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.



U.S. Official Photo Olga Barracks



U.S. Official Photo Street Car Strike in Archangel



U.S. Official Photo American Hospitals and Headquarters



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



U.S. Official Photo Red Cross Ambulances, Archangel



U.S. Official Photo "Cootie Mill" Operating at Smolny Annex of Convalescent Hospital



Wisckot Single Flat Strip of Iron on Plow point



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.



WAGNER Artillery "O. P.," Kodish



LANMAN Mill for Grinding Grain



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Pioneer Platoon Clearing Fire Lane



U. S OFFICIAL PHOTO Testing a Vickers Machine Gun



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Doughboy Observing Bolo in Pagosta—Near Ust Padenga



U S OFFICIAL PHOTO Cossack Receiving First Aid, Vistavka



LANMAN Ready for Day's Work



DOUD Flax Hung Up to Dry



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.