African fighter, Captain Alliez, for support, Col. Sutherland asked
Major Young to divide his two American companies into two detachments
for making the flank marches and attacks upon the Red positions. The
marches to be made to position in the afternoon and night and the
attacks to were be put on at dawn. The armored train and other guns
manned by the Poles were to give a barrage on the frontal positions as
soon as the American soldiers had opened their surprise flank and rear
attacks. Then the Bolos were supposed to run away and a French company
supported by a section of American machine guns and a “Hq.” section
that had been trained hastily into a Stokes mortar section, were to
rush in and assist in consolidating the positions gained.
But this hurriedly contrived advance was doomed to failure before it
started. There had not been proper preparations. The main force
consisting of “M” Company and two platoons of “I” Company and a small
detachment of Engineers to blow the track in rear of the Bolo position
at 455 was to march many miles by the flank in the afternoon and night
but were not provided with even a map that showed anything but the
merest outlines. The other detachment consisting of two remaining
platoons of “I” Company were little better off only they had no such
great distance to go. Both detachments after long hours were unable to
reach the objective.
This was so memorable a night march and so typical of the fall
operations everywhere that space has been allowed to describe it. No
one had been over the proposed route of march ordered by Col.
Sutherland. No Russian guide could be provided. We must follow the
blazed trail of an east-and-west forest line till we came to a certain
broad north-and-south cutting laid out in the days of Peter the Great.
Down this cutting we were to march so many versts, told by the decaying
old notched posts, till we passed the enemy’s flank at 455, then turn
in toward the railroad, camp for the night in the woods and attack him
in the rear at 6:00 a. m.
At five o’clock in the afternoon the detachment struck into the woods.
Lieut. Chantrill, the pleasant British intelligence officer who acted
as interpreter, volunteered to go as guide although he had no
familiarity with the swamp-infested forest area. It was dark long
before we reached the broad cutting. No one will forget the ordeal of
that night march. Could not see the man ahead of you. Ears told you he
was tripping over fallen timber or sloshing in knee-deep bog hole. Hard
breathing told the story of exertion. Only above and forward was there
a faint streak of starlight that uncertainly led us on and on south
toward the vicinity of the Bolo positions.
Hours later we emerge from the woods cutting into a great marsh. Far in
the dark on the other side we must hit the cutting in the heavy pine
woods. For two hours we struggle on. We lose our direction. The marsh
is a bog. To the right, to the left, in front the tantalizing optical
illusion lures us on toward an apparently firmer footing. But ever the
same, or worse, treacherous mire. We cannot stand a moment in a spot.
We must flounder on. The column has to spread. Distress comes from
every side. Men are down and groggy. Some one who is responsible for
that body of men sweats blood and swears hatred to the muddler who is
to blame. How clearly sounds the exhaust of the locomotives in the Bolo
camp on the nearby railroad. Will their outguards hear us? Courage,
men, we must get on.
This is a fine end. D—- that unverified old map the Colonel has. It did
not show this lake that baffles our further struggles to advance.
Detour of the unknown lake without a guide, especially in our present
exhausted condition, is impossible. (Two weeks later with two Russian
guides and American officers who had explored the way, we thought it a
wonderful feat to thread our way around with a column). Judgment now
dictates that it is best to retrace our steps and cut in at 461 to be
in position to be of use in the reserve or in the consolidation. We
have failed to reach our objective but it is not our fault. We followed
orders and directions but they were faulty. It is a story that was to
be duplicated over and over by one American force after another on the
various fronts in the rainy fall season, operating under British
officers who took desperate chances and acted on the theory that “You
Americans,” as Col. Sutherland said, “can do it somehow, you know.” And
as to numbers, why, “Ten Americans are as good as a hundred Bolos,
aren’t they?”
But how shall we extricate ourselves? Who knows where the cutting may
be found? Can staggering men again survive the treacherous morass? It
is lighter now. We will pick our way better. But where is the cutting?
Chantrill and the Captain despair. Have we missed it in, the dark? Then
we are done for. Where is the “I” Co. detachment again? Lost? Here
Corporal Grahek, and you, Sgt. Getzloff, you old woodsmen from north
Michigan pines, scout around here and find the cutting and that rear
party. Who is it that you men are carrying?
