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The One Time American Troops Fought Russians Was at the End of World War I--and They Lost
David Fahrenthold Retweeted:“This is really the most godforsaken hole on Earth.” The story of the only time U.S. troops fought Russians.
It didn’t end well.
https://on.wsj.com/2OCgjQO via @WSJ @MPhillipsWSJ
Link to tweet
Michael Phillips Retweeted:
How an American unit, stuck in Russia after World War I ended, mutinied. Amazing tale from @MPhillipsWSJ with terrific historical photos and video https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-one-time-american-troops-fought-russians-was-at-the-end-of-world-war-iand-they-lost-1541772001 …
Link to tweet
Here's the World War I story you won't read elsewhere: How Michigan conscripts mutinied when they were ordered to fight Russians after the Great War was supposed to be over. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-one-time-american-troops-fought-russians-was-at-the-end-of-world-war-iand-they-lost-1541772001 … via @WSJ
Link to tweet
WORLD
The One Time American Troops Fought Russians Was at the End of World War I—and They Lost
Thousands of U.S. soldiers sent to guard military storehouses from the Germans were instead ordered to wage war on the Bolsheviks
By Michael M. Phillips
https://twitter.com/MPhillipsWSJ
Michael.Phillips@wsj.com
Nov. 9, 2018 9:00 a.m. ET
In late February 1919, the soldiers of Company B reached the breaking point, when griping gave way to mutiny. ... The Americans had expected to face Germans on the Western Front. Yet three months after the Nov. 11 armistice ended the Great War, they were instead fighting Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia’s frigid European north. ... Dozens of their fellow troops had succumbed to influenza on the sea voyage to the Russian port of Archangel. Others had been killed in combat by an enemy armed with a local’s knowledge of trails and villages. Wounded Americans had frozen to death awaiting rescue in snowy forests.
Over the fall and winter, U.S. troops felt misled by their government, deceived by their officers, abused by their allies and outgunned by their enemy, fighting in a war that was already over. ... Many Americans demonstrated bravery and fortitude in the frozen-mud swamps and pine forests around Archangel. Others gave into the temptations of rebellion.
The discontent blistered to the surface on Company B’s ration day, when the men in line realized the Army wasn’t issuing enough food to hold them until the next delivery. “Hey, fellows, let’s stop all the God damn talk and do something,” Pvt. Bill Henkelman told the other soldiers. ... Pvt. Henkelman and three others drafted an ultimatum addressed to the regiment commander. If not withdrawn from the front by March 15, 1919, the soldiers wrote, “we positively refuse to advance” against the enemy.
....
A special train carried [the bodies of 86 Americans dug up in 1929] to Detroit, where they lay in state, many of them until Memorial Day 1930. Those were then interred in Troy, Mich., adjacent to a white marble statue of a polar bear. A dozen more bodies were returned in 1934, leaving twenty-some soldiers still missing.
Capt. Joel Moore, who had commanded Company M, wrote a poem about men lost in a forgotten corner of the Great War.
In Russia’s fields no poppies grow
There are no crosses row on row
To mark the places where they lie,
No larks so gayly singing fly
As in the fields of Flanders
Read Endnotes
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com
The One Time American Troops Fought Russians Was at the End of World War I—and They Lost
Thousands of U.S. soldiers sent to guard military storehouses from the Germans were instead ordered to wage war on the Bolsheviks
By Michael M. Phillips
https://twitter.com/MPhillipsWSJ
Michael.Phillips@wsj.com
Nov. 9, 2018 9:00 a.m. ET
In late February 1919, the soldiers of Company B reached the breaking point, when griping gave way to mutiny. ... The Americans had expected to face Germans on the Western Front. Yet three months after the Nov. 11 armistice ended the Great War, they were instead fighting Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia’s frigid European north. ... Dozens of their fellow troops had succumbed to influenza on the sea voyage to the Russian port of Archangel. Others had been killed in combat by an enemy armed with a local’s knowledge of trails and villages. Wounded Americans had frozen to death awaiting rescue in snowy forests.
Over the fall and winter, U.S. troops felt misled by their government, deceived by their officers, abused by their allies and outgunned by their enemy, fighting in a war that was already over. ... Many Americans demonstrated bravery and fortitude in the frozen-mud swamps and pine forests around Archangel. Others gave into the temptations of rebellion.
The discontent blistered to the surface on Company B’s ration day, when the men in line realized the Army wasn’t issuing enough food to hold them until the next delivery. “Hey, fellows, let’s stop all the God damn talk and do something,” Pvt. Bill Henkelman told the other soldiers. ... Pvt. Henkelman and three others drafted an ultimatum addressed to the regiment commander. If not withdrawn from the front by March 15, 1919, the soldiers wrote, “we positively refuse to advance” against the enemy.
....
A special train carried [the bodies of 86 Americans dug up in 1929] to Detroit, where they lay in state, many of them until Memorial Day 1930. Those were then interred in Troy, Mich., adjacent to a white marble statue of a polar bear. A dozen more bodies were returned in 1934, leaving twenty-some soldiers still missing.
Capt. Joel Moore, who had commanded Company M, wrote a poem about men lost in a forgotten corner of the Great War.
In Russia’s fields no poppies grow
There are no crosses row on row
To mark the places where they lie,
No larks so gayly singing fly
As in the fields of Flanders
Read Endnotes
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com
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