ANZACs in Arkhangel Page 10

  To inculcate some British fair play between the White Russian officers and their men, Latchford and his comrades introduced them to football. The officers insisted on playing in full uniform, though they removed their spurs and swords. On the field the soldiers’ team snapped to attention whenever an officer competed for the ball, so the experiment was less than a complete success.

  Latchford had been keen to stay longer, but was withdrawn in October 1919 and returned to Australia. His name lives on in Latchford Barracks, the Army Apprentices’ School at Bonegilla, Victoria.

  The Royal Australian Navy also saw service in Russia in 1918 and 1919. On the Black Sea four Australian warships, HMAS Swan, Yarra, Torrens and Parramatta, patrolled the Georgian coast and carried mail to the Crimea.

  The navy’s most important assignment came in December 1918 when HMAS Swan and the French destroyer Bisson carried a delegation to south-east Russia. No larger ships could be used because the strait into the Sea of Azov was extremely shallow and all the beacons and navigation lights had been destroyed. The Don Cossacks were arguing over the terms of their incorporation into General Denikin’s White Army and the delegation were assigned to report on the Cossacks’ strength and the general situation. The commander of the Swan, Arthur Bond, was a Royal Navy officer who had been lent to Australia for the duration of the war. He proved a shrewd observer.

  The two ships went first to Kerch where their arrival was greeted with public jubilation and construed as evidence of Allied support. The local leaders gave the visitors the red carpet treatment while trying to wheedle from them promises of military aid they weren’t authorised to make. The ships then sailed for Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, arriving in the middle of a snowstorm.

  Bond12 had apparently been warned not to involve himself too closely with General Krasnov, the ataman of the Don Cossacks, but on arriving at Mariupol, he and the others were immediately whisked away by Krasnov’s men. Besides Bond, the group included three Australian officers13 and six ratings, plus a similar number of French. The party were escorted overland on a tour which took them to Taganrog, Rostov-on-Don and Novocherkassk.

  In December 1918 the crew of HMAS Swan enjoyed red carpet treatment in South Russia. Cossack General Krasnov and his wife are at left outside the cathedral in Novocherkassk, the capital of the self-styled ‘Don Republic’. Arthur Bond, the Swan’s commander, is at left centre wearing a sword; engineer George Bloomfield stands behind him. The other man with a sword is probably Lieutenant John Gordon Boyd of the Royal Australian Naval Reserve. (AWM EN0255)

  At Novocherkassk Bond was treated royally and given a long audience with the wily Krasnov. The ataman vastly exaggerated the Cossack fighting strength and presented Bond with a wish-list which included 50,000 pairs of boots, 20,000 rifles, 70,000 revolvers, 200 machine guns, 24 tanks and assorted saddles and swords!

  At a huge official banquet Bond replied warily to ‘speech after speech’ pleading for Allied support. The visitors were taken on various tours of inspection designed to impress them, but Bond could see the Don Cossacks were in a bad way. Their armament factory had only a tenth of its workforce and no explosive to fill the shells and cartridges, while most other industry was virtually at a standstill. A visit to the front line had to be cut short due to a breakthrough by Bolshevik forces.

  Krasnov had been anxious to flatter the visitors and on their departure he presented each with a medal, the ratings included. Bond forwarded his report to the Foreign Office and on 3 January 1919 the Australian ships sailed for Britain and ultimately home. The report was viewed as ‘very creditable to Commander Bond’ but seems merely to have confirmed official policy in favour of Denikin, who already enjoyed the uncritical ear of the British.14

  Denikin had asked for money, munitions, a training mission and diplomatic recognition and the British had given him the lot. Lavish supplies started arriving in April 1919 from leftover British war dumps in the Middle East. The tanks, guns, ammunition, uniforms, transport and engineering equipment were enough to equip a quarter of a million men but most of it was squandered through bungling and corruption. Just about anything from British Army stores was available on the black market: engine anti-freeze was served in hotel bars in place of vodka and the prostitutes of Novorossisk plied their trade in British nurses’ uniforms.

