May, one of the levelest-headed officers in the regiment, had put the
first and only man who showed signs of insubordination to an officer
under arrest. It developed afterward that the lieutenant was a little
severe with the man as he really had not understood the command, he
being a man who spoke little English and in the excitement was puzzled
by the order and showed the “hesitation” of which so much was made in
the wild accounts that were published. This arrest was afterward
corrected when three sergeants of the platoon assured the officer that
the man had not really intended insubordination.
It is regrettable that the War Department was so nervous about this
affair that it would be fooled into making the explanation of this
“hesitation” on the ground of the man’s Slavic genesis and the pamphlet
propaganda of the Reds. The first three men who died in action were
Slavs. The Slavs who went from Hamtramck and Detroit to Europe made
themselves proud records as fighters. Hundreds of them who had not been
naturalized were citizens before they took off the O. D. uniform in
which they had fought. It was a cruel slur upon the manhood of the
American soldier to make such explanations upon such slight evidences.
It would seem as though the War Department could have borne the outcry
of the people till the Commanding Officer of those troops could send
detailed report. And as for the Red pamphlets, every soldier in North
Russia was disgusted with General March’s explanations and comments.
To return to the account, let it be said, Colonel Stewart, when he
appeared at the Y. M. C. A. saw no murmurous, mutinous, wildly excited
men, such as the mob psychology of a mutiny would necessarily call for.
Instead, he saw men seated orderly and respectfully. And they listened
to his remarks that cleared up the situation and to his proud
declaration that American soldiers on duty never quit till the job is
done or they are relieved. Questions were allowed and were answered
squarely and plainly.
While the colonel had been coming from his headquarters the remainder
of the loading had been done under direction of Lieut. May as referred
to before, and at the conclusion of the colonel’s address, Captain
Winslow moved his men off across the frozen Dvina, proceeded as per
schedule to Obozerskaya, put them on a troop train, and as related
elsewhere took over the front line at a critical time, under heavy
attack, and there the very next day after the little disaffection and
apparent insubordination, which was magnified into a “mutiny,” his
company added a bright page to its already shining record as fighters.
The editors have commented upon this at another place in the narrative.
We wish here to state that we do not see how an unbiased person could
apply so harsh a term as mutiny to this incident.
The allegation has been proved to be false. There was no mutiny. Any
further repetition of the allegation will be a cruel slander upon the
good name of the heroic men who were killed in action or died of wounds
received in action in that desperate winter campaign in the snows of
Russia. And further repetition of the allegation will be insult to the
brave men who survived that campaign and now as citizens have a right
to enjoy the commendations of their folks and friends and fellow
citizens because of the remarkably good record they made in North
Russia as soldiers and men.
XXXI
OUR ALLIES, FRENCH, BRITISH AND RUSSIANS
Kaleidoscopic Picture And Chop Suey Talk In Archangel—Poilu
Comrades—Captain Boyer—Dupayet, Reval And Major Alabernarde—“Ze French
Sarzhont, She Say”—Scots And British Marines Fine Soldiers—Canadians
Popular—Yorks Stand Shoulder To Shoulder—Tribute To General
Ironside—Daredevil “Bob” Graham Of “Australian Light Horse”—Commander
Young Of Armored Train—Slavo-British Allied Legion—French Legion—White
Guards—Archangel Regiments—Chinese—Deliktorsky, Mozalevski, Akutin.
What a kaleidoscopic recollection of uniforms and faces we have when
one asks us about our allies in North Russia. What a mixture of voices,
of gutturals and spluttering and yeekings and chatterings, combined
with pursing of lips, eyebrow-twistings, bugging eyes, whiskers and
long hair, and common hand signs of distress or delight or urgency or
decisiveness: Nitchevo, bonny braw, tres bien, khorashaw, finish, oi
soiy, beaucoup, cheerio, spitzka, mozhnya barishna, c’mon kid,
parlezvous, douse th’ glim, yah ocean, dobra czechinski, amia spigetam,
ei geh ha wa yang wa, lubloo, howse th’ chow, pardonne, pawrdun, scuse,
eesveneets,—all these and more too, strike the ear of memory as we
tread again the board sidewalks of far off smelly Archangel.
