uniforms or other visible military equipment, without any apparent
machinery of organization. This army has the ability to vanish
without being missed, to reassemble when and where it chooses, to set
up a front if it so desires, or, if it sees fit, to dissolve again,
concealing itself once more under the wings of the very host which is
seeking to overcome it. To a very large extent it is an army of passive
resistance.
This vanishing army entered the cities occupied by the Allies, and, in
the guise of refugees, or “loyal” Russians, received food, clothing
and shelter. Under the protection of the Allied guns, it spent the
period of bitter cold weather in comfort, perfecting its plans for the
on-coming Spring, carrying on its propaganda of hostility against the
Interventionists, and mingling with the troops which had come half way
round the world to render it harmless.
The Bolshevists are operating with a strategy of organized disorder.
Their vanishing army acquires weapons by various methods. A truck-load
of Kolchak’s machine-guns at Omsk disappeared while in transit from one
barracks to another, and the men who were making the transfer dropped
from sight.
Some of our own officers and soldiers know how the Bolsheviki added to
their own supply of pistols. It has been estimated that ten per cent.
of the American officers traveling with orderlies had their automatics
either taken by stealth or snatched from the holsters in crowded
railroad stations.
One of these officers expostulated with a thief. “Here!” he shouted.
“That’s my gun!” “Well, you’re wrong,” was the reply in good English;
“it’s mine, and you’d better not start any trouble here.” It seemed
good advice.
One story going the rounds is to the effect that an American officer of
high rank, while pushing his way through a jam of people in a station,
followed by his orderly, was startled by a cry from the latter. His
pistol was gone!
“Gone!” said the officer, crossly. “You ought to know better than to
lose your gun! Where did you wear it?”
Meekly the orderly indicated the position of his holster on his right
hip.
“But you shouldn’t wear it so far back,” growled the exasperated
officer. “Keep it well to the front like mine. Look! Here!” And he
slapped his own holster, worn well to the front on his belt. Then the
red of chagrin spread over his face. “Lord!” he cried. “Mine’s gone,
too!”
Another American officer, traveling in the compartment of a car,
had as a traveling companion a youthful officer ostensibly from a
Cossack regiment. He was a most ingratiating young man, and admired
the Americans for their willing aid to Russia. Our officer’s belt and
pistol were hanging on a hook. As the train approached a station, the
Cossack rose, called attention to some aspect of the landscape outside,
and shaking hands with his fellow traveler, went his way. The pistol
also went his way.
It was about this time that I began to ask myself, Where is the real
front? Now I was suspicious of the delays in restaurants, the blocking
of trains, the roundabout droskys, the street-cars that broke down,
the misinformation which sent us astray, the balking telephones. It
appeared like a perfect system of sabotage--covert warfare.
V
BOLSHEVISTS AND BATHS
The slow progress of our train gave me many opportunities to talk with
Siberians who had been to the United States. Compared to the natives
who had never left home, they were highly intelligent, but much of
their mental agility put them in the class of people described by
Artemas Ward as “folks who know a lot that ain’t so.”
All those who had been to the United States with whom I talked, said
the United States was “No good--a capitalistic country.”
I frankly asked them why they thought so. They had worked in the steel
mills, the packing-houses and in the factories, and instead of becoming
“Americanized”, as we at home so proudly boast about our immigrants,
they had apparently lived, worked and talked with groups of their own
countrymen, and outside of picking up enough English to get along with,
had become no more American than if they had remained in the heart of
Siberia.
They had all the patter of the agitators against the “capitalistic
classes”, for which they can hardly be blamed, for from the time they
landed on our shores till they left, they were exploited in various
ways, every advantage being taken of their ignorance and helplessness
in a strange country.
And when they came to explain why they thought the United States to be
no good, invariably they backed their original statement with tales
of hard labor for poor pay, and then informed me that the newspapers
of the United States admitted that we had no democracy, that we were
a nation of “wage slaves,” and that revolution was coming soon in my
country.
One of these men had pamphlets issued by a strike-leader in Lawrence,
urging violence against the mill-owners; clippings from a Chicago
paper which told of deplorable conditions in the districts inhabited
by steel-workers of Pittsburgh and outlining a plan for improvement.
