SIBERIA TO-DAY
[Illustration]
SIBERIA TO-DAY
BY
FREDERICK F. MOORE
LATE CAPTAIN, INTELLIGENCE DIVISION, GENERAL STAFF
A. E. F. SIBERIA
AUTHOR OF “THE DEVIL’S ADMIRAL”
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1919, by
THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY
Copyright, 1919, by
LESLIE’S WEEKLY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
The attitude of mind with which a writer approaches his subject is
the core of his book. My purpose in recording my observations and
impressions while serving in Siberia is to tell such citizens of the
United States as may be interested some of the things they may want to
know about the Siberians.
This is not a “war book,” nor an account of thrilling deeds, nor a
history of our expedition in Siberia, but a book in which I have
attempted to bring to the public a realization of the difficulties
under which our officers and men performed, and perform, their duties
in that land. These difficulties are partly inherent in the Siberians
themselves, partly the result of the chaos following the Russian
revolution and Bolshevism, and partly the result of a lack of policy
for Siberia on our part.
The people of the United States undoubtedly feel sympathy for all
Russia, and desire to aid it in some way; President Wilson, we all
know, burdened with the world war’s problems, seeks a solution of the
Russian situation which will give the people of Russia the fullest
possible means of attaining national liberty.
Officers of high rank in Siberia, and correspondents, came more
closely in touch with exalted personages than did I, who traveled
practically alone and mixed mostly with the peasants. Had I been with
military and civil commissions, traveling in private cars, I might
now have an entirely different viewpoint on the Siberian problem. I
know Siberia as a land of peasants, rather than as a place where I met
governmental chiefs and heard the discussion of international policies.
I do not claim to hold the secret of just what would, or will, bring
Siberia an ideal state of affairs in government. I deal only with what
came under my personal observation, and draw my own conclusions, with
the hope that from my impressions there may be gathered some hint of
a better understanding of some of the problems which confront our
government.
I have no apology to make for an excessive use of the first person
singular, for it was my intention as I wrote that the reader should
travel with me and see through my eyes the things he would like to see.
It is not necessary, of course, to agree with my conclusions, which
have no political or other bias, no animus toward those who have been
responsible for the conduct of the war or who have directed the affairs
of the nation in a time of stress. Where strong feeling on the Siberian
situation is displayed, it springs from nothing else but a desire to
see our nation acquit itself well in the eyes of Asia and the world.
I am but a volunteer reporter, attempting, as I write a report, to
inject editorial opinion. I spent several years in the Far East in our
regular army and as a correspondent, in the period when our arms were
making history on a small scale in the Philippines and China, so my
viewpoint on Asia was not gained wholly during my stay in Siberia. And
I believe it is time that we get a better understanding of Asia, and
seek to have Asia understand us.
I am indebted to Captain Donald Thompson, the noted Kansan
war-photographer, for the illustrations in this book.
FREDERICK F. MOORE.
NEW YORK.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EXILED TO SIBERIA 1
II. THE SECRET “GETAWAY” 5
III. JAPAN TO VLADIVOSTOK 16
IV. TOWARD KHABAROVSK 27
V. BOLSHEVISTS AND BATHS 37
VI. HETMAN OF THE USSURI 48
VII. FROM KHABAROVSK TO USHUMUN 64
VIII. ON THE BACK TRAIL 82
IX. A RED SWEATER AND THE GENERAL 93
X. OVER THE AMUR RIVER ON HORSEBACK 104
XI. THE MACHINE THAT SQUEAKED 114
XII. AN ARMY IMPRESARIO 121
XIII. AWAY TO TRANS-BAIKAL 130
XIV. THE CITY OF CONVICTS 150
XV. ATAMAN SEMENOFF 158
XVI. FAMINE IN CHITA 165
XVII. NEW YEAR WITH THE JAPANESE 172
XVIII. DIPLOMACY AND--MICE 186
XIX. NEW FRIENDS, PRISONS, AND OTHER THINGS 196
XX. THE SOBRANIA 206
XXI. POLITICS AND PRINKIPO 227
XXII. FAREWELL TO CHITA 237
XXIII. CHITA TO VLADIVOSTOK 247
XXIV. THE PEASANTS 258
XXV. FRENZIED FINANCE 280
XXVI. LEAVES FROM MY NOTE BOOK 293
XXVII. THE JOKER IN BOLSHEVISM 305
XXVIII. THE UNITED STATES IN ASIA 316
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
Siberian Types--When They Smile Less and Think More
They Will Find Freedom _Frontispiece_
The American Army Mules Arrive in Vladivostok for Duty 24
Street Service in Vladivostok with Bay in Distance 24
An American Doughboy Helping Make Siberia “Safe for Democracy” 48
Night View of Vladivostok Harbor from Hill of City 48
Russian Soldiers Clearing the Track After a Wreck on the
Trans-Siberian 100
Japanese Officers Talking with an American Officer 100
Ataman Semenoff, Chief of the Trans-Baikal Cossacks 158
Mongol and Tartar Descendants of Conquering Hordes with 1919
Model “Cars” 158
Siberians Celebrating the Signing of the Armistice 200
Room in House at Ekaterinburg where Czar and His Family are
Reputed to Have Been Executed 200
An Example of Carving on a Typical Siberian House 230
Typical Russian Church in Cities of Siberia 230
Some American Railroad Men of the “Russian Railway Service” 250
Washing Clothes in Sixty-below-zero Weather 250
SIBERIA TO-DAY
I
EXILED TO SIBERIA
“Let me see your palm!”
