With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia Part 1

With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia.

by John Ward.

FORWARD

Originally written for the private use of my sons in case I did not return, this narrative of events connected with the expedition to Siberia must of necessity lack many of the necessary elements which go to make a history. I wrote of things as they occurred, and recorded the reasons and motives which prompted the partic.i.p.ants. Many things have happened since which seem to show that we were not always right in our estimate of the forces at work around us. Things are not always what they seem, and this is probably more evident in the domain of Russian affairs than in any other. It would have been comparatively easy to alter the text and square it with the results, but that would have destroyed the main value of the story.

The statesman and the soldier rarely write history; it is their misfortune to make it. It is quite easy to be a prophet when you know the result. You can, as a rule, judge what a certain set of people will do in a certain set of circ.u.mstances, but where you deal with State policy which may be influenced by events and circ.u.mstances which have not the remotest connection with the question involved, it is impossible to give any forecast of their conduct on even the most elementary subject.

The recent tragic events played out in the vast domain of Siberia are a case in point. It is certain that Admiral Koltchak would never have gone to Siberia, nor have become the head of the const.i.tutional movement and government of Russia, if he had not been advised and even urged to do so by the Allies. He received the most categorical promises of whole-hearted support and early Allied recognition before he agreed to take up the dangerous duty of head of the Omsk Government. Had these urgings and promises been ungrudgingly performed a Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly would be now sitting at Moscow hammering out the details of a Federal Const.i.tution for a mighty Russian Republic or a parliamentary system similar to our own.

On the declaration of the Koltchak Government, General Denikin, General Dutoff, General Hovart, and the North Russian Governments made over their authority to Omsk. There was at once a clear issue--the Terrorist at Moscow, the Const.i.tutionalist at Omsk. Had the Allies at this juncture translated their promises into acts, from what untold suffering Russia and Europe might have been saved!

The mere act of recognition would have created a wonderful impression on the Russian mind, in addition to giving the Allies a lever by which they could have guided the course of events and stabilised the Baltic. It would have given security to Russian finance, and enabled trade relations to have commenced with the wealthiest part of the Russian dominions.

The reconstruction of Russia, about which the Allies talk so glibly, would have gone forward with a bound by natural means, which not even Allied bungling could have prevented. The Omsk Government could have got money on better terms than any of the Allies, because, accepted within the comity of nations, it could have given better security than any of them, even including America. Europe would have been fed, Russia would have been clothed, and the world would have been saved from its greatest tragedies. All this and more would have naturally followed from the barest performance of our promises.

We did worse than this. Breach of promise is only a negative crime. The Allies went to the other extreme; their help took the form of positive wilful obstruction. The j.a.panese, by bolstering up Semianoff and Kalmakoff, and the Americans, by protecting and organising enemies, made it practically impossible for the Omsk Government to maintain its authority or existence. The most that could be expected was that both would see the danger of their policy in time to avert disaster. One did; the other left when the evils created had got beyond control. Koltchak has not been destroyed so much by the acts of his enemies as by the stupidity and neglect of his Allied friends.

As the Bolshevik rabble again sweeps over Siberia in a septic flood we hear again the question: "How can they do so unless they have a majority of the people behind them?" I answer that by asking: "How did a one-man government exist in Russia from 'Ivan the Terrible' to Nicholas II?"

Both systems are autocratic; both exist by the same means--"Terror."

There is, however, this difference. The autocracy of the Tsars was a natural product from an early form of human society. The Bolshevik autocracy is an unnatural product, and therefore carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. It is an abortion, and unless it rapidly changes its character cannot hope to exist as a permanent form of organised society. It is a disease which, if we cannot attack, we can isolate until convalescence sets in. There is, however, the possibility that the patient during the progress of the malady may become delirious and run amok; for these more dangerous symptoms it would be well for his neighbours to keep watch and guard. This madness can only be temporary.

This great people are bound to recover, and become all the stronger for their present trials.

JOHN WARD.

February, 1920.

