artillery men and one Company “B” sergeant with seven men and a Lewis
gun. Due to the heroism and coolness of this handful of men, who at
once opened fire with their Lewis guns, forcing the advancing infantry
to pause momentarily. This brief halt gave the Canadians a chance to
reverse their gun positions, swing them around and open up with muzzle
bursts upon the first wave of the assault, scarcely fifty yards away.
It was but a moment until the hurricane of shrapnel was bursting among
solid masses of advancing infantry, and under such murderous fire, the
best disciplined troops and the most foolhardly could not long
withstand. Certain it was that the advancing Bolo could not continue
his advance. The Bolos were on our front, our right flank and our rear,
we were entirely cut off from communication, and there were no
reinforcements available. About 4:00 p. m. we launched a small counter
attack under Lt. Dennis, which rolled up a line of snipers which had
given us considerable annoyance. We then shelled the rear villages
occupied by the Bolos, and they decamped. Meanwhile the Royal Scots,
who had been formed for the counter attack, went forward also under the
cover of the artillery, and the Bolo, or at least those few remaining,
were driven back into the forests.
The enemy losses during this attack were enormous. His estimated dead
and wounded were approximately four hundred, but it will never be known
as to how many of them later died in the surrounding forests from
wounds and exposure. This engagement was not [only] disastrous from the
loss of men, but was even more disastrous from the fact that some of
the leading Bolshevik leaders on this front were killed during this
engagement. One of the leading commanders was an extremely powerful
giant of a man, named Melochofski, who first led his troops into the
village hospital in the rear of the gun positions. He strode into the
hospital, wearing a huge black fur hat, which accentuated his
extraordinary height, and singled out all the wounded American and
English troops for immediate execution, and this would undoubtedly have
been their fate, had it not been for the interference of a most
remarkable woman, who was christened by the soldiers “Lady Olga.”
This woman, a striking and intelligent appearing person, had formerly
been a member of the famous Battalion of Death, and afterwards informed
one of our interpreters that she had joined the Soviets out of pure
love of adventure, wholly indifferent to the cause for which she
exposed her life. She had fallen in love with Melochofski and had
accompanied him with his troops through the trackless woods, sharing
the lot of the common soldiers and enduring hardships that would have
shaken the most vigorous man. With all her hardihood, however, there
was still a touch of the eternal feminine, and when Melochofski issued
orders for the slaughter of the invalided soldiers, she rushed forward
and in no uncertain tones demanded that the order be countermanded and
threatened to shoot the first Bolo who entered the hospital. She
herself remained in the hospital while Melochofski with the balance of
his troops went forward with the attack and where he himself was so
mortally wounded that he lived only a few minutes after reaching her
side. She eventually was sent to the hospital at the base and nursed
there. Capt. Boyd states that he saw a letter which she wrote,
unsolicited, to her former comrades, telling them that they should not
believe the lies which their commissars told them, and that the Allies
were fighting for the good of Russia.
At daybreak the following day, five gun boats appeared around the bend
of the river, just out of range of our three inch artillery, and all
day long their ten long ranged guns pounded away at our positions,
crashing great explosives upon our blockhouse, which guarded the bridge
connecting the upper and middle village, while in the forests
surrounding this position the Bolo infantry were lying in wait awaiting
for a direct hit upon this strong point in order that they could rush
the bridge and overwhelm us. Time after time exploding shells threw
huge mounds of earth and debris into the loop holes of this blockhouse
and all but demolished it.
Here Sergeant Wallace performed a particularly brave act. The
blockhouse of which he was in command was near a large straw pile. A
shell hit near the straw and threw it in front of the loop holes.
Wallace went out under machine gun fire from close range, about
seventy-five yards, and under heavy shelling, and removed the straw.
The same thing happened a little later, and this time he was severely
wounded. He was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal by the British.
Private Bell was in this blockhouse when it was hit and all the
occupants killed or badly wounded. Bell was badly gashed in the face,
but stuck with his Lewis gun until dark when he could be relieved,
being the only one in the shattered blockhouse which held the bridge
across the small stream separating us from the Bolos.