A smiling major thus accosted me in the offices of the Military
Intelligence Division of the General Staff of the army in Washington
the latter part of July, 1918.
The weather was hot as Billy-be Hanged--hotter than I had ever known it
in the Philippines, or so it seemed. It was hotter than the roadstead
of Singapore, hotter than the mud-baked streets of Suez City, hotter
than Malacca Strait.
In former times of tropical soldiering, I had seen commanding generals
working in their undershirts. But a new discipline pervaded our new
army, and we were imitating the Prussian system, and doing our best to
look and work as secretly as possible in uniform coats with high stiff
collars. We realized that the more uncomfortable we might feel, the
quicker the war would be won in France.
I gave my limp and perspiring hand to the smiling major. I suspected
that his pleasantry meant that I had been selected to pay for the
dinner that night of our own particular little group of plotters
against the Imperial German Government and its agents in the United
States.
“You are going to take a long journey,” said the major, as he examined
the corns on my fingers, which were the result of soldiering with a
pencil. For having been a cavalryman, the powers that be in Washington
had given me a flat-top desk covered with a blue sheet of blotting
paper, and a swivel chair as a buffer for my spurs. What I wanted to do
was to cross sabers with the Death Head Hussars, and maybe get a thrust
at the Crown Prince himself. But when I looked at that blue blotter
every morning, I realized what a terrible war it was, after all--for
old cavalrymen.
My smiling major sobered suddenly.
“You are going to take a long journey,” he said.
I caught a serious glint in his eyes, and holding my breath for an
instant before I dared speak, I asked as casually as I could: “Will it
be a sea trip?”
Another serious examination of the lines in my palm.
“Yes.”
“Do you,” I asked, “see in the delicate hand you hold any indication
that I am to be thrown among rude and rough soldiers, where a man
may swear with a gentle forbearance without being overheard by a
stenographer who chews gum?”
“I do,” said the amateur seer, more serious than ever.
“Glory be!” I breathed. “I have been in your beautiful city just eight
days, and the chef at the hotel cooks well, but he does not know how
to growl, not being an army cook. Also, this blue blotter is making me
color blind. Have I been ordered to where bombs are bursting in air?”
“You have. There are a lot of bums in the direction you are going.
Plans have been made to establish a new front against Germany in
Russia. I suggest that you make your will and go out and buy some fur
mittens. Your orders are to report to Vladivostok, for duty in Siberia.”
I sat down and turned the electric fan in such a way that I got its
full effect in my face, and tried to shiver. Siberia! How many times
had that word been heard with feelings of terror by Russians doomed
to exile! Fancy my impressions in mid-summer in Washington, on being
told that I was going to Siberia! Cold, ice, snow, steppes, wolves,
whiskers, prisons, Cossacks, wild horses, ski’s and ovitches! All these
things passed in review before my mind’s eye against a background of
heat waves rising out of F Street, where the coolest thing in sight was
a traffic policeman near the Treasury Building, standing on melting
asphalt under a white umbrella which displayed an advertisement of a
nearby soda fountain.
I reached for my blue desk-blotter, tore it in bits, and hurled the
pieces into the waste basket.
The smiling major wandered away to the nether regions, where they
wrote orders which sent American soldiers into exile in Siberia, as
calmly as they wrote orders which insisted that all officers keep their
blouses buttoned to their chins in tropical Washington.
II
THE SECRET “GETAWAY”
Crossing the continent in our special car, we began to study Russian,
to scan maps of the Russian Empire, to talk of strategy, and to go on
learning how to be as secret as possible. This last was accomplished by
crowding fifteen officers into one of the drawing-rooms, and holding
in this sweat box, what the young officer who had taken upon his
shoulders the weight of the Russian campaign, called “conferences.”
These conferences did no particular harm, and so far as I could see, no
particular good, unless it was to make us yearn for cold weather and
more congenial surroundings for our corns.
I am going to call this young officer Smith, not because I have any
animosity toward the well-known Smith family, but because it is handy.
We also called him “the oldest living boy scout in the world.” And
he provided much amusement for us, as he pinned the big map of the
expansive Russian Empire on the wall of the drawing-room, and discussed
the railroad tunnels around Lake Baikal, and showed us how we could get
round the flank of the Bolshevist army at Samara.
We were all aware of the fact that General Graves was going to have
a lot of labor taken off his mind (real, hard-thinking labor), and as
Smith spoke of thousands of versts as readily as if his mother had kept
a boarding house for versts, we realized that before long we would have
plenty of elbow room. (Incidentally, Smith never left Vladivostok, and
his wide study of Russian geography was of no use to him except for
conversational purposes.)
We began to suspect that this intense interest in the campaign, before
we reached Siberia, was, in addition to being help for the Chief of
Staff of the Siberian Expedition, making a decided impression on
the son of General Graves, a young major who had seen and done good
fighting in France and wore the Croix de Guerre, and now was being
sent to Siberia. He attended one conference in that hot drawing-room,
and then, undoubtedly feeling that we were safe in the hands of Smith,
spent the remainder of his free time in the observation car, which
indicated to us all that he was gifted with an extraordinary amount of
good sense.
