folk, gathering the rich bronzed harvests of Saskatchewan fields.
But four years of war had wrought a transfiguration of many things
and no longer did life have its exalted value of peace times. No,
life was a very cheap affair, but, cheap as it was, its taking often
made exhilarating sport. At the end of a battle these quiet
Saskatchewan swains passed among the enemy dead like ghoulish things,
stripping bodies of everything valuable, and adorning themselves with
enemy boots and picturesque high fur hats, with abounding glee, like
school boys on a hilarious holiday.
Yet there was nothing debased or vicious about these Canadians. They
were undeliberate, unpremeditated murderers, who had learned well the
nice lessons of war and looked upon killing as the climax of a day's
adventure, a welcomed break in the tedium of the dull military
routine. Generous hearted, hardy, whole-souled murderers; I wonder
how they have returned to the prosy days of peace, where courage
counts for little, and men are judged not by the searching rules of
war, but by the superficial standards of secure being; and living is
soft and slow, an affair of rounding chores, with few stirring
moments to illumine the dull routine of most of us.
At the outset, the Canadians and a few inaccurate Russians were our
only artillery. Two months after the commencement of the campaign,
two Four Point Five howitzers, with British personnel, joined the
Allied Forces, and there were several airplanes, considered obsolete
for use in France, but good enough for the Arctic sideshow.
The air pilots were daring and courageous men, but, besides being
hopelessly handicapped by defective machines, they complained that
the forests of North Russia made definite discernment of the ground a
very difficult thing. The facts are that they dropped several bombs
on our own lines, and twice with tragic disaster. There was never
any apparent reason to believe that the airplanes caused the enemy
even passing uneasiness, but we were always agitated as their
menacing drone approached, always grateful when they trailed off to
distant skies.
The complete combat command of the Commanding General of the Allied
North Russian Expedition at the outset of the campaign was then:
One regiment of American Infantry,
One brigade of British Infantry,
One battalion of French Infantry,
Two sections of French Seventy-Fives,
Two sections of French machine gunners,
One brigade (487 men) Canadian Field Artillery,
One armored train,
One 155 millimetre and
One 77 millimetre Russian howitzers.
There were a few groups of Russian Infantry with the Allied troops,
but at the outset these did not number over three hundred men. In
all, there were approximately nine thousand five hundred combat
troops.
With this force, the Allied Commander proposed to engage in an
aggressive campaign, to drive the enemy before him and follow up
along the two main ways of ingress to the interior. Troops were at
once dispatched down the railway to penetrate as far as the city of
Vologda four hundred miles to the south, and other troops were sent
by tug and barge up the Dvina River, with Kotlas, three hundred miles
southeast, as their immediate objective. From Kotlas, there is a
branch railway leading two hundred fifty miles further south to the
Trans-Siberian at Viatka.
When their missions were accomplished, the Railway Force at Vologda
would be nearly due east of the Dvina Force at Viatka, and distanced
four hundred miles across the Trans-Siberian railway.
Beyond this stage, the Allied plan was somewhat hazy. It
contemplated rather vagrantly a fusion with the Czecho-slovaks along
the Siberian railway, after penetration south to this trunk line.
A volunteer brigade of these adventurous soldiers who had been
Austro-Hungarian prisoners, but whose whole-souled sympathy was with
the Allies, organized in their native Bohemia and Moravia, and joined
General Broussiloff in the spring of 1917 to take part in the victory
of Zborow near Lemberg. Moving to the railway between Kiev and
Poltava in the Ukraine, the brigade recruited more Czech prisoners in
Russia until it had grown to the strength of two divisions.
After the peace of Brest-Litovsk, this army corps pushed forward to
the middle Volga in the direction of Kazan and Samara intending to
reach Vladivostok and sail from there to join the Allied Command in
France.
The Soviet authorities promised them safe convoy over the Siberian
railway, but instead, treacherously attacked at Irkutsk in Siberia on
26th May, 1918, and the Czechs then divided into two groups, one
determined to fight through to Vladivostok, the other under General
Gaida bent upon joining the Allied invasion from Archangel.
