Archangel: The American War with Russia

by John Cudahy

So soon as navigation opened, there commenced an exodus of Russian officers to Archangel, sent by the British Command to lead the newly formed native legions. These officers came from the old Imperial Army, many were titled, proud of their high birth, and by every thought and training, and by every instinct, irreconcilably opposed to every notion of social equality; in short, irredentists of that heartless, arrogant, military class which a worn afflicted world had cast off in a travail of four years' agony and afflicting grief, and long suffering Russia had driven forever from her temples.

So the fresh formed conscript ranks were made conveniently vulnerable for Bolshevik propaganda, this new weapon of warfare, invisible and treacherous, that on the Eastern Front had scored such havoc with the boasted discipline of the Germans. Soviet agents were everywhere, mingling with the people on the streets of Archangel, wearing the khaki of the newly organized soldiers, living with them, going through their drills, and fatigue and exercises, and ever with the passionate zeal of fanatics, feeding them the poisonous doctrines of Reddest Moscow, ceaselessly, night and day.

Now the innuendo was very plausible that these aristocrats of the Old School had returned to restore the Romanoffs, and that the British capitalists were leagued with them for the conquest of Russia and the enslavement of the common people. It was easy to argue that the British, always interested in the trading possibilities of Archangel, had come to exploit its resources. Otherwise why should they be so vitally concerned in this civil war of Russians? British officers were freely mingled with these Imperial officers, British Intelligence supervising the staff work and dispositions, and a liberal spreading of reliable British N.C.O.'s among the ranks, to keep a watchful eye on things and bolster the recruits in the stern trial of first battle.

The great majority of the British officers had no appetite for the business ahead. They were tired and homesick, weary and fed up with war for all time after four racking years of it. Moreover, they disliked everything Russian with a withering aversion, and in their forced association with the Russians, treated them with a disdainful condescension and that impersonal, inhuman lack of tolerance which is British beyond all imitation. Openly they distrusted their allied comrades, and sometimes when tired and irritable and nerve frayed, they said so, which did not make towards the establishment of an enthusiastic and permanent entente, for the educated Slav is an accomplished linguist, and sometimes he understood and did not easily forget when he was abused in English, and vehemently cursed as a "bloody Bolo."

It had been determined before the opening of navigation that all American forces should be withdrawn and the campaign abandoned. The reason for this was not revealed to the troops just as the cause of the Expedition had never been mentioned, and every man in American uniform sensed a gaping moral void on the part of his Country. Certain death from the Bolsheviks awaited those loyal Russians who had placed their trust in the promised salvation of the Allied leaders and the American authorities at least seemed blind to their manifest duty to the Archangel government. It was an awkward situation for the statesmen, but unavoidable under the circumstances—and Archangel was a long distance removed from Washington. Anyway, the British held on—they would have to attend to uncomfortable details. We were going to clear out, and clear out we did.

The problem of evacuation was a disturbing one. There was a clamor in England as insistent as that which echoed from America to get out of Russia and get out without delay. This might have been done, and the British might have abandoned these thousands of Russian people who, trusting in the courage, the steadfastness, and the honor of the Allies, had cast their lot with them for better or for worse. But, instead of deserting the country without ceremony as we did, a frank disclosure of the situation was made to the press in England, and a call was issued for volunteers to rescue British soldiers at Archangel. A mixed brigade of venturesome men who were wearied by peace time tedium and longed again for the thrill of war, and others who were out of work and could get no other employment, was raised by this method, but to muster the full quota for relief it was necessary to add a like number of Regulars, in all approximately eight thousand men. Each brigade had two infantry battalions, units of artillery, airplanes, machine gun corps and engineers, and the first echelon, commanded by Brigadier General G. W. Grogan, Victoria Cross, reached Archangel at the end of May. The rest, under Brigadier L. W. Sadleir Jackson, came on the 10th June, and the ships that brought them carried away the Americans.

To the civil mind an evacuation, especially by sea, seems a simple matter. The civilian thinks of it merely as a packing off to the ships, disregarding the losses involved to make short shift and get away. But in complicated, modern war, there are countless perplexing details in the final movement of an army. Massive, ponderous ordnance and munitions and supplies must be assembled with prodigious labor, transported or destroyed. And it is necessary to hold the enemy off till the last retreating file has mounted the gang plank and put off far to sea. Also, in the case of Archangel, it was an involved problem to attend to the civilian population.

The British government laid open the offer to transport every Archangel resident apprehensive of the Bolsheviks, and to provide employment for them in other lands. It was expected that vast numbers would avail themselves of this opportunity and would flee from the approaching reign of horrors, but when the time came only sixty-five hundred and thirty-five came forward for expatriation, and these were all sent to South Russia and the Baltic States.

When all was in readiness, General Ironside planned to safeguard the retreat by administering a sharp "disengaging blow," like Sir John Moore dealt the French at Corunna one hundred years before, which would shake the enemy's morale and disabuse him of any notion of following the retreating troops to the waterside.

The Czechs had fused with Admiral Kolchak's armies. Under the leadership of General Gaida, they formed his right wing and were beyond Perm, some three hundred miles east of Viatka. It was thought that these friendly Siberian forces could take Viatka, advance up the railway to Kotlas, and join there with the Archangel Russians. Thereupon the British, leisurely and in security, could return down the river to the waiting transports and sail homeward.