In Archangel, an ambitious attempt was made to recruit Russians under the high sounding name of The Slavo British Allied Legion, and after most energetic efforts, about two thousand starved moujiks, seeking something to eat, joined the ranks; indifferent mercenaries never to be trusted in the tight positions. They were given the khaki of the Tommy, but there all resemblance to the British men of war ended. Their pay was in worthless rubles. They were given an inferior ration, were treated patronizingly. Between them and the Allied soldiers there never was that generous comradeship that leaps the restraints of divergent language and manners when men fight shoulder to shoulder for life and some things that are more dear than life itself. It was a case of alien spirit above all else. British officers never could understand why the Russian officers, with the acute, sensitive nature of the Slav, were quick to feel and keen to resent, seemingly studied slights and snubs and discourtesies. Russians of culture and refinement never could penetrate the unfailing reticence and frigid unsympathetic exterior in which gentlemen of England have been schooled for generations beyond memory, habitually to conceal the emotions. When the utter failure of the volunteer system became certain, thousands of Russians were coerced into the army by a draft system; but these failed too, because their hearts were cold to Russian patriotic British appeals; because there was no great moral issue, no moving cause for the fight. The war with Russia was in fact a typical British show, conducted by that conquering people who have spread the dominions of the mother country to every shore of the far seas. A war that was waged with the invincible will, that noble effacement of physical comfort; that indomitable purpose and masterful determination; that courage and careless naivete, and contempt of danger and risk; that splendid sportsmanship, that love of fair play; and all the sublime self sufficiency, all the muddling, blundering and fuddling, the lack of understanding, the brutal arrogance and cold conceit, and apparent heartlessness and want of sympathy that are forever British. Naturally, the British assumed direction, just as in France when the first Americans came Clemenceau and the Earl Haig demanded that they be fed piece meal to the French and British front divisions; but the soldier, Pershing, sensing the important moral value of having his men go to battle under the American flag and directed by American officers, waited and would not yield to the strongest pressure. And it was an American army that brought us to glory at Saint Mihiel and Chateau-Thierry and the Argonne forest; an all-American army led by American divisional commanders.