When Graves arrived in Vladivostok in September 1918, the British and French found him intractable and stubborn and unwilling to oppose the Bolsheviks as they desired. The Japanese, who had also sent a strong contingent of troops to Siberia, were even more critical of Graves. They were not only opposed to the Bolsheviks, but they hoped to annex part of the former czar’s territory in Asia. Siberia was a cockpit of contending Russian and Cossack armies and an arena of political conflict among the Allies.
On July 14, 1919, the North China Star, which circulated throughout the Orient, printed a report from its Paris correspondent asserting that Wilson had ordered Morris to make inquiries at Omsk about the competence of the Kolchak government. The report went on to say that Morris was to discuss the military and political situation with the Kolchak cabinet and observe conditions in the White capital. Morris had the power, the article said, to recommend or deny U.S. recognition of the White Russian regime.
When the North China Star story appeared, Graves, Donovan, and Morris were already on their way to Omsk. On a seat beside them in the train compartment, they kept handy a National Geographic map of North Asia and “Stanford’s Map of the Siberian Railway, the Great Land Route to China and Korea,” published in London. From Vladivostok to Nikolsk their train chuffed slowly down the tracks, which had been allowed to fall into wretched condition. Beyond Nikolsk the train rolled through prosperous villages and fields of wheat, untouched by the civil war being fought for their control. It was a fruitful land, and Donovan jotted in his journal: “The difficulty in Russia is not absence of money, or resources, but of management. With stable government, can live within herself and produce everything. Situation here must be grappled with.”
The train crossed into Manchuria on the Chinese Eastern Railroad and headed west to Harbin (Haerhpin), a city built by the Russians from a fishing village on the Sungari River when the southern section of the Chinese Eastern Railroad was completed in 1898. The three men in the compartment looked out on a typical provincial Russian city, lying to the east of the tracks. Tree-lined streets radiated from the Orthodox cathedral in front of the railroad station, simmering in the July heat, proof of the expansive colonialism of the Russian people in Asia. After Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the city had been transferred from the Russian-owned railroad’s administration to that of a Chinese- and Japanese-dominated council; but the impress of the Russians was clear 14 years later. If the Russians could settle their political problems, they would certainly remain a major force in the Far East.
On July 15, the Asiatic News Agency carried a dispatch from Harbin that Roland Morris, his secretary, and an American general had arrived during the night from Vladivostok. Donovan must have been amused to be identified in print as the ambassador’s secretary. “The fact that Ambassador Morris is accompanied by a high military officer shows that the United States government pays great attention to the existing military situation in Siberia as a result of the Bolshevik advance on the Ufa and Perm fronts,” concluded the dispatch.
The train climbed among the Greater Khingan Mountains as it continued on its 920-mile run through Manchuria to where it reentered Siberia and joined the Trans-Siberian Railroad. From time to time, camel caravans plodded beside the tracks, the camels snorting at the puffing locomotive. Two Russian-speaking interpreters were assigned to the men in the compartment, and whenever the train stopped at a station they swung down off the cars to talk with the people crowded on the platform. Many were refugees fleeing the fighting in western Siberia. The interpreters questioned them about the struggle and about the degree of support for the Bolsheviks and for Admiral Kolchak’s regime in Omsk. Whenever possible they talked to women, for they had quickly learned that Russian women were outspoken and direct in their replies, while men were guarded.
The refugees told of the pistol-and-whip recruiting of village men and boys by Bolshevik commanders, of the vindictive murder of educated people. The Reds plundered wherever they went, for their ill-supplied army lived off the land. Donovan was appalled at the stories he heard about the Bolsheviks, but then he began to gather even crueler reports about the conduct of the White Army.
White Army commanders based in the towns strung along the railroad sent their soldiers out to raid villages accused of helping the Reds. They rounded up men, women, and children, put them in corrals, and demanded indemnities of supplies and money. If the payments were not forthcoming, village leaders were shot or burned. Men and women were strung by their ears to the fronts of their houses. With the Siberian winter temperatures dropping down to –50 degrees Fahrenheit, White soldiers cut holes in the ice of ponds and plunged leaders into the frigid waters, much as if they were dipping candles. Covered by layer after layer of ice, the frozen victims were placed in the center of their village to stand like statues until the spring thaw. Supplies taken from villages by the soldiers were sold across the Chinese border to enrich the commanders.
After hearing these stories, the three Americans traveling through Siberia were not surprised that men and boys were taking to the forests to fight back against both the Whites and the Reds. When American soldiers first came to Siberia, there had been little for them to do but to fish in the streams for trout and salmon. Now detachments were being attacked by bands of partisans, who in their fury struck at Russians and foreigners alike. Americans were killing and being killed.
Morris cabled to the State Department from Chita on July 15: “Hope to report from Irkutsk my observations on present conditions on Chinese Eastern and in territory controlled by Semionoff.”
