It will be remembered that the third battalion was hurried from troopship to troop train and steamed south as fast as the rickety Russki locomotives of the 1880 type could wobble, and it will be remembered that Captain Donoghue, the senior captain of that battalion, was chosen to go with half of his “K” Company to the relief of a mixed force of American sailors and British Royal Scots and French infantry who had been surrounded, it was rumored, and were in imminent danger of annihilation.
With his little force of one hundred and twenty men, including a medical officer with eight enlisted medical men, transporting his rations and extra munitions on the dumpy little Russki droskie, the American officer led out of Obozerskaya at three o’clock in the afternoon, bivouacked for the night somewhere on the trail in a cold drizzle, and reached Volshenitsa, the juncture of the trails from Seletskoe and Emtsa, about noon of the 8th of September.
Four versts beyond Volshenitsa the column passed the scene of the battle between the Bolos and “B” Force. Gear and carts scattered around and two or three fresh graves told that this was serious business. A diary of an American sailor and the memoranda of a British officer, broken off suddenly on the 30th of August, that were picked up told of the adventures of the handful of men we were going to hunt. More explanations of the genesis of this Kodish front is now in order.
Consideration of the map will show that Kodish was of great strategic Importance. Truth to tell it was of more importance than our High Command at first estimated. The Bolshevik strategists were always aware of its value and never permitted themselves to be neglectful of it. Trotsky knew that the strategy and tactics of the winter campaign would make good use of the Kodish road. Indeed it was seen in the fall by General Poole that a Red column from Plesetskaya up the Kodish road was a wedge between the railroad forces and the river forces, always imperiling the Vaga and Dvina forces with being cut off if the Reds came strong enough.
The first movement on Kodish by the Allied troops had been made by “B” force under the command of Col. Hazelden of the British army. With about two hundred men composed of French soldiers, a few English soldiers, American sailors from the Olympic, and some local Russian volunteers, he had pushed up the Dvina and Vaga to Seletskoe and operating from there had sent a party of French even as far as Emtsa River, a few miles north of Kodish.
But before he could attack Kodish, Hazelden was ordered to strike across the forest area and attack the Reds in the rear near Obozerskaya where the Bolshevik rear guard with its excellent artillery strategist was stubbornly holding the Allied Force “A.” Passing through Seletskoe he left the Russian volunteers to oppose the Reds in Kodish, and guard his rear. But these uncertain troops fled upon approach of the Bolos and about the first of September Col. Hazelden instead of being in a position to demoralize the Reds on the railroad by a swift blow from behind, found himself in desperate defense, both front and rear, and beleagured in the woods and swamps some twenty-seven versts east of Obozerskaya.
He managed to get a message through to Sisskoe just before the Reds closed in on him from behind. About a hundred English marines, a section of machine gunners, a platoon of Royal Scots, and some Russian artillery, all enroute to Archangel from their chase of the Reds up the Dvina, were ordered off their barges at Sisskoe, were christened “D” Force, and, under the command of Captain Scott, British officer, were given the task of preventing the Reds from Kodish from cutting off the river communications.
This force was also to help Col. Hazelden out. But as we have seen, his force had been destroyed, and Americans hurriedly sent out. At Volshenitsa Captain Donoghue received a message by aeroplane from Col. Guard at Obozerskaya that “D” Force was held up at Tiogra by the Reds. After patrolling the forest five days and finding the trail to Emtsa impassable during the wet season, “K” Company received both the welcome reinforcements of Lieut. Gardner and the twenty men who had been left at Lewis gun School at Bakaritza, and orders to proceed on to Seletskoe.
The Red Guards hearing of the American successes on the railway and hearing of the approach of this force from the railroad in their rear went back to Kodish, and on the morning of September 16th “K” Company became a full-fledged member of “D” Force to be better known the world over in the bitterest part of this campaign as the Kodish Force.
Here the doughboys got their baptism of fire when they took over under fire the outposts of the village of Seletskoe. For the Bolos who had retreated the week before had told the inhabitants they would be back and they were making their threat, or promise, as you will have it, good. For two days and nights the Americans beat off the attacks, principally through the good work of Sgt. Michael Kinney, the gallant soldier who fell at Kodish on New Year’s Day. Aided by the accurate fire of the French machine gun section, the “K” men inflicted such heavy penalties that the Reds quit in panic, assassinated their commander and skurried south thirty miles. However, this victory was not exploited by the Allied force. It seems that the commander of the force had sent out a Russian patrol on the east bank of the Emtsa River which brought back information that a heavy force of the enemy was operating in the rear of “D” force.