Another part of the British issue ration was dried vegetables, which
the soldiers nicknamed “grass stew,” much to the annoyance of one Lt.
Blease, our American censor who read all our letters in England to see
that we did not criticise our Allies. One day at Soyla grass stew was
on the menu, says a corporal. One of the men offered his Russian
hostess a taste of it. She spat it out on the hay before the cow. The
cow was insulted and refused either stew or hay. Much was done to
improve the ration by General Ironside who accepted with sympathy the
suggestions of Major Nichols. Coffee finally took the place of tea.
More bread and less hard tack was issued. Occasionally fresh meat was
provided. But on the whole the British ration did not satisfy the
American soldier.
This leads to a good story. One day during the Smolny riot-scare the
writer with a group of non-commissioned officers in going all over the
area to discover its possibilities for tactics and strategy, visited
the Russian Veterinarian School. Here we saw the poor Russki pony in
all stages of dissection, from spurting throat to disembowelment and
horse-steaks. “Me for the good old bully,” muttered a corporal
devoutly, as he turned his head away. Here we remember the query of a
corporal of Headquarters Company who said: “Where is that half million
dogs that were in Archangel when we landed last September?” The
Russians had no meat market windows offering wieners and bologny but it
sure was a tough winter for food in that city congested with a large
refugee population. And dogs disappeared.
Of the purely military life in Archangel in the long winter little can
be said. The real work was done far out at the fronts anyway. No
commander of a company of troops fighting for his sector of the line
ever got any real assistance from Archangel except of the routine kind.
Many a commendatory message and many a cheering visit was paid the
troops by General Ironside but we can not record the same for Colonel
Stewart. He was not a success as a commanding officer. He fell down
weakly under his great responsibility. Before the long winter was over
General Richardson was sent up to Archangel to take command.
During the early winter a doughboy in Archangel in this spirit of good
humor wrote a letter published later in _The Stars and Stripes_ in
France. It is so good that we include it here.
“Sometimes, about once or twice every now and then, copies of _The
Stars and Stripes_ find their way up here to No Woman’s Land and are
instantly devoured by the news-hungry gang, searching for information
regarding their comrades and general conditions in France, where we
belong, but through Fate were sent up to this part of the world to
quell Bolshevism and guard the Northern Lights.
“We are so far north that the doggone sun works only when it feels
inclined to do so, and in that way it is like everything else in
Russia. The moon isn’t so particular, and comes up, usually backwards,
at any time of the day or night, in any part of the sky, it having no
set schedule, and often it will get lost and still be on the job at
noon. Yes, we are so far north that 30 degrees below will soon be
tropical weather to us, and they will have to build fires around both
cows before they can milk them. Probably about next month at this time
some one will come around and say we will be pulling out of here in a
day or so, but then, the days will be six months long.
“In our issue of your very popular paper we noticed a cartoon, “Pity
the boys in Siberia,” but what about us, Ed? Now, up here in this tough
town there are 269,83l. inhabitants, of which 61,329 are human beings
and 208,502 are dogs. Dogs of every description from the poodle to the
St. Bernard and from the wolfhound to the half-breed dachshund, which
is half German and half Bolshevik and looks the part.
“The wind whistles across the Dvina River like the Twentieth Century
Limited passing Podunk, and snowflakes are as numerous as retreating
Germans were in France a few weeks ago. We have good quarters when we
are here, thank fortune for that, and good food, when it comes up. If
we can stand the winter we will be all jake, for a Yank can accustom
himself to anything if he wants to. But just the same, we would like to
see your artists busy on “The Boys in Northern Russia” and tell them
not to leave out the word “Northern.”
“We also read in _The Stars and Stripes_ that the boys in Italy had
some tongue twisters and brain worriers, but listen to this: Centimes
and sous and francs may be hard to count, but did you ever hear of a
rouble or a kopec? A kopec is worth a tenth of a cent and there are a
hundred of them in a rouble. As you will see, that makes a rouble worth
a dime, and to make matters worse all the money is paper, coins having
gone out of circulation since the beginning of the mix-up. A kopec is
the size of a postage stamp, a rouble looks like a United Cigar Store’s
Certificate, a 25-rouble note resembles a porous plaster and a
100-rouble note the Declaration of Independence.
