Pages 34-43
I have always counted Woodrow Wilson as among the worst U.S. Presidents. In First Shot of the Cold War Anthony Brandt permits the reluctant globalist president to indict himself as he declares the idea of military intervention in post Czarist Russia a bad idea then permits the waning powers of France and Britain to twist his arm into committing about 10,000 U.S. troops to an invasion of the future Soviet Union!
If you have been educated in American schools and are not a military history buff you have surely not heard of this foredoomed operation. And what an adventure it was—nearly two years of meddling in a subarctic civil war.
Brandt does a good job bringing a mixture of geopolitics and on-the-ground details to the discussion of this deliberately forgotten fiasco. The Brits are as militarily incompetent from the top down as ever—with brave men in the trench to pay the ultimate price for their rich boy leaders playing at war. Sending water cooled machine guns to the northern reaches of Russia above the Arctic Circle in October had to be the best idea.
The highlight of this story is the Czechoslovak Legion: 60,000 Central European refugee soldiers who had retreated in good order against the Germans and Austrians and were willing to keep up the fight. The plan was to send them across the Tran-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok so they could be shipped around the world to land in France and protect Paris from the Huns. On the way some returning Hungarian POWs passed them in a cattle car. One of the Hungarians threw a piece of scrap iron and killed a Czech and the Czech’s cranked up their water cooled machineguns and took care of business. They then refused to lay down their arms and fought their way across Russia and Siberia for thousands of miles.
In the meantime the Japanese had landed 70,000 troops near the Czech destination and began behaving with unconcealed arrogance against other coalition forces, already brazenly implementing their Manchurian plan.
What an interesting mess, and the U.S. has seemingly been addicted to such globalist military commitments ever since.
Great article. It is a classic historical example of mission creep. The Allied task force was ostensibly sent to Russia to recover thousands of tons of weapons, ammunition and other supplies given by the Allies to the Imperial Russian forces to use in combat against the Germans, but then it ended up taking sides in the Russian Civil War. The intervention made some sense initially because the French and the British (the Allies) were fearful that the new Russian Bolshevik (Communist) government would hand the war supplies over to the Germans. Actually fearful is too mild a term for the Allies’ state of mind: they were in a panic that they would lose the war. The peace treaty that the Germans imposed on Russia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk) was extraordinarily punishing:
“In the treaty, Bolshevik Russia ceded the Baltic States to Germany, and its province of Kars Oblast in the south Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire. It also recognized the independence of Ukraine. Russia also agreed to pay six billion German gold mark in reparations. Historian Spencer Tucker says, "The German General Staff had formulated extraordinarily harsh terms that shocked even the German negotiator." This gave the Allies a preview of the kind of punishment that Germany had planned for THEM, if and when Germany won the war. Imagine what six billion gold Marks would be worth in today’s inflated currency, not to mention the territorial concessions the Allies might be forced to make. Keep in mind that Germany had promised that it would help Mexico regain “Texas, New Mexico and Arizona” if Mexico sided with Germany in a war against America. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram). Being forced to make such concessions only seems far-fetched now because we won that war, and can’t conceive ever losing a war that big. Hindsight is 20-20 as they say. The article is also an example of the fact that you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had. Why did they use water-cooled machineguns in the arctic? Because that is what they had. EVERYONE, including the Russians, used water cooled machineguns in those days. The U.S. Army did not have an air-cooled version of its Browning .30 caliber machinegun (The M1919) until after World War I was over. Like the Finnish general once said, the only good way to fight in the arctic is to head south once winter starts. Keep in mind also that Wilson was a Democrat, a Progressive. He was a transformational President, just as FDR was and our current President is. Military intervention, you understand, is never wrong when Democrat presidents do it, because they do so only for noble, altruistic reasons, because they are citizens of the world and not rapacious nationalists. See also the editorial by Ralph Peters, “Strategic Decadence”, in Military History’s sister publication “Armchair General” (May 2015 issue). As Ralph Peters observes, our globalist interventionism is now combined with the lack of a will to win. Our current political leaders have no desire to defend western civilization. Of course, that is why our current war against ISIS is being prosecuted in such a confused and half-hearted manner. pjmedia.com/blog/lawmakers-worried-about-ground-troops-lack-of-comprehensive-plan-in-obama-request-to-ramp-up-isis-fight Our President and his Leftist fellow-travelers (The Woman) long ago decided that for the rest of the world to be a safer place, America must be less safe; for the rest of the world to be more stable, America must be less stable (Eric Ericson’s unified theory of Obama). It only makes sense from a Marxist point of view, which is where our President and his minions come from.
I like comments that exceed the length and depth of the article.
I learned a lot.
Thanks Jeremy.
“The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.” -George Soros, The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror.
“What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.”-Thomas Marshall, Vice President during Woodrow Wilson Administration.
Glad you enjoyed it James. Here is some more historical trivia about the Allied Russian Intervention:
-The American soldiers in north Russia (i.e. Murmansk, Archangel) were outfitted with Shackleton boots, designed by the Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Apparently the Shackleton boots were considered to be state of the art in cold weather footwear in the early 20th Century. The Shackleton boot was a canvas overshoe or mukluk with a leather sole that was worn over British Army style ankle boots or a heavy wool sock. Unfortunately the leather sole made them slippery when walking in the snow. The lack of traction became such an impediment on one forced march through the snow that some exhausted soldiers took off their Shackleton boots and marched on in their socks, leaving “bloody foot prints” behind. Ouch! The troops probably would have been better off with the traditional Russian winter boots made of thick wool felt. I haven’t found any information on whether they procured any, but I suspect that as time went on many of the American troops acquired the Russian boots. No mention is made in the histories I’ve read if any of the soldiers were equipped with skis or snow shoes at any point either. The fact is Russian troops were often poorly equipped for winter warfare as well. As Ralph Peters observed, a prominent characteristic of the Russians is their tendency toward “terrifying sloppiness” in much of what they do.
-The U.S. Army Infantry regiment (339th Infantry) that participated in the North Russian intervention adopted as its motto a phrase in Russian the translates to “The Bayonet Decides” (Apparently in Russian it’s next to unpronounceable for English speakers). The Army Reserve unit that is descended from the 339th infantry still retains that motto in Cyrillic letters on is unit crest: user.pa.net/~cjheiser/ct9/339di.htm.
-One of the lessons learned in arctic warfare during that campaign was that it was imperative to drive home an attack and capture the enemy’s position so you could shelter in his bunkers once the long arctic night fell. Otherwise, if you became trapped in no-man’s-land overnight, you would likely freeze to death. No doubt this consideration helped inspire the enthusiastic use of the bayonet by the soldiers of the 339th infantry.
“Very few people have ever been killed with the bayonet or saber, but the fear of having their guts explored with cold steel in the hands of battle-maddened men has won many a fight.” -George S. Patton
That was great Jeremy.
Thanks.