The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-05-18
WARFARE IN NORTH RUSSIA
 HAS ITS THRILLS
Associated Press Man Tells of Bush- whacking Indian Fighting That
 Army Had to Meet
By AssscIafed Press

TNN~~Nf~N~N
 Note-Throughout the campaign
 in northern Russia, where Amer
 ican soldiers have fought the bol-
 sheviki as comrades in a polyglot
 little army of British, French.
 Russians. Poles and clements of
 six other nationalities corre-
 spondent of the Associated Press,
 with headquarters at Archangel.
 has forwarded frequent despatches
 reporting the progress of the
 fighting. The correspondent now
 has sent by mail several interest
 ing articles narrating some of the
 remarkable phases of the cam
 paign and giving Illuminating
 sidelights on the adventures of
 the Americans and their allies in
 the far north Subjoined is one of
 his letters
 Archangel. March 20.-The tabloid warfare that the American doughboys and a miscellaneous collection of allies have been waging against the bolshe- wiki up in Aurora Borealis land since the landing of an allied corporal's guard at Archangel on August 3, has had most of the thrills of the big war in France, with few pet perils all of it's own.
 In the summer it was game of bush whacking, boy scouting. hide and seek and Indian fighting in the swamps, with the added attractions of airplanes. shrapnel, high explosives, trench mortars, gunboats and armored trains. Tn winter, when the thermom- eter registers around 30 degrees below zero, it is something like an Eskimo tribal feud. the Eskimos being equipped with all modern devices for putting their opponents out of the combat.
 The allied north Russian expedition ary force. whose back bone is the Yank doughboy, has been fighting during the winter against double, or triple, or quadruple odds. These Tanks and Tommies and Poilus and half 8 dozen varieties of Russians and Poles have been scattered out in thin columns op- erating over territory about as large as Germany and colder than Medicine Hat or Moose Jaw. There were seven or eight of these columns and they branched out like palm leaf fan from the handle, which is Archangel, stretching far and wide from the shores of the Arctic ocean not very far from the Siberian boundary to the scarcely less frozen country of Omega bay, west of Archangel, where they connect with the Murmansk, or Kola, force.
 Each of these columns has pene- trated inland, along railroad, high road, river or forest trail, into the ter- ritory of the bolshevila and, on most of them. Tanks have been at the far front, where the trouble is thickest And, as most of the Americans who have met John Bolshevik face to face will tell you, as a trouble maker John is active. especially when he has one outnumbered and outgunned.
 Back in the early days of summer. before they really knew very much about it, the powers that were who planned this expedition had very poor opinion of the bolsheviki's fight ing qualities. When the original Archangel expeditionary force which set sail from Murmansk, on Kola bay, this corporals guard that was to sue cessfully invade the largest county in the world consisted of 1400 men. Fifty American bluejackets from the U. S. S. Olympia who were amoug these Russian "Old Contemptibles" were the first to set their feet upon the dock at Archangel. When the ai- lies landed the bolsheviki had gone
 This original expedition of 1400 in cluded British sailors and marines, French soldiers and sailors, American sailors. Russians, Poles and a scatter ing representation of six other nation allI1eS, eleVen Tn all. IL was all ciuS- tered up with officers. There were two British generals, colonels and lieu tenant colonels galore, a horde of majors and great flocks of captains the idea being that one would need plenty of officers to direct the Rus sian forces which were eagerly await ing to spring to arms Most of these officers are quite busy at other jobs, while they are still waiting for the Russians to spring. And the Russians do not seem at all eager to do 50.
 This force split itself up into two or three columns that set out to take Vo- logda. on the railroad, and Ketlass, on the Dvina. The bolsheviki, it seems, were expecting a much larger landing force. and they scurried very fast at first In the past six months of hard fighting in the swamps and snow the entire north Russian expeditionary force hasn't gone much farther than this little expedition of "Old Contempt ibles" went in two weeks. and at timos it has been hard fight to hold what the originals took in a walkaway.
 When the bolsheviki started retreat ing they expected to make stand at Volgoda. Instead. when they found the allies were only handful, and in adequately equipped, they just turned around and fought us. They've been fighting us ever since. and probably will keep on fighting us until we get a force of somewhere nearly equal numbers