In 1918-19, thousands of Allied troops occupied the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk and penetrated deep into the hinterland of northern Russia. This military operation was but one of a series of events that convulsed the Russian nation as a result of its involvement in World War I. In March 1917 the centuries-old czarist autocracy collapsed under the pressure of war, corruption, and social and economic dislocation. The inept Provisional Government that replaced the monarchy, plagued by internal strife and lacking popular support for its efforts to continue the disastrous war, fell easy prey to a Bolshevik military coup in November 1917. Four months later the Bolsheviks made good their well- publicized promise to remove Russia from the war by concluding a separate peace treaty with Germany. This "betrayal" caused considerable consternation among Russia's former allies. They feared that Germany might transfer hundreds of thousands of troops from Russia to the western front, where the war was still raging. Also cause for alarm was the possibility that Allied war materiel in Russia might fall into German hands or be used by the Bolsheviks--who espoused the violent eradication of the existing international order--to consolidate their hold on the country. Faced with these and other grim prospects, the Allied Supreme War Council decided in 1918 to send military units into northern Russia and eastern Siberia. The misadventure in northern Russia, with which this chapter is concerned, began when about 150 British marines landed at Murmansk in early March 1918. At the beginning of August about 1,200 French troops British marines, and American sailors debarked at Arkhangelsk. The ostensible reason for the Allied landings was to prevent German seizure of the vast stores of war materiel accumulated at those ports, but after the armistice between the Allies and the Central Powers on 11 November 1918 that pretext lost all validity. At that time there were more then 13,000 Allied troops stationed along the Murmansk Railroad and about 11,000 scattered in an irregular semicircle radiating from Arkhangelsk. Attempts to expel the the fall of 1918, and with the onset of winter, Allied commanders were concerned primarily with holding defensive positions while awaiting the outcome of the political debate over the future course of the intervention. That debate ended in the spring of 1919. Unable to agree among themselves on the ultimate purpose of the intervention, and faced with vocal opposition from their constituents and declining morale among their troops, Western leaders decided to withdraw their forces from northern Russia. The withdrawal began in June and July when the Americans left Arkhangelsk, and ended in October when the last British troops departed from Murmansk. The diplomatic complexities of this poorly conceived and ill-fated intervention are beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice it to say that Allied motives concerning the North Russian Expedition were varied, confused, and sometimes contradictory. What is important for the purpose of this study is that Allied troops, including about. five thousand Americans," were involved in combat with the nascent Red Army. The Allied forces based at Murmansk and at Arkhangelsk comprised separate fronts, commanded by the British Major Generals C. M. Maynard and William Edmund Ironside. Because the Arkhangelsk district witnessed more fighting than the Murmansk hinterland during the winter of 1918-19, the following examples are from the Arkhangelsk region. General Ironside assumed command of the Allied forces on the Arkhangelsk front in the fall of 1913. Within his small command, the order of battle was extremely complex. In addition to the U.S. 339th Infantry Regiment (with supporting engineer and medical units), there were about 6,000 British troops, 500 Canadian field artillerymen, 900-1,700 French soldiers, plus small numbers (only about 500 in the aggregate) of Poles, Italians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Czechs, Serbs, Finns, and Chinese. Not included in the figure of 11,000 cited above were i various Russian contingents which fluctuated widely in both numbers and reliability-including a small unit of the French Foreign Legion and. a larger Slavo-British Legion. Opposing Ironside's polyglot forces were the Bolshevik troops of Comdr. Aleksander A. Samoilo's Sixth Independent Army, which probably had no more than 14,000 combat effectives during that winter's fighting. Although they were a more homogeneous force than the Allies, they included a Chinese company and a Finnish regiment. In the campaigns fought during the winter of 1918-19, each side at times displayed sound adaptation to climatic challenges and at other times made fatal mistakes. The Red Army suffered far heavier casualties than the Americans (and other Allied units) partly because of the different postures of the two forces: U.S. troops were generally on the defensive during the winter, whereas the Soviets mounted nearly