Russian Sideshow Read online

  RUSSIAN SIDESHOW

  Also by ROBERT L. WILLETT

  One Day of the Civil War:

  April 10, 1863

  The Lightning Mule Brigade:

  Abel Streight’s 1863 Raid into Alabama

  RUSSIAN SIDESHOW

  AMERICA’S UNDECLARED WAR

  1918–1920

  ROBERT L. WILLETT

  Copyright © 2003 by Potomac Books, Inc.

  Published in the United States by Brassey’s, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Willett, Robert L., 1926–

  Russian sideshow : America’s undeclared war, 1918–1920 / Robert L. Willett—1st ed. p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-57488-429-6

  1. Soviet Union—History—Allied intervention, 1918–1920. 2. Soviet Union—History—Revolution, 1917–1921—Participation, American. 3. Soviet Union—History—Revolution, 1917–1921—Personal narratives, American. I. Title.

  DK265.42.U5W55 2003

  947.084′1—dc21 2003007949

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48 Standard.

  Available from:

  Potomac Books, Inc.

  22841 Quicksilver Drive

  Dulles, Virginia 20166

  800-775-2518

  First Edition

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Inspired by and dedicated to the memory of

  Golden Charles Bahr

  Private, Company M, 339th Infantry Regiment

  Eighty-fifth Division

  March 5, 1887–March 12, 1919

  Photo courtesy of Merlin Bahr

  CONTENTS

  List of Maps

  Preface

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  PART I: NORTH RUSSIA

  1 The Early Days in Murmansk

  2 Force B—Archangel

  3 The 339th Takes Shape

  4 The Americans Land in Archangel

  5 The Railroad Front

  6 The Onega Front

  7 The Emtsa/Seletskoye Front

  8 The Dvina Front

  9 The Vaga Front

  10 The Pinega Front

  11 In Archangel

  12 The Murmansk Railroad Companies

  13 The Withdrawal

  14 Aftermath

  PART II: SIBERIA

  15 The Russian Railroad Story

  16 Vladivostok and the Navy

  17 The AEFS Assembles

  18 The Early Days in Siberia

  19 General Graves Arrives in Russia

  20 Life in Siberia

  21 Spring Comes to Siberia

  22 The Battles Begin

  23 The Suchan Valley

  24 Elsewhere in Siberia—1919

  25 The American Red Cross

  26 The Exodus—1920

  27 Conclusions

  Epilogue

  Notes

  Selected Bibliography

  Index

  About the Author

  MAPS

  Siberia During the Russian Revolution

  The North Russian Front

  The Maritime Province

  PREFACE

  The purpose of this book is to give a realistic portrayal of the experiences of the two American forces that were sent to Russia in the fall of 1918. The American Expeditionary Force North Russia (AEFNR) was sent to Archangel, while the American Expeditionary Force Siberia (AEFS) went to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. A detailed analysis of the events leading up to those interventions has been thoroughly covered in wonderfully researched volumes such as George F. Kennan’s The Decision to Intervene, Betty Miller Unterberger’s America’s Siberian Expedition, 1918–1920, Norman Saul’s War and Revolution, and many others. This book is not a discussion of the politics before and after intervention or of the parts played by other Allied forces involved. Mention is made briefly of the Navy and the 310th Engineers in North Russia, talented professionals who shared the same dangers and hardships as the infantry. Reference is also made to the Russian Railway Service Corps in Siberia and the Czech Legion; but the main focus is on the U.S. infantry, the doughboys, and how they fared.

  My interest in the subject came from two sources. My wife Donna’s uncle, Pvt. Golden Bahr, was a member of Company M, 339th Infantry; he landed with them in Archangel in September 1918 and fought on the railroad front. He became ill, probably with the flu, was sent home in December, discharged in February, and died at the age of thirty-two on March 12, 1919. Although he is not listed as a Polar Bear casualty, he is certainly deserving of that recognition. Golden’s grave is in Marilla, Michigan.

