CIVIL WAR, WORLD WAR, AND POLAR BEARS: THE AMERICAN NORTH

RUSSIAN EXPEDITION
by

MARK COMFORT

THESIS

Submitted to the Graduate School

of Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts

2010

MAJOR: HISTORY

Approved by:

Advisor Date
 UMI Number: 1491814

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.

UMI 1491814
Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest LLC
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346
 DEDICATION

Dedicated to all who remember what others have forgotten.

ii
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are many people I need to thank and acknowledge for this work. First I must thank my

dedicated and determined editors Bonnie Wessler and Stacey Rottiers, for poring through my

work to make it conform to the English language. Next I must thank the Canadian National

Archives staff for their exceptional help and support of this document, as well as Marc and Renee

Langis for their hospitality. I must also thank the Bentley Historical Library, and in particular the

Polar Bear Organization, both of which have never met me, and yet they have been vital to the

production of this work. Lastly I must thank a community of friends too lengthy to name, who

have supported me through encouragement, humor (along with a remarkable level of tolerance)

and have shown me that interest in this topic is real, and can show up in some of the most

unlikely places.

iii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii

Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................... iii

Chapter 1 “Introduction” ................................................................................................................ 1

Background and World War I.................................................................................................... 1

The Civil War........................................................................................................................... 10

Allied Intervention................................................................................................................... 14

Primary Sources...................................................................................................................... 20

Historiography........................................................................................................................ 25

Chapter 2 “The Polar Bears”......................................................................................................... 32

The 339th….............................................................................................................................. 32

Russia and Archangel.............................................................................................................. 34

Chapter 3 “A Michigan Polar Bear in Archangel”......................................................................... 40

What did the Polar Bears know?............................................................................................. 40

Chapter 4 “Conclusion”................................................................................................................. 51

Appendix: Endnotes....................................................................................................................... 54

References...................................................................................................................................... 61

Abstract......................................................................................................................................... 63

Autobiographical Statement.......................................................................................................... 65

iv
 1

Chapter 1. Introduction

Section 1: Background and World War I

Sergeant Robert Granville was not a front line soldier. He had trained at Camp Custer for months

to become a record keeper for the 310th hospital group. He filed papers and notarized documents

for the hospital corps. On the eighth of January 1919 he looked out of his office window to the

street below to see reindeer pulling a sled down a frozen ice river which now served as a

highway. Later, he went down to watch a film strip with his friends at the local Red Cross, and

saw a young Russian woman bundled up against the cold who somehow reminded him of his

niece, Nora. Nora Lived in St. Louis, so it would take some time for his letter to reach her from

Archangel, Russia, miles north of the arctic circle, on the other side of the world from St Louis

and thousands of miles away from where the rest of the American Expeditionary Force had been

sent. While the vast majority of the Americans in the First World War were shipped to France to

fight the Germans, Sargent Granville and his companions were shipped to one of the coldest

areas of the world, to fight the fledgling power of Bolshevik controlled Russia. So cold was it

that Sargent Granville and his compatriots in North Russia were all given the name 'The Polar

Bear Expedition'. But why was this expedition necessary? How did it come about that Sargent

Granville filed records in Archangel, and his comrades fought and died in the remote land of

North Russia, when the largest war the world had ever seen had been fought (and finished)

thousands of miles away? The answer lies with the war that controlled the fate of the world, the

First World War.1

In 1914, the greatest war the world had ever known broke out. Beginning with Austro-Hungary's

invasion of Serbia, the world was propelled forward by a series of secret treaties and defensive

pacts until it seemed the entire world was at war, and thus the Great War would later earn its
 2

name as the First World War, the first war of truly global proportions. After a convoluted mess of

incidents stemming from a suspicious European policy toward Germany, the growing power of

Europe, and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Europe was thrust into the most

violent conflict known to that point, leaving millions dead and destroying an entire generation of

Europe's young men. With the colonization of much of the world by European powers, the whole

world was propelled into this bloody battle. The Allies: France, Britain, and Russia, had

effectively surrounded Germany and concentrated on defeating the superior German war machine

by splitting its power into two fronts, East and West, and starving it of its offshore resources

though the British navy's blockade of Germany. It was a long, grueling, bloody strategy that

began to collapse when the weakest of the Allies, Russia, fell into civil strife, with the Tsar being

forced out and a new government being put in place. Worse, when the new government continued

to fight the Germans, the war weary and starving people of Russia once again rose up, destroying

the Provisional Government and replacing it with the Bolshevik government of Russia, who

quickly pulled out of the war with Germany entirely with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March

1918. This was a nightmare scenario for the Allied commanders, with the eastern front no longer

active thousands of German and Austrian troops would be pressing into the western front where

Allied forces were already stretched to their very last man. Desperate to keep some semblance of

an eastern front in operation, the Allies conceived a truly extreme measure: direct military

intervention in Russia. With Russia out of the war, the Allies landed troops from Archangel in the

northwest to Vladivostok in the farthest east of Russia in order to keep the war on the eastern

front going. The French and British quickly began to pressure the newest ally, the United States,

who had entered the war in 1917, to contribute to intervention efforts in Russia. Despite serious

misgivings about the political situation, President Woodrow Wilson agreed to direct military
 3

intervention. A section of the 85th American Army division was reassigned to the task of guarding

Allied war supplies from the Bolsheviks in North Russia, creating the American North Russian

Expeditionary Force (ANREF). This group, known as the Polar Bear Expedition, was more than

five thousand soldiers strong, and the vast majority of those soldiers were significantly educated

men from Michigan, including engineers, doctors, and artillery officers. The mission of the

ANREF was to sail to Archangel and assist in protecting Allied war material from the Bolsheviks

by preventing the seizure of Archangel, the prominent port in the area. The men of the Polar Bear

Expedition enlisted to fight the Central Powers in France and instead were shipped to North

Russia to fight the Bolsheviks, and though the Expedition was created and undertaken as an

aspect of America's participation in World War One many Polar Bears found it difficult to link

their struggle in North Russia to that of their comrades in France, instead believing a story

created by both their friends and enemies, that they were part of the great ideological war

between socialism and democracy. This understanding directly clashed with the reality of their

mission, Allied intervention was a direct result of the Great War and the Allies, stretched to their

very last men in France did not have the luxury of continuing Allied intervention because they

had a political stake in Russia's future, not when their own was so uncertain. To understand who

the Polar Bears were, and why more than five thousand young American soldiers, mostly from

Michigan and the Detroit area, spent months in subarctic conditions in one of the most frigid

regions of the world, one must first examine the strategy of Allied Intervention in detail.

The British were the first and foremost supporters of Allied intervention in Russia. Desperate to

keep both the blockade of Germany secure and the eastern front open, the British pushed the

Allied war council strongly toward all manner of Allied intervention, from covertly funding

armies in the Ukraine to sending troops to Archangel as well as plotting many espionage actions
 4

ranging from hostile takeovers of cites to scuttling navies.2 Where the British went, so too did

their numerous colonies from around the world. British participation in the intervention in Russia

brought not only British troops to Russia (and arguably much of the rest of the Allies as well) but

also troops from South Africa, Australia and even New Zealand.3 In the early twentieth century,

the British Empire was at its height, spanning the entire globe, thus when the British sent troops

to Archangel, they brought with them soldiers from every corner of their empire.