“When a soldier in search of a meal enters a restaurant, he says to the
waitress, ‘Barishna, kakajectyeh bifstek, pozhalysta,’ which means ‘An
order of beefsteak, lady, please: You see, you always say to a woman
‘barishna’ and she is always addressed in that manner. She will answer
the hungry customer with, ‘Yah ochen sojalaylu, shto unaus nyet yestnik
prepasov siechas’ (a simple home cure for lockjaw), meaning, “I am very
sorry, but we are right out of food today.’ He will try several other
places, and if he is lucky he is apt to stumble across a place where he
can get something to eat, but when he looks at the bill of fare and
learns that it cost him about $7.50 for a sandwich and a cup of coffee,
he beats it back to the barracks.
“Every time you get on a street car (‘dramvay’) you have to count out
60 kopecs for your fare, and most of us would rather walk than be
jammed in the two-by-four buses and fish for the money. Before boarding
a car each passenger usually hunts up a couple of five gallon milk
cans, a market basket or two and a bag of smoked herring, so they will
get their kopec’s worth out of the ride, besides making the atmosphere
nice and pleasant for the rest of the passengers. If you should see a
soldier walking down the street with his nose turned up and his mouth
puckered in apparent contempt, you would be wrong in thinking he was
conceited, for if the truth be known he has probably just got his shirt
back from the washwoman, and she has used fish-oil instead of soap and
he is trying to escape the fumes. When you take your clothes to have
them laundered and tell the woman to please omit the odor, she’ll tell
you that she has no soap and if you want them washed to your
satisfaction please send in a cake. Anything in the world to keep your
clothes from smelling of fish-oil, so you double-time back and get her
the soap, and then she gives the kids a bath, and that’s the end of
your soap.
“When a Russian meets another man he knows on the street, both lift
hats and flirt with each other. If they stop to talk, they always shake
hands, even if they haven’t seen each other for fully twenty minutes.
Then they simply must shake hands again when they leave. When a man
meets a lady friend he usually kisses her hand and shows her how far he
can bend over without breaking his suspenders. ‘Ah,’ he will say, ‘yah
ochen rrad vasveedyat, kak vui pazhavaetye?’ which in the United States
means ‘How do you do?’ to which she will reply, ‘Blogadaru vas, yah
ochen korosho,’ or ‘very well, thank you.’ It is the knockout. A fellow
has to shake hands so much that some of them are getting the habit
around the company.
“And another thing, Ed, are they really holding a separate war up here
for our benefit? Just because we weren’t in on the big doings in France
is no reason why they should run a post-season series especially for
us. We appreciate the kindness and honor and all that, but what we want
to know is where everybody gets that stuff. Believe me, after all the
dope we got on the trenches, about pianos and wooden floors, steam
heat, and other conveniences, when we see ourselves on outpost duty
with one blanket and a poncho, sleeping (not on duty, of course) in
twenty-eight inches of pure ooooozy mud, which before we awaken turns
into thin, fine ice, it makes us want to cry out and ask the universe
what we have done to deserve this exile.
“Now don’t think, dear old Ed. that we are kicking. American soldiers
never do. We just wanted to have something to write you about, to
remind you that we ARE a part of the American E. F., although
‘isolated.’
“With best wishes to your paper and a Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year to all the boys, I’ll close with the consoling assurance in my
heart that we’ll meet you back on Broadway, anyway.
C. B. KNIGHT, Corp. “Hq” Co., 339th Inf.,
American E. F., Archangel, Russia.”
XXII
WINTER ON THE RAILROAD
We Come Under French Flag—Thanksgiving Day At Verst 455—Exploration And
Blockhouse Building—First Occupation Of Bolsheozerki—Airplane Bombs Our
Own Front Line Troops—Year’s End Push On Plesetskaya Fiasco—Nichols
Makes Railroad Sector Impregnable—Bolo Patrol Blows Up Our Big
Six—Heavy Drive By Reds At Winter’s End—“I” Company Relieves
French-Russian Force—Valorous Conduct Of Men Gives Lie To Charges Of
Loss Of Morale.