WITH THE "DIE-HARDS" IN SIBERIA

CHAPTER I

FROM HONG-KONG TO SIBERIA

The 25th Battalion of the Middles.e.x Regiment had already such a record of travel and remarkable experiences to its credit that it was in quite a matter-of-fact way I answered a summons from Headquarters at Hong-Kong, one morning in November, 1917, and received the instruction to hold myself and my battalion in readiness to proceed to a destination unknown. Further conferences between the heads of departments under the presidency of the G.O.C., Major-General F. Ventris, revealed that the operations of the battalion were to be conducted in a very cold climate, and a private resident at tiffin that day at the Hong-Kong Club simply asked me "at what date I expected to leave for Vladivostok?"

The preparations were practically completed when orders to cease them were received from the War Office at home, followed by a cable (some time in January, 1918) to cancel all orders relating to the proposed expedition. So we again settled down in Far Eastern home quietly to await the end of the war, when we hoped to return to the Great Old Country and resume the normal life of its citizens.

Things remained in this condition until June, 1918, when we were suddenly startled by an order to call upon the half of my battalion stationed at Singapore to embark on the first ship available and join me at Hong-Kong. This seemed to suggest that the truly wonderful thing called "Allied Diplomacy" had at last made up its mind to do something.

After a great deal of bustle and quite unnecessary fuss the whole battalion embarked on the _Ping Suie_ on a Sat.u.r.day in July, 1918.

It should be remembered that my men were what were called "B one-ers,"

and were equipped for the duty of that grade; but, after our arrival at Hong-Kong, Headquarters had called in most of our war material to replenish the dwindling supplies of this most distant outpost of the British Empire. Very little information could be gathered as to the kind of duty we might expect to be called upon to perform, and the ignorance of the Staff as to the nature of the country through which we were to operate was simply sublime. Added to this, most of the new material with which we were fitted was quite useless for our purpose. Those things which had been collected on the first notice of movement in 1917 had been dispersed, and the difficulty of securing others at short notice was quite insurmountable.

The voyage was not remarkable except that one typhoon crossed our track not ten miles astern, and for eighteen miles we travelled alongside another, the heavy seas striking the ship nearly abeam, and causing her to roll in a very alarming manner. The troops had a very uncomfortable time, and were glad to sight the coast of Korea and the calm waters of the Sea of j.a.pan.

At Hong-Kong many of the men, including myself, had suffered much from p.r.i.c.kly heat, which had developed in many cases into huge heat boils. It was very strange how rapidly these irruptions cured themselves directly we reached the cool, clear atmosphere of the coast of j.a.pan.

Elaborate preparations had been made for our reception, insomuch that we were the first contingent of Allied troops to arrive at Vladivostok. Two j.a.panese destroyers were to have acted as our escort from the lighthouse outside, but they were so busy charting the whole coastline for future possibilities that they forgot all about us until we had arrived near the inner harbour, when they calmly asked for our name and business.

Early next morning, August 3, they remembered their orders and escorted us to our station at the wharf, past the warships of the Allied nations gaily decorated for the occasion.

At 10 A.M. a battalion of Czech troops, with band and a guard of honour from H.M.S. _Suffolk_, with Commodore Payne, R.N., Mr. Hodgson, the British Consul, the President of the Zemstrov Prava, and Russian and Allied officials, were a.s.sembled on the quay to receive me. As I descended the gangway ladder the Czech band struck up the National Anthem, and a petty officer of the _Suffolk_ unfurled the Union Jack, while some of the armed forces came to the present and others saluted.

It made quite a pretty, interesting and immensely impressive scene. The battalion at once disembarked, and led by the Czech band and our splendid sailors from the _Suffolk_, and accompanied by a tremendous crowd of people, marched through the town to a saluting point opposite the Czech Headquarters, where parties of Czech, Cossack and Russian troops, j.a.panese, American and Russian sailors were drawn up, all of whom (except the j.a.panese) came to the present as we pa.s.sed, while Commodore Payne took the salute for the Allied commanders, who were all present.

Our barracks were outside the town at Niloy-ugol; they were very dirty, with sanitary arrangements of the most primitive character, though I believe the local British authorities had spent both time and money in trying to make them habitable. The officers' accommodation was no better, I and my Staff having to sleep on very dirty and smelly floors.

A little later, however, even this would have been a treat to a weary old soldier.

On August 5 I attended the Allied commanders' council. There were many matters of high policy discussed at this meeting, but one subject was of intense interest. General Detriks, the G.O.C. of the Czech troops, gave in reports as to the military situation on the Manchurian and Ussurie fronts. The conditions on the Manchurian front were none too good, but those on the Ussurie front could only be described as critical, and unless immediate help could be given a further retirement would be forced upon the commander, who had great difficulty with his small forces in holding any position. The Ussurie force had recently consisted of some 3,000 indifferently armed Czechs and Cossacks. The day I landed a battle had been fought, which had proved disastrous, and resulted in a hurried retirement to twelve versts to the rear of Kraevesk. The Allied force, now reduced to about 2,000 men, could not hope to hold up for long a combined Bolshevik, German and Magyar force of from 18,000 to 20,000 men. The Bolshevik method of military organisation,--namely, of "Battle Committees," which decided what superior commands should be carried out or rejected--had been swept away and replaced by the disciplined methods of the German and Austrian officers, who had now a.s.sumed command. Should another retirement be forced upon the Ussurie forces, it could be carried out only with great loss, both of men and material. The next position would be behind Spascoe, with Lake Hanka as a protection on the left flank and the forest on the right. If this could not be held, then the railway junction at Nikolsk would be endangered, with the possibility of the communications being cut with other forces operating along the Transbaikal Railway and at Irkutsk. Under these circ.u.mstances the council decided that there was nothing left but to ask for authority from the War Office to send my battalion forward at once to the Ussurie front to render what a.s.sistance was possible. I naturally pointed out that my battalion was composed of B1 men, most of whom had already done their "bit" on other fronts, and that a few weeks before I had had about 250 General Service men in my ranks, but on a blundering suggestion of the G.O.C. at Singapore they had been taken from my unit and transferred to others doing garrison duty in India. I had protested against this at the time, but had been over-ruled by London, so that my command was reduced to men of the lowest category. However, after making this statement I informed the council that in view of the desperate circ.u.mstances in which the Ussurie force was placed I would render every a.s.sistance in my power.

About 2 P.M. Commodore Payne, R.N., came to my quarters and showed me a paraphrased cable he had received from the War Office. The cable authorised the immediate dispatch of half my battalion to the front, subject to the approval of the commanding officer. It seems to me they might have plucked up courage enough to decide the matter for themselves, instead of putting the responsibility upon the local commander. As it was left to me, however, I gave the necessary orders at once. That very night, August 5, I marched through Vladivostok to entrain my detachment. It consisted of 500 fully equipped infantry and a machine-gun section of forty-three men with four heavy-type maxims.

Leaving my second in command, Major F.J. Browne, in charge of the Base, I marched with the men with full pack. The four miles, over heavy, dirty roads, were covered in fair time, though many of the men became very exhausted, and at the end of the march I found myself carrying four rifles, while other officers carried packs in addition to their own kit.

The train was composed of the usual hopeless-looking Russian cattle-trucks for the men, with tiers of planks for resting and sleeping on. A dirty second-cla.s.s car was provided for the Commanding Officer and his Staff, and a well-lighted first-cla.s.s bogey car of eight compartments for the British Military Representative, who was merely travelling up to see the sights. When I got to the front I found a first-cla.s.s car retained by every little officer who commanded a dozen Cossacks, but I proudly raised the Union Jack, to denote the British Headquarters, on the dirtiest and most dilapidated second-cla.s.s contraption that could be found on the line. But of course we meant business; we were not out for pleasure.

I was advised before I started from Vladivostok that Nikolsk, the junction of the Manchurian and Central Siberian Railways, was the most important strategical point on the South Siberian end of the line, and that though the position on the Ussurie was pretty hopeless and retirement might take place at any moment, we were not in any circ.u.mstances to retire below Nikolsk. The place to which we were to retire and take up a new position had been already decided--a line just below Spascoe, with Lake Hanka on the left and a line of forest-covered mountains on the right.