continuous raids and several determined offensives. A well-sheltered defender enjoyed a marked advantage over his exposed attacker advancing through deep snow in subzero cold. Ironside recognized this fundamental fact. After a few limited and abortive attacks designed to secure more advantageous winter outposts, he concentrated on the defense of his farflung positions. Stressing the importance of shelter in those conditions. Shelter not only provided warmth, which benefited both men and weapons, but also concealed the defenders. The attackers, silhouetted against the snow and leaving revealing tracks, were easily spotted. Even when they wore white capes, their faces and weapons were visible. Ironside noted that any attack had to be short in duration and, as its ultimate objective, had to secure cover. Bolshie Ozerki The most costly battles of the North Russian campaign, fought near Bolshie Ozerki from March 31 to April 2 1919, clearly illustrate the advantages of the defense. The tiny village of Bolshie Ozerki lay between the port of Onega and important Allied position at Obozerskaya Station on the Arkhangelsk Vologda railroad. Because the port at the main Allied base of Arkhangelsk was frozen fast during the winter, any reinforcements for the railroad front had to travel overland from the distant ice-free port at Murmansk via the minor road through Bolshie Ozerki. When the 6th Yorkshire Regiment was dispatched over this arduous route towards the end of winter, the Red command decided to seize Bolshie Ozerki to prevent those troops from linking up with the Allied forces at Obozerskaya. Preliminaries The prelirninaries to the major engagements at the end of the month began on 17 March, when a ski detachment of Red partisans led by Osip Palkin reconnoitered the village's defenses undetected, quietly captured two sentries, and learned the precise locations of the Allied positions. With this intelligence, Comdr. Petr A. Solodukhin's brigade of 600 to 800 men surprised and overwhelmed the garrison of 80 to 160 French and White Russian troops and captured the outpost at Bolshie Ozerki intact. A small-scale Allied counterattack from Obozerskaya the next day proved abortive, but it probably contributed to the Soviet decision to suspend temporarily all offensive operations. The Sixth Army commander, former czarist Maj. Gen. A. A. Samoilo, issued that order to his entire field staff on 18 March. He cited these factors in the decision: shortages of warm footgear and other provisions; the perilous situation of Solodukhin's column (which, according to Samoilo's information, had not succeeded in capturing all of the buildings of the village); and Comdr. Jeronim P. Uborevich's report that on another Sixth Army sector half of the troops of his attacking battalions had either frozen to death or been disabled by frostbite when the temperature dropped below -30C (-22F). When Samoilo issued an order on 19 March to resume operations on 25 March-with Obozerskaya now the main objective-the commander in chief of the Red Army, the former czarist Col. Joakim I. Vatsetis, countermanded it "because of the severe frost." On 23 March about 320 men of the 6th Yorkshire Regiment and 70 Americans from Company H, 339th Infantry Regiment, launched coordinated attacks on Bolshie Ozerki from positions west of the village. They soon became exhausted, however, from wading through waist-deep snow, which also ruled out a charge. Under heavy machine gun fire, they had to abandon the attack. A simultaneous assault on the eastern approaches to the village fared no better. About 300 White Russian and 40 to 80 British troops were halted along the roadway by effective enemy fire. At that point, Company E, 339th Infantry, tried to flank the Red defenses by skirting through the woods north of the road. Already tired from a ten-mile march in their awkward Shackleton boots*, the soldiers of Company E required about four hours to cover less than three miles, whereupon they were recalled to their starting point. *That canvas and leather footgear had been designed by the famous Antarcyic explorer, Sir Ernest Shacklcton. Although warm and adequate for sedentary use or with skis, their smooth soles and low heels made them extremely slippery on ice and packed snow: Ironside said the natives felt boots superior. The Allies lost about seventy five men in those two futile attacks. After that failure, Ironside, who had recently taken personal command in that sector, decided to destroy the village by artillery fire, which was largely accomplished on 25 March, just before he returned to Arkhangelsk. Despite the weather, both sides continued to bring up reinforcements for the impending showdown. The Allies constructed strong wooden block-houses, log barricades, and troop shelters about four miles east of the village, on the road to Obozerskaya some twelve miles farther east. By the end of the month they had pulled up from their railroad positions all available artillery, mainly 75-mm guns manned by White Russians. They also concentrated all the troops