service Order, the D. S. O.

But it is the field telephone men who really made the signal platoon
its great reputation. General Ironside’s letter of merit is included
later in this account. Here let us record in some detail the work of
the American signal platoon.

Thirty men maintained nearly five hundred miles of circuit wire that
lay on the surface of the ground and was subject in one-third of that
space to constant disruption by enemy artillery fire and to constant
menace from enemy patrols. The switchboard at Verst 455 was able to
give thirty different connections at once at any time of day or night;
at 448, ten; and at 445, six. This means a lot of work. The writer
knows that the field telephone man is an important, in fact, invaluable
adjunct to his forces whether in attack or in defense. For when the
attack has been successful and the officer in command wishes to send
information quickly to his superior officer asking for supplies of
ammunition or for more forces or for artillery support to come up and
assist in beating off the enemy counter-attack, the field telephone is
indispensable. Hence the doughboy who carries his reels of wire along
with the advancing skirmish line shares largely in the credit for doing
a job up thoroughly. At the capture of Verst 445 the signal men were
able to talk through to Major Nichols at 448 within four minutes of the
time the doughboys’ cheers of victory had sounded! And within fifteen
minutes a line had been extended out to the farthest point where
doughboys were digging in. There they were able later to give the
artillery commander information of the effect of his shells long before
he could get his own signals into place for observation. The British
signals were good, but, as the writers well recall, it was especially
assuring when the buzzer sounded to have an American doughboy at the
other end say he would make the connection or take the message. They
never fell down on the job.

General Ironside’s commendation is not a bit too strong in its praises
of the signal platoon. We are glad to make it a part of the history,
and without doubt all the veterans who read these pages will join us in
the little glow of pride with which we pass on this official citation
of the Commanding General’s, which is as follows:


“The Signal Platoon of the 339th Infantry, under Second Lieutenant
Anselmi, has performed most excellent work on this front. Besides
forming the Signals of the Railway Detachment, the platoon provided
much needed reinforcements for other Allied Signal Units, and the
readiness with which they have co-operated with the remainder of Allied
Signal Service has been of the greatest service throughout.

“Please convey to all ranks of the platoon my appreciation of the
services they have rendered.”


(Signed) E. IRONSIDE, Major-General,
Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, Archangel, Russia.
G. H. Q., 23rd May, 1919.


And our American commander, General Richardson, in transmitting the
letter through regimental headquarters said, “Their work adds further
to the splendid record made by American Forces in Europe.”




XXVIII
THE DOUGHBOY’S MONEY IN ARCHANGEL


Coin And Paper Of North Russia—Trafficking In Exchange—New Issue Of
Paper Roubles—Trying To Peg Rouble Currency—Yanks Lose On Pay Checks
Drawn On British Pound Sterling Banks.


The writer has a silver Nicholas the Fifth rouble. It is one of the
very few silver coins seen in Russia. Here and there a soldier was able
to get hold of silver and gold coins of the old days, but they were
very scarce. The Russian peasant had to feel a high degree of affection
for an American before he would part with one of his hoarded bits of
real money.

Of paper money there was no end. When the Americans landed, they were
met by small boys on the streets with sheets of Archangel state money
under their arms. The perforations of some Kerenskies were not yet
disturbed when great sheets and rolls of it were taken from the bodies
of dead Bolos. Everybody had paper money. The Bolsheviki were
counterfeiting the old Czar’s paper money and the Kerensky money and
issuing currency of their own. The Polar Bear and Walrus 25-rouble
notes of Archangel and their sign-board size government gold bond notes
were printed in England, as were later the other denominations of
Archangel roubles, better known as British roubles. Needless to say
there was a great speculation in money and exchange. Nickolai and
Kerensky and Archangel and British guaranteed roubles tumbled over one
another in the market. Of course trafficking in money was taboo but was
brisk.

Early the Yankee got on to this game. His American money was even more
prized than the English or French. The Russian gave him great rolls of
roubles of various sorts for his greenbacks. Then he took the good
money on the ships in the harbor and bought, usually through a sailor,
boxes of candy and cartons of cigarettes and,—whisper this, bottles and
cases of whiskey of which thousands of cases found their way to
Archangel. The Russian then went out into the ill-controlled markets
and side streets of Archangel and sold to his own countrymen these
luxuries at prices that would make an American sugar profiteer or
bootlegger seem a piker. Meanwhile the Yank or Tommie or Poilu went to
his own commissary or to the British Navy and Army Canteen Bureau, “N.
A. C. B.” to the doughboy’s memory, or to our various “Y” canteens and
at a fixed rate of exchange—a rate fixed by the bankers in London—to
use his roubles in buying things. He could also use the roubles in
buying furs and skins of the Russians who still had the same saved from
the looting Bolsheviki. At the rate first established, an English pound
sterling was exchangeable for forty-eight roubles and vice versa. But
on the illicit market, the pound would bring anywhere from eighty to
one hundred and forty roubles. The American five dollar bill which was
approximately worth fifty roubles in this “pegged” rouble money on the
market when an American ship was in the harbor, would bring one hundred
to one hundred and fifty roubles. No wonder the doughboy who was
stationed around Archangel or Bakaritza found it possible to stretch
his money a good way. Many a dollar of company fund was made to buy
twice as much or more than it otherwise would have bought. And in
passing, let it be remarked that the Yank who had access to N. A. C. B.
and other canteen stores was not slow in joining the thrifty Russki in
this trafficking game, illicit though it was. And truth to tell, many a
case of British whiskey was stolen by Yank and Tommie and Russki and
Poilu and sent rejoicing on its way through these devious underground
channels of traffic. One American officer in responsible position had
to suffer for it when he returned to the States. The doughboys and
medics and engineers who were up there are still filled with mixed
emotions on the subject, a mixture of indignation and admiration.

“Let him now who is guiltless throw the first stone.”

Returning to the discussion of currency, let it be recorded that after
the market was flooded with all sorts of money and after the ships
stopped coming because of the great ice barrier, the money market
became wilder than ever. Finally the London bankers who had been the
victims of this speculation, decided upon a new issue of pegged
currency. At forty to the pound the old roubles were called in. That
is, every soldier who had forty-eight roubles could exchange them for
forty new crisp and pretty roubles. Their beauty was marred by the
rubber stamp which was put over the sign of old Nicholas’ rule, which
the thoughtless or tactless London money maker printed on the issue.
The Russian would have none of this new money with that suggestion of
restoration of Czar rule. Inconsistently enough they still prized the
old Nickolai rouble notes as the very best paper currency in the land,
and loud was the outcry at giving forty-eight Nickolais for forty
English-printed and guaranteed roubles of their own new Archangel
government.

To stimulate the retirement of all other forms of currency, which
measure in a settled country would have been a sensible economic
pressure, the Archangel government set a date when not forty-eight but
fifty-six roubles might be exchanged for forty new roubles. Then a date
for sixty-four, then for seventy-two and then eighty. Thus the
skeptical peasant and the suspicious soldier saw his old roubles
steadily decline in exchange value for the new roubles. Of course they
had always grabbed all the counterfeit stuff and used it in exchange
with no compunctions. That was the winning part of the game. Now they
were pinched. It afforded some merriment to hear the outcries of some
who had been making rolls of money in the trafficking.

At the same time there was real suffering on the part of peasants in
far distant areas who could not get their currency up for exchange or
for stamping and punching which itself was finally necessary to even
get the eighty-forty rate. They felt mistreated. To their simple hearts
and ignorant minds, it was nothing short of robbery by the distant
London bankers. Soldiers on the far distant fronts were caught also in
the currency reform. Some of the fault was neglect by their own
American officers and some was indifference to the subject by those
American officers at Archangel who were in position to know what was
going to be the result of the attempt to peg the currency at a fixed
rate.

An officer who was in Archangel during the summer on Graves Commission
service after the American units had been withdrawn, reports that
speculators for a song bought up great bales of the old Kerensky and
Nickolai currency supposed to be cancelled, dead, defunct stuff, and
when there was a considerable evacuation of central Russians who had
been for months refugees in Archangel, this currency came out of
hiding, and its traffickers realized a handsome profiteerski by selling
it to the returning people at sixty to the pound sterling, for in
interior Russia the old stuff was still in circulation. At any rate
that was Shylokov’s advertisement. During the summer, the money market,
says Lieut. Primm, became a violent wonder. On one day a person could
not obtain two hundred and fifty roubles for one hundred North Russian
roubles and a day or two later he might be importuned to take three
hundred old for one hundred new.

Neither the soldiers nor the Russians saw any justice in this
flip-flopping of the currency market, to which of course they
themselves were contributors. The thing they saw clearly was that when
they had need of English credit (that is, checks) to send money to
London banks or when they wanted to buy goods from England or America,
then they could buy only with the new, the guaranteed rouble, which
might be dear, even at one hundred and twenty-five to the pound
sterling and was dearer of course in terms of old roubles, the more the
demand was for the new roubles which were in the hands of speculators
who manipulated the market as sweetly for themselves as the American
profiteers with their oral and written advertisements manipulate our
foodstuffs and goods for us. On the other hand, if the soldier or
peasant or small merchant had dues coming to him in English money he
then found them valued at forty to the pound sterling. This difference
between eighty and one hundred and twenty-five he thought (naturally
enough to his unsophisticated mind) was due to the vacillation in
policy of enforcement of the pegged rate and prosecution of the
traffickers.

However opinion may differ as to the blame for the inability to peg the
exchange, we know it was a bonanza to the speculators. Ponzi ought to
have been there to compete with the whiskered money sharks. And we know
there were Americans as well as British, French, Russians and other
nationals who were numbered among those speculators.

After all is said we must admit that the money situation was one that
was exceedingly difficult to handle. It was infinitely worse in
Bolshevikdom. The doughboy who used to find pads of undetached
counterfeit Kerenskie on the dead Bolsheviks, can well believe that
thirty dollars of good American chink one day in the Soviet part of
Russia bought an American newspaper man one million paper roubles of
the Lenine-Trotsky issue, and that before night, spending his money at
the famine prices in the worthless paper, he was a dead-broke
millionaire.

During the time American soldiers were in Russia they were paid in
checks drawn on London. During the war, this was at the pegged rate
($4.76-1/4) which had been fixed by agreement between London and New
York bankers to prevent violent fluctuations. But at the end of the
war, after the Armistice, the peg was pulled and the natural course of
the market sent the pound sterling steadily downward, as the American
dollar rose in value as compared with other currencies of the world. To
those who were dealing day by day this was all in the game of money
exchange. But to the soldier in far-off North Russia who had months of
pay coming to him when he left the forests of the Vaga and Onega this
was a real financial hardship. Many a doughboy whose wife or mother was
in need at home because of the rapidly mounting prices put up by the
slackers in the shops and the slackers in the marts of trade, now saw
his little pay check shrink up in exchange value. He felt that his
superior officers in the war department had hardly looked after his
interests as well as they might have done. Major Nichols did succeed at
Brest in getting the old pegged rate for the men and officers, but many
had already parted with the checks at heavy discount for fear that the
nearer they got to the land for which they had been fighting, the more
discount there would be on the pay checks with which their
Quartermaster had paid them their pittances. Soldiers of the second
detachment came on home with Colonel Stewart to Camp Custer and were
obliged (most of them) to take their little $3.82 per pound sterling of
the British pound sterling paid them by Quartermaster Major Ely in
North Russia, at $4.76-1/4. Later, through the efforts of the late
Congressman Nichols, many of those soldiers were reimbursed. Of course
complete restitution would have been made by the war department if all
the soldiers had sent their claims in. Hundreds of American veterans of
the North Russian campaign lost ten to twenty per cent of their pay
check’s hard earned value.




XXIX
PROPAGANDA AND PROPAGANDA AND—


Propaganda Two-Edged Tool—From Crusaders To Carping Cynics—Be
Warned—Afraid To Tell The Truth—Startling Stories Of Bolo Atrocities
Published—Distortion Disgusts Brave Men—Wrong To Play On Race
Prejudices—Our Own Government Missed Main Chance—Doughboy Beset By
Active Enemy In Front And Plagued By Active Propaganda Of Hybrid
Varieties—Sample Of Bolshevik Propaganda Used On Americans—Yanks
Punched Holes In Red Propaganda—Propaganda To Doughboy Connotes Lies
And Distortion And Concealment Of Truth.


“Over there, over there, the Yanks are coming,” sang the soldiers in
training camp as they changed from recruits into fighting units of the
85th Division at Battle Creek. And the morale of the 339th was
evidenced, some thought, by the fervor with which the officers and men
roared out their hate chorus, “Keep your head down, you dirty Hun. If
you want to see your father in your Fatherland, Keep your head down,
you dirty Hun.” Maybe so, maybe not. Maybe morale is made of finer
stuff than hate and bombast. Maybe idealism does enter into it. Of
course there are reactionary periods in the history of a people when
selfishness and narrowness and bigotry combine to cry down the
expression of its idealism. Not in 1918.

No secret was made of the fact that the Americans went into the war
with a fervor born of an aroused feeling of world-responsibility. We
must do our part to save Christian civilization from the mad
nationalism of the German people led by their diabolic Hohenzollern
reigning family and war bureaucracy. Too much kultur would ruin the
world. Germany must be whipped. We tingled with anticipation of our
entrance to the trenches beside the bled-white France. We were going
“Over There” in the spirit of crusaders.

What transformed a hesitating, reluctant, long-suffering people into
crusaders? Propaganda. Press work. Five-minute men. Open and secret
work. It was necessary to uncover and oppose the open and secret
propaganda of paid agents of Germany, and woefully deluded
German-Americans who toiled freely to help Kaiser Bill, as though to
disprove the wisdom of the statement that no man can serve two masters.
We beat their propaganda, uncovered the tracks of the Prussian beast in
our midst, found out, we thought, the meaning of explosions and fires
and other terrible accidents in our munition plants, and turned every
community into vigilant searchers for evidences of German propaganda or
deviltry of a destructive kind and we persecuted many an innocent man.

And now we sadly suspect that in fighting fire with fire, that is in
fighting propaganda with propaganda, we descended by degrees to use the
same despicable methods of distorting truth for the sake of influencing
people to a certain desired end. England and France and all other
countries had the same sad experience. Doubtless we could not very well
avoid it. It is part of the hell of war to think about it now.
Propaganda, fair one, you often turn out to be a dissipated hag, a camp
follower.

Many years from now some calm historian going over the various Blue
Books and White Books and Red Books, with their stories of the
atrocities of the enemy, _ad nauseam_, will come upon the criminating
Official Documents of various nations that sought to propagandize the
world into trembling, cowering belief in a new dragon. Bolshevism with
wide-spread sable wings, thrashing his spiny tail and snorting fire
from his nostrils was volplaning upon the people of earth with open red
mouth and cruel fangs and horrid maw down which he would gulp all the
political, economic and religious liberties won from the centuries
past. The dragon was about to devour civilization.

And the historian will shake his head sadly and say, “Too bad they fell
for all that propaganda. Poor Germans. Poor Britishers. Poor Frenchmen.
Poor Russians. Poor Americans. Too bad. What a mess that propaganda
was. Propaganda and propaganda and—well, there are three kinds of
propaganda just as there are three kinds of lies; lies and lies and d—-
lies.”

In this volume we are historically interested in the propaganda as it
was presented and as it affected us in the campaign fighting the
Bolsheviki in North Russia in 1918-19. We write this chapter with great
hesitation and with consciousness that it is subject to error in
investigation and sifting of evidences and subject to error of bias on
the part of the writer. However, no attempt has been made to compel the
parts of this volume to be consistent with one another. Facts have been
stated and comments have been written as they occurred to the writers.
If they were forced to be consistent with one another it would be using
the method of the propagandizer. We prefer to appear inconsistent and
possibly illogical rather than to hold back or frame anything to suit
the general prejudices of the readers. Take this chapter then with fair
warning.

Keenly disappointed we were to be told in England that we were not to
join our American comrades who were starting “Fritz” backward in
Northern France. We were to go to Archangel for guard duty. The expert
propagandists in England were busy at once working upon the American
soldiers going to North Russia. The bare truth of the matter would not
be sufficient. Oh no! All the truth must not be told at once either.
It’s not done, you know. Certainly not. Soldiers and the soldiers’
government might ask questions. British War Office experts must hand
out the news to feed the troops. And they did.

Guard duty in Archangel, as we have seen, speedily became a fall
offensive campaign under British military command. And right from the
jump off at the Bolshevik rearguard forces, British propaganda began
coming out. Does anyone recall a general order that came out from our
American Commanding officer of the Expedition? Is there a veteran of
the American Expeditionary force in North Russia who does not recall
having read or hearing published the general orders of the British G.
H. Q. referring to the objects of the expedition and to the character
of the enemy, the Bolsheviki?

“The enemy. Bolsheviks. These are soldiers and sailors who, in the
majority of cases are criminals,” says General Poole’s published order,
“Their natural, vicious brutality enabled them to assume leadership.
The Bolshevik is now fighting desperately, firstly, because the
restoration of law and order means an end to his reign, and secondly,
because he sees a rope round his neck for his past misdeeds if he is
caught. Germans. The Bolsheviks have no capacity for organization but
this is supplied by Germany and her lesser Allies. The Germans usually
appear in Russian uniform and are impossible to distinguish.” Why was
that last sentence added? Sure enough we did not distinguish them, not
enough to justify the propaganda.

Immediately upon arrival of the Americans in the Archangel area they
had found the French soldiers wildly aflame with the idea that a man
captured by the Bolsheviks was bound to suffer torture and mutilation.
And one wicked day when the Reds were left in possession of the field
the French soldiers came back reporting that they had mercifully put
their mortally wounded men, those whom they could not carry away, out
of danger of torture by the Red Guards by themselves ending their
ebbing lives. Charge that sad episode up to propaganda. To be sure, we
know that there were evidences in a few cases, of mutilation of our own
American dead. But it was not one-tenth as prevalent a practice by the
Bolos as charged, and as they became more disciplined, their warfare
took on a character which will bear safe comparison with our own.

The writer remembers the sense of shame that seized him as he
reluctantly read a general order to his troops, a British piece of
propaganda, that recited gruesome atrocities by the Bolsheviks, a
recital that was supposed to make the American soldiers both fear and
hate the enemy. Brave men do not need to be fed such stuff. Distortion
of facts only disgusts the man when he finally becomes undeceived.

“There seems to be among the troops a very indistinct idea of what we
are fighting for here in North Russia.” This is the opening statement
of another one of General Poole’s pieces of propaganda. “This can be
explained in a very few words. We are up against Bolshevism, which
means anarchy pure and simple.” Yet in another statement he said: “The
Bolshevik government is entirely in the hands of Germans who have
backed this party against all others in Russia owing to the simplicity
of maintaining anarchy in a totally disorganized country. Therefore we
are opposed to the Bolshevik-cum-German party. In regard to other
parties we express no criticism and will accept them as we find them
provided they are for Russia and therefore for ‘out with the Boche.’
Briefly we do not meddle in internal affairs. It must be realized that
we are not invaders but guests and that we have not any intention of
attempting to occupy any Russian territory.”

That was not enough. Distortion must be added. “The power is in the
hands of a few men, mostly Jews” (an appeal to race hatred), “who have
succeeded in bringing the country to such a state that order is
non-existent. The posts and railways do not run properly, every man who
wants something that some one else has got, just kills his opponent
only to be killed himself when the next man comes along. Human life is
not safe, you can buy justice at so much for each object. Prices of
necessities have so risen that nothing is procurable. In fact the man
with a gun is cock of the walk provided he does not meet another man
who is a better shot.”

Was not that fine stuff? Of course there were elements of truth in it.
It would not have been propaganda unless it had some. But its falsities
of statement became known later and the soldiers bitterly resented the
attempt to propagandize them.

The effect of this line of propaganda was at last made the subject of
an informal protest by Major J. Brooks Nichols, one of our most
influential and level-headed American officers, in a letter to General
Ironside, whose sympathetic letter of reply did credit to his respect
for other brave men and credit to his judgment. He ordered that the
propaganda should not be further circulated among the American
soldiers. It must be admitted that the French soldiers also suffered
revulsion of feeling when the facts became better known. The British
War Office methods of stimulating enthusiasm in the campaign against
the Bolsheviki was a miserable failure. Distortion and deception will
fail in the end. You can’t fool all the soldiers all the while. Truth
will always win in the end. The soldier has right to it. He fights for
truth; he should have its help.

Our own military and government authorities missed the main chance to
help the soldiers in North Russia and gain their most loyal service in
the expedition. Truth, not silence with its suspected acquiescence with
British propaganda and methods of dealing with Russians; truth not
rumors, truth, was needed; not vague promises, but truth.

In transmitting to us the Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, our American
diplomatic representative in North Russia, Mr. Dewitt Poole, published
to the troops the following: “But so great a struggle cannot end so
abruptly. In the West the work of occupying German territory continues.
In the East German intrigue has delivered large portions of Russia into
unfriendly and undemocratic hands. The President has given our pledge
of friendship to Russia and will point the way to its fulfillment.
Confident in his leadership the American troops and officials in
Northern Russia will hold to their task to the end.” This was a
statement made by our American Charge d’ Affairs after the Armistice,
it will be noted.

The New Year’s editorial in _The Sentinel_, our weekly paper, says, in
part: “We who are here in North Russia constitute concrete evidence
that there is something real and vital behind the words of President
Wilson and other allied statesmen who have pledged that ‘we shall stand
by Russia.’ Few of us, particularly few Americans, realize the debt
which the whole world owes to Russia for her part in this four years
struggle against German junkerism. Few of us now realize the
significance that will accrue as the years go by to the presence of
allied soldiers in Russia during this period of her greatest suffering.
The battle for world peace, for democracy, for free representative
government, has not yet been fought to a finish in Russia.”

With the sentiment of those two expressions, the American soldier might
well be in accord. But he was dubious about the fighting; he was
learning things about the Bolsheviks; he was hoping for statement of
purposes by his government. But as the weeks dragged by he did not get
the truth from his own government. Neither from Colonel Stewart,
military head of the expedition, nor from the diplomatic and other
United States’ agencies who were in Archangel, did he get satisfying
facts. They allowed him to be propagandized, instead, both by the
British press and news despatches and by the American press and
political partisanships of various shades of color that came freely
into North Russia to plague the already over-propagandized soldier.

Of the Bolshevik propaganda mention has been made in one or two other
connections. We may add that the Bolos must have known something of our
unwarlike and dissatisfied state of mind, for they left bundles of
propaganda along the patrol paths, some of it in undecipherable
characters of the Russian alphabet; but there was a publication in
English, _The Call_, composed in Moscow by a Bolshevik from Milwaukee
or Seattle or some other well known Soviet center on the home shore of
the Atlantic.

These are some of the extracts. The reader may judge for himself:


“Do you British working-men know what your capitalists expect you to do
about the war? They expect you to go home and pay in taxes figured into
the price of your food and clothing, eight thousand millions of English
pounds or forty thousand millions of American dollars. If you have any
manhood, don’t you think it would be fair to call all these debts off?
If you think this is fair, then join the Russian Bolsheviks in
repudiating all war debts.

“Do you realize that the principle reason the British-American
financiers have sent you to fight us for, is because we were sensible
enough to repudiate the war debts of the bloody, corrupt old Czar?

“You soldiers are fighting on the side of the employers against us, the
working people of Russia. All this talk about intervention to ‘save’
Russia amounts to this, that the capitalists of your countries, are
trying to take back from us what we won from their fellow capitalists
in Russia. Can’t you realize that this is the same war that you have
been carrying on in England and America against the master class? You
hold the rifles, you work the guns to shoot us with, and you are
playing the contemptible part of the scab. Comrade, don’t do it!

“You are kidding yourself that you are fighting for your country. The
capitalist class places arms in your hands. Let the workers cease using
these weapons against each other, and turn them on their sweaters. The
capitalists themselves have given you the means to overthrow them, if
you had but the sense and the courage to use them. There is only one
thing that you can do: arrest your officers. Send a commission of your
common soldiers to meet our own workingmen, and find out yourselves
what we stand for.”


All of which sounds like the peroration of an eloquent address at a
meeting of America’s own I. W. W. in solemn conclave assembled.
Needless to say this was not taken seriously. Soldiers were quick to
punch holes in any propaganda, or at any rate if they could not discern
its falsities, could clench their fists at those whom they believed to
be seeking to “work them.” Fair words and explosive bullets did not
match any more than “guard duty” and “offensive movements” matched.

Lt. Costello, in his volume, “_Why Did We Go To Russia_.”, says: “The
preponderant reason why Americans would never be swayed by this
propaganda drive, lay in their hatred of laziness and their love of
industry. If the Bolsheviki were wasting their time, however, in their
propaganda efforts directed at effects in the field, it must be a
source of great comfort to Lenin and Trotsky, Tchitcherin and Peters
and others of their ilk, to know that their able, and in some case,
unwitting allies in America, who condone Bolshevist atrocities,
apologize for Soviet shortcomings, appear before Congressional
committees and other agencies and contribute weak attempts at defense
of this Red curse are all serving them so well.”

“Seeing red,” we see Red in many things that are really harmless. In
Russia, as in America, many false accusations and false assumptions are
made. We now know that of certainty the Bolshevik, or Communistic party
of Russia was aided by like-minded people in America and vice versa,
but we became rather hysterical in 1919 over those I.W.W.-Red
outbursts, and very nearly let the conflict between Red propaganda and
anti-Red propaganda upset our best traditions of toleration, of free
speech, and of free press. Now we are seeing more clearly. Justice and
toleration and real information are desired. Propaganda to the American
people is becoming as detested as it was to the soldiers. Experience of
the veterans of the North Russian campaign has taught them the
foolishness of propaganda and the wisdom of truth-telling. The Germans,
the Bolsheviks, the British War Office, Our War Department and
self-seeking individuals who passed out propaganda, failed miserably in
the end.




XXX
REAL FACTS ABOUT ALLEGED MUTINY


Mail Bags And Morale—Imaginative Scoop Reporters And Alarmists—Few Men
Lost Heads Or Hearts—Colonel Stewart Cables To Allay Needless Fears—But
War Department Had Lost Confidence Of People—Too Bad Mutiny Allegations
Got Started—Maliciously Utilized—Officially Investigated And
Denied—Secretary Baker’s Letter Here Included—Facts Which Afforded
Flimsy Foundation Here Related—Alleged Mutinous Company Next Day
Gallantly Fighting—Harsh Term Mutiny Not Applied By Unbiased Judges.


Four weeks to nine or twelve weeks elapsed between mailing and
receiving. It is known that both ignorance and indifference were
contributing causes. We know there is in existence a file of courteous
correspondence between American and British G. H. Q. over some bags of
American mail that was left lying for a time at Murmansk when it might
just as well have been forwarded to Archangel for there were no
Americans at that time on the Murmansk.

Many slips between the arrival of mail at Archangel and its
distribution to the troops. How indignant a line officer at the front
was one day to hear a visitor from the American G. H. Q. say that he
had forgotten to bring the mail bags down on his train. Sometimes
delivery by airplane resulted in dropping the sacks in the deep woods
to be object of curiosity only to foxes and wolves and white-breasted
crows, but of no comfort to the lonesome, disappointed soldiers.

Ships foundered off the coast of Norway with tons of mail. Sleds in the
winter were captured by the Bolos on the lines of communication. These
troubles in getting mail into Russia led the soldiers to think that
there might be equal difficulty in their letters reaching home. And it
certainly looked that way when cablegrams began insistently inquiring
for many and many a soldier whose letters had either not been written,
or destroyed by the censor, or lost in transit.

And that leads to the discussion of what were to the soldier rather
terrifying rules of censorship. Intended to contribute to his safety
and to the comfort and peace of mind of his home folks the way in which
the rules were administered worked on the minds of the soldiers. Let it
be said right here that the American soldier heartily complied in most
cases with the rules. He did not try to break the rules about giving
information that might be of value to the enemy. And when during the
winter there began to come into North Russia clippings from American
and British newspapers which bore more or less very accurate and
descriptive accounts of the locations and operations, even down to the
strategy, of the various scattered units, they wondered why they were
not permitted after the Armistice especially, to write such things
home.

