Not only did the screeching press articles and the roars of certain congressmen keep the homefolks in perpetual agony over the soldiers in Russia, but the reports of the same that filtered in through the mails to our front line campfires and Archangel comfortable billets caused trouble and heart-burnings among the men. It seems incredible how much of it the men fell for. But seeing it in their own home paper, many of the men actually believed tales that when told in camp were laughed off as plain scandalous rumor.

War is not fought in a comfortable parlor or club-room, but some of the tales which slipped through the censor from spineless cry-babies in our ranks of high and low rank, and were published in the States and then in clippings found their way back to North Russia, lamented the fact of the hardship of war in such insidious manner as to furnish the most formidable foe to morale with which the troops had to cope while in Russia. The Americans only laughed at Bolshevik propaganda which they clearly saw through. To the statement that the Reds would bring a million rifles against Archangel they only replied, "Let 'em come, the thicker grass the heavier the swath."

But when a man's own home paper printed the same story of the million men advancing on Archangel with bloody bayonets fixed, and told of the horrible hardships the soldier endured—and many of them were indeed severe hardships although most of the news stories were over-drawn and untruthful, and coupled with these stories were shrieks at the war department to get the boys out of Russia, together with stories of earnest and intended-to-help petitions of the best people of the land, asking and pleading the war department to get the boys out of Russia, then the doughboy's spirit was depressed.



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Pioneer Platoon Has Fire at 455



U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (158856) 310th Engineers Near Bolsheozerki



U.S. OFFICIAL Hospital "K. P.'s"



U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Red Cross Nurses



U.S. OFFICIAL Bartering

U.S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Mascots



U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Col. Dupont (French) at Verst 455, Bestows Many Croix de Guerre Medals.



U S. OFFICIAL PHOTO Polish Artillery and Mascot



U. S. OFFICIAL PHOTO (158870) Russian Artillery, Verst 18

Suffer he did occasionally. Many of his comrades had a lot of suffering from cold. But aside from the execrable boot that Sir Shakleton had dreamed into existence, he himself possessed more warm clothing than he liked to carry around with him. But not a few soldiers forgot to look around and take sober stock of their actual situation and fell prey to this sob-stuff. Fortunately for the great majority of them, and this goes for every company, the great rank and file of officers and men never lost their heads and their stout hearts.

And now we may as well deal with the actual facts in regard to the alleged mutiny of American troops in North Russia. There was no mutiny.

In February Colonel Stewart had cabled to the War Department that "The alarmist reports of condition of troops in North Russia as published in press end of December are not warranted by facts. Troops have been well taken care of in every way and my officers resent these highly exaggerated reports, feeling that slur is cast upon the regiment and its wonderful record. Request that this be given to the press and especially to Detroit and Chicago papers to allay any unnecessary anxiety."

He was approximately correct in his statements. His intent was a perfectly worthy one. But it was not believed by the wildly excited people back home. Perhaps if the war department had been entirely frank with the people in cases, say, like the publication of casualty reports and reports of engagements, then its well-meant censorship and its attempts to allay fear might have done some good.

As it was the day, March 31st, 1919, came when a not unwilling British cable was scandalled and a fearsome press and people was startled with the story of an alleged mutiny of a company of American troops in North Russia. The "I-told-you-so's" and the "wish-they-would's" of the States were gratified. The British War Office was, too, and made the most of the story to propagandize its tired veterans and its late-drafted youths who had been denied part in war by the sudden Armistice. Those were urged to volunteer for service in North Russia, where it was alleged their English comrades had been left unsupported by the mutinous Yanks. Yes, there was a pretty mess made of the story by our own War Department, too, who first was credulous of this really incredulous affair, tried to explain it in its usually stupid and ignorant way of explaining affairs in North Russia, only made a bad matter worse, and then finally as they should have done at first, gave the American Forces in North Russia a Commanding General, whose report as quoted from the Army and Navy Journal of April 1920, will say:

"The incident was greatly exaggerated, but while greatly regretting that any insubordination took place, he praised the general conduct of the 339th Infantry. Colonel Richardson states that the troops were serving under very trying conditions, and that much more serious disaffections appeared among troops of the Allies on duty in North Russia. He further says the disaffection in the company of the 339th Infantry, U. S. A., was handled by the regimental commander with discretion and good judgment."

Colonel Stewart, himself, stated to the press when he led his troops home the following July:

"I did not have to take any disciplinary action against either an officer or soldier of the regiment in connection with the matter, so you may judge that the reports that have appeared have been very, very greatly exaggerated. Every soldier connected with the incident performed his duty as a soldier. And as far as I am concerned, I think the matter should be closed."

In a letter to a member of Congress from Michigan, Secretary Baker refers to the alleged mutiny as follows:

"A cablegram, dated March 31, 1919, received from the American Military Attache at Archangel, read in part as follows:

"'Yesterday morning, March 30th, a company of infantry, having received orders to the railroad front, was ordered out of the barracks for the purpose of packing sleds for the trip across the river to the railroad station. The non-commissioned officer that was in charge of the packing soon reported to the officers that the men refused to obey. At this some of the officers took charge, and all except one man began reluctantly to pack after a considerable delay. The soldier who continued to refuse was placed in confinement. Colonel Stewart, having been sent for, arrived and had the men assembled to talk with them. Upon the condition that the prisoner above mentioned was released, the men agreed to go. This was done, and the company then proceeded to the railway station and entrained there for the front. That they would not go to the front line positions was openly stated by the men, however, and they would only go to Obozerskaya. They also stated that general mutiny would soon come if there was not some definite movement forthcoming from Washington with regard to the removal of American troops from Russia at the earliest possible date.'

"The War Department on April 10, 1919, authorized the publication of this cablegram, and on April 12, 1919, authorized the statement that the report from Murmansk was to the effect that the organization which was referred to was Company "I" of the 339th Infantry, and that the dispatch stated:

"'It is worthy to note that the questions that were put to the officers by the men were identical with those that the Bolshevik propaganda leaflets advised them to put to them.'

"If reports differing from the above appeared in the newspapers, they were secured from sources other than the War Department and published without its authority.

"On March 16, 1920, Brigadier General Wilds P. Richardson, U. S. Army, was ordered by the Commanding General, American Expeditionary Forces, to proceed to North Russia and to assume command of the American Forces in that locality. General Richardson arrived at Murmansk on April 8, 1920, where it was reported to him that a company of American troops at Archangel had mutinied and that his presence there was urgently needed. He arrived at Archangel on April 17, 1920, and found that conditions had been somewhat exaggerated, especially in respect to the alleged mutiny of the company of the 339th Infantry. General Richardson directed an investigation of this matter by the Acting Inspector General, American Forces in North Russia. This officer states the facts to be as follows:

"'Company "I", 339th Infantry, was in rest area at Smallney Barracks, in the outskirts of Archangel, Russia, when orders were received to go to the railroad point and relieve another company. The following morning the first sergeant ordered the company to turn out and load sleds. He reported to the captain that the men did not respond as directed. The captain then went to the barracks and demanded of the men standing around the stove: "Who refuses to turn out and load sleds?" No reply from the men. The captain then asked the trumpeter, who was standing nearby, if he refused to turn out and load the sleds, and the trumpeter replied he was ready if the balance were, but that he was not going out and load packs of others on the sleds by himself, or words to that effect. The captain then went to the phone and reported the trouble as "mutiny" to Col. Stewart, the Commanding Officer, American Forces in North Russia. Col. Stewart directed him to have the men assemble in Y. M. C. A. hut and he would be out at once and talk to them. The colonel arrived and read the Article of War as to mutiny and talked to the men a few minutes. He then said he was ready to answer any questions the men cared to ask. Some one wanted to know 'What are we here for and what are the intentions of the U. S. Government?' The colonel answered this as well as he could. He then asked if there was anyone of the company who would not obey the order to load the sleds; if so, step up to the front. No one moved. The colonel then directed the men to load the sleds without delay, which was done.

"'The testimony showed that the captain commanding Company "I", 339th Infantry, did not order his company formed nor did he ever give a direct order for the sleds to be loaded. He did not report this trouble to the commanding officer (a field officer) of Smallney Barracks, but hastened to phone his troubles to the Commanding Officer, American Forces in North Russia.'

"The inspector further states that the company was at the front when the investigation was being made (May, 1919) and that the service of all concerned, at that time, was considered satisfactory by the battalion commander.

"The conclusions of the inspector were that from such evidence as could be obtained the alleged mutiny was nothing like as serious as had been reported, but that it was of such a nature that it could have been handled by a company officer of force.

"The inspector recommended to the Commanding General, American Forces, North Russia, that the matter be dropped and considered closed. The Commanding General, American Forces, North Russia, concurred in this recommendation.