The French followed closely behind their primary allies in the greatest war in history, pushing for

intervention as a means of keeping the eastern front alive and thousands of Central Power troops

out of France. The French sent thousands of troops to Archangel along with the British, troops

that were desperately needed in the battlefields of the western front.4 This decision by the French

command emphasizes the role intervention in Russia would have on the First World War, as

clearly the French, with much of their territory in German hands and fighting less than a hundred

miles from Paris, did not have troops to spend furthering anti-Bolshevik and anti-communist

political leanings thousands of miles away from the front line.

Both the French and the British were also deeply concerned with a third player, an army without

a nation that served as the focus for much of the Allied intervention, The Czech Legion. The

Czech Legion had served Tsarist Russia as a unit of Czech and Slovak volunteers and prisoners

of war put to use by fighting the Central Powers.5 Without any standing orders from the

government, but still strong, experienced, and motivated to fight the Germans, The Czech Legion

was a prize so valuable to the Allied powers that a plan was formed to bring the Legion from its

base at the eastern front by rail all the way to Vladivostok on Russia's Pacific coast via the trans-

Siberian rail line.6 Distrustful of a large foreign army with strong ties to the Tsarist government

moving through the middle of Bolshevik territory, the Bolsheviks treated the Czech Legion with
 5

a great deal of hesitancy and suspicion, constantly stopping the trains to disarm the soldiers, until

the Czechs and Slovaks eventually fought back and spent the rest of the war engaged with the

Bolsheviks.7 The Czech Legion was the prize the British and French sought through much of the

Allied intervention, and while they never reached the western front, the Czech Legion was one of

the strongest players in the Allied intervention in Russia, and a direct result of the war, rather

than a desire of the Allies to topple the Bolshevik government.

Also straddling the theaters of eastern and western areas of Allied intervention, the Canadian

government sent troops both to Archangel and Vladivostok as part of joint operations with their

extremely close allies, the British. Canadian soldiers were taken directly from the western front,

as well as from relieved divisions at rest, and sent out to secure war supplies in the two largest

ports in Russia.8 As with the French, Canadian soldiers being pulled directly from the lines in

France points to the Allies' belief that the intervention was a vital aspect of the war effort.

Sharing Allied intervention in Vladivostok with the Canadians were also the Japanese, who

contributed the majority of the troops and supplies to Allied efforts in Siberia and Pacific coastal

Russia, with troops numbering in the tens of thousands.9 Despite Japan's great distance from their

Central Power enemies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, it had entered into the war on the side of

the Allies as early as 1914, and had spent much of the war picking off German colonies that were

essentially stranded by the British naval blockade of Germany.10 Although Japanese efforts in the

war were much more aggressive and aimed at acquiring territory than their French and British

allies in Europe, the Japanese were no less involved in the war and had an obligation to aid their

European allies in it's efforts in Russia. Beyond this obligation, the Japanese already had a history

of conflict with Russia, dating back to the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, where the Japanese

defeated the Russians soundly, much to the astonishment of the western world.11 Japanese efforts
 6

were vast and varied, ranging from covert funding of Russian White Army forces and Russian

bandits to direct troop involvement in Vladivostok and occupation of eastern Russian rail lines.

The Japanese also brought along a partner into Allied intervention in eastern Russia: China.12

While a small participant in Allied Intervention compared to the vast plans and networks of the

British, French, and Japanese, the Chinese were still active participants in Allied intervention in

Russia. The Chinese had declared war on the Central Powers in 1917, and were in an ideal

position to participate in Allied intervention in Russia.13 The Chinese were pressured into action

by a superior Japanese force, one which had defeated them as well in the earlier Sino-Japanese

war of 1895. The Chinese primarily aided the Japanese by occupying large stretches of the Trans-

Siberian rail lines.14 Beyond Japanese pressure, China at this point in history was dominated by

western powers such as Britain, and had very little will of its own when it came to international

policy. Riding the wave of Allied intervention, the Chinese fought in Russia due to pressure from

the major Allied powers, as well as the United States and Japan.

The United States came into this whirlwind of Allied intervention comparatively late. Its allies

fought the Great War for years before its arrival. Despite sketchy and predominantly anti-

interventionist writings by Wilson, the Allies (especially Japan and Britain) were able to convince

the United States to add their own military power, which now was a part of the war effort, to

Allied intervention efforts in Russia as well. Once Wilson buckled to the pressures of the allies,

American troops soon landed in Archangel, and stayed there for the better part of a year, and thus

the Polar Bear Expedition was born.

It is true that there were efforts made by some allies, particularly the Americans, to support anti-

Bolshevik forces directly, even before the Allied intervention really took hold. The United States

was, as early as the spring of 1917, covertly funding groups of anti-Bolshevik forces in south
 7

Russia through British intermediaries, despite President Woodrow Wilson's stated intent of not

directly interfering in Russian affairs.15 What is important to keep in mind, however, is that these

forces, should they have won their civil war, would likely have become the backbone of a new

Russian army, one that would keep the eastern front open for the Allies if they could secure

victory against the Bolsheviks quickly enough. Although the United States may have funded

these forces out of a real belief that they were more suitable for a democratic government in

Russia, the British certainly had a more vested interest in a Russian army keeping the eastern

front open than seeing a democratic government take control of Russia instead of a socialist one.

It was not until after it became clear the Bolsheviks were not going to cooperate and intended to

shut down the eastern front that the British and other allies truly began to move against them.

In addition to the Polar Bears in Archangel and Murmansk, American troops under Major-

General William Graves also landed in Vladivostok, along with their Japanese allies.16 While

American intervention in eastern Russia was on a much smaller scale than the Polar Bear

Expedition in northern Russia, it was still a vital part of the eastern intervention efforts and was

actually much more in line with United States foreign policy, as the United States had recently

begun expanding in the Pacific with the acquisition of the Philippines and Hawaii.17 The more

traditional nature of the United States' involvement in eastern Russia during the intervention

makes the American troops in Archangel and Murmansk all the more exceptional as agents of

American foreign policy.

Adding to the mad swirl of activity from nations all across the globe, perhaps the most

astonishing thing about intervention in the Russian Civil War was that not all of it was Allied.

The Central Powers also had their own reasons to intervene in the Russian Civil War, especially

early on, before the Bolsheviks had promised to end the war with Germany. One main reason was
 8

that the Provisional Government of Russia had continued to fight against the Germans, despite

the fall of the Tsar, and thus the Central Power commanders had no reason to believe the switch

to a communist form of government would close the eastern front. Secondly, the Germans were

not facing the same horrendous losses in the east as they were in the west, and were in fact

beginning to acquire huge stretches of the Ukraine, which they desperately needed to help stave

off the starvation that was gripping their population due to the British blockade.18 Lastly, the

German and Austrian governments themselves were not great supporters of international

communism, and did not see political allies in the Bolsheviks, as the Bolsheviks spoke openly

and often that the German people, as well as the rest of Europe, would rise up in Marx's great

proletariat revolution. Shortly after the fall of the Provisional Government German troops

continued their march east, first in aid of anti-Bolshevik forces in the Finnish Civil War, and then

in support of the Rada, a nationalist Ukrainian group, who they supported with direct military

might during their invasion of the Ukraine.19 It was these southern forces in the Ukraine and

central Russia that would prove to be the greatest threat to the Bolsheviks, a threat considerably

greater than Archangel's own northern White governmental army that the British supported.

