If the fight was for Russia, the Russian people were cold and apathetic, the worst of ingrates. Many Russians had the impression that we had come to restore another Romanoff to the throne.
The statement of the American government, with respect to the reasons for military intervention, put the case as if the Allies were engaged in a high-minded, selfless service for Russia, but the great mass of moujiks were indifferent to our immolation, and showed undisguised relief when we finally and ignominiously quitted their country.
During early August, a government of the north had been installed at Archangel by a coalition of Cadets, Minimalists, members of the People's Party and Social Democrats, with a bourgeois cabinet and with an old man, Nicolai Tschaikovsky, as President of the province. But it was a fact known to all that the Allies determined the policies of this government, that it was in fact merely a guise for an Allied Protectorate.
This government of the North it was that had invited military intervention; but had a plebiscite been called, the people would have registered their voice in unmistakable terms and volubly Russian "Let us alone. Nitchevoo."
Thus the campaign was another effort of England to impose her will upon an inferior people, and bring them for their own good to a higher order of things, disregardful of their volition in the premises. It was an echo of South Africa and Egypt, Mesopotamia and India, inspired by that lofty faith in Britain and the immortal commission of the Empire to rule an afflicted world and bring the blessings of sustained order, where only trouble and chaos prevailed before.
In Archangel, an ambitious attempt was made to recruit Russians under the high sounding name of The Slavo British Allied Legion, and after most energetic efforts, about two thousand starved moujiks, seeking something to eat, joined the ranks; indifferent mercenaries never to be trusted in the tight positions. They were given the khaki of the Tommy, but there all resemblance to the British men of war ended. Their pay was in worthless rubles. They were given an inferior ration, were treated patronizingly. Between them and the Allied soldiers there never was that generous comradeship that leaps the restraints of divergent language and manners when men fight shoulder to shoulder for life and some things that are more dear than life itself. It was a case of alien spirit above all else. British officers never could understand why the Russian officers, with the acute, sensitive nature of the Slav, were quick to feel and keen to resent, seemingly studied slights and snubs and discourtesies. Russians of culture and refinement never could penetrate the unfailing reticence and frigid unsympathetic exterior in which gentlemen of England have been schooled for generations beyond memory, habitually to conceal the emotions.
When the utter failure of the volunteer system became certain, thousands of Russians were coerced into the army by a draft system; but these failed too, because their hearts were cold to Russian patriotic British appeals; because there was no great moral issue, no moving cause for the fight.
The war with Russia was in fact a typical British show, conducted by that conquering people who have spread the dominions of the mother country to every shore of the far seas. A war that was waged with the invincible will, that noble effacement of physical comfort; that indomitable purpose and masterful determination; that courage and careless naivete, and contempt of danger and risk; that splendid sportsmanship, that love of fair play; and all the sublime self sufficiency, all the muddling, blundering and fuddling, the lack of understanding, the brutal arrogance and cold conceit, and apparent heartlessness and want of sympathy that are forever British.
Naturally, the British assumed direction, just as in France when the first Americans came Clemenceau and the Earl Haig demanded that they be fed piece meal to the French and British front divisions; but the soldier, Pershing, sensing the important moral value of having his men go to battle under the American flag and directed by American officers, waited and would not yield to the strongest pressure. And it was an American army that brought us to glory at Saint Mihiel and Chateau-Thierry and the Argonne forest; an all-American army led by American divisional commanders.
There are racial differences, racial prejudices, racial disparities, and racial asperities that cannot be gainsaid even under the influence of impersonal military discipline, and experience has shown that soldiers yield a more ready obedience to leaders who speak their own language; understand the philosophy of their daily lives, and at no other time did General Pershing so demonstrate his greatness, his complete understanding of the perplexities in Allied military organization as by his courageous insistence upon the solidarity of the American army on the battlefields of France.