26
The Exodus—1920
On the afternoon of 9 January 1920 I received word from a sergeant’s Russian girl friend that the villagers were leaving because the Destroyer [Semenov’s armored train] was coming.
—Lt. Paul Kendall
TECHNICALLY, the withdrawal of Allied troops started in November 1918 when Kolchak assumed power. From that moment, the Czechs, not approving of the new dictatorship, began to withdraw from the Ural front and prepare their departure. More than a year later, in December 1919, they made their first actual exit from Siberia.1 The Japanese were the only ally reluctant to see the Czechs leave; they believed that as long as there were Czechs in Siberia, there was a reason for the Japanese to stay. The other Allies, the Reds, and even the Cossacks, were happy to see them go.
In December 1919 the major project facing Major General Graves was the evacuation of his seven thousand men from locations scattered across thousands of miles of hostile Russia. In addition, he was to protect those Czech elements still drifting toward Vladivostok, while defending his own units from possible attacks from Bolsheviks, partisans, Cossacks, or Chinese bandits—all of this while facing a bitter Siberian winter. Fortunately, he had two able regimental commanders. Colonel Morrow had been thoroughly tested in his remote Baikal location, and Colonel Bugbee, although new to Siberia, had endeared himself to Graves by his performance during the Gaida revolt.
The decision was made to consolidate troops in Vladivostok while awaiting ships, which would follow the icebreakers into the docks. With Morrow still in the Baikal, Bugbee had much of the responsibility for loading the expedition’s horses, equipment, and supplies. He wrote home on January 22, “I have never worked harder in my life than I have done lately. Have shipped six companies of the 27th Inf. and a lot of property on the Great Northern.”2 He also had to arrange temporary quarters for these units coming into Vladivostok from other regions. First to arrive were the Spasskoye units of the Twenty-seventh Infantry Regiment on about January 13; they were loaded on the Great Northern and left on January 17. The next arrivals were several Shkotova units, which boarded the Crook on February 15 and left for Manila that same day.
The forces withdrawing from Shkotova to Vladivostok had only one recorded run-in with the partisans. On January 5, Captain Scroggs moved a section of Company H from Kangaus to Shkotova; about three miles out of Kangaus a bridge was blocked and the train stopped. An estimated three hundred Reds surrounded his twenty men and demanded that the Americans give up their arms. After some discussion, Scroggs led his men off the train and started walking to Novo Nezhino. Bugbee’s report said, “I believe it would have been far better to have stayed and fought it out.”3
Most of the troop movements were uneventful, but after their arrival in the city, the weather turned bad. On January 13, the temperature dropped to below zero and winds whipped across the bay at more than one hundred miles per hour. The remaining Shkotova units were to be evacuated on the Sheridan, but it was so loaded with equipment and supplies that there was no room for men. The Crook was the next ship due, but she was late due to heavy ice in the bay. The icebreakers finally led her to the dock and the Thirty-first Infantry Shkotova contingent left its freezing barracks to board the ship, bound for the warmer climate of Manila. After the Shkotova units and local Twenty-seventh Infantry units were taken out, it then became possible to move the Twenty-seventh Infantry units from the Baikal area, followed by the Thirty-first Infantry units protecting the movement of the Baikal companies. It was far from a simple operation. The Kolchak government was also evacuating to the east under Czech protection with a hoard of gold that had belonged to the now-dead tsar. Numerous Czech units were trying to move east as well, on a railroad that was in chaos.
In the Baikal area, it was reported that Bolsheviks were gathering in Mukheene, some twelve versts southwest of Verkhne-Udinsk, to attack the city and the railroad. Since the town was in the American sector, an expedition was sent to investigate. On January 3, Lt. Col. A. C. Gillem led parts of Companies I and L and Machine Gun Company with a mounted section toward Mukheene. Gillem was to have support from a White Russian company, but it refused to go.4 After some preliminary firing, the Reds told Gillem they were about to attack, but their purpose was to wipe out Semenov’s train, not attack the Americans. While Gillem confiscated a few arms from the Reds, he gained their pledge that they would not attack the railroad. His report also mentioned that the march was made in snow during a windstorm at 20 degrees below zero and that the new recruits performed admirably.5 He reported no casualties.