What antics we witnessed, good humored miscues and errors of form in
meeting our friends of different lands all gathered there in the
strange potpourri. Soldiers and “civies” of high and low rank, cultured
and ignorant, and rich and poor, hearty and well, and halting and lame,
mingled in Archangel, the half-shabby, half-neat, half-modern,
half-ancient, summer-time port on the far northern sea. Rags and red
herrings, and broadcloth and books, and O. D. and Khaki, and horizon
blue, crowded the dinky ding-ding tramway and counted out kopecs to the
woman conductor.
And many are the anecdotes that are told of men and occasions in North
Russia where some one of our allies or bunch of them figures
prominently, either in deed of daring, or deviltry, or simply good
humor. Chiefly of our own buddies we recall such stories to be sure,
but in justice to the memory of some of the many fine men of other
lands who served with us we print a page or two of anecdotes about
them. And we hope that some day we may show them Detroit or some other
good old American burg, or honk-honk them cross country through farm
lands we now better appreciate than before we saw Europe, by woods,
lake and stream to camp in the warm summer, or spend winter nights in a
land with us as hosts, a land where life is really worth living.
Those “mah-sheen” gunners in blue on the railroad who stroked their
field pets with pride and poured steady lines of fire into the pine
woods where lay the Reds who were encircling the Americans with rifle
and machine gun fire. How the Yankee soldiers liked them. And many a
pleasant draught they had from the big pinaud canteen that always came
fresh from the huge cask. How courteously they taught the doughboy
machine gunner the little arts of digging in and rejoiced at the rapid
progress of the American.
How now, Paul, my _poilu_ comrade, _bon ami_, why don’t you add the
house itself to the pack on your back? Sure, you’ll scramble along
somehow to the rest of the camp in the rear, and on your way you will
pass bright remarks that we _non compree_ but enjoy just the same, for
we know you are wishing the doughboy good luck. How droll your antics
when hard luck surprises. We swear and you grimace or paw wildly the
air. And we share a common dislike for the asperity shown by the
untactful, inefficient, bulldozing old Jack.
Here is a good story that “Buck” Carlson used to tell in his inimitable
way. Scene is laid in the headquarters of the British Colonel who is
having a little difficulty with his mixed command that contains
soldiers of America, France, Poland, China, where not, but very few
from England at that time. A French sergeant with an interpreter enters
the room and salutes are exchanged. The sergeant then orders his
comrade to convey his request to the colonel.
“Ker-nell, par-don,” says the little interpreter after a snappy French
salute which is recognized by a slight motion of the colonel’s thumb in
the general direction of his ear. “Ze sarzhont, she say, zat ze French
man will please to have ze tobak, ze masheen gun am-mu-nish-own and ze
soap.”
“But, my man,” says the colonel reddening, “I told you to tell the
sergeant he should go on as ordered and these things will come later, I
have none of these things now to give him, but they will soon arrive
and he shall be supplied. But now he must hurry out with his detachment
of machine gunners to help the Americans. Go, my man.” More salutes and
another conversation between the two French soldiers with arms and spit
flying furiously.
“Ker-nell, sir, par-don, again, but ze sar-zhont, she say, zat wiz-out
ze to-bak, ze am-mu-nish-own and ze soap, he weel not go, par-don,
ker-nell!”
This time the colonel was angered to popping point and he smote the
table with a thump that woke every bedbug and cockroach in the building
and the poor French interpreter looked wildly from the angry British
colonel to his tough old French sergeant who now leaped quickly to his
side and barked Celtic rejoinder to the colonel’s fist thumping
language. No type could tell the story of the critical next moment.
Suffice it to say that after the storm had cleared the colonel was
heard reporting the disobedience to a French officer miles in the rear.
The officer had evidently heard quickly from his sergeant and was
inclined to back him up, for in substance he said to the offended
British officer: “Wee, pardon, mon ker-nell, it eez bad,” meaning I am
sorry, “but will ze gallant ker-nell please to remember zat
consequently zare eez no French offitzair wiz ze French de-tach-mont,
ze sar-zhont will be treated wiz ze courtesy due to ze offitzair.”