And if as happened far too frequently, a man’s batch of ancient letters
that came after weeks of waiting, contained a brace of scented but
whining epistles from the girl he had left behind him and perhaps a
third one from a man friend who told how that same girl was running
about with a slacker who had a fifteen-dollar a day job, the man had to
be a jewel and a philosopher not to become bitter. And a bitter man
deteriorates as a soldier.

To the credit of our veterans who were in North Russia let it be said
that comparatively very few of them wrote sob-stuff home. They knew it
was hard enough for the folks anyway, and it did themselves no good
either. The imaginative “Scoops” among the cub reporters and the
violently inflamed imaginations and utterances of partisan politicians
seeking to puff their political sails with stories of hardships of our
men in North Russia, all these and many other very well-meaning people
were doing much to aggravate the fears and sufferings of the people at
home. Many a doughboy at the front sighed wearily and shook his head
doubtfully over the mess of sob-stuff that came uncensored from the
States. He sent costly cablegrams to his loved ones at home to assure
them that he was safe and not “sleeping in water forty degrees below
zero” and so forth.

Not only did the screeching press articles and the roars of certain
congressmen keep the homefolks in perpetual agony over the soldiers in
Russia, but the reports of the same that filtered in through the mails
to our front line campfires and Archangel comfortable billets caused
trouble and heart-burnings among the men. It seems incredible how much
of it the men fell for. But seeing it in their own home paper, many of
the men actually believed tales that when told in camp were laughed off
as plain scandalous rumor.

War is not fought in a comfortable parlor or club-room, but some of the
tales which slipped through the censor from spineless cry-babies in our
ranks of high and low rank, and were published in the States and then
in clippings found their way back to North Russia, lamented the fact of
the hardship of war in such insidious manner as to furnish the most
formidable foe to morale with which the troops had to cope while in
Russia. The Americans only laughed at Bolshevik propaganda which they
clearly saw through. To the statement that the Reds would bring a
million rifles against Archangel they only replied, “Let ’em come, the
thicker grass the heavier the swath.”

But when a man’s own home paper printed the same story of the million
men advancing on Archangel with bloody bayonets fixed, and told of the
horrible hardships the soldier endured—and many of them were indeed
severe hardships although most of the news stories were over-drawn and
untruthful, and coupled with these stories were shrieks at the war
department to get the boys out of Russia, together with stories of
earnest and intended-to-help petitions of the best people of the land,
asking and pleading the war department to get the boys out of Russia,
then the doughboy’s spirit was depressed.


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Pioneer Platoon Has Fire at 455._]


[Illustration: U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (158856)
_310th Engineers Near Bolsheozerki._]


[Illustration: U.S. OFFICIAL
_Hospital “K. P.’s”_]


[Illustration: U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Red Cross Nurses._]


[Illustration: U.S. OFFICIAL
_Bartering._]


[Illustration: U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Mascots._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Col. Dupont (French) at Verst 455, Bestows Many Croix de Guerre
Medals._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Polish Artillery and Mascot._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (158870)
_Russian Artillery, Verst 18._]


Suffer he did occasionally. Many of his comrades had a lot of suffering
from cold. But aside from the execrable boot that Sir Shakleton had
dreamed into existence, he himself possessed more warm clothing than he
liked to carry around with him. But not a few soldiers forgot to look
around and take sober stock of their actual situation and fell prey to
this sob-stuff. Fortunately for the great majority of them, and this
goes for every company, the great rank and file of officers and men
never lost their heads and their stout hearts.

And now we may as well deal with the actual facts in regard to the
alleged mutiny of American troops in North Russia. There was no mutiny.

In February Colonel Stewart had cabled to the War Department that “The
alarmist reports of condition of troops in North Russia as published in
press end of December are not warranted by facts. Troops have been well
taken care of in every way and my officers resent these highly
exaggerated reports, feeling that slur is cast upon the regiment and
its wonderful record. Request that this be given to the press and
especially to Detroit and Chicago papers to allay any unnecessary
anxiety.”

He was approximately correct in his statements. His intent was a
perfectly worthy one. But it was not believed by the wildly excited
people back home. Perhaps if the war department had been entirely frank
with the people in cases, say, like the publication of casualty reports
and reports of engagements, then its well-meant censorship and its
attempts to allay fear might have done some good.

As it was the day, March 31st, 1919, came when a not unwilling British
cable was scandalled and a fearsome press and people was startled with
the story of an alleged mutiny of a company of American troops in North
Russia. The “I-told-you-so’s” and the “wish-they-would’s” of the States
were gratified. The British War Office was, too, and made the most of
the story to propagandize its tired veterans and its late-drafted
youths who had been denied part in war by the sudden Armistice. Those
were urged to volunteer for service in North Russia, where it was
alleged their English comrades had been left unsupported by the
mutinous Yanks. Yes, there was a pretty mess made of the story by our
own War Department, too, who first was credulous of this really
incredulous affair, tried to explain it in its usually stupid and
ignorant way of explaining affairs in North Russia, only made a bad
matter worse, and then finally as they should have done at first, gave
the American Forces in North Russia a Commanding General, whose report
as quoted from the _Army and Navy Journal_ of April 1920, will say:

“The incident was greatly exaggerated, but while greatly regretting
that any insubordination took place, he praised the general conduct of
the 339th Infantry. Colonel Richardson states that the troops were
serving under very trying conditions, and that much more serious
disaffections appeared among troops of the Allies on duty in North
Russia. He further says the disaffection in the company of the 339th
Infantry, U. S. A., was handled by the regimental commander with
discretion and good judgment.”


Colonel Stewart, himself, stated to the press when he led his troops
home the following July:

“I did not have to take any disciplinary action against either an
officer or soldier of the regiment in connection with the matter, so
you may judge that the reports that have appeared have been very, very
greatly exaggerated. Every soldier connected with the incident
performed his duty as a soldier. And as far as I am concerned, I think
the matter should be closed.”


In a letter to a member of Congress from Michigan, Secretary Baker
refers to the alleged mutiny as follows:

“A cablegram, dated March 31, 1919, received from the American Military
Attache at Archangel, read in part as follows:

“‘Yesterday morning, March 30th, a company of infantry, having received
orders to the railroad front, was ordered out of the barracks for the
purpose of packing sleds for the trip across the river to the railroad
station. The non-commissioned officer that was in charge of the packing
soon reported to the officers that the men refused to obey. At this
some of the officers took charge, and all except one man began
reluctantly to pack after a considerable delay. The soldier who
continued to refuse was placed in confinement. Colonel Stewart, having
been sent for, arrived and had the men assembled to talk with them.
Upon the condition that the prisoner above mentioned was released, the
men agreed to go. This was done, and the company then proceeded to the
railway station and entrained there for the front. That they would not
go to the front line positions was openly stated by the men, however,
and they would only go to Obozerskaya. They also stated that general
mutiny would soon come if there was not some definite movement
forthcoming from Washington with regard to the removal of American
troops from Russia at the earliest possible date.’


“The War Department on April 10, 1919, authorized the publication of
this cablegram, and on April 12, 1919, authorized the statement that
the report from Murmansk was to the effect that the organization which
was referred to was Company “I” of the 339th Infantry, and that the
dispatch stated:

“‘It is worthy to note that the questions that were put to the officers
by the men were identical with those that the Bolshevik propaganda
leaflets advised them to put to them.’


“If reports differing from the above appeared in the newspapers, they
were secured from sources other than the War Department and published
without its authority.

“On March 16, 1920, Brigadier General Wilds P. Richardson, U. S. Army,
was ordered by the Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces,
to proceed to North Russia and to assume command of the American Forces
in that locality. General Richardson arrived at Murmansk on April 8,
1920, where it was reported to him that a company of American troops at
Archangel had mutinied and that his presence there was urgently needed.
He arrived at Archangel on April 17, 1920, and found that conditions
had been somewhat exaggerated, especially in respect to the alleged
mutiny of the company of the 339th Infantry. General Richardson
directed an investigation of this matter by the Acting Inspector
General, American Forces in North Russia. This officer states the facts
to be as follows:


“‘Company “I”, 339th Infantry, was in rest area at Smallney Barracks,
in the outskirts of Archangel, Russia, when orders were received to go
to the railroad point and relieve another company. The following
morning the first sergeant ordered the company to turn out and load
sleds. He reported to the captain that the men did not respond as
directed. The captain then went to the barracks and demanded of the men
standing around the stove: “Who refuses to turn out and load sleds?” No
reply from the men. The captain then asked the trumpeter, who was
standing nearby, if he refused to turn out and load the sleds, and the
trumpeter replied he was ready if the balance were, but that he was not
going out and load packs of others on the sleds by himself, or words to
that effect. The captain then went to the phone and reported the
trouble as “mutiny” to Col. Stewart, the Commanding Officer, American
Forces in North Russia. Col. Stewart directed him to have the men
assemble in Y. M. C. A. hut and he would be out at once and talk to
them. The colonel arrived and read the Article of War as to mutiny and
talked to the men a few minutes. He then said he was ready to answer
any questions the men cared to ask. Some one wanted to know ‘What are
we here for and what are the intentions of the U. S. Government?’ The
colonel answered this as well as he could. He then asked if there was
anyone of the company who would not obey the order to load the sleds;
if so, step up to the front. No one moved. The colonel then directed
the men to load the sleds without delay, which was done.

“‘The testimony showed that the captain commanding Company “I”, 339th
Infantry, did not order his company formed nor did he ever give a
direct order for the sleds to be loaded. He did not report this trouble
to the commanding officer (a field officer) of Smallney Barracks, but
hastened to phone his troubles to the Commanding Officer, American
Forces in North Russia.’


“The inspector further states that the company was at the front when
the investigation was being made (May, 1919) and that the service of
all concerned, at that time, was considered satisfactory by the
battalion commander.

“The conclusions of the inspector were that from such evidence as could
be obtained the alleged mutiny was nothing like as serious as had been
reported, but that it was of such a nature that it could have been
handled by a company officer of force.

“The inspector recommended to the Commanding General, American Forces,
North Russia, that the matter be dropped and considered closed. The
Commanding General, American Forces, North Russia, concurred in this
recommendation.

“General Richardson, in his report of operations on the American Forces
in North Russia, referring to this matter states:


“‘MORALE. Archangel and North Russia reflected in high degree during
the past winter the disturbed state of the civilized world after four
years of devastating war. The military situation was difficult and at
times menacing.

“‘Our troops in this surrounding, facing entirely new experiences and
uncertain as to the future, bore themselves as a whole with courageous
and creditable spirit. It was inevitable that there should be unrest,
with some criticism and complaint, which represented the normal per
cent chargeable to the human equation under such conditions. This
culminated, shortly before my arrival, in a temporary disaffection of
one of the companies. This appears not to have extended beyond the
privates in ranks, and was handled by the regimental commander with
discretion and good judgment.

“‘This incident was given wide circulation in the States, and I am
satisfied from my investigation that an exaggerated impression was
created as to its seriousness. It is regrettable that it should have
happened at all, to mar in any degree the record of heroic and valiant
service performed by this regiment under very trying conditions.’ “The
above are the facts in regard to this matter, and it is hoped that this
information may meet your requirements.


“Very sincerely yours,
“NEWTON D. BAKER,
“Secretary of War.”


However, as a matter of history the facts must be told in this volume.
“I” Company of the 339th Infantry, commanded by Captain Horatio G.
Winslow, was on the 30th of March stationed at Smolny Barracks,
Archangel, Russia. It had been resting for a few days there after a
long period of service on the front. The spirit of the men had been
high for the most part, although as usual in any large group of
soldiers at rest there was some of what Frazier Hunt, the noted war
correspondent, calls “good, healthy grousing.” The men had the night
before given a fine minstrel entertainment in the Central Y. M. C. A.

Group psychology and atmospheric conditions have to be taken into
consideration at this point. By atmospheric conditions we mean the
half-truths and rumors and expressions of feeling that were in the air.
A sergeant of the company questioned carefully by the writer states
positively that the expressions of ugliness were confined to
comparatively few members of the company. The feeling seemed to spread
through the company that morning that some of the men were going to
speak their minds.

Here another fact must be introduced. A few nights before this there
had been a fire in camp that spread to their barracks and burned the
company out, resulting in the splitting of the company into two
separated parts, and in giving the little first sergeant and commanding
officer inconvenience in conveying orders and directions to the men.
And it was rumored in the morning in one barracks that the men of the
other barracks were starting something. The platoon officer in command
there had gone to the front to make arrangements for the billeting and
transportation of troops, who were to start that day for the front some
several miles south of Obozerskaya. Now the psychology began to work.
Why hurry the loading, let’s see what the men of that platoon now will
do.

The captain notices the delay in proceedings. He has heard a little
something of what is in the air. It is nothing serious, yet he is
nervous about it. His first sergeant, a nervous and a nervy little man
too, for Detroit has seen the _Croix de Guerre_ he won, showed anxiety
over the dilatoriness of the men in loading the sleighs. And the men
were only just human in wanting to see what the captain was going to do
about that other platoon that was rumored to be starting something. Of
course in the psychology of the thing it was not in their minds that
they would be called upon to express themselves. The others were going
to do that.

But when the captain went directly to the men and asked them what they
were thinking and feeling they found themselves talking to him. Here
and there a man spoke bitterly about the Russian regiments in Archangel
not doing anything but drill in Archangel. Of course he had only
half-truth. That is the way misunderstandings and bad feelings feed. At
that moment a company of the Archangel Regiment was at a desperate
front, Bolsheozerki, standing shoulder to shoulder with “M” Company out
of “I” Company’s own battalion. But these American soldiers at that
moment with their feelings growing warmer with expression of them,
thought only of the drilling Russian soldiers in Archangel and of the
S. B. A. L. soldiers who had mutinied earlier in the winter and been
subdued by American soldiers in Archangel. And so if the truth be told,
those soldiers spoke boldly enough to their captain to alarm him. He
thought that he really had a serious condition before him.

From remarks by the men he judged that for the sake of the men and the
chief commanding officer, Colonel Stewart, it would be well to have a
meeting in the Y. M. C. A. where they could be properly informed, where
they could see ALL that was going on and not be deluded by the rumors
that other groups of the company were doing something else, and where
the common sense of the great, great majority of the men would show
them the foolishness of the whole thing. And he invited the colonel to
appear.

Meanwhile the senior first lieutenant of the company, Lieut. Albert E.
May, one of the levelest-headed officers in the regiment, had put the
first and only man who showed signs of insubordination to an officer
under arrest. It developed afterward that the lieutenant was a little
severe with the man as he really had not understood the command, he
being a man who spoke little English and in the excitement was puzzled
by the order and showed the “hesitation” of which so much was made in
the wild accounts that were published. This arrest was afterward
corrected when three sergeants of the platoon assured the officer that
the man had not really intended insubordination.

It is regrettable that the War Department was so nervous about this
affair that it would be fooled into making the explanation of this
“hesitation” on the ground of the man’s Slavic genesis and the pamphlet
propaganda of the Reds. The first three men who died in action were
Slavs. The Slavs who went from Hamtramck and Detroit to Europe made
themselves proud records as fighters. Hundreds of them who had not been
naturalized were citizens before they took off the O. D. uniform in
which they had fought. It was a cruel slur upon the manhood of the
American soldier to make such explanations upon such slight evidences.
It would seem as though the War Department could have borne the outcry
of the people till the Commanding Officer of those troops could send
detailed report. And as for the Red pamphlets, every soldier in North
Russia was disgusted with General March’s explanations and comments.

To return to the account, let it be said, Colonel Stewart, when he
appeared at the Y. M. C. A. saw no murmurous, mutinous, wildly excited
men, such as the mob psychology of a mutiny would necessarily call for.
Instead, he saw men seated orderly and respectfully. And they listened
to his remarks that cleared up the situation and to his proud
declaration that American soldiers on duty never quit till the job is
done or they are relieved. Questions were allowed and were answered
squarely and plainly.

While the colonel had been coming from his headquarters the remainder
of the loading had been done under direction of Lieut. May as referred
to before, and at the conclusion of the colonel’s address, Captain
Winslow moved his men off across the frozen Dvina, proceeded as per
schedule to Obozerskaya, put them on a troop train, and as related
elsewhere took over the front line at a critical time, under heavy
attack, and there the very next day after the little disaffection and
apparent insubordination, which was magnified into a “mutiny,” his
company added a bright page to its already shining record as fighters.
The editors have commented upon this at another place in the narrative.
We wish here to state that we do not see how an unbiased person could
apply so harsh a term as mutiny to this incident.

The allegation has been proved to be false. There was no mutiny. Any
further repetition of the allegation will be a cruel slander upon the
good name of the heroic men who were killed in action or died of wounds
received in action in that desperate winter campaign in the snows of
Russia. And further repetition of the allegation will be insult to the
brave men who survived that campaign and now as citizens have a right
to enjoy the commendations of their folks and friends and fellow
citizens because of the remarkably good record they made in North
Russia as soldiers and men.




XXXI
OUR ALLIES, FRENCH, BRITISH AND RUSSIANS


Kaleidoscopic Picture And Chop Suey Talk In Archangel—Poilu
Comrades—Captain Boyer—Dupayet, Reval And Major Alabernarde—“Ze French
Sarzhont, She Say”—Scots And British Marines Fine Soldiers—Canadians
Popular—Yorks Stand Shoulder To Shoulder—Tribute To General
Ironside—Daredevil “Bob” Graham Of “Australian Light Horse”—Commander
Young Of Armored Train—Slavo-British Allied Legion—French Legion—White
Guards—Archangel Regiments—Chinese—Deliktorsky, Mozalevski, Akutin.


What a kaleidoscopic recollection of uniforms and faces we have when
one asks us about our allies in North Russia. What a mixture of voices,
of gutturals and spluttering and yeekings and chatterings, combined
with pursing of lips, eyebrow-twistings, bugging eyes, whiskers and
long hair, and common hand signs of distress or delight or urgency or
decisiveness: Nitchevo, bonny braw, tres bien, khorashaw, finish, oi
soiy, beaucoup, cheerio, spitzka, mozhnya barishna, c’mon kid,
parlezvous, douse th’ glim, yah ocean, dobra czechinski, amia spigetam,
ei geh ha wa yang wa, lubloo, howse th’ chow, pardonne, pawrdun, scuse,
eesveneets,—all these and more too, strike the ear of memory as we
tread again the board sidewalks of far off smelly Archangel.

What antics we witnessed, good humored miscues and errors of form in
meeting our friends of different lands all gathered there in the
strange potpourri. Soldiers and “civies” of high and low rank, cultured
and ignorant, and rich and poor, hearty and well, and halting and lame,
mingled in Archangel, the half-shabby, half-neat, half-modern,
half-ancient, summer-time port on the far northern sea. Rags and red
herrings, and broadcloth and books, and O. D. and Khaki, and horizon
blue, crowded the dinky ding-ding tramway and counted out kopecs to the
woman conductor.

And many are the anecdotes that are told of men and occasions in North
Russia where some one of our allies or bunch of them figures
prominently, either in deed of daring, or deviltry, or simply good
humor. Chiefly of our own buddies we recall such stories to be sure,
but in justice to the memory of some of the many fine men of other
lands who served with us we print a page or two of anecdotes about
them. And we hope that some day we may show them Detroit or some other
good old American burg, or honk-honk them cross country through farm
lands we now better appreciate than before we saw Europe, by woods,
lake and stream to camp in the warm summer, or spend winter nights in a
land with us as hosts, a land where life is really worth living.

Those “mah-sheen” gunners in blue on the railroad who stroked their
field pets with pride and poured steady lines of fire into the pine
woods where lay the Reds who were encircling the Americans with rifle
and machine gun fire. How the Yankee soldiers liked them. And many a
pleasant draught they had from the big pinaud canteen that always came
fresh from the huge cask. How courteously they taught the doughboy
machine gunner the little arts of digging in and rejoiced at the rapid
progress of the American.

How now, Paul, my _poilu_ comrade, _bon ami_, why don’t you add the
house itself to the pack on your back? Sure, you’ll scramble along
somehow to the rest of the camp in the rear, and on your way you will
pass bright remarks that we _non compree_ but enjoy just the same, for
we know you are wishing the doughboy good luck. How droll your antics
when hard luck surprises. We swear and you grimace or paw wildly the
air. And we share a common dislike for the asperity shown by the
untactful, inefficient, bulldozing old Jack.

Here is a good story that “Buck” Carlson used to tell in his inimitable
way. Scene is laid in the headquarters of the British Colonel who is
having a little difficulty with his mixed command that contains
soldiers of America, France, Poland, China, where not, but very few
from England at that time. A French sergeant with an interpreter enters
the room and salutes are exchanged. The sergeant then orders his
comrade to convey his request to the colonel.

“Ker-nell, par-don,” says the little interpreter after a snappy French
salute which is recognized by a slight motion of the colonel’s thumb in
the general direction of his ear. “Ze sarzhont, she say, zat ze French
man will please to have ze tobak, ze masheen gun am-mu-nish-own and ze
soap.”

“But, my man,” says the colonel reddening, “I told you to tell the
sergeant he should go on as ordered and these things will come later, I
have none of these things now to give him, but they will soon arrive
and he shall be supplied. But now he must hurry out with his detachment
of machine gunners to help the Americans. Go, my man.” More salutes and
another conversation between the two French soldiers with arms and spit
flying furiously.

“Ker-nell, sir, par-don, again, but ze sar-zhont, she say, zat wiz-out
ze to-bak, ze am-mu-nish-own and ze soap, he weel not go, par-don,
ker-nell!”

This time the colonel was angered to popping point and he smote the
table with a thump that woke every bedbug and cockroach in the building
and the poor French interpreter looked wildly from the angry British
colonel to his tough old French sergeant who now leaped quickly to his
side and barked Celtic rejoinder to the colonel’s fist thumping
language. No type could tell the story of the critical next moment.
Suffice it to say that after the storm had cleared the colonel was
heard reporting the disobedience to a French officer miles in the rear.
The officer had evidently heard quickly from his sergeant and was
inclined to back him up, for in substance he said to the offended
British officer: “Wee, pardon, mon ker-nell, it eez bad,” meaning I am
sorry, “but will ze gallant ker-nell please to remember zat
consequently zare eez no French offitzair wiz ze French de-tach-mont,
ze sar-zhont will be treated wiz ze courtesy due to ze offitzair.”

And it was true that the sergeant, backed up by his French officer,
refused to go as ordered till his men had been supplied with the
necessary ammunition and “ze to-bak and ze soap.” The incident
illustrates the fact that the French officer’s relation to his enlisted
men is one of cordial sympathy. He sees no great gulf between officer
and enlisted man which the British service persists to set up between
officers and enlisted men.

Hop to it, now Frenchie, you surely can sling ’em. We need a whole lot
from your 75’s. We are guarding your guns, do not fear for the flanks.
Just send that barrage to the Yanks at the front. And how they do send
it. And we remember that the French artillery officers taught the
Russians how to handle the guns well and imbued them with the same
spirit of service to the infantry. And many a Red raid in force and
well-planned attack was discouraged by the prompt and well-put shrapnel
from our French artillery.

And there was Boyer. First we saw him mud-spattered and grimy crawling
from a dugout at Obozerskaya, day after his men had won the
“po-zee-shown.” His animation he seems to communicate to his
leg-wearied men who crowd round him to hear that the Yanks are come to
relieve them. With great show of fun but serious intent, too, he
“marries the squads” of Americans and Frenchies as they amalgamate for
the joint attack. “Kat-tsank-awn-tsank” comes to mean 455 as he talks
first in French to his poilus and then through our Detroit doughboy
French interpreter to the doughboys. Captain he is of a Colonial
regiment, veteran of Africa and every front in Europe, with palm-leafed
war cross, highest his country can give him, Boyer. He relies on his
soldiers and they on him. “Fires on your outposts, captain?” _“Oui,
oui, nitchevo_, not ever mind, _oui_, comrade,” he said laughingly. His
soldiers built the fires so as to show the Reds where they dare not
come. Truth was he knew his men must dry their socks and have a warm
spot to sit by and clean their rifles. He trusted to their good sense
in concealing the fire and to know when to run it very low with only
the glowing coals, to which the resting soldier might present the soles
of his snoozing shoes. Captain Boyer, to you, and to your men.

It is not easy to pass over the names of Dupayet and Reval and
Alebernarde. For dynamic energy the first one stands. For linguistic
aid the second. How friendly and clear his interpretation of the orders
of the French command, given written or oral. Soldier of many climes
he. With songs of nations on his lips and the sparkle of mirth in his
eye. “God Save the King,” he uttered to the guard as password when he
supposed the outguard to be a post of Tommies, and laughingly repeated
to the American officer the quick response of the Yank sentry man who
said: “To hell with any king, but pass on French lieutenant, we know
you are a friend.”

And Alabernarde, sad-faced old _Major du Battalion_, often we see you
passing among the French and American soldiers along with Major
Nichols. Your eyes are crow-tracked with experiences on a hundred
fields and your bronzed cheek hollowed from consuming service in the
World War. We see the affectionate glances of poilus that leap out at
sight of you. You hastened the equipment of American soldiers with the
automatics they so much needed and helped them to French ordnance
stores generously. Fate treated you cruelly that winter and left you in
a wretched dilemma with your men in March on the railroad. We would
forget that episode in which your men figured, and remember rather the
comradery of the fall days with them and the inspiration of your
soldierly excellence. To you, Major Alabernarde.

On the various fronts in the fall the doughboy’s acquaintance with the
British allies was limited quite largely, and quite unfortunately we
might say, to the shoulder strappers. And all too many of those
out-ranked and seemed to lord it over the doughboy’s own officers, much
to his disgust and indignation. What few units of Scots and English
Marines and Liverpools got into action with the Americans soon won the
respect and regard of the doughboys in spite of their natural
antipathy, which was edged by their prejudice against the whole show
which was commonly thought to be one of British conception. Tommie and
Scot were often found at Kodish and Toulgas and on the Onega sharing
privations and meagre luxuries of tobacco and food with their recently
made friends among the Yanks.

And in the winter the Yorks at several places stood shoulder to
shoulder with doughboys on hard-fought lines. Friendships were started
between Yanks and Yorks as in the fall they had grown between Frenchies
and Americans, Scots and Yanks, and Liverpools and Detroiters. Bitter
fighting on a back-to-the-wall defense had brought the English and
American officers together also. Arrogance and antipathy had both
dissolved largely in the months of joint military operations and better
judgment and kinder feelings prevailed. Grievances there are many to be
recalled. And they were not all on one side. But except as they form
part of the military narrative with its exposure of causes and effects
in the fall and winter and spring campaigns, those grievances may
mostly be buried. Rather may we remember the not infrequent incidents
of comradeship on the field or in lonely garrison that brightened the
relationships between Scots and Yorks and Marines and Liverpools in
Khaki on the one hand and the O. D. cousins from over the sea who were
after all not so bad a lot, and were willing to acknowledge merit in
the British cousin.

It must be said that Canadians, Scots, Yorks and Tommies stood in about
this order in the affections of the Yankee soldiers. The boys who
fought with support of the Canadian artillery up the rivers know them
for hard fighters and true comrades. And on the railroad detachment
American doughboys one day in November were glad to give the Canadian
officer complimentary present-arms when he received his ribbon on his
chest, evidence of his election to the D. S. O., for gallantry in
action. Loyally on many a field the Canadians stood to their guns till
they were exhausted, but kept working them because they knew their
Yankee comrades needed their support.

One of the pictures in this volume shows a Yank and a Scot together
standing guard over a bunch of Bolshevik prisoners at a point up the
Dvina River. American doughboys risked their lives in rescuing wounded
Scots and the writer has a vivid remembrance of seeing a fine
expression of comradeship between Yanks and Scots and American sailors
starting off on a long, dangerous march.

Mention has been made in another connection of the friendship and
admiration of the American soldiers for the men of the battalion of
Yorks. In the three day’s battle at Verst 18 a York sergeant over and
over assured the American officer that he would at all times have a
responsible York standing beside the Russki machine gunner and prevent
the green soldiers from firing wildly without order in case the
Bolshevik should gain some slight advantage and a necessary shift of
American soldiers might be interpreted by the green Russian machine
gunners as a movement of the enemy. And those machine guns which were
stationed at a second line, in rear of the Americans, never went off.
The Yorks were on the job. And after the crisis was past an American
corporal asked his company commander to report favorably upon the
gallant conduct of a York corporal who had stood by him with six men
all through the fight.

