  COUNTERING THE GERMANS IN FALLEN RUSSIA With the complete surrender of Bolshevist Russia to the Germans, through the notorious Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, there was presented to the Allies the problem of supporting those elements in the country still disposed to resist the Teutonic invasion. Military intervention, by way of Siberia, with the active assistance of the Japanese, was proposed, but met with the determined opposition of President Wilson, whose strong democratic principles deterred him from interfering with the internal affairs of Russia under any pretext whatever. Subsequently he modified his views on this point, being largely influenced by the Czecho-Slovak movement, one of the most remarkable and picturesque features of the entire war. MAP OF WESTERN FRONT Although many important campaigns, some of them of dazzling brilliancy, were carried on during the World War in various parts of Europe and Asia in Russia, Palestine, Bulgaria, and on the Italo Austrian frontier, the result of the struggle was decided on the western front. Here the great armies of Germany and the Entente were locked for four years in death grapple. The map shows the theater of operations. The white line marks the farthest limit of the German advance, when in September, 1914, their armies were turned back when Von Kluck was within twenty two miles of Paris. Within that line and the black line with white dots which marks the position of the contending armies when the armistice was signed, November 11, 1918, the heaviest fighting of the war took place. In this area are shown the Marne River, which the Germans reached in 1914 and 1918, the Aisne, to which they retreated after their first repulse before Paris, and the Somme, where the Allies were victorious in the campaign of 1918. The heavy red lines include the territory of Germany occupied by the victorious Allies after the armistice. Of this, Alsace and Lorraine have been definitely ceded to France by the Peace Treaty. At three great crossings of the Rhine—Cologne, Coblenz and Mayence—bridgeheads were established, each with a radius of eighteen miles to be occupied respectively by British, American, and French armies. The oblique red lines on the right bank of the Rhine mark a strip six miles wide and parallel with the river that constitutes a neutral zone. The occupied territory is to be held for fifteen years, the period in which it is estimated Germany will have paid the indemnity demanded by the Treaty. ST. MIHIEL BATTLE GROUND The battle of St. Mihiel was fought September 12th, 1918. It was notable not only for the completeness of the victory, but also because it was the first great battle planned and fought wholly under American direction. The St. Mihiel salient had been formed during the first invasion by the Germans in 1914 and had been held by them for four years. In two days the American First Army wiped it out of existence. The red dots indicate the line of the contending armies when the battle was joined. The broad red line shows the position three days later. The salient was crushed by the irristible onset of the Americans, and 152 square miles of territory, including seventy-two villages, were taken. In twenty-seven hours after the attack was launched 15,000 prisoners and hundreds of guns were captured, together with vast stores of munitions and supplies, while a force of Germans, estimated from 90,000 to 100,000 men, was in headlong retreat. The battle was of immense strategic importance, as it freed Verdun from menace on its right flank and placed the dominating heights of the Meuse in Allied hands. MEUSE-ARGONNE OFFENSIVE The battle of the Argonne Forest has been described as the greatest of the war. It was certainly the most difficult. The story of its taking is an epic and reflects imperishable glory on American arms. The forest had been held by the Germans for four years. Its natural difficulties were so great that Napoleon himself had refused to attack it, believing it impregnable. To these natural obstacles the Germans had brought all the aids of military science. Every foot of it had been ranged for their artillery. Thousands of miles of barbed wire had been wound from bush to bush and tree to tree. Myriads of machine-gun nests commanded all strategic points. The ground had to be won foot by foot. It was believed even by many of the Allied commanders that success was impossible. The Germans realized the tremendous importance of the position, and had brought up their best divisions for its defense. But the power and fury of the American attack could not be denied. The American First Army began the battle September 26, 1918, between the Meuse and Aisne Rivers, directly east of Rheims, on a front of twenty miles. They took 5,000 prisoners on the first day, and 3,000 more on the second, besides obtaining all their objectives. Day by day the struggle continued, the Americans always advancing, until by October 16 Grand PrÉ was taken and the forest was practically cleared. From that point the First Army under General Liggett, and the Second under General Bullard fought their way to the Meuse. The red dotted line shows where the offensive began, and the broad red line indicates the position when the armistice was signed, November 11, 1918. NEW MAP OF EUROPE The arbitrament of war has changed the face of Europe. In the central and eastern portions of the Continent all national boundary lines have been recast. Some of the changes made are definite and final. Others are tentative and still await final definition. A multitude of conflicting claims have had to be adjusted, and the task is so colossal that months or years may elapse before the work of the various boundary commissions is completed. In cases where doubt existed as to the propriety of certain proposed changes, arrangements were made for a plebiscite whereby