There was no reconnaissance of the country; no physical inventory of the lay of the land; no reliable military maps; no knowledge of the paths through the swamp-bottomed forests; no information of the roads. Many an early attack was lost because the frontal advance failed to get support of the flanking party that became hopelessly mired in the deep marshes and never got to the fight. The climatic conditions were a permanent obstacle to an offensive campaign. When the snow came and the weather grew intensely cold, even if we had possessed the necessary men, it would have been madness to think of an offensive in the open. Then it was possible only to dig in and hold on. Yet despite the intense sub-zero weather there was little trouble with the field guns which during the most severe days recoiled and ran up without any jar. Moreover, there was not so much suffering from the cold as might be supposed. The Command thought that the Siberian railway would be reached before the serious winter set in, nevertheless the expedition was excellently well equipped for the Arctic weather. Soldiers were issued long fur lined coats, fur hats and had an abundance of other good warm clothing and plenty of blankets. The men from Northern Wisconsin and the Michigan peninsula did not mind greatly the severe winter days. There was some frost bite from unavoidable exposure, and much terrible privation in the defensive actions; but on the whole the Allied soldiers withstood the cold as well as the Bolsheviks. The strength of the enemy was an unknown factor. So were his positions and his dispositions. There were no supports, no reserves. The base of the invading army in Russia was Archangel, a fortnight's journey from the far-most front and nearly three thousand miles from the main base in England; Archangel, in complete isolation during the six months of winter. There were no reinforcements at Archangel ready to relieve the jaded soldiers so far away, who had to continue doing double duty and fighting against greatly superior numbers with no promise of relief. More important than the objective fact was the thought of being thus forsaken that froze the soldier's heart and numbed his brain and never left him through the long blackness of the days. It was the same feeling of palsied hopelessness that comes over the city bred man who finds himself lost in the wilderness. The soldier felt he was abandoned by his country, that he was forgotten and left to his fate in the grisly plain of pitiless, white Russia.