Ward - With the Die-hards In Siberia

FORWARD

Originally written for the private use of my sons in case I did not return, this narrative of events connected with the expedition to Siberia must of necessity lack many of the necessary elements which go to make a history. I wrote of things as they occurred, and recorded the reasons and motives which prompted the participants. Many things have happened since which seem to show that we were not always right in our estimate of the forces at work around us. Things are not always what they seem, and this is probably more evident in the domain of Russian affairs than in any other. It would have been comparatively easy to alter the text and square it with the results, but that would have destroyed the main value of the story.

The statesman and the soldier rarely write history; it is their misfortune to make it. It is quite easy to be a prophet when you know the result. You can, as a rule, judge what a certain set of people will do in a certain set of circumstances, but where you deal with State policy which may be influenced by events and circumstances which have not the remotest connection with the question involved, it is impossible to give any forecast of their conduct on even the most elementary subject.

The recent tragic events played out in the vast domain of Siberia are a case in point. It is certain that Admiral Koltchak would never have gone to Siberia, nor have become the head of the constitutional movement and government of Russia, if he had not been advised and even urged to do so by the Allies. He received the most categorical promises of whole-hearted support and early Allied recognition before he agreed to take up the dangerous duty of head of the Omsk Government. Had these urgings and promises been ungrudgingly performed a Constituent Assembly would be now sitting at Moscow hammering out the details of a Federal Constitution for a mighty Russian Republic or a parliamentary system similar to our own.

On the declaration of the Koltchak Government, General Denikin, General Dutoff, General Hovart, and the North Russian Governments made over their authority to Omsk. There was at once a clear issue the Terrorist at Moscow, the Constitutionalist at Omsk. Had the Allies at this juncture translated their promises into acts, from what untold suffering Russia and Europe might have been saved!

The mere act of recognition would have created a wonderful impression on the Russian mind, in addition to giving the Allies a lever by which they could have guided the course of events and stabilised the Baltic. It would have given security to Russian finance, and enabled trade relations to have commenced with the wealthiest part of the Russian dominions.

The reconstruction of Russia, about which the Allies talk so glibly, would have gone forward with a bound by natural means, which not even Allied bungling could have prevented. The Omsk Government could have got money on better terms than any of the Allies, because, accepted within the comity of nations, it could have given better security than any of them, even including America. Europe would have been fed, Russia would have been clothed, and the world would have been saved from its greatest tragedies. All this and more would have naturally followed from the barest performance of our promises.

We did worse than this. Breach of promise is only a negative crime. The Allies went to the other extreme; their help took the form of positive wilful obstruction. The Japanese, by bolstering up Semianoff and Kalmakoff, and the Americans, by protecting and organising enemies, made it practically impossible for the Omsk Government to maintain its authority or existence. The most that could be expected was that both would see the danger of their policy in time to avert disaster. One did; the other left when the evils created had got beyond control. Koltchak has not been destroyed so much by the acts of his enemies as by the stupidity and neglect of his Allied friends.

As the Bolshevik rabble again sweeps over Siberia in a septic flood we hear again the question: "How can they do so unless they have a majority of the people behind them?" I answer that by asking: "How did a one-man government exist in Russia from 'Ivan the Terrible' to Nicholas II?" Both systems are autocratic; both exist by the same means "Terror." There is, however, this difference. The autocracy of the Tsars was a natural product from an early form of human society. The Bolshevik autocracy is an unnatural product, and therefore carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. It is an abortion, and unless it rapidly changes its character cannot hope to exist as a permanent form of organised society. It is a disease which, if we cannot attack, we can isolate until convalescence sets in. There is, however, the possibility that the patient during the progress of the malady may become delirious and run amok; for these more dangerous symptoms it would be well for his neighbours to keep watch and guard. This madness can only be temporary. This great people are bound to recover, and become all the stronger for their present trials.

JOHN WARD.

February, 1920.

CHAPTER I

F ROM HONG-KONG TO SIBERIA

The 25th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment had already such a record of travel and remarkable experiences to its credit that it was in quite a matter-of-fact way I answered a summons from Headquarters at Hong-Kong, one morning in November, 1917, and received the instruction to hold myself and my battalion in readiness to proceed to a destination unknown. Further conferences between the heads of departments under the presidency of the G.O.C., Major-General F. Ventris, revealed that the operations of the battalion were to be conducted in a very cold climate, and a private resident at tiffin that day at the Hong-Kong Club simply asked me "at what date I expected to leave for Vladivostok?"

The preparations were practically completed when orders to cease them were received from the War Office at home, followed by a cable (some time in January, 1918) to cancel all orders relating to the proposed expedition. So we again settled down in Far Eastern home quietly to await the end of the war, when we hoped to return to the Great Old Country and resume the normal life of its citizens.

Things remained in this condition until June, 1918, when we were suddenly startled by an order to call upon the half of my battalion stationed at Singapore to embark on the first ship available and join me at Hong-Kong. This seemed to suggest that the truly wonderful thing called "Allied Diplomacy" had at last made up its mind to do something. After a great deal of bustle and quite unnecessary fuss the whole battalion embarked on the Ping Suie on a Saturday in July, 1918.

It should be remembered that my men were what were called "B one-ers," and were equipped for the duty of that grade; but, after our arrival at Hong-Kong, Headquarters had called in most of our war material to replenish the dwindling supplies of this most distant outpost of the British Empire. Very little information could be gathered as to the kind of duty we might expect to be called upon to perform, and the ignorance of the Staff as to the nature of the country through which we were to operate was simply sublime. Added to this, most of the new material with which we were fitted was quite useless for our purpose. Those things which had been collected on the first notice of movement in 1917 had been dispersed, and the difficulty of securing others at short notice was quite insurmountable.

The voyage was not remarkable except that one typhoon crossed our track not ten miles astern, and for eighteen miles we travelled alongside another, the heavy seas striking the ship nearly abeam, and causing her to roll in a very alarming manner. The troops had a very uncomfortable time, and were glad to sight the coast of Korea and the calm waters of the Sea of Japan.