"General Richardson, in his report of operations on the American Forces in North Russia, referring to this matter states:

"'MORALE. Archangel and North Russia reflected in high degree during the past winter the disturbed state of the civilized world after four years of devastating war. The military situation was difficult and at times menacing.

"'Our troops in this surrounding, facing entirely new experiences and uncertain as to the future, bore themselves as a whole with courageous and creditable spirit. It was inevitable that there should be unrest, with some criticism and complaint, which represented the normal per cent chargeable to the human equation under such conditions. This culminated, shortly before my arrival, in a temporary disaffection of one of the companies. This appears not to have extended beyond the privates in ranks, and was handled by the regimental commander with discretion and good judgment.

"'This incident was given wide circulation in the States, and I am satisfied from my investigation that an exaggerated impression was created as to its seriousness. It is regrettable that it should have happened at all, to mar in any degree the record of heroic and valiant service performed by this regiment under very trying conditions.' "The above are the facts in regard to this matter, and it is hoped that this information may meet your requirements. "Very sincerely yours, "NEWTON D. BAKER, "Secretary of War."

However, as a matter of history the facts must be told in this volume. "I" Company of the 339th Infantry, commanded by Captain Horatio G. Winslow, was on the 30th of March stationed at Smolny Barracks, Archangel, Russia. It had been resting for a few days there after a long period of service on the front. The spirit of the men had been high for the most part, although as usual in any large group of soldiers at rest there was some of what Frazier Hunt, the noted war correspondent, calls "good, healthy grousing." The men had the night before given a fine minstrel entertainment in the Central Y. M. C. A.

Group psychology and atmospheric conditions have to be taken into consideration at this point. By atmospheric conditions we mean the half-truths and rumors and expressions of feeling that were in the air. A sergeant of the company questioned carefully by the writer states positively that the expressions of ugliness were confined to comparatively few members of the company. The feeling seemed to spread through the company that morning that some of the men were going to speak their minds.

Here another fact must be introduced. A few nights before this there had been a fire in camp that spread to their barracks and burned the company out, resulting in the splitting of the company into two separated parts, and in giving the little first sergeant and commanding officer inconvenience in conveying orders and directions to the men. And it was rumored in the morning in one barracks that the men of the other barracks were starting something. The platoon officer in command there had gone to the front to make arrangements for the billeting and transportation of troops, who were to start that day for the front some several miles south of Obozerskaya. Now the psychology began to work. Why hurry the loading, let's see what the men of that platoon now will do.

The captain notices the delay in proceedings. He has heard a little something of what is in the air. It is nothing serious, yet he is nervous about it. His first sergeant, a nervous and a nervy little man too, for Detroit has seen the Croix de Guerre he won, showed anxiety over the dilatoriness of the men in loading the sleighs. And the men were only just human in wanting to see what the captain was going to do about that other platoon that was rumored to be starting something. Of course in the psychology of the thing it was not in their minds that they would be called upon to express themselves. The others were going to do that.

But when the captain went directly to the men and asked them what they were thinking and feeling they found themselves talking to him. Here and there a man spoke bitterly about the Russian regiments in Archangel not doing anything but drill in Archangel. Of course he had only half-truth. That is the way misunderstandings and bad feelings feed. At that moment a company of the Archangel Regiment was at a desperate front, Bolsheozerki, standing shoulder to shoulder with "M" Company out of "I" Company's own battalion. But these American soldiers at that moment with their feelings growing warmer with expression of them, thought only of the drilling Russian soldiers in Archangel and of the S. B. A. L. soldiers who had mutinied earlier in the winter and been subdued by American soldiers in Archangel. And so if the truth be told, those soldiers spoke boldly enough to their captain to alarm him. He thought that he really had a serious condition before him.

From remarks by the men he judged that for the sake of the men and the chief commanding officer, Colonel Stewart, it would be well to have a meeting in the Y. M. C. A. where they could be properly informed, where they could see ALL that was going on and not be deluded by the rumors that other groups of the company were doing something else, and where the common sense of the great, great majority of the men would show them the foolishness of the whole thing. And he invited the colonel to appear.

Meanwhile the senior first lieutenant of the company, Lieut. Albert E. May, one of the levelest-headed officers in the regiment, had put the first and only man who showed signs of insubordination to an officer under arrest. It developed afterward that the lieutenant was a little severe with the man as he really had not understood the command, he being a man who spoke little English and in the excitement was puzzled by the order and showed the "hesitation" of which so much was made in the wild accounts that were published. This arrest was afterward corrected when three sergeants of the platoon assured the officer that the man had not really intended insubordination.

It is regrettable that the War Department was so nervous about this affair that it would be fooled into making the explanation of this "hesitation" on the ground of the man's Slavic genesis and the pamphlet propaganda of the Reds. The first three men who died in action were Slavs. The Slavs who went from Hamtramck and Detroit to Europe made themselves proud records as fighters. Hundreds of them who had not been naturalized were citizens before they took off the O. D. uniform in which they had fought. It was a cruel slur upon the manhood of the American soldier to make such explanations upon such slight evidences. It would seem as though the War Department could have borne the outcry of the people till the Commanding Officer of those troops could send detailed report. And as for the Red pamphlets, every soldier in North Russia was disgusted with General March's explanations and comments.

To return to the account, let it be said, Colonel Stewart, when he appeared at the Y. M. C. A. saw no murmurous, mutinous, wildly excited men, such as the mob psychology of a mutiny would necessarily call for. Instead, he saw men seated orderly and respectfully. And they listened to his remarks that cleared up the situation and to his proud declaration that American soldiers on duty never quit till the job is done or they are relieved. Questions were allowed and were answered squarely and plainly.

While the colonel had been coming from his headquarters the remainder of the loading had been done under direction of Lieut. May as referred to before, and at the conclusion of the colonel's address, Captain Winslow moved his men off across the frozen Dvina, proceeded as per schedule to Obozerskaya, put them on a troop train, and as related elsewhere took over the front line at a critical time, under heavy attack, and there the very next day after the little disaffection and apparent insubordination, which was magnified into a "mutiny," his company added a bright page to its already shining record as fighters. The editors have commented upon this at another place in the narrative. We wish here to state that we do not see how an unbiased person could apply so harsh a term as mutiny to this incident.

The allegation has been proved to be false. There was no mutiny. Any further repetition of the allegation will be a cruel slander upon the good name of the heroic men who were killed in action or died of wounds received in action in that desperate winter campaign in the snows of Russia. And further repetition of the allegation will be insult to the brave men who survived that campaign and now as citizens have a right to enjoy the commendations of their folks and friends and fellow citizens because of the remarkably good record they made in North Russia as soldiers and men.



XXXI

OUR ALLIES, FRENCH, BRITISH AND RUSSIANS

Kaleidoscopic Picture And Chop Suey Talk In Archangel—Poilu Comrades—Captain Boyer—Dupayet, Reval And Major Alabernarde—"Ze French Sarzhont, She Say"—Scots And British Marines Fine Soldiers—Canadians Popular—Yorks Stand Shoulder To Shoulder—Tribute To General Ironside—Daredevil "Bob" Graham Of "Australian Light Horse"—Commander Young Of Armored Train—Slavo-British Allied Legion—French Legion—White Guards—Archangel Regiments—Chinese—Deliktorsky, Mozalevski, Akutin.

What a kaleidoscopic recollection of uniforms and faces we have when one asks us about our allies in North Russia. What a mixture of voices, of gutturals and spluttering and yeekings and chatterings, combined with pursing of lips, eyebrow-twistings, bugging eyes, whiskers and long hair, and common hand signs of distress or delight or urgency or decisiveness: Nitchevo, bonny braw, tres bien, khorashaw, finish, oi soiy, beaucoup, cheerio, spitzka, mozhnya barishna, c'mon kid, parlezvous, douse th' glim, yah ocean, dobra czechinski, amia spigetam, ei geh ha wa yang wa, lubloo, howse th' chow, pardonne, pawrdun, scuse, eesveneets,—all these and more too, strike the ear of memory as we tread again the board sidewalks of far off smelly Archangel.

What antics we witnessed, good humored miscues and errors of form in meeting our friends of different lands all gathered there in the strange potpourri. Soldiers and "civies" of high and low rank, cultured and ignorant, and rich and poor, hearty and well, and halting and lame, mingled in Archangel, the half-shabby, half-neat, half-modern, half-ancient, summer-time port on the far northern sea. Rags and red herrings, and broadcloth and books, and O. D. and Khaki, and horizon blue, crowded the dinky ding-ding tramway and counted out kopecs to the woman conductor.