But in reading the clipping, the Siberian overlooked entirely the fact
that bad conditions were described for the purpose of guarding against
reproducing them, and to take some action to correct the evils. He read
with understanding only those paragraphs which stated that conditions
were deplorable, and were soon to be eradicated.
And this paper, fighting editorially against exploitation, he
described as part of our “capitalistic press.” He interpreted its
printed protests as mutterings before a coming revolution. The editor,
undoubtedly striving to aid and uplift the working men, perhaps never
dreamed that what he printed would be used as propaganda to prove his
paper part of a “capitalistic press.”
Another clipping from a radical sheet printed in the middle west,
described the mounted constabulary of Pennsylvania, as “Cossacks,
organized and supported by capitalists, to cut down the workers.”
This man did not know that this state police force is maintained and
supported by the state--he read the caption literally and believed that
it was a private punitive force in the hire of the mill-owners. He also
believed they were Cossacks!
Freedom of the press, and freedom of speech, are two of our greatest
liberties. But when Russians who have been to the United States,
can return to Siberia and tell the population that we are worse
than Russia, and that we are going to have a revolution, and read
to the people sensational statements and half-baked and distorted
information, at the same time that we are in that country trying to
prove our friendship for them and asserting that the United States is
a free country, something is wrong. That is the state of affairs which
confronted us from the first in Siberia.
I do not maintain that our systems are perfect. I have much sympathy
for the “working classes,” having begun life as a boy in a factory,
served in the ranks of the army and before the mast in ships.
“Ah!” said a Siberian to my interpreter, waving his hand in the
direction of vacant ground near a small river, “If the Americans would
only build a factory here for us, and make jobs.”
“But you are opposed to capitalism,” I said.
“Yes,” he nodded. “We are fighting it.”
“If an American built a factory here, it would take money-capital.”
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“The Russians have burned a lot of factories.”
“Yes.”
“If a factory were built here would you burn it?”
“Maybe we would.”
“Then how can you expect a man with money, which is capital, to come
here and build a factory, if it is likely it would be burned?”
He pondered this. “We might only take it away from him,” he decided.
“But Americans do not go round building factories if they are going to
be burned, or taken away by the workers.”
“Why not,” he asked. “All Americans are rich. They ought to build
factories for the poor people, to give them work. You do it in America.”
“But a factory to keep running, must make a profit.”
“We do not believe in profits,” he said, his face lighting up at the
happy thought that he had met my arguments.
“I do not believe you need worry much about them,” I retorted, and left
him scratching his head.
As we proceeded north, stopping occasionally at vast wood-piles to
replenish our engine, we crossed limitless plains.
I had a paper from home. It contained an editorial on the menace of
famine in Siberia. I read it. Then I looked out of the window--and
tears came to my eyes. Famine! There it was! From horizon to horizon,
on either side of the train, stretched vast plains dotted with shocks
of wheat--unthreshed wheat.
The sight of that wheat made me shudder. It reminded me of the fact
that the people at home, bless their Christmas-tree souls, were
conserving wheat, and sending some to the starving proletariat of
Siberia to cure them of Bolshevism. What the various governments
struggling with the problem did not realize was that the Siberians were
also conserving wheat! For the shocks I saw were not a one-year crop.
On those plains were stacked up the crops of two years!
Some wheat had been threshed. Now and then, near stations, I saw it
piled up in sacks--acres of sacks, ten high. The top sacks, as a
rule, were rotten, having been there for months. “_Nitchyvo!_ The
Americanskys have come, and all will be well.” The drosky-drivers
fed their horses freely from the piled grain. The field mice had
established their winter homes in the piles, thus realizing some of the
benefits of Bolshevism.
Why, you ask, was this wheat not moved? The station sidings were indeed
full of freight cars. But refugees were living in those cars. In other
cars Allied troops were quartered. Troops being moved required cars.
Allied commissions travelling up and down for political or military
reasons used any remaining engines. Naturally the wheat could not be
moved!
