Part 2 (2/2)
He was then informed that I was an English officer, and if he would surrender I guaranteed his life unless he had committed some greater crime than merely fighting as a Bolshevik soldier. He made no further parley, but almost ran to me as for protection. I was standing on the embankment, in full view for miles, and it was easy for the whole incident to be seen. I took his rifle, with fixed bayonet, and bandolier and fifty rounds from him. His papers showed him to be a demobilised Russian soldier. I placed him under a guard of two men with orders to see him safely to the rear. Time after time demands were made to his guards to allow the murder of the prisoner. But those two British bayonets made his life as safe as though he had been in Trafalgar Square. I could tell by the atmosphere which the incident created that our Allies thought this regular conduct wholly out of place on a battlefield, but it fulfilled its purpose, and surrenders were accepted during the further operations.
Our progress was now very rapid, and except for a few bursts of shrapnel which continued to fly harmlessly over the front ranks and injure such as were far behind, we approached our old station, Kraevesk, easily. As to the method from the military point of view of approaching this place, the less said about it the better. A single company of British troops would have held up the whole show and inflicted losses on the attackers out of all proportion to the object gained. The stuffing, however, was completely knocked out of the Bolshevik army, and the advance took more the form of beaters driving big game. Having previously reconnoitred the whole ground, I again chose the railway for my party. The j.a.panese swarmed up through the wooded slope on the right. I chose the railway because I knew the shallow cutting had a slight curve which would give a safe line of approach to the station, situated about three hundred yards behind this low-lying hill. The j.a.ps advanced through the wood in ma.s.ses, huge bunches of men without regular formation. On rounding the curve, I saw an enemy armoured train about four hundred yards distant. A Bolshevik officer walked leisurely out of our old headquarters and put one foot on the step of the engine, looking straight at myself standing on the line. I drew a bead on him with Lance-Corporal's Moorman's rifle.
I do not believe I hit him, but I was near enough to make him skip quickly into the engine shelter. A flash from the leading gun, and a 2-inch sh.e.l.l pa.s.sed so close to my head that I fell into the four-foot way, and felt the top of my skull to find out if it was still there.
This sh.e.l.l exploded about one hundred yards behind me and mortally wounded two j.a.panese and injured several others. The machine guns on the train now swept the wood, where the j.a.ps were advancing, with such effect that for a few moments there was a regular stampede back over the brow of the hill. My party had taken cover in the scrub on the left, and I crawled on hands and knees in their direction. I found a deep d.y.k.e at the foot of the cutting covered with high weeds, and into this I rolled.
Gradually raising my head over the thistles, I potted rapidly at the gunner, and my party did the same.
The j.a.ps by this time had recovered from their first shock, and began to open fire on the train, which steamed slowly back to the far end of the station, when it came to a standstill and pumped shrapnel along our front. We had got far ahead of our artillery, so it became a contest of rifle versus armoured train. On the left of the station was a thick log store, and keeping that between ourselves and the armoured train, we crept into the station and began to fire at close range at the gunners, whose heads appeared above the sides of the armoured carriages. The j.a.panese used a red brick cottage for a similar purpose on the other side, while others tried to outflank the train and cut off its retreat.
The officer in charge detected this manoeuvre, and, using all his guns, he retired behind the hill, and later was reported as steaming towards Shmakovka. We took possession of the station, and near our old headquarters found a hut in which was the Bolshevik officers' breakfast, with potatoes cooked to a nicety on the fire. These were looted by Colonel Frank and Sergeant-Major Gordon. The sun was very hot--the time was about 8.30 A.M.--we had fought over very difficult country for twelve miles, and as we sat on the crossing of the railway the potatoes were very good. By some hopeless blunder the j.a.panese cavalry had been ordered to close in from the flank on this station instead of the next, so we lost the huge bag of prisoners which was waiting to be captured.
The j.a.p cavalry commander sat down and sampled my potatoes, but he lost the culminating stroke of the whole movement. This small minor action proved to be one of the most decisive of the war, as it destroyed the whole Terrorist army east of the Urals.