And it was true that the sergeant, backed up by his French officer,
refused to go as ordered till his men had been supplied with the
necessary ammunition and “ze to-bak and ze soap.” The incident
illustrates the fact that the French officer’s relation to his enlisted
men is one of cordial sympathy. He sees no great gulf between officer
and enlisted man which the British service persists to set up between
officers and enlisted men.
Hop to it, now Frenchie, you surely can sling ’em. We need a whole lot
from your 75’s. We are guarding your guns, do not fear for the flanks.
Just send that barrage to the Yanks at the front. And how they do send
it. And we remember that the French artillery officers taught the
Russians how to handle the guns well and imbued them with the same
spirit of service to the infantry. And many a Red raid in force and
well-planned attack was discouraged by the prompt and well-put shrapnel
from our French artillery.
And there was Boyer. First we saw him mud-spattered and grimy crawling
from a dugout at Obozerskaya, day after his men had won the
“po-zee-shown.” His animation he seems to communicate to his
leg-wearied men who crowd round him to hear that the Yanks are come to
relieve them. With great show of fun but serious intent, too, he
“marries the squads” of Americans and Frenchies as they amalgamate for
the joint attack. “Kat-tsank-awn-tsank” comes to mean 455 as he talks
first in French to his poilus and then through our Detroit doughboy
French interpreter to the doughboys. Captain he is of a Colonial
regiment, veteran of Africa and every front in Europe, with palm-leafed
war cross, highest his country can give him, Boyer. He relies on his
soldiers and they on him. “Fires on your outposts, captain?” _“Oui,
oui, nitchevo_, not ever mind, _oui_, comrade,” he said laughingly. His
soldiers built the fires so as to show the Reds where they dare not
come. Truth was he knew his men must dry their socks and have a warm
spot to sit by and clean their rifles. He trusted to their good sense
in concealing the fire and to know when to run it very low with only
the glowing coals, to which the resting soldier might present the soles
of his snoozing shoes. Captain Boyer, to you, and to your men.
It is not easy to pass over the names of Dupayet and Reval and
Alebernarde. For dynamic energy the first one stands. For linguistic
aid the second. How friendly and clear his interpretation of the orders
of the French command, given written or oral. Soldier of many climes
he. With songs of nations on his lips and the sparkle of mirth in his
eye. “God Save the King,” he uttered to the guard as password when he
supposed the outguard to be a post of Tommies, and laughingly repeated
to the American officer the quick response of the Yank sentry man who
said: “To hell with any king, but pass on French lieutenant, we know
you are a friend.”
And Alabernarde, sad-faced old _Major du Battalion_, often we see you
passing among the French and American soldiers along with Major
Nichols. Your eyes are crow-tracked with experiences on a hundred
fields and your bronzed cheek hollowed from consuming service in the
World War. We see the affectionate glances of poilus that leap out at
sight of you. You hastened the equipment of American soldiers with the
automatics they so much needed and helped them to French ordnance
stores generously. Fate treated you cruelly that winter and left you in
a wretched dilemma with your men in March on the railroad. We would
forget that episode in which your men figured, and remember rather the
comradery of the fall days with them and the inspiration of your
soldierly excellence. To you, Major Alabernarde.
On the various fronts in the fall the doughboy’s acquaintance with the
British allies was limited quite largely, and quite unfortunately we
might say, to the shoulder strappers. And all too many of those
out-ranked and seemed to lord it over the doughboy’s own officers, much
to his disgust and indignation. What few units of Scots and English
Marines and Liverpools got into action with the Americans soon won the
respect and regard of the doughboys in spite of their natural
antipathy, which was edged by their prejudice against the whole show
which was commonly thought to be one of British conception. Tommie and
Scot were often found at Kodish and Toulgas and on the Onega sharing
privations and meagre luxuries of tobacco and food with their recently
made friends among the Yanks.
