Part 7 (1/2)
Having, in my talk with the admiral and the report I made, accepted his position of Supreme Governor, I did not mean that he should be left to fight his way unaided against the enemies who surrounded him. In other words, while outwardly remaining neutral, I constantly made representations and gave advice, when asked, about everything, both internal and external; and here it may be interesting to our own people to know some of the problems which confronted the Supreme Governor. The j.a.panese question was the first. General Rosanoff was Bolderoff's Chief of Staff, and it was important to the Supreme Governor that he should get the hang of outstanding matters and also make himself fairly acquainted with the policy of the deposed Directorate. He interviewed General Rosanoff and the Staff generally, and discovered that after the fall of Samara the Bolshevik army moved rapidly towards Ufa, and the Directorate became so alarmed that they demanded some definite policy from the Commander-in-Chief as to how he proposed to deal with this menace. Bolderoff never thought of effectively organising the new Russian army, but suggested that things were so critical, and that England, France, and America were so slow, that the only alternative was to invite the j.a.panese to push their army forward to the Urals. This was exactly what j.a.pan wanted, but the j.a.panese Staff demanded as a _quid pro quo_ to their advance to Ekaterinburg and Chilliyabinsk that they should be placed in absolute possession of the railway and telegraph lines to those points. Bolderoff and the Directorate boggled at this for a time, but as the Bolsheviks began to get close to Ufa, and also concentrated an army of about one hundred thousand men for an offensive towards Ekaterinburg, the situation became so pressing that the Directorate gave way, and a few days before the _coup d'etat_ Bolderoff had sent word to the j.a.panese that their terms were accepted.
The j.a.panese had made all preparations to move when Koltchak took the reins in his own hands. He asked my advice. I advised him to say to the j.a.panese that the change of Government had also involved a change of policy, and that it would be inadvisable for the j.a.panese to advance beyond their position at Chita until the subject had been further discussed. They made him many tempting offers of help, both arms and money, but he refused them all, and they were unable to move him from the position he had taken up.
A subject that led to unfortunate bickerings between Admiral Koltchak and the French was the appointment by the Allied Council of Paris of General Ganin as the Commander of the Allied and Russian Forces in Siberia.
It is too important an item in the general failure of Allied policy to pa.s.s over without mention. From the very nature of the case the main Allied effort was the formation and organisation of a new Russian army.
Our policy was not to prop Russia on her feet, but to enable her to stand by herself. Major-General Knox had been sent out by the War Office to accomplish this purpose, and no more able or competent officer could have been appointed for the task.
General Knox had hardly begun to perform this duty when the French agents in Siberia became alarmed for their own position. Cables were dispatched to Europe pointing out the danger to French prestige which General Knox's mission entailed. If the English were to be made responsible for the reorganisation of the Russian Army, and were successful, this would tend to make New Russia rely more upon the English than the French, as had been the case hitherto; that it would be better to leave Russia without an army than have it organised under such influence. These senseless fears of our French friends found willing listeners in Paris. General Knox had already made some selections of officers and the business was well under way when a message from the Allied Council in Paris put an extinguisher on all his work. His orders were cancelled, and he was told to do nothing until a French commander had been appointed, whose name would be forwarded later.
By this uninformed Allied interference a well-thought-out scheme of army reorganisation was hung up for four of the most precious months to Russia. By the time General Ganin arrived the time for the project had pa.s.sed and the whole business had been taken out of Allied hands.
The Russian situation at that time was such that four days' delay would have been fatal, and if nothing had been done for four months we should have been hunted out of the country.
Finding Allied jealousy so great as to render all their efforts impotent, first General Bolderoff and then his successor, the Supreme Governor, began to organise armies on their own for the protection of the people and their property. These armies were ill-equipped and badly disciplined--not the kind of armies which would have been raised had General Knox's plans been allowed to develop--but they performed their duty, they captured Perm, and had increased to over 200,000 before General Ganin appeared on the scene.
When General Ganin reported himself to the Supreme Governor with the Allied Council's orders to take over the command of the Allied and Russian forces in Siberia, he was met with a blank refusal from the Omsk Government.
I was consulted upon the question, and I am therefore able to give the reasons for their objection. The Omsk Government's position was a very simple one: ”Had General Knox or any other Allied commander organised, paid, and equipped the new Russian army he would have naturally controlled it until such time as a Russian Government could have been established strong enough to have taken over the responsibility. The French would not allow this to be done, and we ourselves therefore undertook the duty. Having formed our own army in our own country, it is an unheard of proposal that we should be forced to place it under the command of a non-Russian officer. It would be derogatory to the influence and dignity of the Russian Government and lower the Government in the estimation of the people.”
From this position they never retreated, but Allied bungling had landed General Ganin, who is himself an able and excellent officer, in a not very dignified position.
Bolderoff, as I have stated, was at the Ufa front when Koltchak a.s.sumed supreme power. He remained there in consultation with the Czech National Council and the members of the old Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly for five or six days without a word as to his intentions. It was a critical position for Koltchak, who did not know what he was doing or intended to do.
