Part 5

By such a method, he could have held his little force well in hand, would have safeguarded Archangel and fulfilled the real mission of the expedition (if guarding Archangel was the mission), with small cost and few casualties.

The answer to this is that British Headquarters was determined upon an offensive program, and committed itself to a punitive chase of the Bolsheviks, regardless of the nature of such an undertaking, heedless of where it led, blind to consequences.

As the Allies pushed into this unknown country, it became apparent that between the two Columns advancing by the Dvina river and by the railway, there stretched a great, unsounded territory, entirely unreconnoitered, and through which by many routes, the enemy could threaten the tenuous unguarded lines of communication with Archangel.

It was necessary to put out flanking parties and to keep an eye to the rear. At Kodish, fifty miles east from the Railway and also on the Vaga river, which forms a junction with the Dvina one hundred and fifty miles from Archangel, it was imperative to organize invasions auxiliary to the two main bodies. Likewise, from east and west, threats were made upon the security of the city of Archangel, and it became necessary to establish detached outposts in Pinega Valley, one hundred miles on the left flank, and Onega Valley, about the same distance on the right flank.

Also, isolated garrisons were installed in villages in the rear--at Seletskoe on the Emtsa, and at Emetskoe, where this small tributary flowed into the Dvina; at Morjagorskaya, midway between Emetskoe and Bereznik, and Bereznik itself, fifty miles farther south on the Dvina, where there was an important subsidiary base; at Shred Mekrenga, where there was an important road, and at other villages in the interior, little groups of soldiers were stationed, and often lieutenants short from civil life found themselves "Officers Commanding," faced with the problems and responsibilities of Field Officers.

By December, the Allied fighting forward stations in Archangel Province were extended in the form of a huge horseshoe, and a line drawn from flank to flank and covering the forward position would have reached out five hundred miles.

There were six principal American battlefronts: Pinega, Onega, the Vologda Railway, Kodish, the Vaga River, and the Dvina. Each of these in the war of North Russia formed a distinct episode quite apart from the others. The soldiers on the Dvina were entirely in ignorance of the fate of their companions on the Railway. At other points in the interior many did not even know that there were American outposts at Onega and Pinega; and so the history of the expedition must of necessity be a series of disjointed apparently fragmentary accounts of each separated battleground--in truth a description of six little campaigns with only one point of contact, that all Americans went out from Archangel in the fall of 1918 and in spring the following year those who still lived _quit_ (under orders), from the same quarter.

Twice during the expedition an attempt at liaison was made between the Railway and its theoretical supporting flanks, Onega and Kodish, and Shred Mekrenga, but both occasions demonstrated that cooperation was impossible. The other forces on the rivers and at Pinega were as unrelated as if they had been situate at opposite poles. Each operated an independent, unconnected war, learning about the other fronts only through wild and distorted rumors of disasters, and hearing from far off Archangel only intermittently.

Thus the Allied North Russian Expedition melted away in the snows, and the first flushed extravagant egoistic ambition of conquest and aggression was followed by a sober appraisal of the grave peril of annihilation.

When the policy of aggression had been carried so far that it was too late to change, General W. E. Ironside assumed command. He was a great tower of a man, the embodiment of soldierly force and resolution. He directly announced that all ideas of a further offensive were abandoned and that all fronts from thenceforward would be content to hold their ground.

General Ironside has been criticised adversely for not withdrawing his scattered troops to Archangel to await the breaking up of ice in spring, when ships could enter the harbor and the fiasco be terminated by evacuation of Russia. But this criticism is unfair and unwarranted.

It was too late for such a change of policy. It would have been disheartening to the defenders of these distant fronts after the costly toll of the defense to have abandoned their hard fought posts. It would have been a giving of ground that would have heartened the enemy and thrilled him with new life; for the Bolsheviks were never exalted by victory, they paid dearly for every inch they gained, and our men, except when overwhelmed on the Vaga, never retreated from a position which they had fortified and determined to hold.

There were no prepared defenses on the outskirts of Archangel, and the defensive garrisons between the front lines and the city were far separated and inadequately fortified to withstand an extensive assault. Transportation of the retreat over the deep snowed roads would have been beset with terrible and afflicting hardship. There were long, cruel snow spaces between the villages that lay along the backward way and very scanty opportunities for shelter.

The task given to General Ironside, to retrieve the North Russian Expedition, was not within the range of human accomplishment. He did the best he could with the means at hand, which was to hold grimly on until those who directed from far off Europe, and who knew nothing of the gravity of the situation, or did not appear concerned if they did know, came to some sort of decision.

General Ironside conducted his defensive campaign with inspiring leadership, with unfailing heartsome courage; and he won the sympathy of all by his rare tact and understanding, and the affection of all by his consideration for the men, his efforts to stay the casualty lists.