I was ordered by General Otani to remain in reserve, and returned to my base at Svagena to find the proverbial luck of my battalion had been maintained. The j.a.ps had over six hundred casualties, some of which occurred close to my men, but not a man of the 25th was. .h.i.t. We had many cases of complete prostration, but, in view of the category of my unit, not more than was to be expected considering the strenuous month's work they had undergone. One and all behaved like Englishmen--the highest eulogy that can be pa.s.sed upon the conduct of men.
General Oie sent a letter of special thanks to the Commanding Officer of the British unit for their great services in the engagement. At 4.25 P.M., August 28, I received the following communication from the General Headquarters:
”1. On August 26 the Division had occupied the heights situated at the north of Shmakovka. The inhabitants reported the enemy had left there between nine and twelve on the night of August 24 by eleven trains, strength of which was about 5,000 men; 2,000 men retired by road from Uspenkie. The Division bivouacked at Shmakovka.
”2. On the 27th the enemy continued their retreat to the north of the River Ussurie, and no enemy could be seen to the south of it, though nine railway bridges out of ten between Shmakovka and Ussurie had been destroyed. Damage done is some ten metres each, and a few days would be required to repair them. The Ussurie railway bridge is not damaged, and on the night of the 26th, after a small detachment had occupied it, one company of infantry reinforced. Against the enemy on Lake Hanka, which was known to have gone down the river with gunboats, one company of infantry has been dispatched to the right bank of Ussurie east of Shmakovka.
”3. The Division remains at the present position, and prepares to move forward on the 28th.”
This completed the Ussurie operations, for the battle was absolutely decisive. The enemy were entirely demoralised, and never made another stand east of Lake Baikal.
CHAPTER V
j.a.pANESE METHODS AND ALLIED FAR-EASTERN POLICY
The j.a.panese, for their own peculiar reasons, as will have already appeared, had decided in the early stages of the operations that the maritime provinces were their special preserve. They looked with the greatest suspicion upon the forces and efforts of the other Allies, especially British and American, and by their orders tried deliberately to exclude them from their counsels and as far as possible from the administration of the territory recovered from the Terrorists. The 27th Battalion of American Infantry had landed at Vladivostok a few days before the battle of Dukoveskoie, and promises were made that they should be hurried forward to take a share in the fighting; but the j.a.panese, who controlled the railway, saw to it that they arrived a day late. Instead of pus.h.i.+ng them ahead, they were detrained at Svagena, and then entrained again from day to day, always about fifty versts behind the j.a.panese front. In addition the j.a.panese never trusted their Allies.
No order to the j.a.panese Army was ever given to the Allied commanders until the operation had been carried out or had got to such a stage as to make it impossible for them to take part or offer suggestions.
Captain Stephan (now Major), of the Czech Army, and myself knew every road and track from Shmakovka to Svagena, and were certain that with proper care the whole enemy force on the Ussurie front could have been destroyed or captured. The j.a.panese would neither consult nor inform any of their Allies about any movement until it had taken place. They treated the Czech commanders with the most scant courtesy; the English officers' carriages were invaded by their private soldiers, who would insolently ask what business we had in Siberia and when did we propose to go home; but they reserved their most supreme contempt for the Russian people. These poor wretches they drove off the railway platforms, using the b.u.t.ts of their rifles upon the women as well as the men, just as though they were dealing with a tribe of conquered Hottentots. I did not understand this behaviour on the part of our Eastern Ally, and felt it could only be the irresponsible bullying of a few individual men and officers. Later on I found it to be the general policy of the j.a.panese Army to treat everybody as inferior to themselves; they had learnt this Hun lesson to a nicety.
I give two instances which are neither glaring nor isolated, but of which no doubt official record remains. I was standing on Nikolsk platform waiting for a train; there was a crowd of Russian people, and a j.a.panese sentry was standing near. This man quite suddenly darted forward and jammed the b.u.t.t of his rifle in the centre of a Russian officer's back; the force of the blow knocked him flat on the floor in such pain that he rolled about for a few minutes, while the j.a.p, grinning, held his bayonet at the ”On guard!” Though there were many standing near, not one Russian had the pluck to shoot him, and not wis.h.i.+ng to mix myself up in the affair, I took no action, but watched further developments. Ten minutes later another j.a.p sentry repeated the performance, but this time the victim was a well-dressed Russian lady.