they could spare from Arkhangelsk and other sectors, including Companies E, I, and M of the U.S. 339th Infantry, three infantry companies and one machine gun company of White Russians, two Yorkshire platoons, and an invaluable section of the U.S. 310th Engineers. Those Allied forces, totaling less than 2,000 men, were opposed by an estimated 7,000 Red troops, including (among other units not positively identified) the 2d Moscow Regiment, the 97th Saratov Regiment and a brigade from Kamyshin (possibly part of Commander Kuznetsov's Kamyshinsk Division). The Soviet artihery included a battery of 4.2-inch guns that had been hauled about thirty-seven miles over a minor road at the cost of uncounted dead horses. About 0300 on 31 March the Reds cut the phone lines between Obozerskaya and the road positions, and later in the morning three battalions of the 2d Moscow Regiment flanked the Allies on the north and attempted to capture two 75-mm. guns from the rear. Lieutenant Lukovsky, the White Russian in charge of those pieces, reversed them in time to get off four rounds of shrapnel at point-blank range. His action, coupled with the effective fire of Corporal Pratt's Lewis gun team (Company M, 339th Infantry), halted the attack with heavy losses to the Muscovites. Thereafter the fighting shifted to the frontal positions, where the Reds launched repeated attacks from the direction of Bolshie Ozerki throughout the day. All failed under the devastating fire from the forward blockhouse and the frondine posts, and Allied artillery took an added toll of the enemy until darkness brought a lull in the battle. Main Soviet Effort The main Soviet effort began on 1 April about 0330 (shortly after daybreak) with determined frontal attacks and a weaker demonstration in the rear. Inflicting heavy losses, the defenders drove back these and all subsequent attacks with the same effective machine gun, rifle, and artillery fire." At times they even used rifle grenades when the attackers came within their 200-yard range.' Several deserters who crossed the lines intermittently on that April Fool's day revealed demoralization within the Red units; they reported that an entire company of the 97th Saratov Regiment had refused to advance. Nevertheless, because the Allies were still outnumbered and because the fighting was so protracted and intense, the Allied command ordered a diversionary attack on Bolshie Ozerki from the west to relieve the pressure on the units so heavily engaged east of that village. As envisioned in the operations order for the diversionary blow, Company C of the 6th Yorkshire Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Marsh, would move along a trail through the woods to flank the village from the north. A White Russian officer had recently reconnoitered the trail, and Lieutenant Marsh had Russian guides. Captain Bailey's Company A (Yorkshires) would advance along another trail made about a week earlier a detachment moving along the main road leading into the village from the northwest would protect its right flank. Bailey would be assisted by an American trench mortar detachment and a machine gun team from Company H, 339th Infantry, which would also provide two infantry platoons for the reserve. Part of a White Russian machine gun company would also support the two Yorkshire companies. A company of Polish troops was to advance along the main road and to deploy south of the roadway upon enemy contact. This counterblow, however, was no more successful than the Soviet offensive that continued at the same time. The Allies had fixed zero hour for 0300 on 2 April, but at 0200 Lieutenant Marsh reported that his company was lost in the woods, that his horses were belly-deep in the snow, and that he could not proceed. Thus one of the main elements in the attack was neutralized until it returned to the main road, far from its objective, about 0510. By then the Poles had suffered heavily and had retired from the battle temporarily. By 0610 Company A was partially surrounded and forced to yield ground. Captain Bailey was killed about this time, and his successor, Lieutenant Goodloss, ordered a withdrawal. Lt. Clifford Phillips's platoon (Company H, 339th Infantry) rushed up from the reserves to cover the British pullback. In the subsequent delaying action, that American officer was also mortally wounded. The remainder of the day witnessed mostly artillery and mortar exchanges, until Red pressure on both flanks provoked a successful Allied counterattack about 1730. The Reds disengaged around 1900, and about an hour later the Allies began withdrawing under the cover of darkness to their quarters at settlements in the rear. By then they were suffering from exhaustion, and there were many cases of severe frostbite. Soviet operations at the road position east of Bolshie Ozerki had resumed on April 2 with an effective counterbarrage. Only weak infantry attacks were attempted, however, and even they petered out by noon. The costs of the previous attacks apparently decided the issue: there were no more