And in the winter the Yorks at several places stood shoulder to
shoulder with doughboys on hard-fought lines. Friendships were started
between Yanks and Yorks as in the fall they had grown between Frenchies
and Americans, Scots and Yanks, and Liverpools and Detroiters. Bitter
fighting on a back-to-the-wall defense had brought the English and
American officers together also. Arrogance and antipathy had both
dissolved largely in the months of joint military operations and better
judgment and kinder feelings prevailed. Grievances there are many to be
recalled. And they were not all on one side. But except as they form
part of the military narrative with its exposure of causes and effects
in the fall and winter and spring campaigns, those grievances may
mostly be buried. Rather may we remember the not infrequent incidents
of comradeship on the field or in lonely garrison that brightened the
relationships between Scots and Yorks and Marines and Liverpools in
Khaki on the one hand and the O. D. cousins from over the sea who were
after all not so bad a lot, and were willing to acknowledge merit in
the British cousin.
It must be said that Canadians, Scots, Yorks and Tommies stood in about
this order in the affections of the Yankee soldiers. The boys who
fought with support of the Canadian artillery up the rivers know them
for hard fighters and true comrades. And on the railroad detachment
American doughboys one day in November were glad to give the Canadian
officer complimentary present-arms when he received his ribbon on his
chest, evidence of his election to the D. S. O., for gallantry in
action. Loyally on many a field the Canadians stood to their guns till
they were exhausted, but kept working them because they knew their
Yankee comrades needed their support.
One of the pictures in this volume shows a Yank and a Scot together
standing guard over a bunch of Bolshevik prisoners at a point up the
Dvina River. American doughboys risked their lives in rescuing wounded
Scots and the writer has a vivid remembrance of seeing a fine
expression of comradeship between Yanks and Scots and American sailors
starting off on a long, dangerous march.
Mention has been made in another connection of the friendship and
admiration of the American soldiers for the men of the battalion of
Yorks. In the three day’s battle at Verst 18 a York sergeant over and
over assured the American officer that he would at all times have a
responsible York standing beside the Russki machine gunner and prevent
the green soldiers from firing wildly without order in case the
Bolshevik should gain some slight advantage and a necessary shift of
American soldiers might be interpreted by the green Russian machine
gunners as a movement of the enemy. And those machine guns which were
stationed at a second line, in rear of the Americans, never went off.
The Yorks were on the job. And after the crisis was past an American
corporal asked his company commander to report favorably upon the
gallant conduct of a York corporal who had stood by him with six men
all through the fight.
Of the King’s Liverpools and other Tommies mention has been made in
these pages. Sometimes we have to fight ourselves into favor with one
another. Really there is more in common between Yank and Tommie than
there is of divergence. Hardship and danger, tolerance and observation,
these brought the somewhat hostile and easily irritated Yank and Tommie
together. Down underneath the rough slams and cutting sarcasm there
exists after all a real feeling of respect for the other.
This volume would not be complete without some mention of that man who
acted as commanding general of the Allied expedition, William Edmund
Ironside. He was every inch a soldier and a man. American soldiers will
remember their first sight of him. They had heard that a big man up at
Archangel who had taken Gen. Poole’s job was cleaning house among the
incompetents and the “John Walkerites” that had surrounded G. H. Q. in
Poole’s time. He was putting pep into G. H. Q. and reorganizing the
various departments.
When he came, he more than came up to promises. Six foot-four and built
accordingly, with a bluff, open countenance and a blue eye that spoke
honesty and demanded truth. Hearty of voice and breathing cheer and
optimism, General Ironside inspired confidence in the American troops
who had become very much disgruntled. He was seen on every front at
some time and often seen at certain points. By boat or sledge or plane
he made his way through. He was the soldier’s type of commanding
officer. Never dependent on an interpreter whether with Russian, Pole,
or French, or Serbian, or Italian, he travelled light and never was
seen with a pistol, even for protection. Master of fourteen languages
it was said of him, holder of an Iron Cross bestowed on him by the
Kaiser in an African war when he acted as an ox driver but in fact was
observing for the British artillery, on whose staff he had been a
captain though he was only a youth, he was a giant intellectually as
well as physically.
When British fighting troops could not be spared from the Western Front
in the fall of 1918 and the British War Office gambled on sending
category B men to Archangel—men not considered fit to undergo active
warfare, a good healthy general had to be found. Ironside, lover of
forlorn hopes, master of the Russian language, a good mixer, and
experienced in dealing with amalgamated forces, was the obvious man. Of
course, there were some British officers who bemoaned the fact, in
range of American ears too, that some titled high ranking officers were
passed over to reach out to this Major of Artillery to act as
Major-General. And he was on the youthful side of forty, too.