And many are the anecdotes that are told of men and occasions in North Russia where some one of our allies or bunch of them figures prominently, either in deed of daring, or deviltry, or simply good humor. Chiefly of our own buddies we recall such stories to be sure, but in justice to the memory of some of the many fine men of other lands who served with us we print a page or two of anecdotes about them. And we hope that some day we may show them Detroit or some other good old American burg, or honk-honk them cross country through farm lands we now better appreciate than before we saw Europe, by woods, lake and stream to camp in the warm summer, or spend winter nights in a land with us as hosts, a land where life is really worth living.

Those "mah-sheen" gunners in blue on the railroad who stroked their field pets with pride and poured steady lines of fire into the pine woods where lay the Reds who were encircling the Americans with rifle and machine gun fire. How the Yankee soldiers liked them. And many a pleasant draught they had from the big pinaud canteen that always came fresh from the huge cask. How courteously they taught the doughboy machine gunner the little arts of digging in and rejoiced at the rapid progress of the American.

How now, Paul, my poilu comrade, bon ami, why don't you add the house itself to the pack on your back? Sure, you'll scramble along somehow to the rest of the camp in the rear, and on your way you will pass bright remarks that we non compree but enjoy just the same, for we know you are wishing the doughboy good luck. How droll your antics when hard luck surprises. We swear and you grimace or paw wildly the air. And we share a common dislike for the asperity shown by the untactful, inefficient, bulldozing old Jack.

Here is a good story that "Buck" Carlson used to tell in his inimitable way. Scene is laid in the headquarters of the British Colonel who is having a little difficulty with his mixed command that contains soldiers of America, France, Poland, China, where not, but very few from England at that time. A French sergeant with an interpreter enters the room and salutes are exchanged. The sergeant then orders his comrade to convey his request to the colonel.

"Ker-nell, par-don," says the little interpreter after a snappy French salute which is recognized by a slight motion of the colonel's thumb in the general direction of his ear. "Ze sarzhont, she say, zat ze French man will please to have ze tobak, ze masheen gun am-mu-nish-own and ze soap."

"But, my man," says the colonel reddening, "I told you to tell the sergeant he should go on as ordered and these things will come later, I have none of these things now to give him, but they will soon arrive and he shall be supplied. But now he must hurry out with his detachment of machine gunners to help the Americans. Go, my man." More salutes and another conversation between the two French soldiers with arms and spit flying furiously.

"Ker-nell, sir, par-don, again, but ze sar-zhont, she say, zat wiz-out ze to-bak, ze am-mu-nish-own and ze soap, he weel not go, par-don, ker-nell!"

This time the colonel was angered to popping point and he smote the table with a thump that woke every bedbug and cockroach in the building and the poor French interpreter looked wildly from the angry British colonel to his tough old French sergeant who now leaped quickly to his side and barked Celtic rejoinder to the colonel's fist thumping language. No type could tell the story of the critical next moment. Suffice it to say that after the storm had cleared the colonel was heard reporting the disobedience to a French officer miles in the rear. The officer had evidently heard quickly from his sergeant and was inclined to back him up, for in substance he said to the offended British officer: "Wee, pardon, mon ker-nell, it eez bad," meaning I am sorry, "but will ze gallant ker-nell please to remember zat consequently zare eez no French offitzair wiz ze French de-tach-mont, ze sar-zhont will be treated wiz ze courtesy due to ze offitzair."

And it was true that the sergeant, backed up by his French officer, refused to go as ordered till his men had been supplied with the necessary ammunition and "ze to-bak and ze soap." The incident illustrates the fact that the French officer's relation to his enlisted men is one of cordial sympathy. He sees no great gulf between officer and enlisted man which the British service persists to set up between officers and enlisted men.

Hop to it, now Frenchie, you surely can sling 'em. We need a whole lot from your 75's. We are guarding your guns, do not fear for the flanks. Just send that barrage to the Yanks at the front. And how they do send it. And we remember that the French artillery officers taught the Russians how to handle the guns well and imbued them with the same spirit of service to the infantry. And many a Red raid in force and well-planned attack was discouraged by the prompt and well-put shrapnel from our French artillery.

And there was Boyer. First we saw him mud-spattered and grimy crawling from a dugout at Obozerskaya, day after his men had won the "po-zee-shown." His animation he seems to communicate to his leg-wearied men who crowd round him to hear that the Yanks are come to relieve them. With great show of fun but serious intent, too, he "marries the squads" of Americans and Frenchies as they amalgamate for the joint attack. "Kat-tsank-awn-tsank" comes to mean 455 as he talks first in French to his poilus and then through our Detroit doughboy French interpreter to the doughboys. Captain he is of a Colonial regiment, veteran of Africa and every front in Europe, with palm-leafed war cross, highest his country can give him, Boyer. He relies on his soldiers and they on him. "Fires on your outposts, captain?" "Oui, oui, nitchevo, not ever mind, oui, comrade," he said laughingly. His soldiers built the fires so as to show the Reds where they dare not come. Truth was he knew his men must dry their socks and have a warm spot to sit by and clean their rifles. He trusted to their good sense in concealing the fire and to know when to run it very low with only the glowing coals, to which the resting soldier might present the soles of his snoozing shoes. Captain Boyer, to you, and to your men.

It is not easy to pass over the names of Dupayet and Reval and Alebernarde. For dynamic energy the first one stands. For linguistic aid the second. How friendly and clear his interpretation of the orders of the French command, given written or oral. Soldier of many climes he. With songs of nations on his lips and the sparkle of mirth in his eye. "God Save the King," he uttered to the guard as password when he supposed the outguard to be a post of Tommies, and laughingly repeated to the American officer the quick response of the Yank sentry man who said: "To hell with any king, but pass on French lieutenant, we know you are a friend."

And Alabernarde, sad-faced old Major du Battalion, often we see you passing among the French and American soldiers along with Major Nichols. Your eyes are crow-tracked with experiences on a hundred fields and your bronzed cheek hollowed from consuming service in the World War. We see the affectionate glances of poilus that leap out at sight of you. You hastened the equipment of American soldiers with the automatics they so much needed and helped them to French ordnance stores generously. Fate treated you cruelly that winter and left you in a wretched dilemma with your men in March on the railroad. We would forget that episode in which your men figured, and remember rather the comradery of the fall days with them and the inspiration of your soldierly excellence. To you, Major Alabernarde.

On the various fronts in the fall the doughboy's acquaintance with the British allies was limited quite largely, and quite unfortunately we might say, to the shoulder strappers. And all too many of those out-ranked and seemed to lord it over the doughboy's own officers, much to his disgust and indignation. What few units of Scots and English Marines and Liverpools got into action with the Americans soon won the respect and regard of the doughboys in spite of their natural antipathy, which was edged by their prejudice against the whole show which was commonly thought to be one of British conception. Tommie and Scot were often found at Kodish and Toulgas and on the Onega sharing privations and meagre luxuries of tobacco and food with their recently made friends among the Yanks.

And in the winter the Yorks at several places stood shoulder to shoulder with doughboys on hard-fought lines. Friendships were started between Yanks and Yorks as in the fall they had grown between Frenchies and Americans, Scots and Yanks, and Liverpools and Detroiters. Bitter fighting on a back-to-the-wall defense had brought the English and American officers together also. Arrogance and antipathy had both dissolved largely in the months of joint military operations and better judgment and kinder feelings prevailed. Grievances there are many to be recalled. And they were not all on one side. But except as they form part of the military narrative with its exposure of causes and effects in the fall and winter and spring campaigns, those grievances may mostly be buried. Rather may we remember the not infrequent incidents of comradeship on the field or in lonely garrison that brightened the relationships between Scots and Yorks and Marines and Liverpools in Khaki on the one hand and the O. D. cousins from over the sea who were after all not so bad a lot, and were willing to acknowledge merit in the British cousin.

It must be said that Canadians, Scots, Yorks and Tommies stood in about this order in the affections of the Yankee soldiers. The boys who fought with support of the Canadian artillery up the rivers know them for hard fighters and true comrades. And on the railroad detachment American doughboys one day in November were glad to give the Canadian officer complimentary present-arms when he received his ribbon on his chest, evidence of his election to the D. S. O., for gallantry in action. Loyally on many a field the Canadians stood to their guns till they were exhausted, but kept working them because they knew their Yankee comrades needed their support.

One of the pictures in this volume shows a Yank and a Scot together standing guard over a bunch of Bolshevik prisoners at a point up the Dvina River. American doughboys risked their lives in rescuing wounded Scots and the writer has a vivid remembrance of seeing a fine expression of comradeship between Yanks and Scots and American sailors starting off on a long, dangerous march.