Of the King’s Liverpools and other Tommies mention has been made in
these pages. Sometimes we have to fight ourselves into favor with one
another. Really there is more in common between Yank and Tommie than
there is of divergence. Hardship and danger, tolerance and observation,
these brought the somewhat hostile and easily irritated Yank and Tommie
together. Down underneath the rough slams and cutting sarcasm there
exists after all a real feeling of respect for the other.

This volume would not be complete without some mention of that man who
acted as commanding general of the Allied expedition, William Edmund
Ironside. He was every inch a soldier and a man. American soldiers will
remember their first sight of him. They had heard that a big man up at
Archangel who had taken Gen. Poole’s job was cleaning house among the
incompetents and the “John Walkerites” that had surrounded G. H. Q. in
Poole’s time. He was putting pep into G. H. Q. and reorganizing the
various departments.

When he came, he more than came up to promises. Six foot-four and built
accordingly, with a bluff, open countenance and a blue eye that spoke
honesty and demanded truth. Hearty of voice and breathing cheer and
optimism, General Ironside inspired confidence in the American troops
who had become very much disgruntled. He was seen on every front at
some time and often seen at certain points. By boat or sledge or plane
he made his way through. He was the soldier’s type of commanding
officer. Never dependent on an interpreter whether with Russian, Pole,
or French, or Serbian, or Italian, he travelled light and never was
seen with a pistol, even for protection. Master of fourteen languages
it was said of him, holder of an Iron Cross bestowed on him by the
Kaiser in an African war when he acted as an ox driver but in fact was
observing for the British artillery, on whose staff he had been a
captain though he was only a youth, he was a giant intellectually as
well as physically.

When British fighting troops could not be spared from the Western Front
in the fall of 1918 and the British War Office gambled on sending
category B men to Archangel—men not considered fit to undergo active
warfare, a good healthy general had to be found. Ironside, lover of
forlorn hopes, master of the Russian language, a good mixer, and
experienced in dealing with amalgamated forces, was the obvious man. Of
course, there were some British officers who bemoaned the fact, in
range of American ears too, that some titled high ranking officers were
passed over to reach out to this Major of Artillery to act as
Major-General. And he was on the youthful side of forty, too.

Edmund Ironside ought to have been born in the days of Drake, Raleigh,
and Cromwell. He would have a bust in Westminster and his picture in
the history books. But in his twenty years of army life he has done
some big things and it can be imagined with what gusto he received his
orders to relieve Poole and undertook to redeem the expedition, to make
something of the perilous, forlorn hope under the Arctic winter skies.

In _The American Sentinel_ issue of December 10th, which was the first
issue of our soldier paper, we read:


“It is a great honor for me to be able to address the first words in
the first Archangel paper for American soldiers. I have now served in
close contact with the U. S. Army for eighteen months and I am proud to
have a regiment of the U. S. Army under my command in Russia.

“I wish all the American soldiers the best wishes for the coming
Christmas and New Year and I want them to understand that the Allied
High Command takes the very greatest interest in their welfare at all
times.”


EDMUND IRONSIDE, Major-General.


Without doubt the General was sincere in his efforts to bring about
harmony and put punch and strength into the high command sections as
well as into the line troops. But what a bag Poole left him to hold.
Vexed to death must that big man’s heart have been to spend so much
time setting Allies to rights who had come to cross purposes with one
another and were blinded to their own best interests. British thought
he was too lenient with the willful Americans. Americans thought he was
pampering the French. British, French and Americans thought he was
letting the Russkis slip something over on the whole Allied expedition.
Green-eyed jealousy, provincial jealousy, just plain foolish jealousy
tormented the man who was soon disillusioned as to the glories to be
won in that forlorn expedition but who never exhibited anything but an
undaunted optimistic spirit. He was human. When he was among the
soldiers and talking to them it was not hard for them to believe the
tale that after all he was an American himself, a Western Canadian who
had started his career as a military man with the Northwest Mounted
Police.

An American corporal for several weeks had been in the field hospital
near the famous Kodish Front. One day General Ironside leaned over his
bunk and said: “What’s the trouble, corporal?” The reply was,
“Rheumatism, sir.” At which the British hospital surgeon asserted that
he thought the rheumatism was a matter of the American soldier’s
imagination. But he regretted the remark, for the general, looking
sternly at the officer, said: “Don’t talk to me that way about a
soldier. I know, if you do not, that many a young man, with less
exposure than these men have had in these swamps, contracts rheumatism.
Do not confuse the aged man’s gout with the young man’s muscular
rheumatism.” Then he turned his back on the surgeon and said heartily
to the corporal: “You look like a man with lots of grit. Cheer up,
maybe the worst is over and you will be up and around soon. I hope so.”

And there was many a British officer who went out there to Russia who
won the warm friendship of Americans. Of course, those were short
friendships. But men live a lot in a small space in war. One day a
young second lieutenant—and those were rare in the British uniforms,
for the British War Office had given the commanding general generous
leeway in adding local rank to the under officers—had come out to a
distant sector to estimate the actual needs in signal equipment. He
rode a Russian horse to visit the outpost line of the city. He rode in
a reindeer sled to the lines which the Russian partisan forces were
holding. He sat down in the evening to that old Russian merchant
trader’s piano, in our headquarters, and rambled from chords and airs
to humoresque and rhapsodies. And the American and Russian officers and
the orderlies and batmen each in his own place in the spacious rooms
melted into a tender hearing that feared to move lest the spell be
broken and the artist leave the instrument. Men who did not know how
lonesome they had been and who had missed the refinements of home more
than they knew, blessed the player with their pensive listening,
thanked fortune they were still alive and had chances of fighting
through to get home again. And after playing ceased the British officer
talked quietly of his home and the home folks and Americans thought and
talked of theirs. And it was good. It was an event.

In sharp contrast is the vivid memory of that picturesque Lt. Bob
Graham of the Australian Light Horse. He could have had anything the
doughboy had in camp and they would have risked their lives for him,
too, after the day he ran his Russian lone engine across the bridge at
Verst 458 into No Man’s Land and leaped from the engine into a marsh
covered by the Bolo machine guns and brought out in his own arms an
American doughboy. Starting merely a daredevil ride into No Man’s Land,
his roving eye had spied the doughboy delirious and nearly dead
flopping feebly in the swamp.

Hero of Gallipoli’s ill-fated attempt, scarred with more than a score
of wounds; with a dead man’s shin bone in the place of his left upper
arm bone that a Hun shell carried off; with a silver plate in his
head-shell; victim of as tragic an occurrence as might befall any man,
when as a sergeant in the Flying Squadron in France he saw a young
officer’s head blown off in a trench, and it was his own son, Bob
Graham, “Australian Force” on the Railroad Detachment, was missed by
the doughboys when he was ordered to report to Archangel.

There the heroic Bob went to the bad. He participated in the shooting
out of all the lights in the Paris cafe of the city in regular wild
western style; he was sent up the river for his health; he fell in with
an American corporal whose acquaintance he had made in a sunnier clime,
when the American doughboy had been one of the Marines in Panama and
Bob Graham was an agent of the United Fruit Company. They stole the
British officer’s bottled goods and trafficked unlawfully with the
natives for fowls and vegetables to take to the American hospital,
rounded up a dangerous band of seven spies operating behind our lines,
but made such nuisances of themselves, especially the wild Australian
“second looie,” that he was ordered back to Archangel. There the old
general, who knew of his wonderful fighting record, at last brought him
on to the big carpet. And the conversation was something like this:

“Graham, what is the matter? You have gone mad. I had the order to
strip you of your rank as an officer to see if that would sober you.
But an order from the King today by cable raises you one rank and now
no one but the King himself can change your rank. You deserved the
promotion but as you are going now it is no good to you. All I can do
is to send you back to England. But I do not mean it as a disgrace to
you. I could wish that you would give me your word that you would stop
this madness of yours.” And the general looked kindly at Bob.

“Sir, you have been white with me. You have a right to know why I have
been misbehaving these last weeks. Here, sir, is a letter that came to
me the day I helped shoot up the cafe. In Belgium I married an American
Red Cross nurse. This is a picture of her and the new-born son come to
take the place of the grown-up son who fell mortally wounded in my arms
in France. To her and the baby I was bound to go if I had to drink
Russia dry of all the shipped-in Scotch and get myself reduced to the
ranks for insubordination and deviltry. Sir, I’m fed up on war. I thank
you for sending me back to England.”

And Corporal Aldrich tells us that his old friend Bob Graham’s present
address is First National Bank, Mobile, Alabama. His father, an
immigrant via Canada from old Dundee in Scotland, was elected governor
of Alabama on the dry issue. And officers and doughboys who knew the
wild Australian in North Russia know that his father might have had
some help if Bob were at home. With a genial word for every man, with a
tender heart that winced to see a child cry, with a nimble wit and a
brilliant daring, Lt. Bob Graham won a place in the hearts of Americans
that memory keeps warm.

And other British officers might be mentioned. There was, for example,
the grizzled naval officer, Commander Young, whose left sleeve had been
emptied at Zeebrugge, running our first armored train. We missed his
cheery countenance and courteous way of meeting American soldiers and
officers when he left us to return to England to take a seat in
Parliament which the Socialists had elected him to. We can see him
again in memory with his Polish gunners, his Russian Lewis gun men,
standing in his car surrounded by sand bags and barbed wire, knocking
hot wood cinders from his neck, which the Russki locomotive floated
back to him. And many a time we were moved to bless him when his guns
far in our rear spoke cheeringly to our ears as they sent whining
shells curving over us to fall upon the enemy. It is no discredit to
say that many a time the doughboy’s eye was filled with a glistening
drop of emotion when his own artillery had sprung to action and sent
that first booming retort. And some of those moments are bound in
memory with the blue-coated figure of the gallant Commander Young.

The Russian Army of the North was non-existent when the Allies landed.
All the soldiery previously in evidence had moved southward with the
last of the lootings of Archangel and joined the armies of the soviet
at Vologda, or were forming up the rear guard to dispute the entrance
of the Allies to North Russia. The Allied Supreme Command in North
Russia, true to its dream of raising over night a million men opened
recruiting offices in Archangel and various outlying points, thinking
that the population would rally to the banners (and the ration carts)
in droves. But the large number of British officers waited in vain for
months and months for the pupils to arrive to learn all over the arts
of war. At last after six months two thousand five hundred recruits had
been assembled by dint of advertising and coaxing and pressure. They
were called the Slavo-British Allied Legion, S. B. A. L. for short.

These Slavo-Brits as they were called never distinguished themselves
except in the slow goose step—much admired by Colonel Stewart, who
pointed them out to one of his captains as wonders of precision, and
also distinguished themselves in eating. They failed several times
under fire, once they caused a riffle of real excitement in Archangel
when they started a mutiny, and finally they were used chiefly as labor
units and as valets and batmen for officers and horses. They were
charged with having a mutinous spirit and with plotting to go over to
the Bolsheviks. They did in small numbers at times. It is interesting
to note that they were trained under British officers who enlisted them
from among renegades, prisoners and deserters from ranks of the
Bolsheviks, refugees and hungry willies, and, that once enlisted they
were not fed the standard British ration of food or tobacco, the which
they held as a grievance. It never made the American soldier feel
comfortable to see the prisoners he had taken in action parading later
in the S, B. A. L. uniform, and especially in the case of Russians who
came over from the Bolo lines and gave up with suspiciously strong
protestations of dislike for their late commanders.

The Russians who were recruited and trained by the French in the
so-called French Legion, under the leadership of the old veteran Boyer
who is mentioned elsewhere were found usually with a better record. The
Courier du Bois on skiis in white clothing did remarkably valuable
scouting and patrolling work and at times as at Kodish and Bolsheozerki
hung off on the flanks of the encircling Bolo hordes and worried the
attackers with great effectiveness.

The French also had better luck in training the Russian artillery
officers and personnel than did the British although some of the latter
units did good work. It seemed to be a better class of Russian recruit
that chose the artillery. Doughboys who were caught on an isolated road
like rats in a trap will remember with favor the Russian artillery men
who with their five field pieces on that isolated road ate, slept and
shivered around their guns for eight days without relief, springing to
action in a few seconds at any call. By their effective action they
contributed quite largely to the defense, active fighting of which fell
upon two hundred Yanks facing more than ten times the number. Why
should it surprise one to find an occasional Yank returned from
Archangel who will say a good word for a Russian soldier. There were
cordial relations between Americans and more than a few Russian units.

In certain localities in the interior where the peasants had organized
to resist the rapacious Red Guard looters, there were little companies
of good fighters, in their own way. These were usually referred to as
Partisans or White Guards depending upon the degree to which they were
authorized and organized by the local county governments. They always
at first strongly co-operated with the Allied troops, which they looked
upon as friends sent in to help them against the Bolsheviki. Toward the
Americans they maintained their cordial relations throughout, but after
the first months seemed to cool toward the other Allied troops. This
sounds conceited, and possibly is, but the explanation seems to be that
the Russian understood American candor and cordial democracy, the
actual sympathetic assistance offered by the doughboy to the Russian
soldier or laborer and took it at par value.

Further explanation of the cooling of the ardor of the local partisans
toward the British in particular may be found in the fact that the
British field commanders often found it convenient and really necessary
to send the local troops far distant from their own areas. There they
lost the urge of defending their firesides and their families. They
were in districts which they quite simply and honestly thought should
themselves be aiding the British to keep off the Bolsheviki. They could
not understand the military necessities that had perhaps called these
local partisans off to some other part of the fighting line on those
long forest fronts. He lacked the broader sense of nationality or even
of sectionalism. And as demands for military action repeatedly came to
him the justice of which he saw only darkly he became a poorer and
poorer source of dependence. He would not put his spirit into fighting,
he was quite likely to hit through the woods for home.

When the Allies early in the fall found they could not forge through to
the south, rolling up a bigger and bigger Russian force to crush the
Bolsheviki, who were apparently, as told us, fighting up to keep us
from going a thousand miles or so to hit the Germans a belt—a
fly-weight buffet as it were—and when we heard of the Armistice and
began digging in on a real defensive in the late fall and early winter,
the Provisional Government at Archangel under Tchaikowsky had already
made some progress in assembling an army. In the winter small units of
this Archangel army began co-operating in various places, and as the
winter wore on, began to take over small portions of the line, as at
Toulgas, Shred Mekrenga, Bolsheozerki, usually however with a few
British officers and some Allied soldiers to stiffen them. Although
many of these men had been drafted by the Archangel government and as
we have seen by such local county governments as Pinega, they were
fairly well trained under old Russian officers who crept out to serve
when they saw the new government meant business. And many capable young
officers came from the British-Russian officers’ school at Bakaritsa.


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Canadian Artillery—Americans Were Strong for Them._]


[Illustration: ROZANSKEY
_Making “Khleba”—Black Bread._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Stout Defense of Kitsa._]


Needless to say, these troops were at their best when they were in
active work on the lines. Rest camp and security from attack quickly
reduced their morale. And the next time they were sent up to the
forward posts they were likely to prove undependable.

In doing the ordinary drudgery of camp life the Russian soldier as the
doughboy saw him was very unsatisfactory. Many a Yank has itched to get
his hands on the Russian Archangelite soldier, especially some of our
hard old sergeants who wanted to put them on police and scavenger
details to see them work. In this reluctance to work, their refusal
sometimes even when the doughboy pitched into the hateful job and set
them a good example, they were only like the civilian males whose
aversion to certain kinds of work has been mentioned before. When some
extensive piece of work had to be done for the Allies like policing a
town, that is, cleaning it up for sake of health of the soldiers or
smoothing off a landing place for airplanes, it was a problem to get
the labor.

In the erection of large buildings or bridges the Russian man’s axe and
saw and mallet and plane worked swiftly and skillfully and unceasingly
and willingly. Those tools were to him as playthings. Not so with an
American-made long-handled shovel in his hands. Then it was necessary
to hire both women and men. The men thought they themselves were
earning their pay, but as the women in Russia do most of the
back-breaking, stooping work anyway, they just caught on to those
American shovels and to the astonishment of the American doughboy who
superintended the work they did twice as much as the men for just half
the pay and with half the bossing.

It is not a matter of false pride on the part of the Slavic male that
keeps him from vying with his better half in doing praiseworthy work.
It is lack of education. He has never learned. He is so constituted
that he cannot learn quickly. He will work himself to exhaustion day
after day in raising a house, cradling grain, playing an accordeon, or
performing a folk dance. His earliest known ancestors did those things
with fervor and it is doubtful if the modus operandi has changed much
since the beginning, since Adam was a Russian.

The “H” Company boys could tell you stories of the Chinese outfit of S.
B. A. L. under the British officer, the likable Capt. Card, who later
lost his life in the forlorn hope drive on Karpogora in March. One day
he was approached by a Chinese soldier who begged the loan of a machine
gun for a little while. It seems that the Chinese had gotten into
argument with a company of Russian S. B. A. L. men as to the relative
staying qualities of Russians and Chinese under fire. And they had
agreed upon a machine gun duel as a fair test. The writer one night at
four in the morning woke when his Russian sleigh stopped in a village
and rubbed his sleepy eyes open to find himself looking up into the
questioning face of a burly sentry of the Chinese race. And he obeyed
the sentry’s directions with alacrity. He was not taking any chances on
a misunderstanding that might arise out of an attempted explanation in
a three-cornered Russo-Chino-English conversation.

Captain Odjard’s men might tell stories about the redoubtable Russian
Colonel Deliktorsky, who was in the push up the rivers in September.
Impetuous to a fault he flung himself and his men into the offensive
movement. “In twelve minutes we take Toulgas,” was his simple battle
order to the Americans. No matter to him that ammunition reserves were
not ordered up. Sufficient to him that he showed his men the place to
be battled for. And he was a favorite.

On the railroad in the fall a young Bolshevik officer surrendered his
men to the French. Next time the American officer saw him he was
reporting in American headquarters at Pinega that he had conducted his
men to safety and dug in. Afterwards Bolshevik assassins or spies shot
him in ambush and succeeded only in angering him and he went into
battle two days later with a bandage covering three wounds in his neck
and scalp. “G” and “M” Company men will remember this fiery Mozalevski.

Then there was the studious Capt. Akutin, a three-year veteran of a
Russian machine gun battalion, a graduate student of science in a
Russian university, a man of new army and political ideals in keeping
with the principles of the Russian Revolution. His great success with
the Pinega Valley volunteers and drafted men was due quite largely to
his strength of character, his adherence to his principles. The people
did not fear the restoration of the old monarchist regime even though
he was an officer of the Czar’s old army. American soldiers in Pinega
gained a genuine respect and admiration for this Russian officer, Capt.
Akutin, and he once expressed great pleasure in the fact that they
exchanged salutes with him cordially.




XXXII
FELCHERS, PRIESTS AND ICONS


Felcher Is Student Of Medicine—Or Pill Passer Of Army
Experience—Sanitation And Ventilation—Priests Strange Looking To
Soldiers—Duties And Responsibilities—Effect Of Bolshevism On Peasant’s
Religious Devotions—The Icons—Interesting Stories—Doughboys Buried By
Russian Priests—Respect For Russian Religion.


During the fall of 1918 when the influenza epidemic was wreaking such
great havoc among the soldiers and natives in the Archangel Province,
our medical corps as heretofore explained were put to almost superhuman
efforts in combating the spread of this terrible disease. There were
very few native doctors in the region, and it was, therefore, well nigh
impossible to enlist outside aid. In some of the villages we received
word that there were men called felchers who could possibly be of some
assistance. We were at once curious to ascertain just what kind of
persons these individuals were and upon investigation found that the
Russian Company located in our sector had a young officer who was also
a felcher and who was giving certain medical attention to his troops.
We immediately sent for him and in answer to our inquiries he explained
as nearly as possible just what a felcher was.

It seems that in Russia, outside the large cities and communities,
there is a great scarcity of regularly licensed medical practitioners,
many of these latter upon graduation enter the army where the pay is
fairly good and the work comparatively easy, the rest of them enter the
cities where, of course, practice is larger and the remuneration much
better than would be possible in a small community. These facts
developed in the smaller communities the use of certain second-rate
students of medicine or anyone having a smattering of medical
knowledge, called felchers.

In many cases the felcher is an old soldier who has traveled around the
world a bit; and from his association in the army hospitals with
doctors and students has picked up the technique of dressing wounds,
setting broken bones and administering physic. Very often they are, of
course, unable to properly diagnose the ailments or conditions of their
patients. They, however, are shrewd enough to follow out the customary
army method of treating patients and regardless of the disease promptly
administer vile doses of medicine, usually a physic, knowing full well
that to the average patient, the stronger the medicine and the more of
it he gets, the better the treatment is, and a large percentage of the
recoveries effected by these felchers is more or less a matter of faith
rather than physic or medicine.

The regularly licensed practitioners as a rule have great contempt for
these felchers, but the fact remains that in the small communities
where they practice the felcher accomplishes a great amount of good,
for having traveled considerably and devoted some time to the study of
medicine he is at least superior in intelligence to the average
peasant, and, therefore, better qualified to meet such emergencies as
may arise.

This lack of medical practitioners, coupled with the apathy of the
peasants regarding sanitary precautions and their unsanitary methods of
living accounts to some extent for the violence and spread of plagues,
so common throughout Russia.

Regarding the spread of disease and plagues through Russia caused as
above stated by lack of sanitary conditions, a word or two further
would not be amiss. In the province of Archangel, for example, a great
majority of houses are entirely of log construction, built and modelled
throughout by the owner, and perhaps some of his good neighbors. They
are really a remarkable example of what may be done in the way of
construction without the use of nails and of the modern improved
methods of house construction. It is an actual fact that these simple
peasants, equipped only with their short hand axes, with the use of
which they are adepts, can cut down trees, hew the logs and build their
homes practically without the use of any nails whatever. The logs, of
course, are first well seasoned before they are put into the house
itself and when they are joined together they are practically air
tight, but to make sure of this fact the cracks are sealed tight with
moss hammered into the chinks. Next the windows of these houses are
always double, that is, there is one window on the outside of the frame
and another window on the inside. Needless to say, during the winter
these windows are practically never opened.

During the winter months the entire family—and families in this country
are always large—eat, sleep, and live in one room of the house in which
the huge brick home-made stove is located. In addition to the human
beings living in the room there are often a half dozen or more chickens
concealed beneath the stove, sometimes several sheep, and outside the
door may be located the stable for the cattle. Nevertheless, the
peasants are remarkably healthy, and in this region of the world
epidemics are rather uncommon which may perhaps be explained by the
fact that the peasants are out of doors a large part of the time and in
addition thereto the air is very pure and healthful. Sewerage systems
and such means of drainage are entirely unknown, even in the city of
Archangel, which at the time we were there, contained some hundred
thousand inhabitants. The only sewerage there was an open sewer that
ran through the streets of the city. Small wonder it is under such
conditions that when an epidemic does break out that it spreads so far
and so rapidly.

One of the most familiar characters seen in every town, large or small,
was the _Batushka_. This character is usually attired in a long, black
or gray smock and his hair reaches in long curls to his shoulders. At
first sight to the Yankee soldiers he resembled very much the members
of the House of David or so-called “Holy Roller” sect in this country.
This mysterious individual, commonly called _Batushka_, as we later
discovered, was the village priest. The priest of course belonged to
the Russian Orthodox Church and whose head in the old days was the
Czar. The priests differ very greatly from the ministers of the gospel
and priests in the English-speaking world. They have certain religious
functions to perform in certain set ways, outside of which they never
venture to stray. The Russian priest is merely expected to conform to
certain observances and to perform the rites and ceremonies prescribed
by the Church. He rarely preaches or exhorts, and neither has nor seeks
to have a moral control over his flock. Marriage among the priests is
not prohibited but is limited, that is to say, the priest is allowed to
marry but once, and consequently, in choosing the wife he usually picks
one of the strongest and healthiest women in the community. This
selection is in all seriousness an important matter in the priest’s
life because he draws practically no salary from his position and must
own a share of the community land, till and cultivate the same in
exactly the same manner as the rest of the community, consequently his
wife must be strong and healthy in order to assist him in the many
details of managing his small holdings. In case she were such a strong
and healthy person, the loss of the wife would be a calamity in more
ways than one to the priest as is apparent by the above statements.

While the religious beliefs and doctrines of the average peasant is
only used by him as a practical means toward an end, yet it must be
admitted that the Russian people are in a certain sense religious. They
regularly go to church on Sundays and Holy Days, of which there are
countless numbers, cross themselves repeatedly when they pass a church
or Icon, take the holy communion at stated seasons, rigorously abstain
from animal food, not only on Wednesdays and Fridays but also during
Lent and the other long fasts, make occasional pilgrimages to the holy
shrines and in a word fulfill carefully the ceremonial observance which
they suppose necessary for their salvation.

Of theology in its deeper sense the peasant has no intelligent
comprehension. For him the ceremonial part of religion suffices and he
has the most unbounded childlike confidence in the saving efficacy of
the rites which he practices.

Men of education and of great influence among the people were these
sad-faced priests, until the Bolsheviks came to undermine their power;
for the Bolsheviks have spared not the old Imperial government. The
church had been a potent organization for the Czar to strengthen his
sway throughout his far-reaching dominions and every priest was an
enlisted crusader of the Little Father. So the Bolsheviki, sweeping
over the country, have seized, first of all, upon these priests of
Romanoff, torturing them to death with hideous cruelty, if there be any
truth in stories, and finding vindictive delight in deriding sacred
things and violating holy places.

The moujik, ever susceptible to influence, has been quick to become
infected with this bacillus of agnosticism, and while he still
professes the faith and observes many of the forms as by habit, his
fervor is cooling and already is grown luke-warm. Now on Sundays,
despite all of the execrations of the priest, and the terrible threats
of eternal damnation, he often dozes the Sabbath away unperturbed on
the stove; and lets the women attend to the church going. Under
Bolshevik rule Holy Russia will be Agnostic Russia; and it is a pity,
for religious teaching was the guiding star of these poor people, and
religious precepts, hard, gloomy and dismal though they were, the
foundation of the best in their character.

Icons are pictorial, usually half length representations of the Saviour
or the Madonna or some patron saint, finished in a very archaic
Byzantine style on a yellow or gold background, and vary in size from a
square inch to several square feet. Very often the whole picture is
covered with various ornaments, ofttimes with precious stones. In
respect to their religious significance icons are of two classes,
simple or miracle-working. The former are manufactured in enormous
quantities and are to be found in every Russian house, from the lowest
peasant to the highest official. They are generally placed high up in a
corner of the living room facing the door, and every good Orthodox
peasant on entering the door bows in the direction of the icon and
crosses himself repeatedly. Before and after meals the same ceremony is
always performed and on holiday or fete days a small taper or candle is
kept burning before the icon throughout the day.

An amusing incident is related which took place in the allied hospital
in Shenkursk. A young medical officer had just arrived from Archangel
and was sitting in the living room or entrance-way of the hospital
directly underneath one of these icons. One of the village ladies,
having occasion to call at the hospital, entered the front door and as
usual stepped toward the center of the room facing the icon, bowed very
low and started crossing herself. The young officer who was
unacquainted with the Russian custom, believing that she was saluting
him, quickly stepped forward and stretched forth his hand to shake
hands with her while she was still in the act of crossing herself.
Great was his consternation when he was later informed by his
interpreter of the significance of this operation.

Doughboys on the Railroad front at Obozerskaya will recall the fact
that when the first three Americans killed in action in North Russia
were buried, it was impossible to get one of our chaplains from
Archangel to come to Obozerskaya to bury them. The American officer in
command engaged the local Russian priest to perform the religious
service. By some trick of fate it had happened that these first
Americans who fell in action were of Slavic blood, so the strange
funeral which the doughboys witnessed was not so incongruous after all.

