About the American Experience in world war i. , fivemains of company d lieutenants, i will hold. He is the winner of the colonel Joseph Alexander award for biography from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation and the polar bear expedition the heroes of americas forgotten invasion of russia, 1918 to 1919, which you will be learning more about in his lecture today. A graduate in journalism from the university of minnesota, nelson has worked as a staff writer for the miami herald of the lastred some three decades major stories, so he can expand even further on that concept. He is an active member of the western Front Association and currently lives in eden prairie, minnesota, where he is working on his fifth book of world war i nonfiction. Please join me in giving a round of applause for james carl nelson. [applause] james is this thing on . Oh, good. I have my swag here. Thanks for coming. Im going to talk about the polar bears. Thats a lonely photo, isnt it . In theme with the 1919 piece, i am going to start off with a story of a guy named kerry mead. He was a lieutenant, commander of the fourth platoon, company a, 330 night infantry regiment. The morning of january 19, 1919, he and his men were stationed on a river 250 miles south of archangel, regarding the in then allied outpost conflict, which i will be explaining. He was awakened that morning at 6 00 a. M. By shells screaming up the river. Got out of bed, joined his men. There were only 45 men. Lines, commanding the fire. Meanwhile, these ghostly forms were heading for them. Hundreds of ghostly forms on skis wearing white tunics headed straight for them. Within minutes, they were upon the forlorn americans manning this forlorn post. They were overwhelmed quickly, had to fight for their lives singly to try to escape to their companys headquarters about a mile and a half north. They were put to flight. Just a handful of them got back to their Company Headquarters. That is just to lead into the question of what americans were doing in russia in 1919. And thank you, im glad you asked that. [laughter] all knowsically we there is a western front, but there was also an Eastern Front the russians had been holding the war inutset of august 1914. They had tried to invade east prussia. Like on the western front, a sort of semistatic front had developed. They were faced off against germans and forces of the austrohungarian empire. In late 1917, along came lenin who promised to take russia out of the war. And he did. He signed a treaty with the germans in early march 1918. Russia left the war. That freed germany to transfer some 80 divisions to the western front. Many of those divisions took part in a massive offensive that began on march 20 1, 1918, that was aimed at splitting the french and British Forces and rolling the british into the sea. And it very nearly succeeded. A series of subsequent offenses were also launched. One on may 20 7, 1918, south across the river, and by early june, the german vanguard is within 35 air miles of paris. The allies were quite nervous, of course. The extra German Forces were putting them in peril. About as soon as russia took itself out of the war, the allied command began casting about ways to relieve the pressure on the western front. They settled with the idea of an intervention, that they would send a handful of allied soldiers into northern russia where they would of course be greeted as liberators by the antibolshevik forces. They would form an army of these reconstituteally the Eastern Front and force germany to bring troops back or at least not take any more from where they were. That is a map. Oh, that works good. There is the arkhangelsk. They land in archangel and headed southeast up the river to a place out here about 300 miles. Hear, railway line to down here another 300 miles. The idea was they have this army reach out to this strange conglomerate of soldiers, about ech soldiers known as the czech legion. They had been prisoners of war in russia. They were allowed to leave and go to france to help the cause on the western front. They will reach out to this army of some thousands of men. In their most fervent aspirations, they envisioned linking up with forces, moving ultimatelyd, and moving on moscow and undoing the russian revolution. The british were very gung ho as usual. By april, the brits had landed some thousands of men at andansk, which is of here, they were joined by 1400 french u. S. Shipped the olympia, which Woodrow Wilson had agreed to send at the request of the allies. Meanwhile, they tried to get meanwhile, the allies tried to get Woodrow Wilson to send troops of his own. He refused. He felt every resource should be used on the western front, so he refused for months. The allied Supreme War Council actually okayed the idea in early june of sending american troops there. Finally in midjuly of 1918, Woodrow Wilson spent a long night agonizing over the question. He wrote this famous document du memoir,aid in which he spent the first half arguing why he would not send troops to russia and spent the last of saying why he would send troops to russia. The chief reason being to guard millions of dollars of war material sent to the russians to help the war cause throughout the war. Secondly, he insisted american troops not get involved in the internal politics or do any fighting but to aid the russians in any way they could. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the general in command of the allied invasion moved his troops down to arkhangelsk to try to stop the gauntlet up the dvina river. The mouth. Landed in arkhangelsk. Meanwhile, the local bolshevik , but they looted all the stories that were in arkhangelsk, moving them up the river by ship, therefore negating the entire reason for pretty much the americans to go to north russia. Interesting, there was a contingent of 50 sailors from guys, they look. Ike a fun bunch they started chasing the bolsheviks down the railway line. They wound up getting beaten back by the bolsheviks and eventually head back to arkhangelsk. They were split in two again and joined there were three forces that the british led, one down the divina, another one down to the railway line. Part of these sailors force wound up in this area trying to get to the main red base. Among them was an ensign named donald hicks. They wound up fighting in this area. Very muddled fighting. Then they finally tried to attack from here, but another force moved on them from behind. So they were caught in the middle. They finally escaped and got back on the railway line. Ranch, a, back at the regiment for the intervention had been selected, the 349th infantry regiment. Mostly men from wisconsin and michigan, they had been trained for hoboken and england. They were in england shortly after wilson okd the use of American Forces in the north russian region. They all thought they were going to france. They had been issued american rifles and they were just waiting to cross the channel. They started to get rumors that they were headed for russia. Harry beans family ran a boarding house. Lowell thomas have been a student there. Lawrenceventures with in arabia. Harry and lowell crossed paths on a london street one day and harry said, we are getting ready to go to france, and lowell said, that is not what i heard. He had just been at british headquarters and said youre going to russia. Soon enough they were getting lectured by ernest shackleton, the famed arctic explorer, and being issued shackleton boots. They traded in their springfields for americanmade, russiandesign guns that the soldiers complained had such poor aim, it could shoot around corners. They were equipped with this because there were millions of rounds of ammunition for these guns, supposedly sitting in arkhangelsk, but it had been probably carried off by the bolsheviks at that time. Anyway, they left england in late august, 1918, sailed around this way. No, this way. Yeah, that way. I hit the wrong button, i do that a lot. They sailed around here. Their destination was actually murmansk. There came an urgent call they arkhangelsk to rescue these sailors who had disappeared in the russian wilderness. They diverted their path and arkhangelsk on september 5, 1918. The next day, ensign donald hicks and his men appeared on the railway line. The urgency was no longer there. It was a series of mistakes, as we will see. They were quickly taken from their transports. The third battalion was put on a train on september 6 and immediately ran into opposition from the local bolshevik fighters in that area. The idea was to push down all the way through, which frederick shouldhought they be able to do by november to reach 300 miles further south. The next day, the First Battalion of the 339tht was sent up the dvina. 40 miles away and we are going to be there by november. There would be no opposition. Pieinthesky stuff. They immediately ran into bolsheviks here. Just a little south. That is as far as they got. That was mid september of 1918. They lost five or six men killed in action. Russian gunboats came up and scared them off. To chinretreated back kursk. In early october, some rival scouts have relieved them. They were sent back in midoctober. Russian gunboats appeared again and blew apart the blockhouses they created so they again retreated to a more permanent base, which is where they were going to spend the winter. Guess verylly i 11,ically on november 1918, we all know what that day was, company b was attacked by hundreds of bolshevik warriors days fightingr for their lives, just barely escaped. They beat them off. They wound up burning part of the village that was harboring snipers. Basically spent the winter in the area constantly under attack. As the days wore on, some of them became disaffected, especially after word got back that the world war had ended. There were people coming and going from arkhangelsk that could bring word that the world war is over. The question, as we will see, became a burning one. The war is over, why are we still here . What are we doing in russia . They never really got a good answer to that. Meanwhile on the railway line, l kept trying to batter their way through. They ended up down here by november. Meanwhile, company k had gone to another river and was trying to force their way through. They took kodish and lost it, they took kodish, they lost it. Finally at the end of the year odish again and a nervous lieutenant ordered it be burned to the ground. That was pretty much the end of the operation there. There