On July 17, he sent his lengthy report on the Cossack leader, Grigori Semionoff, which Donovan helped him to compose. Morris discussed the activities of the Japanese soldiers who garrisoned the towns in Manchuria and their support for the Cossacks. His cable continued:
From Manchuria Station to Verkhne Udinsk the railway is dominated by Semionoff with the open support of the Japanese Military authorities. His relations with the Kolchak Government are merely nominal. His strength is wholly Japanese. He has constantly interfered with the Allied inspectors who have again and again sought and have been refused the support of the Japanese Military, supposedly guarding the railway in this section. I arrived at Chita just after Semionoff’s bandits in one of their armoured cars had seized the office car and equipment of Major Gravis, an American engineer and the Allied Divisional Inspector. I am using this incident to bring the general question to definite issue. At Chita I saw General Oba, the Japanese Divisional Commander, and discussed the entire situation for several hours. Later under Japanese pressure Semionoff promised to return the car but has not yet done so. During our interview, General Oba frankly expressed to me his profound admiration for Semionoff, his confidence in Semionoff’s purposes and motives, and the close relation which existed between them.
Parts of the railroad, reported Morris, were controlled by the Americans or the Czechs, but the Japanese were in the strongest position.
From Vladivostok to Irkutsk, excepting only two sectors guarded by American troops, the military control of the railways is in the hands of the Japanese who are using the Cossack organization subsidized and supported by them to discredit Allied operation. Kolchak is powerless to withstand this influence which has gone as far as to force the appointment of the bandit Kalmykoff as the representative of Dutoff, the Kolchak commander of all military operations in the East.
To my mind the Japanese plan is perfectly clear. Baffled by the Railway Agreement in their organized attempt to take possession of the Chinese Eastern and Trans-Siberian Railways as far as Chita, and thus dominate Eastern Siberia and Northern Manchuria, the Japanese Government is countenancing a less obvious but a more insidious scheme of operating through the Cossack organization which is the only support Kolchak has east of Chita. It will not be difficult for Japan to dispose of the Eastern Cossacks when they have served the purpose.
The tragedy of a nation at war with itself was all around the three
Americans. There were also reminders of the inhumanity of the czars. At Irkutsk, 20 czarist prisoners still could be seen with balls and chains fastened to their ankles. They cradled the balls in their arms as they trudged beside the tracks. Beyond Irkutsk were the deep forests around Krasnoyarsk, where German and Austrian prisoners were starving in a prison camp. The Russians refused to release the men, although they no longer could feed them. Donovan obtained a copy of a directive issued to his troops by Rozanoff, one of Admiral Kolchak’s top generals:
1. In occupying the villages which have been occupied by bandits (partisans), insist upon getting the leaders of the movement and where you cannot get the leaders, but have sufficient evidence as to the presence of such leaders, then shoot one out of every ten people.
2. If when the troops go through a town, and the population will not inform the troops, after having a chance to do so, of the presence of the enemy, a monetary contribution should be demanded of all, unsparingly.
3. The villages where the population meet our troops with arms should be burned down, and all the full-grown male population should be shot; property, homes, carts, etc., should be taken for the use of the army.
Donovan learned that Rozanoff kept hostages. If one of his men was killed, he killed ten hostages. Yet when he was introduced to the three Americans, Rozanoff was all smiles and observed that he was handling the situation in his district with gloves on. He had heard that conditions in Vladivostok called for more stringent measures, and if he were transferred there, he assured the Americans, he would certainly take his gloves off.
The Americans were disgusted with General Rozanoff. When later in Omsk they learned from British Gen. Sir Alfred Knox that he had urged that Rozanoff, “a bully fellow,” be sent to Vladivostok as Kolchak’s liaison with Graves, the American general icily replied that he was not interested in individuals and only hoped that Kolchak would send to Vladivostok a man “who would follow the practices of civilized nations.”
At Tomsk, the Americans met the governor of the province, who had been appointed by Kolchak. When they asked him what people in the area thought of the White government, he said that they had no confidence in the officials around Kolchak.
Donovan, who had gone to Europe for the War Relief Commission to relieve human distress and who as a fighting commander in France had always given his men the best care he could manage, never forgot the cruel indifference that Russian commanders showed for their miserable soldiers. He had seen nothing like it in France, and his first impression of what he came to think of as Oriental despotism was an indelible one.
Finally, late at night on July 21, the train arrived at Omsk, located where the Om River flows into the Irtysh. The city was originally built as a Russian fort against the marauding Kirghiz tribesmen. It was here that Russian novelist Dostoevski had been imprisoned in the fortress and had written about his experience in The House of the Dead. In August 1919 refugees fleeing the war zones crowded every building to bursting, devoured the remaining supplies, and were dying of disease. This was Kolchak’s capital.
No sooner had the train reached Omsk than Morris received a telegram from the State Department ordering him to support Kolchak. He turned to Graves. “Now, General, you will have to support Kolchak.”
Graves said he had received nothing from the War Department.
“The State Department is running this, not the War Department.”
“The State Department is not running me.”
Donovan was learning that other governments might have a consistent policy determined for all services, but not the United States. To Graves it seemed questionable that even the President could order him to take sides in the Russian Civil War.