German intervention in the civil war was also the first to end, however, as the Bolsheviks

speedily took Russia out of the war and signed the treaty of Brest-Litovsk causing the end of

German intervention, but simultaneously helping to propel the bulk of Allied intervention.

There was yet one more major player in the Allied intervention forces which is often overlooked,

the friendly 'White' Russians themselves. White Russian forces were engaged heavily in their

civil war with the Bolsheviks for a variety of different reasons, there was no single White

Russian agenda. Some were monarchists looking to restore the Tsar, many more were supporters

of Kerensky and the Provisional Government. Others, like the government in Archangel, merely
 9

wished to create their own government with its own place on the Democratic-Socialist scale. Still

others fought for complete anarchy, or sought only to defend their homes from Bolshevik war

communism or White Russian 'foraging'.20 There was no single impetus driving the White

Russians, but they were essential to the Allied operations in Russia. White Russian forces made

up the majority of the troops in Archangel and Murmansk, while White Russian troops were

trained by the French in the Ukraine to fight the Germans there and keep the eastern front alive.

White Russians also fought alongside Japanese, Chinese, Canadian, and American forces to

make the Siberian rail lines safe for the Czech Legion's arrival, and White Russian sailors and

officers participated in British efforts to scuttle the Russian Baltic fleet.21 Many historians have

written about Allied intervention in Russia with little mention of the White Russian allies, an

oversight that damages any understanding of these events. The Russian allies of the Allied forces

were vital to the efforts of Allied intervention in Russia, and any study of the intervention must

include the Russian forces, both White and non-affiliated, lest it paint the very inaccurate picture

that the Allies were making war with the Bolsheviks with their own troops by themselves, which

is the skewed and inaccurate view of many works on the intervention.

What is important to remember about the Allied intervention in Russia is that it was, at least in

the beginning, anti-German, not anti-Bolshevik. The Allies did not particularly mind the change

in government in Russia from the Tsarist to the Provisional Government under Alexander

Kerensky. In fact, Wilson saw the revolution as excellent progress.22 The Provisional

Government's stated intent to keep Russia in the war was a relief to the Allies in that the war

could continue as it had been, and the eastern front would remain open. It was not until the

Bolsheviks took power and promised to take the Russians out of the war that the Allies fully

mobilized their intervention. The Allies had no particular love for the Romanov dynasty or the
 10

Tsarist government in Russia. What mattered to them was Russia's armies, its navies, and its

contribution to a war that was causing the Allies to suffer greatly. It was not until after

negotiation with Leon Trotsky failed that the Allies began to pursue a strategy of intervention,

and even then their efforts were still directed at hampering the German war effort, rather than at

overthrowing the Bolsheviks.

Section 2: The Civil War

Although the Allies intervened in Russia as a direct result of World War One, the troops who

were sent to Russia did not fight German or Austrian soldiers, nor did they provide a stable front

to keep Central Power soldiers in eastern Europe. In fact, Allied intervention truly succeeded

only in providing a modicum of support to a variety of different regional powers during Russia's

bloody Civil War, a war that, despite Wilson's insistence and the designs of Allied intervention,

would be the conflict that the soldiers of the Polar Bear Expedition and other Allied soldiers from

all across the world would find themselves embroiled in from 1918 to 1919.

The precise beginning of the Russian Civil War is a matter of some debate, and its end is not a

clearly defined battle or victory either. The nebulous nature of the Russian Civil War makes a

great deal of absolute statements of time (such as 'beginning' 'end' and 'turning point') very

difficult. The Russian Civil war stretched across a multitude of different fronts with the Red

Army facing groups of disperse White Russian forces, ranging from Cossacks in the Don region

to French backed Ukrainian nationals, socialist forces backed by the Allies in North Russia, a

large contingent of anti-Bolshevik troops in southern Russia led by a succession of old generals

from the tsar's army, German army forces invading from the west, Japanese and Chinese forces

invading from the east, a large and well disciplined Czech and Slovak army in Siberia, and

countless bands of bandits, criminals, and even anarchists moving across the countryside. Any
 11

process of defining what the Russian Civil War was is not so much a process of inclusion, but a

process of exclusion, defining when the Russian Civil War happened, what comprised it, and

what incidents were not a part of the Civil War.

The first of the many fronts the Red Army would fight on was in the Don region, home to the

Russia's famous Cossacks. A nominally independent tribal people under the Tsar, the Don

Cossacks were already organized into their own unique military structure,23 allowing them to

quickly mobilize for aggressive action against the Red Army and the Bolshevik government.24

Although not universally anti-Bolshevik at the outset, the Don Cossacks quickly found

themselves the target of Bolshevik subjugation and eventual elimination in order for the

revolution to succeed, and the Cossacks began their defense against this policy with haste.25 The

Don Cossacks quickly established their lands as a center and refuge for anti-Bolshevik peoples,

allowing several different groups to come together in their efforts to end Bolshevik control of

Russia. While the Don Cossacks were eventually defeated by the Red Army once it was

organized enough to use its superior numbers to crush them, early in the war the Cossacks had

allowed the single largest and most dangerous of the White armies to be created.26

In the south, some of the largest and bloodiest battles of the Civil War took place between the

Red Army and a large, well trained volunteer army that had been created by a number of

prominent generals of the Imperial Russian Army, including General Alekseev and Commander

Denkin.27 Led by these and other experienced generals and backed financially and military by the

Allies (in particular France and Britain), this army was the largest threat to the Bolshevik

Government of Russia in the Civil War, and would eventually grow to be more than one hundred

thousand men strong. This army fought the Bolsheviks all across Southern Russia as well as

Central Russia and Siberia, effectively flanking the main areas of Bolshevik control with the
 12

White Government in Northern Russia and the Czech Legion in Siberia. This army would fight

the largest and bloodiest battles of the Russian Civil War, leaving thousands dead on both sides

and nearly defeating the Bolshevik forces not in piecemeal tactics but in direct military

maneuvers. A combination of skill, leadership, and luck, however, tipped the balance of the war

in the favor of the Red Army, who eventually pushed the volunteer army south to the Crimean

Peninsula, and then completely out of Russia.

In Siberia the Czech Legion, a full army contingent of trained soldiers, fought the Bolsheviks. On

the Legions journey to Vladivostok the Bolsheviks continually stopped and attempted to disarm

them, fearful of a well armed army making its way through their territory. This in turn was the

very provocation that turned the legion against the Bolsheviks, and these fighting men became

much of the backbone of anti-Bolshevik forces in the East.