Although this last aim was not realized (and would have profited
little if it had been) the Czechs performed a service of inestimable
consequence to the Allies by acting in conjunction with the
Anti-Bolshevik Siberian troops, and with the small Allied Eastern
Expedition of Great Britain, Japan and the United States, in holding
the Trans-Siberian open from Omsk to the coast, so preventing the
transportation of many thousands of German prisoners back to Germany.
When the Archangel fiasco was brought to a close they withdrew to
their own country in October, 1919. And, reviewing the whole
unproductive Russian effort in retrospect, the Czechs came closest
towards a realization of the mythical "Eastern Front," for, while
they could not engage in aggressive action, they did much by negative
methods, denying Germany great numbers of returning soldiers that
might have been welded into a considerable effective combat force for
the Western theatres of war had they been free to enter their country
from the Eastern frontier.
The hopelessness of a junction between the Archangel Expedition and
the Czechs became certain at the beginning of the northern campaign,
and General Poole was advised by the British War Intelligence that
Gaida had been driven back in Samara five hundred miles from Viatka
and could advance no farther before the commencement of winter.
Still the optimistic Allied Staff clung tenaciously to the belief
that all the Anti-Bolshevik Russians could be joined, the Czechs, the
Cossacks that General Denekin had organized between the northern
Caucasus and the sea of Azov, and a group of loyal officers of the
Imperial Army with General Korniloff along the Don. It was within
the Allied range of possibilities that all these scattered groups
might join the British, French and Americans on the Siberian railway,
and after the Staff was thoroughly committed to an offensive
campaign, there arose the hope of cooperation from the friendly
Russian forces in Siberia. On 18th September, 1918, at Ufa, there
was a meeting of representatives from the Governments of Archangel,
Eastern and Western Siberia, Samara and Vologda, which purported to
form a Central government of all Russia, and to restore the
Constituent Assembly.
On 25th October, this group moved to Omsk, created Admiral Kolchak
Military Dictator 18th November, and proposed to raise a strong armed
force to purge Russia of Bolshevism for all time.
The Allied governments were quick to recognize this Omsk group as the
de facto government of Russia.
It was hoped that the armies of Admiral Kolchak could get in
communication with the Allied Forces working down from the Arctic.
This, then, was the culmination of the first stage of the campaign:
There was to be a junction of the Americans, French and British from
the North; Czecho-Slovaks, and the armies of Kolchak from the East;
Korniloff and Denekin from the South. Tens of thousands of patriotic
Russians were to join the colors of these armies, converging
somewhere on the Trans-Siberian, between Perm and Vologda; from
Vologda the way would be unopposed to Petrograd, and from Petrograd
the Allied-Russian legions would move on and reconstruct the Eastern
front, threatening Germany from the northeast!
There was nothing lacking in the imagination of the plans of the
Allied High Command, whatever else might be said about them.
The Northern Expedition with great combative esprit set forth
vigorously to traverse Archangel the whole length of the province by
river and railway with two "Columns" which were even to penetrate
well into Vologda Province. Starting from Archangel, the Dvina river
and the Vologda railway rapidly diverged east and west, so that at
the first point of contact with the enemy, the two main bodies of the
invader were seventy-five miles apart; and if their object, i.e., to
reach the Trans-Siberian had been realized, they would have been four
hundred miles apart on that railway.
There was no wire communication between these Allied Railway and
River Forces, and of course liaison over the lateral terrain
impassable swamp in fall, and a field of deep floundering snow in
winter, was impossible.
As the invasion developed, the two columns of necessity operated as
independent expeditions, with no attempt at establishing connection.
To reach their joint objective, the Siberian railway, it was
necessary for the River Force to travel one hundred fifty more miles
than the Railway Force. Moreover ice was expected during the first
part of November, and if Kotlas was to be taken by the river, it was
necessary to advance the three hundred miles in scarcely six weeks
from the time of leaving Archangel.