With the long-haired, wonderfully-robed priest came his choir and many
villagers, who occupied one side of the square made by the soldiers
standing there in the dusk to do last honors to their dead comrades.
With chantings and doleful chorus the choir answered his solemn oratory
and devotional intercessions. He swung his sacred censer pot over each
body and though we understood no word we knew he was doing reverence to
the spirit of sacrifice shown by our fallen comrades. There in the
darkness by the edge of the forest, the priest and his ceremony, the
firing squad’s volley, and the bugler’s last call, all united to make
that an allied funeral. The American soldier and the priest and his
pitiful people had really begun to spin out threads of sympathy which
were to be woven later into a fabric of friendliness. The doughboy
always respected the honest peasant’s religious customs.




XXXIII
BOLSHEVISM


Why Chapter Is Written—Venerable Kropotkin’s Message Direct From
Central Russia—Official Report Of United States Department Of
State—Conclusions Of Study Prepared For National Chamber Of
Commerce—Authoritative Comment By Men Who Are In Position To Know—A
Cartoon And Comment Which Speak For Veterans.


The writers have an idea that the veterans of the North Russian
Expedition would like a short, up-to-date chapter on Bolshevism. We
used to wonder why it was that John Bolo was so willing to fight us and
the White Guards. We would not wish to emphasize the word willing for
we remember the fact that many a time when he was beaten back from our
defenses we knew by the sound that he was being welcomed back to his
camp by machine guns. And the prisoners and wounded whom we captured
were not always enthusiastic about the Bolshevism under whose banner
they fought. To be fair, however, we must remark that we captured some
men and officers who were sure enough believers in their cause.

And the general reader will probably like a chapter presented by men
who were over in that civil war-torn north country and who might be
expected to gather the very best materials available on the subject of
Bolshevism. And what we have gathered we present with not much comment
except that we ourselves are trying to keep a tolerant but wary eye
upon those who profess to believe in Bolshevism. We say candidly that
we think Bolshevism is a failure. But we do not condemn everyone else
who differs with us. Let there be fair play and justice to all, freedom
of thought and speech, with decent respect for the rights of all.

The first article is adapted from an article in _The New York Times_ of
recent date, according to which Margaret Bondfield, a member of the
British Labor Delegation which recently visited Russia, went to see
Peter Kropotkin, the celebrated Russian economist and anarchist, at his
home at Dimitroff, near Moscow. The old man gave her a message to the
workers of Great Britain and the western world:

“In the first place, the workers of the civilized world and their
friends among other classes should persuade their governments to give
up completely the policy of armed intervention in the affairs of
Russia, whether that intervention is open or disguised, military, or
under the form of subventions by different nations.

“Russia is passing through a revolution of the same significance and of
equal importance that England passed through in 1639-1648 and France in
1789-1794. The nations of today should refuse to play the shameful role
to which England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia sank during the French
Revolution.

“Moreover, it is necessary to consider that the Russian
Revolution—which seeks to erect a society in which the full production
of the combined efforts of labor, technical skill and scientific
knowledge shall go to the community itself—is not a mere accident in
the struggle of parties. The revolution has been in preparation for
nearly a century by Socialist and Communist propaganda, since the times
of Robert Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier. And although the attempt to
introduce the new society by the dictatorship of a party apparently
seems condemned to defeat, it must be admitted that the revolution has
already introduced into our life new conceptions of the rights of
labor, its true position in society, and the duties of each citizen.

Not only the workers, but all progressive elements in the civilized
nations should bring to an end the support so far given to the
adversaries of the revolution. This does not mean that there is nothing
to oppose in the methods of the Bolshevist government. Far from it! But
all armed intervention by a foreign power necessarily results in an
increase of the dictatorial tendencies of the rulers and paralyzes the
efforts of those Russians who are ready to aid Russia, independent of
her government, in the restoration of her life.

“The evils inherent in the party dictatorship have grown because of the
war conditions in which this party has maintained itself. The state of
war has been the pretext for increasing the dictatorial methods of the
party as well as the reason for the tendency to centralize each detail
of life in the hands of the government, which has resulted in the
cessation of many branches of the nation’s usual activities. The
natural evils of state Communism have been multiplied tenfold under the
pretext that the distress of our existence is due to the intervention
of foreigners.

“It is my firm opinion that if the military intervention of the Allies
is continued it will certainly develop in Russia a bitter sentiment
with respect to the western nations, a sentiment that will be utilized
some day in future conflicts. This bitter feeling is already growing.

“So far as our present economic and political situation is concerned,
the Russian revolution, being the continuation of the two great
revolutions in England and France, undertakes to progress beyond the
point where France stopped when she perceived that actual equality
consists in economic equality.

“Unfortunately, this attempt has been made in Russia under the strongly
centralized dictatorship of a party, the Maximalist Social Democrats.
The Baboeuf conspiracy, extremely centralized and jacobinistic, tried
to apply a similar policy. I am compelled frankly to admit that, in my
opinion, this attempt to construct a communist republic with a strongly
centralized state communism as its base, under the iron law of the
dictatorship of a party, is bound to end in a fiasco. We are learning
in Russia how communism should not be introduced, even by a people
weary of the ancient regime and making no active resistance to the
experimental projects of the new rulers.

“The Soviet idea—that is to say, councils of workers and peasants,
first developed during the revolutionary uprisings of 1905 and
definitely realized during the revolution of February, 1917—the idea of
these councils controlling the economic and political life of the
country, is a great conception. Especially so because it necessarily
implies that the councils should be composed of all those who take a
real part in the production of national wealth by their own personal
efforts.

“But as long as a country is governed by the dictatorship of a party,
the workers’ and peasants’ councils evidently lose all significance.
They are reduced to the passive role formerly performed by the states
generals and the parliaments when they were convened by the king and
had to combat an all-powerful royal council.

“A labor council ceases to be a free council when there is no liberty
of the press in the country, and we have been in this situation for
nearly two years—under the pretext that we are in a state of war. But
that is not all. The workers’ and peasants’ councils lose all their
significance unless the elections are preceded by a free electoral
campaign and when the elections are conducted under the pressure of the
dictatorship of a party. Naturally, the stock excuse is that the
dictatorship is inevitable as a method to fight the ancient regime. But
such a dictatorship evidently becomes a barrier from the moment when
the revolution undertakes the construction of a new society on a new
economic basis. The dictatorship condemns the new structure to death.

“The methods resorted to in overthrowing governments already tottering
are well known to history, ancient and modern. But when it is necessary
to create new forms of life—especially new forms of production and
exchange—without examples to follow, when everything must be
constructed from the ground up, when a government that undertakes to
supply even lamp chimneys to every inhabitant demonstrates that it is
absolutely unable to perform this function with all its employees,
however limitless their number may be, when this condition is reached
such a government becomes a nuisance. It develops a bureaucracy so
formidable that the French bureaucratic system, which imposes the
intervention of 40 functionaries to sell a tree blown across a national
road by a storm, becomes a bagatelle in comparison. This is what you,
the workers in the occidental countries, should and must avoid by all
possible means since you have at heart the success of a social
reconstruction. Send your delegates here to see how a social revolution
works in actual life.

“The prodigious amount of constructive labor necessary under a social
revolution cannot be accomplished by a central government, even though
it may be guided by something more substantial than a collection of
Socialist and anarchistic manuals. It requires all the brain power
available and the voluntary collaboration of specialized and local
forces, which alone can attack with success the diversity of the
economic problems in their local aspects. To reject this collaboration
and to rely on the genius of a party dictatorship is to destroy the
independent nucleus, such as the trade unions and the local
co-operative societies by changing them into party bureaucratic organs,
as is actually the case at present. It is the method not to accomplish
the revolution. It is the method to make the realization of the
revolution impossible. And this is the reason why I consider it my duty
to warn you against adopting such methods.

It must be evident to the reader that Russia is at present being ruled
by a system of pyramided majorities, many of which are doubtful popular
majorities. In the name of the Red Party Lenin and Trotsky rule. They
themselves admit it. The dictatorship of the proletariat, and similar
terms are used by them in referring to their highly centralized
control. We Americans are in the habit of overturning state and
national administrations when we think one party has ruled long enough.
Even a popular war president at the pinnacle of his power found the
American people resenting, so it has been positively affirmed, his plea
for the return of his party to continued control in 1918. Can we as a
self-governing people look with anything but wonder at the occasional
American who fails to see that the perpetual rule of one party year
after year which we as Americans have always doubted the wisdom of, is
the very thing that Lenin and Trotsky have fastened upon Russia.
Russia, that wanted to be freed from the Romanoff rule and its
bureaucratic system of fraud, waste, and cruelty, today groans under a
system of despotism which is just as, if not more, wasteful, fraudulent
and cruel.

There are sincere people who might think that because the Bolsheviks
have kept themselves in power, that they must be right. We can not
agree with the reasoning. Even if we knew nothing about the bayonets
and machine guns and firing squads and prisons, we would not agree to
the reasoning that the Bolshevik government is right just because it is
in power. We prefer the reasoning of the greatest man whom America has
produced, Abraham Lincoln, whose words, which we quote, seem to us to
exactly fit the present Russian situation:

“A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations,
and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions
and sentiments, is the only free sovereign of a free people. Whoever
rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity
is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is
wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy
or despotism in some form is all that is left.”—_Abraham Lincoln._

The Chamber of Commerce of the United States has, through Frederic J.
Haskin, Washington, D. C., distributed an admirable pamphlet, temperate
and judicial, which compares the Soviet system with the American
constitutional system. This pamphlet written by Hon. Burton L. French,
of Idaho, concludes his discussion as follows:

“In a government that has been heralded so widely as being the most
profound experiment in democracy that has ever been undertaken, we
would naturally expect that the franchise would be along lines that
would recognize all mankind embraced within the citizenship of the
nation as standing upon an equal footing. The United States has for
many years adhered to that principle. It was that principle largely for
which our fathers died when they established our government, and yet
that principle seems foreign to the way of thinking of Lenin and
Trotsky as they shaped the Russian constitution.

PARALLEL 8—THOSE WHO MAY VOTE


RUSSIA


1. The franchise extends to all over 18 years of age who have acquired
the means of living through manual labor, and also persons engaged in
housekeeping for the former.

2. Soldiers of the army and navy.

3. The former two classes when incapacitated.

UNITED STATES


All men (and women in many states, and soon in all) who are citizens
and over 21 years of age, excepting those disfranchised on account of
illiteracy, mental ailment or criminal record.

“Bear in mind the liberal franchise with which the American Nation
meets her citizens and let me ask you to contemplate the franchise that
is handed out to the people of Russia who are; 18 years of age or over
who have acquired the means of living through labor that is productive
and useful to society and persons engaged in housekeeping in behalf of
the former are entitled to the franchise. Who else? The soldiers of the
army and navy. Who else? Any of the former two classes who have become
incapacitated.

“Now turn to the next sections of the Russian constitution and see who
are disfranchised.

“The merchant is disfranchised; ministers of all denominations are
disfranchised; and then, while condemning the Czar for tyranny, the
soviet constitution solemnly declares that those who were in the employ
of the Czar or had been members of the families of those who had ruled
in Russia for many generations shall be denied suffrage.

“Persons who have income from capital or from property that is theirs
by reason of years of frugality, industry, and thrift are penalized by
being denied the right to vote. They are placed in the class with
criminals, while the profligate, the tramp who works enough to obtain
the means by which he can hold body and soul together, is able to
qualify under the constitution of Russia and is entitled to a vote.
Under that system in the United States the loyal men and women who
bought Liberty Bonds, in their country’s peril would be disfranchised
while the slacker would have the right of suffrage.

“Persons who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it an increase
in profits may not vote or hold office. Under that system the
manufacturer who furnishes employment for a thousand men would be
denied the ballot, while those in his employ could freely exercise the
right of franchise. Under that system the farmer who hires a crew of
men to help him harvest his crop is denied the franchise. Under that
system the dairyman who hires a boy to milk his cows or to deliver milk
is denied the franchise.

“The constitution of Russia adopts the declaration of rights as part of
the organic act to the extent that changes have not been made, by the
constitution. Examine them—the constitution and the declaration of
rights—we find other most astounding doctrines in the soviet
fundamental law. I shall not discuss but merely mention a few of them.
They do not pertain so much to the structure of government as they do
to the economic and social conditions surrounding the people under the
soviet system:

“_First._ Private ownership of land is abolished. (No compensation,
open or secret, is paid to the former owner.)

“_Second._ Civil marriage alone is legal. By act of the All-Russian
Congress of Soviets a marriage may be accomplished by the contracting
parties declaring the fact orally, or by writing to the department of
registry of marriage. Divorce is granted by petition of both or either
party upon proof alone that divorce is desired.

“_Third._ The teaching of religious doctrines is forbidden in private
schools, as well as in schools that are public.

“_Fourth._ No church or religious society has the right to own
property. (The soviet leaders boldly proclaim the home and the church
as the enemies of their system, and from the foregoing it would seem
that they are trying to destroy them.)

“_Fifth._ Under the general authority granted to the soviets by the
constitution inheritance of property by law or will has been abolished.

“These amazing features of the constitution and laws enacted under the
constitution speak more eloquently than any words that could be used to
amplify them in portraying the hideousness of a system of government
that, if permitted to continue, must inevitably crush out the home in
large part by the flippancy with which marriage and divorce are
regarded, by the refusal of permitting the land to be held in private
ownership, and by refusing the parent the right at death to pass on to
his wife or to his children the fruits of years of toil.

“What, then, is my arraignment of sovietism according to the soviet
constitution?

“1. The people have no direct vote or voice in government, except the
farmers in their local rural soviets and the city dwellers in their
urban soviets.

“2. The rural, county, provincial, regional, and All-Russian soviets
are elected indirectly, and the people have no direct vote in the
election.

“3. The people have no voice in the election of executive officers of
the highest or lowest degrees.

“4. There is no mention of independent judicial officers in the
constitution.

“5. The people are very largely disfranchised.

“6. The farmer of Russia is discriminated against.

“7. The system raises class against class; the voters vote by trade and
craft groups instead of on the basis of thought units.

“8. The system strikes a blow at the church and the home.

“9. The system is pyramidal and means highly centralized and autocratic
power.

“The soviet system of government can not be defended. It is against the
interests of the very men for whom it is supposed to have been
established—the laboring man. He is the man most of all who must suffer
under any kind of government or system that is wrong. He is the man who
would be out of bread within the shortest time. He is the man whose
family would be destitute of clothing in the shortest time. He is the
man whose family will suffer through disease, famine, and pestilence in
the shortest time.

“As it is against the best interest of the laboring man, so it is
against the best interest of all the people, and, as a matter of fact,
the overwhelming mass of people of this country and all countries is
made up of laboring people.

“Finally, the soviet government, as foreshadowed in its constitution,
is obviously unjust, unfair and discriminatory. This fact will appear
at once to any mind trained to the American manner of thought, which
takes the trouble to investigate sovietism, and whatever tendency there
may be to approve will disappear with better understanding.”

“Men in high places who have had opportunity to get the facts,” says
Mr. Burton, “give their impressions of the experiment:

“WOODROW WILSON, _President of the United States_.—‘There is a closer
monopoly of power in Moscow and Petrograd than there ever was in
Berlin.’

“SAMUEL GOMPERS, _President of the American Federation of Labor_.—
‘Bolshevism is as great an attempt to disrupt the trade unions as it is
to overturn the government of the United States. It means the decadence
or perversion of the civilization of our time. To me, the story of the
desperate Samson who pulled the temple down on his head is an example
of what is meant by bolshevism.’

“MORRIS HILLQUIT, _International Secretary of the Socialist
Party_.—‘The Socialists of the United States would have no hesitancy
whatsoever in joining forces with the rest of their countrymen to repel
the Bolsheviki who would try to invade our country and force a form of
government upon our people which our people were not ready for, and did
not desire.’

“HERBERT HOOVER, _Former United States Food Administrator_.—‘The United
States has been for one hundred and fifty years steadily developing a
social philosophy of its own. This philosophy has stood this test in
the fire of common sense. We have a willingness to abide by the will of
the majority. For all I know it may be necessary to have revolutions in
some places in Europe in order to bring about these things, but it does
not follow that such philosophies have any place with us.’

“WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, _Former President of the United States_.—‘I do
not fear bolshevism in this country. I do not mean that in congested
centers foreigners and agitators will not have influence. But Americans
as a whole have a deep love for America. It is a vital love that the
sensational appeals of bolshevists and agitators cannot weaken’.”

A yellowed and tattered cartoon that hung on a Company bulletin board
at 466 when the snow was slipping away.

“America Looks Mighty. Good After You’ve Seen Europe” is the title.

On the right stands the Bolshevik orator on a soap box. His satchel
bursting out with propaganda and pamphlets on Bolshevism from Europe.
In his hand he holds a pamphlet that has a message for the returning
doughboys. The agitator’s hair and whiskers bristle with hatred and
envy. His yellow teeth look hideous between his snarling lips. And he
points a long skinny finger for the doughboy to see his message, which
is, “Down with America, it’s all Wrong.” So much for the man who came
from Europe to wreck America.

Now look at the Man Who Went to Europe to Save America and is now back
on the west side of the Statue of Liberty. Does he look interested in
Bolshevism Or downhearted over America? No. In his figure a manful
contrast to the scraggly agitator. In his face no hate, no malice. He
does not even hate the self-deluded agitator.

His clean-brushed teeth are exposed by a good-humored smile of
assurance and confidence. He does not extend a fist but he waves off
the fool Bolshevik orator with a good-natured but nevertheless final
answer. And here it is: “_Go on—Take That Stuff Back to Where You Got
it—I Wouldn’t Trade a Log Hut on a Swamp in America for the Whole of
Europe!_”

We are thinking that the cartoon just about says it for all returned
soldiers from North Russia. We want nothing to do with the Bolo
agitator in this country who would make another Russia of the United
States. We let them blow off steam, are patient with their vagaries,
are willing to give every man a fair hearing if he has a grievance, but
we don’t fall for their wild ideas about tearing things up by the
roots.

[Illustration: Soldier standing erect on the left says “Go on—Take
That Stuff Back to Where You Got it—I Wouldn’t Trade a Log Hut on a
Swamp in America for the Whole of Europe!”
Orator is holding a paper saying “Down with America! It’s all wrong!”
Papers in orator’s sack: “Bolshevism from Europe” “East side of New
York propaganda.”
AMERICA LOOKS MIGHTY GOOD AFTER YOU’VE SEEN EUROPE.
—COLUMBUS EVENING DISPATCH.]




XXXIV
Y. M. C. A. AND Y. W. C. A. WITH TROOPS


Justice Where Justice Is Due—Summary Of Work Of “Y” Men—“Y” Women And
Hostess House—Seen Near Front—Devoted Women Stay In Russia When We
Leave—Christian Associations Point Way To Help Russia.


The editors have felt that “justice where justice is due” demands a few
pages in this volume about the service of our Y. M. C. A. with us in
North Russia. We know that there is a great deal of bitterness against
the “Y.” Much of it was engendered by the few selfish and crooked and
cowardly men who crept into the “Y” service, and the really great
service of the Y. M. C. A. is badly discounted and its war record sadly
sullied. We know that here and there in North Russia a “Y” man failed
to “measure up” but we know that on the whole our Y. M. C. A. in North
Russia with us, did great service.

To get a fair and succinct story, we wrote to Mr. Crawford Wheeler,
whose statement follows. He was the Chief Secretary in the North Russia
area. The first paragraph is really a letter of transmissal, but we
approve its sentiment and commend its manly straightforwardness to our
comrades and the general reader:

“This is written purely from memory. I haven’t a scrap of material at
hand and I have hurried in order that you might have the stuff
promptly. Please indicate, in case you use this material, that it is
not based on records,—for I cannot vouch for all the figures. However,
in the main, the outline is right. I wish the “Y” might have a really
good chapter in your book, for I always have felt, with many of the
other boys in our service, that we are condemned back here for the sins
of others. If the “Y” in North Russia was not a fairly effective
organization which went right to the front and stayed there, then a lot
of officers and men in the 339th poured slush in my ears. Were it not
for the rather unfortunate place which a “Y” man occupies back here,
none of us would seek even an iota of praise, for in comparison with
the rest of you, we deserve none; but I’m sure you understand the
circumstances which impel me to insert the foregoing plea, ‘Justice
where justice is due.’ That’s all.

“The Y. M. C. A. shared the lot of the American North Russian
Expeditionary Force as an isolated fighting command from the day it
landed until the last soldier left Archangel. It shared in the
successes and the failures of the expedition. It contributed something
now and then to the welfare and comfort and even to the lives of the
American and Allied troops both at the front and in the base camps. It
made a record which only the testimony of those who were part of the
expedition is qualified to estimate.

“When the American soldiers of the 339th Infantry landed in Archangel
on September 5th, 1918, they found a “Y” in town ahead of them. The day
after the port was captured by allied forces early in August, Allen
Craig of the American Y. M. C. A. had secured a spacious building in
the heart of the city for use as a “Y” hut. With very little equipment
he managed to set up a cocoa and biscuit stand and a reading and
writing room and the hall of the building was opened for band concerts
and athletic nights. It really was little more than a barn until the
arrival of secretaries and supplies in October made improvements
possible.

“A party of ten secretaries, who had spent the previous year in Central
Russia under the Bolshevik regime, landed in the first week of October,
having come around from Sweden and Norway. Two weeks later another ten
secretaries arrived from the same starting point. These men formed the
nucleus of the “Y” personnel which was to serve the American troops
through the winter and spring. They were sent to points at the front
immediately after their arrival, and more than a few doughboys will
remember the first trip of the big railroad car to the front south of
Obozerskaya, with Frank Olmstead in charge.

“The British Y. M. C. A. sent a party of twenty-five secretaries to
Archangel early in the fall and considerations of practical policy made
it advisable to combine operations under the title of the Allied Y. M.
C. A. To the credit of the British secretaries, it must be said that
they turned over all their supplies to the American management. These
supplies constituted practically all the stock of biscuit and canteen
products used until Christmas time, and British secretaries took their
places under the direction of the American headquarters.

“The “Y” was fortunate to have secured several trucks and Ford cars in
a shipment before the Allied landing, and they became part of the
expeditionary transport system at once. The Supply Company of the 339th
used one truck, and the British transport staff borrowed the other one.
Major Ely, Quartermaster of the American forces, got one of the Fords,
and another one went to the American Red Cross.

“By the middle of November the “Y” had secretaries on the river fronts
near Seletskoe and Beresnik at the railroad front and with the Pinega
detachment. Supplies dribbled through to them in pitifully small
amounts, usually half of the stuff stolen before it reached the front.
The British N. A. B. C. sold considerable quantities of biscuit and
cigarettes to the “Y,” both at the front bases and from the Archangel
depot. On the railroad front a really respectable service was
maintained, because transport was not so difficult. One secretary made
the trip around the blockhouses and outposts daily with a couple of
packsacks filled with gum, candy and cigarettes, which were distributed
as generously as the small capacity of the sacks permitted. Two cars
equipped with tables for reading and writing and with a big cocoa urn
were stationed at Verst 455, where the headquarters train and reserve
units stood. These cars were moved to points north and south on the
line twice weekly for small detachments to get their ration of biscuit
and sweets, small as it was.


[Illustration: RED CROSS PHOTO
_Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_“Come and Get It” at Verst 455._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Doughboys Drubbed Sailors.
Brig. Gen. Richardson and Adm. McMully at Army-Navy Game._]


[Illustration: WAGNER
_Yank and Scot Guarding Prisoners._]


“Another row of cars was maintained at Obozerskaya, where the first
outpost entertainment hut was opened about Christmas time with a
program of moving pictures, athletic stunts and feeds. Shipments were
made from this base to the secretaries at Seletskoe, who did their best
to make the winter less monotonous and miserable for the second
battalion men stationed on that front. The “Y” opened a hut in Pinega
in early November, and by the middle of December had established a
point for the “H” Company men west of Emtsa on, the Onega River line.

“Meanwhile, the Central “Y” hut at Archangel had been remodelled and
fully equipped for handling large crowds, and it served several hundred
allied soldiers daily. Whenever a company of Americans came in from the
front, a special night was arranged for them to have a program in the
theatre hall, with movies, songs, stunts and eats on the bill. A series
of basketball games was carried on between the base unit companies and
other commands which were in Archangel for a week or more awaiting
transfer to another point. Huts were opened in the Smolny base camp at
Solombola, both of them barely large enough to afford room for a cocoa
and biscuit counter, a piano, and a reading room. Shortly after
Christmas another “Y” station was put in commission across the river at
the Preestin railroad terminal, where detachments and individuals often
endured a long wait in the cold or arrived chilled to the bone from a
trip on the heatless cars.

“About Christmas time twenty-five more secretaries arrived from the
American Y. M. C. A. headquarters in England, and with this addition to
personnel, it was possible to make headquarters something more than a
table and a telephone. A fairly efficient supply and office staff was
built up and with the landing of two or three belated cargoes, “Y” folk
began to see a rosier period ahead. But transport difficulties made it
almost impossible to get stuff moved to the front, where the men needed
it most. ‘When there are neither guns nor ammunition enough,’ said the
British headquarters, ‘how can we afford to take sleds for sending up
biscuits and cigarettes?’

“Nevertheless, by hook or crook, several convoys were pushed through to
Bereznik, each time reviving the hopes of the men in the outposts, who
thought at last they might get some regular service. Tom Cotton and
“Husky” Merrill, two football stars from Dartmouth, were in charge of
the “Y” points on the Dvina advanced front, and whatever success the
“Y” attained in that vicinity belongs primarily to their credit. They
ended an eventful career in the spring of 1919 by getting captured when
the Bolsheviks and Russian mutineers staged a _coup d’etat_ at Toulgas
and captured the village. Their escape was more a matter of luck than
of planning. They paddled down the river in a boat. In their hasty exit
from the village, they left behind all their personal belongings.

“At Shenkursk the “Y” hut and stock also fell to the Bolos, but the
secretaries got out with the troops. The column which made the terrible
retreat from Shenkursk found the “Y” waiting for it at Shegovari, with
hot cocoa and biscuit. Despite the congested transport, the service on
this line was kept up all through the winter and spring, “Dad”
Albertson, “Ken” Hollinshead and Brackett Lewis making themselves
mighty effective in their service to the men on this sector. Albertson
has written a book, “_Fighting Without a War_,” which embodies his
experiences and observations with the doughboys at the front.

“One of the best pieces of service performed by the “Y” during the
whole campaign was carried on at the time of the fierce Bolshevik drive
for Obozerskaya from the west in February and March. This drive cost
the “Y” two of its best secretaries, but service was maintained without
a break from the first day until the end when the Bolos retreated.
Merle Arnold was in the village running a “Y” post when the attack
occurred and was captured along with six American soldiers. Bryant
Ryall, who ran the “Y” tent in the woods at Verst 18, next fell a
victim to the Bolos, while on the way to Obozerskaya for more supplies.
Olmstead, who came from 455 to help in this desperate place, remained,
and as a result of his work at this front, received the French _Croix
de Guerre_ and the Russian St. George Cross.

“Other decorations were awarded to Ernest Rand on the Pinega sector and
to “Dad” Albertson on the Dvina front, both of them receiving the St.
George Cross. The British military medal was to have been given
Albertson, but technicalities made it impossible. Several other
secretaries were mentioned in despatches by the American and British
commands, all of them for service at the fighting front. It was the
policy of the “Y” from the start to send the best men to the front,
rush the best supplies to the front, give the men from the front the
best service while at the base camps, and do it without thought of
payment. It is a fact that the Archangel ‘show’ cost the “Y” more per
capita served than any other piece of front service rendered overseas.
The heavy cost was accentuated by the immense loss to supplies in the
supply ships, warehouses and cars or convoys, from theft and breakage
and freezing. The totals of the business done by the “Y” up in the
Russian Arctic area are astounding, when the difficulties of transport
are considered More than $1,000,000 worth of supplies were received and
distributed before the American troops left Archangel. This included
twenty-five motion picture outfits, everyone of which was in use by
late spring, a million and a half feet of film, fairly large shipments
of athletic goods, baseball equipment and phonographs, and thousands of
books and magazines, which filled a most important part in the program.
Until early spring the “Y” bought most of its canteen supplies from the
British N. A. C. B., through a credit established in London. These
stocks were sold to the “Y” virtually at the British retail prices and
were resold at the same figures, with a resulting loss to the “Y,” as
the loss and damage mounted up to forty per cent at times. In May,
several shipments of American canteen stocks arrived at Archangel,
which enabled the secretaries to cut loose the strings on ‘ration
plans’ before the troops started home.