Smith on his own responsibility organized a little general staff,
and with a typewriter, wrote orders about various trifles, covering
what the officers and field clerks should do in Chicago, and what
they should not do, assigning an officer to the duty of looking after
baggage with the serious mien suitable to ordering a battalion to go
over the top at zero hour, setting forth with maddening exactitude the
minute at which the field clerks would go to the depot quartermasters
in Chicago to buy uniform caps.
Before reaching San Francisco, Smith wired for the Intelligence Officer
in San Francisco to arrange for a hotel, for taxicabs to take us to
the hotel, circulated “memoranda” among us as to whether or not we
were willing to pay for the taxis he had ordered, and asking us with
paternal care, to signify the officers with whom we intended to share
rooms. Some wag suggested discreetly that we should arrange by wire
for a supply of lollypops, and that we each specify the color desired.
Smith turned a baleful eye in the direction of the wag.
We found that General Graves had sailed ahead of our arrival. He
evidently had not been aware of the value of Smith’s counsel. We faced
a wait of three weeks for the transport. We went to our rooms in the
Fairmont, and in the morning Smith marched us down to the paymaster’s
and handed us out blanks and set up a table in the corridor of
headquarters of the Western Division, from which he superintended the
signing of our names to our vouchers. Back at the hotel again, he got
the office of the depot quartermaster on the telephone, and for three
weeks he worried the life out of a patient major. (This major sailed
with us, but for some reason or other, was assigned to the transport
_Logan_, while we were assigned to the _Sheridan_. Likewise by some
peculiar whim of Fate, Major Graves also sailed in the _Logan_, though
he confided to some of us that he was sorry not to be with us.)
Smith resumed his conferences. His field clerk would call all our rooms
on the telephone and summon us to secret meetings in Smith’s room. The
bellboys were much impressed by these gatherings. They knew we were
Intelligence Officers, and they felt we were up to something which was
dark and mysterious. If they had listened at our locked door they might
have heard Smith advising us to get smoked goggles, or asking us for
the sizes of our shoes, and whether we preferred our canvas Alaskan
coats lined with yellow or blue felt.
In spite of the burden of these details, Smith managed to find a
professor in a nearby college who had lived in Japan several years and
talked Japanese fluently. Smith felt that this man would be of value
to the expedition, as we were to serve with General Otani’s Japanese
divisions.
But the professor had his family in Berkeley, his position in the
college, and was also serving in an advisory capacity for the local
Board of Trade in Japanese commercial matters. He could not afford to
leave home unless assured a good salary.
Smith, we understood, had said that if the professor would go, he
would be given the rank of major, and instead of being classed as an
interpreter, would have the title of “advisor” or something of that
sort, to the American Expeditionary Forces in Siberia.
But in the short time before our departure, Smith asked Washington
to authorize the engaging of the professor as a field clerk, when
Smith had brought the urgency of the matter to the attention of a
public-spirited citizen of San Francisco, who put to the professor’s
credit in a local bank some two thousand dollars to insure him an
adequate income in addition to the pay as field clerk. So the professor
went with us.
As the sailing date approached, and we had finished buying clothing and
equipment suitable for a polar expedition, Smith became more secretive
than ever. The night of the first of September he called a last
conference, in which he issued envelopes containing tags for our heavy
baggage.
“Gentlemen,” he announced, looking at us over his glasses in his
room, strewn with Red Cross gifts for us, “the name of our transport
is the _Sheridan_. In these envelopes are the tags, with the name of
the ship. The envelopes serve to conceal the name of the transport,
and will not be removed from the tags till the baggage is inside the
enclosure of the transport dock. You will not disclose to any person
the name of the transport. And I have ordered taxicabs to be at the
hotel at nine in the morning. All officers will appear on the hotel
veranda at that hour, with their hand baggage, and ready to get into
the taxicabs. The drivers have been told that they are to take us to
the ferry building, but at the last minute I will tell them that we are
to go to the transport dock. I have assigned the officers in pairs to
each cab, and as I call the number of the cab, the officers assigned
to it, will enter it, and then wait for the order to move out. Is that
satisfactory?”
Trying to keep our faces straight, we decided we were suited. Then
the wag in the party asked if we were to keep secret from the hotel
management the fact that we were departing.
“Most certainly,” said Smith, swallowing bait, line and sinker.
“Then I suggest,” said the wag, “that we do not pay our hotel bills.
That would be the proper procedure, to keep it all dark and secret.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Smith. “Of course we will pay our bills in the
morning at the last minute.”
“I think,” said the wag, “that after all, the clerk looks like a loyal
American citizen, and can be trusted. And as the _Sheridan_ is at the
dock, in plain sight of the hotel and such of San Francisco as cares to
go and look at it, we will have to take the chance that the day after
it sails, it will not be missed--or folks will think it has gone up to
Mare Island Navy Yard to be painted or something. That, however, is one
of the hazards of war--we must risk the deductions of the local amateur
sleuths and spies of the Kaiser.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Smith, and handed him the sealed envelopes for
baggage, with the tag-string sticking out a slit in the end.