  Denikin’s army collapsed in January 1920 in scenes of inconceivable chaos and demoralisation.15 As the Red Army closed in, refugee trains banked up outside Novorossisk in a queue 10 kilometres long. It was midwinter, typhus raged in the city and thousands trampled each other in a frantic scramble to reach the British fleet. At the dockside British troops held back the flood of frantic refugees while others, to prevent war material falling into Bolshevik hands, used tanks to crush brand-new aircraft to splinters and pitched guns into a harbour already bobbing with debris and the bloated bodies of dead horses.

  Surviving all this was a real Australian stray, Paul Kirvalidze, a 27-year-old grocer from Sydney.16 Kirvalidze had been born in Russian Georgia and had signed on for the AIF in 1915. He was promoted to sergeant, wounded in France and caught syphilis. He left the AIF in May 1919 to join the North Russia Relief Force, but ended up in South Russia instead as an interpreter with the Middlesex Regiment.

  What role he played in the debacle we don’t know, but after the British left he stayed on in Russia to work for an American Relief Mission during the 1920 famine. He later ran a business in Russia until, in August 1923, he was accused of being a British spy and sentenced to death by the Soviet secret police. Representations by the British saved his life and he was deported to Constantinople.

  When Kirvalidze finally succeeded in getting back to Australia, he applied to be naturalised. Not only was he refused, but the passport the British had issued to him in Turkey was confiscated and never returned to him. So much for almost four years of service in the AIF.

  Kirvalidze settled in Queensland and worked as a wharf labourer in Mackay. Well liked, he developed strong contacts in the Labor Party and the union movement. Letters of support from members of parliament and other notables eventually helped him gain Australian citizenship in 1932.

  8

  THE AUSSIES

  ARRIVE

  JUNE 1919

  THE motley group of the preceding chapter was the antithesis of the North Russia Relief Force. While the strays found themselves in exotic places from the exigencies of war, the Aussies of the Relief Force landed in North Russia entirely of their own volition. And whereas a unit such as Dunsterforce was improvised and short of both manpower and resources, there was nothing makeshift about the Relief Force. It was eight thousand strong, well organised and well equipped.

  It was divided into two brigades, each of four thousand men. The first was commanded by Brigadier General George Grogan, a fiery Englishman who had won the VC in France inspiring his men from horseback until his horse was shot from under him.

  The second brigade, of which the Australians formed part, was commanded by Brigadier General Lionel Sadleir-Jackson, a dashing professional soldier of forty-three. Originally a cavalryman, he had fought in the Boer War and more recently in France. In his spare time he had co-authored a book on playing polo. Sadleir-Jackson was something of a fop, with long hair and a moustache he curled with hot tongs. He had the looks and mannerisms of a stage colonel and, though the Australians rubbished his ‘dandified ways’ among themselves, they actually didn’t mind him.1

  The Aussies greatly liked their battalion commander, Colonel Charles Davies, a fellow Australian. As a boy, Davies had run away from home in Sydney and worked his passage to England at a shilling a day. There he had joined the British Army and won a commission during the Boer War. Davies had served sixteen of his thirty-nine years in the British Army but had also spent two years as an instructor at Duntroon. He had commanded the 32nd Battalion of the AIF in France and the Diggers knew he understood the character and ways of Australian soldiers.2

  Not all observers were as approving
. Captain EM Allfrey, a rather conventional British officer, deplored the slack discipline in the 45th Battalion, especially the constant swearing. He wrote in his diary: ‘I think the chief trouble is that this battalion is run largely on Australian lines’. He was especially scathing about D Company, of which the Aussies formed part. He thought it contained fifty good men and ‘a hundred of the worst blackguards’. He didn’t say whether the Australians added to either category.3

  The arrival of the North Russia Relief Force. Arkhangel’s dignitaries greeted the British with flowery speeches and the traditional welcome gifts of bread and salt. Middle-class Russian civilians crowded the rooftops, thinking their problems were over. (GAOPDF)

  Davies and Sadleir-Jackson sailed from Newcastle on 28 May with the first detachment of the brigade. Their ship was the Porto, a former German liner seized by the Portuguese in 1916. She was originally called the Prinz and the Crown Prince of Germany had once made a tour of the world aboard her. Sadleir-Jackson spent the voyage in the royal staterooms drinking whisky and soda; for the ranks the ship was dry.