“A hut was opened at the embarkation point, Economia, in the early
spring, and troops quartered there had a complete red triangle service
ready for them when sailing time arrived. A secretary or two went with
each transport, equipped with a small stock of sweets and cigarettes to
distribute on the voyage. Most of the American secretaries did not
leave, however, until after the troops departed. Some of them remained
until the closing act of the show in August. Two more were captured
when the Bolos staged their mutiny at Onega. All these men eventually
were released from captivity in Moscow and reached America safely.

“The Y. M. C. A. received hearty co-operation from the American Red
Cross, from the American Embassy, and from the American headquarters
units. Sugar and cocoa were turned over frequently by the Red Cross
when the “Y” ran completely out of stocks and an unstinted use of Red
Cross facilities was open at all times to the “Y” men. The embassy and
consulate transmitted the “Y” cables through their offices to England
and America and co-operated with urgent pleas for aid at times when
such pleas were essential to the adoption of policies to better the “Y”
service. The headquarters of the 339th Infantry and the 310th Engineers
responded to every reasonable request made by the “Y” for assignments
of helpers, huts or other facilities in the different areas where work
was carried on. The naval command showed special courtesies in
forwarding supplies on cruisers and despatch boats from England and
Murmansk and in permitting the “Y” men to travel on their ships.

“Altogether more than sixty American secretaries took part in the North
Russian show. About eight or ten of them, however, were on the Murmansk
line, and were said by the American command to have done good work with
the engineers and sailors in that area. Whatever record the American
“Y” made in North Russia, it can in truth be said of the secretarial
force that with few exceptions they gave the best that was in them and
they never felt satisfied with their work. The service which Olmstead
and Cotton and Arnold and Albertson and Beekman and a dozen others
rendered, ranks with the best work done by the Y. M. C. A. men in any
part of the world. Correspondents from the front in France and members
of the American command who arrived late in the day, expressed their
surprise and gratification at the spirit which animated the “Y” workers
up in the Russian Arctic region. But the best test is the record which
lives in the hearts of American soldiers, and on their fairminded
testimony the “Y” men wish to secure their verdict for whatever they
deserve for their service in North Russia with the American soldiers
fighting the Bolsheviki.”

TO OUR Y. W. C. A. AMERICAN GIRLS


In that old school reader of ours we used to read with wet eyes and
tight throat the story of the soldier who lay dying at Bingen on the
Rhine and told his buddie to tell his sister to be kind to all the
comrades. How he yearned for the touch of his mother’s or sister’s hand
in that last hour, how the voice of woman and her liquid eye of love
could soothe his dying moments. And the veterans of the World War now
understand that poetic sentiment better than they did when as
barefooted boys they tried to conceal their emotions behind the covers
of the book, for in the unlovely grime and grind of war the soldier
came to long for the sight of his own women kind. They will now miss no
opportunity to sing the praises of their war time friends, the
Salvation Army Lassies and the girls of the Y. W. C. A.

In North Russia we were out of luck in the lack of Salvation Army
Lassies enough to reach around to our front, but in that isolated war
area we were fortunate to receive several representatives of the
American Y. W. C. A. Some were girls who had already been in Russia for
several years in the regular mission work among the Russian people, and
two of them we hasten to add right here, were brave enough to stay
behind when we cut loose from the country. Miss Dunham and Miss Taylor
were to turn back into the interior of the country and seek to help the
pitiful people of Russia. We take our hats off to them.

What doughboy will forget the first sight he caught of an American “Y”
girl in North Russia? He gave her his eyes and ears and his heart all
in a minute. Was he in the hospital? Her smile was a memory for days
afterward. If a convalescent who could dance, the touch of her arm and
hand and the happy swing of the steps swayed him into forgetfulness of
the pain of his wounds. If he were off outpost duty on a sector near
the front line and seeking sweets at a Y. M. C. A. his sweets were
doubled in value to him as he took them from the hand of the “Y” girl
behind the counter. Or at church service in Archangel her voice added a
heavenly note to the hymn. In the Hostess House, he watched her pass
among the men showering graciousness and pleasantries upon the whole
lonesome lot of doughboys. One of the boys wrote a little poem for _The
American Sentinel_ which may be introduced here in prose garb a la Walt
Mason.

“There’s a place in old Archangel,
That we never will forget,
And of all the cozy places,
It’s the soldier’s one best bet.
It’s the place where lonely Sammies
Hit the trail for on the run,
There they serve you cake and coffee,
’Till the cake and coffee’s done.
And they know that after eating,
There’s another pleasure yet,—
So to show how they are thoughtful,
They include a cigarette.
There’s a place back in the corner,
Where you get your clothing checked,
And the place is yours, They tell you,
—well—Or words to that effect.
There are magazines a-plenty,
From the good old U. S. A.
There’s a cheery home-like welcome
for you any time of day.
Will we, can we e’er forget them,
In the future golden years,
And the kindness that was rendered,
By these Lady Volunteers?
Just as soon as work is finished,
Don’t you brush your hair and blouse,
And go double-double timing,
To the cordial Hostess House?”


One of the pretty weddings in Archangel that winter was that celebrated
by the boys when Miss Childs became home-maker for Bryant Ryal, the “Y”
man who was later taken prisoner by the Bolsheviki. She was within
twelve miles of him the day he was captured. Doughboys were quick to
offer her comforting assurances that he would be treated well because
American “Y” men had done so much in Russia for the Russian soldiers
before the Bolshevik debacle. And when they heard that he was actually
on his way to Moscow with fair chance of liberation, they crowded the
_taplooska_ Ryal home and made it shine radiantly with their
congratulations.

But it was not the institutional service such as the Hostess House or
the Huts or the box car canteen, such as it was, which endeared the “Y”
girls to the doughboys as a lot. It was the genuine womanly
friendliness of those girls.

The writer will never forget the scene at Archangel when the American
soldiers left for Economia where the ship was to take them to America.
Genuine were the affectionate farewells of the people—men, women and
children; and genuine were the responses of the soldiers to those
pitiable people. Our Miss Dickerson, of the Y. W. C. A. Hostess House,
was surrounded by a tearful group of Russian High School girls who had
been receiving instruction in health, sanitation and other social
betterments and catching the American Young Women’s Christian
Association vision of usefulness to the sick, ignorant and unhappy ones
of the community. Around her they gathered, a beautiful picture of
feminine grief in its sweet purity of girlish tears, and at the same
time a beautiful picture of promising hope for the future of Russia
when all of that long-suffering people may be reached by our tactful
Christian women.

In this connection now I think of the conversation with our Miss Taylor
the last Sunday we were in Economia. She and Miss Dunham were staying
on in Archangel hoping to get permission to go into the interior of the
country again. And it is reported that they did. She said to me:
“Wherever you can, back home among Christian people, tell them that
these poor people here in Russia have had their religious life so torn
up by this strife that now they long for teachers to come and help them
to regain a religious expression.”

A prominent worker among the College Y. M. C. A.’s in America, “Ken”
Hollinshead, who was a “Y” secretary far up on the Dvina River in the
long, cold, desperate winter, also caught the vision of the needs of
the Russian people who had been Rasputinized and Leninized out of the
faith of their fathers and were pitifully like sheep without a
shepherd. He remarked to the writer that when the Bolshevist nightmare
is over in Russia, he would like to go back over there and help them to
revive what was vital and essential in their old faith and to improve
it by showing them the American way of combining cleanliness with
godliness, education with creed-holding, work with piety.

Can the Russians be educated? The soldiers know that many a veteran
comrade of theirs in the war was an Americanized citizen. He had in a
very few years in America gained a fine education. The general reader
of this page may look about him and discover examples for himself. Last
winter in a little church in Michigan the writer found the people
subscribing to the support of a citizen of the city who, a Russian by
birth, came to this country to find work and opportunity. He was drawn
into the so-called mission church in the foreign settlement of the
city, learned to speak and read English, caught a desire for education,
is well-educated and now with his American bride goes to Russia on a
Christian mission, to labor for the improvement of his own nation. He
is to be supported by that little congregation of American people who
have a vision of the kind of help Russia needs from our people.

Another story may be told. When the writer saw her first in Russia, she
was the centre of interest on the little community entertainment hall
dance floor. She had the manner of a lady trying to make everyone at
ease. American soldiers and Russian soldiers and civil populace had
gathered at the hall for a long program—a Russian drama, soldier
stunts, a raffle, a dance which consisted of simple ballet and folk
dances. The proceeds of the entertainment were to go toward furnishing
bed linen, etc., for the Red Cross Hospital being organized by the
school superintendent and his friends for the service of many wounded
men who were falling in the defense of their area.

She was trim of figure and animated of countenance. Her hair was
dressed as American women attractively do theirs. Her costume was
dainty and her feet shod in English or American shoes. We could not
understand a word of her Russian tongue but were charmed by its
friendly and well-mannered modulations. We made inquiries about her.
She was the wife of a man who, till the Bolsheviki drove the
“intelligenza” out, had been a professor in an agricultural school of a
high order. Now they were far north, seeking safety in their old
peasant city and she was doing stenographer duty in the county
government office.

We often mused upon the transformation. Only a few years before she had
been as one of the countless peasant girls of the dull-faced,
ill-dressed, red-handed, coarse-voiced type which we had seen
everywhere with tools and implements of drudgery, never with things of
refinement, except, perhaps, when we had seen them spinning or weaving.
And here before us was one who had come out from among them, a sight
for weary eyes and a gladness to heavy ears. How had she accomplished
the metamorphosis? The school had done it, or rather helped her to the
opportunity to rise. She had come to the city-village high school and
completed the course and then with her ability to patter the keys of a
Russian typewriter’s thirty-six lettered keyboard, had travelled from
Archangel to Moscow, to Petrograd, to Paris, to complete her education.
And she told the writer one time that she regretted she had not gone to
London and New York before she married the young Russian college
professor.

The school,—the common school and the high school—therein lies the hope
of Russia. What that woman has done, has been done by many another
ambitious Russian girl and will be done by many girls of Russia.
Russian boys and girls if given the advantages of the public school
will develop the Russian nation.




XXXV
“DOBRA” CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL


Description Of Hospital Building—Grateful Memories—Summary Of Medical
And Surgical Cases—Feeding The Convalescents—Care And
Entertainment—Captain Greenleaf Fine Manager.


The American Convalescent Hospital at Archangel, Russia (American
Expeditionary Forces, North Russia), was opened October 1, 1918, in a
building formerly used as a Naval School of Merchant Sailors. A two and
one-half story building, facing the Dvina River and surrounded by about
two acres of land, over one-half of which was covered with an
attractive growth of white birch trees. The entire building, with the
exception of one room, Chief Surgeon’s Office, and two smaller rooms,
for personnel of the Chief Surgeon’s Office and the Convalescent
Hospital, was devoted to the American convalescent patients and their
care. The half story, eighty-five by eighty-five feet square, over the
main building, was used for drying clothes and as a store room. The
building proper was of wood construction, with two wings (one story)
constructed with 24-inch brick and plaster walls. The floors were wood,
the walls smoothly plastered and the general appearance, inside and
outside, attractive.

In addition to the inside latrines, an outside latrine with five seats
and a urinal was built by our men. This latrine contained a heater.

Nearly all the windows, throughout the building, were double sash and
glass and could be opened for sufficient air, dependent upon the
outside temperature. The first floor ceilings were fourteen feet in
height, those on the second floor were twelve feet high. No patient had
less than six hundred cubic feet of air space.

Large brick stoves, one in the smaller and two in the larger rooms,
heavily constructed and lined with fire brick, heated the building. A
wood fire was built in these stoves twice daily, with sufficient heat
being thrown off to produce a comfortable, uniform temperature at all
times. The building was lighted by electricity. The entire building was
rewired by American electricians and extra lights placed as necessary.
The beds were wooden frame with heavy canvas support. These beds were
made by American carpenters. Each patient was supplied with five
blankets.

During the first four months it was necessary for the men to use a
near-by Russian bath-house for bathing. This was done weekly and a
check kept upon the patients. February 1st, 1919, a wing was completed
with a Thresh Disinfector (for blankets and clothing), a wash room and
three showers. A large boiler furnished hot water at all hours. The
construction of this building was begun November 1st, 1918, but
inability to obtain a boiler and plumbing materials deferred its
completion. Three women were employed for washing and ironing, and
clean clothing was available at all times.

Water buckets were located on shelves in accessible places throughout
the building for use in case of fire. Each floor had a hose attachment.
Two fires from overheated stoves were successfully extinguished without
injury to patients or material damage to the building. The main floors
were scrubbed daily with a two per cent creosole solution, the entire
floor space every other day. All rooms contained sufficient box
cuspidors filled with sawdust.

The kitchen contained a large brick stove and ovens and this, in
conjunction with a smaller stove on the second floor, could be utilized
to prepare food for three hundred men. Bartering with the Russians was
permitted. By this means, as well as comforts supplied by the American
Red Cross, such as cocoa, chocolate, raisins, condensed milk, honey,
sugar, fruit (dried and canned), oatmeal, corn meal, rice, dates and
egg powder, a well balanced diet was maintained throughout the winter.
Semi-monthly reports of all exchanges, by bartering, were forwarded to
Headquarters. The usual mess kits and mess line were employed. The
large dining and recreation room had sufficient tables and benches to
seat all patients. Boiled drinking water was accessible at all times.
During the eight months the Hospital has been operating, over 3,872
pounds of grease, 2,138 pounds of bones and 8,460 pounds of broken and
stale bread have been bartered with Russian peasants. In return,
besides eggs, fish, veal and other vegetables over 32,600 pounds (902
poods) of potatoes have been received. Accompanying this report is a
statement _(a)_ of British rations (one week issue), _(b) _a statement
of food barter (17 days) and _(c)_ the menu for one week.

The large room, facing the river, twenty-eight feet by sixty-one feet,
was available for mess hall, recreation and entertainments. The space,
twenty-eight feet by twenty-one feet, was separated by a projecting
wall and pillars and contained a victrola and records, a piano, a
library (one hundred fifty books furnished by the American Red Cross,
exchanged at intervals), a magazine rack, reading table, machine guns
and rack, a bulletin board and several comfortable chairs made by
convalescents. A portable stage for entertainments was placed in this
space when required. A complete set of scenery with flies and curtains
was presented by the American Red Cross. In the center of the room a
regulation boxing ring could be strung, the benches and tables being so
arranged as to form an amphitheatre. The entire room could be cleared
for dancing. At one end was a movie screen and in the adjoining room a
No. 6 Powers movie machine which was obtained from the American Y. M.
C. A. and installed December 5th, 1918.

During the winter the following entertainments were given:

Vaudeville      5 Boxing exhibitions      4 Lectures      4 Minstrel
shows      2 Dances      10 Musical entertainments      6 Russian      3
English      2 Band concert      1 Kangaroo court      1

A twelve-piece orchestra from the 339th Infantry band furnished music
for the dances as well as occasionally during Sunday dinners. Each
Wednesday and Sunday nights moving pictures were shown. These included
a number of war films showing operations on the Western Front and
productions of Fairbanks, Farnum, Billy Burke, Eltinge, Hart, Mary
Pickford, Kerrigan, Arbuckle, Bunny and Chaplin. During May baseballs,
gloves and bats have been supplied by the American Y. M. C. A. Sunday
afternoons religious services were conducted by chaplains of the
American Force.

Canteen supplies, consisting of chocolate, stick candy, gum, cigars,
cigarettes, smoking and chewing tobacco, toilet soap, tooth paste,
canned fruits (pineapple, pears, cherries, apricots, peaches) and
canned vegetables could be purchased from the Supply Company, 339th
Infantry. These supplies were drawn on the first of each month and
furnished the men at cost.

The personnel consisted of Capt. C. A. Greenleaf, Commanding Officer,
Medical Corps; an officer from the Supply Company, 339th Infantry
(charge of equipment); two Sergeants, Medical Corps; three Privates,
Medical Corps. With these exceptions all the details required for the
care and maintenance of the hospital were furnished by men selected
from the convalescent patients.

It took seventy-six men every day for the various kitchen, cleaning,
clerical and guard details and in addition other details from
convalescent patients were made as follows: Six patrols of ten men
each, each patrol in charge of a non-commissioned officer and three
sections of machine gunners were always prepared for an emergency.
Guards were furnished for Headquarters building. Two type-setters and
one proof-reader reported for work, daily, at the office of _The
American Sentinel_ (a weekly publication for the American troops).
Typists, stenographers and clerks were furnished different departments
at Headquarters as required. Orderlies, kitchen police and cooks were
furnished to the American Red Cross Hospital and helpers to American
Red Cross Headquarters. This was light work always which was conducive
to the convalescence of the men.

Captain Greenleaf always managed to care for all patients. On January
18th, 1919, a ward was opened at Olga Barracks which accommodated
twenty-five patients. These patients were rationed by Headquarters
Company and reported for sick call at the infirmary located in the same
building.

On March 11th, 1919, an Annex was opened at Smolny Barracks with eighty
beds. For this purpose a barracks formerly occupied by enlisted men was
remodelled. New floors were put in, the entire building sheathed on the
inside, rooms constructed for office and sick call and a kitchen in
which a new stove and ovens were built. This Annex was operated from
the Convalescent Hospital, one Sergeant, Medical Corps, and two
Privates, Medical Corps, were detailed to this building. Details from
the patients operated the mess and took care of the building. Supplies
were sent daily from the hospital to the Annex and the mess was of the
same character.

On April 28th, 1919, three tents were erected in the yard of the
Hospital. Plank floors were built, elevated on logs and these
accommodated thirty-six patients. On April 28th, 1919, with the
Hospital, Annex and tents two hundred eight-two patients could be
accommodated. This number represents the maximum Convalescent Hospital
capacity, during its existence and was sufficient for the requirements
of the American Forces. The ward at Olga Barracks was only used for a
few weeks.

During April eighty-two patients were discharged from the Convalescent
Hospital and sent to Smolny Barracks for “Temporary Light Duty at
Base.”

The Convalescent Hospital was the best place, bar none, in Russia, to
eat in winter of 1918-19. The commanding officer was fortunate to have
as a patient the mess sergeant of Company “D.” That resourceful
doughboy took the rations issued by the British and by systematic
bartering with the natives he built up a famous mess. Below is a
verbatim extract from Captain Greenleaf’s report.

BARTER RETURN _Period: 17 days—from March 27th, 1919, to April 14th.
1919_

COMMODITIES BARTERED

Bread, stale       372 lbs. Bread, pieces of       403
Grease       365 lbs. Bones        331 lbs. Beans        425 lbs. Peas       
156 lbs. Rice        746 lbs. Dates        25 lbs. Bacon        678 lbs. Lard
       960 lbs. Sugar        274 lbs. Jam       56 lbs. Pea Soup        318
pkgs. Limejuice        3 cases

COMMODITIES RECEIVED IN RETURN

Potatoes       5281 lbs. Carrots       133 lbs. Cabbage        339.5 lbs.
Turnips       851 lbs. Onions        200 lbs. Veal       938 lbs. Liver
      76.5 lbs. Eggs       198

The menu for the week of April 20-26, inclusive, was as follows:

APRIL 20—SUNDAY BREAKFAST Boiled eggs Fried bacon Oatmeal and milk
Bread and butter Coffee.

DINNER Roast veal and gravy Mashed potatoes Sage dressing Stewed
tomatoes Apple pie Mixed pickles Bread and butter Coffee.

SUPPER Roast beef Potato salad Lemon cake Bread and jam Cocoa.

APRIL 21—MONDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Wheatcakes and syrup Bread and
jam Coffee.

DINNER Steaks Creamed potatoes Cabbage, fried Bread and butter Peach
pudding Coffee.

SUPPER Beef stew Fried cakes Bread and butter Tea.

APRIL 22—TUESDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Bread and jam Coffee.

DINNER Roast mutton Baked potatoes Mashed turnips Bread and butter
Chocolate pudding Coffee.

SUPPER Hamburger steak Boiled potatoes Stewed dates Bread and butter
Coffee.

APRIL 23—WEDNESDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Bread and jam Coffee.

DINNER Roast beef Mashed potatoes Creamed peas Bread and butter Bread
pudding Coffee.

SUPPER Mutton chops Boiled potatoes Bread and butter Chocolate cake
Coffee.

APRIL 24—THURSDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Bread and jam Coffee.

DINNER Roast beef Escalloped potatoes Baked turnips Bread and butter
Rice pudding Coffee.

SUPPER Mutton stew Rolls and jam Tea.

APRIL 25—FRIDAY

BREAKFAST Oatmeal and milk Fried bacon Wheatcakes and syrup Bread and
jam Coffee.

DINNER Steaks Boiled potatoes Creamed onions Bread and butter Fruit
pudding, cherry Coffee.

SUPPER Hamburger steak Boiled potatoes Stewed apricots Bread and butter
Coffee.

APRIL 26—SATURDAY

BREAKFAST Rice and milk Fried bacon Bread and butter Coffee.

DINNER Roast beef Creamed potatoes Baked beans Bread and butter
Chocolate pudding Coffee.

SUPPER Vegetable stew Stewed prunes Bread and butter Tea.

To the doughboy, who that week in April was eating his bully and
hardtack in the forest at Kurgomin or Khalmogora or Bolsheozerki or
Chekuevo or Verst 448, this menu seems like a fairy tale, but he knows
that the boys who had fought on the line and fallen before Bolo fire or
fallen ill with the hardship strain, were entitled to every dainty and
luxury that was afforded by the _dobra_ convalescent hospital.

From October 1st, 1918, to June 12th, 1919, this American Convalescent
Hospital served eleven hundred and eighty out of the fifty-five hundred
Americans of the expeditionary force. From Captain Greenleaf’s official
report the following facts of interest are presented.

Of infectious and epidemic diseases there were two hundred and
forty-six cases of which four were mumps, one hundred and sixty-seven
were influenza and the remainder complications which resulted from
influenza. The pneumonia cases developed early. One man reported from
guard duty, developed a rapidly involving pneumonia which soon became
general and culminated in death within twenty-four hours. The best
results followed the use of Dovers powder and quinine,—alternation two
and one-half grains of Dovers with five grains of quinine every two
hours, five to ten grains of Dovers being given at bedtime.
Expectorants were given as required. Very little stimulation was
necessary. Many of these cases, after the acute symptoms subsided,
showed a persistent tachycardia which continued for some days and in a
few cases (seven) became chronic. In these cases medication proved of
little benefit, rest and a proper diet being the most efficacious
treatment. Patients convalescing from pneumonia were evacuated to
England or given Base Duty.

Of tuberculosis there were only thirteen cases which were as far as
possible isolated. Of venereal cases there were only one hundred and
seventy-four. They had received treatment in British 53rd Stationary
Hospital, and came to the American Convalescent hospital simply for
re-equipment. Nearly all were immediately discharged to duty.

Of nervous diseases there were nineteen cases, all of which were
neuritis except two cases of paralysis. Of mental diseases and defects
there were only fourteen. This is a remarkable showing when we consider
the strain of the strange, long, dark winter campaign, and of these
fourteen cases six were mental deficiency that were not detected by the
experts at time of enlistment and induction, three were hysteria, two
neurasthenia, and three psychasthenia. Here let us add that there was
only one case of suicide and one case of attempted suicide.

There were eighteen eye cases and nineteen ear cases, three nose, and
eighteen of the throat. Of the circulatory system the total was
sixty-eight of which twenty-two were heart trouble and thirty-one
hemorrhoids brought on by exposure.

There were eighty respiratory cases, ninety-three digestive cases, of
which sixteen were appendicitis and thirty-two were hernia. Of
genito-urinary, which were non-venereal, there were twenty cases. Of
skin diseases there were thirty-nine. Scabies was the only skin lesion
which has been common among the troops. Warm baths and sulphur ointment
were used with excellent results.

From exposure there were one hundred and one cases of bones and
locomotion. Trench feet were bad to treat. From external causes there
were two hundred and fifty-five cases. Of these two were burns, two
dislocation, twenty-six severe frost bite cases, two exhaustion from
exposure, twenty-three fractures and sprains, and two hundred wound
cases. Many severely wounded were sent to Hospital ship “Kalyon,” and
many were evacuated to Base Section Three in England and only the
convalescent wounded, of course, came to the _dobra_ convalescent
hospital.

The following is Capt. Greenleaf’s summary:

Patients       1180 Hospital days, actual       17048 Hospital days, per
patient       14.45 Hospital days, awaiting evacuation       11196 Hospital
days, per patient       9.49 Hospital days, special duty        7273
Hospital days, per patient        6.16 Hospital days, total        35517
Hospital days, per patient        30.10

NOTE—This table is made out in this manner for several reasons. In the
first place evacuation lists were submitted to the Chief Surgeon each
Friday, containing a list of those patients who were unfit for further
front line duty in Russia. Lack of transportation and the long delays
in completing the evacuations should not be charged to actual hospital
days. Again it was necessary, under the conditions and owing to the
fact that the hospital was dependent upon patients for its existence,
that men be selected who were competent to have charge of certain work.
A most efficient mess sergeant and competent cooks were selected. The
men to have charge of the heating system and boilers were chosen. Good
interpreters were held. And many cases in which a competent man entered
as a patient, who was skillful in certain work, that man was held
indefinitely, for the good of the service and the hospital. In this
summary these cases have been listed as hospital days, special duty.

DISPOSITION OF PATIENTS IN AMERICAN CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL

EVACUATED TO ENGLAND

October 27, 1918       46 December 6, 1918       56 December 27, 1918
      10 January 24, 1919       7 February 24, 1919       15 June 1, 1919
      183 Total       317

DISCHARGED TO AMERICAN RED CROSS HOSPITAL For surgical attention      24
For medical attention      18

DISCHARGED TO BRITISH HOSPITALS For special treatment      13

DISCHARGED TO DUTY      808


The medical care of our comrades was as well-looked after as possibly
could be in North Russia. All patients were examined, when they entered
the hospital and classified. They were marked,—no duty, light duty
inside, light duty outside, light duty sitting, or light duty not
involving the use of right (or left) arm. A record, showing their
organization, company, rank, duty, diagnosis, date of admission, source
of admission, room and bed, was made. Their business in private life
was considered and they were assigned to work compatible with their
training. Any medication they might need was prescribed. Owing to lack
of bottles patients reported for medicine four times daily and a record
was thus kept of dosage. Patients were examined weekly and
re-classified. Sick call was held, daily, at 8:30 a. m., at which time
patients requiring special attention, reported and also, surgical
dressings were applied.

The last patient was discharged to duty June 12th, 1919. We know that
the one thousand one hundred and eighty men who passed through that
hospital join the writers in saying that, considering conditions, the
convalescent hospital was a wonder.




XXXVI
AMERICAN RED CROSS IN NORTH RUSSIA


American Red Cross On Errands Of Mercy Precede Troops—Summary Of Aid
Given People—Aid And Comforts Freely Given American
Troops—Summary—Commendatory Words Of General Richardson—Our Weekly
“Sentinel” Put Out By Red Cross—Returned Men Strong For American Red
Cross Work In North Russia.


Even before the question of American participation in the Allied
expedition to North Russia had been decided upon, the American Red
Cross had dispatched a mission of thirteen persons, with four thousand
two hundred tons of food and medicine, for the relief of the civilian
population. When, shortly thereafter, a considerable detachment of
American doughboys, engineers and ambulance corps troops were landed,
the Red Cross had the nucleus of an organization to provide for the
needs of our soldiers as well as for the civilian population.

A report, made public here by the American Red Cross on its work in
North Russia, gives an interesting picture of conditions on our Arctic
battle front during the war. The food situation among the civilian
population was acute. With the city swollen in population through a
steady influx of refugees, few fresh supplies were coming in and
hoarded supplies were rapidly diminishing. Coarse bread and fish were
staple articles of food, and there was a grave shortage of clothing.