In the morning the porter took out my bedding-roll and lockers, and
moved my grip to the hotel veranda. He looked at the envelopes, seeking
the destination of the baggage, but I coldly informed him that an army
truck would take them from the baggage entrance of the hotel, and he
need not worry. He felt relieved.
I went to the desk and asked for my bill. A prosperous citizen asked
the clerk when the next trans-Pacific ship sailed.
“I’m not sure,” said the clerk. “There is some ship sailing to-day,
because there are a lot of officers here going to Siberia. That’s their
baggage out on the porch. But probably they are going in the transport
_Sheridan_ or _Logan_--I understand they sail to-day.”
The clerk did not know it, but I felt like shooting him. At least
something should be done about it. We had done our best to be secret,
and here he was telling a perfect stranger with a diamond in his tie
and wearing most suspicious spats, the fact that this was the regular
sailing date for transports from San Francisco, and that we were going
to Siberia. But I paid my bill, and gave a bellboy a quarter just to
show there were no hard feelings.
Outside on the veranda I found the officers standing about with their
luggage, the center of an interested group of civilians, and drawn up
in a semi-circle, a fleet of taxis. Smith was nervously waiting my
coming. Immediately he began calling out numbers, and taxis turned
in and stopped, and by pairs, the officers took their places in the
vehicles.
Smith then went to the leading driver, and whispered something to him,
got into the leading cab, and shut the door.
“Follow me to the transport dock, fellers,” bawled the leading driver
to the others, and secretly, a dozen taxis with officers and field
clerks, wheeled out in column. We hoped that the civilians we passed in
California Street and Van Ness Avenue toward Fort Mason, en route to
the transport dock, would not notice us.
The transports _Dix_, _Sheridan_ and _Logan_ were at the piers,
the latter with naval guns mounted forward, the _Sheridan_ with
field-pieces lashed on the forecastle-head, and machine-guns on the
after bridge. Blue Peters, the signal-flags which announce that
a vessel sails that day, hung limply from the fore-trucks of the
_Sheridan_ and _Logan_. The troops to go with us marched in from
nearby military posts all day, and swarms of relatives, friends
and sightseers, gathered on the hills near Fort Mason to watch the
transports.
It was all a matter of regular routine to the dock-workers. The
Pacific transports had been sailing on their regular schedule to the
Philippines, Honolulu and Guam during the war, and looked no different
in their gray paint than they had in the old days of the Philippine
campaigns, except that the red, white and blue bands were missing from
their funnels.
Smith cautioned us not to leave the dock, and not to send any messages
outside, such as telegrams or letters. All day our little party
stood round in the sheds and waited, except when they went to the
dock-workers’ mess nearby for lunch. I had occasion to go aboard the
_Sheridan_, and finding the room to which I had been assigned, put a
deck-chair by the door, on the side away from the dock, and spent the
afternoon reading, while Smith kept the others herded together on the
dock.
On five o’clock in the evening of September 2, 1918, the _Sheridan_
cast off her lines and we pulled out into the bay, to anchor, with the
_Logan_. At eight o’clock, under cover of darkness, the _Sheridan_
got under way and began moving toward the Golden Gate. I made out
the _Logan_ astern, without side-lights, but a single light at her
mast-head to mark her position.
We moved out at low speed secretly. As we came abreast of Fort Scott,
we made out red and white lights ahead, drawing in toward our bows. We
had been careful to burn no lights in our cabins, and refrained from
smoking on deck. We were willing to do everything to prevent being
torpedoed, and we realized that if we were to sneak away in the night,
we must take every precaution against being discovered. This was war,
you know.
The lights we had seen approaching drew nearer, until they were close
under our port bow. Somebody said it was a destroyer which was to
convoy us. We now heard the propeller of the strange craft threshing
the water as she stopped her way, and then a raucous voice bawled at
us: “What ship is that?”
Silence from our bridge.
Once more, in tones that could be heard from Lime Point to City Hall,
came the challenge out of the dark: “What ship is that?” And the
swaying red light below took on a baleful gleam.
“We’ll have to answer the blasted fool,” somebody growled on the
bridge, and a cross voice replied: “The _Sheridan_.”
“What?”
“The transport _Sheridan_,” came an exasperated bawl from our bridge.
“All right. Proceed to sea,” was the answer, and once more the
propellers threshed and passed astern, seeking out the _Logan_. We now
knew the boat to be a harbor patrol, guarding the entrance to the bay.
We appreciated its protection, and extreme care for two transports
trying to get away from San Francisco filled with troops. We wondered
if that happened to be the way the Germans sneaked out of their ports.
Presently we heard the _Logan_ challenged, as we had been, and the
reply from her bridge.
There were still more thrilling things in store for us. We saw the
beam of a searchlight from Fort Scott playing across the Golden Gate.
We expected that when we came within its range, it would lift and
let us pass. Instead, its beam was turned full upon us, and stayed
on us, lighting up the whole vessel till it looked like a floating
hotel drifting out to sea. It must have been a wonderful sight from
the hills of San Francisco. We went into the smoking-room, where the
steward had hung bath towels over the ports to conceal all lights,
and lit cigarettes with due precautions against showing the flash
of the match. We had to go somewhere to get out of the glare of that
searchlight.
