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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki, by Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki
+       Campaigning in North Russia 1918–1919
+
+Author: Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns
+
+Release Date: September 5, 2007 [eBook #22523]
+[Most recently updated: November 28, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Don Kostuch
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI ***
+
+
+
+
+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]
+
+
+
+
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki, by Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
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+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki<br />
+  Campaigning in North Russia 1918–1919</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 5, 2007 [eBook #22523]<br />
+[Most recently updated: November 28, 2022]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Don Kostuch</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI ***</div>
+
+<h1>The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>[Transcriber’s Notes]</h2>
+
+<p>
+Here are the definitions of several unfamiliar (to me) words.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+batmen: Soldier assigned to an officer as a servant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+batushka: Village priest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+drosky: Cart
+</p>
+
+<p>
+felcher: Second-rate medical student or anyone with some medical knowledge.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+hors de combat: Out of the fight; disabled; not able to fight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+junker: Aristocratic Prussian landholder devoted to militarism and
+authoritarianism, providing the German military forces with many of its
+officers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+knout: Whip with a lash of leather thongs, formerly used in Russia for flogging
+criminals. To flog with the knout.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+mashie nib: Mashie-Niblick (mah-she nib-lik)—Wood shafted golf club with about
+the same loft and length as today’s seven iron.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+poilus: French common soldier, especially in World War I.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+verst: Russian measure of distance; 3500 feet, 0.6629 mile, 1.067 km.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+viand: Choice or delicate food.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+volplane: Glide in an airplane without power.
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>
+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.}
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/JFK_Stone.jpg" width="423" height="600" alt="[Illustration]" />
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From The Indianapolis News, Monday, April 9, 1917
+</p>
+
+<p>
+U. S. Declaration of War
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sixty-fifth Congress of the United States of America<br/>
+At the First Session<br/>
+Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the second day of
+April, one thousand nine hundred and seventeen
+</p>
+
+<p>
+JOINT RESOLUTION
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States</i>
+<i>of America in Congress assembled</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+??
+Speaker of the House of Representatives
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thomas R. Marshall<br/>
+Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Approved 6 April, 1917<br/>
+Woodrow Wilson
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From The Indianapolis News, Monday, April 9, 1917
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COUNTY PLEDGES AID FOR FOOD MOVEMENT
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED, AT COURTHOUSE MEETING.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+APPEAL MADE TO PEOPLE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another Meeting Monday.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Resolutions Adopted.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Whereas, By joint resolution of congress and the proclamation of the
+President, war has been declared on Germany, and
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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]
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Croix de Guerre.</i> The correct spelling is
+“Grobbel”.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Corp. Grobbel received the Distinguished Service Cross, not mentioned in
+this book.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a href="images/2275_allied_fortified_areas.jpg">
+<img src="images/2275_allied_fortified_areas.jpg" width="700" height="719" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">Sketch Showing Location of<br/>
+FORTIFIED AREAS</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">
+[End of Transcriber’s notes]
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus01"></a>
+<a href="images/Title_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/Title_25.jpg" width="700" height="417" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">Hundreds of Miles Through Solid Forests of Pine and Spruce.</p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Campaigning in North Russia<br/>
+1918–1919</i></h3>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Compiled and Edited by</i>
+</p>
+
+<h4>
+CAPT. JOEL R. MOORE, 339th U. S. Infantry<br/>
+LIEUT. HARRY H. MEAD, 339th U. S. Infantry<br/>
+LIEUT. LEWIS E. JAHNS, 339th U. S. Infantry<br/>
+</h4>
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Published by</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+The Polar Bear Publishing Co.<br/>
+Detroit, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+COPYRIGHT 1920<br/>
+BY<br/>
+JOEL R. MOORE
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+PRESS OF<br/>
+TOPPING-SANDERS COMPANY<br/>
+DETROIT
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="center">
+<b>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.</b>
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>To Our Comrades and Friends</h2>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When we started the book, we had no idea that it would develop into the big
+book it is, a <i>de luxe</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Detroit, Michigan,<br/>
+September, 1920
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+JOEL R. MOORE<br/>
+HARRY H. MEAD<br/>
+LEWIS E. JAHNS
+</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#index">Index to Photo-Engravures</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap00">Introduction</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap01">U. S. A. Medical Units on the Arctic Ocean</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap02">Fall Offensive on the Railroad</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap03">River Push for Kotlas</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap04">Doughboys on Guard in Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap05">Why American Troops Were Sent to Russia</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap06">On the Famous Kodish Front in the Fall</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap07">Penetrating to Ust Padenga</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap08">Peasantry of the Archangel Province</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap09">“H” Company Pushes Up the Onega Valley</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap10">“G” Company Far Up the Pinega River</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap11">With Wounded and Sick</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap12">Armistice Day with Americans in North Russia</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap13">Winter Defense of Toulgas</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap14">Great White Reaches</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap15">Mournful Kodish</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap16">Ust Padenga</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap17">The Retreat from Shenkursk</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap18">Defense of Pinega</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap19">The Land and the People</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap20">Holding the Onega Valley</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap21">Ice-Bound Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap22">Winter on the Railroad</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap23">Bolsheozerki</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap24">Letting Go the Tail-Holt</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap25">The 310th Engineers</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap26">“Come Get Your Pills”</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap27">Signal Platoon Wins Commendation</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap28">The Doughboy’s Money in Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap29">Propaganda and Propaganda and—</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap30">Real Facts about Alleged Mutiny</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap31">Our Allies, French, British and Russian</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap32">Felchers, Priests and Icons</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap33">Bolshevism</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap34">Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. with Troops</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap35">“Dobra” Convalescent Hospital</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap36">American Red Cross in North Russia</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap37">Captive Doughboys in Bolshevikdom</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap38">Military Decorations</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap39">Homeward Bound</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap40">In Russia’s Fields (Poem)</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap41">Our Roll of Honored Dead</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#chap42">Map of the Archangel Fighting Area</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="index"></a>Index of Photo-Engravures</h2>
+
+<table summary="" style="">
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus01">Hundreds of Miles Through Solid Forests</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus02">Surgical Operation, Receiving Hospital, Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus03">Old Glory Protects Our Hospital</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus04">Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus05">“Olympia” Sailors Fought Reds</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus06">After 17-Hour March in Forest</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus07">Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus08">Wireless Operators-Signal Platoon</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus09">A Shell Screeched Over This Burial Scene</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus10">Vickers Machine Gun Helping Hold Lines</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus11">Our Armored Train</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus12">First Battalion Hurries Up River</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus13">Lonely Post in Dense Forest</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus14">Statue of Peter the Great and Public Buildings, Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus15">Drawing Rations, Verst 455</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus16">List Honors to a Soldier</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus17">Olga Barracks</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus18">Street Car Strike in Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus19">American Hospitals</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus20">“Supply” Co. Canteen “Accommodates” Boys</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus21">Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus22">“Cootie Mill” Operating at Smolny Annex</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus23">Single Flat Strip of Iron on Plow Point</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus24">Thankful for What at Home We Feed Pigs</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus25">Artillery “O. P.” Kodish</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus26">Mill for Grinding Grain</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus27">Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus28">Testing Vickers Machine Gun</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus29">Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pagosta, near Ust Padenga</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus30">Cossack Receiving First Aid</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus31">Ready for Day’s Work</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus32">Flax Hung Up to Dry</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus33">310th Engineers at Beresnik</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus34">Joe Chinzi and Russian Bride</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus35">Watching Her Weave Cloth</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus36">Doughboy Attends Spinning Bee</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus37">Doughboy in Best Bed—On Stove</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus38">Defiance to Bolo Advance</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus39">337th Hospital at Beresnik</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus40">Onega</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus41">Y. M. C. A., Obozerskaya</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus42">Trench Mortar Crew, Chekuevo—Hand Artillery</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus43">Wounded and Sick—Over a Thousand in All</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus44">Bolo Killed in Action—For Russia or Trotsky?</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus45">Monastery at Pinega</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus46">Russian 75’s Bound for Pinega</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus47">“G” Men near Pinega</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus48">Lewis Gun Protects Mess Hall</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus49">Something Like Selective Draft</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus50">Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus51">Watch Tower, Verst 455</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus52">Toulgas Outpost</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus53">One of a Bolo Patrol</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus54">Patrolling</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus55">By Reindeer Jitney to Bakaritza</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus56">Russian Eskimos at Home near Pinega</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus57">Fortified House, Toulgas</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus58">To Bolsheozerki</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus59">Colonel Morris, at Right</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus60">Russian Eskimo Idol</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus61">Ambulance Men</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus62">Practising Rifle and Pistol Fire, on Onega Front</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus63">French Machine Gun Men at Kodish</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus64">Allied Plane Carrying Bombs</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus65">Dance at Convalescent Hospital—Nurses and “Y” Girls</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus66">Subornya Cathedral</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus67">Building a Blockhouse</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus68">Market Scene, Yemetskoe</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus69">Old Russian Prison—Annex to British Hospital</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus70">Wash Day—Rinsing in River</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus71">Archangel Cab-Men</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus72">Minstrels of “I” Company Repeat Program in Y. M. C. A</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus73">Archangel Girls Filling Christmas Stockings</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus74">Y. M. C. A. Rest Room, Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus75">Russian Masonry Stove—American Convalescent Hospital</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus76">Comrade Allikas Finds His Mother in Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus77">Printing “The American Sentinel”</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus78">Flashlight of a Doughboy Outpost at Verst 455</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus79">Bolo Commander’s Sword Taken in Battle of Bolsheozerki</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus80">Eight Days without a Shave, near Bolsheozerki</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus81">Woodpile Strong-Point, Verst 445</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus82">Verst 455—“Fort Nichols”</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus83">Back from Patrol</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus84">Our Shell Bursts near the Bolo Skirmish Line</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus85">Blockhouse at Shred Makrenga</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus86">Hot Summer Day at Pinega before the World War</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus87">Dvina River Ice Jam in April</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus88">Bare Mejinovsky—Near Kodish</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus89">Bolo General under Flag Truce at 445, April, 1919</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus90">After Prisoner Exchange Parley</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus91">Pioneer Platoon Has Fire</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus92">310th Engineers Under Canvas near Bolsheozerki with “M” Co</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus93">Hospital “K. P.’s”</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus94">Red Cross Nurses</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus95">Bartering</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus96">Mascots</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus97">Colonel Dupont (French) at 455 Bestows Many <i>Croix de Guerre</i> Medals on Americans</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus98">Polish Artillery and Mascot</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus99">Russian Artillery, Verst 18</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus100">Canadian Artillery—Americans Were Strong for Them</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus101">Making <i>Khleba</i>—Black Bread</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus102">Stout Defense of Kitsa</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus103">Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital, Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus104">“Come and Get It” at 455</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus105">Doughboys Drubbed Sailors</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus106">Yank and Scot Guarding Bolo Prisoners, Beresnik</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus107">View of Archangel in Summer</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus108">General Ironside Inspecting Doughboys</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus109">Burial of Lt. Clifford Phillips, American Cemetery, Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus110">Major J. Brooks Nichols in his Railway Detachment Field Hq</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus111">Ready to Head Memorial Day Parade, Archangel, 1919</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus112">American Cemetery, Archangel</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus113">Soldiers and Sailors of Six Nations Reverence Dead</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus114">Graves of First Three Americans Killed, Obozerskaya, Russia</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus115">Sailors Parade on Memorial Day</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus116">Through Ice Floes in Arctic Homeward Bound</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td> <a href="#illus117">Out of White Sea into Arctic, under Midnight Sun</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap00"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>dasvedanhnia</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap01"></a>I<br/>
+U. S. A. MEDICAL UNITS ON THE ARCTIC OCEAN</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and
+Company “C” of the engineers at Solombola.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus02"></a>
+<img src="images/016Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="447" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Surgical Operation American Receiving Hospital, Archangel, 1918.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus03"></a>
+<img src="images/016Pic2_A25.jpg" width="599" height="433" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Old Glory Protects Our Hospital.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus04"></a>
+<img src="images/016Pic2_B25.jpg" width="599" height="426" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus05"></a>
+<img src="images/016Pic2_C25.jpg" width="595" height="413" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Sailors from “Olympia” Fought Reds.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus06"></a>
+<img src="images/016Pic2_D25.jpg" width="604" height="433" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>After 17-Hour March in Forest.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus07"></a>
+<img src="images/016Pic3_A25.jpg" width="600" height="426" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus08"></a>
+<img src="images/016Pic3_B25.jpg" width="588" height="421" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>Wireless operators—Signal Platoon</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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!
