Now the innuendo was very plausible that these aristocrats of the Old School had returned to restore the Romanoffs, and that the British capitalists were leagued with them for the conquest of Russia and the enslavement of the common people. It was easy to argue that the British, always interested in the trading possibilities of Archangel, had come to exploit its resources. Otherwise why should they be so vitally concerned in this civil war of Russians? British officers were freely mingled with these Imperial officers, British Intelligence supervising the staff work and dispositions, and a liberal spreading of reliable British N.C.O.'s among the ranks, to keep a watchful eye on things and bolster the recruits in the stern trial of first battle. The great majority of the British officers had no appetite for the business ahead. They were tired and homesick, weary and fed up with war for all time after four racking years of it. Moreover, they disliked everything Russian with a withering aversion, and in their forced association with the Russians, treated them with a disdainful condescension and that impersonal, inhuman lack of tolerance which is British beyond all imitation. Openly they distrusted their allied comrades, and sometimes when tired and irritable and nerve frayed, they said so, which did not make towards the establishment of an enthusiastic and permanent entente, for the educated Slav is an accomplished linguist, and sometimes he understood and did not easily forget when he was abused in English, and vehemently cursed as a "bloody Bolo." It had been determined before the opening of navigation that all American forces should be withdrawn and the campaign abandoned. The reason for this was not revealed to the troops just as the cause of the Expedition had never been mentioned, and every man in American uniform sensed a gaping moral void on the part of his Country. Certain death from the Bolsheviks awaited those loyal Russians who had placed their trust in the promised salvation of the Allied leaders and the American authorities at least seemed blind to their manifest duty to the Archangel government. It was an awkward situation for the statesmen, but unavoidable under the circumstances--and Archangel was a long distance removed from Washington. Anyway, the British held on--they would have to attend to uncomfortable details. We were going to clear out, and clear out we did.