the people of the territory in question could determine by vote to what nation they wished to belong. In still other cases, cities, districts, and waterways were internationalized and placed under the control of the League of Nations. The general principle sought to be followed was that of self-determination of peoples and an opportunity for every nation to develop economic prosperity. The principle was of necessity modified in judging the Central Powers, where the question of reparation was a factor. Territorially, France and Poland have gained most heavily, while Germany and Austria-Hungary have been the greatest losers. The one decision concerning which there was no question in the Peace Conference was the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine (1) to France, from whom it had been wrested by Germany forty-eight years before. The coal mines of the Saar Valley (2) region were given to France outright in compensation for the wrecking of French coal mines at Lens, and whether the region itself should be restored to Germany or remain attached to France was to be determined by vote of the inhabitants after fifteen years. The district covers 738 square miles. The sovereignty of Germany over Moresnet and the circles of Eupen and Malmedy (3) was relinquished to Belgium. The people of these circles could, if they chose, protest within six months this change of nationality. The territory in question covers 382 square miles. Parts of Schleswig (4) representing 2,787 square miles, formerly taken from Denmark by Prussia, are to determine their nationality by popular vote. The district is divided into three zones for this purpose. Poland (5) receives outright parts of Silesia, Posen, and West Prussia, with a total of 27,683 square miles. The city of Danzig (6) on the Baltic is made a free port under the supervision of the League of Nations. An area about the city aggregating 729 square miles is internationalized. Parts of East Prussia (7) and Upper Silesia (8) will have their destiny determined by vote of the inhabitants. By far the greatest sufferer in the new territorial adjustment is the former empire of Austria-Hungary (9), which from an area of 240,000 square miles was reduced to about 25,000 square miles. Part of this had been lost when Hungary (10) seceded from the Dual Empire shortly after the armistice was declared. Apart from the cessions to Italy, the new state of Czecho-Slovakia (11), four times as large as Belgium, and covering 48,000 square miles, has been carved out of the former territory of the Hapsburg Monarchy. The greater part of Jugoslavia (12), officially known as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, has also been formed from former Austro-Hungarian territory. The fate of the city of Fiume (13) is still undetermined, as is the final disposition of the Dalmation coast (14), the greater part of which, however, is certain to be assigned to Italy. The Trentino (15) and Istria (16), formerly part of the "Italian Irredenta," have been made definitely Italian. Thrace (17) has been taken from Bulgarian control and placed at the disposition of the Allies, and Bulgaria (18) has been compelled to rectify her frontiers at several points in favor of Serbia. Rumania receives Transylvania (19) and the richest part of the Banat of Temesvar (20). Bessarabia (21) was united with Rumania before the conclusion of the war. The Ukraine (22), one of the richest sections of the old Russian Empire, has seceded from the parent state. Finland's independence (23) has been recognized by the Powers. The group of what was known as the Russian Baltic Provinces, and whose problems are largely identical, Esthonia (24), Latvia (25), and Lithuania (26), have declared themselves independent republics. The truncated territory of the former Russian Empire is now under Soviet government with Moscow as capital. In the Near East, Georgia (28) and Armenia have set up a republican form of government, but their boundaries are as yet ill-defined. Transcriber's note: the numbering in the text skips from (26) to (28)—there is no (27)! Also, there are no footnotes on the page to match the numbers. As already stated in previous installments of this work, the Czecho-Slovaks were Slavic soldiers of the Austrian armies who had been taken prisoners by the Russians, and who, after the fall of the Czar, volunteered to fight against the Central Powers with the Allies because of their desire to obtain independence for Bohemia and Slovakia, parts of the dominions of the Austrian empire. They look a leading part in the offensive which Kerensky attempted against the Teutons, and which failed so disastrously on account of the broken morale of the Russians. When the Bolsheviki seized the reins of government, the Czecho-Slovaks refused to lay down their arms and asked that they might be permitted to retire from Russia by way of Vladivostok, The Bolsheviki maintained that Allied intrigues had caused the Czecho-Slovaks to turn on them, while the Allied representatives laid the blame to German pressure applied to the Soviet Government. Captain Vladimir Hurban, an officer of the Czecho-Slovak Army, who came to Washington to report to Prof. Masaryk, President of the National Council of the Czecho-Slovaks, supplies details which are not only of vivid interest in themselves, but assist in fixing the responsibility for the bloodshed which resulted in such advantages to the Allied cause. "When the Bolshevist Soviet Government signed the peace treaty in the beginning of March, 1918," says Captain Hurban, in his personal narrative, "our army of about 50,000 was in Ukrainia, near Kiev.... The Germans advanced against us in overwhelming numbers and there was danger that we would be surrounded.... The Bolshevist Red Guards had seized the locomotives and were fleeing east in panic. Under these circumstances Emperor