No trace of the rear part of the column nor of the cutting! One thing
remains to do. We must risk a shout, though the Reds may hear.
“Danley! eeyohoh!”
“Yes, h-e-e-e-r-r-e on the c-u-t-t-i-n-g!”
Did ever the straight and narrow way seem so good. The column is soon
united again and the back trail despondingly begun. Daylight of a
Sunday morning aids our footsteps. We cross again the stream we had
waded waist deep in the pitch dark and wondered that no one had been
drowned.
Zero hour arrives and we listen to the artillery of both sides and for
the rat-tat-tat of the Bolo machine guns when our forces move on the
bridgehead. We hurry on. The battle is joined. Pine woods roar and
reverberate with roar. By taking a nearer blazed trail we may come out
to the railway somewhere near the battle line.
At 8:40 a. m. we emerge from the woods near our armored train. At field
headquarters, Major Nichols, who in the thick of the battle has arrived
to relieve Major Young, orders every man at once to be made as
comfortable as possible. Men build fires and warm and dry their clammy
water-soaked feet, picture of which is shown in this volume. Bully and
tea and hard tack revive a good many. It is well they do, for the fight
is going against us and two detachments of volunteers from these men
are soon, to be asked for to go forward to the battle line.
Considerable detail has been given about this march of “I” and “M”
because writer was familiar with it, but a similar story might be told
of “H” in the swamps on the Onega, or of “K” or “L” and “M. G.” at
Kodish, or of “A,” “B,” “C” or “D” on the River Fronts, and with equal
praise for the hardihood of the American doughboy hopelessly mired in
swamps and lost in the dense forests, baffled in his attempts because
of no fault of his own, but ready after an hour’s rest to go at it
again, as in this case when a volunteer platoon went forward to support
the badly suffering line. The Red Guards composed of the Letts and
sailors were fiercely counter-attacking and threatening to sweep back
the line and capture field-headquarters.
During the preceding hours the French company had pressed in gallantly
after the artillery and machine gun barrage and captured the
bridgehead, and, supported by the American machine gun men and the
trench mortar men, had taken the Bolo’s first trench line, seeking to
consolidate the position.
Lieut. Keith of “Hq.” Company with twenty-one men and three Stokes
mortars had gone through the woods and taking a lucky direction,
avoided the swamp and cut in to the railroad, arriving in the morning
just after the barrage and the French infantry attack had driven the
Reds from their first line. They took possession of three Bolshevik
shacks and a German machine gun, using hand grenades in driving the
Reds out. Then they placed their trench mortars in position to meet the
Bolo counter-attack.
The Bolos came in on the left flank under cover of the woods, the
French infantry at that time being on the right flank in the woods, and
two platoons of Americans being lost somewhere on the left in the
swamp. This counterattack of the Reds was repulsed by the trench mortar
boys who, however, found themselves at the end of the attack with no
more ammunition for their mortars, Col. Sutherland not having provided
for the sending of reserve ammunition to the mortars from Obozerskaya.
Consequently the second attack of the Reds was waited with anxiety. The
Reds were in great force and well led. They came in at a new angle and
divided the Americans and French, completely overwhelming the trench
mortar men’s rifle fire and putting Costello’s valiant machine guns out
of action, too. Lieut Keith was severely wounded, one man was killed,
four wounded and three missing. Sgt. Kolbe and Pvt. Driscoll after
prodigies of valor with their machine guns were obliged to fall back
with the French. Kolbe was severely wounded. So the Bolo yells that day
sounded in triumph as they won back their positions from the Americans
and French.
The writer knows, for he heard those hellish yells. Under cover of the
single “M” Company platoon rushed up to the bridge, the Americans and
French whose gallant efforts had gone for naught because Col.
Sutherland’s battle plan was a “dud,” retired to field headquarters at
461. A half platoon of “I” men hurried up to support. The veteran
Alliez encouraged the American officer Captain Moore, to hang on to the
bridge. Lieut. Spitler came on with a machine gun and the position was
consolidated and held in spite of heavy shelling by the Bolo armored
trains and his desperate raids at night and in the morning, for the
purpose of destroying the bridge. His high explosive tore up the track
but did no damage to the bridge. His infantry recoiled from the Lewis
gun and machine gun fire of the Americans that covered the bridge and
its approaches.
