Tragedy at Archangel

Snowahoe patrol from Comp<my B. 338th iDfcmtry. on the Dorina dYer.

(Continued from page one.)which stretched out bleak andcoverless 800 yards to the mainvillage.

••Some tried to make a runof it over the bottomless inter-vening snow, where they strug·gled piteously l I k e hobbledanimals and were killed. Butin most part they dashed infrantic relays down the openroad, sprinting forward a scoreof yards, then flattening on theground, and so on, rushing andsprawling and flat, untlI thefatal course was run, whUeevery rifle from the abandonedvillage on the height and theflanking forest and across theVaga spurted death, and maochine guns rattled, and bulletslashed the air with the furiouscracking of ten thousand whips,or sped fluttering through thesnow and went ott Whimperinginto space, or felled men withsledgelike blows, u n t il thedoomed way was strewn end toend with the prostrate formsof the fallen ones, and a pitifulfew, by some fluke of luck, hadgained the shielding hill. Notten minutes had been taken inthat terrible dash through thatvalley of death's shadow, andof the forty-seven who beganthe journey six reached the goalof the main village."

Such were the perlIs faced bythe little-known, seldom-remem-bered American mllltary expedi·tlon to Archangel, Russia, in1918. Most readers will opentheir eyes to a brand new pageIn history as they read thisstory, for this ill a tale of anexpedition which cost hundredsof American lives and millionsof American dollars and yet.was so futtle and needless thatIt has, been all but lost in ashameful slIence.

It was undertaken at the re-quest of foreign governmentsin an atmosphere of uncertainty,diplomatic Intrigue, conflictingreports, and general remotenessfrom reality.

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The objects of the Archangelexpedition as deflned In a proc-lamation issued to the troops byBritish general headquarters,which largely promoted the ven-ture, were:

1. To save the Czecho-Slovaks,several thousand of whom under'command of General Gaida werebelieved to be strung along theSiberian railway from Pensa toVladivostok.

2. To prevent the Germansfrom exploiting the resources ofsoutheastern Russia.

3. To prevent the northernports of European Russia frombecoming bases for German sub-marines.

Another official British state-ment explaining the expeditiondeclared: "Bolshevism hasgrown u p 0 n the uneducatedmasses to such an extent thatRussia is disintegrated and help-less, and therefore we havecome to help her get rid of thedisease that is eating her up.We are not here to conquerRussia, but want to help her andsee her a great power. Whenorder Is restored here we shallclear out, but only when wehave attained our object, andthat is the restoration of Bua-sla."

An American dispatch fromWashington later stated concern-ing the expedition's purpose:••The only present object forwhich American troops will beemployed will be to guard mlll-tary stores which may be subse-quently nee d e d by Russianforces, and to render such aidas may be acceptable to the Rus·slans in the organization oftheir own defense."

But In practice such purposeas America had in Archangelwas Britain's purpose, for theUnited States war departmentassigned our force of 4,344 en-

listed men and 143 officers to thecommand of Brii. Gen. F. C.Poole, the British ranking of·flcer in Archangel, who alreadyhad some French troops underhim and was said to be ••thor-oughly famlllar with Russiancharacter and Russian condi-tions." .

Actually Pool e seemed toshare the British general head-quarters' arrogantly imperialis·tic view that one British soldierwas the equal of twenty bolshe-vik soldiers. He had indorsedthe British military plan of In-vadlng vast Russia with a totalAllied force of only 12,000 men,of marching southward throughan unfamlllar. hostile wlIdernesswhile spreading fanwise over a5QO.milefront with widely sep-arated communication and sup-ply lines growing to severalhundred miles in length as theadvance continued in tot h ehomeland of mUlions of Bus-s ian s of uncertain militarystrength and unknown allegi-ance,

The advance party of Ameri-cans landed in Archangel onAug. 3, 1918, joining the brigadeof British infantry already thereand the force of a little morethan 1,000 French Infantrymenand artUlerymen. There werealso two batteries of Canadianfleld artUlery there by the timethe American infantry regimentarrived 4,487 strong on Sept. 4,and a small detachment ofAmericans and others had been

Part of the U. S. S. Olympia lcmcUDgparty that engaged tbe bolabeY1b

at Vologda.

sent to the port of Murmansk.400 miles to the northwest, thereto guard In lonely isolation theMurmansk railroad, which ex-tends southward paralleling theFinland border.