We arrived at Nikolsk in the early morning, but the platform was crowded with inhabitants and two guards of honour, Czech and Cossack, with band, which mistook "Rule Britannia" for the National Anthem. I was introduced to all the officers, the British Vice-Consul, Mr. Ledwards, and his energetic wife. Breakfast was served to the men by the other corps, and my officers received the hospitality of the good Consul and Mrs.

Ledwards. Then a march through the town, to show the inhabitants that the long-sought-for Allied a.s.sistance had really arrived at last.

It appears that a very sanguine French officer had travelled over the line some months previously and had made lavish promises of Allied support, which accounts, perhaps, for my previous orders received at Hong-Kong towards the end of 1917. The Allies had decided to make a much earlier effort to reconstruct the Russian line against their German enemies, but, like all Allied efforts, their effective action had been frustrated by divided counsels and stupid national jealousy.

It was the prospect of Falkenhayn, with the huge army of half a million men, flushed with its recent easy victory over Rumania, being freed for employment on the French front, that caused our hurried over-late expedition to Siberia. If the effort had been made at the right time the Russian people and soldiery would not have become so demoralised and hopeless as they had when I arrived, and millions of lives would have been saved from untold tortures. A famous statesman once sternly admonished his colleagues for their fatal policy of doing nothing until it was too late; in this case he himself is open to the same censure.

At Nikolsk had recently been fought an important battle between the Czechs and the Terrorists, and we were shown a series of photographs of horribly mutilated Czech soldiers who had fallen into the hands of the Bolshevik army as prisoners of war. By a section of people at home the Bolsheviks are thought to be a party of political and democratic idealists, but when one is brought face to face with their work they are then proved to be a disgusting gang of cut-throats, whose sole business in life appears to be to terrorise and rob the peasant and worker and make orderly government impossible.

We received equally warm welcomes at many other stations, and at length we arrived at Svagena, which is the last fairly large town before Kraevesk, the station without a town, and very near the range of hostile artillery. Here quite a full-dress programme was gone through by the Czech band and the Czech and Cossack soldiers, ending with a short march past, and speeches by the English and Russian commanders. My speech was made along the lines of my instructions, which were mostly to this effect: We Britishers had entered the territory of Holy Russia not as conquerors, but as friends. The Bolshevik power had made a corrupt and dishonourable compact with their German masters, by which the territories of their Motherland, Russia, had been torn from her side, and a huge indemnity wrung from her people. Under German pressure the Bolshevik Soviet power had armed the released German and Austrian prisoners of war, and by means of this alien force was terrorising the Russian people and destroying the country. The Allies looked upon the Bolshevik power as a mere hireling branch of the autocratic German menace, and as such the enemies of British and Russian democracy alike.

We came to help, resurrect and reconstruct the orderly elements of Russian life, and promised that if they would join us in this crusade, we would never cease our efforts till both our enemies were utterly defeated. And here the soldiers of the two nations made their pact, and though it was not an official utterance it had official sanction. My troops retired to quarters at Spascoe, which I had made my forward base.

Next morning, August 7, with my interpreter, Lieutenant Bolsaar, I visited Kraevesk, and had a long consultation with the commander at the front, Captain Pomerensiv. I personally examined the line right up to the outposts, and eventually it was decided that I would send forward 243 men with four maxims to take up a position towards what I considered to be the threatened part of our right flank. As I was senior officer, Captain Pomerensiv handed the command of this front over to me, promising all help.

Once in the saddle I asked for intelligence reports from all directions, and found it impossible for the enemy to make a frontal attack down the narrow s.p.a.ce of the railway, flanked as it was on both sides by impa.s.sable marshes. The enemy centre was at Shmakovka, the place from which the Czechs had been forced to retire: that day, however, he had been observed moving a company of about 180 men with three machine guns along the road towards Uspenkie, a small town situated on our extreme right front. After consultation with Captain Stephan, Czech commander, and Ataman Kalmakoff, commanding the Cossacks, I decided to take the necessary steps to destroy this recently formed outpost. Ataman Kalmakoff had that morning announced to me his intention to leave my front and make a wide detour on the right behind the hills, and join his Cossack friends at Iman. I discovered that he was dissatisfied with the lack of enterprise hitherto shown on this front, and had decided to make a raid "on his own" on the rear of the enemy. But the moment I stated my intention to mop up Uspenkie he fell into line, and forgot all about his previous ill-humour. He took up an advanced position at Olhanka, reconnoitred the Uspenkie position the next day, and unmasked the Bolshevik formation, with a loss of two horses and a Cossack badly wounded. I formed my plans on his observations.