On July 22 Morris cabled to the State Department:
I find the situation here extremely critical. Complete demoralization of Kolchak’s Siberian Army. It is estimated that there are 35,000 cars filled with refugees, proceeding east from Ekaterinberg, Chiligbinsk, and the surrounding country. Railway east of Omsk already badly, congested and any additional burden may tie up entire system. After conferring with Colonel Emerson, Major Slaughter, Harris, and Dr. Manget of the Red Cross, I have directed that the fifty or more American nurses in this district be sent east as soon as cars can be obtained for them. It is possible that the Siberian Army may be reorganized on a line running through Kinyan and Tuswan, but while I regret the abandonment of the Red Cross work here, I thought it unwise to run the risk of having all the American women stranded in Siberia.
Despite Morris’s reports, in Washington and Paris the diplomats and agents who favored Kolchak carried the day, and the State Department recommended aid to his government. In Omsk Donovan realized that Kolchak’s army was a retreating mob. What could be expected of soldiers serving under such generals as Semionoff, who boasted that he could not sleep at night when he had not killed someone during the day?
“Bolshevists making strong effort in Siberia because of internal strife,” Donovan wrote in his journal. “Workers in Siberia are yearning for Bolshevism. Red Army has mobilized most of peasants with trained fanatical Communists distributed among them, one mounted man to every five others. The whip and the pistol get them.”
Donovan saw that the White Russian forces had become disorganized. The officers were taking to their heels, and the soldiers were throwing down their arms, discarding their ammunition, and shuffling out of their heavy clothing to flee. Even the Cossacks were giving up. Donovan and an interpreter used Graves’s car to drive out into the country around Omsk. They picked up refugees from the fighting front and interrogated them as they rode to the city.
On August 1, Donovan wrote in his journal:
Inspection of sick and wounded trains near Omsk. Indescribable. . . . The trains come in bearing about 600–1,000 patients daily. They have inadequate personnel for caring for the sick and wounded. The wounds are gangrenous—worms can be seen crawling about the wounds. The dead lie in the cars—wagons bearing coffins come up, and thirty or forty dead per day are carried away. The typhus patients relieve themselves under the cars, beside the cars, and when too weak, even in the cars. Their efforts to climb in are pitiful. They are undernourished. They are fed irregularly. No provision to feed them at this point. They are lousy. They get no water except at unstated intervals. Sometimes piteous, flesh-covered skeletons in loose, foul, filthy garments can be seen crawling to the stream for a drink. Wounded and dysentery and typhus all together. They are all in boxcars.
The next day Donovan reported, “Visited German and Austrian prison camp. Men here who have had the same uniforms for four-five years. Food consists of bread and coffee for breakfast, a sort of rye or barley for lunch, and meat for dinner. Those in hospital get the same except for milk.”
Donovan also collected intelligence of another sort in Omsk. On August 4, he recorded in his journal: “Dinner with Japanese mission at Hotel Russe. Heavy food, much wine and night very hot. Major General Takinagi said oldest generation of officers speak French, his generation German, youngest generation English. Japanese Consul next to me spoke French, Russian, English, and German. Said that there were 12,000 Chinese in the Bolshevik forces, that they were good troops. Lenin and Trotsky used them as personal guard.”
On August 10 Donovan wrote in his journal: “Fate of government will be decided in a few months. The question is not of fighting spirit of Bolsheviks, but lack of fighting quality of Whites.”
He visited the bazaar at Omsk on August 13. Donovan already understood the value of what agents of every Oriental country know of as “bazaar intelligence.”
The situation in Omsk continued to deteriorate. On August 20 Morris cabled the State Department to advise Bill Donovan’s wife, as well as his own, that “their party was well protected and that they must not be alarmed if they should hear of unsettled conditions here.” Donovan and Morris left Omsk in a few days to return over the chaotic railroad to Vladivostok. On the return trip, the train stopped at Chita, where Lt. John J. McDon
ald of the American Russian Railway Service Corps told how Semionoff’s soldiers only a few days before had taken prisoners from a train and slaughtered them with a machine gun. Donovan recorded the story. To read it today is to look back through time at the tragedy of the Russian people in Siberia.
“I had heard of these killings that Semionoff was having at different points along the line of the railroad, but I really couldn’t believe it,” Lieutenant McDonald told Donovan.
It didn’t seem possible that such things could be true even here in Siberia, so I said to myself that it was just some more Russian lies. One day I went down to Adrianovka. I arrived there the evening of the 18th of August. Lieutenants McNutt and Griggs, of the Railway Corps, were there, and they told me about the killing of the Bolshevik prisoners. They said that that day they had tramped over a large part of the country a verst [about 1 km] or two east of Adrianovka, trying to locate the place of killing, but hadn’t found anything. They said there was a train in the yards then, with about 400 prisoners in cars, and that indications were that there would be a killing in the next day or two.
I knew the stories about Macavievo, and I knew they handled the prisoners rough. One morning I had seen a prison train with two cars filled with women, one boxcar and one regular prison car. As I was going by, an old woman looked out between the bars and hailed me. Then she pulled a young girl up to the window, a sick-looking redhaired girl, who spoke to me in very good English. I then asked her where she was going, and she answered, “I only wish I knew.” The train pulled out almost immediately, and I could not find out more.
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