The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki Part 4

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 st.u.r.dy 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 spa.r.s.ely 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. Nors.e.m.e.n 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.dunov 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 pa.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce, through which in June can be seen the 11:30 p. m. setting sun. And in this open s.p.a.ce 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 sh.o.r.es 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 ma.s.s 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 Inst.i.tute, 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage of the Czechs through the country would not object to the pa.s.sage 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Several soldiers eating at a table.]

U.S. Official Photo Olga Barracks

[Ill.u.s.tration: Several people standing around a streetcar.]

U.S. Official Photo Street Car Strike in Archangel

[Ill.u.s.tration: Several building, including two towers.]

U.S. Official Photo American Hospitals and Headquarters

[Ill.u.s.tration: Several soldiers waiting at a window.]

U.S. Official Photo "Supply" C. canteen "Accommodates" Boys

[Ill.u.s.tration: Several soldiers and two small sheds on sleigh runners, pulled by horses.]

U.S. Official Photo Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel