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
This was a military job. Even the military, however, find it necessary
to consider popular opinion to some extent. So this new government was
composed of democratic men. Tschaikowsky was made President. The people
knew him and trusted him. His government failed to realize at first
that it was only the creature of foreign military authority and began to
function sincerely. It was kidnaped for discipline and put on an island
for a few days of meditation. The allied military did not come to
Archangel to set up a pure democracy nor to encourage socialism nor to
listen to theories. They came to fight the plans of Germany, to fight
the Bolsheviki, to guard stores, to teach Russia to fight. Beyond this
the military mind goeth not. So the venerable Tschaikowsky was
gradually put aside and ignored and before long sent to London on an
important mission, never to return, but still a valuable figurehead,
while a Russian military government grew up under the aegis of the
British army, composed of monarchists and military men of the old
school. The head of this government was General Miller (Mueller) a
militarist and monarchist who is without popular Russian support and
whose position is entirely due to his standing with the British military
establishment.
*III*
*MANAGEMENT*
It was a British show. The British were in absolute command. Whole
shiploads of British officers were sent there to perform all possible
functions of management and to cover all possible needs. The Americans,
Russians, French, Italians, and Serbians all obeyed the British
officers, and found British officers duplicating their own at every
juncture. Even at that there was a surplus, and I have had several of
them, from a colonel down, tell me that they were hanging around
Archangel waiting for something to do.
It was British responsibility to decide where we should stand, when we
should move, and who should do what. They never neglected this
responsibility in any detail. If they could avoid it, they never
delegated any detail of authority to any officer of any other
nationality. If they took counsel with their associates of other
nationalities it was never heard of in the ranks. I have heard an
American officer of high rank speak very bitterly of the fact that the
British never consulted him except to give him orders, and made him feel
quite useless.
*IV*
*THE FALL CAMPAIGN*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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