4. The want of a definite moral purpose.

Since the days of Thermopylae, the effect of spiritual stimulus upon the fighting qualities of fighting men has been known the world over. The military people make a concrete thing of this, and attempt to diagram it, analyze and classify it in their treatises, where they call it morale.

As well might one try to reach out and touch any other manifestation of the soul. This exaltation that comes over soldiers and makes them glad to die, firm in their faith of the sacred character of their cause is above all finite measurements.

It is the purging light of the spirit that floods men's souls and raises them aloft from the restraining imprisonment of physical being to the heights of the gods. On no other grounds can one explain the superhuman valor of the lone Cheshire Company of the "Contemptibles," which, in the retreat from Mons, held up until dusk a German column of three battalions.

The French had morale at Verdun when they said, "They shall not pass," and fulfilled the eloquence of their words by the offering of their bodies.

The Americans had morale at Chateau-Thierry.

The British at Mons, the French at Verdun, and the Americans at Chateau-Thierry, fought as they did because they knew, or thought they knew, the cause of the fight.

But in Russia, the soldier was never told why he fought. At first, this was not thought necessary. Then the High Command, remembering the importance of morale, and recognizing the need of some sort of explanation, if only for the purpose of regularity when men were asked to risk their lives, issued proclamations that puzzled and confused the soldier more than if a course of silence had been followed.

While all this time to the Americans came newspapers from home with accounts of speeches by politicians and demagogues who fired Bolshevik bullets from the rear and extolled the Soviet cause, hailing it as an heroic progression in human effort.

There is another axiom in the military books, that soldiers fight best on their native soil and in defense of their homes; but here was a company taken fresh from civil occupations, with a civilian mental outlook, set adrift in an alien country, six thousand miles from home, engaged in a desperate, sanguinary war, and asked to undergo privation and hardship, to face untold perils for unmentionable reasons.

Still, though the expedition was committed to no definite moral purpose, there was a morale in North Russia. A morale that arose from comradeship in a fated enterprise, a morale of seeing the bitter game through, taking risks and meeting perils that must be borne by others if even one shirked his share. A noble, selfless devotion, playing the man's part in a lottery with Death, where Life was the stake. The upholding of some elemental metaphysical creed that could be definitely felt but never understood, a code of challenged manhood that had come down through many generations of warring ancestors--this was the morale of North Russia; it brought forth the best and the purest in our manhood, and recorded deeds that no survivor can recall without quickening heart beats, and a profound belief from what he saw, that the spirit is supreme and triumphs over the body of man.

5. The Russian people did not rally to the Allied Cause.

If the fight was for Russia, the Russian people were cold and apathetic, the worst of ingrates. Many Russians had the impression that we had come to restore another Romanoff to the throne.

The statement of the American government, with respect to the reasons for military intervention, put the case as if the Allies were engaged in a high-minded, selfless service for Russia, but the great mass of moujiks were indifferent to our immolation, and showed undisguised relief when we finally and ignominiously quitted their country.

During early August, a government of the north had been installed at Archangel by a coalition of Cadets, Minimalists, members of the People's Party and Social Democrats, with a bourgeois cabinet and with an old man, Nicolai Tschaikovsky, as President of the province. But it was a fact known to all that the Allies determined the policies of this government, that it was in fact merely a guise for an Allied Protectorate.

This government of the North it was that had invited military intervention; but had a plebiscite been called, the people would have registered their voice in unmistakable terms and volubly Russian "Let us alone. _Nitchevoo_."

Thus the campaign was another effort of England to impose her will upon an inferior people, and bring them for their own good to a higher order of things, disregardful of their volition in the premises. It was an echo of South Africa and Egypt, Mesopotamia and India, inspired by that lofty faith in Britain and the immortal commission of the Empire to rule an afflicted world and bring the blessings of sustained order, where only trouble and chaos prevailed before.

In Archangel, an ambitious attempt was made to recruit Russians under the high sounding name of The Slavo British Allied Legion, and after most energetic efforts, about two thousand starved moujiks, seeking something to eat, joined the ranks; indifferent mercenaries never to be trusted in the tight positions. They were given the khaki of the Tommy, but there all resemblance to the British men of war ended. Their pay was in worthless rubles. They were given an inferior ration, were treated patronizingly. Between them and the Allied soldiers there never was that generous comradeship that leaps the restraints of divergent language and manners when men fight shoulder to shoulder for life and some things that are more dear than life itself. It was a case of alien spirit above all else. British officers never could understand why the Russian officers, with the acute, sensitive nature of the Slav, were quick to feel and keen to resent, seemingly studied slights and snubs and discourtesies. Russians of culture and refinement never could penetrate the unfailing reticence and frigid unsympathetic exterior in which gentlemen of England have been schooled for generations beyond memory, habitually to conceal the emotions.