  A second spark was furnished when Donna and I spent the summer of 1998 as volunteers for Citizens Democracy Corps in the Russian Far East. We spent ten weeks in Magadan, Komsomolsk, Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok, where we first learned of the Siberian expedition. Until that time we had known of Golden’s tour in Archangel from some old correspondence, but the Vladivostok effort was a surprise; thus began our research.

  I went back to Vladivostok in December 1999 and visited the graves of the Allied dead in the Marine Cemetery on a bleak, wintry day. The little plot is virtually lost to visitors, surrounded by newer Russian graves. The Allied portion has new stones and plaques, but only old, almost unreadable stones identify the graves of the Czechs. The monument to the Allied dead is weather-beaten and pitted, but still stands tall and protective over its graves, much as it did on the day of the cemetery dedication, May 1, 1919. Some Americans were originally buried there, but all of the more than one hundred dead were returned to the United States during the expedition.

  Vladivostok today is a sad city, suffering from severe political friction between various levels of government. The infrastructure is disintegrating, with water supplies available only 50 percent of the time, and in summer with virtually no hot water. Power outages are frequent and lengthy. The ancient trams still run along Svetlanskaya Prospekt, crammed with locals riding their free cars, much as they did in 1918. Still, the physical features of the city, the hills running down to the deep harbor, and the beaches on the lee side of the harbor gave some glimpse of Vladivostok’s immense potential.

  In July 2000 we took a White Sea cruise on the Kristina Regina, a Finnish ship, to Archangel, the Solovetski Islands, and Murmansk. As we left the White Sea and entered the Dvina River, the landscape was flat and forbidding, with swampy areas noticeable even from the river, with abandoned shacks and piers lying broken and desolate. But Economie Point, with its busy cranes and docks, seemed a busier and more prosperous area. The primary products of the local economy are still timber and fish. We saw vast areas of the Dvina covered by rafts of logs, ready for shipment overseas. The riverfront, dotted with occasional sawmills, and the docks at Solombola indicated more commercial activity. Bakharitza, across the river from Archangel, is still off limits, for reasons we never could fathom; the old Smolny Barracks of Archangel are long gone, and the grounds are now a rather overgrown public park.

  The former American headquarters building, still an impressive riverfront structure, is now used mostly for offices. Two of the former buildings used as American hospitals are no longer medical facilities, but are well maintained. The Allied cemetery, still holding many graves, is overgrown and untended, although the headstones are straight and legible, and the memorial plaques in the rear of the cemetery looked clean and fresh. We met the commander of the Russian Army unit based at the old Alexandrovsky Barracks, site of a December 1918 mutiny. In contrast
to a Russian military compound I visited in Khabarovsk, in the Far East, I found this compound to be active, neat, orderly, and freshly painted.

  In Archangel we conferred with Vice Rector Vladislav Goldin of Pomor University, an expert on the Intervention period and author of a book on the subject. We found Archangel to be a relatively quiet city of four hundred thousand people, with its older, unique riverfront buildings providing a contrast to the background of high-rise Soviet-style apartments. Similar to Vladivostok, the free trolley still runs up Troitski Prospekt, the main street of the waterfront area, as it did in 1918.

  Our brief visit to Murmansk was improved by bright sunshine, but its harbor area, particularly on the river to the sea, was marked by appalling numbers of rusting hulks, many already submerged, broken, and listing in all directions. Only weeks after we sailed past numbers of Russian naval craft, the Russian submarine Kursk sailed out of Murmansk harbor and tragically sank with all hands off the Kola coast.

  My most recent visit to sites of the Intervention period was to Stoney Castle in Brookwood, England, where the 339th trained briefly before heading to Russia. The area is now a British military installation complete with rifle ranges and sturdy brick barracks. Nearby is the Brookwood American Military Cemetery, where two members of the AEFNR are buried. Pvt. Leslie Handy of the 310th Engineers died in an accident on August 22, 1918, only days after he arrived and is buried in the small American portion of the huge Allied cemetery. The other grave belongs to Cpl. Earl Collins, who was wounded and taken prisoner on March 18, 1919; later a captured YMCA worker found him badly wounded in a Bolshevik hospital. No further word was received.