Charles sent us a special envoy with the promise that if we would disarm we should be amnestied and our land should receive autonomy. We refused to negotiate with the Austrian emperor. "As we could not hold a front, we began to retreat to the eastward.... When we arrived at Bachmac the Germans were there waiting for us. There began a battle lasting four days, in which they were badly defeated and which enabled us to get our trains through. The commander of the German detachment offered us a forty-eight hour truce, which we accepted, for our duty was to leave Ukrainia. The truce was canceled by "In this manner we escaped from Ukrainia. Our relations with the Bolsheviki were still good. We refrained from meddling in Russian internal affairs, and we tried to come to an agreement with the Bolshevist Government with respect to our departure, or passage through Russia. But already signs were visible that the Bolsheviki, either under German influence or because we then represented the only real power in Russia, would try to put obstacles in our way. It would have sufficed to order one of our regiments—our army was then, in March, near Moscow—to take Moscow, and in half a day there would have been no Bolshevist Government; for then we were well armed, having taken from the front everything we could carry, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Germans.... To prove indisputably our loyalty we turned over to the Bolsheviki everything, all our arms, with the exception of a few rifles (ten rifles to each 100 men). The equipment we turned over to the Bolsheviki, including arms, horses, automobiles, aeroplanes, etc., was worth more than a million rubles, and it was legally in our possession, for we took it away from the Germans, to whom it had been abandoned by the fleeing Bolsheviki. This transfer of the equipment was, of course, preceded by an agreement made between us and the Moscow Government by which we were guaranteed unmolested passage through Siberia, to which the Government pledged to give its unconditional support.... "Under such circumstances we began our pilgrimage east. I was in the first train—there were then eighty trains of us—which was to prepare the way. We were determined to leave Russia without a conflict. Notwithstanding that we kept our word, that we surrendered all arms except the few necessary, our progress was hindered, and unending negotiations had to be repeated in every seat of a local soviet. We were threatened by machine guns, cannon, but we patiently stood it all, though the Bolsheviki Red Guard could have been disbanded by a few "When the Germans saw that we, notwithstanding all their intrigues, were nearing Vladivostok, they exercised a direct pressure on Lenine and Trotzky; for the things that were committed by the Soviets cannot any further be explained away on the grounds of ignorance. The trains were stopped at different stations, so that they were finally stopped at a distance of fifty miles from each other. Provoking incidents of all kinds were the order of the day. The arming of the German and Magyar prisoners was begun on a large scale. One of the orders of Tchitcherin, Bolshevist foreign minister, reads: 'Dispatch all German and Magyar prisoners out of Siberia; stop the Czecho-Slovaks.' Three members of our National Council, who were sent to Moscow for an explanation of the stopping of our trains, were arrested. At the same time our trains were attacked at different stations by Soviet troops, formed mostly of German and Magyar prisoners. "I will recall the Irkutsk incident. Our train, with about 400 men, armed with ten rifles and twenty hand grenades, was surrounded by a few thousand Red Guards, armed with machine guns and cannon. Their commander gave our men ten minutes in which to surrender their arms, or be shot. According to their habit, our leaders began negotiations: Suddenly there was heard the German command, 'schiessen!' and the Red Guards began firing at the train. Our men jumped off the train, and in five minutes all the machine guns were in their possession, the Russian Bolsheviki disarmed, and all the Magyars and Germans done away with. The Siberian Government, which resides in Irkutsk and which, as it appeared later, ordered this attack, can thank only the intervention of the American and French consuls that it was not destroyed by our embittered volunteers. "To what extreme our loyalty was carried is shown by the fact that, although perfidiously attacked, and although we disarmed the Red Guard in Irkutsk, we still began new negotiations, with the result that we surrendered all our arms, on the condition As narrated in a previous volume of this work, the Czecho-Slovaks were thus compelled to engage in military operations against the Bolsheviki, and in doing so obtained possession of large areas in Siberia, including large cities, where they were welcomed by the populations and dissolved the Soviets. On the other hand, however, many large units of them found themselves isolated and unable to proceed on their way to Vladivostok. It was to assist them to extricate themselves from these positions that the United States finally agreed to dispatch a limited military force to Russian territory. Late in July, 1918, an arrangement to this effect was made with Japan. And on August 3, 1918, an official announcement was issued at Washington, in part as follows: "In the judgment of the Government of the United States—a judgment arrived at after repeated and very searching consideration of the whole situation—military intervention in Russia would be more likely to add to the present sad confusion there than to cure it, and would injure Russia, rather than help her out of her distress. Such military intervention as has been most frequently proposed, even supposing it to be efficacious in its immediate object of delivering an attack upon Germany