The problem of evacuation was a disturbing one. There was a clamor in England as insistent as that which echoed from America to get out of Russia and get out without delay. This might have been done, and the British might have abandoned these thousands of Russian people who, trusting in the courage, the steadfastness, and the honor of the Allies, had cast their lot with them for better or for worse. But, instead of deserting the country without ceremony as we did, a frank disclosure of the situation was made to the press in England, and a call was issued for volunteers to rescue British soldiers at Archangel. A mixed brigade of venturesome men who were wearied by peace time tedium and longed again for the thrill of war, and others who were out of work and could get no other employment, was raised by this method, but to muster the full quota for relief it was necessary to add a like number of Regulars, in all approximately eight thousand men. Each brigade had two infantry battalions, units of artillery, airplanes, machine gun corps and engineers, and the first echelon, commanded by Brigadier General G. W. Grogan, Victoria Cross, reached Archangel at the end of May. The rest, under Brigadier L. W. Sadleir Jackson, came on the 10th June, and the ships that brought them carried away the Americans. To the civil mind an evacuation, especially by sea, seems a simple matter. The civilian thinks of it merely as a packing off to the ships, disregarding the losses involved to make short shift and get away. But in complicated, modern war, there are countless perplexing details in the final movement of an army. Massive, ponderous ordnance and munitions and supplies must be assembled with prodigious labor, transported or destroyed. And it is necessary to hold the enemy off till the last retreating file has mounted the gang plank and put off far to sea. Also, in the case of Archangel, it was an involved problem to attend to the civilian population. The British government laid open the offer to transport every Archangel resident apprehensive of the Bolsheviks, and to provide employment for them in other lands. It was expected that vast numbers would avail themselves of this opportunity and would flee from the approaching reign of horrors, but when the time came only sixty-five hundred and thirty-five came forward for expatriation, and these were all sent to South Russia and the Baltic States. When all was in readiness, General Ironside planned to safeguard the retreat by administering a sharp "disengaging blow," like Sir John Moore dealt the French at Corunna one hundred years before, which would shake the enemy's morale and disabuse him of any notion of following the retreating troops to the waterside.