In addition to fighting the Czech Legion and the anti-Bolshevik forces, the Allies were able to

drum up in Siberia, the Bolsheviks also lost their most prominent Pacific port, Vladivostok, to

the Allies early in April 1918.28 The allies (originally Britain and Japan, followed by American

and Canadian forces) occupied Vladivostok for a variety of reasons ranging from an absurd

report of German subs being shipped by rail to the far eastern port29 to the very tangible

reasoning of providing a safe extraction point for the Czech Legion.30 The Czech Legion would

later arrive to reinforce these cursory troops, effectively turning Vladivostok, like its North

Russian counterpart Archangel, into a zone of anti-Bolshevik influence. Vladivostok would

remain out of Bolshevik hands until the end of hostilities between the Czech Legion and a more

established Bolshevik government in November 1920, years after the formal end of the Great

War.31 The Czech legion would leave Russia and come to the newly created Czechoslovakia, the

very home the Legion had been fighting to create since its inception.
 13

The Japanese did not end their intervention at Vladivostok, however, and landed 70,000 troops,

more than any other ally and larger than the Czech Legion itself, in East Russia to defend

Vladivostok and deter Bolshevik counterattack.32 This large force swept Pacific Russia clear of

its struggling Bolshevik forces, and maintained almost all of eastern Russia as foreign occupied

zone, much as the American's did in Northern Russia. The Japanese would eventually leave

Russia after the end of formal allied intervention, but before doing so their troops had engaged in

Bolshevik forces directly, adding yet another army and another front that the Red Army had to

contend with in the Russian Civil War.

In the northwest of the country, a group of anti-Bolshevik socialists, in particular a great deal of

the ousted Social Revolutionary party (SRs), created their own Government in the White Sea

area, encompassing hundreds of miles around Russia's primary northern ports of Archangel and

settlements in the Murmansk region.33 This government, often called the 'Government of the

North' began as a socialist state under Nikolai Tchaikovsky, created with the aid of the Allies as a

means of perpetuating their intervention strategy.34 The Government of the North quickly

descended into a tyranny ruled by Tchaikovsky and a puppet state for the Allies. Here the Red

Army faced not only tens of thousands of local Russian troops trained by French, British, and

American officers, but also several thousand Allied troops as well. In the north the Red Army

battled veteran British, French, and Canadian troops, along with more than five thousand fresh

American troops, who brought with them supplies, equipment, and even airplanes and pilots for

the Bolshevik's enemies in the Government of the North.35 The Red Army made very little

progress on this front while the Allies were present in the region, and many have speculated that

a more dedicated Allied intervention could have changed the course of the Civil War, but in the

end Allied intervention was a confused effort that did not have a great deal of impetus after the
 14

end of the Great War. The Americans left in June of 1919, and many other allies followed suit,

until the last British troops were removed in the Autumn of 1919.36 The troops trained by the

allies fought on for another six months but eventually surrendered to the Red Army, that by late

1919 was vast, well armed, and battle hardened from their experience on other fronts.37

In 1918, 1919, and 1920, Russia was engaged in a long, bitter Civil War in every corner of the

nation. Fighting ranging from small and sporadic skirmishes to lengthy army scale bloodbaths

rocked the country for three long years. In addition to the toll on the land and the people created

directly by the war, a bad winter and poor harvest combined with the Bolshevik policy of taking

food from its peasant citizens (a process collectively known as 'war communism') caused untold

numbers of men, women, and children to starve to death amidst all the fighting, no matter how

far from the battlefields they might have been. Nowhere in all of Russia was safe from fighting,

not the remote, frigid White Sea area, not the distant Pacific Region, most certainly not the highly

populated central region, and not even the most obscure parts of Siberia. All across the largest

country in the world fighting was going on in a disorganized frenzy of blood and death. The

Russian Civil war would turn Russia into a nightmarish wasteland that the 'victorious' Bolsheviks

would then have to attempt to rebuild into a cohesive socialist nation. This transformation was

fast, and was well on its way to completion when the first Allies arrived in Russia as part of the

Allied intervention strategy.

Section 3: Allied Intervention

Aside from some French efforts in the Ukraine and the Japanese-backed Siberian bandit Ataman

Semenov, Allied intervention in Russia was strongly focused on the former Romanov dynasty's

ability to control the seas, which were vital to the British war effort. The Allied strategy in the

First World War was to defeat the Germans in a war of attrition, and control of the oceans was a
 15

pivotal part of that strategy, a part that would take the Allies all over the world in an attempt to

completely cut off Germany from its colonies. The British control of ocean shipping was

essential in keeping the blockade of Germany up, and by doing so the British denied the Central

Powers access to the men and resources available to them from their colonies. Beyond the

blockade, control of the seas was also essential for moving Allied war material from the United

States and offshore colonies to the western front. Russia's contribution to Allied control of the

seas was not spectacular, but it was not insubstantial either. In order to keep control of the

world’s oceans the Allies would have to somehow assume control of what had been Russia's

major ports, such as Archangel and Vladivostok, as well as the bulk of the Russian Navy.

The Russian fleet by the end of the war was in tatters, while not cripplingly damaged by their war

efforts, the fleet was a mess of mutinous sailors and 'soldiers councils' which challenged and

usurped officer control over to the sailors and soldiers of the Russian Navy.38 When Russia left

the war effort, the Russian Baltic fleet was pulled out of the war and waited for a new

government to grant it orders while it wrestled with its unhappy and mutinous sailors.39 This fleet

represented much of Russia's naval power, and would be a major force on the seas of the world

during the Great War, if it were to resume operations either for the Germans or for the Allies.

The Allies saw Russia's large Baltic fleet sitting more or less derelict just outside of German

control as a great threat, one that could undermine the German blockade, which was paramount

to the Allie's strategy in their war of attrition against the Central Powers. When negotiation with

Leon Trotsky, leader of the Red Army, did not convince the Allied leadership that the Red Army

could or even intended to keep the fleet out of German hands, an espionage act was devised to

simply scuttle as many of the ships as possible.40 This act did little to help or hinder Bolshevik

control of Russia, but it quieted a great fear of the Allies that the Baltic fleet would fall into the
 16

hands of Germany, creating a danger to the British blockade. Sabotage could only go so far in

protecting Russia's war material from falling into German hands, however, so in many places

troops were directly landed, including the American Polar Bear Expedition.

Direct troop landings on Russian soil, including The Polar Bear Expedition, as well as French

and British troops, were almost exclusively used in the North Russian port of Archangel. Despite

being frozen over for much of the year, Archangel was the most important northwest Russian

port, and was essential for any shipping or troop movement in that part of the world. Because of

Archangel's importance it was one of the very first areas of Allied intervention, with the British

actively taking the port as early as the fourth of August, 1918 and fortifying it almost

immediately.41 The British, who controlled the world's largest and most powerful navy, could not

have done any significant intervention in Russia without a major port to moor its ships at, nor

could any troops have been landed. Archangel was vital not only to Allied intervention, but also it

was directly vital to the British strategy in the First World War.

The Allies (again, primarily the British) were also concerned as to what such an important port

could offer their enemy. Fearful that much of the Allied war materials given to the Russians were

ripe for the taking in Archangel, the British began buying up as much of this war material as they

could to be shipped from the port or destroyed as soon as possible.42 More importantly however,

Archangel had a deep harbor well outside of the British blockade of Germany, which made it an

ideal area for the Germans to build a submarine base.43 With submarine warfare crippling much

of Allied shipping efforts, the Allies were desperate to keep Archangel out of German hands.