When the utter failure of the volunteer system became certain, thousands of Russians were coerced into the army by a draft system; but these failed too, because their hearts were cold to Russian patriotic British appeals; because there was no great moral issue, no moving cause for the fight.

The war with Russia was in fact a typical British show, conducted by that conquering people who have spread the dominions of the mother country to every shore of the far seas. A war that was waged with the invincible will, that noble effacement of physical comfort; that indomitable purpose and masterful determination; that courage and careless naivete, and contempt of danger and risk; that splendid sportsmanship, that love of fair play; and all the sublime self sufficiency, all the muddling, blundering and fuddling, the lack of understanding, the brutal arrogance and cold conceit, and apparent heartlessness and want of sympathy that are forever British.

Naturally, the British assumed direction, just as in France when the first Americans came Clemenceau and the Earl Haig demanded that they be fed piece meal to the French and British front divisions; but the soldier, Pershing, sensing the important moral value of having his men go to battle under the American flag and directed by American officers, waited and would not yield to the strongest pressure. And it was an American army that brought us to glory at Saint Mihiel and Chateau-Thierry and the Argonne forest; an all-American army led by American divisional commanders.

There are racial differences, racial prejudices, racial disparities, and racial asperities that cannot be gainsaid even under the influence of impersonal military discipline, and experience has shown that soldiers yield a more ready obedience to leaders who speak their own language; understand the philosophy of their daily lives, and at no other time did General Pershing so demonstrate his greatness, his complete understanding of the perplexities in Allied military organization as by his courageous insistence upon the solidarity of the American army on the battlefields of France.

But in Russia the American regiment was at once merged with the British Command, and from first action until the end of the campaign, British Headquarters directed and controlled the dispositions and conduct of the Americans.

At Archangel there is a modern, spacious white building, and here from steam-heated headquarters Colonel George W. Stewart commanded the United States 339th Infantry, here were quartered his staff officers, the unemployed "brains" of our Northern American army. He never saw any part of his regiment in action. For a long time I believe he had not even a vague notion regarding the location of his British dissipated troops.

Embassies of France and Serbia, Poland, and Italy were in Archangel, and the American Ambassador, David R. Francis, came from Vologda there early in August, and stayed until sickness compelled him to leave for England during the winter. And there was an American Military Attache who developed into a Military Mission with Colonel James A. Ruggles as chief, and a staff of officers to assist him. Also there was an American Consulate, with an American Consul General, Dewitt C. Poole, who at times appeared to take over a supervision of the American share in this strange, strange war with Russia.

And over across the harbor at Bakaritza, a well-fed Supply Company watched over mountains of rations and supplies that had been brought all the way from far off America; supplies and little good things and comforts that would have heartened and brought new life and hope to the lonely, abandoned men on the far fighting lines in the snow. These supplies never reached the front, but the Supply Company, with American business shrewdness and American aptitude for trading, acquired great bundles of rubles, and at the market place converted these into stable sterling, and came out of Russia in the springtime with pleasant memories of a tourist winter; likewise a small fortune securely hid in their olive drab breeches. But there were others who ate their hearts away, fretting and chafing, in Archangel, whose petitions to go to the front to play the man's game were denied by those in command.

British G.H.Q. brought six hundred surplus officers and forty thousand cases of good Scotch whiskey. Some of the officers had come frankly in search of a "cushy job" in a zone they thought safely removed from poison gases and bombardments and all the hideous muck of the trenches. Others, much to their disgust, had been sent to the polar regions because some one in Headquarters had thought they possessed some peculiar qualification to command or "get on" with imaginary Russian regiments that were to spring to the Allied Standard.

So it was that Archangel became a city of many colors, as gallant, uniformed gentlemen strode down the Troitsky Prospect, whipping the air with their walking sticks, and looking very stern and commanding, as they answered many salutes, in a bored, absent-minded way.

There were officers of the Imperial Army, weighed down with glittering, ponderous honor medals, and dark Cossacks with high gray hats, and gaudy tunics, and murderous noisy sabers. Handsome gentlemen of war from England, from Serbia, Italy, Finland, France, and Bohemia, and many other countries, all arrayed in brilliant plumage, and shining boots, and bright spurs, and every other kind of "eye wash." And, of course, there were large numbers of batmen to shine the boots and burnish the spurs, and keep all in fine order, and other batmen to look after the appointments of the officers' club, and serve the whiskey and soda.