  The first of the Australian troops followed on 9 June. They numbered no more than two dozen and it isn’t clear how they came to be detached from the main contingent, which followed a month later. One possibility is that a few particularly tough characters were deliberately separated out. Certainly their platoon sergeant (an Australian, in accordance with the promise that the Diggers would serve under their own NCOs) was a hard case. He was an Irish-born Aussie, William John Robinson. A former Fremantle policeman, Robinson had twice been wounded and had spent the last eighteen months of the war as a prisoner of the Germans. For whatever reason, chance separated him and this first group of Australians from their fellows.

  With a thousand British troops, the Aussies sailed aboard the Steigerwald, another German ship, this time one which had been ceded by Germany under the terms of the Armistice.4 They sailed from Leith, the port of Edinburgh, to a big send-off: ships’ sirens, a speech by the mayor and brass bands playing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Strangely, the ship flew the proposed flag of the League of Nations even though the League was not formally established till the following year and had nothing whatever to do with the Relief Force.5

  One British airman on the Steigerwald noticed the presence of the Australians. He described them as a ‘large contingent’, though probably they were just rowdy:

  One of the men, an Australian, is a real tough guy and deserves to join the party. Apparently he volunteered for this trip but for some reason was not accepted, so he came to see his pals off. Just as the ship was leaving the quayside this man took a swift run and made a mighty leap on board, his comrades waiting for him with open arms. The effort was cheered to the echo for several minutes.6

  The feat proved the man to be the right type to fight Bolsheviks. He was allowed to stay on board and his name was added to the roll. In fact, there was ample time to send him back for, as soon as the tugs had pulled the Steigerwald from the quayside, she came to a stop. Engine trouble—thought to be sabotage by the Germans—kept her at anchor in the harbour for the next two days.

  When the engines were finally repaired, the Steigerwald sailed. She steamed north and the days lengthened. Soon there was no proper night, just a thick, eerie mist which sometimes descended. The men read the fifty-page booklet on Bolshevik atrocities. Some threw wooden packing cases overboard for target practice with the Lewis guns.

  Among the Aussies were the two South Australians, Attiwill and Sullivan. The pair went ashore at Murmansk for a couple of hours when the ship briefly called in there. They found the town hot and dusty and the only noteworthy incident was being cheated by the ‘Chinaman’ who ran the biggest trade store.7 The Steigerwald then set sail on the final leg of the journey. She rounded the Kola Peninsula and entered the glittering pack ice of the White Sea, where the glare was so bright it hurt the men’s eyes.

  Two days later the ship was approaching Arkhangel. The city had about 15 kilometres of docks and, from the sea, it seemed to be nothing but waterfront. ‘Hulks of boats and masts and cordage and docks and warehouses in the front, with muddy streets.’8 Dotting the skyline were the onion domes of churches and the occasional smoke stack.

  When the Steigerwald tied up, the troops disembarked at once. Seven hundred Americans promptly boarded, the fourth of five contingents to leave. The Americans took with them a dozen or so war brides and an assortment of Russian orphan lads they’d adopted as mascots. It was 20 June 1919. The next day was the summer solstice when the sun dipped below the horizon for just three minutes.

  Arkhangel presented itself as streets of grey, weathered, timber buildings, interspersed with trees. The roads were terrible, with ruts 2 feet deep and the side streets overgrown with grass. Attiwill describes the city as a jumble of staff officers, sledges, Ford cars, soldiers, sailors and strangely dressed women.9 The inhabitants, though, went about with ‘a hunted expression’ and displayed no enthusiasm at their arrival. Attiwill thought them indifferent to both Reds and British.