Mention has been made in another connection of the friendship and admiration of the American soldiers for the men of the battalion of Yorks. In the three day's battle at Verst 18 a York sergeant over and over assured the American officer that he would at all times have a responsible York standing beside the Russki machine gunner and prevent the green soldiers from firing wildly without order in case the Bolshevik should gain some slight advantage and a necessary shift of American soldiers might be interpreted by the green Russian machine gunners as a movement of the enemy. And those machine guns which were stationed at a second line, in rear of the Americans, never went off. The Yorks were on the job. And after the crisis was past an American corporal asked his company commander to report favorably upon the gallant conduct of a York corporal who had stood by him with six men all through the fight.

Of the King's Liverpools and other Tommies mention has been made in these pages. Sometimes we have to fight ourselves into favor with one another. Really there is more in common between Yank and Tommie than there is of divergence. Hardship and danger, tolerance and observation, these brought the somewhat hostile and easily irritated Yank and Tommie together. Down underneath the rough slams and cutting sarcasm there exists after all a real feeling of respect for the other.

This volume would not be complete without some mention of that man who acted as commanding general of the Allied expedition, William Edmund Ironside. He was every inch a soldier and a man. American soldiers will remember their first sight of him. They had heard that a big man up at Archangel who had taken Gen. Poole's job was cleaning house among the incompetents and the "John Walkerites" that had surrounded G. H. Q. in Poole's time. He was putting pep into G. H. Q. and reorganizing the various departments.

When he came, he more than came up to promises. Six foot-four and built accordingly, with a bluff, open countenance and a blue eye that spoke honesty and demanded truth. Hearty of voice and breathing cheer and optimism, General Ironside inspired confidence in the American troops who had become very much disgruntled. He was seen on every front at some time and often seen at certain points. By boat or sledge or plane he made his way through. He was the soldier's type of commanding officer. Never dependent on an interpreter whether with Russian, Pole, or French, or Serbian, or Italian, he travelled light and never was seen with a pistol, even for protection. Master of fourteen languages it was said of him, holder of an Iron Cross bestowed on him by the Kaiser in an African war when he acted as an ox driver but in fact was observing for the British artillery, on whose staff he had been a captain though he was only a youth, he was a giant intellectually as well as physically.

When British fighting troops could not be spared from the Western Front in the fall of 1918 and the British War Office gambled on sending category B men to Archangel—men not considered fit to undergo active warfare, a good healthy general had to be found. Ironside, lover of forlorn hopes, master of the Russian language, a good mixer, and experienced in dealing with amalgamated forces, was the obvious man. Of course, there were some British officers who bemoaned the fact, in range of American ears too, that some titled high ranking officers were passed over to reach out to this Major of Artillery to act as Major-General. And he was on the youthful side of forty, too.

Edmund Ironside ought to have been born in the days of Drake, Raleigh, and Cromwell. He would have a bust in Westminster and his picture in the history books. But in his twenty years of army life he has done some big things and it can be imagined with what gusto he received his orders to relieve Poole and undertook to redeem the expedition, to make something of the perilous, forlorn hope under the Arctic winter skies.

In The American Sentinel issue of December 10th, which was the first issue of our soldier paper, we read:

"It is a great honor for me to be able to address the first words in the first Archangel paper for American soldiers. I have now served in close contact with the U. S. Army for eighteen months and I am proud to have a regiment of the U. S. Army under my command in Russia.

"I wish all the American soldiers the best wishes for the coming Christmas and New Year and I want them to understand that the Allied High Command takes the very greatest interest in their welfare at all times." EDMUND IRONSIDE, Major-General.

Without doubt the General was sincere in his efforts to bring about harmony and put punch and strength into the high command sections as well as into the line troops. But what a bag Poole left him to hold. Vexed to death must that big man's heart have been to spend so much time setting Allies to rights who had come to cross purposes with one another and were blinded to their own best interests. British thought he was too lenient with the willful Americans. Americans thought he was pampering the French. British, French and Americans thought he was letting the Russkis slip something over on the whole Allied expedition. Green-eyed jealousy, provincial jealousy, just plain foolish jealousy tormented the man who was soon disillusioned as to the glories to be won in that forlorn expedition but who never exhibited anything but an undaunted optimistic spirit. He was human. When he was among the soldiers and talking to them it was not hard for them to believe the tale that after all he was an American himself, a Western Canadian who had started his career as a military man with the Northwest Mounted Police.

An American corporal for several weeks had been in the field hospital near the famous Kodish Front. One day General Ironside leaned over his bunk and said: "What's the trouble, corporal?" The reply was, "Rheumatism, sir." At which the British hospital surgeon asserted that he thought the rheumatism was a matter of the American soldier's imagination. But he regretted the remark, for the general, looking sternly at the officer, said: "Don't talk to me that way about a soldier. I know, if you do not, that many a young man, with less exposure than these men have had in these swamps, contracts rheumatism. Do not confuse the aged man's gout with the young man's muscular rheumatism." Then he turned his back on the surgeon and said heartily to the corporal: "You look like a man with lots of grit. Cheer up, maybe the worst is over and you will be up and around soon. I hope so."

And there was many a British officer who went out there to Russia who won the warm friendship of Americans. Of course, those were short friendships. But men live a lot in a small space in war. One day a young second lieutenant—and those were rare in the British uniforms, for the British War Office had given the commanding general generous leeway in adding local rank to the under officers—had come out to a distant sector to estimate the actual needs in signal equipment. He rode a Russian horse to visit the outpost line of the city. He rode in a reindeer sled to the lines which the Russian partisan forces were holding. He sat down in the evening to that old Russian merchant trader's piano, in our headquarters, and rambled from chords and airs to humoresque and rhapsodies. And the American and Russian officers and the orderlies and batmen each in his own place in the spacious rooms melted into a tender hearing that feared to move lest the spell be broken and the artist leave the instrument. Men who did not know how lonesome they had been and who had missed the refinements of home more than they knew, blessed the player with their pensive listening, thanked fortune they were still alive and had chances of fighting through to get home again. And after playing ceased the British officer talked quietly of his home and the home folks and Americans thought and talked of theirs. And it was good. It was an event.

In sharp contrast is the vivid memory of that picturesque Lt. Bob Graham of the Australian Light Horse. He could have had anything the doughboy had in camp and they would have risked their lives for him, too, after the day he ran his Russian lone engine across the bridge at Verst 458 into No Man's Land and leaped from the engine into a marsh covered by the Bolo machine guns and brought out in his own arms an American doughboy. Starting merely a daredevil ride into No Man's Land, his roving eye had spied the doughboy delirious and nearly dead flopping feebly in the swamp.

Hero of Gallipoli's ill-fated attempt, scarred with more than a score of wounds; with a dead man's shin bone in the place of his left upper arm bone that a Hun shell carried off; with a silver plate in his head-shell; victim of as tragic an occurrence as might befall any man, when as a sergeant in the Flying Squadron in France he saw a young officer's head blown off in a trench, and it was his own son, Bob Graham, "Australian Force" on the Railroad Detachment, was missed by the doughboys when he was ordered to report to Archangel.

There the heroic Bob went to the bad. He participated in the shooting out of all the lights in the Paris cafe of the city in regular wild western style; he was sent up the river for his health; he fell in with an American corporal whose acquaintance he had made in a sunnier clime, when the American doughboy had been one of the Marines in Panama and Bob Graham was an agent of the United Fruit Company. They stole the British officer's bottled goods and trafficked unlawfully with the natives for fowls and vegetables to take to the American hospital, rounded up a dangerous band of seven spies operating behind our lines, but made such nuisances of themselves, especially the wild Australian "second looie," that he was ordered back to Archangel. There the old general, who knew of his wonderful fighting record, at last brought him on to the big carpet. And the conversation was something like this:

"Graham, what is the matter? You have gone mad. I had the order to strip you of your rank as an officer to see if that would sober you. But an order from the King today by cable raises you one rank and now no one but the King himself can change your rank. You deserved the promotion but as you are going now it is no good to you. All I can do is to send you back to England. But I do not mean it as a disgrace to you. I could wish that you would give me your word that you would stop this madness of yours." And the general looked kindly at Bob.

"Sir, you have been white with me. You have a right to know why I have been misbehaving these last weeks. Here, sir, is a letter that came to me the day I helped shoot up the cafe. In Belgium I married an American Red Cross nurse. This is a picture of her and the new-born son come to take the place of the grown-up son who fell mortally wounded in my arms in France. To her and the baby I was bound to go if I had to drink Russia dry of all the shipped-in Scotch and get myself reduced to the ranks for insubordination and deviltry. Sir, I'm fed up on war. I thank you for sending me back to England."