Our train reached Khabarovsk about two o’clock in the morning, and we
remained in the cars till mess. Then the troops were turned out in
full kit, and carrying their bulky barrack-bags stuffed with all their
belongings, we began the march to the Russian barracks some three miles
distant.
It was a warm and sunny morning. The roofs of the city became visible
as we tramped up toward the high ground, covered with the brick
barracks built by the Russian army, and beyond the town shone the wide
reaches of the Amur River. The city had been captured from Bolshevist
forces but a month before, and the Twenty-seventh Infantry, under
command of Lieutenant-Colonel Morrow had hastened to get into action
with the Japanese, but arrived too late. The Bolshevist forces resisted
up to a certain point, and then melted away. They became peasants
working in the fields--and the Japanese asked these peasants where the
Bolshevists were!
So although Khabarovsk was accustomed to a large Russian garrison
in normal times, and had already become accustomed to the American
doughboy, our column attracted considerable attention. And I was sorry
that transportation had not been arranged for the men’s heavy bags,
which they packed on their shoulders in addition to their regular
marching kits, for six hundred men bent under baggage, struggling up
the hilly roads, do not present an inspiring spectacle.
We Americans in foreign parts do not seem to care anything for the
psychology of the land in which we are operating; we are intensely
practical, and entirely too sure that the American way of doing things
is the best way, and take no account of the effect we may create upon
foreign peoples--overlooking the fact that first impressions are most
vital.
Now Asia is a land in which the bearing of burdens marks one of the
lowest caste. The Siberian is Asiatic in his viewpoint, being so
closely in touch with China and Manchuria. And, as in China, to be
seen carrying heavy burdens when there is no necessity for it, means
that a man’s standing is ruined; no matter how smartly he may dress,
or how decently he may comport himself, or what he may do to show his
superiority after he has been seen at what is considered debasing toil,
the Asiatic never forgets that this foreigner has been a bearer of
burdens. He carries forever that impression in the back of his head, on
occasion dares to be insolent, and judges by that standard all people
of that race.
And to go into Siberia, with an army, claiming to be a democracy in
which all men are free and equal, yet with men who are “conscripts”
in the sense understood by Asia, and then display those “conscripts”
doing the work of pack-animals, is most confusing to the Siberian,
the Cossack, the Chinese, and Japanese. They cannot understand our
assertion that all are equal, or that many men of the United States
have willingly responded to a “draft,” and are willingly submitting
themselves to the orders of their officers in order to maintain
freedom and equality. We say one thing, and demonstrate another. I once
tried to explain this phenomenon of all serving the common cause, some
in the ranks and some as officers, to a keen Chinese servant who had
been in Hong Kong and knew English well. When I had finished, he looked
at me, and reaching for the skillet to fry some eggs, remarked, sagely:
“You talk lie.”
If the regimental band had been at the station that morning in
Khabarovsk, and the heavy baggage left to be hauled by wagons, and
the men had marched to the barracks under arms with swinging strides
and heads up, it would have been worth several million dollars to the
United States in Asia--and worth much to the men themselves. It would
have raised our troops in the estimation of Japanese and Russians.
Instead, our column toiled along, resting every few hundred yards, and
resuming the march with a series of painful grunts and muttered curses.
As we climbed the last hill, a flock of geese swung in ahead of us, and
marching in splendid style, led us to the entrance to the post. There
the column remained in the road for an hour, while the regimental band
came and played in honor of a party of Japanese statesmen who happened
at that time to be calling on the commandant, Colonel Styer, and making
an inspection of the city. This, of course, was a necessary and proper
honor to pay the guests, and accounted in part for the fact that we
had to arrive without music; but as the visitors were not long in the
post, our departure from the station might have been deferred till the
music was available. After eight days in crowded box-cars, that band
was most inspiring when we did hear it, and the weary doughboys were
soon chaffing merrily, glad to have found their new home.
In discussing these matters, I wish it understood that I am not
criticizing any individual, but the people of the United States so
eager to make a good showing abroad and to convince foreign peoples of
our good motives and our army so careful not to offend, seem to need
something in the way of a code to follow so as to learn to put the best
foot forward when away from home.