The day’s operations had been costly. The French had lost eight, killed
and wounded and missing. The Americans had lost four killed, fourteen
wounded, among whom were Lieuts. Lawrence Keith and James R. Donovan,
and five missing. Many of these casualties were suffered by the
resolute platoon at the bridge. There Lieut. Donovan was caught by
machine gun fire and a private by shrapnel from a searching barrage of
the Bolos, as was also a sergeant of “F” Company who was attached for
observation. But the eight others who were wounded, two of them
mortally, owed their unfortunate condition to the altogether
unnecessary and ill-advised attempt by Col. Sutherland to shell the
bridge which was being held by his own troops. He had the panicky idea
that the Red Guards were coming or going to come across that bridge and
ordered the shrapnel which cut up the platoon of “M” Company with its
hail of lead instead of the Reds who had halted 700 yards away and
themselves were shelling the bridge but to no effect. Not only that but
when Col. Sutherland was informed that his artillery was getting his
own troops, he first asked on one telephone for another quart of whisky
and later called up his artillery officer and ordered the deadly fire
to lengthen range. This was observed by an American soldier, Ernest
Roleau, at Verst 466, who acted as interpreter and orderly in
Sutherland’s headquarters that day.
The British officer sadly retired to his Blue Car headquarters at Verst
466, thinking the Reds would surely recapture the bridge. But Major
Nichols in command at field headquarters at Verst 461 thought
differently. When the order came over the wire for him to withdraw his
Americans from the bridge, this infantry reserve officer whose
previously most desperate battle, outside of a melee between the Bulls
and Bears on Wall Street, had been to mashie nib out of a double
bunkered trap on the Detroit Country Club golf course, as usual with
him, took “plenty of sand.” He shoved the order to one side till he
heard from the officer at the front and then requested a countermanding
order. He made use of the veteran Alliez’s counsel. And for two dubious
nights and days with “M” and “I” Companies he held on to the scant
three miles of advance which had been paid for so dearly. And the Reds
never did get back the important bridge.
Now it was evident that the Bolshevik rear-guard action was not to be
scared out. It was bent on regaining its ground. During these last
September days of supposed converging drive in three columns on
Plesetskaya our widely separated forces had all met with stiff
resistance and been worsted in action. The Bolshevik had earned our
respect as a fighter. More fighting units were hurried up. Our “A”
Force Command began careful reconnaissance and plans of advance.
American officers and doughboys had their first experiences, of the
many experiences to follow, of taking out Russian guides and from their
own observations and the crude old maps and from doubtful hearsay to
piece together a workable military sketch of the densely forested area.
Artillery actions and patrol actions were almost daily diet till, with
the advance two weeks later on October thirteenth, the offensive
movement started again. This time French and Americans closely
co-operated. The Reds evidently had some inkling of it, for on the
morning when the amalgamated “M”-“Boyer” force entered the woods,
inside fifteen minutes the long, thin column of horizon blue and olive
drab was under shrapnel fire of the Bolo. With careful march this force
gained the flank and rear of the enemy at Verst 455, and camped in a
hollow square, munched on hardtack and slept on their arms in the cold
rain. Lieut. Stoner, Capt. Boyer, the irrepressible French fun-maker,
Capt. Moore and Lieut. Giffels slept on the same patch of wet moss with
the same log for a pillow, unregardful of the TNT in the Engineer
officer’s pocket, which was for use the next morning in blowing the
enemy’s armored train.
At last 5:00 a. m. comes but it is still dark and foggy. Men stretch
their cold and cramped limbs after the interminable night. No smokes.
No eats. In ten minutes of whispering the columns are under way. The
leading platoon gets out of our reach. Delay while we get a new guide
lets them get on ahead of the other platoons. Too bad. It spoils the
plan. The main part of the attacking forces can not press forward fast
enough to catch up. The engineers will be too late to blow the track in
rear of the Bolo train.
The Red Guard listening posts and his big tower on the flank now stand
him in good stead. He sees the little platoon of Franco-Americans
approaching in line, and sends out a superior force to meet the attack.
Ten minutes of stiff fire fight ensues during which the other attacking
platoons strive to get up to their positions in rear and rear flank.