And Corporal Aldrich tells us that his old friend Bob Graham's present address is First National Bank, Mobile, Alabama. His father, an immigrant via Canada from old Dundee in Scotland, was elected governor of Alabama on the dry issue. And officers and doughboys who knew the wild Australian in North Russia know that his father might have had some help if Bob were at home. With a genial word for every man, with a tender heart that winced to see a child cry, with a nimble wit and a brilliant daring, Lt. Bob Graham won a place in the hearts of Americans that memory keeps warm.

And other British officers might be mentioned. There was, for example, the grizzled naval officer, Commander Young, whose left sleeve had been emptied at Zeebrugge, running our first armored train. We missed his cheery countenance and courteous way of meeting American soldiers and officers when he left us to return to England to take a seat in Parliament which the Socialists had elected him to. We can see him again in memory with his Polish gunners, his Russian Lewis gun men, standing in his car surrounded by sand bags and barbed wire, knocking hot wood cinders from his neck, which the Russki locomotive floated back to him. And many a time we were moved to bless him when his guns far in our rear spoke cheeringly to our ears as they sent whining shells curving over us to fall upon the enemy. It is no discredit to say that many a time the doughboy's eye was filled with a glistening drop of emotion when his own artillery had sprung to action and sent that first booming retort. And some of those moments are bound in memory with the blue-coated figure of the gallant Commander Young.

The Russian Army of the North was non-existent when the Allies landed. All the soldiery previously in evidence had moved southward with the last of the lootings of Archangel and joined the armies of the soviet at Vologda, or were forming up the rear guard to dispute the entrance of the Allies to North Russia. The Allied Supreme Command in North Russia, true to its dream of raising over night a million men opened recruiting offices in Archangel and various outlying points, thinking that the population would rally to the banners (and the ration carts) in droves. But the large number of British officers waited in vain for months and months for the pupils to arrive to learn all over the arts of war. At last after six months two thousand five hundred recruits had been assembled by dint of advertising and coaxing and pressure. They were called the Slavo-British Allied Legion, S. B. A. L. for short.

These Slavo-Brits as they were called never distinguished themselves except in the slow goose step—much admired by Colonel Stewart, who pointed them out to one of his captains as wonders of precision, and also distinguished themselves in eating. They failed several times under fire, once they caused a riffle of real excitement in Archangel when they started a mutiny, and finally they were used chiefly as labor units and as valets and batmen for officers and horses. They were charged with having a mutinous spirit and with plotting to go over to the Bolsheviks. They did in small numbers at times. It is interesting to note that they were trained under British officers who enlisted them from among renegades, prisoners and deserters from ranks of the Bolsheviks, refugees and hungry willies, and, that once enlisted they were not fed the standard British ration of food or tobacco, the which they held as a grievance. It never made the American soldier feel comfortable to see the prisoners he had taken in action parading later in the S, B. A. L. uniform, and especially in the case of Russians who came over from the Bolo lines and gave up with suspiciously strong protestations of dislike for their late commanders.

The Russians who were recruited and trained by the French in the so-called French Legion, under the leadership of the old veteran Boyer who is mentioned elsewhere were found usually with a better record. The Courier du Bois on skiis in white clothing did remarkably valuable scouting and patrolling work and at times as at Kodish and Bolsheozerki hung off on the flanks of the encircling Bolo hordes and worried the attackers with great effectiveness.

The French also had better luck in training the Russian artillery officers and personnel than did the British although some of the latter units did good work. It seemed to be a better class of Russian recruit that chose the artillery. Doughboys who were caught on an isolated road like rats in a trap will remember with favor the Russian artillery men who with their five field pieces on that isolated road ate, slept and shivered around their guns for eight days without relief, springing to action in a few seconds at any call. By their effective action they contributed quite largely to the defense, active fighting of which fell upon two hundred Yanks facing more than ten times the number. Why should it surprise one to find an occasional Yank returned from Archangel who will say a good word for a Russian soldier. There were cordial relations between Americans and more than a few Russian units.

In certain localities in the interior where the peasants had organized to resist the rapacious Red Guard looters, there were little companies of good fighters, in their own way. These were usually referred to as Partisans or White Guards depending upon the degree to which they were authorized and organized by the local county governments. They always at first strongly co-operated with the Allied troops, which they looked upon as friends sent in to help them against the Bolsheviki. Toward the Americans they maintained their cordial relations throughout, but after the first months seemed to cool toward the other Allied troops. This sounds conceited, and possibly is, but the explanation seems to be that the Russian understood American candor and cordial democracy, the actual sympathetic assistance offered by the doughboy to the Russian soldier or laborer and took it at par value.

Further explanation of the cooling of the ardor of the local partisans toward the British in particular may be found in the fact that the British field commanders often found it convenient and really necessary to send the local troops far distant from their own areas. There they lost the urge of defending their firesides and their families. They were in districts which they quite simply and honestly thought should themselves be aiding the British to keep off the Bolsheviki. They could not understand the military necessities that had perhaps called these local partisans off to some other part of the fighting line on those long forest fronts. He lacked the broader sense of nationality or even of sectionalism. And as demands for military action repeatedly came to him the justice of which he saw only darkly he became a poorer and poorer source of dependence. He would not put his spirit into fighting, he was quite likely to hit through the woods for home.

When the Allies early in the fall found they could not forge through to the south, rolling up a bigger and bigger Russian force to crush the Bolsheviki, who were apparently, as told us, fighting up to keep us from going a thousand miles or so to hit the Germans a belt—a fly-weight buffet as it were—and when we heard of the Armistice and began digging in on a real defensive in the late fall and early winter, the Provisional Government at Archangel under Tchaikowsky had already made some progress in assembling an army. In the winter small units of this Archangel army began co-operating in various places, and as the winter wore on, began to take over small portions of the line, as at Toulgas, Shred Mekrenga, Bolsheozerki, usually however with a few British officers and some Allied soldiers to stiffen them. Although many of these men had been drafted by the Archangel government and as we have seen by such local county governments as Pinega, they were fairly well trained under old Russian officers who crept out to serve when they saw the new government meant business. And many capable young officers came from the British-Russian officers' school at Bakaritsa.



RED CROSS PHOTO Canadian Artillery—Americans Were Strong for Them



ROZANSKEY Making "Khleba"—Black Bread



WAGNER Stout Defense of Kitsa

Needless to say, these troops were at their best when they were in active work on the lines. Rest camp and security from attack quickly reduced their morale. And the next time they were sent up to the forward posts they were likely to prove undependable.

In doing the ordinary drudgery of camp life the Russian soldier as the doughboy saw him was very unsatisfactory. Many a Yank has itched to get his hands on the Russian Archangelite soldier, especially some of our hard old sergeants who wanted to put them on police and scavenger details to see them work. In this reluctance to work, their refusal sometimes even when the doughboy pitched into the hateful job and set them a good example, they were only like the civilian males whose aversion to certain kinds of work has been mentioned before. When some extensive piece of work had to be done for the Allies like policing a town, that is, cleaning it up for sake of health of the soldiers or smoothing off a landing place for airplanes, it was a problem to get the labor.

In the erection of large buildings or bridges the Russian man's axe and saw and mallet and plane worked swiftly and skillfully and unceasingly and willingly. Those tools were to him as playthings. Not so with an American-made long-handled shovel in his hands. Then it was necessary to hire both women and men. The men thought they themselves were earning their pay, but as the women in Russia do most of the back-breaking, stooping work anyway, they just caught on to those American shovels and to the astonishment of the American doughboy who superintended the work they did twice as much as the men for just half the pay and with half the bossing.

It is not a matter of false pride on the part of the Slavic male that keeps him from vying with his better half in doing praiseworthy work. It is lack of education. He has never learned. He is so constituted that he cannot learn quickly. He will work himself to exhaustion day after day in raising a house, cradling grain, playing an accordeon, or performing a folk dance. His earliest known ancestors did those things with fervor and it is doubtful if the modus operandi has changed much since the beginning, since Adam was a Russian.

The "H" Company boys could tell you stories of the Chinese outfit of S. B. A. L. under the British officer, the likable Capt. Card, who later lost his life in the forlorn hope drive on Karpogora in March. One day he was approached by a Chinese soldier who begged the loan of a machine gun for a little while. It seems that the Chinese had gotten into argument with a company of Russian S. B. A. L. men as to the relative staying qualities of Russians and Chinese under fire. And they had agreed upon a machine gun duel as a fair test. The writer one night at four in the morning woke when his Russian sleigh stopped in a village and rubbed his sleepy eyes open to find himself looking up into the questioning face of a burly sentry of the Chinese race. And he obeyed the sentry's directions with alacrity. He was not taking any chances on a misunderstanding that might arise out of an attempted explanation in a three-cornered Russo-Chino-English conversation.