The British, having had so much more experience with Asiatics, have
learned the value of good impressions, and by observing what we may
consider trifles, have held and administered the affairs of many lands
in the East more by these trifles than by actual force of arms.
I know that our attitude has been in the Philippines, Cuba and
elsewhere, “In time these people will learn that we mean all right.”
In time they do. But we send an army into foreign countries in much
the same manner as a man might attend a first formal dinner in boots,
a fishing coat, and a woolen shirt, and on entering the dining-room,
trip over a rug when preparing to bow to the hostess. In time, he might
establish the fact that he was a man of some breeding. Most people,
both for their own comfort, and the comfort of hosts, would prefer to
display their breeding first, for some of the guests might leave before
the uncouth one had a chance to prove that he was not a boor.
Once the details of turning over the reinforcements were accomplished,
with the major who had commanded the train, I took a drosky, and sought
the best bath-house in the city. How that vehicle ever held together
was a mystery to both of us. The roads were both rutty and full of
yielding mud, and as we galloped toward town, first one of us and then
the other was in danger of being hurled out to the black pigs along the
streets.
The cost of a “bolshoi” or grand bath, was two rubles each, and being
provided with soap and towels, we were escorted to a room containing an
old sofa and a dressing table weak in the legs. The attendant brought
us a small tub of water, for what purpose I have not the slightest
idea, as the room adjoining contained a bath-tub of Russian dimensions,
a shower big enough for an elephant, and all the pipes full of blazing
hot water. The Siberian does not bathe himself--he parboils himself.
The temperature of both rooms was exceedingly hot and humid, so that
in a few minutes all our clothing was moist and clammy; and to make
matters worse, the ambitious attendant came in and hurled buckets of
water over the big marble slab, which was heated by pipes, filling both
rooms with a stifling steam. I opened the windows promptly, to his
great horror, and drove him away as gently as possible with the one
Russian word I had to fit the occasion--“Scurrai,” and he scurried.
When I had laid my clothing out on the ancient sofa, I realized that
the place had not been swept or dusted for a decade. I made a mental
picture of the limitless number of people who had divested themselves
of their garments in that very spot. It was not such as had gone on
their way, clean and rosy, which worried me, but what they had left
behind, to inhabit temporarily the crevices of the sofa. So I hastened
my bathing under the shower, and dressed as rapidly as possible, after
discreet shakings of all my wearing apparel.
The clerk below regarded me with surprise when I went down. He thought
I had not bathed at all, but had come back to make some complaint. He
did not realize that I had hurried to avoid complaints in the future,
when he might not be present to get the benefit of my vocabulary. I am
sure he thought me most tentative about my bath, and not a particularly
clean man.
It takes the ordinary Siberian about an hour to get himself properly
tender. For some strange reason, known only to the inscrutable American
mind, I had failed to cook myself a full two rubles worth, and had
surrendered my room to a Chinese who did not appear to be a regular
client, judging from his lack of grooming.
The major had been as precipitate as myself, having been duly
influenced by my active imagination. Once more we risked our lives in
the drosky.
VI
HETMAN OF THE USSURI
Khabarovsk is a city of probably sixty thousand population, and
picturesquely situated in a sweeping bend of the Amur River, its
streets being laid on a bench of land overlooking the river. The
barracks occupied by the American and Japanese forces are on still
higher ground arranged on a plateau, with the dull reds and browns of
the city roofs shining below.
It is a provincial capital, the most important north of Vladivostok,
and the chief center of the Ussuri Cossacks. The first thing to catch
the eye on the morning we marched up to the post, was a yellow flag
flying from a pole across a gully from the American headquarters, with
a black and fanciful lower-case y upon its field. Y in Russian has the
sound of our double o, and so was the initial letter in Russian for
Ussuri, thus the flag marked a Cossack garrison quartered inside the
stockade beyond.
[Illustration: AN AMERICAN DOUGHBOY HELPING MAKE SIBERIA “SAFE FOR
DEMOCRACY”]
[Illustration: NIGHT VIEW OF VLADIVOSTOK HARBOR FROM HILL OF THE CITY]
Yellow is a favorite color with the Cossacks. Their officers wear
Prussian blue riding breeches, with wide yellow stripes, similar to the
breeches worn by our own cavalry officers before the khaki days.