When forced to assume the defensive in the late fall, the Dvina
Column was nearly fifty miles in advance of the Railway front
position, and the Vaga Column, an intervening force that was found
necessary to prevent an enemy rearward movement on the river, was
fifty miles in advance of the Dvina Column.
Lacking any effective communication between bodies of troops, the
military incursion was expected to penetrate an unknown alien
country, where there proved to be far more hostile sentiment than
friendly cooperation.
There was no reconnaissance of the country; no physical inventory of
the lay of the land; no reliable military maps; no knowledge of the
paths through the swamp-bottomed forests; no information of the
roads. Many an early attack was lost because the frontal advance
failed to get support of the flanking party that became hopelessly
mired in the deep marshes and never got to the fight.
The climatic conditions were a permanent obstacle to an offensive
campaign. When the snow came and the weather grew intensely cold,
even if we had possessed the necessary men, it would have been
madness to think of an offensive in the open. Then it was possible
only to dig in and hold on.
Yet despite the intense sub-zero weather there was little trouble
with the field guns which during the most severe days recoiled and
ran up without any jar. Moreover, there was not so much suffering
from the cold as might be supposed. The Command thought that the
Siberian railway would be reached before the serious winter set in,
nevertheless the expedition was excellently well equipped for the
Arctic weather. Soldiers were issued long fur lined coats, fur hats
and had an abundance of other good warm clothing and plenty of
blankets. The men from Northern Wisconsin and the Michigan peninsula
did not mind greatly the severe winter days. There was some frost
bite from unavoidable exposure, and much terrible privation in the
defensive actions; but on the whole the Allied soldiers withstood the
cold as well as the Bolsheviks.
The strength of the enemy was an unknown factor. So were his
positions and his dispositions. There were no supports, no reserves.
The base of the invading army in Russia was Archangel, a fortnight's
journey from the far-most front and nearly three thousand miles from
the main base in England; Archangel, in complete isolation during the
six months of winter.
There were no reinforcements at Archangel ready to relieve the jaded
soldiers so far away, who had to continue doing double duty and
fighting against greatly superior numbers with no promise of relief.
More important than the objective fact was the thought of being thus
forsaken that froze the soldier's heart and numbed his brain and
never left him through the long blackness of the days. It was the
same feeling of palsied hopelessness that comes over the city bred
man who finds himself lost in the wilderness. The soldier felt he
was abandoned by his country, that he was forgotten and left to his
fate in the grisly plain of pitiless, white Russia.
Then there was no diversion, no break in the gloomy, monotonous,
despairing hours; no relaxation from the ceaseless vigilance in the
guard against surprise attack; no respite from the constant threat of
annihilation. The drear, sorrow freighted clouds menaced death.
There was the message of Death across the bleak, endless, desolate
snows. Death haunted the shrouded, hopeless days, and in the shadow
of the encircling forests, Death waited. It was the most severe
strain to which human intelligence could be subjected.
Many lessons were learned in the war, and none so clearly as the one
that human endurance cannot be taxed beyond capacity without a
resultant of diminishing military returns.
In France it soon became a corollary, universally accepted by all the
Staffs, that men could not be subjected to the strain of continuing
horrors and uninterrupted drain of physical resources without a
pronounced lowering of fighting morale. It was calculated to a
nicety how long a soldier could endure mental shocks and suffer
hardships until his nervous system snapped and his distraught brain
could tolerate no more.
These things were all weighed in the precise scales at the
laboratories of the war establishment and provision was made for
human limitations, so that there grew up three units in every combat
army. One of them attacking, or standing the brunt of enemy assault;
another in the supporting trenches, to be used in great emergency,
but most important of all to become accustomed to the terrifying
effect of the big guns; and a third that was far back, where there
was a warm bath and clean clothes, peace in the sky and the soft
grass still grew green, where men drank deep their little day of
life, and found oblivion from the animal filth and unspeakable
griefs, the awful hideousness of modern warfare. It came to be
recognized that reliefs of troops on the combat first lines were as
necessary as ammunition and ration supply.