So cowed were the Russian people that even her friends were afraid to help her. I stepped forward to offer a.s.sistance, with the j.a.p standing over me; when, however, he saw my revolver he put up his bayonet, but continued to laugh as though it was a huge joke. A few Tommies were attracted to the spot, and the j.a.p saw that things were beginning to take a serious turn. I proceeded to the j.a.panese Headquarters, situated in a carriage near by, and reported the occurrence. The officer seemed astonished that I should interfere on behalf of mere Russians, who he said may have been Bolsheviks for all he knew, and inquired whether the sentry had ever treated me so. I answered that ”the first j.a.panese that touches an English officer or soldier in my presence will be a dead man.” This seemed to surprise the j.a.panese officer, who pointed out that the j.a.panese were in occupation of Siberia, and were ent.i.tled to do what they liked. I had to inform him that the j.a.panese were acting in alliance with the other Powers, including Russia; that we were here as the friends of the Russian people, and not as their conquerors. This he would or could not understand. I ended the interview by warning him that if his sentries were not instructed to behave a little less like savages, there would be an end to those sentries' careers. I later heard that the interview did good, but could not in the case of j.a.panese troops do more than slightly mitigate their behaviour to the defenceless Russian inhabitants.
That is merely a type of their conduct towards ordinary people. There is, however, one excuse for them: given the right circ.u.mstances, they treat all alike. A battalion commander was not quite the sort of material to operate upon, for the simple reason that he was usually surrounded with sufficient force to secure proper respect, but a general without a powerful escort was always fair sport for their gentle attentions. Not even the chief of the British Military Mission could hope to escape from the most insulting behaviour. An incident placed my unit in charge of a part of the telegraph system, which enabled me to handle personally the sort of message which entered the j.a.panese Headquarters relative to a special train that was approaching their station. I handled the message myself. It ran as follows:
”A special train, No. ........., will enter your section at .........
time; it conveys the chief of the British Military Mission, General ........., and Staff from Vladivostok to Ufa for important conference with General Surovey, the Commander-in-Chief of the Czech and Russian Armies. You will please give 'line clear' throughout the journey.” Did the j.a.panese give ”line clear” throughout? That will never be the way that this highly efficient and interesting little people will do anything, if their army is a sample of the whole. They stopped the train, and boarded it with a squad of men with fixed bayonets. They insulted the chief of the British Mission by placing him and his Staff under arrest, and then proceeded to make elaborate inquiries to find out whether they were not German emissaries in disguise. The impudence of the whole proceeding was so remarkable and yet characteristic that when the Staff of the General reported the occurrence to me I did not for a moment know whether I should die with rage or laughter.
I went to Siberia entirely bia.s.sed in favour of this admittedly wonderful people. I took care to instruct my soldiers to salute every j.a.panese officer and to be most polite to every j.a.panese soldier, and they carried out my instructions to the letter; but my attention was called to the fact that only on rare occasions did a j.a.panese officer take the trouble to return the salute of my men, and still more rarely did a j.a.panese soldier salute an English officer. He was much more likely to give an insulting grimace. I say quite frankly that I admire the workmanlike way the j.a.panese go about their soldierly duties, but it is impossible to ignore their stupidly studied arrogance towards those who are anxious to be on terms of peace and amity with them. It is unfortunately true that they were misled into believing that Germany was ordained to dominate the world, and, believing this, they shaped their conduct upon this awful example. They quite openly boast that they are the Germans of the East. Let us hope that they will read aright the recent lesson of history.
During my stay in the maritime provinces I never saw or heard of a single act or order from the j.a.panese Headquarters which would help in the slightest degree in the administrative reorganisation of the country. On the contrary I saw many things which convinced me that the Land of the Rising Sun was at that time more concerned in maintaining disorder as the surest way of fostering her own ambitious designs.
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