ALLIED INTERVENTION IN THE NORTH OF RUSSIA

As recounted in the previous installment of this work, the Allies and the United States had already, in July, 1918, landed troops in the Murmansk Peninsula, in northern Russia, primarily to ward off a German invasion through Finland, secondly to guard those military supplies and stores which the imperialist Government had purchased in Great Britain and America, though they were still not paid for. These supplies were largely stored in Kola, and there was fear that the Germans, either directly, or through pressure applied to the Soviet Government in Moscow, might obtain possession of them. The first Allied forces had been landed on July 15, 1918, and included some American marines. On the following day, in declaring the object of this act of intervention, Rear Admiral Kemp, of the British Navy, had announced that the Allied forces would advance southward "in accord with the local soviet authorities, and at the request of the local population for help."

On August 4, 1918, another force was landed at Archangel, on the south shore of the White Sea, and had taken control of the coast northward to Murmansk. Included in this force were some American troops and members of the Russian Officers League. An anti-Bolshevist revolution had already taken place in Archangel, and when the Allies landed they were greeted with much enthusiasm by the population.

Under the protection of the Allied forces in this region a Provisional Government of the Country of the North was at once organized, largely made up of Socialistic elements: Social Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, the minority party of the Social Democrats. The leaders were members of the Constituent Assembly which the Bolsheviki had dispersed in Petrograd on its attempt to hold its first session. The president of the new republic was Nicholas Tchaikovsky, the noted Russian revolutionist of early days and colleague of "Grandmother" Breshkovskaya. On August 7, 1918, Tchaikovsky's Government issued a proclamation of its purposes, in which, after denouncing the Bolsheviki as traitors to Russia, it was declared that the Government of the North Country desired to defend the country against German invasion, to reestablish the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, and to maintain law and order in the interests of all the people.

"The Government," continued the manifesto, "counts on the Russian, American, and British peoples, as well as those of other nations, for aid in combating famine and relieving the financial situation. It recognizes that intervention by the Allies in Russia's internal affairs is not directed against the interests of the people, and that the people will welcome the Allied troops who have come to fight against the common enemy...." The Allied forces landed in Archangel, in cooperation with those already established on the Murmansk coast, and Russian White Guards and volunteers began to advance toward the south, in the direction of Vologda, with the purpose of joining hands with the extreme western wing of the Czecho-Slovaks, and thus establish a complete chain through Russia from the White Sea to the Pacific. On August 31, 1918, an attack was made on Obozerskaya, seventy-five miles south of Archangel, and taken.

On September 8, 1918, Tchaikovsky's Government was overthrown by elements opposed to it, though still in favor of Allied intervention, but four days later these counter-revolutionary forces were persuaded to retire from the field and permit Tchaikovsky to reestablish himself. On September 11, 1918, more American troops were landed to augment the Allied forces, these Americans being men picked for their special fitness for standing the rigors of a northern Russian winter. In the middle of September, 1918, the first really serious contact with the enemy took place and, as admitted by Pravda, the official organ of the Bolsheviki in Moscow, the Soviet forces were seriously defeated and driven southward. Many Bolshevist officers, said Pravda, had deserted to the enemy.