attacks after 2 April, and by the fifth the Reds were withdrawing from the area. Further delay would have risked the loss, or at least prolonged immobilization, of their guns and sleighs in the spring mud. Those fierce engagements at the turn of the month were the last major battles of the campaign in northern Russia. The Soviet forces had been temporarily checked, and the Allies began to evacuate as soon as Arkhangelsk was reopened to navigation. In the battles around Bolshie Ozerki, the defense won both of the main rounds -- the Allies defended their road positions, and the Reds defended Bolshie Ozerki. Both attacking forces suffered heavy casualties from exposure to the weather, although the days were sunny and the nighttime temperatures by then were no worse than a relatively mild -20C (-4F). By day the sunshine melted the snow, which soaked through the canvas tops of the Shackleton boots and caused more cases of frostbite among the Allied troops than they had experienced during the coldest days of winter when temperatures sometimes dropped below -40. Their enemies suffered even heavier losses; a Soviet source acknowledges more than 500 frostbite casualties in the brigade from Kamyshin alone. In view of that, Allied estimates of 2,000 Red Casualties from all sources may have erred on the conservative side. One reason for those excessive Soviet losses was that the Red command recklessly committed the brigade that arrived from the milder climate of the southern Volga before it could receive proper clothing; it had neither the felt boots (valenki) nor the sheepskin coats issued to other Sixth Army units. Nevertheless, the mere fact that thousands of Soviet troops were deployed in the open for days on end doomed many to freeze to death or to suffer frostbite. Shenkursk: January 1919 The operations near Shenkursk in January 1919 provided examples of other pertinent problems. Having occupied that imposing district center of several thousand inhabitants in September, the Allies had had time to fortify it strongly. When the crisis described below developed in January, the Allies had sufficient provisions to last two months, and the garrison--counting the outposts in nearby villages--totaled about 1,700 American, British, Canadian, and White Russian troops. They undoubtedly could have taken a terrible toll of any force attacking them in winter. The town, however, was situated on the frozen Vaga River more than 200 miles south-east of Arkhangelsk, far in advance of any Allied positions on either flank, and therefore highly vulnerable to encirclement. General Ironside ordered the local commander, Colonel Graham, to evacuate at once if the enemy attempted an enveloping movement. Commander Samoilo had in mind just such an operation, one intended not only to destroy the Shenkursk garrison, but also to seize the mouth of the Vaga north of the town. He made elaborate preparations for the offensive, deploying at least 3,100 infantry for coordinated attacks from three directions. The supporting artillery included several 4.2-inch howitzers and one 6-inch gun. A detachment of about 150 local partisans was detailed to strike at Shegovari, a village some twenty-five road miles to the rear (north) of Shenkursk, held by about ninety Americans. Two other partisan units of similar size were to reconnoiter, harass the enemy flanks, select populated points along the march routes, and stock them in advance with provisions, fodder, and medicine. Although white camouflage coveralls were not available, some of the units prepared for surprise attacks by removing their sheepskin coats and substituting quilted trousers and jackets, over which they wore long white peasant shirts and white p,ants. Thus blending into the snowy landscape, they could not be detected beyond 50-125 feet. The largest of the three main detachments, led by future Soviet Lieutenant General Filippovsky, consisted of more than 1,300 infantrymen, six heavy guns, and twenty- one machine guns. Assigned the task of a frontal assault, it bore the brunt of the actual fighting, which took place primarily at the outposts south of Shenkursk. Nizhnyaya Gora, farthest from the town-about fifteen miles-was hit first and hardest. The only troops there when Samoilo's massive blow fell were the forty-seven men of the 4th Platoon of Company A, 339th Regiment, and even that small unit was divided: Lt. Harry Mead had twenty-two men at the exposed southern point, and a sergeant was in charge of twenty-three others at the other end of the village. To the left rear, a company of Cossacks held the neighboring village of Ust'Padenga. About a mile farther to the rear, at Vysokaya Gora, the remainder of Captain Odjard's Company A manned five sturdy blockhouses on a commanding bluff, supported by two light guns which were serviced alternately by Canadian and White Russian gunners. In all three villages Captain Odjard had a total of 450 riflemen, eighteen machine guns, and two artillery pieces. Early on the morning of 19 January, when the mercury hit -36C (-33F), Filippovsky's