The desperate need for foodstuffs in the regions far north along the
Arctic shores was brought sharply to the attention of the Allied Food
Committee when delegates from Pechora arrived by reindeer teams and
camped at the doors of the committee urging assistance. They brought
samples of the bread they were forced to eat. It was made of a small
quantity of white flour mixed with ground-up dried fish. Other samples
which were shown were made from immature frostbitten rye grain, and a
third was composed of a small quantity of white flour mixed with
reindeer moss. A small quantity of rye flour mixed with chopped coarse
straw, was the basis of a fourth example.

Much attention was devoted by the Red Cross to caring for school
children and orphans. Over two million hot lunches were distributed,
during a period of a few months, to three hundred and thirty schools
with twenty thousand pupils. Every orphanage in the district was
outfitted with the things it needed and received a regular fortnightly
issue of food supplies. Over twenty thousand suits of underwear were
given out to refugees. To provide for the many persons separated from
their families or from employment on account of the war, the Red Cross
established a regular free employment agency.

The writer recalls having seen in Pinega in February men who had left
their Petchora homes eight months before to go to Archangel for the
precious flour provided by the American Red Cross. The civil war had
made transportation slow and extremely hazardous.

Expeditions were constantly sent out from Archangel to various points
with supplies of food, clothing, and medicaments. The most extensive of
the civilian relief enterprises undertaken by the Red Cross Mission to
Russia was the sending of a boat from Archangel to Kern with a cargo of
fifty-five tons. This was distributed either by the Red Cross officials
themselves or by responsible local authorities.

Food rations and clothing were given to three hundred destitute
families in Archangel which, upon careful investigation, were found to
be deserving. Housing conditions were improved and clothing, which had
been salvaged from sunken steamers and lay idle in the customs house,
was dried and distributed.

Besides supplying all Russian civilian hospitals in and around
Archangel regularly with medicine, sheets, blankets, pillows and food
rations, the Red Cross opened up a Red Cross hospital in Archangel,
which was finally turned over to the local government to be used as a
base hospital for the Russian army. Red Cross medicines are credited
with having checked the serious influenza epidemic and with having
worked against its recurrence.

Medicaments worth one million roubles were sent by the Red Cross to the
various district zemstvos. Russian prisoners of war, returning from
Germany through the Bolshevik lines to North Russia, were also taken
care of.

Work among the American soldiers in North Russia was thorough and
effective. The daily ration was supplemented and many American soldiers
received from the Red Cross quantities of rolled oats, sugar, milk, and
rice, besides all the regular Red Cross comforts, including cigarettes,
stationery, chewing gum, athletic goods, playing cards, toilet
articles, phonographs, sweaters, socks, blankets, etc.

Supplies were sent as regularly as possible to the troops on the line,
generally in the face of apparently insurmountable transportation
difficulties. Units of troops, even in the most inaccessible and out of
the way places, were visited by Red Cross workers, occasionally at
great danger to their lives.

With the assistance of the Red Cross _The American Sentinel_, a weekly
newspaper, was printed and distributed among the troops and did much to
keep up their morale. One of the last acts performed by the Red Cross
for the American Expeditionary Forces in Archangel was to help and
speed to their new homes eight war brides.

The veteran of the North Russian expedition will never look at his old
knit helmet or wristlets, scarf, or perhaps eat a rare dish of rolled
oats, or bite off a chew of plug, or listen to a certain piece on the
graphaphone, or look at a Red Cross Christmas Seal without a warm
feeling under his left breast pocket for the American Red Cross.


[Illustration: PRIMM
_View of Archangel in Summer._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_General Ironside Inspecting Doughboys._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (159488)
_Burial of Lieut. Clifford Phillips._]




XXXVII
CAPTIVE DOUGHBOYS IN BOLSHEVIKDOM


Doughboy Captives Still Coming Out Of Red Russia—Red Cross Starts
Prisoner Exchange In Archangel Area—White Flag Incidents In No Man’s
Land—Remarkable Picture Taken—Men Who Were Liberated—Sergeant
Leitzell’s Gripping Story Of Their Captivity.


In August, 1920, came out of Bolshevik Russia, as startlingly as though
from the grave, Corp. Prince of “B” Company, who had been wounded and
captured at Toulgas, March 1, 1919. This leads to our story of the
captives in Bolshevikdom. One of the interesting incidents of the
spring defensive was the exchange of prisoners. It was brought about
quite largely through the efforts of the American Red Cross, which was
very anxious to try to get help to the Americans still in interior
Russia, especially the prisoners of war. When the Bolsheviki captured
the Allied men at Bolsheozerki in March they took a British chaplain,
who pleaded that he was a non-combatant and belonged to a fraternal
order whose principles were similar to the Soviet principles. Thinking
they had a convert, the Soviet Commissar gave Father Roach his freedom
and sent him through the lines at the railroad front in April.

News was brought back by Father Roach that many American and British
and French prisoners were at Moscow or on their way to Moscow.

Accordingly, the American Red Cross was instrumental in prevailing upon
the military authorities to open white flag conversations at the front
line in regard to a possible exchange of prisoners. A remarkable
photograph is included in this volume of that first meeting. One or two
other meetings were not quite so formal. At one time the excited Bolos
forgot their own men and the enemy who were parleying in the middle of
No Man’s Land, and started a lively artillery duel with the French
artillery. At another time the Americans’ Russian Archangel Allies got
excited and fired upon the Bolshevik soldiers who were sitting under a
white flag on the railroad track watching the American captain come
towards them. Happy to say, there were no casualties by this mistake.
But it sure was a ticklish undertaking for the Americans themselves
later in the day to walk out under a flag of truce to explain the
mistake and inquire about the progress of the prisoners exchange
conversations going on. At Vologda, American, British and French
officers were guests of the Bolshevik authorities. Their return was
expected and came during the first week of May.

One American soldier, Pvt. Earl Fulcher, of “H” Company, and one French
soldier were brought back and in exchange for them four former
Bolshevik officers were given. Report was brought that other soldiers
were being given their freedom by the Bolshevik government and were
going out by way of Petrograd and Viborg, Finland. It was learned that
some American soldiers were in hospital under care of the Bolshevik
medical men. Every effort was made by military authorities in North
Russia to clear up the fate of the many men who had been reported
missing in action and missing after ambush by the Reds who cut off an
occasional patrol of Americans or British or French soldiers.

But the Bolshevik military authorities were unable to trace all of
their prisoners. In the chaos of their organization it is not
surprising. We know that our own War Department lost Comrade Anthony
Konjura, Company “A” 310th Engineers, while he was on his way home from
Russia, wounded, on the hospital ship which landed him in England.
There his mother went and found him in a hospital. An American sergeant
whose story appears in this volume, says that while he was in Moscow
six British soldiers were luckily discovered by the Red authorities in
a foul prison where they had been lost track of. Even as this book goes
to press we are still hoping that others of our own American comrades
and of our allies will yet come to life out of Russia and be restored
to their own land and loved ones.

Corporal Arthur Prince, of “B” Company, who was ambushed and wounded
and captured in March, 1919, at Toulgas was, finally in August, 1920,
released from hospital and prison in Russia and crippled and sick
joined American troops in Germany. His pluck and stamina must have been
one hundred per cent to stand it all those long seventeen months. His
comrade, Herbert Schroeder, of “B” Company, who was captured on the
21st of September, has never been found. His comrades still hope that
he was the American printer whom the Reds declared was printing their
propaganda in English for them at Viatka.

Comrade George Albers, “I” Company, in November, 1918, was on a lone
observation post at the railroad front. A Bolo reconnaissance patrol
surprised and caught him. He was the American soldier who was shown to
the comrades at Kodish on the river bridge after Armistice Day. He was
afterward sent on to Moscow and went out with others to freedom. With
him went out Comrades Walter Huston and Mike Haurlik of “C” Company,
who had been taken prisoners in action on November 29th near Ust
Padenga on the same day that gallant Cuff and his ten men were trapped
and all were killed or captured. These two men survived. In this
liberated party was also Comrade Anton Vanis, of Company “D” who was
lost in the desperate rear guard action at Shegovari. Also came Comrade
William R. Schuelke, “H” Company, who had been given up for dead. And
in the party was Merle V. Arnold, American “Y” man, who had been
captured in March at Bolsheozerki. Six of our allied comrades, Royal
Scots, came out with the party. These men all owed their release
chiefly to the efforts of Mr. L. P. Penningroth, of Tipton, Iowa,
Secretary of the Prisoners-of-War Release Station in Copenhagen, who
secured the release of the men by going in person to Moscow.

With the return of Comrade Schuelke we learn that he was one of the “H”
Company patrol under Corporal Collins which was ambushed near
Bolsheozerki, March 17th. One of his comrades, August Peterson, died
April 12th in a Bolshevik hospital. His Corporal, Earl Collins, was in
the same hospital severely wounded. His fate is still unknown but
doubtless he is under the mossy tundra. His comrade, Josef Romatowski,
was killed in the ambush, comrade John Frucce was liberated via Finland
and his comrade, Earl Fulcher, as we have seen, was exchanged on the
railroad front in May.

On March 31st two other parties of Americans were caught in ambush by
the Reds who had surrounded the Verst 18 Force near Bolsheozerki.
Mechanic Jens Laursen of “M” Company was captured along with Father
Roach and the British airplane man wounded in the action which cost
also the life of Mechanic Dial of “M” Company. And at the same time
another party going from the camp toward Obozerskaya consisting of
Supply Sergeant Glenn Leitzell and Pvt. Freeman Hogan of “M” Company
together with Bryant Ryal, a “Y” man, going after supplies, were
captured by the Reds. These men were all taken to Moscow and later
liberated. Their story has been written up in an interesting way by
Comrade Leitzell. It fairly represents the conditions under which those
prisoners of war in Bolshevikdom suffered till they were liberated:

“On March 31st, 1919, at 8:30 a. m. I left the front lines with a
comrade, Freeman Hogan, and a Russian driver, on my way back to
Obozerskaya for supplies. About a quarter of a verst, 500 yards, from
our rear artillery, we were surprised by a patrol of Bolos, ten or
twelve in number, who leaped out of the snowbanks and held us up at the
point of pistols, grenades and rifles. Then they stripped us of our
arms and hurried us off the road and into the woods. To our great
surprise we were joined by Mr. Ryal, the Y. M. C. A. Secretary who had
been just ahead of us.

“At once they started us back to their lines with one guard in front,
three in the rear and three on snow skiis on each side of the freshly
cut trail in the deep snow. We knew from the signs and from the fire
fight that soon followed that a huge force of the Reds were in rear of
our force. After seven versts through the snow we reached the village
of Bolsheozerki. On our arrival we were met by a great many Bolsheviks
who occupied the villages in tremendous numbers. Some tried to beat us
with sticks and cursed and spat on us as we were shoved along to the
Bolshevik commander.

“One of the camp loiterer’s scowling eyes caught sight of the
sergeant’s gold teeth. His cupidity was aroused. Raising his
brass-bound old whipstock he struck at the prisoner’s mouth to knock
out the shining prize. But the prisoner guard saved the American
soldier from the blow by shoving him so vigorously that he sprawled in
the snow while the heavy whip went whizzing harmlessly past the
soldier’s ear. The Bolo sleigh driver swore and the prisoner guard
scowled menacingly at the brutal but baffled comrade. The American
soldiers needed no admonitions of _skora skora_ to make them step
lively toward the Red General’s headquarters.

“One of the first things we saw on our arrival was a Russian sentry who
had gone over from our lines. They demanded our blouses and fur caps,
also our watches and rings. In a little while we saw three others
arrive—Father Roach of the 17th King’s Company of Liverpool and Private
Stringfellow of the Liverpools, also Mechanic Jens Laursen of our own
“M” Company who had escaped death in the machine gun ambush that had
killed his comrade Mechanic Dial and driver and horse. Later Lieut.
Tatham of the Royal Air Force came in with a shattered arm. His two
companions and the sleigh drivers had been mortally wounded and left by
the Bolsheviks on the road.

“After that we had our interview with a Bolshevik Intelligence Officer
who tried to get information from us. But he got no information from us
as we pleaded that we were soldiers of supply and were not familiar
with the details of the scheme of defense. And it worked. He sent us
away under guard, who escorted us in safety through the camp to a
shack.

“Here we were billetted in a filthy room with a lot of Russian
prisoners, some the survivors of the defense of Bolsheozerki and some
the recalcitrants or suspected deserters from the Bolo ranks. We were
given half of a salt fish, a lump of sour black bread and some water
for our hunger. On the bread we had to use an ax as it was frozen. We
managed to thaw some of it out and wash it down with water. After this
we stretched in exhaustion on the floor and slept off the day and night
in spite of the constant roar of Bolo guns and the bursting of shells
that were coming from our camp at Verst 18. By that sign we knew the
Bolo had not overpowered our comrades by his day’s fighting. It was the
only comforting thought we had as we pulled the dirty old rags about us
that the Reds had given us in exchange for our overcoats and blouses,
and went to sleep.

“We woke up in the morning midst the roar of a redoubled fight. A fine
April Fool’s Day we thought. We were stiff and sore and desperately
hungry. But our breakfast was the remainder of the fish and sour bread.
Later the guard relieved us of some of our trinkets and pocket money,
after which they gave us our rations for the day, consisting of a half
can of horse meat, a salt fish, and twelve ounces of black bread.

“Then we were taken to see the General commanding this huge force. He
gave us a cigarette, which was very acceptable as we were quite
unnerved, not knowing what would happen to us afterwards if we gave no
more information than we had the day before. He tried to impress us by
taking his pistol and pointing out on a map of the area just where his
troops were that day surrounding our comrades in the beleagured camp in
the woods at Verst 18 on the road, as well as many versts beyond them
cutting a trail through the deep snow to the very railroad in rear of
Obozerskaya. He boasted that his forces that day would crush the
opposing force and he would move upon Obozerskaya and go up and down
the railroad and clear away every obstacle as he had done in the Upper
Vaga Valley, where he boasted he had driven the Allied troops from
Shenkursk and pursued them for over sixty miles. Then he informed us
that we were to be sent as prisoners to Moscow.

“Later in the morning we were started south toward Emtsa on foot. We
could hear the distant cannonading on the 445 front as we marched along
during the day on the winter trail which if it had been properly
patrolled by the French and Russians would not have permitted the
surprise flank march in force by this small army that menaced the whole
Vologda force. Our thirty-five verst march that day and night—for we
walked till 10:00 p. m.—was made more miserable by the thought that our
comrades were up against a far greater force than they dreamed, as was
evidenced to us by the hordes of men we had seen in Bolsheozerki and
the transportation that filled every verst of the trail from the south.
We made temporary camp in a log hut along the road, building a roaring
fire outside. We would sleep a half hour and then go outside the hut to
thaw out by the fire, and so on through the wretched night.

“At 4:00 a. m. we started again our footsore march, after a fragment of
black bread and a swallow of water, and walked twenty-seven versts to
Shelaxa, the Red concentration camp. Here we underwent a minute search.
All papers were taken for examination. Our American money was returned
to us, as was later a check on a London bank which one of my officers
had given me. I secreted it and some money so well in a waist belt that
later I had the satisfaction of cashing the check in Sweden into kronen
in King Gustave’s Royal Bank in Stockholm. After a meal of salt fish
and black bread fried in fish oil, and some hot water to drink, we were
given an hour’s rest and then started on the road again to Emtsa,
twenty-four versts away, reaching that railroad point at midnight. Here
we were brought before the camp commandant who roughly stripped us of
all our clothes except our breeches and gave us the Bolshevik underwear
and ragged outer garments that they had discarded. And buddies who have
seen Bolo prisoners come into our lines can imagine how bad a discarded
Bolo coat or undershirt must be. After this we were locked up in a box
car with no fire and three guards over us.

“Next morning, April 3rd, the car door was opened and the Bolshevik
soldiers made angry demonstrations toward us and were kept out only by
our guards’ bayonets. We were fed some barley wash and the rye bread
which tasted wonderful after the previous food. I paid a British
two-shilling piece which I had concealed in my shoe to a guard to get
me a tin to put our food in, and we made wooden spoons. That night we
were lined up against the car and asked if we knew that we were going
to be shot. But this event, I am happy to say, never took place. We
went by train to Plesetskaya that day. Father Roach was taken to the
commandant’s quarters and we did not see him till the next day, when he
told us he had enjoyed a fine night’s sleep and expected to be sent
back across the lines and would take messages to our comrades to let
them know we were alive and on our way to Moscow.”

It is interesting to note that the American Sergeant’s insistence that
he and his companions be given bath and means to shave, won the respect
and assistance of the guard and the Bolshevik officer. Of course in
making the two day’s march in prisoner convoy from Bolsheozerki to
Emtsa there had been severe hardship and privation and painful
uncertainty and mental agony over their possible fate. And they had not
stopped long enough in one place to enable them to make an appeal for
fair treatment.

Imagine the three American soldiers and the “Y” man and the two British
soldiers sitting disconsolately in a filthy _taplooshka_, hands and
faces with three days and nights of grime and dirt, scratching
themselves under their dirty rags, cussing the active cooties that had
come with the shirts, and trying to soothe their itching bewhiskered
faces. Here the resourceful old sergeant keenly picked out the cleanest
one of the guards and approached him with signs and his limited Russki
_gavareet_ and made his protest at being left dirty. He won out. The
soldier _horoshawed_ several times and _seechassed_ away to return a
few minutes later with a long Russian blade and a tiny green cake of
soap and a tin of hot water. Under the stimulation of a small silver
coin from the sergeant’s store he assumed the role of barber and
smoothed up the faces of the whole crowd of prisoners. And then
followed the trip under guard to the steaming bath-house that is such a
vivid memory to all soldiers who soldiered up there under the Arctic
Circle. In this connection it may be related that later on at Moscow
the obliging Commissar of the block in which they were quartered hunted
up for them razors and soap and even found for them tooth brushes and
tubes of toothpaste which had been made in Detroit, U. S. A., and sold
to Moscow merchants in a happier time.

“On April 5th we left Plesetskaya, after saying good-bye to the English
Chaplain who seemed greatly pleased that he was to get his freedom and
had his pockets full of Bolshevik propaganda. We reached Naundoma after
a night of terrible cold in the unheated car and during the next two
days on the railway journey to Vologda had nothing to eat. On April 7th
we reached that city and were locked up with about twenty Russians.
Here we got some black bread that seemed to have sand in it and some
sour cabbage soup which we all shared, Russians and all, from a single
bucket. Next day we thought it a real improvement to have a separate
tin and a single wooden spoon for the forlorn group of Americans and
British.

“At Plesetskaya we were questioned very thoroughly by a Russian officer
who spoke English very well and showed marked sympathy toward us and
saw to it that we were better treated, and later in Moscow saw to it
that we had some small favors. In three days’ time we were again on the
train for Moscow, travelling in what seemed luxury after our late
experience. The trains to Moscow ran only once a week as there were no
materials to keep up the equipment.

“On our arrival we found the streets sloppy and muddy, with heaps of
ice and snow and dead horses among the rubbish. Few business places
were open, all stores having been looted. Here and there was a
semi-illicit stand where horsemeat, salt fish, carrots or cabbage and
parsnips, and sour milk could be bought on the sly if you had the
price. But it was very little at any price and exceedingly uncertain of
appearance. We were sent to join the other prisoners, French, English,
Scotch and Americans who had preceded us from the front to Moscow. They
had tales similar to ours to tell us.

“The next morning at 10:00 a. m. we were wondering when we would eat.
The answer was: Twelve noon. Cabbage soup headed the menu, then came
dead horse meat, or salt fish if you chose it, black bread and water.
Same menu for supper. We learned that the people of the city fared
scarcely better. All were rationed. The soldiers and officials of the
Bolsheviks fared better than the others. Children were favored to some
extent. But the ‘intelligenza’ and the former capitalists were in sore
straits. Many were almost starving. Death rate was high. The soldier
got a pound of bread, workmen half a pound, others a quarter of a
pound. In this way they maintained their army. Fight, work for the Red
government or starve. Some argument. Liberty is unknown under the
Soviet rule. Their motto as I saw it is: What is yours is mine.’ “

Captivity with all its desperate hardships and baleful uncertainties,
had its occasional brighter thread. The American boys feel especially
grateful to Mr. Merle V. Arnold, of. Lincoln, Nebraska, the American Y.
M. C. A. man who had been captured by the Red Guards a few days
preceding their capture. He was able to do things for them when they
reached Moscow. And when he was almost immediately given his liberty
and allowed to go out through Finland, he did not forget the boys he
left behind. He carried their case to the British and Danish Red Cross
and a weekly allowance of 200 roubles found its way over the
belligerent lines to Moscow and was given to the boys, much to the
grateful assistance of the starving allied prisoners of war.

But they became resourceful as all American soldiers seem to become,
whether at Bakaritza, Smolny, Archangel, Kholmogora, Moscow or
wherenot, and they found ways of adding to their rations. Imagine one
of them lining up with the employees of a Bolo public soup kitchen and
going through ostensibly to do some work and playing
now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t-see-it with a dish of salt or a head of
cabbage or a loaf of bread or a chunk of sugar, or when on friendly
terms with the Bolshevik public employees volunteering to help do some
work that led them to where a little money would buy something on the
side at inside employees’ prices. Imagine them with their little brass
kettle, stewing it over their little Russian sheet-iron stove, stirring
in their birdseed substitute for rolled oats and potatoes and cabbage
and perhaps a few shreds of as clean a piece of meat as they could buy,
on the sly. See the big wooden spoons travelling happily from pot to
lips and hear the chorus of _Dobra, dobra._

They will not ever forget the English Red Cross woman who constantly
looked out for the five Americans, the thirty-five British and fifteen
French prisoners, finding ways to get for them occasional morsels of
bacon and bread and small packages of tea and tobacco. On Easter day
she entertained them all in the old palace of Ivan the Terrible.

How good it was one day to meet an American woman who had eighteen
years before married a Russian in Chicago and come to Moscow to live.
Her husband was a grain buyer for the Bolshevik government but she was
a hater of the Red Rule and gave the boys all the comfort she could,
which was little owing to the surveillance of the Red authorities.

And one day the sergeant met an American dentist who had for many years
been the tooth mechanic for the old Czar and his family. He fixed up a
tooth as best he could for the American soldier. The Reds had about
stripped him but left him his tools and his shop so that he could serve
the Red rulers when their molars and canines needed attention.

The American boys gained the confidence of the Russians in Moscow just
as they had always done in North Russia. They were finally given
permission to participate in the privileges of one of the numerous
clubs that the Red officials furnished up lavishly for themselves in
the palatial quarters of old Moscow. Here they could find literature
and lectures and lounging room and for a few roubles often gained a hot
plate of good soup or a delicacy in the shape of a horse steak. Of
course the latter was always a little dubious to the American doughboy,
for in walking the street he too often saw the poor horse that dropped
dead from starvation or overdriving, approached by the butcher with the
long knife. He merely raised the horse’s tail, slashed around the anal
opening of the animal with his blade, then reached in his great arm and
drew out the entrails and cast them to one side for the dogs to growl
and fight over. Later would come the sleigh with axes and other knives
to cut up the frozen carcass. On May day the boys nearly lost their
membership in the club, along with its soup and horse-steak privileges
because they would not march in the Red parade to the gaily decorated
square to hear Lenin speak to his subjects.

Was the Red government able to feed the people by commandeering, the
food? No. At last the peasants gained the sufferance of the Red rulers
to traffic their foodstuffs on the streets even as we have seen them
with handfuls of vegetables on the market streets of Archangel. Prices
were out of sight. Under a shawl in a tiny box, an old peasant woman on
Easter Day was offering covertly a few eggs at two hundred roubles
apiece.

Imagine the feelings of the boys when they walked about freely as they
did, being dressed in the regular Russian long coats and caps and being
treated with courtesy by all Russians who recognized them as Americans.
Here they found themselves looking at the great hotel built on American
lines of architecture to please the eye and shelter the American
travellers of the olden times before the great war, a building now used
by the Red Department of State. Here they were examined by one of
Tchicherin’s men upon their arrival in the Red capital. Further they
could walk about the Kremlin, and visit a part of it on special
occasions. They could see the execution block and the huge space laid
out by Ivan the Terrible, where thousands of Russians bled this life
away at the behest of a cruel government.

Or they could stand before the St. Saveur cathedral, a noble structure
of solid marble with glorious murals within to remind the Slavic people
of their unconquerable resistance to the great Napoleon and of his
disastrous retreat from their beloved Moscow.

They cannot be blamed for coming out of Moscow convinced that the heart
of the Slavic people is not in this Bolshevik class hatred and class
dictatorship stuff of Lenin and Trotsky; equally convinced that the
heart of the Russian people is not unfearful of the attempted return of
the old royalist bureaucrats to their baleful power, and convinced that
the heart of this great, courteous, patient, longsuffering Slavic
people is groping for expression of self-government, and that America
is their ideal—a hazy ideal and one that they aspire toward only in
general outlines. Their ultimate self-government may not take the shape
of American constitutionalism, but Russian self-government must in time
come out of the very wrack of foreign and internecine war. And every
American soldier who fought the Bolshevik Russian in arms or stood on
the battle line beside the Archangel Republic anti-Bolshevik Russian,
might join these returned captives from Bolshevikdom in wishing that
there may soon come peace to that land, and that they may develop
self-government.

“We finally received our release. We had known of the liberation of Mr.
Arnold and several of our North Russian comrades and had been hoping
for our turn to come. Mr. Frank Taylor, an Associated Press
correspondent, was helpful to us, declaring to the Bolshevik rulers
that American troops were withdrawing from Archangel. We had been
faithful _(sic)_ to the lectures, for a purpose of dissimulation, and
the Red fanatics really thought we were converted to the silly stuff
called bolshevism. It was plain to us also that they were playing for
recognition of their government by the United States. So we were given
passports for Finland. The propaganda did not deceive us.

“At the border a suspicious sailor on guard searched us. He turned many
back to Petrograd. The train pulled back carrying four hundred women
and children and babies disappointed at the very door to freedom,
weeping, penniless, and starving, starting back into Russia all to suit
the whim of an ignorant under officer. Under the influence of flattery
he softened toward us and after robbing us of everything that had been
provided us by our friends for the journey, taking even the official
papers sent by the Bolshevik government to our government which we were
to deliver to American representatives in Finland, he let us go.

“After he let us go we saw the soldiers in the house grabbing for the
American money which Mr. Taylor had given us. They had not thought it
worth while to take the Russian roubles away from us. Of course they
were of no value to us in Finland. After a two kilometer walk, carrying
a sick English soldier with us, my three comrades and I reached the
little bridge that gave us our freedom.”—_By Sgt. Glenn W. Leitzell,
Co. M, 339th Inf._




XXXVIII
MILITARY DECORATIONS


In the North Russian Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki, American
officers and men fought at one time or another under the field
standards of four nations, American, British, French, and (North)
Russian. And for their valor and greatly meritorious conduct, mostly
over and beyond the call of duty, many soldiers were highly commended
by their field officers, American, French, British, and Russian, in
their reports to higher military authorities. Many, but not all, of
these officers and soldiers were later cited in orders and awarded
decorations. Not every deserving man received a citation. That is the
luck of war.

It was a matter of keen regret to the British Commanding General that
he was so hedged by orders from England that his generous policy of
awarding decorations to American soldiers was abruptly ended in
mid-winter when it became apparent that the United States would not
continue the campaign against the Bolsheviki but would withdraw
American troops at the earliest possible moment.

The Russian military authorities were eager to show their appreciation
of their American soldier allies, but due to the indifference of
Colonel Stewart to this not many soldiers were decorated with Russian
old army decorations.

The French decorations were probably the sincerest marks of esteem and
admiration. They were bestowed by French officers who were close to the
doughboy in the field. And they are prized as tokens of the affection
of the French for Americans.

In speaking of American decorations we can hardly write without heat.
The doughboy did not get his just deserts. And he, without doubt, is
correct in placing the blame for the neglect at the door of the
American commanding officer, Colonel Stewart. Men and officers who died
heroically up there in that North Russian campaign, and others who
carry wound scars, and yet others who performed valiantly in that
desperate campaign, went unrewarded.

AMERICAN DECORATIONS

_Distinguished Service Cross_

BUGLER JAMES F. REVELS, “I” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
Sept. 16th, 1918, Obozerskaya, Russia.