Their tunics were well-cut, but almost any color seemed to serve, as
long as heavy gold cloth shoulder straps with elaborate embroidery on
them, could be procured.
Boots and spurs, and the characteristic high busby of white or black
lamb-skin with the wool on, completed the costume. These bonnets are
not always circular, but are flattened out, and then worn with the flat
sides front and back, and tilted to the rear, giving a rakish effect.
The cloth tops set into the wool are frequently of gorgeous colors,
some being bright purple, some gold, some red, so viewed from behind,
the Cossack is a colorful personage. Viewed from the front, on a
charging horse, and with lance or saber point first, they generally get
the road to themselves.
The men of the ranks looked to me more Mongol than Slav, and resemble
somewhat the American Indian, having high cheek bones, black straight
hair worn rather long, broad but low brows, but their faces lack
the acquilinity of our aborigines. Most of them struck me as being
stolid, stoical persons, rather sure of their positions as belonging
to the warrior class, and while according to our standards, inclined
to swagger a trifle when among the lower classes, quiet enough unless
interfered with. Among the Siberian peasants they had the bearing and
demeanor of masters of the situation, and contrasted with the peasant,
I would prefer that the latter have more self-assertion in a dignified
way, rather than the inevitable skulking manner which they take on
when they come in contact with persons whom they recognize as superiors.
Khabarovsk was filled with the men of the local Cossack hetman,
Kalmikoff, known to our forces as Ataman Kalmikoff, a title which
appears to be derived from the Turkish, just as the name “Cossack”
is the Turkish _kazak_, or robber. The accent falls upon the last
syllable, and the Russian spelling follows the Turkish, so that “y k”
worn on the sleeve of a soldier marked him as an Ussuri Cossack.
I was living in the quarters of Lieutenant-Colonel Morrow, as his
guest, with the regimental adjutant of the Twenty-seventh Infantry,
and a young regimental supply officer. Colonel Morrow had commanded
the column which hastened to reinforce the Japanese division in the
action south of Khabarovsk, but the Bolshevists dissolved after a
desultory fight, and the infantry, fresh from the Philippines, did
not get into the battle. At that time Colonel Styer, commander of
the Twenty-seventh, was in Vladivostok in command of the expedition,
General Graves and his staff not having arrived.
Colonel Styer was now in command of the American forces at
Khabarovsk, and I found him all that is meant by the term “an officer
and a gentleman.” I can say the same of all the officers of the
Twenty-seventh that I had the pleasure of meeting. And Colonel Morrow,
in whose house and company I spent my pleasantest days in Siberia, I
found to be a hard-fisted soldier of the old school, who knows his
business and expects everybody in his command to know it likewise, or
give the reason why. He knows the American soldier down to the ground,
and is the type of officer the enlisted man delights in--an officer who
realizes their difficulties on campaign, talks to them as a father, and
never allows any doubt to arise as to who is boss.
On Sunday morning, October 6, 1918, Colonel Styer kindly sent word to
me that Ataman Kalmikoff was to conduct a ceremony incident to the
organization of a new regiment of Cossacks, and inviting me to attend
with the staff.
An orderly brought a horse for me at the appointed time for departure,
and as I mounted, I felt the thrill that can only come to a man who,
after a lapse of thirteen years, again finds himself in an American
army saddle and an American army horse between his knees.
We rode down through the gullys and over the decrepit bridges, into the
town, and dismounted in front of the big Russian church on a cliff over
the Amur. Here we found a long line of Cossacks on their horses, drawn
up in single rank across the street from the church, facing the little
square. There was a great throng of Siberians, keeping at a respectful
distance from the raised lances shining above the heads of the shaggy
ponies.
Here we were introduced to many Russian officers in the service of
Kalmikoff, nearly all of them wearing orders of the Czar’s régime, and
some of them wearing orders gained on the Manchurian plains not so
long ago, in action against the army of Kuroki.