My scheme was to advance one company of Czech troops from Khamerovka to Olhanka, the Ataman's most forward post on my right front, where they were to prepare a small entrenched camp. I would also advance 200 infantry with two machine guns the first night from Kraevesk to Khamerovka.

The next day I ordered 200 men to entrain from Spascoe to Kraevesk to act as a reserve. They were to night march to Khamerovka, and occupy the place of my forward party, who would advance by night and join the Cossacks and Czech troops at Olhanka. I would be with the advanced group and make a daylight examination of the post to be attacked, and be joined at night by my second detachment from Khamerovka. By this means I should have had 400 British rifles, a machine-gun section of forty-three men with four maxims, a company of Czech infantry of about 200 men, and last, but by no means least, Ataman Kalmakoff with about 400 Cossack cavalry--a total of about 1,000 men. I ordered the two roads along which any reinforcements for the enemy post must pa.s.s to be patrolled at night and also closely observed during the day.

I had drawn up my plan of attack and the first stage of the operation had actually been executed, when I was brought to a sudden standstill by a piece of fussy interference.

There was no linguist in my battalion capable of speaking Russian sufficiently well for my purpose, hence I had to seek the services of an agent of the British Military Representative at "Vlady." This agent returned to "Vlady" directly the necessary arrangements for the attack had been completed. I ought to have compelled him to remain with me, but as he appeared to favour the proposed forward movement I did not scent any danger to my purely defensive policy. He did not wait until he had reported to the Military Representative, but when only half way telegraphed from Nikolsk warning me that in his opinion this forward movement should not take place, as he had already received important information which altered the entire situation. I ignored this interference of an understraper, but a few hours later received definite instructions from the Political Representative, that I was to stand purely on the defensive, and not move an inch beyond my position. I was compelled to accept the instruction, but was disgusted with the decision. It proved to me in a forcible way what I had never realised before, how impossible it is for a man at a distance, however clever he may be, to decide a military problem, limited in locality and isolated, as was this case, from questions of public policy. When the one purpose of a force is the protection or maintenance of a limited front, only the man on the spot can be the judge of what is necessary to accomplish that purpose.

My actual plan of operations was very simple. Having a.s.sembled my force at Olhanka, I should at dusk have occupied the roads leading from Shmakovka to Uspenkie, and from Uspenkie to the monastery by cavalry, thus making it impossible for enemy reinforcements to reach the post to be attacked under the cover of night. My own troops, together with the Czech company, would have approached the position from the south, and during the hours of darkness have taken up a line within rifle- and machine-gun range. At daybreak fire would have been opened from such cover as could be obtained, and while our eight machine-gunners barraged the post, the infantry would have advanced rapidly on the south front at the same time as the Cossacks charged in from the rear. The result would have been as certain as anything in war could be, and, as since then I have met the Bolsheviks in open fight, I am convinced that this small effort might have had decisive political and military influence in Eastern Siberia. But the "politicals" in uniform are not always noted for daring, and in this case were very timid indeed, and our position grew worse from day to day.

I made the best dispositions possible in view of my cautious instructions, and soon every man, British, Czech and Cossack, was imbued with a determination to baulk the enemy's eastward ambitions at all costs. The numbers I had brought to their a.s.sistance were nothing compared to the influence of the sight of the poor, frayed and dirty Union Jack that floated from my Headquarters, and the songs of the Tommies round the mosquito fires in the bivouac at night. These two factors together changed the whole atmosphere surrounding the valiant, ill-fed and ill-equipped Czech soldiers.