Imagine the feelings of the boys when they walked about freely as they did, being dressed in the regular Russian long coats and caps and being treated with courtesy by all Russians who recognized them as Americans. Here they found themselves looking at the great hotel built on American lines of architecture to please the eye and shelter the American travellers of the olden times before the great war, a building now used by the Red Department of State. Here they were examined by one of Tchicherin’s men upon their arrival in the Red capital. Further they could walk about the Kremlin, and visit a part of it on special occasions. They could see the execution block and the huge space laid out by Ivan the Terrible, where thousands of Russians bled this life away at the behest of a cruel government.
Or they could stand before the St. Saveur cathedral, a noble structure of solid marble with glorious murals within to remind the Slavic people of their unconquerable resistance to the great Napoleon and of his disastrous retreat from their beloved Moscow.
They cannot be blamed for coming out of Moscow convinced that the heart of the Slavic people is not in this Bolshevik class hatred and class dictatorship stuff of Lenin and Trotsky; equally convinced that the heart of the Russian people is not unfearful of the attempted return of the old royalist bureaucrats to their baleful power, and convinced that the heart of this great, courteous, patient, longsuffering Slavic people is groping for expression of self-government, and that America is their ideal—a hazy ideal and one that they aspire toward only in general outlines. Their ultimate self-government may not take the shape of American constitutionalism, but Russian self-government must in time come out of the very wrack of foreign and internecine war. And every American soldier who fought the Bolshevik Russian in arms or stood on the battle line beside the Archangel Republic anti-Bolshevik Russian, might join these returned captives from Bolshevikdom in wishing that there may soon come peace to that land, and that they may develop self-government.
“We finally received our release. We had known of the liberation of Mr. Arnold and several of our North Russian comrades and had been hoping for our turn to come. Mr. Frank Taylor, an Associated Press correspondent, was helpful to us, declaring to the Bolshevik rulers that American troops were withdrawing from Archangel. We had been faithful (sic) to the lectures, for a purpose of dissimulation, and the Red fanatics really thought we were converted to the silly stuff called bolshevism. It was plain to us also that they were playing for recognition of their government by the United States. So we were given passports for Finland. The propaganda did not deceive us.
“At the border a suspicious sailor on guard searched us. He turned many back to Petrograd. The train pulled back carrying four hundred women and children and babies disappointed at the very door to freedom, weeping, penniless, and starving, starting back into Russia all to suit the whim of an ignorant under officer. Under the influence of flattery he softened toward us and after robbing us of everything that had been provided us by our friends for the journey, taking even the official papers sent by the Bolshevik government to our government which we were to deliver to American representatives in Finland, he let us go.
“After he let us go we saw the soldiers in the house grabbing for the American money which Mr. Taylor had given us. They had not thought it worth while to take the Russian roubles away from us. Of course they were of no value to us in Finland. After a two kilometer walk, carrying a sick English soldier with us, my three comrades and I reached the little bridge that gave us our freedom.”—By Sgt. Glenn W. Leitzell, Co. M, 339th Inf.
XXXVIII
MILITARY DECORATIONS
In the North Russian Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki, American officers and men fought at one time or another under the field standards of four nations, American, British, French, and (North) Russian. And for their valor and greatly meritorious conduct, mostly over and beyond the call of duty, many soldiers were highly commended by their field officers, American, French, British, and Russian, in their reports to higher military authorities. Many, but not all, of these officers and soldiers were later cited in orders and awarded decorations. Not every deserving man received a citation. That is the luck of war.
It was a matter of keen regret to the British Commanding General that he was so hedged by orders from England that his generous policy of awarding decorations to American soldiers was abruptly ended in mid-winter when it became apparent that the United States would not continue the campaign against the Bolsheviki but would withdraw American troops at the earliest possible moment.
The Russian military authorities were eager to show their appreciation of their American soldier allies, but due to the indifference of Colonel Stewart to this not many soldiers were decorated with Russian old army decorations.