  It may be helpful to explain some of the labels that will be used to identify the various factions involved in the Intervention. The two basic forces involved in Russia’s Civil War were the Reds, or Bolsheviks (Bolos), versus the Whites, or anti-Bolsheviks. In North Russia it was reasonably simple to distinguish the sides. The anti-Bolsheviks consisted of those who were former officials in the days of the tsar and those who were simply against the new Soviet government. The Whites were aided by the Allies—British, French, American, Canadians, and other smaller national groups. Russians who joined the Allies were anti-Soviets, referred to as White Russians, and occasionally as just Russians. Their enemy was the Soviet force fighting to control North Russia. The terms for these Soviet forces are used almost interchangeably: Reds, Soviets, Bolsheviks, or Communists.

  In Siberia classifications were more complex. It was the Reds against the Whites, but the lines were blurred. During most of the Intervention period, the Whites were led by Adm. Alexander V. Kolchak, whose leadership was first ineffectual, and later brutal. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Roland S. Morris described Kolchak: “Admiral Kolchak is, in my judgment, an honest and courageous man of very limited experience in public affairs, of narrow views and small administrative ability. He is dictator in name but exercises little influence on the Council of Ministers.”1 He was primarily a Tsarist, but his authority was maintained to a large extent by ruthless Russian Cossacks and Japanese troops, part of the Allied presence. The anti-Bolshevik forces included the Allies—the Czech Legion, Japanese, Americans, Chinese, and some British and French—with two Russian Cossack tribes led by Gregorii Semenov and Ivan Kalmykof. Whenever the term Cossack is used in later chapters, it refers to these two bands. There also were White Russians, former Tsarists leftover from the days of royalty, military officers, and other Russians who were just anti-Bolshevik.

  The distance from Moscow lessened the power of the Central Soviet with its communist philosophy, yet some ardent Bolsheviks recruited effectively in Siberia. Recruiting was made easy by the ruthless tactics of the Japanese and the Cossacks. Most of the Russians fighting under the Red flag were anti-Kolchak rather than pro-Bolshevik. While they are referred to as Bolsheviks and Soviets, their dedication to that cause was often minimal. A final group, which often joined the Reds, was the partisans. Usually, these were peasants who fought for the Reds when fighting came near their villages; however, they seldom stayed on with the Reds if the action moved on. They fought for their towns and their families, not for “the cause.”

  The majority of the Russians were apolitical citizens who only wanted to go on with their daily lives without interference, preoccupied with scratching out a precarious livelihood. With that underlying philosophy, it was easy to understand the frequency with which they switched allegiances.

  In the text, names used without national identification are American. Also, the quotes used are in the style of the times and represent the educational level of the individual.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Acknowledgments for this type of book are manifold. First, as always, thanks go to my wife, Donna, for her integral part in every stage of the project. As researcher, proofreader, fact checker, and mechanic of the English language, she was ever-present and ever-alert.

  Col. Richard Sommers amazed us with his knowledge of the materials available at the U.S. Army Military Historical Institute (USAMHI) and pointed us in several new directions. His personal interest and attention were high points in our research activity. A generous grant from USAMHI made a return visit possible. The staff at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan was patient and most helpful in our use of their extensive North Russian collections. A grant from the Bentley Library was of invaluable assistance in allowing for repeat visits to Ann Arbor. At the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, Archivist Gibson Bell Smith assisted us with our initial research. Dr. Germaine Pavlova-O’Neill’s help, during our visit to the Donovan Research Library at Fort Benning, Georgia, was also much appreciated.

