On the day previous to the crossing of the Dnieper I had seen the capture of Chortitza Island, the former stronghold from which the old Zaporogian Cossacks directed their raids against the rich towns all the way from Constantinople to Poland. The Bolsheviki evidently had excellent information concerning the time and the place the White troops intended to cross, for they had concentrated all their artillery at the point selected. General Koutiepoff, who commanded Wrangel's forces, had considered it likely that they would have this information, as this was the only good ford along this stretch of the Dnieper. Nevertheless, all day long, as regiment after regiment arrived, infantry, cavalry, and artillery were all massed near the appointed crossing-place. But as soon as darkness set in, came the order to move, and with much sweating and swearing the entire army, with the exception of two batteries of artillery and a machine-gun company, got under way, part going up-stream, and the greater part going down-stream, where the river was considerably wider and deeper. At daybreak, as soon as the opposite shore could be made out, Koutiepoff's artillery at the ford began a brisk fire, and this was followed by all the noise that the single machine-gun company there could produce. The Bolsheviki replied with everything they owned. About twenty minutes later, at the three places most difficult to cross on account of the width of the river and the depth of the water, General Koutiepoff's army began its crossing, the Red artillery meanwhile pouring in an overwhelming fire on the ford which was being so carefully avoided. The result was that the division at the upper crossing got across at a cost of eleven men wounded, while the entire cavalry corps and the division at the lower crossing had no casualties whatever. And within forty minutes after the beginning of the action about nine Koutiepoff enormously, and there was not a man in the army who did not understand that the reason of the small casualty list was that someone at the top had used his head; and the marching all night and the wading through icy water at the widest part of the river were soon forgotten in the enthusiasm for the leader who had so thoroughly outwitted the Bolsheviki. This is, of course, the sort of trick that will work only once, but Koutiepoff does not repeat. Time after time his resourcefulness was worth infinitely more for the morale of the Wrangel troops, than even all the prisoners and machineguns and artillery that were captured as a result of it. The small casualty list on the above occasion also very thoroughly indicated the state of morale of the Red army, for with any fight at all they could have prevented this crossing entirely since they had a great advantage in position as well as in numbers, and they could have made the attempt too costly for a second one to be undertaken. And once the crossing was made the great natural strength of the right bank of the river made the Red efforts to oust the White very costly at best. Yet, within a month, these same White troops were staggering back under the smashing blows of the Red cavalry. What is the explanation? In the case of the crossing of the Dnieper by the Whites, the Red troops though greatly outnumbering the Whites, were made up of mobilized Russian peasants, who had no interest in the fight, and as there was no Red cavalry in their rear to drive them on, they simply did not fight. In the second case, that is when the Whites were driven back, it was Boudenny's Cossack cavalry who delivered the blow-again an illustration of the singular fact that the great Bolshevist strength is so largely non-Russian. ENTER GENERAL WRANGEL 1920, General Wrangel took hold hundred Bolshevist prisoners were busy haul-NAPRe demoralized remnants of General ing Koutiepoff's artillery across the river. I talked with many of the prisoners within a few minutes of their capture, and there was no doubt whatever that their expressions of relief at being clear of the Bolsheviki were sincere. For the most part they were a ragged lot, many of them having only one boot -and others none at all. I kept on with the cavalry, and by nightfall I myself had counted more than 3,000 prisoners. In view of the importance of the operations, the very small casualty list pleased General Denikin's army, about 70,000 strong, which by the grace of God and good weather managed to get from the Caucasus to the Crimea, although without bag or baggage, guns or munitions of any sort. About the only equipment saved was a few automobiles belonging to fat generals of the quartermaster corps. I saw General Wrangel literally within a few minutes after his return to Russia. I was greatly impressed with him from the very first— his vibrant energy, his poise, his simplicity, his air of leadership. Speaking of his plans, he gave as his first aim the unification of all the anti-Bolshevist efforts, then to reorganize the army, and with the Crimea as a base to form a nucleus where all Russians who did not believe in Communism and Bolshevism could get together to work out the salvation of their country. He was very frank about his plans, but it soon became evident that he had no plan whatever except concerning the army. Regarding things political and economic he seemed to have hardly an idea-much less a programme. I really think it never occurred to him that it would be possible to attack the Bolsheviki other than with an army. He considered the Bolsheviki simply a military force that had to be put down by a stronger military force. That after all there was an idea back of the Bolshevist army, and that in order to defeat that idea he would have to supplant it with a better one; that to win in this struggle it would not do simply to try to use the people for his own purposes no matter how splendid such purposes might appear to him; that the very nature of the civil war meant that it could be won only by a leader who would champion the cause of the great masses of the people nothing of that sort had ever occurred to him. I doubt whether it can ever occur to him, splendid soldierman and patriot that he is all his hope, faith, and energy were centred on his army. So we who were straining so eagerly for a glimpse of a real idea, could only hope and wonder whether, in the clamoring throng that surrounded him, he could find the right man to work out his political and economic programme. Without this neither Denikin, Wrangel, or any army commander that may appear, can succeed. Despite the political hopelessness of the cause, Wrangel's military leadership was inspiring to watch. April and May, 1920, General Wrangel spent in further increasing the morale of his army, which, pending the organization of a commissariat, was parceled out in small groups among the various Crimean villages. The principal part of this process was to make the army work. So thoroughly was the job done, that within. about sixty days the beaten and bedraggled