When the Germans continued to march northward, through Latvia, the British felt they had no

other option and simply took the port for themselves through yet another espionage ploy, this one

originating with a British spy named Chaplin.44 Chaplin worked in concert with a coalition of
 17

anti-Bolshevik socialists known as the Soiuz to invite the Allies into Archangel and free it from

oppressive Bolshevik control, which had been in the port and removing the prized war supplies

since July 1918.45

The preeminent port of the White Sea, the city of Archangel would be a vital part of any war

effort in the area. With the largest war in history raging not far away, Archangel became the first

area of Allied intervention, and would see most of the heaviest fighting of the entire conflict.

With the British forces Archangel in desperate need for more troops and equipment to keep it out

of German hands, it became clear that American troops would be going to Archangel should any

sort of American intervention in Russia materialize. With Archangel's sub zero temperatures,

combined with the time frame of Allied intervention (winter 1918-1919), the 339th infantry

regiment and other American troops of the Polar Bear Expedition would soon earn themselves

their nickname.

The American soldiers of the Polar Bear Expedition entered a bizarre, convoluted campaign

when they sailed to Russia. American soldiers aided a French and British war effort by fighting in

Russia alongside Russian, British, French, Italian and Canadian soldiers against other Russian

soldiers of a communist political party called the Bolsheviks. This was the odd reality that the

Polar Bear Expedition faced when they landed at Archangel, one that they would struggle to

understand for years after their return to American soil. While the Polar Bear Expedition grappled

with their situation, their brethren in Siberia had their own strange circumstances to deal with.

American troops stationed in Siberia fought against Bolshevik Russian soldiers alongside

Chinese, Japanese, and Canadian soldiers, as well as Russian bandits, all so that a formerly

Russian army comprised of Czech and Slovak volunteers and prisoners of war could be shipped

east from the Ukraine to France. This was the tempest the soldiers of the Polar Bear Expedition
 18

and general United States intervention entered, a tempest that the formerly isolationist policies of

the United States did not prepare them for. Perhaps the most confusing thing of all, however, was

that the men of the Polar Bear expedition remained in north Russia even after the First World

War ended.

While there is no denying that Allied intervention survived the end of the war and continued past

the armistice, it did not survive it by very long. While the Americans had come into the war much

later than most of the rest of the Allies; British, French, and Canadian forces had been fighting

the Central Powers for five long years, and an extra seven months (and only one month from the

official ending of the war with the Treaty of Versailles) of their activity against the Bolsheviks on

such a reduced scale is hardly comparable to their previous war effort. After the war ended, the

Allies did in fact have the option of pursuing full scale intervention in Russia designed to remove

the Bolsheviks from power, and while much of their forces were exhausted from fighting in the

western front, the combined forces of the American, British, French, Canadian, and especially the

relatively fresh Chinese, Italian and Japanese troops could still easily have defeated the

Bolsheviks. The Allies, however, did not push forward with intervention. Intervention did indeed

continue for a short time after the end of the armistice, leaving many soldiers confused and

bewildered as to the nature of their presence in north Russia, in particular the Americans of the

Polar Bear Expedition. Many Polar Bears began to feel forgotten by their government, fighting in

a far off corner of the world while the rest of the comrades in the American Expeditionary Force

were heading home. Despite the confusion and doubt caused by the Allied intervention

continuing past the end of the war, the intervention itself petered out into nothing in the end.

Without the war to drive on the need for an eastern front against Germany, and with increasing

pressure to withdraw placed on Wilson, the Polar Bears left Archangel as soon as the ports were
 19

open in the late spring of 1919. The exhausted British, French, and Canadian troops (as well as

their Italian allies) soon pulled out as well, with a final effort of the British called the North

Russian Relief Force covering the withdrawal before the Allies began pulling out completely in

the summer of 1919.

The primary reason intervention lasted beyond the formal end of the war was not confusion

among the Allied war leaders from the complicated situation of Allied intervention; rather the

Polar Bears and their allies' extended stay in Archangel resulted from the simple fact that

Archangel was frozen over for the winter, and any substantial removal of forces would have to

wait until the spring thaw when the ships could move the troops out. Any attempt to remove

Allied forces earlier than the spring thaw would have required a dangerous and foolhardy

movement of troops across contested rail lines to ports further into Murmansk, and as such the

Polar Bears would simply have to wait until the ice cleared. There is no question Allied

intervention outlived the First World War, but it did not outlive it for very long, nor did it do so as

an attempt to end Bolshevik control of Russia.

The Allied intervention in Russia was not a coordinated conspiracy to destroy a Socialist

government before it could take root, but was instead a desperate ploy to win an all but hopeless

war after the defeat of Russia. This truth has fallen by the wayside however, as the British

officers, Soviet propaganda, and the Cold War have all pushed forward an explanation of Allied

intervention as the first act of the Cold War, the first act in an inevitable war between Western

democracy and Socialist communism. The men of the Polar Bear Expedition were the first to ask

why they were in the frigid arctic lands of North Russia at the end of the Great War, and they

were the first to receive the explanation that they were part of the great struggle between

democracy and communism, but they would not be the last to hear that version of events.
 20

Section 4: Primary Sources

While most of the primary documents regarding the Polar Bear Expedition were generated by the

United States with the majority residing in the University of Michigan archives, any documents

pertaining to Allied intervention in North Russia or Siberia have the potential to be primary

source material for a study of the Polar Bear Expedition. This particular historian was able to

travel to Ottawa in Canada and examine the Canadian National Archives (CNA) documents on

Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, and in doing so recovered several documents useful

both directly and indirectly in the study of the Polar Bear Expedition.

The Canadian National Archives contain a loose catch-all collection of documents, with primary

sources ranging from soldiers' correspondence to secret travel directions for Canadian officers.

The archives are well stocked, and a great deal of the documents contained within are direct

military missives, granting the historian excellent source material for understanding the day to

day activity of the ground warfare taking place in North Russia.

The documents available in the CNA give a great deal of very useful information of Allied

intervention in the Russian Civil War, most notably because this information does not come from

an American perspective. The documents in the CNA allow a researcher to cross-examine

American understandings of the Russian Civil war with their allies for a more complete

understanding of the whole of intervention. In addition to understanding intervention, in several

documents the Polar Bears are examined, chastised, or praised by their Canadian comrades, such

as a dispatch by a Canadian officers to his superiors in Ottawa.46 These documents are unique in

that they allow one to directly examine the Polar Bears from a contemporary outsider's

perspective, allowing for a great deal of understanding to be gained. Unfortunately these

documents also contain a great deal of censorship (both mandatory and self-induced) originating
 21

from the wartime nature of the documents, as well as the self-editing process inherent to all

personal correspondence.

Many of the remaining documents available in English on the Polar Bear Expedition and Allied

Intervention reside in Britain, with the British Army's own records of their time in Archangel.

This historian was unable to retrieve a great deal of the available documents. However, some

documents regarding Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, in particular as a part of the

greater war effort of World War One are available from the United Kingdom National Archives,

some of which are cited in this work.

Doubtlessly, a great deal more documentation from the Italian, French, and Russian (both Red

and White) efforts in the Russian Civil War remain in the world somewhere within their

respective countries, but are even less accessible to the American researcher then the British

documents, residing not only in distant foreign countries, but in foreign languages with very little

hope of translation if the researcher does not speak the language. Of this large list (none of which

are examined in this work) the Russian documents would be the greatest asset, allowing for the

Russian perspective of the Polar Bears, both as allies and as enemies, to be examined, and

compared to the Polar Bears own accounts.