That is what the Allied forcesin north Russia consisted of.The Americans in Archangelwere all drawn from the 85thdlvlsion of the natlonal army.Most of them were Wisconsinand Michigan boys who had leftcivilian Ufe to do their share ofany fighting their country askedof them. They had not envl-stoned an arctic vastness for NoMan's Land, with an almostmythical enemy on the other sideflring real shells at them fromguns much bigger and morenumerous than their own - anenemy who had nothing to dowith the Germans and againstwhom no war had been declared.But they were soldiers, and forall their unanswered questionsthey obeyed orders with a wtll.

. The Archangel a d ve n t u r estarted ott ominously. Even be-fore the wheezing engines of thetroop ships Somali, TYdeus, andNagoya had come to rest acrossthe harbor -trom the garishturnip-top domes and gold min-arets of Archangel's sky line,death was coming to grips withthe doughboys from Milwaukeeand Detroit. At sea 500 of themhad been stricken with the dread·ed Spanish influenza. Eightdays out all medical supplieswere exhausted and ••conditionsbecame so congested in the ships'quarters that the sick, runninghigh fever, were compelled tolie in the hold or on deck exposedto the chUl winds."

Even after landing the sick

(SIpaJ Corpa, u. S. AnDy, photaL)Men of Comp<my I pau iD re'riew at ArcbcmgeL Oct. 12. 1118.

The Amazing Story of America's FutileExpedition Into Bolshevik Land

could not be adequately providedfor. They lay on pine boardsin rickety barracks deserted bythe bolsheviks a few monthsbefore. II They had insufficientbedding, and for warmth had tokeep on their clothing and boots,In this 'way many died and many ,more were enfeebled for months,but stuck it out with their com-panions and went to the front."

The port of Archangel wasfounded by Ivan the Terrible inthe sixteenth century, and mostof the time since has been aBritish trading post for the ex-change of furs, flax, and lumber.But the sterile asperity of theweather and the barrier of theWhite sea, which is frozen forsix months of the year, destinedArchangel to poverty or depend-ence on the charity of more ror-tunate regions.

The dismal, forsaken qualityin the air of this old city at thenorthern hinge of the easternand western worlds was depress-ing to the usually cheerful boysfrom the Great Lakes. Theywere in a land of exile. Every-thing seemed alien, forgotten bythe rest of the earth, as if theywere looking from behind a veil.

e • e

In the words of one Americansol d ier-wh 0 anonymouslywrote" Archangel-The Amerl·can War with Russia," a bookthat is almost the sole availablesource of material for this story:." Bearded, sad-faced priests withtheir black robes glide throughthe streets like nether spiritsand the mysticism of the ancient,mystic east. This is the nativeatmosphere of Archangel. . , .The glaring electric lights, theincongruous modern buildings,and the noisy tramway thatclangs down the street-these donot belong to Archangel. Theyare a profane encroachment onher ageless, dreaming tranquil-ity. . . . Fundamentally Arch-angel Is a primitive center ofprimitive beings. Instinctivelyit is a dirty hole . . . wherenoxious stenches greet the noseand modern sanitation is un-known."

Continuing to describe thepeople who live in the countrysurrounding Archangel, 0 u rnameless chronicler of 1918'says:

II As a whole the inhabitantsare moujiks, dwelling in littlevUlages of two or three hundredlog huts that in structure anddesign bear close resemblanceto the cabins of our frontier civi-lization, About these vlllagesthe peasants have cleared theforest for a few hundred yards,and in the brief, hot months ofthe midnight sun they raisemeager crops of wheat and flaxand potatoes. W hen wintercomes they are continually In-doors, gathered abo u t greatovens of fireplaces, and longthrough the dismal, cold, blackdays they sit and dream, 01"merely sit.