army, although still without equipment, was simply spoiling for a fight. Accordingly, early in June, 1920, the advance was decided upon. It was entrusted to General Slashev, the dashing and picturesque young leader of the Crimean forces of the previous winter. About a year and a half before, he had started out in the Caucasus with five congenial spirits, had gradually attracted a few dozen others to his standard, and some six months later was leading a young army held together simply by his own personality. When I first saw him, early in February of that year, I was rather startled by his very odd uniform trimmed with wide bands of fur in the old Cossack manner, and slashed with much gold lace. More startling still was the dead-white pallor of his skin and the deep-sunk black eyes, which burned with almost an unholy brilliancy. But his unending good humor no matter what the odds against him, and his amusing originality, gave him great charm. This personal charm and attractiveness were about all he had with which to hold together his wild armyyet he held it with a firm hand. Among his many idiosyncrasies, I noticed that most of his orderlies and several of his aides-de-camp were extraordinarily good-looking young women. They may have smiled pleasantly at the General once in a while, but when they were on duty at the entrance of the hut where he lived, with drawn sabre in hand, huge dagger and revolver at the waist, rifle swung across the back, and a double row of cartridges across the chest, they were businesslike indeed. Though food was pretty scarce at this time, the General always had a few casks of wine somewhere handy for himself and his friends. He was reported to have all the vices in the calendar. He drank like a fish, he took cocaine, his disciplinary methods and dispensation of justice were very much of the rough-and-ready type, but he was adored by his army, though he had little but hardship and death to offer it. A A ROUGH-AND-READY GENERAL STUDY of the source of his power and his hold on his men is the more interesting because, although he is a superlative example, he is nevertheless typical of the kind of man that comes to the front in times of great upheaval under conditions such as obtain in Russia. Much of his strength undoubtedly came from the fact that his men felt that they all were in his confidence; that they knew what they were trying to do. He made a practice of publishing very short and trenchant communiqués to his army, and in these he managed to compress an extraordinary amount of simple common-sense and wit. The result was that, instead of grumbling about the frightful conditions under which they were living, the soldiers usually spent their spare time discussing the latest stunt the General had done or was about to undertake. The day I saw him he had just hanged one of his friends who had attempted to start a mutiny. The body had been left swinging in the doorway of the railroad station, in order, as he put it, that "the lesson of such conduct" might be brought home to all men who had to duck under the body in passing. The first advance of General Wrangel's army took the form of a landing force expedition; and consisted of about ten thousand men all told, embarked in twenty-seven vessels, including tugs, ice breakers, torpedo boats, and old cruisers. Although buffeted about for some days in a very bad storm, the expedition managed to make its landing in the Tauride, just north of the Crimea, in very good order, and immediately began the advance into the interior. "SEVEN MILLION CZARS" ing and pillage, but also very strenuously enforced such orders. And still there was no enthusiasm on the part of the population; on the other hand there was no hostility, the attitude being rather one of almost complete indifference. These people, all in rags, though food was plentiful in the country, had known the worst, and apparently cared little one way or the other, as far as the Bolsheviki and anti-Bolsheviki were concerned. Despite the heat I noticed many people in overcoats, simply because that was the only covering they had. The Bolshevist prisoners, too, were in very poor condition as regards uniforms. The only exceptions were two Jews, a doctor and his assistant, who had both uniforms and boots of good quality. When I came upon them and asked the mujhik who was guarding them who they were, he remarked that they were two of the "seven million Czars" that Russia had gotten in getting rid of one, a description of the present Jewish régime in Central Russia which I have often heard among the peasants. The only moral force which ever animates ONSIDERABLY more than in the mili- the Bolshevist army is that latent feeling of the people's attitude toward this advancing army, and in the point of view of the Bolshevist prisoners, who were arriving in increasing numbers within two hours after the landing of the expedition. When Denikin's army had made its first advance the previous year, it had been received by the population with flowers and rejoicing, but as the army had no commissariat and was consequently obliged to live on the country, the requisitioning thus made necessary, and the looting. which differentiated little between friend and foe, before long turned the entire population against the Denikin forces; and this in itself was no small contribution to his eventual defeat; for the farther he advanced, the more enemies had Denikin made among the peasants. General Wrangel, determined not to repeat this blunder, not only issued strenuous orders against all loot natural defence which stirs in the soldiers somewhat, at such times as the Bolsheviki can convince them that the Poles or Wrangel intend to dismember Russia. The Bolsheviki also got some results from their propaganda that Denikin, Wrangel, and all the White forces were in reality the old landlords backed by foreign powers come to take the land from the peasants again. The White armies, with their lack of a positive cause, with little or no programme except to fight the Bolsheviki, with a few fighting men at the front and the many hangers-on in the rear, these armies, too, can have no great driving force. The solution for Russia is not primarily by arms. The Bolsheviki got control by an idea, not by an army, and they are losing control because their idea is losing its grip. The Red army will not prevent this nor any White army cause it. In his next article Commander Koehler explains why the peasants prefer the Bolsheviki WALTER H. PAGE The late American Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, whose letters from London are now being published in the WORLD'S WORK. These letters are full of striking prophecy as when in 1913, before the outbreak of the war, he wrote President Wilson: "We are in the international game-not in its Old World intrigues and burdens and sorrows and melancholy but in the inevitable way to leadership and to cheerful stery in the future; and everybody knows it but us" |