After the Reds had promised Colonel Gillem they would not attack the railroad, Lieutenant Dickson wrote on January 4 that the Reds had blown up two bridges west of Verkhne-Udinsk. He reported he was a little short of supplies since the train couldn’t get through, but was not worried. To relieve his boredom, “I had some fun patrolling after snipers this last week in the woods by moonlight. I went alone to show the men there was no danger. It was really quite thrilling—harmless sport. But those people never turn up when expected.”6
The evacuation orders for the Baikal troops came on January 7, orders that they had all looked forward to for a long time; but there were still some duties to perform before they left. Third platoon of Company M, stationed in Posolskaya, east of the regimental Beresovka winter headquarters, was guarding a bridge near the town. Their winter quarters were boxcars on the rail siding. The platoon of thirty-three men was commanded by Lt. Paul Kendall and one other officer. Kendall remembered:
On the afternoon of 9 January 1920 I received word from a sergeant’s Russian girl friend that the villagers were leaving because the Destroyer [Semenov’s armored train] was coming. I’d heard such rumors before, but nevertheless took the precaution of ordering the men to sleep on the floor of their cars, to remain dressed with rifles loaded and locked, and put double guards at the railroad station and at the bridge. Sure enough by dusk the hundred or so villagers had departed.7
His precaution saved a number of lives. It was a bitterly cold night, 20 degrees below zero with six inches of snow on the ground. While Lieutenant Kendall stood outside, at 1:00 A.M. an armored train came alongside the American boxcars. The port holes on the armored car opened and the Cossacks opened fire on the boxcars. The Americans jumped out into the bitter cold to attack the Cossack train. In the first fire, Pvt. John Montgomery was killed as he stood guard outside the boxcars, and in the next action, Sgt. Carl Robbins was killed as he climbed into the engine of the attacking train and tossed in a grenade. Under the heavy American fire, the Destroyer slowly began to back away from the station. As it was backing out, Pfc. Homer Tommie tried to climb on the train, but fell under the wheels and lost his leg. Kendall’s men followed the train on foot; when reinforcements from Company I arrived, the two groups closed on the train and captured it with all of its personnel. American losses were two killed and two wounded; Semenov lost General Bogomoletz captured, five killed, several wounded, and forty-eight taken prisoner.8
Colonel Morrow held the train and the prisoners until he left the Baikal area for Vladivostok; he learned from the prisoners that they had “robbed and brutally murdered over forty men and three women were raped and brutally killed.”9 When Graves learned of the attack and the capture of the Cossack general and crew he said:
I was sorry that Lieutenant Kendall, who first got hold of Bogomoletz, did not hang him to a telegraph pole, but he acted within the law and really exhibited better soldierly qualities in doing as he did. This young officer is entitled to great credit for his leadership in resisting this unwarranted attack, and in capturing a force with vastly superior armament.10
It was another American humiliation when Morrow was forced to give the train and its crew back to Semenov as the Americans left the area of Baikal. By then Kolchak was no longer a factor; he had deputized Semenov and Kalmykof, but the supreme ruler himself was making every effort to escape to the east. There was virtual anarchy in the Baikal area: J
ews were being slaughtered in Ekaterinburg, hostages taken by Semenov were executed and thrown into the freezing Lake Baikal, and the press of eastbound trains was creating a travel nightmare.