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap02"></a>II<br/>
+FALL OFFENSIVE ON THE RAILROAD</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>droskies</i>, or carts, and began hauling supplies for the Allied command
+and begging tobacco from the American soldiers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Reece, reece,” said the excited <i>drosky</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>pahneemahya</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Danley! eeyohoh!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, h-e-e-e-r-r-e on the c-u-t-t-i-n-g!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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,
+<i>Slavo Bogga</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>poilus</i> had
+heard of the proposed armistice on the Western Front. “<i>La guerre finis</i>,”
+they declared, and refused to remain with “I” Company on the line.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Here the fall advance on the Archangel-Vologda Railway ended. We were a few
+versts north of Emtsa, but “<i>mnoga, mnoga versts</i>,” 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap03"></a>III<br/>
+RIVER PUSH FOR KOTLAS</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>barzhaks</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>hors de
+combat</i>. After that the Monitor was very prudent and displayed no especial
+longing to visit Kotlas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus09"></a>
+<img src="images/032Pic1_A25.jpg" width="598" height="410" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>A Shell Screeched Over This Burial Scene.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus10"></a>
+<img src="images/032Pic1_B25.jpg" width="591" height="423" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Vickers Machine Gun Helping Hold Lines.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus11"></a>
+<img src="images/032Pic2_A25.jpg" width="602" height="285" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Our Armored Train.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus12"></a>
+<img src="images/032Pic2_B25.jpg" width="598" height="280" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">RENICKE<br/>
+<i>First Battalion Hurries Up River.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus13"></a>
+<img src="images/032Pic2_C25.jpg" width="597" height="278" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Lonely Post in Dense Forest.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus14"></a>
+<a href="images/032Pic2_D25.jpg">
+<img src="images/032Pic2_D25.jpg" width="700" height="430" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">MORRIS<br/>
+<i>Statue of Peter the Great and State Buildings in Archangel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus15"></a>
+<img src="images/032Pic3_A25.jpg" width="607" height="431" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Drawing Rations, Verst 455.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus16"></a>
+<img src="images/032Pic3_B25.jpg" width="607" height="428" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Last Honors to a Soldier.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap04"></a>IV<br/>
+DOUGHBOYS ON GUARD IN ARCHANGEL</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>coup d’etat.</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Americanski Dobra</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>drosky</i>, 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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap05"></a>V<br/>
+WHY AMERICAN TROOPS WERE SENT TO RUSSIA</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus17"></a>
+<img src="images/048Pic2_A25.jpg" width="594" height="426" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>Olga Barracks.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus18"></a>
+<img src="images/048Pic2_B25.jpg" width="601" height="430" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>Street Car Strike in Archangel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus19"></a>
+<img src="images/048Pic3_A25.jpg" width="603" height="286" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>American Hospitals and Headquarters.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus20"></a>
+<img src="images/048Pic3_B25.jpg" width="609" height="281" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>“Supply” C. canteen “Accommodates” Boys.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus21"></a>
+<img src="images/048Pic3_C25.jpg" width="600" height="279" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus22"></a>
+<a href="images/048Pic4_A25.jpg">
+<img src="images/048Pic4_A25.jpg" width="700" height="431" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>“Cootie Mill” Operating at Smolny Annex of Convalescent Hospital.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus23"></a>
+<img src="images/048Pic5_A25.jpg" width="603" height="420" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">Wisckot<br/>
+<i>Single Flat Strip of Iron on Plow point.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus24"></a>
+<img src="images/048Pic5_B25.jpg" width="601" height="434" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">Wagner<br/>
+<i>Thankful for What at Home We Feed Pigs.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>coup
+d’etat</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The coming of the troops prevented the counter <i>coup</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap06"></a>VI<br/>
+ON THE FAMOUS KODISH FRONT IN THE FALL</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>droskie</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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. <i>Droskies</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>valenkas</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap07"></a>VII<br/>
+PENETRATING TO UST PADENGA</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus25"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic1_A25.jpg" width="429" height="604" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Artillery “O. P.,” Kodish.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus26"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic1_B25.jpg" width="418" height="589" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>Mill for Grinding Grain.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus27"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic2_A25.jpg" width="595" height="429" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus28"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic2_B25.jpg" width="595" height="426" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Testing a Vickers Machine Gun.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus29"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic2_C25.jpg" width="610" height="430" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (152813)<br/>
+<i>Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pagosta—Near Ust Padenga.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus30"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic2_D25.jpg" width="601" height="433" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Cossack Receiving First Aid, Vistavka.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus31"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic3_A25.jpg" width="598" height="281" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>Ready for Day’s Work.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus32"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic3_B25.jpg" width="599" height="235" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">DOUD<br/>
+<i>Flax Hung Up to Dry.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus33"></a>
+<img src="images/064Pic3_C25.jpg" width="596" height="279" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>310th Engineers at Beresnik.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap08"></a>VIII<br/>
+PEASANTRY OF THE ARCHANGEL PROVINCE</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>braga</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>braga</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>lapty</i>,
+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 <i>besedys</i>—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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>starosta</i>, or village elder, and
+that all important communal affairs were regulated by the <i>Selski Skhod</i>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>khozain</i> or head of the house
+and the other as above indicated, the <i>starosta</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>starosta</i> (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 <i>starosta</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In our dealings with the community here, as elsewhere, all transactions were
+carried on with the <i>starosta</i> 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 <i>starosta</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Imagine, then, the <i>starosta</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>starosta’s</i> 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 <i>starosta</i> 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
+<i>starosta</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus34"></a>
+<img src="images/080Pic1_A25.jpg" width="602" height="430" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (159458)<br/>
+<i>Joe Chinzi and Russian Bride.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus35"></a>
+<img src="images/080Pic1_B25.jpg" width="474" height="411" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">DOUD<br/>
+<i>Watching Her Weave Cloth.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus36"></a>
+<img src="images/080Pic2_A25.jpg" width="592" height="428" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Doughboy Attends Spinning-Bee.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus37"></a>
+<img src="images/080Pic2_B25.jpg" width="600" height="424" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">DOUD<br/>
+<i>Doughboy in the Best Bed—On Stove.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus38"></a>
+<img src="images/080Pic2_C25.jpg" width="597" height="427" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">MORRIS<br/>
+<i>Defiance to Bolo Advance.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus39"></a>
+<img src="images/080Pic2_D25.jpg" width="599" height="425" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">DOUD<br/>
+<i>337th Hospital at Beresnik.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus40"></a>
+<img src="images/080Pic3_A25.jpg" width="588" height="426" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Onega.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus41"></a>
+<img src="images/080Pic3_B25.jpg" width="595" height="428" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Y M. C. A., Obozerskaya.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap09"></a>IX<br/>
+“H” COMPANY PUSHES UP THE ONEGA VALLEY</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The “H” force consisted of two platoons commanded by Lieuts. Phillips
+and Pellegrom, who reported to an English officer, Col. Clark.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Outside of a few patrol combats and the capture of a few Bolshevik
+prisoners the remainder of the month of September was uneventful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Captain Burton, R. M. L. I., will remain in command
+at Chekuevo.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+W. J. CLARK, Lieut.-Col.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap10"></a>X<br/>
+“G” COMPANY FAR UP THE PINEGA RIVER</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>sahnia</i>, 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 <i>parki</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap11"></a>XI<br/>
+WITH WOUNDED AND SICK</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+“Yours very truly,<br/>
+(Signed) JOHN C. HALL.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Upon arrival at Beresnik found Capt. Martin, with one-half of Field
+Hospital 337th, had taken over civilian hospital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(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.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Americans retreated to Toulgas on right bank of river where Lieut. Katz,
+M. C., with medical detachment men established a detention hospital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus42"></a>
+<a href="images/096Pic1_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/096Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="427" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Trench Mortar Crew, Chekuevo—Hand Artillery.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus43"></a>
+<img src="images/096Pic2_A25.jpg" width="607" height="435" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (152755)<br/>
+<i>Wounded and Sick—Over a Thousand in All.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus44"></a>
+<img src="images/096Pic2_B25.jpg" width="601" height="433" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U S OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Bolo Killed in Action—For Russia or Trotsky?</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus45"></a>
+<img src="images/096Pic2_C25.jpg" width="597" height="425" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">ROULEAU<br/>
+<i>Monastery at Pinega.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus46"></a>
+<img src="images/096Pic2_D25.jpg" width="602" height="427" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Russian 75’s Bound for Pinega.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus47"></a>
+<img src="images/096Pic3_A25.jpg" width="604" height="395" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">HILL<br/>
+<i>“G” Men Near Pinega.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus48"></a>
+<img src="images/096Pic3_B25.jpg" width="605" height="385" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">HILL<br/>
+<i>Lewis Gun Protects Mess Hall, Pinega.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+December 12th, 1918. Hospital inspected by Major Fitzpatrick of American
+Red Cross.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap12"></a>XII<br/>
+ARMISTICE DAY WITH AMERICANS IN NORTH RUSSIA</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Captain Heil’s company had left Archangel by railroad and was somewhere
+on the cold forest trail between Obozerskaya and Seletskoe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap13"></a>XIII<br/>
+WINTER DEFENSE OF TOULGAS</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>“tovarish, tovarish,”</i> meaning the same as
+the German “<i>kamerad.</i>” 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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. <i>Nitchevoo</i>, fate had decreed that they
+should suffer this burden, and so they accepted it without question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus49"></a>
+<img src="images/112Pic1_A25.jpg" width="608" height="424" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Something Like a Selective Draft.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus50"></a>
+<img src="images/112Pic1_B25.jpg" width="601" height="429" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus51"></a>
+<img src="images/112Pic2_A25.jpg" width="290" height="437" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL<br/>
+<i>Watch-Tower, Verst 455.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus52"></a>
+<img src="images/112Pic2_B25.jpg" width="285" height="441" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL<br/>
+<i>Toulgas Outpost.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus53"></a>
+<img src="images/112Pic2_C25.jpg" width="294" height="441" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL<br/>
+<i>One of a Bolo Patrol.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus54"></a>
+<img src="images/112Pic2_D25.jpg" width="289" height="438" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL<br/>
+<i>Patrolling.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>The Detroit News</i>, 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.”