Soon we felt the heave of the Pacific under us, the engines
settled down to their work to twist behind the miles between us
and Vladivostok, and we were off to the war, feeling as if we had
stolen somebody’s chickens. We had gotten away about as secretly as a
three-ring circus.
III
JAPAN TO VLADIVOSTOK
Our transports put in at Hakodate for coal. From San Francisco,
something had been wrong with the _Logan’s_ engines. What it was,
she would neither tell by wireless, nor signal by wig-wag. We heard
everything from a story that German spies had tangled fish-nets in her
propeller, to a yarn that bearings for her engines had been forgotten
on the dock. But the result was, that the _Logan_, which had been
armed especially to protect us, lolled behind, at times dropping below
the horizon, and we slopped around in the Pacific with steerage way,
waiting for her to catch up. This continued day after day, and we
burned deeply into our coal supply.
For some reason, we could not get enough coal in Hakodate, and after a
couple of days, pulled out for Otaru, Japan, where we stopped another
two days, and went ashore again. When we had exhausted the sights of
the small city, some of us went on to Sapporo by train, and saw that
provincial capital.
While we were ashore, a typhoon came up, and the _Logan_ dragged
her anchors, and came near to piling up on the breakwater. Several
Japanese coaling the transports from barges, were drowned.
On our return from Sapporo we found the roofs of Otaru rather
dislocated, a high wind still blowing, and no chance to get back
to ship that night. So some of us slept in the native hotel of the
town, and enjoyed the novelty of sitting on the floor for a Japanese
breakfast, while cross crows in a garden cawed at us and the gold fish
swam in the pretty pool of the court. The rickshawmen gleaned fortunes
from nearly a thousand soldiers on holiday with plenty of money to
spend.
That morning was rainy, and the streets were deep with mud. Coming
down to pay my hotel bill, I found a tall, lanky Kentuckian in an
argument with the proprietor, who, of course, spoke no English. The
lieutenant in command of the military police, a man who spoke several
languages, was doing his best to straighten out the difficulty, while
the Kentuckian, in his gray woolen socks, held up a pair of muddy shoes
which he regarded with contempt, the while displaying a marvellously
wicked vocabulary.
I lingered to see what it was all about. The Kentuckian modified his
language in my presence, which I rather deplored, for it was chilly
in that entrance and his remarks raised the temperature. On entering
a Japanese house or hotel, one must remove shoes and put on slippers.
Some fifteen or twenty shore-bound soldiers had remained at the hotel.
When they came down in the morning, they found their heavy marching
shoes stiff from the mud of the previous day, and shrunken. The result
was that the first applicants for shoes in the morning preferred the
larger sizes, and took such as fit them, regardless of who happened to
own them.
The Kentuckian appeared to be the last one down, and all that was left
for him in the way of footwear was one pair of wet shoes, size six.
When I came to look at his feet, I understood his predicament--he wore
at least size eleven. I got into a corner and had a discreet laugh. For
years before I had been in Japan with troops when I was not a captain,
and had some appreciation of the pranks of the enlisted men.
“What you ought to do,” I said, keeping as straight a face as possible,
“is to get a pair of Japanese _geta_, and walk to the ship in
them--they will keep you out of the mud.”
He looked at the wooden footwear I pointed out, with cleats under
the soles four inches high, and snorted, feeling that he could take
liberties with an officer who seemed so neighborly.
“I ain’t hankerin’ none to walk on them damned stilts, capting,” he
said, and I gave up all ideas of having any amusement from seeing him
navigate through the mud with his big toes thrust through the straps of
the wooden sandals. Secretly, I hoped he would attempt it, and lose the
sandals in the mud.
“Then take a rickshaw,” I suggested. “If you’re out of money, I’ll pay
for it.”
“Couldn’t git me to ride in none of them baby carriages,” he said, and
holding out the pair of infantile shoes to the Japanese proprietor,
demanded wrathfully that his own shoes be produced.
“No got, no got,” wailed a clerk, distractedly. The lieutenant of
military police once more plunged into a discourse that sounded as
if it might be Japanese. The audience listened respectfully, but
disclaimed all responsibility for what the soldiers had done. They had
not been able to prevent the other soldiers from taking the shoes that
had been selected from the collection that morning.
The Kentuckian disgustedly threw the shoes into a corner and started
out. I hailed him and suggested that he take the shoes with him and
exchange them aboard the transport. He assented doubtfully, and to the
amusement of the Japanese population, they saw a tall American soldier
walking down the muddy streets in his stockinged feet, carrying his
shoes in his hands, and making an oration. They were sure the American
was mad--Americans have such queer ways!
From Otaru we sailed for Vladivostok, crossing the Sea of Japan. It was
foggy weather, and we proceeded leisurely. The _Brooklyn_, lying in
Vladivostok harbor, got us by wireless, and the military staff demanded
information as to why we were so slow. They seemed in great pother and
we felt that we must be desperately needed.
This call for speed puzzled us, for the wireless flashed news to us
that the Bolshevist front had been pushed back, and was now five
thousand miles from the coast--at the Volga River. This news was
disappointing for an expedition which was properly keyed up for
immediate action, and was dreaming of landing under shell-fire or some
other dramatic phase of real war. And the medal-hounds cursed their
luck!