LIEUT. CHARLES F. CHAPPEL, “K” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in
action, Sept. 27th, 1918, Kodish, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)

SGT. MATHEW G. GRAHEK, “M” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
Sept. 29th, 1918, at Verst 458, Obozerskaya, Russia.

SGT. CORNELIUS T. MAHONEY, “K” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in
action, October 16th, 1918, Kodish, Russia.

CORP. ROBERT M. PRATT, “M” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
October 17th, 1918, Verst 445, near Emtsa, Russia.

PVT. VICTOR STIER, “A” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
January 19th, 1919, Ust Padenga, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)

PVT. LAWRENCE B. KILROY, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in
action, Kodish, Russia.

PVT. HUBERT C. PAUL, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in action,
Kodish, Russia.

LIEUT. CLIFFORD F. PHILLIPS, “H” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in
action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki. (Citation posthumous.)

CORP. THEODORE SIELOFF, “I” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
Nov. 4th, 1918, at Verst 445, near Emtsa, Russia.

PVT. CLARENCE H. ZECH, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in
action, Kodish, Russia.

CORP. WILLIAM H. RUSSELL, “M” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
April 1st, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)

PVT. CHESTER H. EVERHARD, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in
action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia.

LIEUT. HOWARD H. PELLEGROM, “H” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in
action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia.

FRENCH DECORATIONS

_Legion of Honor_

MAJOR J. BROOKS NICHOLS, 339th Inf.

COL. GEORGE E. STEWART, 339th Inf.

_Croix de Guerre_

PVT. WALTER STREIT, “M” Co.

SGT. MATHEW G. GRAHEK, “M” Co.

PVT. JAMES DRISCOLL, “M.G.” Co.

PVT. CLARENCE A. MILLER, “M” CO.

PVT. ARTHUR FRANK, “M.G.” CO.

PVT. LEO R. ELLIS, “I” Co.

LIEUT. JAMES R. DONOVAN, “M” Co. 339th Inf.

SGT. FRANK GETZLOFF, “M” Co.

CORP. C. A. GROBBELL, “I” Co.

LIEUT. GEORGE W. STONER, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. JOHN H. ROMPINEN, “M” Co.

PVT. ALFRED FULLER, “K” Co.

MAJOR MICHAEL J. DONOGHUE, 339th Inf.

LIEUT. CLARENCE J. PRIMM, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. DWIGHT FISTLER, “I” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. CHARLES HEBNER, “M” Co.

PVT. OTTO GEORGIA, “K” Co.

LIEUT. PERCIVAL L. SMITH, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. WESLEY K. WRIGHT, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. GILBERT T. SHILLSON, “K” CO., 339th Inf.

SGT. HARVEY B. PETERSON, “M” Co.

PVT. HERMAN A. SODER, “I” Co.

PVT. THOMAS McELROY, “M” Co.

CORP. BENJAMIN JONDRO, “M” Co.

PVT. TOBIAS LePLANT, “K” Co.

PVT. FRANK RANK, “I” Co.

SGT. CHARLES V. RIHA, “M” Co.

LIEUT. ROBERT J. WIECZOREK, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. WOODHULL SPITLER, “M.G.” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. JOHN P. GRAY, “M” CO.

CAPT. JOSEPH ROSENFELD, 337th Amb.

SGT. JACOB KANTROWITZ, “M” Co.

LIEUT. JOHN J. BAKER, “E” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. CLYDE PETERSON, “K” Co.

CORP. THEODORE H. SIELOFF, “I” Co.

PVT. RAY LAWRENCE, “M” Co.

CAPT. HORATIO G. WINSLOW, “I” Co., 339th Inf.

CORP. JOHN C. SMOLINSKI, “I” Co.

PVT. JOHN KUKORIS, “I” Co.

LIEUT. LEWIS E. JAHNS, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

MAJOR J. BROOKS NICHOLS, 339th Inf., Commanding officer Allied troops,
Railway Detachment.

PVT. SAMUEL H. DARRAH, “K” Co.

LIEUT. CHARLES B. RYAN, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

CORP. FRANK L. O’CONNOR, “M” Co.

MR. FRANK OLMSTEAD, Y. M. C. A.

PVT. OSCAR LIGHTER, “M” Co.

PVT. ALFRED STARIKOFF, “M” Co.

CORP. ROBERT M. PRATT, “M” Co.

PVT. ERNEST P. ROULEAU, “M” Co.

CAPT. JOEL R. MOORE, “M” Co., 339th Inf. (with silver star, divisional
citation).

BRITISH DECORATIONS

_Distinguished Service Order_

MAJOR J. BROOKS NICHOLS, 339th Inf. Commanding officer American and
Allied troops, Railway Detachment, fall offensive and winter and spring
defensive campaigns of Vologda Force.

MAJOR MICHAEL J. DONOGHUE, 339th Inf. Commanding officer American and
Allied troops, Kodish offensive in fall and winter defensive campaigns
of the Seletskoe Detachment of Vologda Force.

CAPTAIN ROBERT P. BOYD, “B” CO., 339th Inf. Commanding officer American
and Allied troops left bank of Dvina, fall offensive and winter
defensive campaigns of Dvina-Kotlas Force.

LIEUT.-COL. P. S. MORRIS, JR., 310th Engineers. Chief Engineer A. E.
F., North Russia, during fall offensive and winter and spring
campaigns.

_Military Cross_

CAPT. OTTO A. ODJARD, Commanding Officer “A” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. ALBERT M. SMITH, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. LAWRENCE P. KEITH, “M.G.” Co. 339th Inf.

LIEUT. GORDON B. REESE, “I” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. HARRY S. STEELE, “C” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. W. C. GIFFELS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

LIEUT. HARRY M. DENNIS, “B” Co. 339th Inf.

LIEUT. JOHN A. COMMONS, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. H. D. McPHAIL, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. CHARLES B. RYAN, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. H. T. KETCHAM, “H” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. HARRY J. COSTELLO, “M.G.” Co., 339th Inf. (received his medal
from the hand of the Prince of Wales, in Washington, D. C.)

MAJOR CLARE S. McARDLE, Commanding officer 1st Battalion 310th Engrs.

LIEUT. EDWIN J. STEPHENSON, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

LIEUT. B. A. BURNS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

CAPT. W. O. AXTELL, “B” Co., 310th Engrs.

LIEUT. E. W. LEGIER, “C” Co., 310th Engrs.

_Distinguished Conduct Medal_

SGT. MATHEW G. GRAHEK, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. F. W. WOLFE, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. G. M. WALKER, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. CHAS. J. HAYDEN, “I” Co., 339th Inf.

CORP. J. C. DOWNS, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. A. V. TIBBALS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

CORP. GEORGE R. YOHE, Signal Platoon, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. WALTER A. SPRINGSTEEN, Signal Platoon, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

CORP. JAMES MORROW, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. PETER CSATLOS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

SGT. FLOYD A. WALLACE, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

_Military Medal_

SGT. CARL W. VENABLE, “L” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. 1ST CLASS JAMES W. DRISCOLL, “M.G.” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. MICHAEL J. KENNEY, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. E. J. HERMAN, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

CORP. J. S. MANDERFIELD, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

SGT. E. P. TROMBLEY, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

CORP. H. T. DANIELSON, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

CORP. J. FRANCZAC, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

BUGLER C. J. CAMPUS, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

MECH. A. J. HORN, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. J. A. NEES, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. ARNOLD W. NOLF, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

SGT. H. H. HAMILTON, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

PVT. BERGER W. BERGSTROM, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

PVT. RUSSELL F. McGUIRE, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

PVT. MICHAEL KOWALSKI, “H” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. E. W. PAUSCH, “C” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. JOHN BENSON, “C” Co., 310th Engrs.

SGT. SILVER K. PARISH, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. CHARLES BELL, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. JOSEPH EDYINSON, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. L. E. STOVER, “B” Co., 310th Engrs.

CORP. W. C. BUTZ, “B” Co., 310th Engrs.

CORP. F. W. WILKIE, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

SGT. L. BARTELS, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

CORP. J. STEYSKAL, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. E. E. HELMAN, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

CORP. WILLIAM C. SHAUGHNESSEY, Signal Platoon, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. LOUIS L. HOPKINS, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. CHARLES E. GARRETT, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. GUY HINMAN, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. JAMES R. WAGGENER, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

PVT. CLARENCE A. MILLER, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

_Meritorious Service Medal_

SGT. EWALD T. BILLEAU

PVT. A. H. DITTBERNER

SGT. L. S. SCHNEIDER

SGT. DELBERT KRATZ

1ST. SGT. V. B. ROGERS

SGT. F. W. YATES

PVT. JERRY DAUBEK

CORP. A. N. ERICKSON

All of “A” Company, 310th Engineers

RUSSIAN DECORATIONS

_St. Vladimir with Swords and Ribbons_

REAR-ADMIRAL NEWTON A. McCULLY, Commanding U. S. Naval Forces.

MAJOR MICHAEL J. DONOGHUE, 339th Inf.

MAJOR J. BROOKS NICHOLS, 339th Inf.

COL. JAMES A. RUGGLES, Chief of American Military Mission, Military
Attache to Embassy in Russia.

_St. Anne With Swords_

CAPT. JOEL R. MOORE, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. J. R. DONOVAN; “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. ALBERT M. SMITH, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. GORDON B. REESE, “I” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. HARRY S. STEELE, “C” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. GEORGE W. STONER, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. CLARENCE J. PRIMM, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. F. B. LITTLE, Med. Corps, 339th Inf.

LIEUT. W. C. GIFFELLS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

LIEUT. E. W. LEGlER, “C” Co., 310th Engrs.

LIEUT. HARRY J. COSTELLO, “M.G.” Co., 339th Inf.

CAPT. EUGENE PRINCE, Military Mission.

CAPT. HUGH S. MARTIN, Military Mission.

CAPT. J. A. HARTZFELD, Military Mission.

LIEUT. SERGIUS M. RIIS, Naval Attache to Embassy.

_St. Stanislaus_

CAPT. OTTO A. ODJARD, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

CAPT. ROBERT P. BOYD, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

MAJOR C. S. McARDLE, 310th Engrs.

CAPT. JOHN J. CONWAY, “G” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. LAWRENCE P. KEITH, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. WESLEY K. WRIGHT, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. JOHN A. COMMONS, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. H. T. KETCHAM, “H” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. HARRY M. DENNIS, “B” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. CHARLES B. RYAN, “K” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. H. D. McPHAIL, “A” Co., 339th Inf.

CAPT. WILLIAM KNIGHT, 310th Engrs.

LIEUT. ROBERT J. WIECZOREK, “M” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. DWIGHT FISTLER, “I” Co., 339th Inf.

LIEUT. B. A. BURNS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.

LIEUT. A. W. KLIEFOTH, Military Mission.

LIEUT. M. B. ROGERS, Military Mission.

LIEUT. E. L. PACKER, Military Mission.

MAJOR D. O. LIVELY, American Red Cross.

CAPT. ROGER LEWIS, American Red Cross.

LIEUT. FRED MASON, American Red Cross.

LIEUT. GEORGE POLLATS, American Red Cross.

_Cross of St. George_

PVT. JOHN C. ADAMS

PVT. HARRISON BUSH

SGT. JOSEPH CURRY

PVT. FRED DeLANEY

1ST. SGT. W. DUNDON

BUGLER GEORGE GARTON

SGT. M. G. GRAHEK

PVT. GEO. HANRAHAN

SGT. CHAS. A. HEBNER

CORP. FRED HODGES

SGT. WM. R. HUSTON

SGT. JACOB KANTROWITZ

CORP. WM. NIEMAN

CORP. F. L. O’CONNOR

SGT. CHAS. W. PAGE

CORP. ROBT. M. PRATT

SGT. CHAS. V. RIHA

CORP. F. J. ROMANSKI

PVT. JOHN ROMPINEN

CORP. JOS. RYDUCHOWSKI

PVT. LEO SCHWABE

SGT. NORMAN ZAPFE

CORP. W. ZIMMERMAN

All of “M” Company, 339th Infantry.

Also MR. ERNEST RAND, and MR. FRANK OLMSTEAD, Y. M. C. A.

_St. Anne Silver Medal_

CORPORAL WALTER J. PICARD, “M” Company, 339th Inf.

_St. Stanislaus Silver Medal_

PVT. HAROLD METCALFE

PVT. ERNEST ROULEAU

PVT. FRANK STEPNAVSKI

COOK JOSEPH PAVLIN

COOK THEODORE ZECH

All of “M” Company, 339th Infantry


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Major Nichols in His Railway Detachment Field Headquarters_]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_Ready to Head Memorial Day Parade._]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_American Cemetery in Archangel._]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_Soldiers and Sailors of Six Nations Reverence Dead._]


[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
_Graves of First Three Americans Killed Fighting
Bolsheviki—Obozerskaya, Russia._]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_Sailors Parade on Memorial Day, Archangel._]


[Illustration: LANMAN
_Through Ice Floes in Arctic Homeward-Bound._]


[Illustration: ROZANSKEY
_Out of White Sea into Arctic Under Midnight Sun._]




XXXIX
HOMEWARD BOUND


“At The Earliest Possible Date”—Work Of Detroit’s Own Welfare
Association—“Getting The Troops Out Of Russia”—We Assemble At
Economia—Delousers And Ball Games—War Mascots—War Brides—Remarkable
Memorial Day Service In American Military Cemetery In Archangel—Tribute
To Our Comrades Who Could Not Go Home—Our Honored Dead.


“At the earliest possible moment” was the date set by the War
Department for the withdrawal of the troops from Russia. This was the
promise made the American people during the ice-bound winter, the
promise made more particularly to appease vigorous protests of “The
Detroit’s Own Welfare Association,” which under the leadership of Mr.
D. P. Stafford, had been untiring in its efforts to move the hand of
the War Department. Congressmen Doremus and Nichols and Townsend had
also been very active in “getting the Americans out of North Russia.”

To us wearied veterans of that strange war, the nine months of
guerrilla war, always strenuous and at times taking on large
proportions,—to us the “earliest possible moment” could not arrive a
minute too soon. We had fought a grim fight against terrible odds, we
had toiled to make the defenses more and more impregnable so that those
who relieved us might not be handicapped as we had been. We hated to be
thought of as quitters, we suffered under the reproachful eyes of newly
arriving veteran Scots and Tommies who had been mendaciously deceived
into thinking we were quitters. We suffered from the thought that the
distortion, exaggeration and partisan outcry at home was making use of
half-statements of returned comrades or half-statements from uncensored
letters, in such a way as to make us appear cry-babies and quitters.
But down in our hearts we were conscious that our record, our morale,
our patriotism were sound. We believed we were entitled to a speedy
getaway for home. We accepted the promise with pleasure. We felt
friendly toward the Detroit’s Own Welfare Association for its efforts
and the efforts of others. We could have wished that there had not been
so much excitement of needless fears and incitement of useless outcry.
It cost us hard earned money to cable home assurances to our loved ones
that we were well and safe, so that they need not believe the wild
tales that we were sleeping in water forty below zero, or thawing out
the cows before we milked them, or simply starving to death. We could
have wished that returned comrades who tried to tell the real facts and
allay needless fears—the actual facts were damnable enough—might not
have been treated as shamefully as some were by a populace fooled by a
mixed propaganda that was a strange combination, as it appears to us
now, of earnest, sympathetic attempts to do something for “Detroit’s
Own,” of bitter partisan invective, and of insidious pro-bolshevism.

For the cordial welcome home which was given to the Polar Bear veterans
in July, our heartfelt appreciation is due. Veterans who marched behind
Major J. Brooks Nichols between solid crowds of cheering home-folks on
July 4th at Belle Isle could not help feeling that the city of Detroit
was proud of the record of the men who had weathered that awful
campaign. It was a greeting that we had not dreamed of those days away
up there in the northland when we were watching the snow and ice melt
and waiting news of the approach of troopships.

At Economia we assembled for the purpose of preparing for our voyage
home. To the silt-sawdust island doughboys came from the various
fronts. By rail from Obozerskaya and Bolsheozerki, by barge from
Beresnik and Kholmogori and Onega, came the veterans of this late side
show of the great world war. With them they had their mascots and their
War Brides, their trophies and curios, their hopeful good humor and
healthy play spirit.

Who will not recall with pleasure the white canvass camp we made on the
“policed-up” sawdust field. Did soldiers ever police quite so willingly
as they did there on the improvised baseball diamond, where “M” Company
won the championship and the duffle-bagful of roubles when the first
detachment of the 339th was delousing and turning over Russian
equipment, and “F” Company won the port belt and roubles in the series
played while the remainder of the Polar Bears were getting ready to
sail.

Who will forget the day that the Cruiser “Des Moines” steamed in from
the Arctic? Every doughboy on the island rushed to the Dvina’s edge.
They stood in great silent throat-aching groups, looking with blurred
eyes at the colors that grandly flew to the breeze. And then as the
jackies gave them a cheer those olive drab boys answered till their
throats were hoarse. That night they sat long in their tents—it was not
dusk even at midnight, and talked of home. A day or so later they spied
from the fire-house tower vessels that seemed to be jammed in a polar
ice floe which a north wind crowded into the throat of the White Sea.
Then to our joy a day or two later came the three transports, the long
deferred hope of a homeward voyage.

Everyone was merry those days. Even the daily practice march with
full-pack ordered by Colonel Stewart, five miles round and round on the
rough board walks of the sawdust port, was taken with good humor.
Preparations for departure included arrangements for carrying away our
brides and mascots.

Here and there in the Economia embarkation camp those days and
nightless nights in early June many a secret conclave of doughboys was
held to devise ways and means of getting their Russian mascots aboard
ship. Of these boys and youths they had become fond. They wanted to see
them in “civvies” in America and the mascots were anxiously waiting the
outcome at the gangplank.

At Chamova one winter night a little twelve-year old Russian boy
wandered into the “B” Company cook’s quarters where he was fed and
given a blanket to sleep on. Welz, the cook, mothered him and taught
him to open bully cans and speak Amerikanski. This incident had its
counterpart everywhere. At Obozerskaya “M” Company picked up a boy
whose father and mother had been carried off by the Bolsheviks. He and
his pony and water-barrel cart became part of the company. At Pinega
the “G” Company boys adopted a former Russian Army youth who for weeks
was the only man who could handle their single Colt machine gun. In
trying to get him on board the “Von Stenben” in Brest—it had been
simple in Economia—they got their commanding officer into trouble. Lt.
Birkett was arrested, compelled to remain at Brest but later released
and permitted to bring the youth to America with him where he lives in
Wisconsin. And out on a ranch in Wyoming a Russian boy who unofficially
enlisted with the American doughboys to fight for his Archangel state
is now learning to ride the American range with Lt. Smith. Major
Donoghue’s “little sergeant” is in America too and goes to school and
his Massachusetts school teacher calls him Michael Donoghue. And others
came too.

In marked contrast to these passengers who came with the veterans from
North Russia via Brest, which they remember for its Bokoo Eats and its
lightning equipment-exchange mill, is the story of one of the fifty
general prisoners whom they guarded on the “Von Steuben.” One of them
was a bad man, since become notorious. He was missing as the ship
dropped anchor that night in the dark harbor. It was feared by the
“second looie” and worried old sergeant that the man was trying to make
an escape. When they found him feigning slumber under a life boat on a
forbidden deck they chose opposite sides of the life boat and kicked
him fervently, first from one side then the other till he was
submissive. The name of the man at that time meant little to them—it
was Lt. Smith. But a few days afterward they could have kicked
themselves for letting Smith off so easy, for the press was full of the
stories of the brutalities of “Hardboiled” Smith. Lt. Wright and
Sergeant Gray are not yearning to do many events of the Russian
campaign over but they would like to have that little event of the
homeward bound voyage to do over so they could give complete justice to
“Hardboiled” Smith.

In contrast with the stories of brutal prison camps of the World War we
like to think of our buddies making their best of hardships and trials
in North Russia. We have asked two well-known members of the expedition
to contribute reminiscences printed below.

“As ithers see us” is here shown by extract from a letter by a Red
Cross man who saw doughboys as even our Colonel commanding did not see.
This Red Cross officer, Major Williams, of Baltimore, saw doughboys on
every front and sector of the far-extended battle and blockhouse line.
He may speak with ample knowledge of conditions. In part he writes:

“Americans, as a rule, are more popular in Russia than any other
nationality. The American soldier in North Russia by his sympathetic
treatment of the villagers, his ability to mix and mingle in a homey
fashion with the Russian peasants in their family life and daily toil,
and particularly the American soldier’s love of the little Russian
children, and the astonishing affection displayed by Russian children
toward the Americans furnishes one of the most illuminating examples of
what was and may be accomplished through measures of peaceful
intercourse. The American soldier demonstrated in North Russia that he
is a born mixer.

“I could write a book, giving concrete examples coming under my
observation, from voluminous notes in my possession. As I dictate this,
there is a vision of an American soldier who stopped by my sled, at
some remote village in a trackless forest, and urged me to visit with
him a starving family. This soldier, from his own rations, was helping
to feed thirteen Russians, and his joy was as great as theirs when the
Red Cross came to their relief.”

The next contribution is from the pen of a man who, born in Kiev,
Russia, had in youth seen the Czar’s old army, who had served years in
the U. S. army after coming to America, who was one of the finest
soldiers and best known men in the North Russian expedition.

“It is almost an axiom with the regular army of our own country and
those of foreign nations, that soldier and discipline are synonymous.
Meaning thereby the blind discipline of the Prussian type.

“That such an axiom is entirely wrong has been shown us by the National
Army. No one will affirm that the new-born army was a model to pass
inspection even before our own High Moguls of the regular army. And
yet, what splendid success has that sneered at, ‘undisciplined,’ army
achieved.

“And where is the cause of its success? The ‘Uneducatedness’ in the
sense of the regular army. The American citizen in a soldier uniform
acted like a free human being, possessing initiative, self-reliance,
and confidence, which qualities are entirely subdued by the so called
education of a soldier. It is not the proper salute or clicking of the
heels that makes the good soldier, but the spirit of the man and his
character. And these latter qualities has possessed our national army.
Fresh from civilian life with all the liberty-loving tendencies, our
boys have thrown themselves into the fight on their own accord, once
they realized the necessity of it. The whip of discipline could never
accomplish so much as the conscience of necessity. And that is what the
national army possessed. And that is the cause of its success. And
therefore I love it.

“So long as the United States remains a free country, there is no
danger for the American people. That spirit which has manifested itself
in the National Army is capable to accomplish everything. It is the
free institutions of the country that brought us victory, not the so
called ‘education’ gotten in the barracks.

“I admired the national army man in fight, because I loved him as a
citizen. And unless he changes as a citizen, he will not change as a
fighter. To me the citizen and soldier are synonymous. A good citizen
makes a good soldier, and vice versa. Let the American citizen remain
as free-loving and self-reliant as he is now, and he will make one of
the best soldiers in the world. Let him lose that freedom loving
spirit, and he will have to be Prussianized.

“I have my greatest respect for the national army man, because I have
seen him at his best. In the moments of gravest danger he has exhibited
that courage which is only inborn in a free man. And when I saw that
courage, I said, He does not need any ‘education.’ Let him remain a
free man, and God help those who will try to take away his freedom.”

SGT. J. KANT, Co. “M” 339th Inf.


From distant Morjagorskaya, hundreds of versts, walked a bright-eyed
Slavic village school teacher to say goodbye to her doughboy friend who
was soon to sail for home. But to her great joy and reward, Nina Rozova
found that her lover, George Geren, of Detroit, had found a way to make
her his wife at once. One certain sympathetic American Consul, Mr.
Shelby Strother, had told George he would help him get his bride to
America if he wanted to marry the pretty teacher.

Blessings on that warm-hearted Consul. He helped eight of the boys to
bring away their brides. In this volume is a picture of a
doughboy-_barishna_ wedding party, Joe Chinzi and Elena Farizy. On a
boat from Brest to Hoboken, among one hundred sixty-seven war brides
from France, Belgium, England and Russia, Elena was voted third highest
in the judges’ beauty list. And John Karouch saw his Russian bride,
Alexandra Kadrina, take the first beauty prize. The writer well
remembers the beautiful young Russian woman of Archangel who wore
mourning for an American corporal and went to see her former lover’s
comrades go away on the tug for the last time. They had been to the
cemetery and they looked respectfully and affectionately at her for
they knew it was her hand that had made the corporal’s grave there in
the American cemetery in Archangel the one most marked by evidences of
loving care.

One of the last duties of the veterans of this campaign was the paying
of honors to their dead comrades in the American cemetery which
Ambassador Francis had purchased for our dead. This was without doubt
the most remarkable Memorial Day service in American history. From _The
American Sentinel_ is taken the following account:

“American Memorial Day was celebrated at Archangel yesterday. Headed by
the American Band, a company of American troops, and detachments of the
U. S. Navy, Russian troops, Russian Navy, British troops, British Navy,
French troops, French Navy, Italian and Polish troops, formed in parade
at Sabornaya at ten o’clock in the morning and marched to the cemetery.

“Here a short memorial service was held. Brief addresses were delivered
by General Richardson, General Miller, Charge D’Affaires Poole, and
General Ironside.

“In his introductory address General Richardson said:

“‘Fellow Soldiers of America and Allied Nations: We are assembled here
on the soil of a great Ally and a traditional friend of our country, to
do what honor we may to the memory of America’s dead here buried, who
responded to their country’s call in the time of her need and have laid
down their lives in her defense. Throughout the world wherever may be
found American soldiers or civilians, are gathered others today for the
fulfillment of this sacred and loving duty. I ask you to permit your
thought to dwell at this time with deep reverence upon the fact that no
higher honor can come to a soldier than belongs to those who have made
this supreme sacrifice, and whose bodies lie here before us, but whose
spirits, we trust, are with us.’

“Before introducing General Miller, General Richardson thanked the
Allied representatives for their participation in the celebration of
Memorial Day.

“Mr. Poole said:

“‘This day was first instituted in memory of those who fell in the
American Civil War. It became the custom to place flowers on the graves
of soldiers and strew flowers on the water in memory of the sailor
dead, marking in this way one day in each year when the survivors of
the war might join with a later generation to revere the memory of
those who had made for the common good the supreme sacrifice of life.
For Americans it is an impressive thought that we are renewing this
consecration today in Russia, in the midst of a civic struggle which
recalls the deep trials of our own past and which is, moreover,
inextricably bound up with the World War which has been our common
burden.

“‘This war, which was begun to put down imperial aggression upon the
political liberties, of certain peoples, has evolved into a profound
social upheaval, touching the most remote countries. We cannot yet see
definitely what the results of its later developments will be, but
already there lies before forward looking men the bright prospect of
peace and justice and liberty throughout the world such as we recently
dared hope for only within the narrow confines of particular countries.
To the soldiers of the great war—inspired from the outset by a dim
foresight of this stupendous result—we now pay honor; and in
particular, to the dead whose graves are before us.

“‘These men, like their comrades elsewhere in the most endless line of
battle, have struck their blow against the common enemy. They have had
the added privilege of assisting in the most tragic, and at the same
time the most hopeful, upheaval for which the war has been the
occasion. Autocracy in Russia is gone. A new democracy is in the
struggle of its birth. The graves before us are tangible evidence of
the deep and sympathetic concern of the older democracies. These men
have given their lives to help Russia. They have labored in an
enterprise which is a forecast of a new order in the world’s affairs
and have made of it a prophecy of success. Here within this restricted
northern area there has been an acid test of the practicability of
co-operation among nations for the attainment of common ends. Nowhere
could material and moral conditions have been more difficult than we
have seen them these past months; under no circumstances could
differences in national temperament or the frailties and shortcomings
of individuals be brought into stronger relief. Yet the winter of our
initial difficulties is given way to a summer of maturing success.
Co-operation begun in the most haphazard fashion has developed after a
few months of mutual adjustment into concerted and harmonious action.
It seems to me that herein lies striking proof of the generous spirit
of modern international intercourse and proof of the most practical
kind that, as nations succeed to doing away with war, they will be able
to apply the energies thus released to common action in the beneficent
field of world wide social and political betterment. If this ideal is
to be measurably attained, as I believe it is, these men have indeed
made their sacrifice to a great cause. They have given their lives to
the progress of civilization and their memory shall be cherished as
long as civilization lasts.’