In the narrative telling of the fighting on the Vaga and Dvina, we have
already seen that the Red Guards had disillusioned us in regard to the
quiet winter campaign we hoped and expected. Now we shall resume the
story of the Railroad, or Vologda Force, as it had become known, and
tell of the attempted Allied push on Plesetskaya to relieve the
pressure on the River Fronts.
After our digging in at Verst 445 in early November, a Company of
Liverpools came from Economia to aid the French infantry and American
and French machine gunners, supported by French artillery, to hold that
winter front. The American units who had fought on the railroad in the
fall were all given ten days rest in Archangel. Soon the Americans were
once more back on the front. And it started off uneventful. A French
officer, Colonel Lucas, had come into command of the Vologda Force.
American units were generously supplied with the French Chauchat
automatic rifles, and ammunition for them, and with French rifles and
tromblons to throw the rifle grenades. Earnest business of learning to
use them.
Those who were stationed at field headquarters of the Front Sector of
the Vologda Force, which was at Verst 455, will recollect with great
pleasure the Thanksgiving Day half-holiday and program arranged by
Major Nichols, commanding the American forces. He gave us Miss Ogden,
the Y. W. C. A. woman from d. o. U. S. A. to read President Wilson’s
proclamation. How strange it seemed to us soldiers standing there under
arms. And Major Moodie the old veteran of many a British campaign, and
friend of Kitchener, the good old story teller praised the boys and
prayed with them. Major Nichols and Major Alabernarde spoke cheering
and bracing words to the assembled American and French soldiers. It was
an occasion that raised fighting morale.
The President’s Thanksgiving proclamation was transmitted to the
American troops in Russia through the office of the American Embassy.
The soldiers listened intently to the words of Mr. De Witt C. Poole,
Jr., the American Charge d’Affaires who since the departure of
Ambassador Francis, was the American diplomatic representative in
European Russia. His message was as follows:
“The military Command has been asked to make this day a holiday for the
troops, so far as military requirements permit, and to communicate to
them upon an occasion fraught with tradition and historical memories,
the hearty greetings of all Americans who are working with them in
Northern Russia.
“The American Embassy desires the troops to know that both here and at
Washington there is a full understanding of the difficulties of the
work which they are being called upon to do and a desire no less ardent
than their own that they should realize as soon as possible the
blessings of the peace which is foreshadowed by the armistice on the
Western Front.”
The chief note in the President’s proclamation which lingered on the
doughboy’s ear was as follows:
“Our gallant armies have participated in a triumph which is not marred
or stained by any purpose of selfish aggression. In a righteous cause
they have won immortal glory and have nobly served their nation in
serving mankind.”
Work of building blockhouses went rapidly forward under the steady work
of the 310th Engineers and the cheerful labor of the infantrymen who
found the occupation of swinging axes and hauling logs through the snow
to be not unpleasant exercise in the stinging winter weather that was
closing down. A commodious building began to go up at 455 for the Y. M.
C. A. French-Russian force under a terrific bombardment and barrage of
machine to use for winter entertainments for the men stationed in that
stronghold.
Exploration of the now more available winter swamp trails went on
carefully. The chain of lakes and swamps several miles to the west ran
north from Sheleksa concentration camp of the Bolos to Bolsheozerki,
parallel to the Railroad line of operations. This Bolsheozerki was an
important point on the government road which went from Obozerskaya to
Onega. It was thought wise to protect this village as in winter mail
would have to be sent out of Archangel by way of Obozerskaya, via
Onega, via Kem, via Kola, the open winter port on the Murmansk coast
hundreds of miles away to the west and north. And troops might be
brought in, too. A look at the map will discover the strategic value of
this point Bolsheozerki. American and French troops now began to
alternate in the occupation of that cluster of villages.
A sergeant of “M” Company might tell about the neat villages, about the
evidences of a higher type than usual of agriculture in the broad
clearing, about the fishing nets and wood cutters’ tools, and last, but
not least about the big schoolhouse and the winsome _barishna_ who
taught the primary room.