Our first sight of Vladivostok as we sailed up through the Golden Horn,
was of a peaceful city nestling among craggy hills, but bloated beyond
its natural size by acres of sheeted piles of war-stores. This great
fringe of covered stores resembled mushrooms which had come up in the
night around the city.
Bluejackets aboard the _Brooklyn_ hailed us with loving derision as
the _Sheridan_ felt her way to the dock; they joked us about our
machine-guns lashed to our after-bridge, and suggested that we check
our shooting-irons “at the door” in order to avoid trouble.
Our impressions of the people we saw on the docks were favorable.
Friendly-looking Russians in boots and whiskers, right out of our old
school geographies, and wearing the same belted blouses we had seen in
melodramas about exiles to Siberia, gathered to watch us disembark.
And Cossacks in sheepskin caps as big as garbage cans, smiled at us
good-naturedly.
Immediately the gang-plank was down, one of the commanding general’s
aides hustled aboard, and we were sure that now the fateful news was
to be told us--we must prepare for action immediately, probably get
ready to go those five thousand versts to the Volga River to which the
“front” had backed up. He proved to be a merry chap, with a Harvard
accent, a fine sense of humor, and a swagger stick.
“Where have you been all this time?” he demanded, as he shook hands
with Major Samuel I. Johnson, of Hawaii, born in Russia, the officer
commanding troops aboard the transports. We crowded around, expecting
to hear a history-making remark, once our delay was explained.
Major Johnson suggested that perhaps the delay might be better
explained when the _Logan_ docked. “What’s up?” he asked, keen for the
reason of the fretting of headquarters.
“Nothing’s up,” laughed the aide. “But we’re all gasping for our mail.
We thought you’d never get here.”
“Any fighting?” asked a particularly war-like officer.
The aide laughed merrily and then informed us of the Intelligence
Division that the busiest time we would have each day would be when we
made our morning toilet. Smith, self-appointed assistant to the General
Staff, almost collapsed at this news.
“What’s the price of ham and eggs?” shouted a practical-minded doughboy
from a porthole to a soldier on the dock.
“How long will it take us to get into the fighting?” persisted one of
our belligerent officers.
“What’s the words for ‘How much’ in this Rooshan language?” called a
serious-minded machine-gun corporal to a sergeant ashore.
“‘Skulky stoy,’” replied the sergeant, and then betraying his disgust
and disillusionment, added: “Aw, you won’t see no war here--only thing
you’ll fight is the grub. Them skirmishes up at Nikolsk is all over.
The Bolsheviki are clear to the Ekaterinburg front, and still runnin’.
And the only kind of fool money they got here is postage stamps with
pictures on ’em of the Rooshan Cee-zar.”
“I thought the Rooshans was off that feller for life,” said the
corporal.
“Don’t you think that because they put the crusher on him, they don’t
want him. They don’t know their elbers from breakfast without a boss.
How you expect anybody who says ‘da-da-da’ for ‘yes’ to have any sense?”
Who says an army is not supposed to think? Our army does--our doughboys
in Siberia could have given pointers to statesmen at home. It is a good
thing to bear in mind.
Somebody asked where we were to be quartered, and we learned that we
had better remain aboard the transport till quarters could be arranged.
Of course, the officers with troops went to the nearby stations
with their commands, some being sent to the Suchan Mines, some to
Khabarovsk, where were the headquarters of the Twenty-seventh Infantry,
and others distributed to units stationed along the railroad. But
fifteen officers and fifteen field clerks of the Intelligence Division
had no more homes than so many jack-rabbits.
The Chief Intelligence Officer came down to the transport and
interviewed us, and gave us a chance to size him up. He had been in
the country several months, had seen much of the fighting of the
Cossack chiefs against the Bolshevists up the line of the railroad,
and had a good grasp of the situation. But under our policy of
“non-interference,” there was little use for grasping anything--the
chief job was to keep hands off all Siberian affairs.
That afternoon I rode up to headquarters, passing through the muddy
streets swarming with pigs, till the Svetlanskaya, Vladivostok’s main
street, was reached. Then our automobile whizzed up hill and down
dale over this Broadway of Asia, passing soldiers of many nations en
route--French, Czechs, Russians, little black Annammites from the
French possessions, Italians, Canadians, British, Japanese, Cossacks
from the Don, the Urals, the Ussuri, the trans-Baikal, and bluejackets
from Japanese, French, British and American warships in the bay.
The city of Vladivostok itself presented a spectacle that would
have brought joy to anybody who yearned for a job as a professional
philanthropist. For “The Mistress of the East” had jumped her
population from the normal, which was forty thousand, to about one
hundred and eighty thousand. Refugee barracks on the edge of the city
were filled with people from the interior. Trains came jammed to the
last shelf against the ceiling, and poured battalions of travellers
into the Trans-Siberian station, where they settled down to sleep in
the corridors regardless of the throngs marching over them. They looked
like rag-bags come to life--these hungry, dirty, tattered people from
the hinterland, a human caravan in a panic. They smelled like a circus
menagerie.
Among them were many typhus victims. Beside these sick camped the
well--with little complaint--and set up housekeeping on any available
floor space. Some who had perhaps an aristocratic taste for privacy, or
who found the air of the waiting-room a trifle spicy, filtered out to
other habitations. There were, of course, no vacant rooms at the hotels
or elsewhere.