For three days the gun boats pounded away and all night long there was
the rattle and crack of the machine guns. No one slept. The little
garrison was fast becoming exhausted. Men were hollow-eyed from
weariness and so utterly tired that they were indifferent to the
shrieking shells and all else. At this point of the siege, it was
decided that our only salvation was a counter attack. In the forests
near the upper village were a number of log huts, which the natives had
used for charcoal kilns, but which had been converted by the enemy into
observation posts and storehouses for machine guns and ammunition. His
troops were lying in and about the woods surrounding these buildings.
We decided to surprise this detachment in the woods, capture it if
possible and make a great demonstration of an attack so as to give the
enemy in the upper village the impression that we were receiving
reinforcements and still fresh and ready for fighting. This maneuver
succeeded far beyond our wildest expectations.
Company “B,” under command of Lt. John Cudahy, and one platoon of
Company “D” under Lt. Derham, made the counter attack on the Bolo
trenches. Just before dawn that morning the Americans filed through the
forests and crept upon the enemy’s observation posts before they were
aware of any movement on our part. We then proceeded without any
warning upon their main position. Taken as they were, completely by
surprise, it was but a moment before they were in full rout, running
panic-stricken in all directions, thinking that a regiment or division
had followed upon them. We immediately set fire to these huts
containing their ammunition, cartridges, etc., and the subsequent
explosion that followed probably gave the enemy the impression that a
terrific attack was pending. As we emerged from the woods and commenced
the attack upon upper Toulgas we were fully expecting stiff resistance,
for we knew that many of these houses concealed enemy guns. Our plans
had succeeded so well, however, that no supporting fire from the upper
village came and the snipers in the forward part of the village seeing
themselves abandoned, threw their guns and came rushing forward
shouting _“tovarish, tovarish,”_ meaning the same as the German
“_kamerad._” As a matter of fact, in this motley crew of prisoners were
a number of Germans and Austrians, who could scarcely speak a word of
German and who were probably more than thankful to be taken prisoners
and thus be relieved from active warfare.
During this maneuver one of their bravest and ablest commanders, by the
name of Foukes, was killed, which was an irreparable loss to the enemy.
Foukes was without question one of the most competent and aggressive of
the Bolo leaders. He was a very powerful man physically and had long
years of service as a private in the old Russian Army, and was without
question a most able leader of men. During this four days’ attack and
counter attack he had led his men by a circuitous route through the
forests, wading in swamps waist deep, carrying machine guns and
rations. The nights were of course miserably cold and considerable snow
had fallen, but Foukes would risk no fire of any kind for fear of
discovery. It was not due to any lack of ability or strategy on his
part that this well planned attack failed of accomplishment. On his
body we found a dramatic message, written on the second day of the
battle after the assault on the guns had failed. He was with the rear
forces at that time and dispatched or had intended to dispatch the
following to the command in charge of the forward forces:
“We are in the two lowest villages—one steamer coming up river—perhaps
reinforcements. Attack more vigorously—Melochofski and Murafski are
killed. If you do not attack, I cannot hold on and retreat is
impossible. (Signed) FOUKES.”
Out of our force of about six hundred Scots and Americans we had about
a hundred casualties, the Scots suffering worse than we. Our casualties
were mostly sustained in the blockhouses, from the shelling. It was
here that we lost Corporal Sabada and Sergeant Marriott, both of whom
were fine soldiers and their loss was very keenly felt. Sabada’s dying
words were instructions to his squad to hold their position in the rear
of their blockhouse which had been destroyed.
It was reported that Trotsky, the idol of the Red crowd, was present at
the battle of Toulgas, but if he was there, he had little influence in
checking the riotous retreat of his followers when they thought
themselves flanked from the woods. They fled in wild disorder from the
upper village of Toulgas and for days thereafter in villages far to our
rear, various members of this force straggled in, half crazed by
starvation and exposure and more than willing to abandon the Soviet
cause. For weeks the enemy left the Americans severely alone. Toulgas
was held.