A high degree of animosity had developed between General Graves and the State Department’s general consul Ernest Harris. Lt. Col. B. B. McCroskey, a military observer in Kolchak’s White Army, was relieved of that duty and assigned to Consul Harris in Irkutsk. In December, Graves wired Washington that McCroskey was giving out an official communication stating, “The American troops are in Siberia primarily to support Kolchak against Bolsheviks by keeping his line of communications open along the Trans-Siberian.” Graves requested that McCroskey not show that communication to anyone in Siberia.11 On January 14, five days after the Posolskaya attack, Harris telegraphed the American consul in Peking: “I called on Ataman Semenof today with Colonels Teusler [Red Cross] and McCroskey. Arranged with Semenof distribution of certain Red Cross material to needy population. My relations with Semenof cordial and I have no fear for safety of Red Cross nurses here.” In this same wire, he stated that three American soldiers were dead in a clash with Semenov.12
McCroskey was headed west on a Semenov train near Chita when he encountered Morrow, who was traveling east to Vladivostok. Morrow was told that McCroskey had taken part in a railroad meeting in Chita; Morrow considered that interfering in area affairs. He arrested McCroskey and held him in Manchuria. That action instigated a series of messages—McCroskey to Graves, McCroskey to Harris, Harris to Graves, Harris to Morrow—each of which increased in intensity. Harris telegraphed Washington, “Colonel Morrow’s arbitrary action in this and other matters, together with his personal conduct on many occasions has not placed him above the severe criticism of those who are familiar with his doings.”13
Graves wrote that Morrow had found that McCroskey was with Semenov on some of his raids. Morrow asked McCroskey, “Do you know what a murderer he is? Do you know he has killed some of my men?” His reply was, “Semenof is the only thing standing between civilization and Bolshevism, and I do not intend to listen to anything against Semenof.”14 Morrow reported that he thought McCroskey was mentally unbalanced and stated that he would bring him to Vladivostok, which he did. Graves had McCroskey examined; he was found mentally stable, but of a “very nervous temperament and they thought it unwise and unsafe to leave him in Siberia.” Graves eventually sent him to the United States.15
As Morrow’s forces were leaving the Baikal area, Joseph Loughran, a chaplain with the Thirty-first Infantry, brought with him German-Austrian prisoners for repatriation. With the Posolskaya incident fresh in his memory, Morrow was so uneasy about the Cossacks he told Loughran to arm the prisoners in case of trouble. “Had the Cossacks attacked us the German and Austrian prisoners would have been our staunch allies.”16
Only a few days later, Admiral Kolchak was taken from his train at Irkutsk and handed over to the local Communist Party, a group of political and fringe parties making up the Irkutsk government. They were inflamed by Kolchak’s recent execution of hostages—members of the Political Center who had been murdered and thrown in Lake Baikal. Kolchak was under the Czech protection, but the Czechs had no love for the old dictator; on January 15, following orders, they turned him over to the locals. His court-martial took place a few days later and lasted nine days, but there was little doubt of its outcome. His only defense was ignorance of the atrocities performed by others, saying he only had vague knowledge of the sordid events. On the last day of the trial, he was found guilty of the outrages attributed to his regime; the next day, he and his prime minister Victor Pepeliaev were taken from their prison cells into the subzero day and shot.17
Vladivostok was hardly a tranquil city as U.S. troops gathered, waiting for their ships. Another coup took place on January 31: the Russian Thirty-fifth Infantry Regiment surrounded key buildings in the city and arrested Rozanov and his henchmen. The new government resembled the old Zemstvo form of government that existed in pre-Intervention days and, according to Graves, provided welcome relief to the excesses of Rozanov.18 Events of more concern to Americans took place as well. One of those events was a tragic fire that burned one of the barracks of the replacement battalion as the men waited to board ships. An investigation determined that a fire of unknown origin swept through the barracks on the night of March 6, 1920, killing four privates, Alex La Beaux, Quartermaster Corps; Julius Morris, Company M, Thirty-first; Merrill Mastin, Company M, Thirty-first; and James Brantley, Company I, Twenty-seventh.19
After the death of Kolchak, with the Cossacks’ armored trains on the loose, it became imperative to get the U.S. forces out of Russia as quickly as possible. The first echelons left the Baikal area on January 16, and the final one left on January 29. They all had reached Vladivostok by February 25, and most of them left on the Thomas, bound once again for Manila.20
The Thirty-first Infantry Regiment contingent in Razdolnoye was pulled back to Vladivostok with the other units: Company D, Fifty-third Telegraph Battalion, Field Hospital #4, Ambulance Company #4, 146th Ordnance Depot Company, and other small units. All were shipped to the Philippines on the South Bend on March 30; Evacuation Hospital #17 and its personnel followed the next day on the Crook.