were not widespread casualties, but there was enough that it was an insane idea, the whole operation, that to lose one life for this was kind of a travesty. They also sent company h into the river valley to guard the western plains. And part of company g spent most of the winter and spring on the pineda river and fought a battle here and lost several men and fought larger battles here. Company g was reinforced by company f in december and january and found themselves in very active fighting. Im just going to show a few photos here, if i can. That is arkhangelsk itself. It had about 100,000 residents at that time. Half of them refugees from the civil war going on between the whites and the reds. That is a look at the railway front in mid september of 1918. This is the third Battalion Commander, jay brooks nichols, a very wealthy businessman who had gone to officer training and was originally in command of the seventh battalion. The third Battalion Commander proved ineffective, he took over. That is his office in a railway car where he spent fall, winter, into the spring of 1918. That is part of company b on a snow patrol in the middle of winter on the dvina. That is jack cutting. He returned and wrote a scathing book about it afterwards. Just an example of the block out they were constructing. The whole they ring village with blockhouses and wire. Kept trying to sneak in, but they stayed there until march when they turned the village over to russians. Beltwere soon enough black blackmailed by the bolsheviks, who were cajoled into letting their men. Everything they had fought for through the winter was lost and there was not a shot fired. Also basically moving on to company a once again, this is harry being here, the Company Commander. They had fought some skirmishes on a river and eventually were sent i will go back to the map they were sent here. This is where Company Headquarters were. That is the farthest flung American Forces. They had some reinforcements with slavicbritish allies. They were local russians. Some say they basically emptied the jails and got conscripts that way. I would say there were no more than 500 men manning this outpost. Meanwhile, the bolsheviks under leon trotsky, the war minister, work were building their forces. They had a very illequipped and illtrained army to begin with when the revolution occurred. But over the winter, they built it up and trained them. Eventually in the northern sector here, they had 45 those mendded they had 45,000 facing off against no more than 11,000 allied soldiers. The odds were ridiculous, 41. By june of 1919, the red army was 600,000 men strong, so it was quite a movement. So company a was stationed here. And it was a placid place. I mean, it was winter. As winter descended, everybody thought like in the civil war, you suspended operations until the spring. That is not what happened in northern russia. When the ground froze, russians strapped on their skis and put on their white parkas. Ironically with the Armistice Day fight of company b, that is when the war began in earnest. What is interesting is they had sent a new commander, frederick poole, for some reason decided he wanted to go on vacation in december 1918, so he left for england in the middle of the operation. They sent another general, ironside, out of the trenches in france. He arrived and visited the various fronts. He decided, this is hopeless, but it is too late to take them out because they would be vulnerable. He decided, we will just sit in our fortifications here. It is safer. We will hope nothing bad happens. He had actually visited this frontline on january 18, 1919. He wrote about it in a book later and said he could easily imagine how a force could come up the river and overwhelm this small force here. And he left. He went back to shenkursk. Lucky for him, because the next morning, like i mentioned, the fourth platoon, 46 men of company i, were attacked, put to flight. Ultimately, 25 men from company a, many of them in harry b eans fourth platoon, would be killed or die of wounds. A handful of men made it back to the log cabin that served as company as headquarters. That turned out to be no haven either. They soon came under artillery fire from the russians the bolsheviks, i should say and they had to flee that area, trying to get back up titian shenjursk. Ckup to it should be on here. Anyway, they were a larger town. As soon as they arrived there, fighting rearguard action in four feet of snow, temperatures 60 below, that town was infested, too. All of the inhabitants, including many civilians, took flight, trying to find some refuge further upriver. Finally after several days, they wound up where they were able to circle the wagons a little bit. Company a spent from late january to early march living in snow trenches, fighting off constant bolshevik attacks until they were relieved in early march by company f. Their ordeal was pretty much over. Back on the railway line, the fighting continued around kodish into february and they kept trying to still hammer down and could hardly get further than about here. Meanwhile, the bolsheviks were gathering forces. A large army approached from here they make for this, trying. O cut the supply lines massed for them to attack against company