But it was decided to burn Upper Toulgas, which was a constant menace
to our security, as we had no men to occupy it with sufficient numbers
to make a defense and the small outposts there were tempting morsels
for the enemy to devour. Many were reluctant to stay there, and it was
nervous work on the black nights when the wind, dismal and weird,
moaned through the encompassing forest, every shadow a crouching
Bolshevik. Often the order came through to the main village to “stand
to,” because some fidgety sentinel in Upper Toulgas had seen
battalions, conjured by the black night. So it was determined to burn
the upper village and a guard was thrown around it, for we feared word
would be passed and the Bolos would try to prevent us from
accomplishing our purpose. The inhabitants were given three hours to
vacate. It was a pitiful sight to see them turned out of the dwellings
where most of them had spent their whole simple, not unhappy lives,
their meagre possessions scattered awry upon the ground.
The first snow floated down from a dark foreboding sky, dread announcer
of a cruel Arctic winter. Soon the houses were roaring flames. The
women sat upon hand-fashioned crates wherein were all their most prized
household goods, and abandoned themselves to a paroxysm of weeping
despair, while the children shrieked stridently, victim of all the
realistic horrors that only childhood can conjure. Most of the men
looked on in silence, uncomprehending resignation on their faces, mute,
pathetic figures. Poor moujiks! They didn’t understand, but they took
all uncomplainingly. _Nitchevoo_, fate had decreed that they should
suffer this burden, and so they accepted it without question.
But when we thought of the brave chaps whose lives had been taken from
those flaming homes, for our casualties had been very heavy, nearly one
hundred men killed and wounded, we stifled our compassion and looked on
the blazing scene as a jubilant bonfire. All night long the burning
village was red against the black sky, and in the morning where had
stood Upper Toulgas was now a smoking, dirty smudge upon the plain.
We took many prisoners in this second fight of Toulgas. It was a trick
of the Bolos to sham death until a searching party, bent on examining
the bodies for information, would approach them, when suddenly they
would spring to life and deliver themselves up. These said that only by
this method could they escape the tyranny of the Bolsheviki. They
declared that never had they any sympathy with the Soviet cause. They
didn’t understand it. They had been forced into the Red Army at the
point of a gun, and were kept in it by the same persuasive argument.
Others said they had joined the Bolshevik military forces to escape
starvation.
There was only one of the thirty prisoners who admitted being an ardent
follower of the cause, and a believer in the Soviet articles of
political doctrine, and this was an admission that took a great deal of
courage, for it was instilled universally in the Bolos that we showed
no mercy, and if they fell into the hands of the cruel Angliskis and
Americanskis there was nothing but a hideous death for them.
Of course our High Command had tried to feed our troops the same kind
of propaganda. Lenine, himself, said that of every one hundred
Bolsheviks fifty were knaves, forty were fools, and probably one in the
hundred a sincere believer. Once a Bolshevik commander who gave himself
up to us said that the great majority of officers in the Soviet forces
had been conscripted from the Imperial Army and were kept in order by
threats to massacre their families if they showed the slightest
tendency towards desertion. The same officer told me the Bolshevik
party was hopelessly in the minority, that its adherents numbered only
about three and a half in every hundred Russians, that it had gained
ascendancy and held power only because Lenine and Trotsky inaugurated
their revolution by seizing every machine gun in Russia and steadfastly
holding on to them. He said that every respectable person looked upon
the Bolsheviks as a gang of cutthroats and ruffians, but all were
bullied into passive submission.
We heard him wonderingly. We tried to fancy America ever being
brow-beaten and cowed by an insignificant minority, her commercial life
prostrated, her industries ravished, and we gave the speculation up as
an unworthy reflection upon our country. But this was Russia, Russia
who inspired the world by her courage and fortitude in the great war,
and while it was at its most critical stage, fresh with the memories of
millions slain on Gallician fields, concluded the shameful treaty of
Brest Litovsk, betraying everything for which those millions had died.