Although primary sources regarding the Polar Bear expedition are scattered about the many

nations who participated in allied intervention in North Russia, the bulk of the available

documents from the American's themselves are collected in the University of Michigan's Bentley

Historical Library. The archives at the U of M are something of a catchall, with documents

ranging from personal correspondence to secondary books written by Polar Bears to direct

military documents and transcripts. Despite their diversity, the majority of the documents in the

University of Michigan can be broken down into three groups: personal correspondence, soldier
 22

and officer publications, and documents collected in Archangel (including maps and pictures).

A great deal of the available primary sources on the Polar Bear Expedition comes from the

personal correspondence of soldiers writing in Russia to their friends and family back home.

Letters ranging from a simple postcard with some notes scribbled onto the back to detailed

accounts of daily life line the shelves of The Bentley Historical Library and provide a great deal

of insight into the practical aspects of day to day life as a soldier in Russia. Soldiers write about

how cold it is, about how they get along with soldiers from other countries, and speak of the

personal time they get in Archangel, particularly in YMCA and Red Cross provided functions.47

These letters provide direct lines into the minds of the Americans fighting in North Russia, and

are excellent sources for determining how the Polar Bears felt about their situation, what they

knew of why they were there, and what was important to them while they were in North Russia.

These personal letters, by virtue of being military correspondence, suffer however from a variety

of drawbacks inherent to all such correspondence. As soldiers waging a war, the Polar Bears were

forbidden by censor to speak directly of military action, plans, or even routine assignments.

Further, The soldiers fighting thousands of miles away from home may well have practiced self

censorship, choosing to omit certain aspects of their lives when speaking to friends and family

overseas, leaving us with a likely incomplete understanding of their lives in Archangel and North

Russia. The age of the documents and their handwritten nature also conspire to keep some of

their information from the historian, as scrawling penmanship matched with fading ink make

many letters difficult to decipher. Those few letters and other documents that were typed have

survived better, but most personal correspondence was handwritten on whatever stationary the

soldiers could access.

The second group of documents, publications created for soldiers and officers, were almost
 23

exclusively type-written, and as such have survived the near century since their creation better

than much of the personal correspondence of The Polar Bears. The Polar Bear Expedition was in

North Russia for nearly a year, and in that time a great deal of documents were created, either as

records like those kept by Grainville for the hospital corps, as directives and orders sent from the

Allied command, or as publications designed for widespread reading among the troops, such as

an Archangel paper that was printed in English by Polar Bear troops during their time in Russia.

These documents are essential to the historian for understanding the situation in Archangel and

North Russia, particularly the logistical and military difficulties the Polar Bear Expedition faced.

Documents created and published for the Polar Bears, either in Archangel, France or one of the

ships taking them home, suffer from the same lack of information that the Polar Bears

themselves did. More than once the question of why the Polar Bears were in Russia was

addressed in the American Sentinel, the newspaper created by the Polar Bears themselves, and

the paper could only print a British officer's explanation.48 Although such documents are

excellent pieces to understand the day to day lives of the Polar Bears, and their own

understanding of the situation, these primary documents do little to explain the greater issues

involved in the Polar Bear Expedition, both because of a lack of knowledge of the authors, and

because of military censorship concerns like those regarding personal correspondence. Though

considerably more lax than might be expected, with troop movements and positions being printed

explicitly in the American Sentinel, direct military reasoning was still absent from such

documents.49 Actual Washington missives, inter-office orders, and direct military telegrams,

though present in the CNA, are for the greater part absent from the U of M collections, as the

focus for the U of M collections has been to keep the lives and experiences of the Polar Bear

Expedition alive, rather than the preservation and understanding of their intentions in Russia in
 24

1918.

The third type of document commonly found in the U of M digital collection consists of maps

and photographs created by the Polar Bears during their time in Archangel. A great deal of U of

M collections are photo galleries, some created simply by soldiers interested in the scenery,

others as an attempt to chronicle their time in Archangel, and still other photos were military

records for use by soldiers, such as the archived materials of the Army signal corps.50 These

photos and maps (and even the odd blueprint) are both important memories of the Polar Bears

and explicit, concise documents of their time in North Russia.51

Photos are inherently better at describing the physical location of North Russia than any account

of a soldier writing home. These pictures show snow drenched fields, ageless architecture, and

the busy port of Archangel in a detail that is simply impossible to write down. The old maxim of

a picture being worth a thousand words is sharply shown when one examines both a photo of

Archangel and a diary of an American soldier describing it. These photos contain pictures that

show the Polar Bears in a very real, visceral sense looking back at the historian from Archangel

more than ninety years ago, and are invaluable for creating a direct humanistic understanding.

While photos are inherently superior to letters at description, they are also inherently flawed, and

the photos contained in the U of M archives are no exception. While it is obvious that the black

and white cameras of the day distorted the colors of Russia and the Polar Bear Expedition, more

damaging is the simple fact that for everything the camera captures, it loses far more. The camera

can only take a picture of what it is pointing at when the photographer is ready, so great but quick

events like battle and destruction are lost, as well as events that the photographer, for whatever

reason, chooses not to record. The photographer has total control over what his pictures hold, and

with determination on his part, he can create a picture of his surroundings to look however he
 25

sees fit. Although some of the photographs available were professional photographs created by

Army engineers and the Signal Corps, many more were amateur photographs taken by the Polar

Bears as souvenirs of their time in North Russia. While the amateur photographers of the Polar

Bear Expedition were probably not savvy enough to truly distort their records of Archangel

through careful photography, they still certainly had the ability to censor their photos in the same

manner as their letters. In the end, the photos of the U of M archives show an excellent picture of

the Polar Bear Expedition, but it is far from a complete one.

Section 5: Historiography

The first books written about the Polar Bears were often written by the Polar Bears themselves.

Books such as The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki: Campaigning in

North Russia, or Snow Trenches (which is technically a work of fiction) were written within a

few years of the Polar Bears having returned home to Michigan by soldiers and officers looking

to chronicle their little known struggle. Many books written by the Polar Bears listed the reasons

for the Polar Bear Expedition as those given by the British, as one might expect, but many others

questioned the whole purpose of the expedition, or even if there was a purpose at all. One such

publication was a collection of poems by R. S. Clark of the 310th engineers printed twenty years

after the events in Archangel, with still no insight as to the exact nature of the expedition “... “But

wherefore did the contest end, for which none knew the reason? And did the Bolos all give in?

And were they shot for treason? Or did you win a hard campaign, amidst a world's applause?