The last ship, the Great Northern, left on April 1 carrying General Graves, the remaining elements of the Thirty-first Infantry Regiment with AEF headquarters staff and Red Cross personnel. The Japanese waited on the dock to see the Americans off; as the ship backed slowly away from the dock, the Japanese band played a Stephen Foster melody, “Hard Times Come Again No More.”21
While most of the Americans were gone, there were still a few left in Vladivostok. Colonel Eichelberger and his recently arrived wife awaited transport to Tokyo; four officers and fifty-three men were to assure the exit of the Czechs still in Siberia; and two officers and two enlisted men stayed to assist the surviving German Austro-Hungarian war prisoners who were waiting for the Mount Vernon.22
Eichelberger and his wife were witnesses to the next Japanese move, the retaking of the Far Eastern governments. On April 4 and 5, 1920, the Japanese attacked throughout the Far East, ousting the new Vladivostok government and inflicting large losses on the unsuspecting Russians. General Graves and Eichelberger had watched the Japanese prepare their installations in Vladivostok in late March, setting up automatic weapons in key city locations. By then, there was little they could do about it. The last ship was hardly out of the harbor when the Japanese launched their attack. In the coming months, the Far Eastern Republic emerged to become the central government, under the watchful eye of the Japanese. Semenov established a short-lived government in Chita, but by October, he had been driven back to Manchuria.23
In later days, Eichelberger, then a lieutenant general, mellowed slightly in light of later events, although he had no liking for the White Army. While his hatred of the Japanese did not diminish, he remarked in his memoirs, “Looking back, now, and realizing the world dominance given the Reds by FDR and Churchill in World War II, I regret that we did not put troops into Siberia for the purpose of defeating the Reds and eliminating that group from the picture.” He added:
Having witnessed the seizure by the Japs of Eastern Siberia on April 4, 1920, and this seizure without the authority of even their own central government impressed me with our future dangers. From that time I never had any doubt that we faced danger of future war with the Japanese.24
That opinion was mirrored by a number of other Siberian veterans.
The evacuation of 34,933 Czechs on thirteen American ships was finally accomplished by September 1920, leaving thousands of their comrades in unmarked graves along the Trans-Siberian tracks.25 Those who survived found in their old homeland a new democracy formed on October 28, 1918, the Republic of Czechoslovakia.
The Americans were gone, the Czechs were about to depart, and the British and French were also withdrawing; only the Japanese were left in Siberia. In North Russia the Bolsheviks had taken Murmansk and Arch
angel in February 1920 and were purging those who had given service to the Allies. The purposes of intervention had been thwarted in virtually every case. Although the Japanese remained in Siberia after the other Allies left, they, too, would depart by the end of 1922. It remained only to evaluate the Intervention and its lasting effects.
General March, who had never favored either expedition, wrote after the war, “The sending of this expedition was the last occasion in which the president reversed the recommendation of the War Department during my service as Chief of Staff of the Army.” He added, “Almost immediately after the Siberian and North Russian forces had reached their theaters of operations, events moved rapidly and uniformly in the direction of the complete failure of these expeditions to accomplish anything that their sponsors had claimed for them”26
27
Conclusions
THE Intervention did not exist in a vacuum; it was shaped by other events as it progressed. The first and foremost factor affecting its course was the end of World War I. Historian George Kennan wrote, “The American forces had scarcely arrived in Russia when history invalidated at a single stroke almost every reason Washington had conceived for their being there.”1 A second factor was the severe stroke suffered by President Wilson on October 2, 1919. A third factor was the Senate’s failure to ratify the Versailles Treaty and the resultant defeat of Wilson’s dream of the League of Nations in November 1919.
The effects of these events on the Intervention, or how these events were shaped by the Intervention, are subject to much debate. It is obvious that Soviet-Western relations were off to a very rocky start. It has been argued that the Cold War may have started as the Allies openly challenged the fledgling Soviet government, and it is safe to say that, even though we recognized the Soviet government in 1934 and stood beside her as an ally in World War II, there was great distrust between the West and the Communist Russian government.
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