Money could not always buy shelter and rarely seclusion, since the
average sleeping chamber accommodated all the way from five to a dozen
persons. Even billiard tables commanded a good price as places of
repose. And shows lasted till dawn, so that people who slept in the
daytime could be amused while sitting up all night. Thus, when one-half
of the population got up in the morning, it met the other half going to
bed.
Judging by conditions in Vladivostok, it was obvious that a terrible
state of affairs existed in the hinterland. The refugees, clamoring for
food, said so. Statistics of food-prices, gleaned from the refugees as
well as from the inland press, proved a state of famine.
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN ARMY MULES ARRIVE IN VLADIVOSTOK FOR DUTY]
[Illustration: STREET SCENE IN VLADIVOSTOK WITH BAY IN THE DISTANCE]
The Svetlanskaya is along a bench of the hills over the city,
and affords a fine view of the harbor. Our headquarters were in a
store-building close to the bay, across from the department store of
Kunst and Albers, the chief mercantile organization of Siberia, with
chain stores in the principal cities. The building our _stab_, or
staff, occupied, was a brick structure of two stories and basement,
and resembled a library building. It had been used as offices and
store-rooms by Kunst and Albers.
When I reported, I was told that I could register at the base,
from which I had come. Back at the base they told me to register
at headquarters, so I never did register, but went back aboard the
transport.
That night I received orders to proceed to all stations, under verbal
orders of the commanding general, and in connection with certain
intelligence work, to call the attention of the troops to the Third
Liberty Loan. A Russian-speaking orderly from our own army, with an
unpronounceable name, was assigned to me. I called him Brown. I was
told that I must have my baggage aboard a troop-train leaving the base
at eight o’clock that night for Khabarovsk, but that I could board the
train at ten o’clock at the city station of the trans-Siberian.
Having no quarters, I put all my possessions, consisting of
bedding-roll and two lockers, into a box-car of the train with the
aid of field clerks and German war-prisoners. We got it out of the
transport and aboard the train at the last minute--or what I thought
was the last minute. I was later to learn that there is no necessity
for hurry in Siberia.
But the train did not come out of the yards to the depot. Not that
anything was wrong; it was simply that the engine failed to appear. All
through the frozen night, a couple of locomotives wheezed up and down
and whistled signals. Russian railroad men blew horns interminably,
and there was every evidence of laudable activity. The American major
who was to have charge of the train delivered a line of profanity with
all the fervor and efficiency of the old regular army. But the Russian
station officials--lay down on benches and went to sleep!
It was five o’clock in the morning before that troop-train of box-cars
rattled up to the station, and another hour of horn-blowing and
whistling before we were finally under way. Then we blew out the
guttering candles and lay down on a shelf in a dirty car.
IV
TOWARD KHABAROVSK
When morning dawned, we found ourselves rolling along at about ten
miles an hour over a plain, with wooded hills in the distance. The
fields were brown and sere, for it was then the first week in October,
and the air was feeling the first chill of winter.
About nine o’clock we reached Nikolsk-Ussuri, where the railroad
splits, one track, the Chinese Eastern, going across Manchuria to the
Siberian border, and the other, the one we were to follow, proceeding
to the north through the Maritime Provinces as far as Khabarovsk, where
it crosses the Amur River north of that city, and then runs to the
northwest well inside the Siberian border, with a branch line running
down to Blagoveschench. The main line then goes to Kerak, and crossing
the Shilka River, joins up with the Chinese Eastern over Manchuria,
at Karimska, a few versts to the southeast of Chita, capital of the
province of Trans-Baikal.
At Nikolsk, as it is commonly called, I had my first experience with
a station restaurant. There was a Japanese troop-train in the yards,
also a train with Chinese troops. Our six hundred odd soldiers had
their own kitchen-cars and messed while the train stopped. After their
night on shelves built into the box-cars, they were glad for a chance
to stretch their legs and exchange pleasantries with their friends in
other cars.
The station restaurant was thronged. My orderly went with me, and we
pushed our way through crowds of refugees, Cossacks, Japanese officers
and all the motley crew assembled there and clamoring for food. We
managed to get some cabbage soup, which we had to defend against the
flies, for no one ever kills or traps a fly in Siberia.
The city itself is a couple of versts from the station, for when the
railroad was built it appears that the engineers took every precaution
against getting too close to cities; they simply laid out their lines
for the right of way, and if the city happened to be near, well and
good; if not, the city would have to come to the railroad.
It was here that I realized for the first time how vague and unlimited
is the Russian word _Sichass_, which means anything from presently
to some time in the dim future. I desired to visit the city, to look
over the German war-prisoner camp, to investigate the train full of
Bolshevist prisoners, including men, women and children. But our
Russian conductor, drinking tea in the station, warned us that our
train would move “_Sichass_”, so I went back to my car and waited, not
daring to get far away.
We were there for several hours. Russians came and looked at us, and
we looked at them. They regarded us with friendly eye, but scowled and
muttered when they encountered a Japanese soldier. It was apparent that
the wounds of the Russo-Japanese war are not fully healed, and in the
face of the hatred which meets the Japanese at every turn in Siberia,
the little soldiers from Nippon display a splendid discipline. We heard
that this discipline is limited to places where their conduct is under
observation.