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/114Pic25.jpg" width="433" height="491" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">Well, Bill, we certainly got a job after the war.<br/>
+“Peace Conference News: After War Labor Problem.”</p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap14"></a>XIV<br/>
+GREAT WHITE REACHES</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Red Cross Magazine</i> and
+adapted to this volume, will give the doughboy a pleasing recollection and the
+casual reader a vivid picture of the winter travel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“All sexes and ages look alike in these reindeer <i>parkis.</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The last instructions for the march, given in the old Smolny barracks,
+are typical of march orders to American soldiers:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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 <i>folks is folks.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Tomorrow at noon we march. Prepare carefully and cheerfully.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following account of the march is copied from the daily story
+written in an officer’s diary:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To OUIMA—FIRST DAY, DECEMBER 18TH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, halting is a wonderful performance. The headman—<i>starosta</i>—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, <i>Slava Bogga</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To LIABLSKAYA—SECOND DAY, DECEMBER 19TH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Amerikanski soldats</i> 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. &amp; V. we have fresh milk.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To KOSKOGOR—THIRD DAY, DECEMBER 20TH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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, <i>Loshad. </i>When Russia grows up to an educated
+nation animal power will be conserved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To KHOLMOGORA—FOURTH DAY, DECEMBER 21ST
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Harbinger of hope! Oh you red sky line! Shall we see the sun today?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+AT MONASTERY—FIFTH DAY, DECEMBER 22ND
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To UST PINEGA—SIXTH DAY, DECEMBER 23RD
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To VERKHNE PALENGA—SEVENTH DAY, DECEMBER 24TH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To LEUNOVO—EIGHTH DAY, DECEMBER 25TH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TO GBACH—NINTH DAY, DECEMBER 26TH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>glada</i> (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. &amp; V. makes headquarters party desperately sick.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TO PINEGA—TENTH DAY, DECEMBER 27TH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>rabchik</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>parki</i>, 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap15"></a>XV<br/>
+MOURNFUL KODISH</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was well that the American officer adopted firm measures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus55"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic1_A25.jpg" width="598" height="277" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>By Reindeer Jitney to Bakaritza.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus56"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic1_B25.jpg" width="603" height="282" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">PRIMM<br/>
+<i>Russian Eskimos at Home, Near Pinega.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus57"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic1_C25.jpg" width="607" height="286" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Fortified House, Toulgas.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus58"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic2_A25.jpg" width="295" height="436" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL<br/>
+<i>To Bolskeozerki.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus59"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic2_B25.jpg" width="294" height="432" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Colonel Morris—at Right.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus60"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic2_C25.jpg" width="290" height="433" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS<br/>
+<i>Russian Eskimo Idol.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus61"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic2_D25.jpg" width="293" height="418" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">DOUD<br/>
+<i>Ambulance Men.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus62"></a>
+<a href="images/128Pic3_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/128Pic3_25.jpg" width="700" height="423" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Practising Rifle and Pistol Fire Oil Onega Front.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus63"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic4_A25.jpg" width="602" height="436" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>French Machine Gun Men at Kodish.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus64"></a>
+<img src="images/128Pic4_B25.jpg" width="604" height="428" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Allied Plane Carrying Bombs.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In closing the story of the Americans on the Kodish Front we turn to the
+words written us by Lt. John A. Commons:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap16"></a>XVI<br/>
+UST PADENGA</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap17"></a>XVII<br/>
+THE RETREAT FROM SHENKURSK</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus65"></a>
+<a href="images/144Pic1_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/144Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="430" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Holiday Dance at Convalescent Hospital—Nurses and “Y” Girls.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus66"></a>
+<img src="images/144Pic2_A25.jpg" width="596" height="435" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">ROZANSKEY<br/>
+<i>Subornya Cathedral.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus67"></a>
+<img src="images/144Pic2_B25.jpg" width="603" height="430" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Building a Blockhouse.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap18"></a>XVIII<br/>
+DEFENSE OF PINEGA</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those local companies of well-trained troops were not semi-British but truly
+Russian. They never failed their <i>dobra Amerikanski soldats</i>, whose close
+order drill on the streets of Pinega was a source of inspiration to the Russian
+recruits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>dasvedania</i>, and left the Russian secure in his own
+self-respect and fast friend of the American officer or soldier.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All the reports I have received from the Russian authorities express the
+fact that you dealt with them sympathetically under many difficult
+circumstances.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Believe me yours very sincerely,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+(Signed) EDMOND IRONSIDE, <i>Major-General.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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, <i>Yah Amerikanski Kapitan, Kammandant Pinega</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap19"></a>XIX<br/>
+THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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, <i>vostok</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus68"></a>
+<a href="images/160Pic1_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/160Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="432" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Market Scene, Yemetskoe—Note Primitive Balances Weighing Beef.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus69"></a>
+<img src="images/160Pic2_A25.jpg" width="598" height="283" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>Old Russian Prison, Annex to British Hospital.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus70"></a>
+<img src="images/160Pic2_B25.jpg" width="584" height="284" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Wash Day—Rinsing Clothes in River.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus71"></a>
+<img src="images/160Pic2_C25.jpg" width="594" height="254" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>Archangel Cab-Men.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus72"></a>
+<a href="images/160Pic2_D25.jpg">
+<img src="images/160Pic2_D25.jpg" width="700" height="426" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Minstrels of “I” Company Repeat Program in Y. M. C. A.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus73"></a>
+<img src="images/160Pic3_A25.jpg" width="606" height="435" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Archangel Girls Filling Xmas Stockings.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus74"></a>
+<img src="images/160Pic3_B25.jpg" width="605" height="429" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Y. M. C. A. Rest Room, Archangel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>starosta</i>. 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>valinka</i> of felt or the long boot of fur, the
+<i>parki</i>—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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>valinka</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+“It’s the horns of the cootie and beg-bug,<br/>
+The herring and mud-colored crows,<br/>
+My strongest impression of Russia,<br/>
+Gets into my head through my nose.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps there is more of sense of humor in the apparently phlegmatic passivity
+of the Russian <i>nitchevo</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One time a passing British convoy commandeered some hay at Bolsheozerki. Upon
+advice of the American officer the <i>starosta</i> 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 <i>starosta</i> 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 <i>starosta</i> demonstrated when a letter travelled hundreds of
+miles to Pinega with 92 roubles for the American officer.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap20"></a>XX<br/>
+HOLDING THE ONEGA VALLEY</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At 5:00 a. m. Lt. Pellegrom, having hurried out from Archangel, reported
+for duty and was put in command of a platoon.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Bolo was held in check and at dusk the Americans and British and
+Poles withdrew in good order.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the gallant Phillips who fell at Bolsheozerki we are pleased to
+include the following from his company commander:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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’.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+Let us here relate the story of his plucky fight for life after a Bolo
+bullet tore through his breast.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap21"></a>XXI<br/>
+ICE-BOUND ARCHANGEL</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>Russian—Skulka rouble.</i>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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the city the doughboy found the steaming <i>bahnya</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Gorka</i> 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 <i>Gorka</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus75"></a>
+<a href="images/176Pic1_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/176Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="434" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Russian Masonry Stove—American Convalescent Hospital.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus76"></a>
+<img src="images/176Pic2_A25.jpg" width="604" height="425" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Pvt. Allikas Finds His Mother in Archangel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus77"></a>
+<img src="images/176Pic2_B25.jpg" width="598" height="428" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Printing “The American Sentinel.”</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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, <i>nitchevo, khorashaw.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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: “<i>Amerikanski nit dobra</i>.” And they did not feel at
+all glorious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the early winter a doughboy in Archangel in this spirit of good humor
+wrote a letter published later in <i>The Stars and Stripes</i> in France. It is
+so good that we include it here.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sometimes, about once or twice every now and then, copies of <i>The Stars and
+Stripes</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We also read in <i>The Stars and Stripes</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+C. B. KNIGHT, Corp. “Hq” Co., 339th Inf.,<br/>
+American E. F., Archangel, Russia.”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap22"></a>XXII<br/>
+WINTER ON THE RAILROAD</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+The chief note in the President’s proclamation which lingered on the
+doughboy’s ear was as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>barishna</i> who taught the primary
+room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>poilu</i>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap23"></a>XXIII<br/>
+BOLSHEOZERKI</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus78"></a>
+<a href="images/192Pic1_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/192Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="434" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Flashlight of a Doughboy Outpost at Verst 455.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus79"></a>
+<img src="images/192Pic3A.jpg" width="605" height="432" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>Bolo Commander’s Sword Taken in Battle of Bolsheozerki</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus80"></a>
+<img src="images/192Pic3B.jpg" width="605" height="436" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo 158853<br/>
+<i>After Eight Days—Near Bolsheozerki</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus81"></a>
+<img src="images/192Pic4A.jpg" width="607" height="433" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo<br/>
+<i>Wood Pile Strong Point—Verst 445</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus82"></a>
+<img src="images/192Pic4B.jpg" width="601" height="436" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. Official Photo 161108<br/>
+<i>Verst 455—“Fort Nichols”</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus83"></a>
+<img src="images/192Pic2_A25.jpg" width="596" height="286" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Back from Patrol.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus84"></a>
+<img src="images/192Pic2_B25.jpg" width="606" height="283" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Our Shell Bursts Near Bolo Skirmish Line.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus85"></a>
+<img src="images/192Pic2_C25.jpg" width="601" height="282" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Blockhouse, Shred Makrenga.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap24"></a>XXIV<br/>
+LETTING GO THE TAIL-HOLT</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+General Pershing’s telegram as transmitted to the Americans fighting the
+Bolsheviki in, North Russia was as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Anyway, we found ourselves letting go that tail holt which in the winter had
+seemed to be all that the <i>Detroit News</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/200Pic_25.jpg" width="453" height="549" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">“Come on home, Yank! What did you grab him for in the first place?”<br/>
+“It is hell to hang on, but it’s death to let loose.”<br/>
+<i>The Hard Job Is To Let Go. From Detroit News.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap25"></a>XXV<br/>
+THE 310TH ENGINEERS</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One American company on the railroad had hated to give up its
+<i>taploo-shkas</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The greatest of <i>camaraderie</i> 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-left: 5em;">
+
+<tr>
+<td>Blockhouses (some of logs and some of lumber)</td><td>316</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Machine gun emplacements</td><td>273</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Dugouts</td><td>167</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Double Apron Wire</td><td>266,170 yards</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Knife Rests (wire entanglement)</td><td>2,250 yards</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Concertinas (wire entanglement)</td><td>485</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Barricades (some of earth, some logs)</td><td>46</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Billets (mostly of lumber)</td><td>151</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Standard Huts (of lumber)</td><td>42</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Latrines</td><td>114</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Washhouses (of lumber)</td><td>33</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Warehouses (of lumber)</td><td>30</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Stables (of lumber)</td><td>14</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Clearing (fire lanes and field of fire)</td><td>1,170 acres</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Railroad Cars (lined and remodelled)</td><td>257</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Rafts</td><td>12</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Bridges (of lumber and of logs)</td><td>4,500 lineal feet</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Roads</td><td>11,000 lineal yards</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Trenches</td><td>14,210 yards</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Topography—total copies of maps and designs</td><td>109,145</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Topography—plane table road traverses</td><td>1,200 miles</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a fine record our comrades, the engineers, made in the
+expedition. As the ribald old marching song goes:
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+“Oh, the infantry, the infantry, with dirt behind their ears,<br/>
+The infantry, the infantry, that drink their weight in beers,<br/>
+Artillery, the cavalry, the doggoned engineers,<br/>
+They could never lick the infantry in a hundred thousand years.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap26"></a>XXVI<br/>
+“COME GET YOUR PILLS”</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus86"></a>
+<img src="images/208Pic1_A25.jpg" width="602" height="278" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">ROULEAU<br/>
+<i>Hot Summer Day at Pinega Before War.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus87"></a>
+<img src="images/208Pic1_B25.jpg" width="606" height="286" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">DOUD<br/>
+<i>Dvina River Ice Jam.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus88"></a>
+<img src="images/208Pic1_C25.jpg" width="600" height="283" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Mejinovsky—Near Kodish.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus89"></a>
+<img src="images/208Pic2_A25.jpg" width="602" height="430" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">MCKEE<br/>
+<i>Bolo General Under Flag Truce Near 445—April 1919.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus90"></a>
+<img src="images/208Pic2_B25.jpg" width="601" height="431" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>After a Prisoner Exchange Parley.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the holding retreat of the 1st Battalion of the Vaga a small
+hospital was established temporarily at Kitsa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap27"></a>XXVII<br/>
+SIGNAL PLATOON WINS COMMENDATION</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Please convey to all ranks of the platoon my appreciation of the services they
+have rendered.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+(Signed) E. IRONSIDE, Major-General,<br/>
+Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces, Archangel, Russia.<br/>
+G. H. Q., 23rd May, 1919.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap28"></a>XXVIII<br/>
+THE DOUGHBOY’S MONEY IN ARCHANGEL</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let him now who is guiltless throw the first stone.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap29"></a>XXIX<br/>
+PROPAGANDA AND PROPAGANDA AND—</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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,
+<i>ad nauseam</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The New Year’s editorial in <i>The Sentinel</i>, 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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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, <i>The Call</i>, composed in
+Moscow by a Bolshevik from Milwaukee or Seattle or some other well known Soviet
+center on the home shore of the Atlantic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These are some of the extracts. The reader may judge for himself:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lt. Costello, in his volume, “<i>Why Did We Go To Russia</i>.”, 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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap30"></a>XXX<br/>
+REAL FACTS ABOUT ALLEGED MUTINY</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus91"></a>
+<img src="images/224Pic1_A25.jpg" width="597" height="436" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Pioneer Platoon Has Fire at 455.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus92"></a>
+<img src="images/224Pic1_B25.jpg" width="603" height="427" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (158856)<br/>
+<i>310th Engineers Near Bolsheozerki.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus93"></a>
+<img src="images/224Pic2_A25.jpg" width="291" height="441" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. OFFICIAL<br/>
+<i>Hospital “K. P.’s”</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus94"></a>
+<img src="images/224Pic2_B25.jpg" width="287" height="438" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Red Cross Nurses.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus95"></a>
+<img src="images/224Pic2_C25.jpg" width="292" height="439" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. OFFICIAL<br/>
+<i>Bartering.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus96"></a>
+<img src="images/224Pic2_D25.jpg" width="288" height="441" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Mascots.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus97"></a>
+<a href="images/224Pic2_E25.jpg">
+<img src="images/224Pic2_E25.jpg" width="700" height="433" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Col. Dupont (French) at Verst 455, Bestows Many Croix de Guerre Medals.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus98"></a>
+<img src="images/224Pic3_A25.jpg" width="611" height="356" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Polish Artillery and Mascot.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus99"></a>
+<img src="images/224Pic3_B25.jpg" width="602" height="430" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (158870)<br/>
+<i>Russian Artillery, Verst 18.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Army and Navy
+Journal</i> of April 1920, will say:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Colonel Stewart, himself, stated to the press when he led his troops
+home the following July:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In a letter to a member of Congress from Michigan, Secretary Baker
+refers to the alleged mutiny as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A cablegram, dated March 31, 1919, received from the American Military
+Attache at Archangel, read in part as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“‘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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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:
+</p>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“‘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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“‘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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.’
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“General Richardson, in his report of operations on the American Forces
+in North Russia, referring to this matter states:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“‘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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+“Very sincerely yours,<br/>
+“NEWTON D. BAKER,<br/>
+“Secretary of War.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>Croix de Guerre</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap31"></a>XXXI<br/>
+OUR ALLIES, FRENCH, BRITISH AND RUSSIANS</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How now, Paul, my <i>poilu</i> comrade, <i>bon ami</i>, 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 <i>non compree</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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?” <i>“Oui, oui, nitchevo</i>, not ever
+mind, <i>oui</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And Alabernarde, sad-faced old <i>Major du Battalion</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In <i>The American Sentinel</i> issue of December 10th, which was the first
+issue of our soldier paper, we read:
+</p>
+
+<div class="letter">
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="right">
+EDMUND IRONSIDE, Major-General.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus100"></a>
+<a href="images/240Pic1_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/240Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="435" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Canadian Artillery—Americans Were Strong for Them.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus101"></a>
+<img src="images/240Pic2_A25.jpg" width="597" height="429" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">ROZANSKEY<br/>
+<i>Making “Khleba”—Black Bread.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus102"></a>
+<img src="images/240Pic2_B25.jpg" width="597" height="284" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Stout Defense of Kitsa.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap32"></a>XXXII<br/>
+FELCHERS, PRIESTS AND ICONS</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of the most familiar characters seen in every town, large or small, was the
+<i>Batushka</i>. 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 <i>Batushka</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap33"></a>XXXIII<br/>
+BOLSHEVISM</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first article is adapted from an article in <i>The New York Times</i> 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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”—<i>Abraham Lincoln.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+PARALLEL 8—THOSE WHO MAY VOTE
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+RUSSIA
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. Soldiers of the army and navy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. The former two classes when incapacitated.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+UNITED STATES
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Now turn to the next sections of the Russian constitution and see who
+are disfranchised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>First.</i> Private ownership of land is abolished. (No compensation, open
+or secret, is paid to the former owner.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Second.</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Third.</i> The teaching of religious doctrines is forbidden in private
+schools, as well as in schools that are public.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Fourth.</i> 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.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>Fifth.</i> Under the general authority granted to the soviets by the
+constitution inheritance of property by law or will has been abolished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What, then, is my arraignment of sovietism according to the soviet
+constitution?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“2. The rural, county, provincial, regional, and All-Russian soviets are
+elected indirectly, and the people have no direct vote in the election.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“3. The people have no voice in the election of executive officers of
+the highest or lowest degrees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“4. There is no mention of independent judicial officers in the
+constitution.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“5. The people are very largely disfranchised.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“6. The farmer of Russia is discriminated against.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“7. The system raises class against class; the voters vote by trade and
+craft groups instead of on the basis of thought units.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“8. The system strikes a blow at the church and the home.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“9. The system is pyramidal and means highly centralized and autocratic
+power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Men in high places who have had opportunity to get the facts,” says Mr.