from the east, would, in its judgment, be more likely to turn out to be merely a method of making use of Russia than to be a method of saving her. Her people, if they profited by it at all, would not profit by it in time to deliver them from their present desperate difficulties, and their substance would meantime be used to maintain foreign armies, not to reconstitute their own, or to feed their own men, women, and children. We are bending all our energies now to the purpose of winning on the western front, and it would, in the judgment of the Government of the United States, be most unwise to divide or dissipate our forces. "As the Government of the United States sees the present circumstances, therefore, military action is admissible in Russia "With such objects in view, the Government of the United States is now cooperating with the Governments of France and Great Britain in the neighborhood of Murmansk and Archangel. The United States and Japan are the only powers which are just now in a position to act in Siberia in sufficient force to accomplish even such modest objects as those that have been outlined. The Government of the United States has, therefore, proposed to the Government of Japan that each of the two governments send a force of a few thousand men to Vladivostok, with the purpose of cooperating as a single force in the occupation of Vladivostok and in safeguarding, as far as it may be, the country to the rear of the westward-moving Czecho-Slovaks, and the Japanese Government has consented. "In taking this action the Government of the United States wishes to announce to the people of Russia, in the most public and solemn manner, that it contemplates no interference with the political sovereignty of Russia, no intervention in her internal affairs—not even in the local affairs of the limited areas which her military force may be obliged to occupy—and no impairment of her territorial integrity, either now or hereafter, but that what we are about to do has as its single and only object the rendering of such aid as shall be acceptable to the Russian people themselves in their endeavors to regain control of their own affairs, their own territory, and their own destiny." The Japanese issued a similar declaration a few days later, also disclaiming any desire for territorial aggrandizement at the cost of Russia. Meanwhile the Czecho-Slovak Army in the interior of Russia continued its operations. On July 26, 1918, they reported the capture of Simbirsk, 600 miles east of Moscow; on the last day of the month they gained possession of a large railroad bridge at Syzram, in the Volga region, and on the following day they took the city of Ekaterinburg, where the czar had been executed by order of the Ural regional soviet. In western Siberia they ordered the mobilization of the classes from 1912 to 1920, at Omsk. It was also reported that they were being joined by thousands of Rumanians and Italians who had formerly been soldiers in the Austrian armies and had later been taken prisoners by the imperial Russian armies. By this time it was generally recognized that the original plan of the Czecho-Slovaks, to withdraw from Russia by way of Vladivostok, had been changed to one whereby they were to remain and form the nucleus about which the anti-Bolshevist elements in Russia and the Allies might reconstruct an eastern front against the German forces. The Japanese, being the first to land at Vladivostok, were the first to advance into the interior, and they immediately took up their position along the Ussuri River, which forms the eastern boundary of Manchuria with Siberia. The Americans, as soon as they arrived, occupied the railway toward Nikolsk. At this time, in the middle of August, 1918, the main forces of the enemy, Russian Bolsheviki and German and Magyar ex-prisoners, On August 24, 1918, the first serious fighting took place, when the Japanese, supported by their allies, drove the Red Guards fifteen miles north from the Ussuri. Here the enemy numbered about 8,000, consisting of infantry and some artillery. Four days later the Japanese occupied Krasnoyarsk and Blagovyeshchensk. On September 7, 1918, the Bolshevist naval base at Khabarovsk was taken by Japanese cavalry, the booty including seventeen gunboats, four other vessels, and 120 guns. One of the objects of the expedition was to establish communications with the Czecho-Slovaks far in the interior of the country, and this was quickly accomplished by an unexpected success on the part of the Allied forces. The isolated Czecho-Slovak army near Lake Baikal, under Colonel Gaida, had been endeavoring to advance toward Chita. General Semenov, the Russian anti-Bolshevist leader, with a force of Cossacks supported by Japanese, had been coming out of China and was also advancing toward Chita. A delayed dispatch from the American Consul at Irkutsk, dated August 13, 1918, brought word that the Bolsheviki army east of Lake Baikal had been destroyed and on September 4, 1918, telegraphic communication between Irkutsk and Vladivostok was reopened. On the same day it was announced that the Czecho-Slovaks and the Cossacks and Japanese under Semenov had joined hands at Chita and that that main stronghold was taken. This gave the Allied forces entire control of the railways in Siberia as far west as Samara, on the Volga River, a few hundred miles from Moscow. During this period the anti-Bolshevist elements in Russia were cooperating with these efforts in their behalf. On August 5, 1918, the Russian embassy in Washington announced the formation of a new government in Siberia, whose chief purpose was to oust the Soviets and bring Russia back in line with the Allies against Germany. "The United Siberian Government," said the statement in part, "states that it was elected on January 26, 1916, by the |
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