I
THE EXPEDITION
The North Russian Expeditionary Force consisted of men from America, England, Canada, France, Italy, and Serbia. England sent the largest number of men, America the second largest, the other countries being represented by only a few companies each.
The expedition was under the command of the British War Office, which sent out a large number of unattached British officers to take charge of the Russian armies that were to be formed and to supervise all American and other officers that had been attached to the expedition.
The first landing of troops of the North Russian Expeditionary Force was in August, 1918. The German armistice was signed November 11. Fighting continued all winter. The American troops were withdrawn in June, 1919. A much larger British army landed in June. Our Russian conscripts mutinied against the English in July, making it impossible for the English to remain. The last man of the North Russian Expeditionary Force was withdrawn in September, 1919. The "washout" was complete. England had spent five hundred million dollars and lost thousands of men. The cost to America and the other countries had been less in men and money, but considerable in other ways. The cost to Russia in every way had been incalculable.
When this expedition was sent to Russia the Allies were at war with Germany. Russia was not. She had signed the Brest-Litovsk treaty. We did not declare war on Russia, nor on any section of Russians. We went, it was reasonable to suppose, to guard the military stores we had shipped to Archangel and save them from falling into German hands, and to prevent the Germans from establishing a submarine base at Murmansk. When we got there, however, the Bolshevik Russians, viewing the expedition as one of enmity to them, had removed practically all of the millions of dollars' worth of stores to points far south of Archangel and had themselves left for points of from one to two hundred miles south. We pursued them and war began,—war with the de facto government of Russia, whom indeed we had not recognized and against whom we had made no declaration.
There was no war technically speaking in North Russia. There surely was no legal basis of war. But there was plenty of fighting. News of this fighting does not seem to have reached America very freely. The double English and American censorship was very effective.
First we had declared we would not engage in a military intervention in Russia, then having gotten into it we declared we were not doing it, then we depended on the censorship.
No mention was made of this expedition in the armistice of November. Hence it had in some subtle way ceased to be a part of our war against Germany. It had become a new war, a war against Bolshevik Russia, an unlegalized war, and this it continued to be as long as the expedition lasted. Yet no declaration was forthcoming, either of war or of peace. Particularly wanting was a declaration of purpose. Weary months of stubborn fighting for our men were unrelieved by any single word of definition of the fight from their government.
There consequently was antagonism to the campaign on the part of the soldiers. I do not say loss of morale, because the term would be misunderstood. Our men fought. Our infantry never lost a foot of ground. But they hated the fight, they resented fighting without a cause.