+Burton, “give their impressions of the experiment:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“WOODROW WILSON, <i>President of the United States</i>.—‘There is a closer
+monopoly of power in Moscow and Petrograd than there ever was in Berlin.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“SAMUEL GOMPERS, <i>President of the American Federation of Labor</i>.—
+‘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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“MORRIS HILLQUIT, <i>International Secretary of the Socialist Party</i>.—‘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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“HERBERT HOOVER, <i>Former United States Food Administrator</i>.—‘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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, <i>Former President of the United States</i>.—‘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’.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A yellowed and tattered cartoon that hung on a Company bulletin board at
+466 when the snow was slipping away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“America Looks Mighty. Good After You’ve Seen Europe” is the title.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+“<i>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!</i>”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<img src="images/254Pic25.jpg" width="616" height="663" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">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!”<br/>
+Orator is holding a paper saying “Down with America! It’s all wrong!”<br/>
+Papers in orator’s sack: “Bolshevism from Europe” “East side of New York
+propaganda.”<br/>
+AMERICA LOOKS MIGHTY GOOD AFTER YOU’VE SEEN EUROPE.<br/>
+—COLUMBUS EVENING DISPATCH.</p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap34"></a>XXXIV<br/>
+Y. M. C. A. AND Y. W. C. A. WITH TROOPS</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus103"></a>
+<img src="images/256Pic1_A25.jpg" width="601" height="423" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">RED CROSS PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus104"></a>
+<img src="images/256Pic1_B25.jpg" width="606" height="434" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>“Come and Get It” at Verst 455.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus105"></a>
+<img src="images/256Pic2_A25.jpg" width="601" height="437" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Doughboys Drubbed Sailors.<br/>
+Brig. Gen. Richardson and Adm. McMully at Army-Navy Game.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus106"></a>
+<img src="images/256Pic2_B25.jpg" width="603" height="435" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">WAGNER<br/>
+<i>Yank and Scot Guarding Prisoners.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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?’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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
+<i>coup d’etat</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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, “<i>Fighting Without a War</i>,”
+which embodies his experiences and observations with the doughboys at the
+front.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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
+<i>Croix de Guerre</i> and the Russian St. George Cross.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+TO OUR Y. W. C. A. AMERICAN GIRLS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>The
+American Sentinel</i> which may be introduced here in prose garb a la Walt
+Mason.
+</p>
+
+<p class="poem">
+“There’s a place in old Archangel,<br/>
+That we never will forget,<br/>
+And of all the cozy places,<br/>
+It’s the soldier’s one best bet.<br/>
+It’s the place where lonely Sammies<br/>
+Hit the trail for on the run,<br/>
+There they serve you cake and coffee,<br/>
+’Till the cake and coffee’s done.<br/>
+And they know that after eating,<br/>
+There’s another pleasure yet,—<br/>
+So to show how they are thoughtful,<br/>
+They include a cigarette.<br/>
+There’s a place back in the corner,<br/>
+Where you get your clothing checked,<br/>
+And the place is yours, They tell you,<br/>
+—well—Or words to that effect.<br/>
+There are magazines a-plenty,<br/>
+From the good old U. S. A.<br/>
+There’s a cheery home-like welcome<br/>
+for you any time of day.<br/>
+Will we, can we e’er forget them,<br/>
+In the future golden years,<br/>
+And the kindness that was rendered,<br/>
+By these Lady Volunteers?<br/>
+Just as soon as work is finished,<br/>
+Don’t you brush your hair and blouse,<br/>
+And go double-double timing,<br/>
+To the cordial Hostess House?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>taplooska</i> Ryal home and made it shine radiantly with
+their congratulations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap35"></a>XXXV<br/>
+“DOBRA” CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+Description Of Hospital Building—Grateful Memories—Summary Of Medical And
+Surgical Cases—Feeding The Convalescents—Care And Entertainment—Captain
+Greenleaf Fine Manager.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>(a)</i> of British rations
+(one week issue), <i>(b) </i>a statement of food barter (17 days) and
+<i>(c)</i> the menu for one week.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the winter the following entertainments were given:
+</p>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-left: 5em;">
+
+<tr>
+<td>Vaudeville</td><td>5</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Boxing exhibitions</td><td>4</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Lectures</td><td>4</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Minstrel shows</td><td>2</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Dances</td><td>10</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Musical entertainments</td><td>6</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Russian</td><td>3</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>English</td><td>2</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Band concert</td><td>1</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>Kangaroo court</td><td>1</td>
+</tr>
+
+
+</table>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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
+<i>The American Sentinel</i> (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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During April eighty-two patients were discharged from the Convalescent
+Hospital and sent to Smolny Barracks for “Temporary Light Duty at Base.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BARTER RETURN
+<i>Period: 17 days—from March 27th, 1919, to April 14th. 1919</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COMMODITIES BARTERED
+</p>
+
+<table style="width: 381px; height: 508px;" border="1" cellpadding="2"
+ cellspacing="2">
+  <tbody>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Bread, stale </td>
+      <td>372 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Bread, pieces of </td>
+      <td>403 
+      </td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Grease </td>
+      <td>365 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Bones </td>
+      <td> 331 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Beans </td>
+      <td> 425 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Peas </td>
+      <td> 156 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Rice </td>
+      <td> 746 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Dates </td>
+      <td> 25 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Bacon </td>
+      <td> 678 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Lard </td>
+      <td> 960 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Sugar </td>
+      <td> 274 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Jam </td>
+      <td>56 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Pea Soup </td>
+      <td> 318 pkgs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Limejuice </td>
+      <td> 3 cases</td>
+    </tr>
+  </tbody>
+</table>
+
+<p>
+COMMODITIES RECEIVED IN RETURN
+</p>
+
+<table style="width: 384px; height: 228px;" border="1" cellpadding="2"
+ cellspacing="2">
+  <tbody>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Potatoes </td>
+      <td>5281 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Carrots </td>
+      <td>133 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Cabbage </td>
+      <td> 339.5 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Turnips </td>
+      <td>851 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Onions </td>
+      <td> 200 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Veal </td>
+      <td>938 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Liver </td>
+      <td>76.5 lbs.</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Eggs </td>
+      <td>198</td>
+    </tr>
+  </tbody>
+</table>
+
+<p>
+The menu for the week of April 20-26, inclusive, was as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+APRIL 20—SUNDAY
+BREAKFAST
+Boiled eggs
+Fried bacon
+Oatmeal and milk
+Bread and butter Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DINNER
+Roast veal and gravy
+Mashed potatoes
+Sage dressing
+Stewed tomatoes
+Apple pie
+Mixed pickles
+Bread and butter
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SUPPER
+Roast beef
+Potato salad
+Lemon cake
+Bread and jam
+Cocoa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+APRIL 21—MONDAY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BREAKFAST
+Oatmeal and milk
+Fried bacon
+Wheatcakes and syrup
+Bread and jam
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DINNER
+Steaks
+Creamed potatoes
+Cabbage, fried
+Bread and butter
+Peach pudding
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SUPPER
+Beef stew
+Fried cakes
+Bread and butter
+Tea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+APRIL 22—TUESDAY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BREAKFAST
+Oatmeal and milk
+Fried bacon
+Bread and jam
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DINNER
+Roast mutton
+Baked potatoes
+Mashed turnips
+Bread and butter
+Chocolate pudding
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SUPPER
+Hamburger steak
+Boiled potatoes
+Stewed dates
+Bread and butter
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+APRIL 23—WEDNESDAY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BREAKFAST
+Oatmeal and milk
+Fried bacon
+Bread and jam
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DINNER
+Roast beef
+Mashed potatoes
+Creamed peas
+Bread and butter
+Bread pudding
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SUPPER
+Mutton chops
+Boiled potatoes
+Bread and butter
+Chocolate cake
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+APRIL 24—THURSDAY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BREAKFAST
+Oatmeal and milk
+Fried bacon
+Bread and jam
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DINNER
+Roast beef
+Escalloped potatoes
+Baked turnips
+Bread and butter
+Rice pudding
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SUPPER
+Mutton stew
+Rolls and jam
+Tea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+APRIL 25—FRIDAY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BREAKFAST
+Oatmeal and milk
+Fried bacon
+Wheatcakes and syrup
+Bread and jam
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DINNER
+Steaks
+Boiled potatoes
+Creamed onions
+Bread and butter
+Fruit pudding, cherry
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SUPPER
+Hamburger steak
+Boiled potatoes
+Stewed apricots
+Bread and butter
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+APRIL 26—SATURDAY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BREAKFAST
+Rice and milk
+Fried bacon
+Bread and butter
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DINNER
+Roast beef
+Creamed potatoes
+Baked beans
+Bread and butter
+Chocolate pudding
+Coffee.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SUPPER
+Vegetable stew
+Stewed prunes
+Bread and butter
+Tea.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>dobra</i>
+convalescent hospital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>dobra</i>
+convalescent hospital.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following is Capt. Greenleaf’s summary:
+</p>
+
+<table style="width: 499px; height: 328px;" border="1" cellpadding="2"
+ cellspacing="2">
+  <tbody>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Patients </td>
+      <td>1180</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Hospital days,
+actual </td>
+      <td>17048</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Hospital days, per
+patient </td>
+      <td>14.45</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Hospital days, awaiting evacuation </td>
+      <td>11196</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Hospital days, per
+patient </td>
+      <td>9.49</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Hospital days, special
+duty </td>
+      <td> 7273</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Hospital days, per
+patient </td>
+      <td> 6.16</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Hospital days,
+total </td>
+      <td> 35517</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Hospital days, per
+patient </td>
+      <td> 30.10</td>
+    </tr>
+  </tbody>
+</table>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DISPOSITION OF PATIENTS IN AMERICAN CONVALESCENT HOSPITAL
+</p>
+
+<p>
+EVACUATED TO ENGLAND
+</p>
+
+<table style="width: 389px; height: 256px;" border="1" cellpadding="2"
+ cellspacing="2">
+  <tbody>
+    <tr>
+      <td>October 27, 1918 </td>
+      <td>46</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>December 6, 1918 </td>
+      <td>56</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>December 27, 1918 </td>
+      <td>10</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>January 24, 1919 </td>
+      <td>7</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>February 24, 1919 </td>
+      <td>15</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>June 1, 1919 </td>
+      <td>183</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>Total </td>
+      <td>317</td>
+    </tr>
+  </tbody>
+</table>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-left: 5em;">
+
+<tr>
+<td>DISCHARGED TO AMERICAN RED CROSS HOSPITAL</td><td></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>For surgical attention</td><td>24</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>For medical attention</td><td>18</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-left: 5em; margin-top: 1em;">
+
+<tr>
+<td>DISCHARGED TO BRITISH HOSPITALS</td><td></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>For special treatment</td><td>13</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<table summary="" style="margin-left: 5em; margin-top: 1em;">
+
+<tr>
+<td>DISCHARGED TO DUTY</td><td>808</td>
+</tr>
+
+</table>
+
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap36"></a>XXXVI<br/>
+AMERICAN RED CROSS IN NORTH RUSSIA</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the assistance of the Red Cross <i>The American Sentinel</i>, 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus107"></a>
+<a href="images/272Pic1_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/272Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="428" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">PRIMM<br/>
+<i>View of Archangel in Summer.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus108"></a>
+<img src="images/272Pic2_A25.jpg" width="604" height="436" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>General Ironside Inspecting Doughboys.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus109"></a>
+<img src="images/272Pic2_B25.jpg" width="607" height="436" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (159488)<br/>
+<i>Burial of Lieut. Clifford Phillips.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap37"></a>XXXVII<br/>
+CAPTIVE DOUGHBOYS IN BOLSHEVIKDOM</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+News was brought back by Father Roach that many American and British and
+French prisoners were at Moscow or on their way to Moscow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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 <i>skora skora</i> to make them step lively toward the Red
+General’s headquarters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Imagine the three American soldiers and the “Y” man and the two British
+soldiers sitting disconsolately in a filthy <i>taplooshka</i>, 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 <i>gavareet</i> and made his protest at being
+left dirty. He won out. The soldier <i>horoshawed</i> several times and
+<i>seechassed</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.’ “
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>Dobra, dobra.</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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 <i>(sic)</i> 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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”—<i>By Sgt. Glenn W. Leitzell, Co. M, 339th Inf.</i>
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap38"></a>XXXVIII<br/>
+MILITARY DECORATIONS</h2>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+AMERICAN DECORATIONS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Distinguished Service Cross</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BUGLER JAMES F. REVELS, “I” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
+Sept. 16th, 1918, Obozerskaya, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. CHARLES F. CHAPPEL, “K” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
+Sept. 27th, 1918, Kodish, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. MATHEW G. GRAHEK, “M” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
+Sept. 29th, 1918, at Verst 458, Obozerskaya, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. CORNELIUS T. MAHONEY, “K” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
+October 16th, 1918, Kodish, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. ROBERT M. PRATT, “M” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
+October 17th, 1918, Verst 445, near Emtsa, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. VICTOR STIER, “A” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action, January
+19th, 1919, Ust Padenga, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. LAWRENCE B. KILROY, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in
+action, Kodish, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. HUBERT C. PAUL, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in action,
+Kodish, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. CLIFFORD F. PHILLIPS, “H” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in
+action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki. (Citation posthumous.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. THEODORE SIELOFF, “I” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
+Nov. 4th, 1918, at Verst 445, near Emtsa, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. CLARENCE H. ZECH, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in action,
+Kodish, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. WILLIAM H. RUSSELL, “M” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in action,
+April 1st, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia. (Citation posthumous.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. CHESTER H. EVERHARD, 337th Ambulance Company, for gallantry in
