Our Navy at war

by Josephus Daniels

The first intimation the American admirals had that they were about to face unusual circumstances was when, on reaching the station in Sebastopol, they found a reception committee awaiting them composed wholly of workmen and sailors. There were no officers. Kolchak was not there, nor had he sent any members of his staff to greet them. Glennon and McCully were quick enough to catch the significance of this unexpected welcome, and to accommodate themselves to its peculiar character.

"They wore no swords," said Admiral Glennon, "so the American officers left their swords in the train."

The American officers were taken to the flagship, from which Kolchak had been deposed the day before. Standing on the quarter-deck, where Kolchak had stood in his final appeal, Admiral Glennon spoke to the sailors on the meaning of democracy. He paid a generous tribute to their ships. He spoke of Russia's bravery, and urged the sailors to stand by the cause for which the Allies were fighting. Referring feelingly to the cordial relations which had always existed between Russia and the United States, he made much of the argument for the continued friendship and coöperation of these nations, now the two biggest republics in the world. But not a word did he say of the deposed officers.

Admiral Glennon is a big man, of commanding appearance, but with a kindly and genial bearing. His speech made a deep impression on the sailors. Evidently they talked over the things he had said and decided to show their appreciation in some way. When the American admirals and other officers were boarding their train to return to Petrograd, representatives of the sailors came on board and told Admiral Glennon that they had voted to restore the arms to all the deposed officers except Kolchak and Smirnoff. These two, they said, they would probably keep in prison and bring to trial. Admiral Glennon saw his chance. Manifestly these sailors wanted to please the Americans. They were a little afraid of Kolchak and Smirnoff, so they felt obliged to keep them in prison, but probably, if the Russian admirals were to leave Sebastopol and the region of the Black Sea, the sailors would be satisfied. So Admiral Glennon, smiling down from his towering height upon the shorter Russians, made a proposal. In effect he said: "Release Smirnoff and Kolchak, and we will take them to Petrograd with us." Petrograd was far away. Moreover the authority of Petrograd was still recognized, so the sailors agreed. Kolchak and Smirnoff were taken from prison and put on board the train with the Americans. For them it was deliverance from almost certain death. It is little wonder that Kolchak regarded Glennon with the greatest affection and gratitude. A few weeks later he came to the United States at the head of a Russian naval mission, and his renewal of acquaintance with Admiral Glennon was like the meeting of brothers.

I had a chance to see a good deal of Kolchak while the mission was here. He was said to be of Tartar descent. Of medium height and very dark complexion, he had piercing eyes and a determined expression. He admired Farragut greatly, and made a special trip to his tomb to place a wreath upon it. He was also a great admirer of our Arctic explorers, probably because of his own Polar service. I remember the dinner Admiral Kolchak gave at a Washington hotel to the Secretary of the Navy and prominent naval officers just before he took his departure in 1917. It was about the gloomiest, most funereal occasion I experienced in all my eight years in Washington. News had just arrived of a German victory over the Russians in the Baltic. The Kerensky government was in a perilous position. The depressing situation was reflected in the solemn faces of the banqueters. I did my best to cheer Kolchak, predicting a wonderful future for a democratic Russia when the Allies and America had won the war.

"Do you really believe Russia can again have peace?" he asked me, and the tone of his question spoke his own despair. The premonition of tragedy must have been in his soul. At the end of October he sailed from San Francisco, intending to return to European Russia by Siberia. When he reached Japan he found the Bolsheviki had seized power and Kerensky was a fugitive. The Bolshevik government offered him and his officers safe journey to Petrograd, if they would recognize its authority and swear allegiance. Kolchak refused.

Gathering together the forces opposing Lenine, he became leader of the anti-Bolshevik movement in Siberia. In the spring of 1919, when the Admiral was head of the Omsk government, the world thought he was going to succeed in his great effort to overthrow Lenine and Trotzky. Then the tide turned. He was driven back. His retreat became a rout. When he reached the region of Lake Baikal, his forces disintegrated and fled, leaving him alone. One day in January, 1920, a revolutionary group raided the village of Innokentieskaya, near Irkutsk, and found Kolchak. They took him prisoner, and turned him over to the Bolshevik commissairs. There was a perfunctory court-martial, which passed the predetermined sentence of death.

In the early dawn of February 7, he was led from his cell to the courtyard of a building in Irkutsk, where he was stood with his back to the wall. It was too dark to see his face distinctly, the stories that came to us stated; so a soldier held a lighted lamp near it to guide the firing squad. When the command to fire was given, the squad failed to obey. Angered at their soft-hearted reluctance, the Bolshevik commissair who was supervising the execution pushed the squad aside, strode up to Kolchak, and shot him down.

Thus the famous Russian admiral met his fate.

The debacle in Russia profoundly disturbed America. It was due primarily to the failure of communication and transportation. Russia was shut off at the Dardanelles by the Turks and at the Danish Sound in the Baltic by the Germans. When the Kerensky government was organized there was hope by the oldest republic in the New World for the success of the newest republic in the Old World. The coup d'etat of the Bolshevists, who soon made the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Germans, gave pause to the Allied forces, who felt it necessary to take steps on what had been the "Eastern front" to prevent the use of Russian man-power against them. Fifty million dollars of their supplies were piled up at Archangel, which the Bolshevists were undertaking to confiscate and move into the interior. The Germans were seeking a submarine base on the Murman coast in order to gain access to the sea which they had been so long denied.