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