powerful guns shook Nizhnyaya Gora from positions beyond the range of the smaller Allied pieces. From their tiny outpost Lieutenant Mead's half platoon saw far across the frozen Vaga River hundreds of dark figures advancing slowly through powder snow, which varied in depth from three to more than four feet. Just before they came within small-arms range, the barrage lifted, and the Americans were stunned by the sudden appearance of about 100 to 150 ghostly white-clad figures who rushed them on three sides from nearby snowdrifts into which they had crept undetected before dawn. Within seconds a bitter fight was underway, and the Allied machine guns tore into the attackers with great effect. But Mead's hopelessly outnumbered men were also taking losses, and he ordered a hasty retreat. When the survivors joined the remainder of the platoon at the rear of the village, they faced a terrible prospect: their only route to the security of Vysokaya Gora lay down a hill, across a valley 800 yards wide, and up another hill to the friendly blockhouses--the entire distance through deep snow with no protective cover. As they struggled through the snow drifts, they made perfect targets, and only seven of the platoon's original forty-seven members made it unscathed to friendly shelter. The Reds had lost an estimated 150 men, and the hundreds who swarmed into Nizhnyaya Gora were no doubt exhausted from their own long march through the snow; consequently, there was no determined pursuit on that day. Filippovsky seemed content for the moment to wear down the defenders with his artillery, which fired about 1,000 rounds on the nineteenth and 800 the next day. The Cossack company at Ust'Padenga departed under the cover of darkness and reached Vysokaya Gora undetected on the night of the nineteenth. From 20 to 22 January it was the Reds' turn to face the ordeal of crossing the open valley below Vysokaya Gora. Canadian gunners, firing shrapnel from their commanding positions on the hilltop, slaughtered the Soviet infantry struggling through the snow below them. A Soviet source acknowledges that one of the Red battalions lost half its men in those unsuccessful attacks. The Allied defenses stood firm, but on the evening of 22 January Colonel Graham ordered Captain Odjard to retire on Shenkursk, because it had become obvious that the town was the main Red objective. Odjard's weary troops had scarcely reached Shenkursk, late in the afternoon of 24 January, when Colonel Graham decided to evacuate that town without a fight, in compliance with General Ironside's standing order. The day before, the partisan raid had been carried out at Shegovari, and reconnaissance had revealed that Soviet forces held nearly all of the roads from Shenkursk. Enemy artillery was shelling the town from the northwest, the northeast, and the south, and communications to the rear were severed in the afternoon. A successful withdrawal was already problematical; to remain longer meant slow but nearly certain annihilation. In fact, by midnight all three of Samoilo's main columns were in their designated positions in nearby villages, ready to begin a coordinated attack on the morning of the twenty- fifth. The escape of the entire Allied force approximately 1,500 troops accompanied by about 500 civilians, was due to a combination of intelligent leadership, strict march discipline, and sheer luck. In silent but determined flight during the night of 24-25 January, the evacuating column followed a little-used winter trail that the Reds had overlooked. Lt. Hugh McPhail of Company A ingeniously ordered his platoon to cut off their cumbersome overcoats at knee length, a precaution for which they were thankful on the long and difficult march that covered thirty-five to forty miles in two days. The awkward Shackleton boots, however, caused more trouble. After struggling along precariously on the icy trail that night, many soldiers discarded those boots and continued in stocking feet-which led to disabling frostbite. Shenkursk was an important psychological and tactical victory for the Sixth Army, but Commander Samoilo acknowledged that it failed in two of its main objectives: it did not destroy the Allied garrison or capture the mouth of the Vaga River. Among the causes for those disappointments enumerated by his military commissar, Nikolai N. Kuzmin, was the fact that the attackers did not pursue aggressively because, after twelve days of slim rations and exposure to severe frost, the comforts and vast stores of provisions at Shenkursk proved irresistible. Samoilo also noted that this operation served as a school for his troops, especially by demonstrating the need for ski training. Although a detailed description of all the Allied positions and local engagements is impractical, certain additional aspects of the campaign in northern Russia warrant attention for their technical lessons. At Obozerskaya Allied troops lived in 257 converted railroad boxcars. (The same improvised shelters were used at Munnansk.) Remodeled, insulated, and heated with