Every minute, during the time our train lay in the yards, it appeared
that departure was imminent. A bell at the station tolled once, and the
conductor and engineer blew horns at each other. Presently the engine
whistled.
In half an hour or so, two bells tolled from the station, which caused
the conductor and engineer to break out their tooting again. This done,
they finally decided to load the engine tender with wood, and leaving
the job to a pair of Chinese coolies, went away to the station to have
another round of tea. In another half hour, they were back, three
bells toll, the conductor unfolds carefully a green flag and waves it,
rolls it up, and pulls a big bottle of snuff from his boot-leg. Having
regaled himself, and sneezed solemnly, he blows his horn again, the
engine toots, and after a while, the train moves reluctantly.
Our train stopped on the plains to have ashes drawn from the fire-box.
The train crew made tea and lunched. When there was no more tea to
drink, and no more gossip to talk, we moved along again.
We stopped eight hours at one station. After two hours waiting, we
attempted to ascertain the cause of the delay. It appeared that the
engineer had some friends in that town, and had gone away to drink tea.
How soon might we be expected to proceed? “Sichass.”
At first this sort of thing is a joke to the stranger in Siberia, in
time it becomes an exasperation, but finally you learn to submit and
become a Russian, and take no count of the passage of time. Their
utter abhorrence for anything approaching a definite statement is most
puzzling.
For instance, if they know the exact time a train is supposed to arrive
or depart, they refrain from telling the traveler. Some say this is a
natural characteristic of the people. I ascribe it to fear of being
blamed if there is a delay caused by circumstances over which they have
no control.
Under the old régime, if a station-master or a conductor, stated that
something was going to happen at a certain time, and it did not happen,
they might be whipped or otherwise mistreated by superiors for telling
a lie. So they transfer the worry of delay to the traveler, and keep
their own skirts clear of trouble.
There is another fact which must be considered, and that is, that to
men in prison, time means little. Next week, or next month or next
year, will do as well to perform some duty. Siberia was a great prison,
and this disregard of time must be in the blood. Ordinarily the
Russian is most affable and hospitable, once he knows you for a friend,
but to a stranger, his attitude is most impersonal and careless.
As the train stopped from one to fifteen hours at every station, I
was able to spend considerable time in the various depots. Their
restaurants were thronged with “famine-stricken” peasants, weighing
some three hundred pounds gross each, enthusiastically discussing
freedom--the while they sprayed themselves with cabbage soup. Hunger! I
never want to look upon such hunger again! More: Never again do I want
to hear it. (Who would guess that goulash is a high explosive?)
Eat! I will back the Russians as eaters against any other race of
eaters in the world. The way an average Siberian can mistreat roasted
partridges, hunks of defenseless beef, and loaves of pneumatic rye
bread is painful to recall. Their cruelty lies chiefly in the fact that
they insist upon talking while they eat. The Siberian is the champion
three-ring talker of the universe. He talks politics so well that he
can prove himself a liar--then start all over again, which explains why
he has to call for outside help in order to settle anything. And if the
outsider asks him to stop talking and do something, it makes him mad.
Why work when one can talk? Work is for slaves. Only the Chinese and
the women work, (Apparently these are not free). Talk is the chief
product of Russian activity along the trans-Siberian. When combined
with gastronomics it is thrilling.
The Allied officers in Siberia were misled as to the character of
Siberians who appeared to be mere louts, dressed out of the rag-bag. In
particular, the Americans in Siberia were inclined to judge the people
with whom they came in contact by the standards of dress in the United
States. But the Siberian who looks like an animated scare-crow may be
playing international poker. And he is willing to let us laugh at him
if he can fool us.
These days in Siberia, it is a mistake to think that because a man has
on old clothes he is poor or not educated, or unskilful in intrigue.
For--he may be dressed badly in order to protect himself from the
Bolshevists; or he may himself be a Bolshevist, and his apparent
beggary makes him appear harmless.
I found that a surprisingly large number of Siberians (drosky-drivers,
station-restaurant attendants, brakemen and many others who might be
easily mistaken for _moujiks_) can speak good English--but will carry
on long conversations through an interpreter! One man who had used
these tactics, later on leaned down in a station to stroke a cat,
saying, “Hello, kitty, where did you come from?” Such men invariably
wanted information as to how many American troops had landed at
Vladivostok, and what we were planning to do.
We were terribly handicapped by having to depend upon interpreters;
I had one Russian-American soldier-interpreter who carried on a
conversation of some twenty minutes with a Russian from whom I sought
information and when I asked what was being said was told that the
Russian “wasn’t saying anything which was worth while.”
But he didn’t know that standing with me listening to the conversation
was a British officer who spoke Russian perfectly who then informed me
that my soldier and the Russian had discussed the United States and the
American expedition in Russia in the most uncomplimentary terms.
Later on my soldier admitted that he agreed with the Russian in a
diatribe against the United States, but that he had done so for the
purpose of drawing the other fellow out and getting his ideas. He
excused his telling me that the conversation had been of a nature that
could not interest me because he did not think I was interested in
knowing that this particular Russian regarded the United States as a
nation of capitalists, and as such the enemy of all Russians. And all
the time these Russians continued to smile and bow and assure us of
their friendship and their appreciation of what the United States was
trying to do to reunite Russia and build it up as a democratic nation.