But there were few and in some cases there were no reliefs for
fighting men in North Russia, because there was no support unit from
which to draw reliefs, and no reserve unit to call forth from the
rear for those at the front.
The Russian Expedition, if its object was to drive the Bolsheviks
clear of Archangel Province and south of the Siberian railway,
required for execution of this object an army corps with entire
component of artillery, and in this war with Russia, Great Britain
and France and the United States failed because of:
1. Inadequate forces in the Allied Command.
This was not only true with respect to numbers, but also with respect
to armament and equipment.
We had no artillery support. We were outgunned from the outset and
continued to have marked artillery inferiority throughout the
campaign. Time after time, the infantry, after gallant success, was
shelled out of position, while our own guns were silent because
outranged. The effect on the morale was most disastrous.
On the River Front, there were three Allied gunboats which cooperated
effectively during the first days, but during the latter part of
October, when the fight began, these withdrew to Archangel in fear of
becoming caught by the ice which formed at the mouth of the Dvina,
and then moved slowly upstream against the strong current.
It took a week for this ice barrier to travel one hundred miles
against the course of the river, so that the enemy had unhindered
opportunity to bring up his artillery mounted on watercraft, which he
did, and blasted our positions for two weeks after the Allied boats
had gone back to winter quarters.
Nothing was more discouraging than this hopeless inferiority in long
range guns. Assaulting troops, no matter how spirited and
courageous, cannot hold their advance in the teeth of a bombardment
that scatters emplacements like chaff before the wind and shocks men
into a state of insensibility. The stunning effect of massive, high
explosives is more important than the casualties caused by direct
hits. Nerves are palsied, then fly from control under unremitting
blasting salvos. Fortifications are blown to atoms, and debris
thrown up like vomit in a deafening belch, a bolt of hottest hell;
while the earth quivers like a frightened living thing. And if
modern warfare has demonstrated one thing more than any other, it is
the prime necessity of artillery support, especially during the
attack. After three years' experience, the French and British Staffs
laid down the rule that for an offensive to be made with any hope of
success, there should be a field gun covering every ten yards of the
objective and a heavy gun every thirty yards.
The British provided fifty-six heavy guns and howitzers per division,
and of these twenty-nine were six inch and over.
The French had fifty-eight guns in each division, forty-six of which
were six inch and over.
These divisions were made up of two brigades of two regiments each, a
total of fourteen thousand four hundred men.
The Americans in France had two regiments of 75 mm. guns and one
regiment of 155 mm. guns for every combat division on the first
lines. At Archangel there was not a six inch gun in the Allied
Command until the late days of spring when the Americans were
evacuated. There was only the Russian naval howitzer on the armored
train. And the only other heavy guns were two Four Point Five
howitzers of the 41st Royal Field Artillery.
Besides this fatal lack of artillery, the Allied Command was
miserably supplied with other armament. In the early days we had
only a few machine guns and these were Vickers, with water cooled
system, that became frozen and would not function in the severe cold.
We had few Trench Mortars and no rifle grenades or hand grenades.
But most disheartening of all were the Russian rifles issued to the
infantry. They were manufactured in our country by the million for
use of the Imperial Army; long, awkward pieces, with flimsy, bolt
mechanism, that frequently jammed.
These weapons had never been targeted by the Americans, and their
sighting systems were calculated in Russian paces instead of yards.
They had a low velocity and were thoroughly unsatisfactory. The
unreliability of the rifle, prime arm of the infantry, was an
important factor in the lowering of Allied morale.
2. Underestimation of the enemy forces and his military capacity.
The Allied military authorities looked with contempt upon the
Bolshevik movement, and viewed it as simply a sporadic outburst of
outlawry that would pass like all disorganized brigandry.