In the afternoons there were teas, and receptions and matinees, and dances in the evening, when the band played and every one was flushed with pleasure and excitement. Such flirtations with the pretty _barishnas_, such whispered gossip and intrigue and scandal in light-hearted Archangel!

At Kodish, at Onega on the Vaga, and at Toulgas, far off across the haunting snows, sick men and broken men, men faint from lack of nutrition, and men sickened in soul, were doing sentry through the numbing, cold nights, because there were none to take their places in the blockhouses, and no supports to come to their relief, no reserves to hearten them and give them courage.

The blockhouses so far away, where men were maimed and crippled and shell shocked, and the black hopelessness that crept into men's hearts, and strangled men's hearts, and overcame their soldier spirit--in the blockhouses--far, so far off from gala Archangel.

THE RAILWAY

"We are not declaring war, nor making war on the Lenine and Trotsky government, because it is not our affair."

SENATOR HITCHCOCK, Chairman of _Foreign Relations Committee_ in the Senate of the United States.

13th February, 1919.

V

THE RAILWAY

When the troops of Poole's first expedition divided at Archangel, and one group was sent up the Dvina; another which was a part of the French Colonial battalion was told off for pursuit of the Bolsheviks down the Archangel-Vologda railway.

Hot and eager for first blood, the French hurried forward until the Kayama River was reached, where the enemy made an unexpected stand. There was a sharp engagement, the Bolsheviks were severely punished, and one hundred and fifty prisoners fell to the Allies.

But a little further, at Obozerskaya, some hundred miles south of Archangel, the despised fugitives turned again and displayed an amazing disposition for combat, entirely at variance with the cowed spirit of the feeble rear guard that had surrendered Archangel.

They came back in force and greatly outnumbered the Allies, and there was in the defiant attitude of the Red troops reason to believe that the Soviet chieftains had taken stock of the military situation, had verified the preposterous intelligence that the Three Great Powers--Great Britain, France, and the United States--were definitely bent upon war and seriously intended to invade the great domain of Russia with scarcely two infantry combat regiments!

Reports came of fast gathering Bolshevik armies at all fronts massing for attack, prepared to take offensive action on a grand scale, and, hardly had the campaign entered upon its initial phase, when the utter inadequacy of General Poole's numbers made egregiously evident the impossibility of the proposed investment by River and Railway.

The two "Columns" were in simple truth little patrol parties, and, as they drove further into the interior, the ridiculous audaciousness of their ambition to sweep the enemy from Archangel Province, and south even beyond Vologda Province, seemed almost beyond the purview of sane contemplation.

Highways for flank envelopment, and byways for encirclement, commenced to appear with discouraging frequency the further the advance developed in this unknown, speculative, shadowy hinterland, and all of these avenues for surprise attack had to be watched and safeguarded. One of these was the Vaga river, which meets the Dvina near the Allied subsidiary base at Bereznik; where an auxiliary, flanking expedition was detailed from the River Column, for this tributary is capable of floating substantial craft that could transport artillery and many infantry from the Bolshevik stronghold at Velsk in Vologda Province, and north of Velsk is Shenkurst, the second city of Archangel, with a political significance that could not be neglected by this politico-military excursion into the interior of Russia.

If left unguarded, the Vaga would be an open invitation for the Bolsheviks to capture this supply depot, Bereznik, and gain the rear of the Allied Dvina forces.

Many other routes for enemy movement developed as the invasion paused, undecided whether to retire for consolidation, or to try to plug up these many openings for enemy movement, and as the Command stood hesitant, still other approaches by flank and rear were revealed.

It was (or became) known that the headquarters of the Sixth Bolshevik Army was stationed at the city of Vologda, from which its commander could send troops north along the railway, and assail the Allied frontal position, or detrain, and move his men on roads and trails that took off along this route and led to the Allies' flanks and rear.

One of these roads follows down the Onega valley north to the port of Onega.

At Chekuevo, it is nearly opposite the Allied advanced railway position, Obozerskaya, and these two villages are joined, fifty miles cross-country, by a good roadway that in winter is capable of supporting artillery carriage. Some fifteen miles west from Obozerskaya, on the same road, Bolshie Ozerki, several groups of moujik huts, lies in sprawling confusion.

Late in the winter, a pitiful little outpost of French and friendly Russians, an immolation to this campaign of invincible folly, was destroyed at Bolshie Ozerki in a massed enemy effort that sought to annihilate the whole Expedition.

A few platoons of American infantry were stationed at Onega to shield Archangel from the west, and to watch this Onega, Chekuevo, Bolshie Ozerki, Obozerskaya communication line, which linked up Archangel with Murmansk, and, during the frozen months, was the only outlet to the world beyond the Arctic Sea.