Captain Odjard's men might tell stories about the redoubtable Russian Colonel Deliktorsky, who was in the push up the rivers in September. Impetuous to a fault he flung himself and his men into the offensive movement. "In twelve minutes we take Toulgas," was his simple battle order to the Americans. No matter to him that ammunition reserves were not ordered up. Sufficient to him that he showed his men the place to be battled for. And he was a favorite.

On the railroad in the fall a young Bolshevik officer surrendered his men to the French. Next time the American officer saw him he was reporting in American headquarters at Pinega that he had conducted his men to safety and dug in. Afterwards Bolshevik assassins or spies shot him in ambush and succeeded only in angering him and he went into battle two days later with a bandage covering three wounds in his neck and scalp. "G" and "M" Company men will remember this fiery Mozalevski.

Then there was the studious Capt. Akutin, a three-year veteran of a Russian machine gun battalion, a graduate student of science in a Russian university, a man of new army and political ideals in keeping with the principles of the Russian Revolution. His great success with the Pinega Valley volunteers and drafted men was due quite largely to his strength of character, his adherence to his principles. The people did not fear the restoration of the old monarchist regime even though he was an officer of the Czar's old army. American soldiers in Pinega gained a genuine respect and admiration for this Russian officer, Capt. Akutin, and he once expressed great pleasure in the fact that they exchanged salutes with him cordially.



XXXII

FELCHERS, PRIESTS AND ICONS

Felcher Is Student Of Medicine—Or Pill Passer Of Army Experience —Sanitation And Ventilation—Priests Strange Looking To Soldiers —Duties And Responsibilities—Effect Of Bolshevism On Peasant's Religious Devotions—The Icons—Interesting Stories—Doughboys Buried By Russian Priests—Respect For Russian Religion.

During the fall of 1918 when the influenza epidemic was wreaking such great havoc among the soldiers and natives in the Archangel Province, our medical corps as heretofore explained were put to almost superhuman efforts in combating the spread of this terrible disease. There were very few native doctors in the region, and it was, therefore, well nigh impossible to enlist outside aid. In some of the villages we received word that there were men called felchers who could possibly be of some assistance. We were at once curious to ascertain just what kind of persons these individuals were and upon investigation found that the Russian Company located in our sector had a young officer who was also a felcher and who was giving certain medical attention to his troops. We immediately sent for him and in answer to our inquiries he explained as nearly as possible just what a felcher was.

It seems that in Russia, outside the large cities and communities, there is a great scarcity of regularly licensed medical practitioners, many of these latter upon graduation enter the army where the pay is fairly good and the work comparatively easy, the rest of them enter the cities where, of course, practice is larger and the remuneration much better than would be possible in a small community. These facts developed in the smaller communities the use of certain second-rate students of medicine or anyone having a smattering of medical knowledge, called felchers.

In many cases the felcher is an old soldier who has traveled around the world a bit; and from his association in the army hospitals with doctors and students has picked up the technique of dressing wounds, setting broken bones and administering physic. Very often they are, of course, unable to properly diagnose the ailments or conditions of their patients. They, however, are shrewd enough to follow out the customary army method of treating patients and regardless of the disease promptly administer vile doses of medicine, usually a physic, knowing full well that to the average patient, the stronger the medicine and the more of it he gets, the better the treatment is, and a large percentage of the recoveries effected by these felchers is more or less a matter of faith rather than physic or medicine.

The regularly licensed practitioners as a rule have great contempt for these felchers, but the fact remains that in the small communities where they practice the felcher accomplishes a great amount of good, for having traveled considerably and devoted some time to the study of medicine he is at least superior in intelligence to the average peasant, and, therefore, better qualified to meet such emergencies as may arise.

This lack of medical practitioners, coupled with the apathy of the peasants regarding sanitary precautions and their unsanitary methods of living accounts to some extent for the violence and spread of plagues, so common throughout Russia.

Regarding the spread of disease and plagues through Russia caused as above stated by lack of sanitary conditions, a word or two further would not be amiss. In the province of Archangel, for example, a great majority of houses are entirely of log construction, built and modelled throughout by the owner, and perhaps some of his good neighbors. They are really a remarkable example of what may be done in the way of construction without the use of nails and of the modern improved methods of house construction. It is an actual fact that these simple peasants, equipped only with their short hand axes, with the use of which they are adepts, can cut down trees, hew the logs and build their homes practically without the use of any nails whatever. The logs, of course, are first well seasoned before they are put into the house itself and when they are joined together they are practically air tight, but to make sure of this fact the cracks are sealed tight with moss hammered into the chinks. Next the windows of these houses are always double, that is, there is one window on the outside of the frame and another window on the inside. Needless to say, during the winter these windows are practically never opened.

During the winter months the entire family—and families in this country are always large—eat, sleep, and live in one room of the house in which the huge brick home-made stove is located. In addition to the human beings living in the room there are often a half dozen or more chickens concealed beneath the stove, sometimes several sheep, and outside the door may be located the stable for the cattle. Nevertheless, the peasants are remarkably healthy, and in this region of the world epidemics are rather uncommon which may perhaps be explained by the fact that the peasants are out of doors a large part of the time and in addition thereto the air is very pure and healthful. Sewerage systems and such means of drainage are entirely unknown, even in the city of Archangel, which at the time we were there, contained some hundred thousand inhabitants. The only sewerage there was an open sewer that ran through the streets of the city. Small wonder it is under such conditions that when an epidemic does break out that it spreads so far and so rapidly.

One of the most familiar characters seen in every town, large or small, was the Batushka. This character is usually attired in a long, black or gray smock and his hair reaches in long curls to his shoulders. At first sight to the Yankee soldiers he resembled very much the members of the House of David or so-called "Holy Roller" sect in this country. This mysterious individual, commonly called Batushka, as we later discovered, was the village priest. The priest of course belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church and whose head in the old days was the Czar. The priests differ very greatly from the ministers of the gospel and priests in the English-speaking world. They have certain religious functions to perform in certain set ways, outside of which they never venture to stray. The Russian priest is merely expected to conform to certain observances and to perform the rites and ceremonies prescribed by the Church. He rarely preaches or exhorts, and neither has nor seeks to have a moral control over his flock. Marriage among the priests is not prohibited but is limited, that is to say, the priest is allowed to marry but once, and consequently, in choosing the wife he usually picks one of the strongest and healthiest women in the community. This selection is in all seriousness an important matter in the priest's life because he draws practically no salary from his position and must own a share of the community land, till and cultivate the same in exactly the same manner as the rest of the community, consequently his wife must be strong and healthy in order to assist him in the many details of managing his small holdings. In case she were such a strong and healthy person, the loss of the wife would be a calamity in more ways than one to the priest as is apparent by the above statements.

While the religious beliefs and doctrines of the average peasant is only used by him as a practical means toward an end, yet it must be admitted that the Russian people are in a certain sense religious. They regularly go to church on Sundays and Holy Days, of which there are countless numbers, cross themselves repeatedly when they pass a church or Icon, take the holy communion at stated seasons, rigorously abstain from animal food, not only on Wednesdays and Fridays but also during Lent and the other long fasts, make occasional pilgrimages to the holy shrines and in a word fulfill carefully the ceremonial observance which they suppose necessary for their salvation.

Of theology in its deeper sense the peasant has no intelligent comprehension. For him the ceremonial part of religion suffices and he has the most unbounded childlike confidence in the saving efficacy of the rites which he practices.

Men of education and of great influence among the people were these sad-faced priests, until the Bolsheviks came to undermine their power; for the Bolsheviks have spared not the old Imperial government. The church had been a potent organization for the Czar to strengthen his sway throughout his far-reaching dominions and every priest was an enlisted crusader of the Little Father. So the Bolsheviki, sweeping over the country, have seized, first of all, upon these priests of Romanoff, torturing them to death with hideous cruelty, if there be any truth in stories, and finding vindictive delight in deriding sacred things and violating holy places.

The moujik, ever susceptible to influence, has been quick to become infected with this bacillus of agnosticism, and while he still professes the faith and observes many of the forms as by habit, his fervor is cooling and already is grown luke-warm. Now on Sundays, despite all of the execrations of the priest, and the terrible threats of eternal damnation, he often dozes the Sabbath away unperturbed on the stove; and lets the women attend to the church going. Under Bolshevik rule Holy Russia will be Agnostic Russia; and it is a pity, for religious teaching was the guiding star of these poor people, and religious precepts, hard, gloomy and dismal though they were, the foundation of the best in their character.