“_The Northern Morning_, a Russian daily of Archangel, reported on the
Memorial Day Exercises as follows:

“‘In memory of the fallen during the Civil War in America, on the
initiative of President Lincoln, the 30th of May was fixed as a day to
remember the fallen heroes. In this year our American friends have to
pass this day far from their country, America, in our cold northland,
between the graves of those who are dear not only to our friends,
Allies, but also to us Russians; the sacred graves beneath which are
concealed those who, far from their own country, gave away their lives
to save us. These are now sacred and dear places, and the day of the
thirtieth of May as a day of memorial to them will always be to us a
day of mourning. This day will not be forgotten in the Russian soul. It
has to be kept in memory as long as the name of Russian manhood exists.

“‘After the speeches a military salute was fired. A heart-breaking call
of the trumpet over the graves of the fallen sounded the mourning
notes. Those who attended the meeting will never forget this moment of
the bugle call. The signal as it broke forth filled the air with
sorrowness and grief, as if it called the whole world to bow before
those who, loving their neighbors, without hesitation gave their lives
away for the sacred cause of humanity.’

“Honor be to the fallen: blessings and eternal rest to those protectors
of humanity who gave their lives away for the achievement of justice
and right. Sleep quietly now, sons of liberty and light. You won before
the world never-fading honor and eternal glory.”

And so at last came the day to sail. We were going out. No Americans
were coming to take our place. We were going to leave the “show” in the
hands of the British—who themselves were to give it up before fall. The
derided Bolshevik bands of brigands whom we had set out to chase to
Vologda and Kotlas, had developed into a well-disciplined,
well-equipped fighting organization that responded to the will of Leon
Trotsky. Although we had seen an Archangel State military force also
develop behind our lines and come on to the active fighting sectors, we
knew that Archangel was in desperate danger from the Bolshevik Northern
Army of Red soldiers. They were out there just beyond the fringe of the
forest only waiting, perhaps, for us to start home.

We must admit that when we thought of those wound-chevroned Scots who
had remained on the lines with the new Archangel troops of uncertain
morale and recalled the looks in their eyes, we sensed a trace of
bitter in our cup of joy. Why if the job had been worth doing at all
had it not been worth while for our country to do it wholeheartedly
with adequate force and with determination to see it through to the
desired end. We thought of the many officers and men who had given
their lives in this now abandoned cause. And again arose the old
question persistent, demanding an answer: Why had we come at all? Was
it just one of those blunders military-political that are bound to
happen in every great war? The thought troubled us even as we embarked
for home.

That night scene with the lowering sun near midnight gleaming gold upon
the forest-shaded stretches of the Dvina River and casting its mellow,
melancholy light upon the wrecked church of a village, is an
ineffaceable picture of North Russia. For this is our Russia—a church;
a little cluster of log houses, encompassed by unending forests of
moaning spruce and pine; low brooding, sorrowful skies; and over all
oppressive stillness, sad, profound, mysterious, yet strangely lovable
to our memory.

Near the shell-gashed and mutilated church are two rows of unadorned
wooden crosses, simple memorials of a soldier burial ground. Come
vividly back into the scene the winter funerals in that yard of our
buddies, brave men who, loving life, had been laid away there, having
died soldier-like for a cause they had only dimly understood. And the
crosses now rise up, mute, eloquent testimony to the cost of this
strange, inexplicable war of North Russia.

We cast off from the dirty quay and steamed out to sea. On the deck was
many a reminiscent one who looked back bare-headed on the paling
shores, in his heart a tribute to those who, in the battle field’s
burial spot or in the little Russian churchyards stayed behind while we
departed homeward bound.

This closes our narrative. It is imperfectly told. We could wish we had
time to add another volume of anecdotes and stories of heroic deeds.
For errors and omissions we beg the indulgence of our comrades. We
trust that the main facts have been clearly told. Here by way of
further dedication of this book to our honored dead, whose names appear
at the head of our lengthy casualty list of five hundred sixty-three,
let us add a few simple verses of sentiment, the first two of which
were written by “Dad” Hillman and the others added on by one of the
writers.

THE HONOR ROLL _of the_

AMERICAN EXPEDITION WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THE BOLSHEVIKI IN NORTH RUSSIA

1918–1919




IN RUSSIA’s FIELDS
_(After Flanders Fields)_


In Russia’s fields no poppies grow
There are no crosses row on row
To mark the places where we lie,
No larks so gayly singing fly
As in the fields of Flanders.

We are the dead. Not long ago
We fought beside you in the snow
And gave our lives, and here we lie
Though scarcely knowing reason why
Like those who died in Flanders.

At Ust Padenga where we fell
On Railroad, Kodish, shot and shell
We faced, from just as fierce a foe
As those who sleep where poppies grow,
Our comrades brave in Flanders.

In Toulgas woods we scattered sleep,
Chekuevo and Kitsa’s tangles creep
Across our lonely graves. At night
The doleful screech owl’s dismal flight
Heart-breaking screams in Russia.

Near railroad bridge at Four-five-eight,
And Chamova’s woods, our bitter fate
We met. We fell before the Reds
Where wolves now howl above our heads
In far off lonely Russia.

In Shegovari’s desperate fight,
Vistavka’s siege and Seltso’s night,
In Bolsheozerki’s hemmed-in wood,
In Karpogor, till death we stood
Like they who died in Flanders.

And some in Archangel are laid
’Neath rows of crosses Russian-made
With marker of the Stars and Stripes
Not minding bugle, drum or pipes
We sleep, the brave, in Russia.

And comrades as you gather far away
In God’s own land on some bright day
And think of us who died and rest
Just tell our folks we did our best
In far off fields of Russia.


[Illustration:]




_Our Roll of Honored Dead_


KILLED IN ACTION


AGNEW, JOHN, Sgt. Co. K Sept. 27, 1918, Belfast, Ireland.

ANDERSON, JAKE C., Pvt. 1st class Co. B Nov. 11,1918, Cave City, Ky.

ANGOVE, JOHN P., Pvt. Co. B Nov. 13, 1918, Painesdale, Mich.

ASSIRE, MYRON J., Co. A, 310th Engrs Oct. 26,1918.

AUSLANDER, FLOYD R., Pvt. Co. H April 2, 1919, Decker, Mich.

AUSTIN, FLOYD E., Pvt. 1st class Co. E Dec. 30, 1918, Scottsburg, Ind.

AVERY, HARLEY, Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Lexington, Mich.

BALLARD, CLIFFORD B., Second Lt. M. G. Co Feb. 7, 1919, Cambridge,
Mass.

BERGER, CARL G., Wag. Sup. Co Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit.

BERGER, CARL H., Second Lt. Co. E Dec. 31, 1918, Mayville, Wis.

BORESON, JOHN, Pvt. Co. H, Oct. 1, 1918, Stephenson, Mich.

BOSEL, JOHN J., Corp. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Detroit.

CHAPPEL, CHARLES F., First Lt. Co. K Sept. 27, 1918, Toledo, Ohio.

CHEENEY, Roy D., Corp. Co. C. Nov. 29, 1918, Pueblo, Colo.

CHRISTIAN, ARTHUR, Pvt. Co. L. Oct. 14, 1918, Atlanta, Mich.

CLARK, JOSHUA A., Pvt. Co. C. Feb. 4, 1919, Woodville, Mich.

CLEMENS, RAYMOND C., Pvt. Co. C. Nov. 29, 1918, St. Joseph, Mich.

COLE, ELMER B., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 23, 1919, Hamersluya, Pa.

CONRAD, REX H., Corp. Co. F Mar. 26, 1919, Ponca, Mich.

CROOK, ALVA, Pvt. Co. M April 1, 1919, Lakeview, Mich.

CRONIN, LOUIS, Pvt. Co. K Oct. 13, 1918, Flushing, Mich.

CROWE, BERNARD C., Sgt. Co. K Dec. 30, 1918, Detroit.

CUFF, FRANCIS W., First Lt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Rio, Wis.

DeAMICIS, GUISEPPE, Corp. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit.

DIAL, CHARLES O., Mech. Co. M Mar. 31, 1919, Carlisle, Ind.

DYMENT, SCHLIOMA, Pvt. Co. M Sept. 30, 1918, Detroit.

ELLIS, LEO R, Pvt. Co. I. Nov. 4,1918, Chicago, Ill.

FOLEY, MORRIS J., Corp. Co. B Sept. 20, 1918, Detroit.

FULLER, ALFRED W., Pvt. 1st class Co. K Dec. 30, 1918, Trenton, Mich.

GASPER, LEO, Pvt. Co. B Nov. 11, 1918, Chesaning, Mich.

GAUCH, CHARLES D., Pvt. Hq. Co Oct. 1, 1918, Kearney, N. J.

GOTTSCHALK, MILTON E., Corp. Co. A Jan. 22, 1919, Detroit.

GRAHAM, CLAUS, Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Toledo, Ohio.

HESTER, HARLEY H., Corp. M. G. Co Sept. 27, 1918, Cave City, Ky.

KENNEY, MICHAEL J., Sgt. Co. K Dec. 30, 1918, Detroit.

KENNY, BERNARD F., Corp. Co. A Mar. 9, 1919, Hemlock, Mich.

KISSICK, THURMAN L., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Ringos Mill, Ky.

KREIZINGER, EDWARD, Corp. Co. L. Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit.

KUDZBA, PETER, Pvt. CO. B Sept. 20, 1918, Chicago, Ill.

KWASNIEWSKI, IGNACY H., Mech. Co. I. Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit.

LADOVICH, NIKODEM, Pvt. Co. C Feb. 4, 1919, Pittsburgh, Pa.

MALM, CLARENCE A., Pvt. 1st class Co. G Dec. 4, 1918, Battle Creek,
Mich.

MARRIOTT, FRED R, Sgt. Co. B Nov. 12, 1918, Port Huron, Mich.

McCONVILL, EDWARD, Pvt. Co. H Mar. 23, 1919, Shawmut, Mass.

McLAUGHLIN, FRANK S., Pvt. Co. I Oct. 16, 1918, Elks Rapids, Mich.

MERRICK, WALTER A., Pvt. Co. M Oct. 14, 1918, Sandusky, Mich.

MERTENS, EDWARD L., Corp. Co. L Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit.

MOORE, ALBERT E., Corp. Co. A Mar. 7, 1919, Detroit.

MUELLER, FRANK J., Pvt. Co. E Dec. 30, 1918, Marshfield, Wis.

OZDARSKI, JOSEPH S., Pvt. Co. L. Oct. 14, 1918, Detroit.

PATRICK, RALPH M., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Long Lake, Mich.

PAWLAK, JOSEPH, Pvt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Detroit.

PILARSKI, ALEK, Pvt. Co. B Nov. 11, 1918, Detroit.

PITTS, JAY B., Pvt. Co. G Dec. 4, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich.

RAMOTOWSKE, JOSEF, Pvt. 1st class Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Detroit.

REDMOND, NATHAN L., Corp. Co. H Mar. 19, 1919, Detroit.

RICHARDSON, EUGENE E., Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Detroit.

RICHEY, AUGUST K, Corp. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Dowagiac, Mich.

RITCHER, EDWARD, Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Mishawaka, Ind.

ROBBINS, DANIEL, Pvt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Blaine, Mich.

ROGERS, YATES K, Sgt. Co. A Jan. 22, 1919, Memphis, Tenn.

RUTH, FRANK J., Pvt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Detroit.

SAPP, FRANK E., Corp. Co. M April 1, 1919, Rodney, Mich.

SAVADA, JOHN, Corp. Co. B Nov. 13, 1918, Hamtramck, Mich.

SCHMANN, ADOLPH, Pvt. Co. C. Nov. 13, 1918, Milwaukee, Wis.

SCRUGGS, FRANK W., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Bettelle, Ala.

SILKAITIS, FRANK, Pvt. Co. H Oct. 1, 1918, Chicago, III.

SMITH, WILBUR B., Sgt. Co. C. Jan. 20, 1919, Fort Williams, Canada.

SOCZKOSKI, ANTHONY, Pvt. Co. I Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit.

SOKOL, PHILIP, Pvt. Co. L. Sept. 16, 1913, Pittsburgh, Pa.

SPELCHER, ELMER E., Cook Co. C Feb. 4, 1919, Akron, Ohio.

STALEY, GLENN P., Pvt. Co. K Sept. 17, 1918, Whitemore, Mich.

SWEET, EARL D., Pvt. Co. A Mar. 9, 1919, McGregor, Mich.

SYSKA, FRANK, Pvt. Co. D Jan. 23, 1919, Detroit.

TAYLOR, OTTO V., Pvt. Co. K Oct. 16, 1918, Alexandria, Ind.

TRAMMELL, DAUSIE W., Pvt. Co. A Mar. 9, 1919, Clio, Ky.

VanDerMEER, JOHN, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 20, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich.

VanHERWYNEN, JOHN, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 20, 1918, Vriesland, Mich.

VOJTA, CHARLES J., Pvt. Co. K Sept. 27, 1918, Chicago, III.

WAGNER, HAROLD H., Pvt. 1st class Co. E. Dec. 30, 1918, Harlan, Mich.

WELSTEAD, WALTER J., Pvt. Co. A Mar. 9, 1919, Chicago, III.

WENGER, IRVIN, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, Grand Rapids, Mich.

ZAJACZKOWSKI, JOHN, Pvt. Co. B Nov. 12, 1918, Detroit.

DEATH FROM OTHER CAUSES


BLOOM, ELMER, Sgt. Co. A., 310th Engrs. (drowned) Oct. 8, 1918.

CONNOR, LLOYD, Corp. Co. A., 310th Engrs. (drowned) Oct. 8, 1918.

DARGAN, ARTHUR, Pvt. Co. A., 310th Engrs. (drowned) Oct. 8, 1918.

HILL, C. B., Lt. Co. A., 310th Engrs. (drowned) Oct. 8, 1918.

LOVELL, ALBERT W., Pvt. Hq. Co Aug. 10, 1918 (drowned), England.

MARCHLEWSKI, JOSEPH D., Pvt. Co. G Oct. 28, 1918 (accident), Alpena,
Mich.

MARTIN, J. C., Corp. Co. E. Oct. 21, 1918 (accidentally shot),
Portland, Mich.

RUSSELL, WM. H., Corp. Co. M April 19, 1919 (accident by grenade),
Detroit.

SAWICKIS, FRANK K, Pvt. Co. I April 29,1919 (Bolo grenade), Racine,
Wis.

SICKLES, FLOYD A., Pvt. Co. M Dec. 6,1918 (accident), Deckerville,
Mich.

SZYMANSKI, LOUIS A., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 27, 1918 (accidentally shot),
Detroit.

WILSON, DALE, Pvt. 1st class Co. B April 3, 1919, Alexander, Mich.

WING, HOMER, Pvt. Co. A, 310th Engrs May 31,1919 (rly. accident),
Detroit.

YOUNG, EDWARD L., Sgt. Co. G Mar. 14, 1919 (suicide), Moosie, Pa.

DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED IN ACTION


BALL, ELBERT, Pvt. 1st class Co. B Nov. 14, 1918, Henderson, Ky.

BOWMAN, WILLIAM H., Sgt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Penn Laird, Va.

CLISH, FRANK, Pvt. Co. B Mar. 1, 1919, Baraga, Mich.

COLLINS, EDMUND R., First Lt. Co. H Mar. 24, 1919, Racine, Wis.

COOK, CLARENCE, Pvt. Co. A Feb. 20, 1919, Stilton, Kan.

DETZLER, ALLICK F., Pvt. Co. B Nov. 15, 1918, Prescott, Mich.

DUNAETZ, ISIADOR, Pvt. Co. C Jan. 31, 1919, Sodus, Mich.

ETTER, FRANK M., Sgt. Co. C Feb. 6, 1919, Marion, Ind.

FRANKLIN, WALTER E., Pvt. Co. E Dec. 31, 1918, Bellevue, Mich.

GRAY, ALSON W., Corp. Co. K Nov. 8, 1918, South Boston, Va.

KOSLOUSKY, MATTIOS, Pvt. Co. H April 2, 1919, Chicago, Ill.

LEHMANN, WILLIAM J., Corp. Co. A Jan. 23, 1919, Danville, III.

LENCIONI, SEBASTIANO, Pvt. Co. A Jan. 22, 1919, Whitewater, Wis.

LYTTLE, ALFRED E., Corp. Co. A., 310th Engrs Oct. 31, 1918.

MEISTER, EMANUEL A., Sgt. Co. C Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit.

MORRIS, JOHN H. W., Pvt. Co. B, 310th Engrs Oct. 18, 1918.

MYLON, JAMES J., Corp. Co. E Dec. 31, 1918, Detroit.

NIEMI, MATTIE I, Pvt. Co. M Sept. 30, 1918, Verona, Mich.

PETERSON, AUGUST B., Pvt. Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Whitehall, Mich.

PHILLIPS, CLIFFORD F., First Lt. Co. H May 10,1919, Lincoln, Nebr.

POWERS, RALPH E., Lt. 337th Amb. Co Jan. 22, 1919, Detroit.

ROSE, BENJAMIN, Pvt. Co. A Mar. 11, 1919, Packard, Ky.

SKOSELAS, ANDREW, Pvt. Co. C Feb. 4, 1919, Eastlake, Mich.

SMITH, GEORGE J., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Yale, Mich.

STIER, VICTOR, Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Cincinnati, Ohio.

TAMAS, STANLEY P., Pvt. Co. D Oct. 29, 1918, Manistee, Mich.

ZIEGENBEIN, WILLIAM J., Corp. Co. A, 310th Engrs Oct. 16, 1918.

MISSING IN ACTION


BABINGER, WILLIAM R., Corp. Hq. Co Oct. 2, 1918, Detroit.

CARTER, JAMES, Pvt. Hd. Co. Oct. 2, 1918, Cornwall, England.

CARTER, WILLIAM J., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit.

COLLINS, EARL W., Corp. Co. H Mar. 18, 1919, Detroit.

CWENK, JOSEPH, Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Milan, Mich.

FRANK, ARTHUR, Pvt. M. G. Co Sept. 29, 1918, Detroit.

GUTOWSKI, BOLESLAW, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Wyandotte, Mich.

HODGE, ELMER W., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Shelby, Mich.

HUTCHINSON, ALFRED G., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Plainwell, Mich.

JENKS, STILLMAN V., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Shelby, Mich.

JONKER, NICHOLAS, Pvt. Co. C. Nov. 29, 1918, Grand Rapids, Mich.

KEEFE, THOMAS H., Pvt. Co. C Feb. 4, 1919, Chicago, Ill.

KIEFFER, SIMON P., Pvt. M. G. Co Sept. 29, 1918, Detroit.

KOWALSKI, STANLEY, Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Lodz, Poland.

KUSSRATH, CHARLES AUG., JR., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Chicago, Ill.

KUROWSKI, MAX J., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Grand Rapids, Mich.

MANNOR, JOHN T., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Menominee, Mich.

MARTIN, WILLIAM J., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit.

McTAVISH, STEWART M., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Stratford,
Can.

PEYTON, EDWARD W., Corp. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Richmond, Ky.

POTH, RUSSELL A., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Brown City, Mich.

RAUSCHENBERGER, ALBERT, Corp. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Grand Rapids, Mich.

RETHERFORD, LINDSAY, Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Hustonville,
Ky.

RUSSELL, ARCHIE E., Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19. 1919, Hesperia. Mich.

SAJNAJ, LEO, Pvt. 1st class Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Chicago, Ill.

SCHROEDER, HERBERT A., Corp. Co. B Sept. 20, 1918, Detroit.

SCOTT, PERRY C, Corp. Hq. Co Oct. 2, 1918, Detroit.

WEITZEL, HENRY R., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918. Bay City, Mich.

WILLIAMS, EDSON A., Pvt. Co. A Jan. 19, 1919, Minneapolis. Minn.

PRISONERS OF WAR


ALBERS, GEORGE, Pvt. 1st class Co. I Nov. 3, 1918, Muskegon, Mich.

FRUCCE, JOHN, Pvt. Co. H Mar. 22. 1919, Muskegon, Mich.

FULCHER, EARL W., Pvt. Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Tyre, Mich.

HAURILIK, MIKE M., Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Detroit.

HOGAN, FREEMAN, Pvt. Co. M Mar. 31, 1919, Detroit.

HUSTON, WALTER L.. Pvt. Co. C. Nov. 29. 1918. Muskegon, Mich.

LAURSEN, JENS C. Mech. Co. M May 1, 1919. Marlette, Mich.

LEITZELL, GLENN W., Sgt. Co. M Mar. 31. 1919, Mifflinburg. Pa.

PRINCE, ARTHUR, Corp. Co. B Mar. 1. 1919, Onaway, Mich.

TRIPLETT, JOHNNIE, Pvt. Co. C Nov. 29, 1918, Lackay, Ky.

SCHEULKE, WILLIAM R. Pvt. Co. H Mar. 22, 1919, Stronach, Mich.

VANIS, ANTON J., Pvt. Co. D Jan. 23, 1919, Chicago, Ill.

DIED OF DISEASE


BAYER, ARTHUR, Pvt. Co. G Sept. 12, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich.

BAYER, CHARLES, Pvt. Co. F Sept. 12, 1918, Detroit.

BERRYHILL, CHESTER W., Pvt. Co. F Sept. 11, 1918, Midland, Mich.

RICKERT, ALBERT F., Pvt. Co. c. Sept. 5. 1918, Mt. Clemens, Mich.

BIGELOW, JOHN W., Pvt. Co. E Sept. 10. 1918, Copefish, Mich.

BRIEVE, JOSEPH, Pvt. Co. E Sept. 7. 1918, Holland, Mich.

BURDICK, ANDREW, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 19, 1918, Manitou Island, Mich.

BYLES, JAMES B., Wag. Sup. Co Feb. 21, 1919, Valdosta, Ga.

CANNIZZARO, RAYFIELD, Pvt. Co. K Sept. 13, 1918. Edmore, Mich.

CASEY, MARCUS T., Second Lt. Co. C Sept. 16. 1918, New Richmond, Wis.

CIESIELSKI, WALTER, Pvt. 1st class Co. E Feb. 27, 1919, Detroit.

CLARK, CLYDE, Pvt. Co. L. Sept. 18, 1918, Lansing. Mich.

DUSABLOM, WILLIAM H., Pvt. Co. I Sept. 18, 1918, Trenton, Mich.

EASLEY, ALBERT H., Pvt. Co. L. Sept. 13, 1918, Kewadin, Mich.

FARRAND, RAY, Pvt. Co. I. Sept. 13, 1918, Armada, Mich.

FIELDS, CLARENCE, Pvt. Co. F Sept. 19, 1918. Bay City. Mich.

FINNEGAN, LEO, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 17, 1918, Grand Rapids, Mich.

GARIEPY, HENRY, Sergt. Co. B Sept. 10, 1918. Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

GRESSER, JOSEPH A., Pvt. Co. C. Sept. 8, 1918. Wyandotte, Mich.

HENDY, ALFRED H., Pvt. Co. C. Sept. 23, 1918, Grosse Ile, Mich.

HENLEY, JOHN T., Pvt. Co. I. Sept. 11, 1918, Chicago. Ill.

HODGSON, FRED L., Pvt. Co. M Sept. 14. 1918, Cassopolis, Mich.

HUNT, BERT, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 16, 1918, Hudsonville, Mich.

JACKSON, JESSE C, Pvt. 1st class Hq. Co Sept. 15, 1918, Detroit.

JORDAN, CARL B., Pvt. Co. B Sept. 10, 1918. Ferry, Mich.

KALASKA, JOSEPH. Pvt. Co. I Sept. 18, 1918, Trenton, Mich.

KEICZ, ANDRZEI, Pvt. Co. C Sept. 13, 1918, Detroit.

KISTLER, HERBERT B., Pvt. Co. I Sept. 11, 1918, Lancaster Pa.

KROLL, JOHN, JR., Pvt. Co. D Sept. 10, 1918, Holland, Mich.

KUKLA, VALENTINE, Pvt. Co. K Sept. 12. 1918, Kawkawlin, Mich.

KULWICKI, ANDREW J., Pvt. Co. K Jan. 28, 1918. Milwaukee, Wis.

LANTER, MARION F., Pvt. Co. I April 26, 1919, Savoy, Ky.

LAUZON, HENRY, Pvt. Co. L Sept. 28, 1918, Pinconning. Mich.

LINK, STEPHEN J., First Lt. Hq. Co Sept. 20, 1918, Taylorville, Ill.

MALUSKY, JOSEPH, Pvt. Co. C Sept. 10, 1919, Fountain, Mich.

MAYBAUM, HAROLD, Pvt. Co. E Sept. 9, 1918, Ainsworth, Ind.

McDONALD, ANGUS, Pvt. Co. E Sept. 12, 1918, Marilla, Mich.

MEAD, WILLIAM C, Pvt. Co. B Sept. 14, 1918, Mayville, Mich.

MICHEL, LEWIS M., Pvt. Co. c. Sept. 10, 1918, Parnassus, Pa.

NERI, VINCENT, Bug. Co. C Sept. 11, 1918, Detroit.

NICHOLLS, CHARLES B., Pvt. Co. B Sept. 12, 1918, Rose City, Mich.

NUNN, ARTHUR, Pvt. Co. M Sept. 13,1918. Croswell, Mich.

O’BRIEN, RAYMOND, Pvt. Hq. Co Sept. 12, 1918, Saginaw, Mich.

O’CONNOR, LAWRENCE S., Corp. Co. C Sept. 8, 1918, Lancaster, Ohio.

PARROTT, JESSE F., Pvt. Co. K Sept. 25, 1918, Mt. Clemens, Mich.

PASSOW, FERDINAND, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 11. 1918, Mosinee, Wis.

PETRASKA, OSCAR H., Pvt. Co. K Sept. 10, 1918. Wyandotte, Mich.

PETULSKI, JOHN, Pvt. CO. K Sept. 15, 1918, Detroit.

ROSE, FLOYD, Pvt. Co. I. Sept. 10, 1918. Vicksburg, Mich.

ROWE, EZRA T., Pvt. M. G. Co Sept. 16, 1918, Hart, Mich.

RYNBRANDT, RAYMOND R, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 11, 1918, Byron Center, Mich.

SCHEPEL, TIEMON, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 11, 1918, Holland, Mich.

SHAUGHNESSY, JOHN, Pvt. Hq. Co Sept. 15, 1918, Missoula, Mont.

SHINGLEDECKER, DWIGHT, Pvt. Co. A Sept. 11, 1918, Dowagiac, Mich.

STOCKEN, ORVILLE I., Pvt. Co. A Sept. 13, 1918, Battle Creek, Mich.

SURRAN, HARRY H., Pvt. Co. A Sept. 14, 1918, Culver, Ind.

TEGGUS, WILLIAM G., Corp. Hq. Co Sept. 11, 1918, Pontiac, Mich.

THOMPSON, HENRY, Pvt. Co. A Sept. 16, 1918, Elkhart, Ind.

VAN DEVENTER, GEORGE E., Pvt. Co. C Sept. 11, 1918, Rupert, Idaho.

WADSWORTH, LAURENCE L., Pvt. Co. I Sept. 20, 1918, Aurora, Ind.

WALDEYER, NORBERT C, Pvt. Co. D Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit.

WAPRZYCKI, SYLVESTER, Pvt. 337th Amb. Co Sept. 14. 1918.

WEAVER, LEWIS T., Pvt. Co. A Sept. 15, 1918. Marlette, Mich.

WEESNER, CLIFFFORD E., Pvt. Co. F Sept. 11. 1918, Jackson, Mich.

WETERSHOF, JOHN T., Pvt. Co. B Sept. 11, 1918, Grand Rapids. Mich.

WHITFORD, JASON, Pvt. Co. C. Sept. 19, 1918, Whitemore, Mich.

WITT, LOUIS C, Pvt. Hq. Co Sept. 13. 1918, Detroit.

WOOD, STEWART W., Corp. Co. C Sept. 7. 1918, Atlanta, Ga.

ZLOTCHA, MIKE, Pvt. Co. E Sept. 23, 1918. Hamtramck, Mich.


[Illustration: Map of the Archangel Fighting Area]