f, part of company i, some russian soldiers, and several canadian batteries. They had sent canadian batteries over in the fall. This small force of 500 men managed to beat off this large force of 7000 men. This is a bolshevik soldier who tried to infiltrate the lines of company a in early january and they shot him down. Outpost sentryrn looking at the minarets. That was held by the bolsheviks at that time. That is a dead bolshevik soldier. So basically with some canadian artillery, blockhouses, machine guns, they were able to fend off a large force of 7000 bolsheviks with few losses. That really was really the end of the major engagements in the war. It was in late march, early april of 1919 that things were beginning to wind down. The men were looking forward to going home, but they had no idea when they would go home. That is joel moore, Company Commander of company m. The men called them bolos. The bolo commander. He thought his men had pierced the line but they hadnt and he got shot off his horse and wound up there. Things are winding down. But mutiny was beginning to spread. It erupted among the french first. Like i said, after the soldiers learned the armistice had been signed, the question became, what are we doing here . They did not get a good answer. Obviously it was the original design. They kept wanting to hammer away with the original design of fomenting counterrevolution. Company i, there was a small revolution. Men refused to packed the sleds. There was a big kerfuffle. War,were read the acts of or whatever it is called, by the commanding general. One man was thrown in the block house briefly and it all pretty much settled down. Company b, there was a corporal, sterling parish, who created this document, this petition, that said we are not going to fight anymore or go out on patrol until you tell us why we are here. He said they were bolo sympathizers. He called his patrol the bolo patrol. Quite funny but tragic at the same time. Overall, there was a terrible feeling of having been stranded for no good reason. They knew their boys were leaving france for home. The war was over for months and months. And still, even when Woodrow Wilson in midfebruary said, ok, enough is enough, decided to cut bait on the operation. It made the newspapers in the u. S. That they wanted to pull the troops out, but it was a moot point by then because arkhangelsk was frozen so there was nowhere they could get out unless they went all the way back up to murmansk. There was concerned they would be attacked in the open field, so all they could do was wait and freeze. It was so cold. Another instance of how ill planned this operation was. The man had been issued machine guns, which are watercooled and dont offer a real well in 50 below. The men would bring them into their sleeping bags at night to try to keep them warm. That didnt do any good. Otherwise they were pretty wellequipped, except for the rifles, which they got used to eventually. The clothing was not bad except for the shackleton boots had a very slick sole. Escaping, a few of them were just flailing around in the snow. Talking about four to six feet of snow. They threw them away and put on eight pairs of wool socks and trudged through the snow in those. There were cases of frostbite. Casualties were not huge. There were 70 men roughly who died of the flu in arkhangelsk before the end of september. Otherwise, there was another 235 casualties total, including the flow, killed in action, died of wounds, accidents, and which i think four engineers drowned on the dvina river in october of 1918. Finally, word came that they were going to indeed get out by stages. There was an instance where company f had taken over for company a, and the local british commander insisted the company not cross the bank to the west side until i certain date. He said you have to hold on this long. They were concerned the ice was going to go out and leave them stranded to the russian gunboats. The Company Commander said to hell with this and took his men across. The english commander had actually ordered the canadian batteries on the west bank to fire on the americans if they did try to cross, and the canadians refused. They were pretty much on our side. The canadians were tough, battle hardened veterans of the western front. They write about these guys sort of like souvenir takers who cut the ears off the dead bolos, things like this. They were an interesting bunch. So basically in stages. They started withdrawing, once the river started thawing further south, so they were able to finally board the ships, head back from the riverfront toward arkhangelsk, and train back up the front toward arkhangelsk. Was free of ice, they were able to come back here. A lot of the forces gathered here and once that melted, they were able to get back. I dont even know what the word is the bolsheviks did not try to attack them as they were withdrawing. I think orders probably came from leon trotsky himself just saying, we are seeing their backs, just let them go. They were also involved in negotiations in versailles with the versailles treaty. They wanted recognition and some benefits to come from that and they did not want to be known for slaughtering allied soldiers at that time. It is also interesting. There were