Nothing more than an occasional patrol or artillery exchange took place
on the railroad although there was an occasional flurry when the
British intelligence officers found out that the Reds were plotting a
raid or a general attack. It was known that they had begun to augment
their forces on our front. Sound of their axes had been as constant on
the other side of No Man’s Land as it had on our side. They were
erecting blockhouses for the winter. Occasionally their airplanes
exchanged visits with ours, always dropping a present for us. No
casualties resulted from their bombs directed at us. Unfortunately one
day our bombing plane mistook our front line for the Red front line and
dropped two big bombs on our own position and caused one death and one
severe wound.
The accident happened just as an American company was being relieved by
a French company. And it was a good thing the commander of the company
consumed the remainder of the day in getting his excited and enraged
men back to Obozerskaya because by that time the men were cooled off
and the nervous Royal Air Force had no occasion to use its rifles in
self-defense as it had prepared to do. They wisely stayed inside, as in
fact did the few other English sergeants and enlisted men at
Obozerskaya that ticklish night. The few wild Yanks who roamed the
dark, without pass, had all the room and road. There was a particularly
good mission at once found for this American company on another front,
whether by design or by coincidence. A board of officers whitewashed
the Canadian flyers of the Royal Air Force and the incident was closed.
Of course all the accidents did not happen to Americans. During the
winter on the Railroad, a sad one happened to a fine British officer. A
brooding enlisted man of the American medical corps went insane one
dark night and craftily securing a rifle held up the first Englishman
he found. He roundly berated the British officer with being the cause
of the North Russian War on the Bolsheviki, told the puzzled but
patiently listening officer to say a prayer and then suddenly blew off
the poor man’s head and himself went off his nut completely.
With the beginning of the winter campaign Pletsetskaya’s importance to
the Red Army began to loom up. Trotsky’s forces could be readily
supplied from that city and his forces could be swiftly shifted from
front to front to attack the widely dispersed forces of the Allied
Expedition. It was seen now clearly that the fall offensive should have
been pushed through to Plesetskaya by the converging Onega, Railroad
and Kodish Forces. And plans were made to retrieve the error by putting
on a determined push late in December to take Plesetskaya and reverse
the strategic situation so as to favor the Allied Expeditionary Forces.
The Onega Force was to make a strong diversion toward the Bolo extreme
left; the Kodish Force was to smash through Kodish to Kochmas assisted
by a heavy force of Russians and English operating on and through Gora
and Taresevo, and thence to Plesetskaya; the French-trained company of
Russian Courier-du-Bois were to go on snow shoes through the snow from
Obozerskaya to the rear of Emtsa for a surprise attack; and timed with
all these was the drive of the Americans and British Liverpools on the
Railroad straight at the Bolo fortifications at Verst 443 and Emtsa.
Study of the big map will show that the plan had its merits.
There were one or two things wrong with the plan. One was that it
underestimated the increased strength of the Bolshevik forces both in
numbers and in morale and discipline. The other was the erroneous
estimate of the time required to make the distances in the deep snow.
Of course it was not the fault of the plan that the information leaked
out and disaffected men deserted the Allied Russian auxiliaries’ ranks
and tipped off the push to the Bolsheviki.
The story of the New Year’s battles by “H” on the one hand and “K” on
the other have been told. It remains to relate here the “railroad push”
fiasco. The Courier-du-Bois got stuck in the deep snow, exhausted and
beaten before they were anywhere near Emtsa. American Machine Gun men
at Verst 445 front reported that S. B. A. L. deserters had gone over to
the Bolo lines. The Reds on December 29th and 30th became very active
with their artillery. Reports came in of the failure of the
Russian-British force that was to attack Tarsevo, and of the counter
attack of the Reds in the Onega Valley. So the Liverpools and the
French company and Winslow’s “I” Company and Lt. Donovan’s combination
company of two platoons of “G” and “M” who were all set for the smash
toward Emtsa and Plesetskaya found their orders suddenly countermanded
on December 31st and settled down to the routine winter defensive.
