Fighting Without a War: An Account of Military Intervention in North Russia — John Shaqi
Fighting Without a War: An Account of Military Intervention in North RussiaAlbertson, Ralph
History
Fighting Without a War: An Account of Military Intervention in North Russia
Albertson, Ralph
World War, 1914-1918 -- Soviet Union
The weak fashion in which we went into the enterprise has given rise to
the theory in some quarters that it will be claimed that we did not go
into it at all. If an armistice had been declared in Russia on November
11, or if America had then notified the Bolsheviki that we had no
military motives there, the affair could well have been charged up to
the war with Germany, and we might well claim that we had had no serious
intention of interfering in the affairs of Russia. But the armistice
did not even think of Russia. We were fighting a separate war there.
We in Russia were not even notified officially that there was an
armistice. We heard about it, and wondered where we came in. It was
after November 11 that most of our fighting took place and most of our
casualties were suffered. Not until March were we promised that we
should be taken home in the spring, and then no intimation was given us
that America was to withdraw. Rumors were industriously circulated
giving the impression that other Americans were on their way to take our
places, and not until our men were actually away did our "information"
permit us to realize that America had withdrawn from the expedition.
We intervened. We undertook to crush Bolshevism in Russia. We sent a
military and naval expedition there. We organized a civil war there.
It was unsuccessful. America lost a few men, England more, Russia many
more. How much more Russia suffered is not yet written. America
withdrew her troops. France, Serbia, Italy withdrew theirs. England
reluctantly withdraws hers.
Let us consider what this expedition meant to our own men. They were
only a few thousand men, to be sure, and their little event was so much
smaller than the big thing in France that it was naturally even
necessarily overlooked. Because I was with them, however, I know that
it was a big thing their government made them do. The men in France had
faith in their cause. The men in Russia had none. Over and over again
our men in Russia have argued with me that while we were fighting for
freedom in France we were fighting to kill it in Russia. Some said we
were fighting for the capitalists of England and France, others declared
that the Bolsheviki were more right than wrong, and everybody felt that
our government had made a great mistake and that a life lost there was a
life worse than thrown away. In this frame of mind American boys went
through all the dangers and privations and sufferings of a difficult
all-winter campaign and some of them went to their last battles.
Statistically it is a little thing, if you must measure everything by
statistics, but I have been made to feel how terribly great a thing was
the death of one man who as I held his hand cursed the fate that made
him die in a fight for which he had no heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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