small sheet-iron stoves, they were warm and comfortable, although one veteran of the expeditionary force remarked that they were "most unhygienic. " Both sides recognized the value of skis, but neither had enough troops trained to use them. For example, a Soviet ski battalion from Vyatka (modern Kirov), destined for and needed by the Sixth Army had to be assigned instead to the Third Army. The British employed a Finnish officer to train Company D of the 6th Yorkshire Regiment as a mobile ski column; however, in its first three weeks of combat, it suffered 160 cases of frostbite (compared to only eighteen battle casualties). Snowshoes were also used on occasion, but a major Allied experiment with them proved a disappointment. Captain Barbateau, an experienced French Canadian woodsman, ordered several thousand pairs of appropriate snowshoes from Canada, but they were shipped to Murmansk instead of Arkhangelsk. He therefore had to use the "bear paw" type issued by British Ordnance. Oval hoops about eighteen inches long, they were too small to support a man's weight in the dry and powdery snow of the northern Russian winter. He nevertheless trained several platoons of White Russians to use them and proudly dubbed his detachment "Les Coureurs de Bois." Their first combat mission was a flank attack on Emtsa in December, as part of a larger operation designed to capture Plesetskaya. Floundering in the deep snow in the woods, his men covered only a kilometer or so an hour. During the first day they progressed only about six miles--less than halfway to their objective. Even then they were so exhausted that Barbateau requested a two-day rest before proceeding, and the whole operation was called off before his detachment could engage the enemy. The extreme cold caused many weapons to become inoperative. Lt. John Baker (of the 339th Infantry) reported an engagement on 30 December during which all of his Lewis guns were either frozen or broken. In an operation on 5 December, a strong Allied detachment was preparing to attack a superior Red force northeast of Shenkursk. The Allies narrowly escaped disaster when, just before the scheduled assault, they learned that neither the automatic cannon nor the Vickers machine guns were working because their oil had frozen. This discovery occurred barely in time to permit a successful retreat. The Ford trucks used by the Allied expedition in northern Russia proved unreliable in the severe cold and deep snow, for even packed trails required the continuous use of low gear. General Ironside wisely chose to travel by the common native sleigh. Those simple but practical conveyances, pulled by small but rugged ponies that could survive in the open when necessary, were the backbone of the logistics of both sides. The special aspects of winter warfare illustrated by this chapter may be summarized briefly: The defensive was normally superior to the offensive because the attacker had to contend with debilitating exposure to frost and wind chill, exhaustion from moving through deep snow, relative lack of concealment, longer exposure to enemy fire because rushing was not feasible, and aggravated supply problems. Any offensive had to be limited in both time and distance- and had to have prospects of securing shelter. Troops not acclimated to the harsh environment had less chance for survival. Appropriate clothes and boots were essential, and their use required supervision: long overcoats were not practical for long marches; camouflage required white outer garments. The wrong snowshoes were virtually useless. The value of trained ski troops was underscored by their scarcity on both sides. The lack of special lubricants caused weapons to freeze at critical moments. Motor vehicles also proved unreliable, and native horse sleighs provided the most dependable transport. Deep snow and ice complicated both retreat and pursuit. Where they had to cover open terrain in those operations, both sides found themselves in highly vulnerable positions. Both contestants knew--or rapidly learned--those principles of winter combat, and under ideal conditions both practiced them. That they violated those sound concepts so frequently in practice-with generally fatal consequences-- was most often because both sides were operating on a shoestring. The Allies could not substantially reinforce or re-equip their small forces because their main base was icebound, and the Soviet command simultaneously faced with much greater perils on other fronts-could not spare more resources for its Sixth Army. Can Any Army Defeat the Bitter Rusian Winter? Analysis and Lessons Introduction Selected Examples and Lessons From the Undeclared Allied-Soviet War in Northern Russia During the Winter of 1918 Pertinent Aspects of Nazi-Soviet Warfare During the Winter of 1941-42 Back to Table of Contents -- Combat Simulation Vol 2 No. 3 Back to Combat Simulation List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by Mike Vogell and Phoenix Military Simulations. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com