+action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. HOWARD H. PELLEGROM, “H” Co., 339th Inf., for gallantry in
+action, April 2nd, 1919, near Bolsheozerki, Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FRENCH DECORATIONS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Legion of Honor</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAJOR J. BROOKS NICHOLS, 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COL. GEORGE E. STEWART, 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Croix de Guerre</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. WALTER STREIT, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. MATHEW G. GRAHEK, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. JAMES DRISCOLL, “M.G.” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. CLARENCE A. MILLER, “M” CO.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. ARTHUR FRANK, “M.G.” CO.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. LEO R. ELLIS, “I” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. JAMES R. DONOVAN, “M” Co. 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. FRANK GETZLOFF, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. C. A. GROBBELL, “I” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. GEORGE W. STONER, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. JOHN H. ROMPINEN, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. ALFRED FULLER, “K” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAJOR MICHAEL J. DONOGHUE, 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. CLARENCE J. PRIMM, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. DWIGHT FISTLER, “I” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. CHARLES HEBNER, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. OTTO GEORGIA, “K” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. PERCIVAL L. SMITH, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. WESLEY K. WRIGHT, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. GILBERT T. SHILLSON, “K” CO., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. HARVEY B. PETERSON, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. HERMAN A. SODER, “I” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. THOMAS McELROY, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. BENJAMIN JONDRO, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. TOBIAS LePLANT, “K” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. FRANK RANK, “I” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. CHARLES V. RIHA, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. ROBERT J. WIECZOREK, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. WOODHULL SPITLER, “M.G.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. JOHN P. GRAY, “M” CO.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. JOSEPH ROSENFELD, 337th Amb.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. JACOB KANTROWITZ, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. JOHN J. BAKER, “E” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. CLYDE PETERSON, “K” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. THEODORE H. SIELOFF, “I” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. RAY LAWRENCE, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. HORATIO G. WINSLOW, “I” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. JOHN C. SMOLINSKI, “I” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. JOHN KUKORIS, “I” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. LEWIS E. JAHNS, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAJOR J. BROOKS NICHOLS, 339th Inf., Commanding officer Allied troops,
+Railway Detachment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. SAMUEL H. DARRAH, “K” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. CHARLES B. RYAN, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. FRANK L. O’CONNOR, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MR. FRANK OLMSTEAD, Y. M. C. A.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. OSCAR LIGHTER, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. ALFRED STARIKOFF, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. ROBERT M. PRATT, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. ERNEST P. ROULEAU, “M” Co.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. JOEL R. MOORE, “M” Co., 339th Inf. (with silver star, divisional
+citation).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BRITISH DECORATIONS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Distinguished Service Order</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT.-COL. P. S. MORRIS, JR., 310th Engineers.
+Chief Engineer A. E. F., North Russia, during fall offensive and winter
+and spring campaigns.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Military Cross</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. OTTO A. ODJARD, Commanding Officer “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. ALBERT M. SMITH, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. LAWRENCE P. KEITH, “M.G.” Co. 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. GORDON B. REESE, “I” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. HARRY S. STEELE, “C” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. W. C. GIFFELS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. HARRY M. DENNIS, “B” Co. 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. JOHN A. COMMONS, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. H. D. McPHAIL, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. CHARLES B. RYAN, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. H. T. KETCHAM, “H” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. HARRY J. COSTELLO, “M.G.” Co., 339th Inf. (received his medal
+from the hand of the Prince of Wales, in Washington, D. C.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAJOR CLARE S. McARDLE, Commanding officer 1st Battalion 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. EDWIN J. STEPHENSON, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. B. A. BURNS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. W. O. AXTELL, “B” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. E. W. LEGIER, “C” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Distinguished Conduct Medal</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. MATHEW G. GRAHEK, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. F. W. WOLFE, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. G. M. WALKER, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. CHAS. J. HAYDEN, “I” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. J. C. DOWNS, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. A. V. TIBBALS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. GEORGE R. YOHE, Signal Platoon, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. WALTER A. SPRINGSTEEN, Signal Platoon, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. JAMES MORROW, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. PETER CSATLOS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. FLOYD A. WALLACE, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Military Medal</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. CARL W. VENABLE, “L” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. 1ST CLASS JAMES W. DRISCOLL, “M.G.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. MICHAEL J. KENNEY, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. E. J. HERMAN, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. J. S. MANDERFIELD, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. E. P. TROMBLEY, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. H. T. DANIELSON, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. J. FRANCZAC, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BUGLER C. J. CAMPUS, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MECH. A. J. HORN, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. J. A. NEES, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. ARNOLD W. NOLF, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. H. H. HAMILTON, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. BERGER W. BERGSTROM, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. RUSSELL F. McGUIRE, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. MICHAEL KOWALSKI, “H” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. E. W. PAUSCH, “C” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. JOHN BENSON, “C” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. SILVER K. PARISH, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. CHARLES BELL, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. JOSEPH EDYINSON, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. L. E. STOVER, “B” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. W. C. BUTZ, “B” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. F. W. WILKIE, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. L. BARTELS, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. J. STEYSKAL, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. E. E. HELMAN, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. WILLIAM C. SHAUGHNESSEY, Signal Platoon, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. LOUIS L. HOPKINS, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. CHARLES E. GARRETT, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. GUY HINMAN, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. JAMES R. WAGGENER, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. CLARENCE A. MILLER, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Meritorious Service Medal</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. EWALD T. BILLEAU
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. A. H. DITTBERNER
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. L. S. SCHNEIDER
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. DELBERT KRATZ
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1ST. SGT. V. B. ROGERS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. F. W. YATES
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. JERRY DAUBEK
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. A. N. ERICKSON
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All of “A” Company, 310th Engineers
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RUSSIAN DECORATIONS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>St. Vladimir with Swords and Ribbons</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+REAR-ADMIRAL NEWTON A. McCULLY, Commanding U. S. Naval Forces.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAJOR MICHAEL J. DONOGHUE, 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAJOR J. BROOKS NICHOLS, 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COL. JAMES A. RUGGLES, Chief of American Military Mission, Military
+Attache to Embassy in Russia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>St. Anne With Swords</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. JOEL R. MOORE, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. J. R. DONOVAN; “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. ALBERT M. SMITH, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. GORDON B. REESE, “I” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. HARRY S. STEELE, “C” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. GEORGE W. STONER, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. CLARENCE J. PRIMM, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. F. B. LITTLE, Med. Corps, 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. W. C. GIFFELLS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. E. W. LEGlER, “C” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. HARRY J. COSTELLO, “M.G.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. EUGENE PRINCE, Military Mission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. HUGH S. MARTIN, Military Mission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. J. A. HARTZFELD, Military Mission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. SERGIUS M. RIIS, Naval Attache to Embassy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>St. Stanislaus</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. OTTO A. ODJARD, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. ROBERT P. BOYD, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAJOR C. S. McARDLE, 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. JOHN J. CONWAY, “G” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. LAWRENCE P. KEITH, “Hq.” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. WESLEY K. WRIGHT, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. JOHN A. COMMONS, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. H. T. KETCHAM, “H” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. HARRY M. DENNIS, “B” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. CHARLES B. RYAN, “K” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. H. D. McPHAIL, “A” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. WILLIAM KNIGHT, 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. ROBERT J. WIECZOREK, “M” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. DWIGHT FISTLER, “I” Co., 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. B. A. BURNS, “A” Co., 310th Engrs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. A. W. KLIEFOTH, Military Mission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. M. B. ROGERS, Military Mission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. E. L. PACKER, Military Mission.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAJOR D. O. LIVELY, American Red Cross.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CAPT. ROGER LEWIS, American Red Cross.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. FRED MASON, American Red Cross.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LIEUT. GEORGE POLLATS, American Red Cross.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>Cross of St. George</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. JOHN C. ADAMS
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. HARRISON BUSH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. JOSEPH CURRY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. FRED DeLANEY
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1ST. SGT. W. DUNDON
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BUGLER GEORGE GARTON
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. M. G. GRAHEK
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. GEO. HANRAHAN
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. CHAS. A. HEBNER
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. FRED HODGES
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. WM. R. HUSTON
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. JACOB KANTROWITZ
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. WM. NIEMAN
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. F. L. O’CONNOR
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. CHAS. W. PAGE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. ROBT. M. PRATT
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. CHAS. V. RIHA
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. F. J. ROMANSKI
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. JOHN ROMPINEN
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. JOS. RYDUCHOWSKI
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. LEO SCHWABE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SGT. NORMAN ZAPFE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORP. W. ZIMMERMAN
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All of “M” Company, 339th Infantry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Also MR. ERNEST RAND, and MR. FRANK OLMSTEAD, Y. M. C. A.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>St. Anne Silver Medal</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CORPORAL WALTER J. PICARD, “M” Company, 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<i>St. Stanislaus Silver Medal</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. HAROLD METCALFE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. ERNEST ROULEAU
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PVT. FRANK STEPNAVSKI
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COOK JOSEPH PAVLIN
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COOK THEODORE ZECH
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All of “M” Company, 339th Infantry
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus110"></a>
+<a href="images/287Pic1_25.jpg">
+<img src="images/287Pic1_25.jpg" width="700" height="429" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Major Nichols in His Railway Detachment Field Headquarters</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus111"></a>
+<img src="images/287Pic2_A25.jpg" width="604" height="287" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>Ready to Head Memorial Day Parade.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus112"></a>
+<img src="images/287Pic2_B25.jpg" width="605" height="287" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>American Cemetery in Archangel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus113"></a>
+<img src="images/287Pic2_C25.jpg" width="601" height="286" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>Soldiers and Sailors of Six Nations Reverence Dead.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus114"></a>
+<a href="images/287Pic2_D25.jpg">
+<img src="images/287Pic2_D25.jpg" width="700" height="434" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO<br/>
+<i>Graves of First Three Americans Killed Fighting Bolsheviki—Obozerskaya, Russia.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus115"></a>
+<img src="images/287Pic3_A25.jpg" width="601" height="282" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>Sailors Parade on Memorial Day, Archangel.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus116"></a>
+<img src="images/287Pic3_B25.jpg" width="603" height="278" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">LANMAN<br/>
+<i>Through Ice Floes in Arctic Homeward-Bound.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="illus117"></a>
+<img src="images/287Pic3_C25.jpg" width="612" height="285" alt="[Illustration: ]" />
+<p class="caption">ROZANSKEY<br/>
+<i>Out of White Sea into Arctic Under Midnight Sun.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap39"></a>XXXIX<br/>
+HOMEWARD BOUND</h2>
+
+<p class="letter">
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+SGT. J. KANT, Co. “M” 339th Inf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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-<i>barishna</i>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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 <i>The American Sentinel</i> is taken the
+following account:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here a short memorial service was held. Brief addresses were delivered
+by General Richardson, General Miller, Charge D’Affaires Poole, and
+General Ironside.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“In his introductory address General Richardson said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Before introducing General Miller, General Richardson thanked the
+Allied representatives for their participation in the celebration of
+Memorial Day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Poole said:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“<i>The Northern Morning</i>, a Russian daily of Archangel, reported on the
+Memorial Day Exercises as follows:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“‘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.’