But our comrades are evidently out-numbered and being worsted. We must
spring our attack to save them.
Oh, those bugles! Who ever heard of a half mile charge? And such a
melee. Firing and yelling and tooting like ten thousand the main party
goes in. What would the first “old man” of the 339th, our beloved
Colonel John W. Craig, have said at sight of that confused swarm of
soldiers heading straight for the Bolo positions. Lucky for us the Bolo
does not hold his fire till we swarm out of the woods. As it is in his
panic he blazes away into the woods pointblank with his artillery
mounted on the trains and with his machine guns, two of which only are
on ground positions. And his excited aim is characteristically high,
_Slavo Bogga_. We surge in. He jumps to his troop trains, tries to
cover his withdrawal by the two machine guns, and gets away, but with
hundreds of casualties from our fire that we pour into the moving
trains. Marvellous luck, we have monkeyed with a buzz saw and suffered
only slight casualties, one American killed and four wounded. Two
French wounded.
The surprise at 455 threw “the wind” up the Bolo’s back at his forward
positions, 457 and 457-1/2, and Lieuts. Primm and Soyer’s amalgamated
French-American attacking party won a quick victory. The armored train
came on through over the precious bridge at Verst 458, the track was
repaired and our artillery came up to 455 and answered the Red armored
train that was shelling us while we consolidated the position. Lieut.
Anselmi’s resolute American signal men unmindful of the straggling
Bolos who were working south in the woods along the railroad, “ran” the
railway telephone lines back to field headquarters at 458 and
established communications with Major Nichols.
As soon as transportation was open “I” Company and Apsche’s company of
French moved up and went on through to battle the Reds in the same
afternoon out of their position at Verst 450 where they had rallied and
to advance on the fifteenth to a position at 448, where the Americans
dug in. Trouble with the French battalion was brewing for the British
Command. The _poilus_ had heard of the proposed armistice on the
Western Front. “_La guerre finis_,” they declared, and refused to
remain with “I” Company on the line.
So on October sixteenth this company found itself single-handed holding
the advanced position against the counter-attack of the reinforced
Reds. After a severe artillery barrage of the Reds, Captain Winslow
pushed forward to meet the attack of the Bolos and fought a drawn
battle with them in the woods in the afternoon. Both sides dug in. “I”
Company lost one killed and four wounded.
Meanwhile “M” Company, after one day to reorganize and rest, hurried up
during the afternoon fight and prepared to relieve “I” Company.
Sleeping on their arms around the dull-burning fires at 448 between
noisy periods of night exchanges of fire by the Americans and Red
Guards, this company next morning at 6:00 a. m. went through under a
rolling barrage of Major Lee’s artillery, which had been able to
improve its position during the night, thanks to the resolute work of
Lieut. Giffels and his American Engineers on the railroad track.
Stoner’s platoon destroyed the heavy outpost of Bolos with a sharp fire
fight and a charge and swept on, only halting when he reached a large
stream. Beyond this was a half-mile square clearing with characteristic
woodpiles and station and woodmen’s houses, occupied by a heavy force
of six hundred Red Guards, themselves preparing for attack on the
Americans. Here Captain Moore timed his three platoons and Lieut.
Spitler’s machine guns for a rush on three sides with intent to gain a
foothold at least within the clearing. The very impetuosity of the
doughboy’s noisy attack struck panic into the poorly led Bolsheviks and
they won an easy victory, having possession of the position inside half
an hour. The Reds were routed and pursued beyond the objectives set by
Col. Sutherland. And the old company horse shoe again worked. Though
many men had their clothes riddled not a man was scratched.
The position was consolidated. An hour after the engagement two
sections of the French Company that had sulked the preceding day came
smilingly up and helped fortify the flanks. Their beloved old battalion
commander, Major Alabernarde, had shamed them out of their mutinous
conduct and they were satisfied again to help their much admired
American comrades in this strange, faraway side show of the great world
war.
One or two interesting reminiscences here crowd in. It was during the
charge on 445 that Lieut. Stoner missed a dugout door by a foot with
his hand grenade and his tender heart near froze with horror an hour
afterward when he came back from pursuit of the Reds to find that with
the one Bolo soldier in the dugout were cowering twenty-seven women and
children, one eight days old. The red-whiskered old Bolo soldier had a
hand grenade in his pocket and Sergeant Dundon nearly shook his yellow
teeth loose trying to make him reply to questions in English. And the
poor varlet nearly expired with terror later in the day when Lieut.