In order to facilitate troop movements and to make command more
compact, the French Colonel in command of the railroad force arranged
that the Americans should man the sectors of defense during the month
of February all alone and that the French battalion should occupy in
March. This worked out fairly satisfactory. “L” Company and half of “E”
Company, after rest at Archangel from their desperate work at Kodish,
joined “I” Company and half of “G” Company on the railroad under Major
Nichols, where an uneventful but busy month was passed in patrolling,
instruction and so forth.
Every sector of the railroad front was made practically impregnable to
infantry attack by the energetic work of “A” and “B” Company engineers
and the Pioneer platoon of Headquarters Company. And the dugouts which
they constructed at Verst 445 proved during the intermittent artillery
shelling of January-March to be proof against the biggest H. E. the
Bolo threw. Major Nichols sure drove the job of fortification through
with thoroughness and secured a very formidable array of all sorts of
weapons of defense. A great naval gun that could shoot twenty versts
was mounted on an American flat car and taken to his popular field
headquarters at Verst 455, where it was the pet of the crew of Russian
sailors. And constant instruction and practice with the various weapons
of the British, French and Russian types, which were in the hands of
the Americans gave them occupation during the many days of tension on
this winter front, where they daily expected the same thing to happen
that was overpowering their comrades on the River Fronts. And when at
the very end of the winter and the break of spring, the Reds did come
in great force the defenses were so strong and well manned that they
held at every point.
In March the French had a little excitement while the battalion of
Americans were at rest in Archangel. A daring Bolshevik patrol in force
circumnavigated through the deep snow of the pine woods on skiis and
surprised the _poilu_ defenders of their favorite howitzer on the
railway track, killing several and capturing the big six-inch trouble
maker. They destroyed it by feeding it a German hand grenade and then
made their getaway. Successes on other fronts seemed to stimulate the
Bolos to try out the defenses on this hitherto very quiet front. They
gave the Frenchies lots of trouble with their raiding parties. Whether
the fact that the French had local Russian troops with them had
anything to do with the renewal of activity is not provable, but it
seems probable, judging from the hatred seen expressed between Bolos
and anti-Bolsheviks on other fronts that winter.
And before the month of March was gone, Major Nichols was hurried back
to the Railroad Front, taking “L” and “E” Companies with him. The
French-Russian forces were in trouble. They had lost the strategic
Bolsheozerki, story of the severe fighting about which will form a
separate chapter. Rumor has it that the Russian troops on the front
were demoralized and that the enemy would strike before the Americans
could get there to relieve the French-Russian force.
General Ironside himself went to the railroad and the new Bolsheozerki
front and saw that quick action only could save the situation. He gave
Major Nichols free hand with his battalion and released “E” Company
which was on the Bolsheozerki front by sending “M” Company to the
desperate spot. Nichols with characteristic decisiveness determined to
make the relief before the set time and have his own men meet the
attack. It worked at all points. At Verst 445, the very front, “I”
Company gallantly went in to relieve the French and Russian under
artillery barrage and a heavy machine gun barrage together with a heavy
infantry attack on one flank. This company which has been unjustly
accused of having mutinied the day before at Archangel, was on this day
and three succeeding days subjected to all the fury of attack that the
Red Army commander had been mustering up for so many days to crush the
French-Russian force. And “I” Company supported by the French
artillery, by machine gun and trench mortar men, stood the Reds off
with great resolution and inflicted terrible losses. The railroad front
line was saved. The flank position gained by the Reds at Bolsheozerki
would be of doubtful value to them as long as the railroad sectors
held. The stoutness of the American defenses and the stoutness of their
morale had both been vindicated in terrific battle action.
And hereafter any veteran of the winter campaign fighting the
Bolsheviki, who still meets the false story of alleged mutiny of one of
the companies of the 339th Infantry in Archangel, a false story that
will not down even after emphatic denial by high army authorities who
investigated the reports that slipped out to the world over the British
cables, may ignore the charges as distortions which partisans who are
pro-Bolshevik are in the habit of giving currency with the vain idea of
trying to show that the Bolshevik propaganda convinced the American
soldier. They may refer to this valorous battle action of the alleged
mutinous company and to shining examples of its morale and valor in the
long fall and winter campaign fighting the Bolsheviki. The story of the
discontent which gave rise to the false story is told elsewhere.