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“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.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+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.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+THE HONOR ROLL
+<i>of the</i>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+AMERICAN EXPEDITION WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THE
+BOLSHEVIKI IN NORTH RUSSIA
+</p>
+
+<p>
+1918–1919
+</p>
+
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap40"></a>IN RUSSIA’s FIELDS<br/>
+<i>(After Flanders Fields)</i></h2>
+
+<p class="poem">
+In Russia’s fields no poppies grow<br/>
+There are no crosses row on row<br/>
+To mark the places where we lie,<br/>
+No larks so gayly singing fly<br/>
+As in the fields of Flanders.<br/>
+<br/>
+We are the dead. Not long ago<br/>
+We fought beside you in the snow<br/>
+And gave our lives, and here we lie<br/>
+Though scarcely knowing reason why<br/>
+Like those who died in Flanders.<br/>
+<br/>
+At Ust Padenga where we fell<br/>
+On Railroad, Kodish, shot and shell<br/>
+We faced, from just as fierce a foe<br/>
+As those who sleep where poppies grow,<br/>
+Our comrades brave in Flanders.<br/>
+<br/>
+In Toulgas woods we scattered sleep,<br/>
+Chekuevo and Kitsa’s tangles creep<br/>
+Across our lonely graves. At night<br/>
+The doleful screech owl’s dismal flight<br/>
+Heart-breaking screams in Russia.<br/>
+<br/>
+Near railroad bridge at Four-five-eight,<br/>
+And Chamova’s woods, our bitter fate<br/>
+We met. We fell before the Reds<br/>
+Where wolves now howl above our heads<br/>
+In far off lonely Russia.<br/>
+<br/>
+In Shegovari’s desperate fight,<br/>
+Vistavka’s siege and Seltso’s night,<br/>
+In Bolsheozerki’s hemmed-in wood,<br/>
+In Karpogor, till death we stood<br/>
+Like they who died in Flanders.<br/>
+<br/>
+And some in Archangel are laid<br/>
+’Neath rows of crosses Russian-made<br/>
+With marker of the Stars and Stripes<br/>
+Not minding bugle, drum or pipes<br/>
+We sleep, the brave, in Russia.<br/>
+<br/>
+And comrades as you gather far away<br/>
+In God’s own land on some bright day<br/>
+And think of us who died and rest<br/>
+Just tell our folks we did our best<br/>
+In far off fields of Russia.<br/>
+</p>
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a href="images/298Pic.jpg">
+<img src="images/298Pic.jpg" width="596" height="700" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2><a name="chap41"></a><i>Our Roll of Honored Dead</i></h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+KILLED IN ACTION
+</p>
+
+<p>
+AGNEW, JOHN, Sgt. Co. K
+Sept. 27, 1918, Belfast, Ireland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ANDERSON, JAKE C., Pvt. 1st class Co. B
+Nov. 11,1918, Cave City, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ANGOVE, JOHN P., Pvt. Co. B
+Nov. 13, 1918, Painesdale, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ASSIRE, MYRON J., Co. A, 310th Engrs
+Oct. 26,1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+AUSLANDER, FLOYD R., Pvt. Co. H
+April 2, 1919, Decker, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+AUSTIN, FLOYD E., Pvt. 1st class Co. E
+Dec. 30, 1918, Scottsburg, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+AVERY, HARLEY, Pvt. Co. H
+Oct. 1, 1918, Lexington, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BALLARD, CLIFFORD B., Second Lt. M. G. Co
+Feb. 7, 1919, Cambridge, Mass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BERGER, CARL G., Wag. Sup. Co
+Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BERGER, CARL H., Second Lt. Co. E
+Dec. 31, 1918, Mayville, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BORESON, JOHN, Pvt. Co. H,
+Oct. 1, 1918, Stephenson, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BOSEL, JOHN J., Corp. Co. C
+Nov. 29, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CHAPPEL, CHARLES F., First Lt. Co. K
+Sept. 27, 1918, Toledo, Ohio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CHEENEY, Roy D., Corp. Co. C.
+Nov. 29, 1918, Pueblo, Colo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CHRISTIAN, ARTHUR, Pvt. Co. L.
+Oct. 14, 1918, Atlanta, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CLARK, JOSHUA A., Pvt. Co. C.
+Feb. 4, 1919, Woodville, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CLEMENS, RAYMOND C., Pvt. Co. C.
+Nov. 29, 1918, St. Joseph, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COLE, ELMER B., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 23, 1919, Hamersluya, Pa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CONRAD, REX H., Corp. Co. F
+Mar. 26, 1919, Ponca, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CROOK, ALVA, Pvt. Co. M
+April 1, 1919, Lakeview, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CRONIN, LOUIS, Pvt. Co. K
+Oct. 13, 1918, Flushing, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CROWE, BERNARD C., Sgt. Co. K
+Dec. 30, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CUFF, FRANCIS W., First Lt. Co. C
+Nov. 29, 1918, Rio, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DeAMICIS, GUISEPPE, Corp. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DIAL, CHARLES O., Mech. Co. M
+Mar. 31, 1919, Carlisle, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DYMENT, SCHLIOMA, Pvt. Co. M
+Sept. 30, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ELLIS, LEO R, Pvt. Co. I.
+Nov. 4,1918, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FOLEY, MORRIS J., Corp. Co. B
+Sept. 20, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FULLER, ALFRED W., Pvt. 1st class Co. K
+Dec. 30, 1918, Trenton, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GASPER, LEO, Pvt. Co. B
+Nov. 11, 1918, Chesaning, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GAUCH, CHARLES D., Pvt. Hq. Co
+Oct. 1, 1918, Kearney, N. J.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GOTTSCHALK, MILTON E., Corp. Co. A
+Jan. 22, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GRAHAM, CLAUS, Pvt. Co. H
+Oct. 1, 1918, Toledo, Ohio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HESTER, HARLEY H., Corp. M. G. Co
+Sept. 27, 1918, Cave City, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KENNEY, MICHAEL J., Sgt. Co. K
+Dec. 30, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KENNY, BERNARD F., Corp. Co. A
+Mar. 9, 1919, Hemlock, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KISSICK, THURMAN L., Pvt. Co. C
+Nov. 29, 1918, Ringos Mill, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KREIZINGER, EDWARD, Corp. Co. L.
+Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KUDZBA, PETER, Pvt. CO. B
+Sept. 20, 1918, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KWASNIEWSKI, IGNACY H., Mech. Co. I.
+Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LADOVICH, NIKODEM, Pvt. Co. C
+Feb. 4, 1919, Pittsburgh, Pa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MALM, CLARENCE A., Pvt. 1st class Co. G
+Dec. 4, 1918, Battle Creek, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MARRIOTT, FRED R, Sgt. Co. B
+Nov. 12, 1918, Port Huron, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+McCONVILL, EDWARD, Pvt. Co. H
+Mar. 23, 1919, Shawmut, Mass.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+McLAUGHLIN, FRANK S., Pvt. Co. I
+Oct. 16, 1918, Elks Rapids, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MERRICK, WALTER A., Pvt. Co. M
+Oct. 14, 1918, Sandusky, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MERTENS, EDWARD L., Corp. Co. L
+Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MOORE, ALBERT E., Corp. Co. A
+Mar. 7, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MUELLER, FRANK J., Pvt. Co. E
+Dec. 30, 1918, Marshfield, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+OZDARSKI, JOSEPH S., Pvt. Co. L.
+Oct. 14, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PATRICK, RALPH M., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Long Lake, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PAWLAK, JOSEPH, Pvt. Co. B
+Mar. 1, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PILARSKI, ALEK, Pvt. Co. B
+Nov. 11, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PITTS, JAY B., Pvt. Co. G
+Dec. 4, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RAMOTOWSKE, JOSEF, Pvt. 1st class Co. H
+Mar. 22, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+REDMOND, NATHAN L., Corp. Co. H
+Mar. 19, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RICHARDSON, EUGENE E., Pvt. Co. H
+Oct. 1, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RICHEY, AUGUST K, Corp. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Dowagiac, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RITCHER, EDWARD, Pvt. Co. H
+Oct. 1, 1918, Mishawaka, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ROBBINS, DANIEL, Pvt. Co. B
+Mar. 1, 1919, Blaine, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ROGERS, YATES K, Sgt. Co. A
+Jan. 22, 1919, Memphis, Tenn.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RUTH, FRANK J., Pvt. Co. B
+Mar. 1, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SAPP, FRANK E., Corp. Co. M
+April 1, 1919, Rodney, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SAVADA, JOHN, Corp. Co. B
+Nov. 13, 1918, Hamtramck, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SCHMANN, ADOLPH, Pvt. Co. C.
+Nov. 13, 1918, Milwaukee, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SCRUGGS, FRANK W., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Bettelle, Ala.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SILKAITIS, FRANK, Pvt. Co. H
+Oct. 1, 1918, Chicago, III.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SMITH, WILBUR B., Sgt. Co. C.
+Jan. 20, 1919, Fort Williams, Canada.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SOCZKOSKI, ANTHONY, Pvt. Co. I
+Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SOKOL, PHILIP, Pvt. Co. L.
+Sept. 16, 1913, Pittsburgh, Pa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SPELCHER, ELMER E., Cook Co. C
+Feb. 4, 1919, Akron, Ohio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+STALEY, GLENN P., Pvt. Co. K
+Sept. 17, 1918, Whitemore, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SWEET, EARL D., Pvt. Co. A
+Mar. 9, 1919, McGregor, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SYSKA, FRANK, Pvt. Co. D
+Jan. 23, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TAYLOR, OTTO V., Pvt. Co. K
+Oct. 16, 1918, Alexandria, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TRAMMELL, DAUSIE W., Pvt. Co. A
+Mar. 9, 1919, Clio, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VanDerMEER, JOHN, Pvt. Co. B
+Sept. 20, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VanHERWYNEN, JOHN, Pvt. Co. D
+Sept. 20, 1918, Vriesland, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VOJTA, CHARLES J., Pvt. Co. K
+Sept. 27, 1918, Chicago, III.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WAGNER, HAROLD H., Pvt. 1st class Co. E.
+Dec. 30, 1918, Harlan, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WELSTEAD, WALTER J., Pvt. Co. A
+Mar. 9, 1919, Chicago, III.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WENGER, IRVIN, Pvt. Co. C
+Nov. 29, Grand Rapids, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ZAJACZKOWSKI, JOHN, Pvt. Co. B
+Nov. 12, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+DEATH FROM OTHER CAUSES
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BLOOM, ELMER, Sgt. Co. A., 310th Engrs.
+(drowned) Oct. 8, 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CONNOR, LLOYD, Corp. Co. A., 310th Engrs.
+(drowned) Oct. 8, 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DARGAN, ARTHUR, Pvt. Co. A., 310th Engrs.
+(drowned) Oct. 8, 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HILL, C. B., Lt. Co. A., 310th Engrs.
+(drowned) Oct. 8, 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LOVELL, ALBERT W., Pvt. Hq. Co
+Aug. 10, 1918 (drowned), England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MARCHLEWSKI, JOSEPH D., Pvt. Co. G
+Oct. 28, 1918 (accident), Alpena, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MARTIN, J. C., Corp. Co. E.
+Oct. 21, 1918 (accidentally shot), Portland, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RUSSELL, WM. H., Corp. Co. M
+April 19, 1919 (accident by grenade), Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SAWICKIS, FRANK K, Pvt. Co. I
+April 29,1919 (Bolo grenade), Racine, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SICKLES, FLOYD A., Pvt. Co. M
+Dec. 6,1918 (accident), Deckerville, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SZYMANSKI, LOUIS A., Pvt. Co. C
+Nov. 27, 1918 (accidentally shot), Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WILSON, DALE, Pvt. 1st class Co. B
+April 3, 1919, Alexander, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WING, HOMER, Pvt. Co. A, 310th Engrs
+May 31,1919 (rly. accident), Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+YOUNG, EDWARD L., Sgt. Co. G
+Mar. 14, 1919 (suicide), Moosie, Pa.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED IN ACTION
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BALL, ELBERT, Pvt. 1st class Co. B
+Nov. 14, 1918, Henderson, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BOWMAN, WILLIAM H., Sgt. Co. B
+Mar. 1, 1919, Penn Laird, Va.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CLISH, FRANK, Pvt. Co. B
+Mar. 1, 1919, Baraga, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COLLINS, EDMUND R., First Lt. Co. H
+Mar. 24, 1919, Racine, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COOK, CLARENCE, Pvt. Co. A
+Feb. 20, 1919, Stilton, Kan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DETZLER, ALLICK F., Pvt. Co. B
+Nov. 15, 1918, Prescott, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DUNAETZ, ISIADOR, Pvt. Co. C
+Jan. 31, 1919, Sodus, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ETTER, FRANK M., Sgt. Co. C
+Feb. 6, 1919, Marion, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FRANKLIN, WALTER E., Pvt. Co. E
+Dec. 31, 1918, Bellevue, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GRAY, ALSON W., Corp. Co. K
+Nov. 8, 1918, South Boston, Va.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KOSLOUSKY, MATTIOS, Pvt. Co. H
+April 2, 1919, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LEHMANN, WILLIAM J., Corp. Co. A
+Jan. 23, 1919, Danville, III.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LENCIONI, SEBASTIANO, Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 22, 1919, Whitewater, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LYTTLE, ALFRED E., Corp. Co. A., 310th Engrs
+Oct. 31, 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MEISTER, EMANUEL A., Sgt. Co. C
+Sept. 27, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MORRIS, JOHN H. W., Pvt. Co. B, 310th Engrs
+Oct. 18, 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MYLON, JAMES J., Corp. Co. E
+Dec. 31, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+NIEMI, MATTIE I, Pvt. Co. M
+Sept. 30, 1918, Verona, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PETERSON, AUGUST B., Pvt. Co. H
+Mar. 22, 1919, Whitehall, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PHILLIPS, CLIFFORD F., First Lt. Co. H
+May 10,1919, Lincoln, Nebr.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+POWERS, RALPH E., Lt. 337th Amb. Co
+Jan. 22, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ROSE, BENJAMIN, Pvt. Co. A
+Mar. 11, 1919, Packard, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SKOSELAS, ANDREW, Pvt. Co. C
+Feb. 4, 1919, Eastlake, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SMITH, GEORGE J., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Yale, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+STIER, VICTOR, Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Cincinnati, Ohio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TAMAS, STANLEY P., Pvt. Co. D
+Oct. 29, 1918, Manistee, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ZIEGENBEIN, WILLIAM J., Corp. Co. A, 310th Engrs
+Oct. 16, 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+MISSING IN ACTION
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BABINGER, WILLIAM R., Corp. Hq. Co
+Oct. 2, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CARTER, JAMES, Pvt. Hd. Co.