Riis of the American Embassy stood him up with his back against a
shack. “Comrades, have mercy on me! My wife and my children,” he begged
as he fell on his knees before the click of the camera.
Another good story was often told about the alleged “Bolo Spy Dog
Patrols” first discovered when the British officer led his Royal Scots,
most of them raw Russian recruits, to the front posts at 445 to
reinforce “M” Co. “Old Ruble” had been a familiar sight to the
Americans. At this time he had picked up a couple of cur buddies, and
was staying with the Americans at the front, having perpetual pass good
at any part of the four-square outpost. But the British officer
reported him to the American officer as a sure-enough trained Bolshevik
patrol dog and threatened to shoot him. And at four o’clock the next
morning they did fire at the dogs and started up the nervous Red Guards
into machine gun fire from their not distant trench line and brought
everyone out to man our lines for defense. And the heavy enemy shelling
cut up Scots (Russians) as well as Americans.
Here the fall advance on the Archangel-Vologda Railway ended. We were a
few versts north of Emtsa, but “_mnoga, mnoga versts_,” many versts,
distant from Vologda, the objective picked by General Poole for this
handful of men. Emtsa was a railroad repair shop village. We wanted it.
General Ironside who relieved Poole, however, had issued a general
order to hold up further advances on all the fronts. So we dug in.
Winter would soon be on, anyway.
The Red Guards, however, meant to punish us for the capture of this
position. He thoroughly and savagely shelled the position repeatedly
and the British artillery moved up as the Yankee engineers restored the
destroyed railroad track and duelled daily with the very efficient Red
artillery. We have to admit that with his knowledge of the area the Red
artillery officer had the best of the strategy and the shooting. He had
the most guns too.
Major Nichols was heard to remark the day after he had been through the
severe six gun barrage of the Reds who poured their wrath on the
Americans at 445 before they could but more than get slight shrapnel
shelters made, and had suffered four casualties, and the Royal Scots
had lost a fine Scotch lieutenant and two Russian soldiers. “This
shelling of course would be small peanuts to the French and British
soldiers who were on the Western Front, but to us Americans fresh from
the fields and city offices and shops of Michigan it is a little hell.”
And so the digging was good at 445 during the last of October and the
first of November while Major Nichols with “M” and “I” and French and
American machine gun sections held this front.
On the fourth of November “I” Company supported by the French machine
gunners sustained a terrific attack by the Reds in powerful force,
repulsed them finally after several hours, with great losses, and
gained from General Ironside a telegram of congratulations. “I” Co.
lost one killed, one missing, two wounded, one of which was Lieut.
Reese. After that big attack the enemy left us in possession and we
began to fear winter as much as we did the enemy. The only event that
broke the routine of patrols and artillery duels was the accidental
bombing by our Allied airplane of our position instead of the half-mile
distant enemy trenches, one of the two 112-lb. bombs taking the life of
Floyd Sickles, “M” Company’s barber and wounding another soldier.
Amusing things also are recalled. The American medical officer at the
front line one morning looked at a French soldier who seemed to be
coming down with a heavy cold and generously doped him up with hot
water and whiskey. Next morning the whole machine gun section of French
were on sick call. But Collins was wise, and perhaps his bottle was
empty.
One day a big, husky Yank in “I” Company was brokenly “parlevooing”
with a little French gunner, who was seen to leap excitedly into the
air and drape himself about the doughboy’s neck exclaiming with joy,
“My son, my son, my dear sister’s son.” This is the truth. And he took
the Yank over to his dugout for a celebration of this strange family
meeting, filled him up with sour wine, and his pockets with pictures of
dancing girls.
Of course we were to learn to our discomfort and peril that winter was
the time chosen by Trotsky for his counter-offensive against the Allied
forces in the North. Of that winter campaign we shall tell in later
chapters. We leave the Americans now on the railroad associated with
their French comrades and 310th Engineers building blockhouses for
defense and quarters to keep warm.
III
RIVER PUSH FOR KOTLAS