Russia, following the visionary Kerensky from disorder to chaos, and
eventually wallowing in the mire of Bolshevism. Yes, one can expect
anything in Russia.
They were a hardboiled looking lot, those Bolo prisoners. They wore no
regulation uniform, but were clad in much the same attire as an
ordinary moujik—knee leather boots and high hats of gray and black
curled fur. No one could distinguish them from a distance, and every
peasant could be Bolshevik. Who knew? In fact, we had reason to believe
that many of them were Bolshevik in sympathy. The Bolos had an uncanny
knowledge of our strength and the state of our defenses, and although
no one except soldiers were allowed beyond the village we knew that
despite the closest vigilance there was working unceasingly a system of
enemy espionage with which we could never hope to cope.
Some of the prisoners were mere boys seventeen and eighteen years old.
Others men of advanced years. Nearly all of them were hopelessly
ignorant, likely material for a fiery tongued orator and plausible
propagandist. They thought the Americans were supporting the British in
an invasion of Russia to suppress all democratic government, and to
return a Romanoff to the throne.
That was the story that was given out to the moujiks, and, of course,
they firmly believed it, and after all why should they not, judging by
appearances? We quote here from an American officer who fought at
Toulgas:
“If we had not come to restore the Tsar, why had we come, invading
Russia, and burning Russian homes? We spoke conciliatingly of ‘friendly
intervention,’ of bringing peace and order to this distracted country,
to the poor moujik, when what he saw were his villages a torn battle
ground of two contending armies, while the one had forced itself upon
him, requisitioned his shaggy pony, burned the roof over his head, and
did whatever military necessity dictated. It was small concern to Ivan
whether the Allies or the Bolsheviks won this strange war. He did not
know what it was all about, and in that he was like the rest of us. But
he asked only to be left alone, in peace to lead his simple life,
gathering his scanty crops in the hot brief months of summer and
dreaming away the long dreary winter on top of his great oven-like
stove, an unworrying fatalistic disciple of the philosophy of
nitchevoo.”
After the fierce battle to hold Toulgas, the only contact with the
enemy was by patrols. “D” Company came up from Chamova and relieved “B”
Company for a month. Work was constantly expended upon the winter
defenses. The detachment of 310th Engineers was to our men an
invaluable aid. And when “B” went up to Toulgas again late in January,
they found the fortifications in fine shape. But meanwhile rumors were
coming in persistently of an impending attack.
The Bolo made his long expected night attack January 29, in conjunction
with his drive on the Vaga, and was easily repulsed. Another similar
attack was made a little later in February, which met with a similar
result. It was reported to us that the Bolo soldiers held a meeting in
which they declared that it was impossible to take Toulgas, and that
they would shoot any officer who ordered another attack there.
It was during one of the fracases that Lt. Dressing captured his
prisoner. With a sergeant he was inspecting the wire, shortly after the
Bolo had been driven back, and came upon a Bolo who threw up his hands.
Dressing drew his revolver, and the sergeant brought his rifle down to
a threatening position, the Bolo became frightened and seized the
bayonet. Dressing wishing to take the prisoner alive grabbed his
revolver by the barrel and aimed a mighty swing. Unfortunately he
forgot that the British revolver is fastened to a lanyard, and that the
lanyard was around his shoulder. As a result his swing was stopped in
midair, nearly breaking his arm, the Bolo dropped the bayonet and took
it on the run, getting away safely, leaving Dressing with nothing to
bring in but a report.
March 1st we met with a disaster, one of our patrols being ambushed,
and a platoon sent out to recover the wounded meeting a largely
superior force, which was finally dispersed by artillery. We lost eight
killed and more wounded. Sergeant Bowman, one of the finest men it has
been my privilege to know, was killed in this action and his death was
a blow personally to every man in the company.
Corporal Prince was in command of the first patrol, which was ambushed.
In trying to assist the point, who was wounded, Prince was hit. When we
finally reached the place of this encounter the snow showed that Prince
had crawled about forty yards after he was wounded and fired his rifle
several times. He had been taken prisoner.