Pray, wherefore may a contest end, for which none knows the cause?” “Twas whispered that the

Scotch ran low, but as to that I do not know...”52 With small publishing bases and a narrow focus

(many were printed solely for former Polar Bears and their families) secondary literature

regarding the Polar Bear expedition was a field so small as to be nearly insubstantial.
 26

The Cold War gave new life to the Polar Bear expedition. The rise of the Soviet Union into

America's 'great enemy' in the forties, fifties, and sixties, gave new prominence to the Polar Bear

Expedition.53 The vilification of the Russians and the Soviet Union by the United States during

the Cold War immediately changed the Polar Bears from American soldiers fighting a bizarre

battle to American heroes fighting the great communist menace at its inception, and quickly the

Polar Bear expedition became seen as a lost opportunity by America to destroy the Soviet Union

and the Bolsheviks before they had taken complete power in Russia. The men of the Polar Bear

expedition and their actions had not changed any in the decades since their time in Russia, but

because America changed so radically, the way Americans viewed the Polar Bear expedition

changed as well.

During the Cold War, the Polar Bears became great American heroes, as historians accepted and

repeated the British explanation that the Polar Bears were fighting a larger war of competing

ideologies. Although the evidence supports that the Polar Bear expedition was a direct result of

the First World War and its confusing policies regarding ports and the eastern front, Cold War

scholarship adopted the British and Bolshevik explanation that the Polar Bear expedition was

part of an inevitable struggle between communism and democracy, because it fit better with the

Cold War narrative. In truth, scholarship's view on Russia determined their writings about the

Polar Bear expedition, not anything regarding the actual men themselves.

George Kennan is one of the rare few authors whose goal is not to examine how Allied

intervention, in particular American intervention, affected east-west relations in the coming

years. Kennan's goal in The Decision to Intervene is to refute the Soviet claim that the Americans

had any real intention of destroying the Soviet Union during Allied intervention by simply

dismissing the entire operation as a desperate and fruitless part of the Great War and a
 27

lackadaisical attempt at control of the post-war world.54 Although Kennan's explanation of allied

intervention is perhaps the best at explaining why American troops were sent to Russia in 1918,

the vast majority of other secondary scholarly works on Allied intervention, and the Polar Bear

expedition, examine the significance of Allied troops invading Russia to secure Allied military

supplies. These secondary works, either explicitly or implicitly examine the Polar Bears and

other agents of intervention based not on their actual deeds at the time, but the consequences

those actions had decades into the future, during the Cold War. Allied intervention certainly

fueled the Soviet idea that they were surrounded by enemies on all sides, but in examining the

Polar Bears and Allied intervention in light of its significance in future events, such authors

tacitly continue the original false explanations that were given to the Polar Bears themselves in

1918 and 1919, that they were part of a greater ideological conflict, one that was inevitable and

one that they would play a significant role in.

One of the more interesting secondary works on Allied intervention in the Russian Civil war is

Ilya Somin's book Stillborn Crusade. Unlike most of the writers on the Polar Bears and Allied

intervention in both the pre-World War Two and Cold War time periods, Somin is a Russian

national who writes after the fall of the Soviet Union that Allied intervention could have been so

much more, and could have prevented the Soviet Union from coming to power, the atrocities it

perpetrated, and possibly even prevented the Second World War.55 Somin makes a convincing

argument that the Allies could have done far more to affect the Russian Civil War, that they had

indeed considered doing so, and he also argues (less convincingly) that the Allies, in particular

the United States, should have done more to stop the rise of the Bolshevik party in Russia.56

Somin's work directly disputes most other scholarship regarding Allied intervention in that the

First World War is all but ignored in a bid to show readers that America could have stopped the
 28

evils of communism, and in this way Somin adopts some of Great Britain's own wartime

propaganda against the Bolsheviks. Somin speaks of the Allied intervention in what it could and

should have been, rather than what it was, and argues its moral obligation to have stopped the

Bolsheviks while they were at their weakest.57

Somin's work is not representative of scholarship in the field however, neither Cold War or

modern, nor even pre-World War Two. The majority of the scholarship and secondary works on

the subject follow a pattern illustrated by a time line of the twentieth century. Books written

immediately after the Polar Bear expedition and Allied intervention write about a noble effort for

an ignoble crusade, about brave men dying for politicians' bizarre aims, and are written almost

exclusively by ex-Polar Bears. During The Cold War one might expect books on Allied

Intervention in the Russian Civil war to sound much like Somin, mourning a missed opportunity

to destroy the Bolsheviks and Soviet Russia while it was still weak.

While many books touted the Cold War lines not all of academia was focused on turning the

Polar Bears into heroes. Rather than simply speak of Allied intervention as a missed opportunity

to crush the Bolsheviks George Kennan's work stated that allied intervention was wholly a

military operation and that the Bolsheviks were not a true concern at all, effectively debunking

Soviet Union's pretenses on international relations during the Cold War.58 Publications written

after the Cold War focus more on how Allied intervention affected relations between the United

States and Russia through the twentieth century, and study of the Polar Bears loses the intensely

personal work of pre-World War Two scholarship, to be replaced by a more passive voice in rare,

scattered publications.

What perhaps all secondary literature regarding the Polar Bears and Allied intervention in North

Russia have in common is that they all claim to be pulling back the curtain on the relative
 29

obscurity of the Polar Bear Expedition. The Polar Bear Expedition was a small and obscure troop

movement at the tail end of the Great War, one that has eluded the public consciousness for

ninety years now, and secondary works on the Polar Bears claim (perhaps rightly) to be one of the

few works attempting to shed light on this all but forgotten American force. There is a significant

difference between the Polar Bear stories of the nineteen twenties and academic scholarship

(both Cold War and modern) in that while the Polar Bears themselves were most interested in

telling their personal story so that it was not forgotten, scholarship tends to look to the Polar

Bears only in so much as they were part of a greater Allied intervention. Most academic

scholarship focuses on bringing the Polar Bear story to light only in as much as it reflects how

Allied intervention colored relations between the Soviet and the Western powers throughout the

Cold War. In this manner, modern scholarship is adopting a line very similar to the explanation

given to the Polar Bears for their presence in Russia so many years ago; that they themselves

were only moderately significant players in a much larger, inevitable ideological conflict.

Allied intervention in Russia during the First World War was simply not an attempt to end

Bolshevik control of Russia. From its beginning until the end of the war, Allied intervention was

pursued almost exclusively to further the aims of the war effort. Archangel was occupied to deny

the Germans the supplies there and so that the harbor could not be used as a submarine base by

the Germans. Efforts to scuttle the Baltic fleet were made to keep those warships out of German

hands. Vladivostok was occupied in order to make safe the war supplies there from the

Bolsheviks, and while this was an action directly against the Bolsheviks, the war supplies there

were not intended to be used to fight the Bolsheviks, they were destined to be used against the

Germans, and the Allies could not afford to lose them. Even the most direct and confrontational

form of intervention, the occupying of Siberian railways, was done in an effort to bring the Czech
 30

Legion from its place at the eastern front to the western front. The British, French, Canadians,

and the Americans all contributed troops to these intervention efforts that were desperately

needed on the western front.

The fighting at Verdun and the Somme in France was the most costly, spectacular blood bath the

world had ever seen, and Allied casualties numbered in the millions. Despite their devastating

losses in France the Allied War Council saw fit to send small but not insignificant amounts of

men halfway around the world to secure ports, supplies, and a functional, elite infantry division,

rather than shore up the trenches. Even beyond direct occupation by Allied forces of Russian

territory, armies of White Russians that were trained by French and Allied forces, armies that

would become the backbone of anti-Bolshevik forces during the civil war, were trained and

organized in an effort to keep the eastern front open, rather than to overthrow the Bolsheviks and

stomp out socialism from the world. France, Britain, and Canada absolutely did not have the

luxury of fighting a war in Russia to overthrow the Bolsheviks because they would have

preferred a Russian state closer to the Provisional Government rather than a Socialist

government. The Allies were desperately fighting the most bitter, costly war in human history,

and every action they took during this time, including and in particular Russian intervention, was

to win that war.