+Oct. 2, 1918, Cornwall, England.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CARTER, WILLIAM J., Pvt. 1st class Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+COLLINS, EARL W., Corp. Co. H
+Mar. 18, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CWENK, JOSEPH, Pvt. 1st class Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Milan, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FRANK, ARTHUR, Pvt. M. G. Co
+Sept. 29, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GUTOWSKI, BOLESLAW, Pvt. Co. C
+Nov. 29, 1918, Wyandotte, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HODGE, ELMER W., Pvt. Co. C
+Nov. 29, 1918, Shelby, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HUTCHINSON, ALFRED G., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Plainwell, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+JENKS, STILLMAN V., Pvt. 1st class Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Shelby, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+JONKER, NICHOLAS, Pvt. Co. C.
+Nov. 29, 1918, Grand Rapids, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KEEFE, THOMAS H., Pvt. Co. C
+Feb. 4, 1919, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KIEFFER, SIMON P., Pvt. M. G. Co
+Sept. 29, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KOWALSKI, STANLEY, Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Lodz, Poland.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KUSSRATH, CHARLES AUG., JR., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KUROWSKI, MAX J., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Grand Rapids, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MANNOR, JOHN T., Pvt. 1st class Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Menominee, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MARTIN, WILLIAM J., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+McTAVISH, STEWART M., Pvt. 1st class Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Stratford, Can.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PEYTON, EDWARD W., Corp. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Richmond, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+POTH, RUSSELL A., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Brown City, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RAUSCHENBERGER, ALBERT, Corp. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Grand Rapids, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RETHERFORD, LINDSAY, Pvt. 1st class Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Hustonville, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RUSSELL, ARCHIE E., Pvt. 1st class Co. A
+Jan. 19. 1919, Hesperia. Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SAJNAJ, LEO, Pvt. 1st class Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SCHROEDER, HERBERT A., Corp. Co. B
+Sept. 20, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SCOTT, PERRY C, Corp. Hq. Co
+Oct. 2, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WEITZEL, HENRY R., Pvt. Co. C
+Nov. 29, 1918. Bay City, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WILLIAMS, EDSON A., Pvt. Co. A
+Jan. 19, 1919, Minneapolis. Minn.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+PRISONERS OF WAR
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ALBERS, GEORGE, Pvt. 1st class Co. I
+Nov. 3, 1918, Muskegon, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FRUCCE, JOHN, Pvt. Co. H
+Mar. 22. 1919, Muskegon, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FULCHER, EARL W., Pvt. Co. H
+Mar. 22, 1919, Tyre, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HAURILIK, MIKE M., Pvt. Co. C
+Nov. 29, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HOGAN, FREEMAN, Pvt. Co. M
+Mar. 31, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HUSTON, WALTER L.. Pvt. Co. C.
+Nov. 29. 1918. Muskegon, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LAURSEN, JENS C. Mech. Co. M
+May 1, 1919. Marlette, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LEITZELL, GLENN W., Sgt. Co. M
+Mar. 31. 1919, Mifflinburg. Pa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PRINCE, ARTHUR, Corp. Co. B
+Mar. 1. 1919, Onaway, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TRIPLETT, JOHNNIE, Pvt. Co. C
+Nov. 29, 1918, Lackay, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SCHEULKE, WILLIAM R. Pvt. Co. H
+Mar. 22, 1919, Stronach, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VANIS, ANTON J., Pvt. Co. D
+Jan. 23, 1919, Chicago, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+DIED OF DISEASE
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BAYER, ARTHUR, Pvt. Co. G
+Sept. 12, 1918, Kalamazoo, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BAYER, CHARLES, Pvt. Co. F
+Sept. 12, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BERRYHILL, CHESTER W., Pvt. Co. F
+Sept. 11, 1918, Midland, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RICKERT, ALBERT F., Pvt. Co. c.
+Sept. 5. 1918, Mt. Clemens, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BIGELOW, JOHN W., Pvt. Co. E
+Sept. 10. 1918, Copefish, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BRIEVE, JOSEPH, Pvt. Co. E
+Sept. 7. 1918, Holland, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BURDICK, ANDREW, Pvt. Co. B
+Sept. 19, 1918, Manitou Island, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+BYLES, JAMES B., Wag. Sup. Co
+Feb. 21, 1919, Valdosta, Ga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CANNIZZARO, RAYFIELD, Pvt. Co. K
+Sept. 13, 1918. Edmore, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CASEY, MARCUS T., Second Lt. Co. C
+Sept. 16. 1918, New Richmond, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CIESIELSKI, WALTER, Pvt. 1st class Co. E
+Feb. 27, 1919, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+CLARK, CLYDE, Pvt. Co. L.
+Sept. 18, 1918, Lansing. Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DUSABLOM, WILLIAM H., Pvt. Co. I
+Sept. 18, 1918, Trenton, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+EASLEY, ALBERT H., Pvt. Co. L.
+Sept. 13, 1918, Kewadin, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FARRAND, RAY, Pvt. Co. I.
+Sept. 13, 1918, Armada, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FIELDS, CLARENCE, Pvt. Co. F
+Sept. 19, 1918. Bay City. Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+FINNEGAN, LEO, Pvt. Co. B
+Sept. 17, 1918, Grand Rapids, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GARIEPY, HENRY, Sergt. Co. B
+Sept. 10, 1918. Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+GRESSER, JOSEPH A., Pvt. Co. C.
+Sept. 8, 1918. Wyandotte, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HENDY, ALFRED H., Pvt. Co. C.
+Sept. 23, 1918, Grosse Ile, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HENLEY, JOHN T., Pvt. Co. I.
+Sept. 11, 1918, Chicago. Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HODGSON, FRED L., Pvt. Co. M
+Sept. 14. 1918, Cassopolis, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+HUNT, BERT, Pvt. Co. D
+Sept. 16, 1918, Hudsonville, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+JACKSON, JESSE C, Pvt. 1st class Hq. Co
+Sept. 15, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+JORDAN, CARL B., Pvt. Co. B
+Sept. 10, 1918. Ferry, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KALASKA, JOSEPH. Pvt. Co. I
+Sept. 18, 1918, Trenton, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KEICZ, ANDRZEI, Pvt. Co. C
+Sept. 13, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KISTLER, HERBERT B., Pvt. Co. I
+Sept. 11, 1918, Lancaster Pa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KROLL, JOHN, JR., Pvt. Co. D
+Sept. 10, 1918, Holland, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KUKLA, VALENTINE, Pvt. Co. K
+Sept. 12. 1918, Kawkawlin, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+KULWICKI, ANDREW J., Pvt. Co. K
+Jan. 28, 1918. Milwaukee, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LANTER, MARION F., Pvt. Co. I
+April 26, 1919, Savoy, Ky.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LAUZON, HENRY, Pvt. Co. L
+Sept. 28, 1918, Pinconning. Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+LINK, STEPHEN J., First Lt. Hq. Co
+Sept. 20, 1918, Taylorville, Ill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MALUSKY, JOSEPH, Pvt. Co. C
+Sept. 10, 1919, Fountain, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MAYBAUM, HAROLD, Pvt. Co. E
+Sept. 9, 1918, Ainsworth, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+McDONALD, ANGUS, Pvt. Co. E
+Sept. 12, 1918, Marilla, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MEAD, WILLIAM C, Pvt. Co. B
+Sept. 14, 1918, Mayville, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+MICHEL, LEWIS M., Pvt. Co. c.
+Sept. 10, 1918, Parnassus, Pa.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+NERI, VINCENT, Bug. Co. C
+Sept. 11, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+NICHOLLS, CHARLES B., Pvt. Co. B
+Sept. 12, 1918, Rose City, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+NUNN, ARTHUR, Pvt. Co. M
+Sept. 13,1918. Croswell, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+O’BRIEN, RAYMOND, Pvt. Hq. Co
+Sept. 12, 1918, Saginaw, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+O’CONNOR, LAWRENCE S., Corp. Co. C
+Sept. 8, 1918, Lancaster, Ohio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PARROTT, JESSE F., Pvt. Co. K
+Sept. 25, 1918, Mt. Clemens, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PASSOW, FERDINAND, Pvt. Co. D
+Sept. 11. 1918, Mosinee, Wis.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PETRASKA, OSCAR H., Pvt. Co. K
+Sept. 10, 1918. Wyandotte, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PETULSKI, JOHN, Pvt. CO. K
+Sept. 15, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ROSE, FLOYD, Pvt. Co. I.
+Sept. 10, 1918. Vicksburg, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ROWE, EZRA T., Pvt. M. G. Co
+Sept. 16, 1918, Hart, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+RYNBRANDT, RAYMOND R, Pvt. Co. D
+Sept. 11, 1918, Byron Center, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SCHEPEL, TIEMON, Pvt. Co. D
+Sept. 11, 1918, Holland, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SHAUGHNESSY, JOHN, Pvt. Hq. Co
+Sept. 15, 1918, Missoula, Mont.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SHINGLEDECKER, DWIGHT, Pvt. Co. A
+Sept. 11, 1918, Dowagiac, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+STOCKEN, ORVILLE I., Pvt. Co. A
+Sept. 13, 1918, Battle Creek, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+SURRAN, HARRY H., Pvt. Co. A
+Sept. 14, 1918, Culver, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+TEGGUS, WILLIAM G., Corp. Hq. Co
+Sept. 11, 1918, Pontiac, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+THOMPSON, HENRY, Pvt. Co. A
+Sept. 16, 1918, Elkhart, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+VAN DEVENTER, GEORGE E., Pvt. Co. C
+Sept. 11, 1918, Rupert, Idaho.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WADSWORTH, LAURENCE L., Pvt. Co. I
+Sept. 20, 1918, Aurora, Ind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WALDEYER, NORBERT C, Pvt. Co. D
+Sept. 16, 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WAPRZYCKI, SYLVESTER, Pvt. 337th Amb. Co
+Sept. 14. 1918.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WEAVER, LEWIS T., Pvt. Co. A
+Sept. 15, 1918. Marlette, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WEESNER, CLIFFFORD E., Pvt. Co. F
+Sept. 11. 1918, Jackson, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WETERSHOF, JOHN T., Pvt. Co. B
+Sept. 11, 1918, Grand Rapids. Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WHITFORD, JASON, Pvt. Co. C.
+Sept. 19, 1918, Whitemore, Mich.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WITT, LOUIS C, Pvt. Hq. Co
+Sept. 13. 1918, Detroit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+WOOD, STEWART W., Corp. Co. C
+Sept. 7. 1918, Atlanta, Ga.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ZLOTCHA, MIKE, Pvt. Co. E
+Sept. 23, 1918. Hamtramck, Mich.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<div class="fig" style="width:100%;">
+<a name="chap42"></a>
+<a href="images/map.jpg">
+<img src="images/map.jpg" width="800" height="647" alt="Illustration:" /></a>
+<p class="caption">Map of the Archangel Fighting Area</p>
+</div>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #22523 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22523)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of the American Expedition
+Fighting the Bolsheviki, by Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki
+       Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919
+
+Author: Joel R. Moore
+        Harry H. Mead
+        Lewis E. Jahns
+
+Release Date: September 5, 2007 [EBook #22523]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Kostuch
+
+
+
+
+[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.}
+
+
+
+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: Map titled "Sketch showing location of Fortified Areas"]
+
+[End of Transcriber's notes]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Primitive road through snow covered forest.]
+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
+
+Orderly Room, Convalescent Hospital, Archangel
+
+American Hospital Scene
+
+Doughboys Entertained by "Y" Girls in Hostess House
+
+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: Surgeons operating on a soldier.]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Surgical Operation American Receiving Hospital, Archangel, 1918
+
+
+[Illustration: Several nurses watching the American flag being raised.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Old Glory Protects Our Hospital
+
+
+[Illustration: Exterior of a building, with several people in the
+street.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Used as 53rd Stationary Hospital
+
+
+[Illustration: Group of sailors holding rifles.]