  Our two week-long trips to the Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, with its extensive Siberian collections, were memorable. Susan Lintelman at the United States Military Academy Museum provided copies of Colonel Stewart’s papers and Siberian correspondence, as well as photographs of Academy graduates. The staff at the American Battle Monuments Commission helped us substantially in locating overseas graves and memorials. The Joint Archives at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, added more to our understanding of the Michigan contribution to the Polar Bears.

  Stan Bozich at Michigan’s Own Museum in Frankenmuth, Michigan, was one of my early sources; he provided a number of personal insights into the Polar Bears of Michigan. Stan, who knows more of the real story of the North Russian campaign that any single person we met, readily shared his knowledge. Barbara Martin at the Muskegon County Museum in Muskegon, Michigan, made museum papers available to us and pointed us to the Polar Bear monument on Muskegon’s Memorial Causeway in that western Michigan city. An Internet contact, Jerry Richards, provided us with many documents on the Russian Railroad Service Corps, for which we are grateful. Steve Harold, director of Manistee Historical Museum in Manistee, Michigan, provided us with original materials about local veterans.

  At Hoover and at the USAMHI we became aware of two individuals who were largely responsible for preserving the legacy of the Intervention. Edith Faulstich spent the last years of her life soliciting and compiling reminiscences from Siberian veterans; her materials are highly insightful. John Longuevan also spent decades collecting, assembling, and editing information from his fellow Siberian veterans. Both were extremely dedicated and provided valuable services.

  A visit to the History Institute of the Army of the Czech Republic in Prague put us in touch with Jitka Zabloudilova, who provided not only insights into the Czech experience, but maps and photos, which have been extremely useful. Jana Hrstkova, an attorney in Prague, kindly translated and interpreted several of those documents.

  And last, but not least, is a tribute to my friend in Komsomolsk, Nikolai Chaschin, who really gave me the idea that began this quest with a challenge: “You have written about your American Civil War, why don’t you write about our Civil War?”

  I need to say a special word of thanks to our excellent local library, the Cocoa Beac
h Public Library, Cocoa Beach, Florida. Director Ray Dickinson and his creative reference staff were able to find via interlibrary loan volumes that we had little hope of locating. All these people and institutions, plus many others, were key to gathering the hosts of documents used throughout the book. And to many, many others who offered materials, suggestions, or encouragement, I give a heartfelt thanks.

  Thanks, too, to Dr. Thomas L. Graves, nephew of General William Graves, and David Roberts, descendant of Kenneth Roberts, for sharing family items and to Col. Richard R. Moore (Ret.), USMA class of 1945, for the use of academy texts and maps. Richard Goldhurst generously supplied original maps.

  credit: Richard Barber

  INTRODUCTION

  When World War I began in August 1914, the United States showed little interest in participating on either side. There were multitudes of Americans with recent German ancestry who had no enthusiasm for fighting Germany, and those Americans of French and British backgrounds felt no need to support the Allied cause. The Atlantic was a comfortable barrier between them and the war that was engulfing Europe. America’s position was supported by President Woodrow Wilson, although he was not at all reluctant to send American troops to foreign lands when he felt it was the proper extension of the diplomatic process. In a recent book, Between War and Peace, Woodrow Wilson and the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, 1918–1921, Carol Melton writes, “Throughout his presidency Wilson used the military in a new and untraditional manner; he used it not to wage war, but to restore peace. During his time as president he created a more benign role for the military while using it as a major agent of his foreign policy.”1

  In the first years of the war, Americans remained apathetic to the struggle in Europe, although they supplied large amounts of war goods to the Allies. However, aggressive German submarine warfare had a profound effect on both the American government and the American people. The sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania in May 1915 and the loss of American lives brought submarine warfare to the fore of American consciousness, and, even though the German military called for temporary restrictions on submarine attacks, by early 1917 their submarines again ravaged ships in European and Atlantic waters. Finally, in March 1917 three U.S. ships were sunk by U-boats, and Wilson, with support of Congress, declared war on Germany.2