Hot-heads advised immediate action, but I suggested caution. The subject-matter of Bolderoff's conferences or whether he had any we do not know, but we do know this: General Dutoff, who commanded the Russian armies south of Ufa, had some proposals from Ufa put before him, and replied advising caution, as he had it on unimpeachable authority that the English were behind Admiral Koltchak. This statement, I was told, fell like a bombsh.e.l.l among the conspirators at Ufa, and soon after General Bolderoff returned to Omsk. There he interviewed Koltchak as Supreme Governor, and made satisfactory statement relative to his absence. He was offered a post, which he refused, stating that he wished to leave the country, as he did not believe that a dictators.h.i.+p could help Russia out of her difficulties. His request was granted, and so ended a very different interview between these two men from that at Petropalovsk a few days before.
Some time after this the j.a.panese representative at Omsk made a request to be informed whether General Bolderoff had been forced to leave the country, or had left voluntarily. This was answered in a definite way in accordance with the facts. In the same note the j.a.panese also demanded to be informed whether the British Army had supplied the train and guard which had taken the exiled Social Revolutionary Members of the Directorate to Chang-Chun, on the Chinese frontier. This question was not answered quite so definitely, but the interest of the j.a.panese in these men shows how far the _coup d'etat_ had upset their plans relative to the occupation of the Urals.
The Supreme Governor issued definite orders to the different isolated sections of the Russian forces. All commanders obeyed these orders more or less except one, General Semianoff, whose headquarters were alongside that of the j.a.panese at Chita, from which he sent insolent refusals to recognise Koltchak's authority. Koltchak prepared to deal with this mutinous and buccaneering officer. The j.a.panese at once plainly informed the Omsk Government that General Semianoff was under their protection, and they would not allow the Russian Government to interfere with him.
Under j.a.panese protection this fellow continued to carry out indiscriminate executions and flogging of workmen until the whole district became depopulated, and the Allies were forced to demand an explanation from j.a.pan for their extraordinary conduct. So fearful were they that their tool was about to be dealt with, that when the 1/9th Battalion of the Hamps.h.i.+re Territorial Regiment started from Vladivostok, the j.a.panese asked the Omsk Government whether these British troops were coming forward to attack General Semianoff. The answer we gave was that all movements of British troops were conducted by the British Military Mission, to whom they must apply for information. I never heard any more of their inquiries.
About this time a party of Cossacks, with a high officer at their head, called at the prison one night and produced to the governor an alleged order for the release of nine political prisoners. The [perhaps]
unsuspecting governor handed his prisoners over; they were taken away, and next morning their friends found them shot. Someone ought to have been hanged, but Koltchak could find no one to hang. His Chief of Staff must have discovered some facts about the crime, but he refused to act.
In fact, he did not acquaint the admiral about the crime until four days later when it had become public property. Koltchak was quite overcome, first with rage at the crime itself, and secondly at his impotence in being unable to prevent it. But Omsk went on the even tenor of its way: it is remarkable what horrors people can face without a tremor when they get used to them, as they must in revolutions.
CHAPTER XII
THE CAPTURE OF PERM: THE CZECHS RETIRE FROM THE FIGHTING
The _coup d'etat_ had thrown the proposed Perm offensive completely into the background. The Czechs, under the influence of their Political Council, who had joined the Social Revolutionary Committee, and their leader Chernoff, retired to the rear. Each unit elected a committee and established a Soldiers' Council on the strictest Bolshevik plan, and ceased to be of further use either to the Russians or their own cause.
The officers of the new Russian army became greatly concerned for the integrity of their own young troops with such a shocking example of lack of discipline before their eyes, and begged Admiral Koltchak to order these hostile political bodies out of Ekaterinburg. The admiral offered them a town in the rear where they might discuss politics to their hearts' content, without danger to his army. This, however, did not suit their plans, for their obvious object was to destroy the integrity of the new Russian army. Admiral Koltchak in desperation ordered the leaders to be arrested and the conspiracy to be broken up. General Gaida, though a Czech officer, put the admiral's order into effect, and handed the prisoners over to the Commander-in-Chief, General Surovey, at Chilliyabinsk. General Surovey, under pressure of the Czech Council and Chernoff's Committee, released the prisoners, and began to hunt the famous young General Gaida out of their hitherto equally famous army. To save himself from disgrace at the hands of his political enemies, the general resigned his commission in the Czech Army, and by joining the Russian Army was instantly re-established in his position as Commander of the Russian armies on the right. Thus fell the glorious Czech legions from their high pinnacle of fame, killed as all armies must be the moment they join in party strife.
From the point of view of purely Russian tactics, it was necessary to strike south from Ufa, with the object of effecting a junction with the Orenburg Cossacks under General Dutoff, and if possible linking up with the forces of General Denikin in South Russia. But no exact or reliable information could be secured as to the strength and equipment of Dutoff or Denikin.
On the other hand, it was known that an Anglo-American force had landed at Archangel, which it was presumed would be well supplied with winter equipment, and if once a junction could be effected with this force, a channel for European supplies could soon be opened. Every cartridge, gun, rifle, and article of clothing had now to be s.h.i.+pped almost round the world, and brought over about six thousand miles of more or less disorganised railway communication. Koltchak had men, but no means for making them into fighters unless supplied from outside. It was felt certain that if his armies could smash their way through to Perm, and hold a point somewhere between there and Vatka, the junction of the Archangel and Petrograd Railway, the slightest movement of the Archangel expedition would result in a combination which could and would move straight forward to Petrograd, and free north Russia from the Terrorists.