Edmund Ironside ought to have been born in the days of Drake, Raleigh,
and Cromwell. He would have a bust in Westminster and his picture in
the history books. But in his twenty years of army life he has done
some big things and it can be imagined with what gusto he received his
orders to relieve Poole and undertook to redeem the expedition, to make
something of the perilous, forlorn hope under the Arctic winter skies.
In _The American Sentinel_ issue of December 10th, which was the first
issue of our soldier paper, we read:
“It is a great honor for me to be able to address the first words in
the first Archangel paper for American soldiers. I have now served in
close contact with the U. S. Army for eighteen months and I am proud to
have a regiment of the U. S. Army under my command in Russia.
“I wish all the American soldiers the best wishes for the coming
Christmas and New Year and I want them to understand that the Allied
High Command takes the very greatest interest in their welfare at all
times.”
EDMUND IRONSIDE, Major-General.
Without doubt the General was sincere in his efforts to bring about
harmony and put punch and strength into the high command sections as
well as into the line troops. But what a bag Poole left him to hold.
Vexed to death must that big man’s heart have been to spend so much
time setting Allies to rights who had come to cross purposes with one
another and were blinded to their own best interests. British thought
he was too lenient with the willful Americans. Americans thought he was
pampering the French. British, French and Americans thought he was
letting the Russkis slip something over on the whole Allied expedition.
Green-eyed jealousy, provincial jealousy, just plain foolish jealousy
tormented the man who was soon disillusioned as to the glories to be
won in that forlorn expedition but who never exhibited anything but an
undaunted optimistic spirit. He was human. When he was among the
soldiers and talking to them it was not hard for them to believe the
tale that after all he was an American himself, a Western Canadian who
had started his career as a military man with the Northwest Mounted
Police.
An American corporal for several weeks had been in the field hospital
near the famous Kodish Front. One day General Ironside leaned over his
bunk and said: “What’s the trouble, corporal?” The reply was,
“Rheumatism, sir.” At which the British hospital surgeon asserted that
he thought the rheumatism was a matter of the American soldier’s
imagination. But he regretted the remark, for the general, looking
sternly at the officer, said: “Don’t talk to me that way about a
soldier. I know, if you do not, that many a young man, with less
exposure than these men have had in these swamps, contracts rheumatism.
Do not confuse the aged man’s gout with the young man’s muscular
rheumatism.” Then he turned his back on the surgeon and said heartily
to the corporal: “You look like a man with lots of grit. Cheer up,
maybe the worst is over and you will be up and around soon. I hope so.”
And there was many a British officer who went out there to Russia who
won the warm friendship of Americans. Of course, those were short
friendships. But men live a lot in a small space in war. One day a
young second lieutenant—and those were rare in the British uniforms,
for the British War Office had given the commanding general generous
leeway in adding local rank to the under officers—had come out to a
distant sector to estimate the actual needs in signal equipment. He
rode a Russian horse to visit the outpost line of the city. He rode in
a reindeer sled to the lines which the Russian partisan forces were
holding. He sat down in the evening to that old Russian merchant
trader’s piano, in our headquarters, and rambled from chords and airs
to humoresque and rhapsodies. And the American and Russian officers and
the orderlies and batmen each in his own place in the spacious rooms
melted into a tender hearing that feared to move lest the spell be
broken and the artist leave the instrument. Men who did not know how
lonesome they had been and who had missed the refinements of home more
than they knew, blessed the player with their pensive listening,
thanked fortune they were still alive and had chances of fighting
through to get home again. And after playing ceased the British officer
talked quietly of his home and the home folks and Americans thought and
talked of theirs. And it was good. It was an event.
In sharp contrast is the vivid memory of that picturesque Lt. Bob
Graham of the Australian Light Horse. He could have had anything the
doughboy had in camp and they would have risked their lives for him,
too, after the day he ran his Russian lone engine across the bridge at
Verst 458 into No Man’s Land and leaped from the engine into a marsh
covered by the Bolo machine guns and brought out in his own arms an
American doughboy. Starting merely a daredevil ride into No Man’s Land,
his roving eye had spied the doughboy delirious and nearly dead
flopping feebly in the swamp.