about 10 men taken prison in the course of this winter, one of home disappeared forever. He was with company b. Herbert schroeder. He actually wound up being taken to. He was the only allied city whoever made it only allied soldier who made it to that city. Another died in the hospital. Otherwise, they were well treated. A handful were taken to moscow and given free reign of the streets. They lived better than the local residents at the time who were starving. They could get horse stakes. They stayed at a place where they could get library books. There was one soldier who did not come back he made it back to michigan in 1920. He did not really report being mistreated. It was just an ordeal he had to go through. They started coming back to arkhangelsk and gathered at a place appear. Meanwhile, the british made plans to send more troops in to cover the retreat. They raised several regiments of veterans from france who were unemployed or just couldnt adjust to civilian life. As the americans were leaving, the british were coming in. In june, they did sort of a cleaning up area. They mopped up, they pushed violently down the dvina river river, i should say, to create a buffer zone for when they were going to leave. The americans boarded ships beginning in early june and were taken to france. The british stayed behind mopping up and they left in september. That was the end of that little war. The americans went to france for a short time, then came back. The First Companies arrived in 1919, whichuly 3, is handy because the next day they had a big fourth of july parade, were feted. They formed the Polar Bear Association to commemorate their ordeal and the loss of their 235 comrades. Over time, they gathered funds, and in 1929, they sent a small contingent back to russia. They were allowed in by the russians to look for the graves of the bodies who have fallen. When they left russia, they took about 100 bodies with them. Ultimately on the various fronts, they located 86 bodies shippederred them, and them back to the united states, where 40 of them were claimed by relatives for private burial. 46 of them were buried around this magnificent statue in detroit, michigan, at the whitechapel cemetery. I was there last september. It is really nice. It is about eight feet tall, this polar bear, especially commissioned statue. I was Walking Around there like i know about this guy, i wrote about this guy. Interesting experience. What was the impact, what did this all amount to . For americans, not much. It was kind of a mistake that was kind of swept under the carpet. I dont think a whole lot of people know about this invasion, except in detroit and greater michigan maybe they are more aware of the polar bears and what they went through. In russia, it is much more commemorated. The bolsheviks were able to use this invasion to create propaganda to say, we were invaded, the bolsheviks fought these guys off. Gaining sympathy of the locals. The civil war between the bolsheviks and the whites did end in 1922 with the bolsheviks winning that war. The intervention is still taught in russian schools today. They have a much longer memory of this. They have been invaded so many times over the years, but this sticks in their memories for the one capitalistic western whatever and they were able to use it for propaganda. I believe that is about all i have inside my little brain. [laughter] [applause] lora we are opening up the floor to questions. If you are able, head to either mic. If youre not, i will come to you. You are more than happy to start. My name is alanna hollins. Over here. James [laughter] i am a doctoral student at the university of kansas. A few weeks ago, i found an interesting picture, a photo, at the library of congress. It was called playing the National Game on a railroad in russia. It was actually american soldiers in romania, but they were coming with the red cross on the Railroad Line down through moscow from arkhangelsk. I was trying to figure out, who are these people, what was going on . I found there was a dual use of the red cross, American Red Cross, in arkhangelsk. Im not a military historian so i dont know how the units infantry,t the 339th the detroit infantry from the American Expeditionary forces, was sent to arkhangelsk specifically to aid the White Russian soldiers. The American Red Cross sent aid to arkhangelsk for two reasons, aid the starving russian peasants but also to aid the american soldiers. James i did not know that. I was wondering if in your research you have encountered any other instances of american aid societies aiding both civilians and also americans. James not really. Maybe the ymca. They seem to be everywhere. I did not find any mention of that, not medical or anything. The 339th had its own medical detachment. One of them, his name was gordon anderson, said they basically were taught a little bit of anatomy and how to bind a wound and that is about all the training they had. These men had the flu. Some of them are still sick with the flu. The flu became rampant in these areas they occupied. Because it was tradition and because it was so cold, the local russians sealed all the windows so they could not get any fresh air. The american medics kept trying to tell them, look, you have to