Icons are pictorial, usually half length representations of the Saviour or the Madonna or some patron saint, finished in a very archaic Byzantine style on a yellow or gold background, and vary in size from a square inch to several square feet. Very often the whole picture is covered with various ornaments, ofttimes with precious stones. In respect to their religious significance icons are of two classes, simple or miracle-working. The former are manufactured in enormous quantities and are to be found in every Russian house, from the lowest peasant to the highest official. They are generally placed high up in a corner of the living room facing the door, and every good Orthodox peasant on entering the door bows in the direction of the icon and crosses himself repeatedly. Before and after meals the same ceremony is always performed and on holiday or fete days a small taper or candle is kept burning before the icon throughout the day.

An amusing incident is related which took place in the allied hospital in Shenkursk. A young medical officer had just arrived from Archangel and was sitting in the living room or entrance-way of the hospital directly underneath one of these icons. One of the village ladies, having occasion to call at the hospital, entered the front door and as usual stepped toward the center of the room facing the icon, bowed very low and started crossing herself. The young officer who was unacquainted with the Russian custom, believing that she was saluting him, quickly stepped forward and stretched forth his hand to shake hands with her while she was still in the act of crossing herself. Great was his consternation when he was later informed by his interpreter of the significance of this operation.

Doughboys on the Railroad front at Obozerskaya will recall the fact that when the first three Americans killed in action in North Russia were buried, it was impossible to get one of our chaplains from Archangel to come to Obozerskaya to bury them. The American officer in command engaged the local Russian priest to perform the religious service. By some trick of fate it had happened that these first Americans who fell in action were of Slavic blood, so the strange funeral which the doughboys witnessed was not so incongruous after all.

With the long-haired, wonderfully-robed priest came his choir and many villagers, who occupied one side of the square made by the soldiers standing there in the dusk to do last honors to their dead comrades. With chantings and doleful chorus the choir answered his solemn oratory and devotional intercessions. He swung his sacred censer pot over each body and though we understood no word we knew he was doing reverence to the spirit of sacrifice shown by our fallen comrades. There in the darkness by the edge of the forest, the priest and his ceremony, the firing squad's volley, and the bugler's last call, all united to make that an allied funeral. The American soldier and the priest and his pitiful people had really begun to spin out threads of sympathy which were to be woven later into a fabric of friendliness. The doughboy always respected the honest peasant's religious customs.



XXXIII

BOLSHEVISM

Why Chapter Is Written—Venerable Kropotkin's Message Direct From Central Russia—Official Report Of United States Department Of State —Conclusions Of Study Prepared For National Chamber Of Commerce —Authoritative Comment By Men Who Are In Position To Know—A Cartoon And Comment Which Speak For Veterans.

The writers have an idea that the veterans of the North Russian Expedition would like a short, up-to-date chapter on Bolshevism. We used to wonder why it was that John Bolo was so willing to fight us and the White Guards. We would not wish to emphasize the word willing for we remember the fact that many a time when he was beaten back from our defenses we knew by the sound that he was being welcomed back to his camp by machine guns. And the prisoners and wounded whom we captured were not always enthusiastic about the Bolshevism under whose banner they fought. To be fair, however, we must remark that we captured some men and officers who were sure enough believers in their cause.

And the general reader will probably like a chapter presented by men who were over in that civil war-torn north country and who might be expected to gather the very best materials available on the subject of Bolshevism. And what we have gathered we present with not much comment except that we ourselves are trying to keep a tolerant but wary eye upon those who profess to believe in Bolshevism. We say candidly that we think Bolshevism is a failure. But we do not condemn everyone else who differs with us. Let there be fair play and justice to all, freedom of thought and speech, with decent respect for the rights of all.

The first article is adapted from an article in The New York Times of recent date, according to which Margaret Bondfield, a member of the British Labor Delegation which recently visited Russia, went to see Peter Kropotkin, the celebrated Russian economist and anarchist, at his home at Dimitroff, near Moscow. The old man gave her a message to the workers of Great Britain and the western world:

"In the first place, the workers of the civilized world and their friends among other classes should persuade their governments to give up completely the policy of armed intervention in the affairs of Russia, whether that intervention is open or disguised, military, or under the form of subventions by different nations.

"Russia is passing through a revolution of the same significance and of equal importance that England passed through in 1639-1648 and France in 1789-1794. The nations of today should refuse to play the shameful role to which England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia sank during the French Revolution.

"Moreover, it is necessary to consider that the Russian Revolution—which seeks to erect a society in which the full production of the combined efforts of labor, technical skill and scientific knowledge shall go to the community itself—is not a mere accident in the struggle of parties. The revolution has been in preparation for nearly a century by Socialist and Communist propaganda, since the times of Robert Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier. And although the attempt to introduce the new society by the dictatorship of a party apparently seems condemned to defeat, it must be admitted that the revolution has already introduced into our life new conceptions of the rights of labor, its true position in society, and the duties of each citizen.

Not only the workers, but all progressive elements in the civilized nations should bring to an end the support so far given to the adversaries of the revolution. This does not mean that there is nothing to oppose in the methods of the Bolshevist government. Far from it! But all armed intervention by a foreign power necessarily results in an increase of the dictatorial tendencies of the rulers and paralyzes the efforts of those Russians who are ready to aid Russia, independent of her government, in the restoration of her life.

"The evils inherent in the party dictatorship have grown because of the war conditions in which this party has maintained itself. The state of war has been the pretext for increasing the dictatorial methods of the party as well as the reason for the tendency to centralize each detail of life in the hands of the government, which has resulted in the cessation of many branches of the nation's usual activities. The natural evils of state Communism have been multiplied tenfold under the pretext that the distress of our existence is due to the intervention of foreigners.

"It is my firm opinion that if the military intervention of the Allies is continued it will certainly develop in Russia a bitter sentiment with respect to the western nations, a sentiment that will be utilized some day in future conflicts. This bitter feeling is already growing.

"So far as our present economic and political situation is concerned, the Russian revolution, being the continuation of the two great revolutions in England and France, undertakes to progress beyond the point where France stopped when she perceived that actual equality consists in economic equality.

"Unfortunately, this attempt has been made in Russia under the strongly centralized dictatorship of a party, the Maximalist Social Democrats. The Baboeuf conspiracy, extremely centralized and jacobinistic, tried to apply a similar policy. I am compelled frankly to admit that, in my opinion, this attempt to construct a communist republic with a strongly centralized state communism as its base, under the iron law of the dictatorship of a party, is bound to end in a fiasco. We are learning in Russia how communism should not be introduced, even by a people weary of the ancient regime and making no active resistance to the experimental projects of the new rulers.

"The Soviet idea—that is to say, councils of workers and peasants, first developed during the revolutionary uprisings of 1905 and definitely realized during the revolution of February, 1917—the idea of these councils controlling the economic and political life of the country, is a great conception. Especially so because it necessarily implies that the councils should be composed of all those who take a real part in the production of national wealth by their own personal efforts.

"But as long as a country is governed by the dictatorship of a party, the workers' and peasants' councils evidently lose all significance. They are reduced to the passive role formerly performed by the states generals and the parliaments when they were convened by the king and had to combat an all-powerful royal council.

"A labor council ceases to be a free council when there is no liberty of the press in the country, and we have been in this situation for nearly two years—under the pretext that we are in a state of war. But that is not all. The workers' and peasants' councils lose all their significance unless the elections are preceded by a free electoral campaign and when the elections are conducted under the pressure of the dictatorship of a party. Naturally, the stock excuse is that the dictatorship is inevitable as a method to fight the ancient regime. But such a dictatorship evidently becomes a barrier from the moment when the revolution undertakes the construction of a new society on a new economic basis. The dictatorship condemns the new structure to death.

"The methods resorted to in overthrowing governments already tottering are well known to history, ancient and modern. But when it is necessary to create new forms of life—especially new forms of production and exchange—without examples to follow, when everything must be constructed from the ground up, when a government that undertakes to supply even lamp chimneys to every inhabitant demonstrates that it is absolutely unable to perform this function with all its employees, however limitless their number may be, when this condition is reached such a government becomes a nuisance. It develops a bureaucracy so formidable that the French bureaucratic system, which imposes the intervention of 40 functionaries to sell a tree blown across a national road by a storm, becomes a bagatelle in comparison. This is what you, the workers in the occidental countries, should and must avoid by all possible means since you have at heart the success of a social reconstruction. Send your delegates here to see how a social revolution works in actual life.