" They are unsophisticatedfolk, incredibly Ignorant. butgentle, quiet- mannered, sweet-natured. , . . Cholera visitsthem with recurrent devastatingplagues and takes fearful toll,for they live in the midst ofnauseating squalor with totaldisregard to sanitation and drinkfrom surface wells that in thesudden spring are reservoirs ofsewage and all manner of ob-scene refuse. , . . He asks solittle of 11!.e,this gentle moujikwith his boots and his shabbytunic and his mild bearded face-only to be left alone."

This was the country, then,and these its peasants, intowhose bosom a whim of UncleSam sent four thousand odd ofhis young men to play their

weird part in helping" make theworld s a f e for democracy."Under the opt1mlstic dauntless-ness of General Poole the greatmajority of his British, French,Canadian, and American sol-diers were ordered to advancesouthward along the railroadand up the rivers as shown onthe map on page one, leaving agarrison to guard Archangel.

The principal river expeditiontraveled hopefully for thinbarges towed by tiny tugs andescorted by a small armoredBritish gunboat. The railwayexpedltlon was largest and bold-ly marched southward w it hthoughts of reaching the strate-gic Trans·Slberian railroad atVologda. After one brief victoryover the retreating bolsheviks,however, this force was sur-prised to meet serious oppositionon the part of the despicableReds about 100 miles from Arch-angel.

According to our Americanchronicler, the bolsheviks " cameback in forCE' and greatly out-numbered the Alltes, and there

was in the defiant attitude ofthe Red troops reason to believethat- the soviet chieftains hadtaken stock of the m1l1tary situ-ation, had verifled the prepos-terous intelllgence that the threegreat powers - Great Britain,France, and the United States--were definitly bent upon war.and seriously intended to invadethe great domain of Russia withscarcely two infantry combatregiments! "

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Poole's " columns" were inreality nothing but patrol expe-ditions, and as soon as the Redsrealized it all disposition to re-treat left them and they struckback with such numbers thatonly the utmost courage and de-termination on the part of theAllied men saved them fromannihilation. And still the un-Imaginative, unadaptable Poolefrom his headquarters in quietArchangel gave orders urginggreater aggressiveness and say-Ing:

"It must be impressed on all

ranks that we are flghting anoffensive war and not a deten-sive one."

And so the American officersunder British direction movedtheir companies forward "to door die." The terrible and inmany cases tfagic results on theseveral isolated fronts In thisrash ottensive are too numerousto be told, but let it be said thatthe men from Wisconsin and

Michigan a c .quitted the m-selves gallant-ly in the be-wildering andd is co u ragingc i r cumstances

••••_. in which theyfound them-selves. One ex-ample from theadventures 0 f

the railroad co column" will re-veal their caliber:

••One platoon of the Ameri-cans, separated in the swampsof the woods, was nearly envel-oped. It fought until all ammu-nition was exhausted, and thenthe officer, Lieut. Gordon Reese,had no thought of submission.After the last cartridge wasgone the bayonets still re-mained, and after the bayonetscame doubled fists. At word of

LleuL to P. Keith.Cbicagocm cited

at Arcbcmgel.

command the platoon fiXed bay-onets, went forward with It yell·ing charge, broke down the boloshev1ks by their sheer courageand impetuosity, and the endan-gered men were able to join themain body of their comrades,repulsing the attack."

As the fall wore on and theswamp land began to show icein the dark mornlngs, and thesun shortened its swing abovethe southern horizon to only sixhours a day, the situation grewincreasingly worse for the Alllea.As late as January, 1919,WilliamC. Bullitt of the American statedepartment cab 1e d ColonelHouse at the Paris'peace confer-ence:

II The 12,000American, British,and French troops at Archangelare no longer serving any usefulpurpose. ' . . They are in con-siderable danger of destructionby the bolshevik!. . . . The stt-uation at Archangel Is mostserious for the soldiers, but itis also serious for the govern-ments w h I c h seem to haveabandoned them. Unless theyare saved by prompt action weshall have another Galllpoll."

The lack of artillery was oneof the most discouraging factorsin the Allled dilemma.' "Time

(Continued on page DiDe.)

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