ventilate this place. Meanwhile sanitary conditions were horrible also. They were fairly primitive People Living in that area. But i didnt find any other civilian activities. I forgot to show the most important photo, by the way. Oh, how did that get in there . [laughter] lora our next question is going to come from the back. I was just wondering, with the propaganda that was coming out of russia and with our much did that affect our getting out . Because i heard that we were told to get out. You are becoming involved in our politics and government. James i think i dont think it had a huge effect. The bolsheviks did try to sway the prisoners they took to accept communism, bolshevism. They feigned like they were going along with it. Obviouslyly members were aware that their loved ones, friends, whatever, were in northern russia. There became a groundswell, especially in detroit, to get these people out. They started pressuring local congressmen. There is one u. S. Senator, hiram johnson, from california, who introduced day resolution to bring the troops home. It failed by one vote in the senate. That was the vote of the Vice President of the united states. And that was early on. I think that was in january of 1919. But there was a groundswell here that i think had some effect. I think what happened with wilson was he finally got hip to the idea that his troops were being misused. The british basically grabbed them out from under the nose of their commander, george stewart, and use them as they would. George stewart felt like he was caught in a bind. He was told the british were running the show and he had to do what they said. It should have turned out that they stayed in arkhangelsk and guarded stores, but it turned out they were used for offensive purposes right away. Lora the gentleman on our left. Thank you. I am still trying to understand what the official mission was. You had mentioned something about reconstituting the Eastern Front. It seems they were also supposed to be aiding the White Russians in the civil war. James it kind of became a jumbled mess. Originally the idea was we will just gather forces and try to czech legion and go to where the Eastern Front was. General poole had this bigger idea of counterrevolution. I think that idea kind of ran away with him. They never got near to the czech legion. They did not get anything like the local support they thought they would. The russians i think were saying, oh god, here is another invader, lets just wait long enough and they will go away. You are right. The original idea of rebuilding the Eastern Front got lost in translation. I thought the british, especially Winston Churchill at the time, was definitely very interested in combating the bolsheviks. He saw them as a big menace. James all this is going on even as they are trying to get them out of there. He is arguing we should send a million men in there. A world war had just ended. Millions of people, including a million brits, just died, and now he is talking about starting a new war with a million men . He got no takers. But he was very much antired, yes. Thank you. Lora next question from the left. [laughter] lora my left, our left. All the best plans for expeditions like this are always executed perfectly until the first shot is fired, and then it falls apart. It looks like there were three different areas they sent these different groups into. How in the world did they communicate with each other . Did they use radios . Were there telegraphs . How would you even know what is going on in another sector . James i dont think they really did know. They certainly would have had runners, just like on the western front. Probably had telegraphs. I dont know how far radio had come along. Probably by telegraph, if the lines were still working. In fact, i know they were. One soldier, john borman, sent out every day to repair the telegraph lines. There were telegraph lines but not enough engineers to keep them working well. Thank you. A very interesting talk. Thanks. I have a couple things to add to what you said. Interestingly in arkhangelsk, they are all kinds at least a few commemorations of the american, british, and french invasion in 1918 and 1919. Whereas there is no mention whatsoever of lend lease efforts in the second world war. They do remember this very clearly, to the exclusion of almost anything else about american assistance or hindrance in either war. I also was an exhibit guide in the soviet union in 1987 and can vouch for the fact they do teach that in school, the invasion or intervention. I was asked about it at least several times each day. Why did your forces come to snuff out a revolution . James interesting. People here dont really know. No. James it is not taught here. James they remember every day there. Thank you. Lora ladies and gentlemen, if you would please join me in thanking james nelson. [applause] you are watching American History tv, all weekend , every weekend on cspan3. Announcer next on lectures in history, Emory University professor Carol Anderson teaches a class about efforts in the 1960s to register africanamerican voters in mississippi. She describes some of the leaders of the movement, their tactics and the opposition they faced. Know, on monday we ended with the freedom rid