"The prodigious amount of constructive labor necessary under a social revolution cannot be accomplished by a central government, even though it may be guided by something more substantial than a collection of Socialist and anarchistic manuals. It requires all the brain power available and the voluntary collaboration of specialized and local forces, which alone can attack with success the diversity of the economic problems in their local aspects. To reject this collaboration and to rely on the genius of a party dictatorship is to destroy the independent nucleus, such as the trade unions and the local co-operative societies by changing them into party bureaucratic organs, as is actually the case at present. It is the method not to accomplish the revolution. It is the method to make the realization of the revolution impossible. And this is the reason why I consider it my duty to warn you against adopting such methods.

It must be evident to the reader that Russia is at present being ruled by a system of pyramided majorities, many of which are doubtful popular majorities. In the name of the Red Party Lenin and Trotsky rule. They themselves admit it. The dictatorship of the proletariat, and similar terms are used by them in referring to their highly centralized control. We Americans are in the habit of overturning state and national administrations when we think one party has ruled long enough. Even a popular war president at the pinnacle of his power found the American people resenting, so it has been positively affirmed, his plea for the return of his party to continued control in 1918. Can we as a self-governing people look with anything but wonder at the occasional American who fails to see that the perpetual rule of one party year after year which we as Americans have always doubted the wisdom of, is the very thing that Lenin and Trotsky have fastened upon Russia. Russia, that wanted to be freed from the Romanoff rule and its bureaucratic system of fraud, waste, and cruelty, today groans under a system of despotism which is just as, if not more, wasteful, fraudulent and cruel.

There are sincere people who might think that because the Bolsheviks have kept themselves in power, that they must be right. We can not agree with the reasoning. Even if we knew nothing about the bayonets and machine guns and firing squads and prisons, we would not agree to the reasoning that the Bolshevik government is right just because it is in power. We prefer the reasoning of the greatest man whom America has produced, Abraham Lincoln, whose words, which we quote, seem to us to exactly fit the present Russian situation:

"A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only free sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left."—Abraham Lincoln.

The Chamber of Commerce of the United States has, through Frederic J. Haskin, Washington, D. C., distributed an admirable pamphlet, temperate and judicial, which compares the Soviet system with the American constitutional system. This pamphlet written by Hon. Burton L. French, of Idaho, concludes his discussion as follows:

"In a government that has been heralded so widely as being the most profound experiment in democracy that has ever been undertaken, we would naturally expect that the franchise would be along lines that would recognize all mankind embraced within the citizenship of the nation as standing upon an equal footing. The United States has for many years adhered to that principle. It was that principle largely for which our fathers died when they established our government, and yet that principle seems foreign to the way of thinking of Lenin and Trotsky as they shaped the Russian constitution.

PARALLEL 8—THOSE WHO MAY VOTE RUSSIA 1. The franchise extends to all over 18 years of age who have acquired the means of living through manual labor, and also persons engaged in housekeeping for the former.

2. Soldiers of the army and navy.

3. The former two classes when incapacitated.

UNITED STATES All men (and women in many states, and soon in all) who are citizens and over 21 years of age, excepting those disfranchised on account of illiteracy, mental ailment or criminal record.

"Bear in mind the liberal franchise with which the American Nation meets her citizens and let me ask you to contemplate the franchise that is handed out to the people of Russia who are; 18 years of age or over who have acquired the means of living through labor that is productive and useful to society and persons engaged in housekeeping in behalf of the former are entitled to the franchise. Who else? The soldiers of the army and navy. Who else? Any of the former two classes who have become incapacitated.

"Now turn to the next sections of the Russian constitution and see who are disfranchised.

"The merchant is disfranchised; ministers of all denominations are disfranchised; and then, while condemning the Czar for tyranny, the soviet constitution solemnly declares that those who were in the employ of the Czar or had been members of the families of those who had ruled in Russia for many generations shall be denied suffrage.

"Persons who have income from capital or from property that is theirs by reason of years of frugality, industry, and thrift are penalized by being denied the right to vote. They are placed in the class with criminals, while the profligate, the tramp who works enough to obtain the means by which he can hold body and soul together, is able to qualify under the constitution of Russia and is entitled to a vote. Under that system in the United States the loyal men and women who bought Liberty Bonds, in their country's peril would be disfranchised while the slacker would have the right of suffrage.

"Persons who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it an increase in profits may not vote or hold office. Under that system the manufacturer who furnishes employment for a thousand men would be denied the ballot, while those in his employ could freely exercise the right of franchise. Under that system the farmer who hires a crew of men to help him harvest his crop is denied the franchise. Under that system the dairyman who hires a boy to milk his cows or to deliver milk is denied the franchise.

"The constitution of Russia adopts the declaration of rights as part of the organic act to the extent that changes have not been made, by the constitution. Examine them—the constitution and the declaration of rights—we find other most astounding doctrines in the soviet fundamental law. I shall not discuss but merely mention a few of them. They do not pertain so much to the structure of government as they do to the economic and social conditions surrounding the people under the soviet system:

"First. Private ownership of land is abolished. (No compensation, open or secret, is paid to the former owner.)

"Second. Civil marriage alone is legal. By act of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets a marriage may be accomplished by the contracting parties declaring the fact orally, or by writing to the department of registry of marriage. Divorce is granted by petition of both or either party upon proof alone that divorce is desired.

"Third. The teaching of religious doctrines is forbidden in private schools, as well as in schools that are public.

"Fourth. No church or religious society has the right to own property. (The soviet leaders boldly proclaim the home and the church as the enemies of their system, and from the foregoing it would seem that they are trying to destroy them.)

"Fifth. Under the general authority granted to the soviets by the constitution inheritance of property by law or will has been abolished.

"These amazing features of the constitution and laws enacted under the constitution speak more eloquently than any words that could be used to amplify them in portraying the hideousness of a system of government that, if permitted to continue, must inevitably crush out the home in large part by the flippancy with which marriage and divorce are regarded, by the refusal of permitting the land to be held in private ownership, and by refusing the parent the right at death to pass on to his wife or to his children the fruits of years of toil.

"What, then, is my arraignment of sovietism according to the soviet constitution?

"1. The people have no direct vote or voice in government, except the farmers in their local rural soviets and the city dwellers in their urban soviets.

"2. The rural, county, provincial, regional, and All-Russian soviets are elected indirectly, and the people have no direct vote in the election.

"3. The people have no voice in the election of executive officers of the highest or lowest degrees.

"4. There is no mention of independent judicial officers in the constitution.

"5. The people are very largely disfranchised.

"6. The farmer of Russia is discriminated against.

"7. The system raises class against class; the voters vote by trade and craft groups instead of on the basis of thought units.

"8. The system strikes a blow at the church and the home.

"9. The system is pyramidal and means highly centralized and autocratic power.

"The soviet system of government can not be defended. It is against the interests of the very men for whom it is supposed to have been established—the laboring man. He is the man most of all who must suffer under any kind of government or system that is wrong. He is the man who would be out of bread within the shortest time. He is the man whose family would be destitute of clothing in the shortest time. He is the man whose family will suffer through disease, famine, and pestilence in the shortest time.

"As it is against the best interest of the laboring man, so it is against the best interest of all the people, and, as a matter of fact, the overwhelming mass of people of this country and all countries is made up of laboring people.

"Finally, the soviet government, as foreshadowed in its constitution, is obviously unjust, unfair and discriminatory. This fact will appear at once to any mind trained to the American manner of thought, which takes the trouble to investigate sovietism, and whatever tendency there may be to approve will disappear with better understanding."

"Men in high places who have had opportunity to get the facts," says Mr. Burton, "give their impressions of the experiment:

"WOODROW WILSON, President of the United States.—'There is a closer monopoly of power in Moscow and Petrograd than there ever was in Berlin.'

"SAMUEL GOMPERS, President of the American Federation of Labor.— 'Bolshevism is as great an attempt to disrupt the trade unions as it is to overturn the government of the United States. It means the decadence or perversion of the civilization of our time. To me, the story of the desperate Samson who pulled the temple down on his head is an example of what is meant by bolshevism.'

"MORRIS HILLQUIT, International Secretary of the Socialist Party.—'The Socialists of the United States would have no hesitancy whatsoever in joining forces with the rest of their countrymen to repel the Bolsheviki who would try to invade our country and force a form of government upon our people which our people were not ready for, and did not desire.'

"HERBERT HOOVER, Former United States Food Administrator.—'The United States has been for one hundred and fifty years steadily developing a social philosophy of its own. This philosophy has stood this test in the fire of common sense. We have a willingness to abide by the will of the majority. For all I know it may be necessary to have revolutions in some places in Europe in order to bring about these things, but it does not follow that such philosophies have any place with us.'

"WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, Former President of the United States.—'I do not fear bolshevism in this country. I do not mean that in congested centers foreigners and agitators will not have influence. But Americans as a whole have a deep love for America. It is a vital love that the sensational appeals of bolshevists and agitators cannot weaken'."