+U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Sailors from "Olympia" Fought Reds
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers drying clothing over a fire.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+After 17-Hour March in Forest
+
+
+[Illustration: Horse drawn cart being loaded from a rail car.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+Loading a Drosky at Obozerskaya
+
+
+[Illustration: Two soldiers operating radio equiptment.]
+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: Group of soldier surrounding a grave.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+A Shell Screeched Over This Burial Scene
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldier operating a machine gun.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Vickers Machine Gun Helping Hold Lines
+
+
+[Illustration: Train moving through the forest.]
+U S OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Our Armored Train
+
+
+[Illustration: Several boats tied on the shore of a river. Towers of
+the town are in the background.]
+RENICKE
+First Battalion Hurries Up River
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers huddled around a fire at night.]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Lonely Post in Dense Forest
+
+
+[Illustration: Buildings in the foreground, the ocean in the background.]
+MORRIS
+Statue of Peter the Great and State Buildings in Archangel
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers receiving rations from a train.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Drawing Rations, Verst 455
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers surrounding a grave in the forest.]
+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: Several soldiers eating at a table.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+Olga Barracks
+
+
+[Illustration: Several people standing around a streetcar.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+Street Car Strike in Archangel
+
+
+[Illustration: Several building, including two towers.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+American Hospitals and Headquarters
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers waiting at a window.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+"Supply" C. canteen "Accommodates" Boys
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers and two small sheds on sleigh runners,
+pulled by horses.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel
+
+
+[Illustration: A small room with several soldiers holding their shirts.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+"Cootie Mill" Operating at Smolny Annex of Convalescent Hospital
+
+
+[Illustration: Two men with a horse pulling a plow.]
+Wisckot
+Single Flat Strip of Iron on Plow point
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldier sharing his rations with a group of children.]
+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: Soldier standing next a 50 ft. observation tower.]
+WAGNER
+Artillery "O. P.," Kodish
+
+
+[Illustration: Windmill.]
+LANMAN
+Mill for Grinding Grain
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers cutting down trees.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers watching the operation of a machine gun.]
+U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Testing a Vickers Machine Gun
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldier on sentry duty.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pagosta--Near Ust Padenga
+
+
+[Illustration: Russian cossack being bandaged.]
+U S OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Cossack Receiving First Aid, Vistavka
+
+
+[Illustration: Two Russian women with a horse and wagon.]
+LANMAN
+Ready for Day's Work
+
+
+[Illustration: Flax hanging from a fence.]
+DOUD
+Flax Hung Up to Dry
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers with horses and ropes attached to a barge.]
+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: A soldier and his bride surrounded by the wedding party.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Joe Chinzi and Russian Bride
+
+
+[Illustration: A man watching a woman weave cloth.]
+DOUD
+Watching Her Weave Cloth
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldier watching several women seated around a table.]
+U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Doughboy Attends Spinning-Bee
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldier on a bed on a large fireplace.]
+DOUD
+Doughboy in the Best Bed--On Stove
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers seated on a barricade.]
+MORRIS
+Defiance to Bolo Advance
+
+
+[Illustration: Building behind a grove of trees.]
+DOUD
+337th Hospital at Beresnik
+
+
+[Illustration: Several houses clustered together.]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Onega
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers writing and reading in a room.]
+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: Several soldier standing in the snow with weapons.]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Trench Mortar Crew, Chekuevo--Hand Artillery
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldier standing in the snow, two with crutches.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Wounded and Sick--Over a Thousand in All
+
+
+[Illustration: Dead soldier laying in the snow.]
+U S OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Bolo Killed in Action--For Russia or Trotsky?
+
+
+[Illustration: Three buildings with towers reflected in foreground water.]
+ROULEAU
+Monastery at Pinega
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldier and horses with an artillery piece.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Russian 75's Bound for Pinega
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers with a horse and sleigh.]
+HILL
+"G" Men Near Pinega
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldier with a machine gun in front of a building
+protected by a log barricade.]
+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: Hundreds of men standing in front of a towering white
+building.]
+WAGNER
+Something Like a Selective Draft
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers under a log shelter, tending an
+artillery piece.]
+WAGNER
+Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin
+
+
+[Illustration: Small tower of logs in a snow covered forest.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL
+Watch-Tower, Verst 455
+
+
+[Illustration: Three soldiers on sentry duty.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL
+Toulgas Outpost
+
+
+[Illustration: Wounded (dead?) soldier propped against a wall.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL
+One of a Bolo Patrol
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers marching through a snow covered forest.]
+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: Cartoon; two soldiers in a trench surrounded by snow,
+with shells exploding all around. One is reading a newspaper with the
+headline "Peace Conference News: After War Labor Problem". He remarks to
+the other soldier "Well, Bill, we certainly got a job after the war."]
+
+
+
+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: Sleigh pulled by reindeer.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+By Reindeer Jitney to Bakaritza
+
+
+[Illustration: Several people outside three large teepee-like structures.]
+PRIMM
+Russian Eskimos at Home, Near Pinega
+
+
+[Illustration: Three soldiers near a reinforced log cabin, covered with
+snow.]
+WAGNER
+Fortified House, Toulgas
+
+
+[Illustration: Column of sleds moving through a forest.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL
+To Bolskeozerki
+
+
+[Illustration: Two men in heavy coats standing in the snow,]
+WAGNER
+Colonel Morris--at Right
+
+
+[Illustration: Rough carving of a log, reminiscent of Easter Island
+stone faces.]
+RED CROSS
+Russian Eskimo Idol
+
+
+[Illustration: Men standing in snow in front of a horse and sleigh.]
+DOUD
+Ambulance Men
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers with rifles lying in a trench behind a wooden
+fence. Several buildings in the background]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Practising Rifle and Pistol Fire Oil Onega Front
+
+
+[Illustration: Three soldiers standing front of a log blockhouse.]
+WAGNER
+French Machine Gun Men at Kodish
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers standing around a biplane. Buildings
+(hangars?) in the background; about a foot of snow on the ground.]
+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: Three couples dancing, and about 50 soldiers seated
+around wall. Soldier of left side has crutch and cast on leg. Room is
+decorated with evergreen boughs and the American flag.]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Holiday Dance at Convalescent Hospital--Nurses and "Y" Girls
+
+
+[Illustration: Several people and sleighs in front of church with three
+steeples.]
+ROZANSKEY
+Subornya Cathedral
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers working on log blockhouse, surrounded by
+snow-covered forest.]
+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: Several people in heavy clothing gathered around a scale.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Market Scene, Yemetskoe--Note Primitive Balances Weighing Beef
+
+
+[Illustration: Large build surrounded by a high wall.]
+LANMAN
+Old Russian Prison, Annex to British Hospital
+
+
+[Illustration: Woman rinsing clothes through a hole in the ice.
+In the foreground, her sled.]
+WAGNER
+Wash Day--Rinsing Clothes in River
+
+
+[Illustration: Three one-horse wagons.]
+LANMAN
+Archangel Cab-Men
+
+
+[Illustration: Audience of soldier watching musicians, also soldiers, on
+stage.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Minstrels of  "I" Company Repeat Program in Y. M. C. A.
+
+
+[Illustration: Several women around a table full of presents. The
+presents are spilling to the floor in a large pile.]
+U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Archangel Girls Filling Xmas Stockings
+
+
+[Illustration: About 40 soldiers seated at tables, reading and writing.]
+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: Two men baking bread at a large fireplace-like oven.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Russian Masonry Stove--American Convalescent Hospital
+
+
+[Illustration: Woman ironing clothes.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Pvt. Allikas Finds His Mother in Archangel
+
+
+[Illustration: Four men setting type and two observing.]
+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: Sentry in forest outlined by bright light (fire?) in
+background.]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Flashlight of a Doughboy Outpost at Verst 455
+
+
+[Illustration: Group of soldier admiring a sword.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+Bolo Commander's Sword Taken in Battle of Bolsheozerki
+
+
+[Illustration: Five smiling soldiers.]
+U.S. Official Photo   158853
+After Eight Days--Near Bolsheozerki
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers standing in deep snow.]
+U.S. Official Photo
+Wood Pile Strong Point--Verst 445
+
+
+[Illustration: About 30 rail cars near a small siding.]
+U.S. Official Photo   161108
+Verst 455--"Fort Nichols"
+
+
+[Illustration: Six soldiers in white coveralls standing in front of log
+building.]
+WAGNER
+Back from Patrol
+
+
+[Illustration: Explosion in clearing of snow covered forest.]
+U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Our Shell Bursts Near Bolo Skirmish Line
+
+
+[Illustration: Four soldiers standing in front of snow covered log shed.]
+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: Cartoon; American soldier holding on to the tail of a
+large wildcat marked "Russia". An old man in the United States says
+"Come on home, Yank! What did you grab him for in the first place?" The
+soldiers observes "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: Several people tending boats and fishing gear.]
+ROULEAU
+Hot Summer Day at Pinega Before War
+
+
+[Illustration: Several people observing ice jams.]
+DOUD
+Dvina River Ice Jam
+
+
+[Illustration: A shed in a clearing in the forest.]
+WAGNER
+Mejinovsky--Near Kodish
+
+
+[Illustration: Six soldiers standing in the snow.]
+MCKEE
+Bolo General Under Flag Truce Near 445--April 1919
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers, some reading documents.]
+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: Several soldiers standing outside burning building.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Pioneer Platoon Has Fire at 455
+
+
+[Illustration: Two soldiers sawing logs.]
+U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO  (158856)
+310th Engineers Near Bolsheozerki
+
+
+[Illustration: Two soldiers carrying a large bucket.]
+U.S. OFFICIAL
+Hospital "K. P.'s"
+
+
+[Illustration: Two women in heavy coats standing outside.]
+U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Red Cross Nurses
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldier and two civilians standing by a scale that holds
+a slab of meat.]
+U.S. OFFICIAL
+Bartering
+
+[Illustration: Three people and a small bear.]
+U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Mascots
+
+
+[Illustration: Officers and soldiers; a large artillery piece is mounted
+on a rail car in the background.]
+U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Col. Dupont (French) at Verst 455, Bestows Many Croix de Guerre Medals.
+
+
+[Illustration: About thirty soldiers around an artillery piece.]
+U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Polish Artillery and Mascot
+
+
+[Illustration: An artillery piece behind a log rampart, with  tents in
+the background.]
+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: Nine soldiers working an artillery piece.]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Canadian Artillery--Americans Were Strong for Them
+
+
+[Illustration: A woman kneading dough on a flat rock in front of a low
+pile of rocks forming the oven. Two women and a man are observing. The
+oven is outdoors, near a tree, with a river or lake in the background.]
+ROZANSKEY
+Making "Khleba"--Black Bread
+
+
+[Illustration: Three soldiers in front of a reinforced log shed, covered
+with snow.]
+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: Cartoon. Ship at an American pier in the background.
+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 standing crouched on soapbox on the right.
+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: Soldiers seated for dinner at tables decorated with
+tablecloths and candles. Walls are decorated with pine boughs.]
+RED CROSS PHOTO
+Christmas Dinner, Convalescent Hospital
+
+
+[Illustration: Several soldiers standing in the snow; they being served
+food from a rail car.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+"Come and Get It" at Verst 455
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers seated on the ground, with Richardson and
+McCully in the foreground.]
+WAGNER
+Doughboys Drubbed Sailors
+Brig. Gen. Richardson and Adm. McCully at Army-Navy Game
+
+
+[Illustration: Large group of soldiers huddled together inside a barbed
+wire stockade.]
+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: City street with several large buildings.]
+PRIMM
+View of Archangel in Summer
+
+
+[Illustration: Soldiers at attention with rifles.]
+U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+General Ironside Inspecting Doughboys
+
+
+[Illustration: Many soldiers standing at grave.]
+U S OFFICIAL PHOTO
+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: Officer seated at a desk in a small office.]
+U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Major Nichols in His Railway Detachment Field Headquarters
+
+
+[Illustration: Long parade of soldiers.]
+LANMAN
+Ready to Head Memorial Day Parade
+
+
+[Illustration: About fifty crosses with an American flag in the
+foreground.]
+LANMAN
+American Cemetery in Archangel
+
+
+[Illustration: Several hundred people standing outdoors.]
+LANMAN
+Soldiers and Sailors of Six Nations Reverence Dead
+
+
+[Illustration: Three rough wooden crosses in the foreground. A huge pile
+of logs in the background.]
+U, S. OFFICIAL PHOTO
+Graves of First Three Americans Killed Fighting Bolsheviki--Obozerskaya,
+Russia
+
+
+[Illustration: Parade on a city street.]
+LANMAN
+Sailors Parade on Memorial Day, Archangel
+
+
+[Illustration: Ship surrounded by ice.]
+LANMAN
+Through Ice Floes in Arctic Homeward-Bound
+
+
+[Illustration: Ship on the left and a spit of land on the right. In the
+center the sun is just touching the horizon.]
+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
+
+
+[Illustration: The following poem is enclosed in a cross.]
+
+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 ag'o
+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.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of the American Expedition
+Fighting the Bolsheviki, by Joel R. Moore and Harry H. Mead and Lewis E. Jahns
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKI ***
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