  The newly landed men had been in Arkhangel for only five hours when urgent orders were received for a detachment to go upriver. The Aussies wanted to be first in the field and volunteered. Colonel Davies, it seems, was there to oblige them, commenting that it was ‘bad luck for Trotsky’ they had arrived on the scene. They promptly boarded a paddle-steamer for Pinega. Attiwill wrote: ‘That night we shoved off for the interior and we never saw the 200 [sic] other Australians until we returned to England’.10

  The Dvina* is a mighty river. It forms where two other large rivers, the Yug and the Sukhona, meet near the city of Kotlas. The entire river system is navigable for over a thousand kilometres and the Dvina itself is a kilometre or two wide over its whole course. For much of its length the forest grows to the river’s edge; at some places there are cliffs 20 metres high. Each year shoals form, banks erode and the navigation channels change. Even today the river is spanned only by the bridges at Arkhangel.

  In 1919 the Dvina was crowded with river traffic. During the summer months steam-tugs towed rafts of timber downstream to the sawmills of Arkhangel. The logs formed enormous islands 300 metres long, sometimes with family houses on them, complete with children playing and dogs and chickens running about.

  Arkhangel was, and still is, the centre of a flourishing timber industry. Before World War I British interests dominated the trade and owned most of the mills. Indeed, at the time Britain imported more timber from Russia than from the rest of the world combined.11 The riverbanks at Arkhangel were dotted with timber mills but, as the foreign troops chugged past, the workers, mainly women, stonily ignored them.

  Pinega, the men’s destination, was an old trading village with a population of about three thousand. It stood on the Pinega River, a tributary of the Dvina, and the riverboat made its way upstream towards it at walking pace. Occasional villages and cleared fields came into view, then slowly receded. Mostly, though, the Dvina was lined by seemingly endless tracts of conifers. At the junction with the Pinega River, the boat turned north-east.

  Pinega village itself had prospered from its trade in furs and timber and was a more progressive place than most in Arkhangel province. A local millionaire trader had endowed it with a technical high school and it was relatively free of Bolshevik influence.

  Only a month earlier, the Russian garrison had mutinied and killed two officers, but the cause had been financial not political. Through administrative incompetence the men had not been paid and, when the paymaster did turn up, he brought nothing smaller than thousand-rouble notes. General Ironside arranged lower denominations to be urgently sent in and the ‘trouble at Pinega was soon settled’.12 His memoir fails to mention that to restore discipline he had fifteen men shot.13

  Three members of the ‘Australian Section’ of the Relief Force. Some Britons, New Zealanders, Canadians and South Africans were also issued with Australian uniform, but these three look wholesome enough to be the genuine article. The man on
the left is probably Charles ‘Chilla’ Hill of Sydney. (AWM 04697)

  When the Australians reached Pinega there was a long delay at the landing stage while transport was arranged.14 Eventually the men’s baggage and supplies were loaded onto droshkies, small four-wheeled Russian wagons. Then a number of women and girls were rounded up to drive the droshkies to the troops’ headquarters at the former school. There was said to be trouble brewing upstream and the men’s task was to maintain order in Pinega and quell any riots—of which there were none.

  In fact, the Aussies found the Russian villagers quite friendly. To the men’s surprise there was a YMCA set up by the Americans and still in operation. The Russian-American trader who ran it gave them coffee and biscuits free of charge. Though the Aussies were spoiling for action, there were no Bolos in sight, nor mutinous Russians. So the men spent five uneventful days smoking, fishing and lounging about. One night they even attended a dance, their first and last in Russia. Then they reboarded their paddle-steamer and headed downstream.

  At the confluence with the Dvina, the group transferred to a barge and two days later rejoined the main party from the Steigerwald at Osinova. This was a military encampment on the east bank of the river, directly opposite the smallish town of Bereznik on the west.

  Osinova camp on the Dvina. The Aussies were drilled here to get them fighting fit. They slept in conical British ‘bell’ tents which held eight men and whose basic design hadn’t changed since the Napoleonic wars. An Australian flag is just visible flying outside one tent (centre, mid-ground). (IWM Q 016219)

  The camp stood on a very large clearing and was the base for about four thousand troops. Over the winter the Americans had built lines of huts at Osinova, but most of the new arrivals camped under canvas. The Australians were astonished at the abundance of supplies: shells, bombs, heavy planks for building wharves, drums of fuel, food stores, spare parts, animal fodder. Unlike the troops who had spent the winter in Russia, those of the Relief Force were well equipped, with no expense spared.