Part 13

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.