From this time on the fighting in the Upper Dvina was limited to the
mere patrol activities. There to be sure was always a strain on the
men. Remembering their comrades who had been ambushed before, it took
the sturdiest brand of courage for small parties to go out day and
night on the hard packed trails, to pass like deer along a marked
runway with hunter ready with cocked rifle. The odds were hopelessly
against them. The vigilance of their patrols, however, may account for
the fact that even after his great success on the Vaga, the commander
of Bolshevik Northern Army did not send his forces against the
formidably guarded Toulgas.
One day we were ordered by British headquarters to patrol many miles
across the river where it had been reported small parties of Bolos were
raiding a village. We had seventeen sleighs drawn by little shaggy
ponies, which we left standing in their harnesses and attached to the
sleighs while we slept among the trees beside a great roaring blaze
that our Russian drivers piled high with big logs the whole night
through; and the next morning, in the phantom gloom we were off again,
gliding noiselessly through the forest, charged with the unutterable
stillness of infinite ethereal space; but, as the shadows paled, there
was unfolded a fairyland of enchanted wonders that I shall always
remember. Invisible hands of artistry had draped the countless pines
with garlands and wreaths of white with filmy aigrettes and huge,
ponderous globes and festoons woven by the frost in an exquisite and
fantastic handiwork; and when the sun came out, as it did for a few
moments, every ornament on those decorated Christmas trees glittered
and twinkled with the magic of ten thousand candles. It was enchanted
toyland spread before us and we were held spell bound by a profusion of
airy wonders that unfolded without end as we threaded our way through
the forest flanked by the straight, towering trunks.
After a few miles the ponies could go no further through the high
drifts, so we left them and made our way on snowshoes a long distance
to a group of log houses the reported rendezvous of the Bolsheviks, but
there were no Bolos there, nor any signs of recent occupancy, so we
burned the huts and very wearily dragged our snow shoes the long way
back to the ponies. They were wet with sweat when we left them belly
deep in the snow; but there they were, waiting with an attitude of
patient resignation truly Russian and they made the journey homeward
with more speed and in higher spirits than when they came. There is
only one thing tougher than the Russian pony and that is his driver,
for the worthies who conducted us on this lengthy journey walked most
of the way through the snow and in the intense cold, eating a little
black bread, washed down with hot tea, and sleeping not at all.
[Illustration: WAGNER
_Something Like a Selective Draft._]
[Illustration: WAGNER
_Canadian Artillery, Kurgomin._]
[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_Watch-Tower, Verst 455._]
[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_Toulgas Outpost._]
[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_One of a Bolo Patrol._]
[Illustration: U. S. OFFICIAL
_Patrolling._]
Those long weeks of patrol and sentry duty were wearing on the men.
Sentinels were continually seeing things at night that were not. Once
we were hurried out into the cold darkness by the report of a great
multitude of muttering voices approaching from the forest, but not a
shot answered our challenge and the next morning there in the snow were
the fresh tracks of timber wolves—a pack had come to the end of the
woods—no wonder the Detroit fruit salesman on guard thought the Bolos
were upon us.
But not long afterwards the Bolos did come and more cunningly and
stealthily than the wolf pack, for in the black night they crept up and
were engaged in the act of cutting the barbed wire between the
blockhouses, when a sentinel felt—there was no sound—something
suspicious, and sped a series of machine gun bullets in the direction
he suspected. There was a fight lasting for hours, and in the morning
many dead Bolos were lying in the deep snow beyond the wire defenses.
They wore white smocks which, at any distance, in the dim daylight,
blended distinctly with the snow and at night were perfectly invisible.
We were grateful to the sentinel with the intuitive sense of impending
danger. Some soldiers have this intuition. It is beyond explanation but
it exists. You have only to ask a soldier who has been in battle combat
to verify the truth of this assertion.
Still we decided not to rely entirely upon this remarkable faculty of
intuition, some man might be on watch not so gifted; and so we tramped
down a path inside the wire encompassing the center village. During the
long periods between the light we kept up an ever vigilant patrol.