The facts were that this war was waged against the government of the
Russian people. The de facto authority was in the hands of Lenine
and Trotsky at Moscow. The Omsk group was distinctly an expression
of the minority and the ancient Imperialists who were obstinately
impervious to the new Russia flaming in revolution against age long
abuses and tyrannies of the old order that could never be returned.
The Omsk group never quickened any popular response. It lacked
essential authority. The spectacular success of Admiral Kolchak
before Perm was not followed through, and his government waned while
the Bolsheviks grew in strength every day.
The Soviet army was despised as an undisciplined rabble, without
equipment or officers or commissary organization. But the Bolshevik
soldier was as well equipped as we were, and incomparably superior in
the larger arms. He was often better rationed, and sometimes led
better.
During the winter of 1919, Trotsky, an outstanding military genius,
raised from the Kerensky rabble an army of one million men, which
William C. Bullit of our State Department saw in March of that year
at Moscow, and described as thoroughly soldierly looking, thoroughly
trained, well rationed, and well provided for.
From Moscow to Vologda, is less than three hundred miles by the
railway which continues straight to Archangel. Why the Soviets did
not concentrate a division on the railway, move straight to Archangel
and leave the scattered Allied battalions bottled up in the interior
is one of the many mysteries of the Expedition.
In February, Omberovitch, the Commander of the Bolshevik Northern
army, announced that he would hurl the foreign invader into the White
Sea and concentrated over seven thousand men in an attack on
Shenkurst, the Allied position on the Vaga river. This force was ten
times the strength of the defenders, who were driven back verst by
verst over the deep snows to Kitsa, sixty miles down the river, and
the Allied Staff prepared rearward positions in anticipation of
withdrawal about Archangel and a last stand there a few weeks later.
The enemy struck again with overpowering numbers at Bolshie Ozerki
near the Railway.
But he never consolidated his success. For some inscrutable reason
withheld the knockout blow, and, before he could reorganize for
another advance, spring came with the _nasta_ or thaw, and he had to
pull back his artillery or abandon it in the bog. He also brought
great forces in November to the assault of the River position, and
attacked the Railway in spring with large numbers and with great
vigor; but despite his vast superiority in guns, and his great
advantage in strength, he could not, or _did not_, break through to
complete victory and destroy our scattered, weakened battalions.
Perhaps one reason the Bolsheviks did not massacre the puny Allied
forces was because the nature of conditions in North Russia did not
permit the concentration of great masses for the attack. The little
villages, even with greatest crowding, could only house a few hundred
men. Except at Shenkurst, where the most ambitious thrust was made,
there was shelter for only a few thousand soldiers, and shelter was
as essential as rations in this war of the Arctic.
Another reason may have been that Lenine had sagacity and imagination
enough to know that a complete massacre would have fired the people
of Great Britain and France and America with burning indignation and
a demand for revenge which their governments could not deny. Better
to whittle away the little Allied company by methods of attrition.
There was no prize in Archangel. The Bolsheviks had stripped that
city of everything valuable long before the Allies came to Russia.
3. Ignorance of the military commitment.
The difficulties of conducting an offensive campaign in Archangel
province were at the outset not understood or realized by Allied
Headquarters.
Military men have asked me why the Commanding General did not, if
determined upon an aggressive warfare, concentrate his small numbers
for an advance on the Vologda railway, leaving a cordon of well
fortified outposts about Archangel, sufficiently distant to protect
the city from artillery bombardment.
By such a method, he could have held his little force well in hand,
would have safeguarded Archangel and fulfilled the real mission of
the expedition (if guarding Archangel was the mission), with small
cost and few casualties.
The answer to this is that British Headquarters was determined upon
an offensive program, and committed itself to a punitive chase of the
Bolsheviks, regardless of the nature of such an undertaking, heedless
of where it led, blind to consequences.
As the Allies pushed into this unknown country, it became apparent
that between the two Columns advancing by the Dvina river and by the
railway, there stretched a great, unsounded territory, entirely
unreconnoitered, and through which by many routes, the enemy could
threaten the tenuous unguarded lines of communication with Archangel.