The soldiers of the Polar Bear Expedition themselves, however, were hard pressed to see any

connection between their struggle against the Bolsheviks and the greater allied war effort,

especially after the armistice of November 1918. The Polar Bears found themselves confused and

lost as to their role in the struggle against the Bolsheviks, unable to find meaning in their efforts

in Archangel, so very far from both home and the center of fighting in France. Considering that

their presence was a result of a complicated combination of the effects of globalization, European
 31

colonial policy, and Allied war strategy, a combination that no one in the American armed forces,

including the President Wilson, fully understood, one can hardly blame the members of the Polar

Bear Expedition for their confusion.

 32

Chapter 2 “The Polar Bears”

Section 1: The 339th

Who were these men who were shipped halfway around the world to fight at Archangel? The

Polar Bears were not a single army unit, but rather several small groups ranging from a few

hundred men to a few thousand, including the 310th Engineering corps, the 337th field hospital

corps, and the 337th Ambulance company, all of whom supported the primary American fighting

group in North Russia, the 339th infantry. While the entire American presence in North Russia as

a part of Allied intervention would eventually become known as the Polar Bear Expedition, the

339th, the primary combat unit in Archangel and the largest single army force in North Russia

other than the local Russian armies created by the Government of the North, were the first to

adopt the name The Polar Bears , and even put a polar bear on their unit patch.59 The Polar Bears

were not simply a random amalgamation of American soldiers but were an area specific group

with most of their membership pulled from Michigan, and most of that majority coming

specifically from the city of Detroit. Detroit newspapers continually called them 'Detroit's Own'

and followed their trials and battles faithfully throughout the year the Polar Bears were in North

Russia.60 Although the random, frigid winters of Michigan hardly prepared the Polar Bears for

service in the negative thirty and forty degree weather of North Russia, it was certainly easier for

them than had they come primarily from Florida or Georgia. More importantly than familiarity

with cold winters, most of the Polar Bears shared a common home, and as such had an ingrained

level of camaraderie that few army units could equal, contributing greatly to their morale, and the

prominence their time in the Polar Bear Expedition would have in their lives.

Many of the Polar Bears were not the stereotypical farm boy turned American soldier either, nor

were they particularly ignorant of politics, warfare, or even history. Coming from the
 33

cosmopolitan urban center of Detroit, many of the Polar Bears had a comparatively extensive

education involving college or some other form of high level training.61 In addition to the Polar

Bears that came to North Russia with a level of high scholastic or collegiate achievement, many

more later went on to college after their time in North Russia.62 Despite their common home, the

Polar Bears were not a unified, uniform group of people, so generalizations about them suffer

from the same pratfalls of all such statements, but a great deal of the Polar Bears were smart,

educated men (or were at least stationed with men who were) and were interested in their current

plight in North Russia. Not simply accepting that they were there because their superiors told

them to be, many Polar Bears investigated the reason for their action in one of the most diverse

and multinational cities on the planet in 1918, Archangel.

The men of the 339th and their allies had enlisted or been drafted to fight in the First World War

alongside the British and French against the Germans. With the war in the eastern front quickly

ending, the 339th had every reason to expect to be shipped to France, where the vast majority of

the American Expeditionary Force was deployed. This expectation was not challenged when the

339th shipped to New York from Camp Custer, their training grounds in Michigan, or from New

York to Britain, and it was not until they were garrisoned in Britain that the 339th first learned

their intended destination.

Much of the 339th division did not learn that their destination was now in Russia from their

superiors, but rather learned it from rumors during their time in Britain, as well as from a

compatriot named Henry Mead. Henry Mead, while in Britain, had a passing meeting with an old

friend from college, Lowell Thomas, who had received word that Mead and his unit were going

to Russia.63 Thomas was a French war correspondent, and he predicted accurately that the 339th

would be heading to north Russia, and this prediction from a chance encounter with an old friend
 34

was how most of the Polar Bears learned their destination.64 It was not until after they shipped

out of the States that the 339th even learned they were going to Russia, and thus had only their

time being shipped to Archangel and their time in Archangel to learn not only what they would be

doing in Russia, but why they were there.

Section 2: Russia and Archangel

The Polar Bears arrived in Archangel on September 4th 1919, just before the end of the Great War

and just at the beginning of the north Russian winter. The Polar Bears traveled thousands of miles

across frozen and frigid waters to arrive at their destination, and when they disembarked onto the

Archangel pier, they were in a whole new and foreign world. Archangel was a bustling city in the

middle of a frozen, war torn land that was being pulled asunder in a bloody, horrific civil war

between the Bolshevik Red Russians and the local White Russian government.

Archangel itself had been under tenuous Bolshevik control until anti-Bolshevik forces, despite a

high level of xenophobia native to the area, conspired to bring British forces to the port.65 While

local anti-Bolshevik forces and fugitive SRs originally attempted to create their own form of

socialist government, the 'Government of the North' ultimately failed as an independent state.

The populist government of Archangel was never able to become a proper regional government

for an area unique in culture, history, and political needs, and the socialists, as well as series of

brief successor governments failed to turn their territory into any sort of nation or even establish

political hegemony over the region.66 The population of North Russia were not against the notion

of being ruled by an anti-Bolshevik regional government, and even began to approve of the

government and support it in a number of areas.67 The support of the local population was not

mirrored in the White governments own leadership, however, as even the North's own self

proclaimed regional leaders, primarily intellectuals, were never fully committed to an anti-
 35

Bolshevik cause, and provided little credibility to the White government that was created.68 By

the time the American's arrived in September 1918, the region was ruled by what amounted to a

tyranny under Tchaikovsky, who served the Allies as a puppet government.

Civil war had threatened to engulf Russia many times in the previous decades. From the

Revolution of 1905 to the fall of the Tsar and the creation of the Provisional Government headed

by Alexander Kerensky, Russia had seemed to be just on the precipice of a bloody civil war for

some time. That war came when the Provisional Government, which had remained in the war at

the request of Britain and the Allies, was completely destroyed by the Bolshevik uprising in

October 1917.69 Kerensky and many of the senior members of the Provisional Government had

to flee for their lives, but as the Provisional government was never truly unified, it never

managed to create a cohesive force against the Bolsheviks. Instead many smaller groups ranging

from Cossacks in the east, socialists in the north and regular Russian army troops in the south all

became the enemy of the Bolsheviks, creating a many sided civil war throughout Russia.70

The most distinctive element of the Polar Bears' lives during their time in North Russia is

undoubtedly the extreme cold that was their constant companion. While somewhat more

prepared for cold temperatures from living in Michigan than had the unit come from elsewhere,

Archangel and the Polar Bears' field of operations were above the arctic circle, in the middle of

the Russian winter, with temperatures reaching lower than negative 42 degrees.71 Much of a

typical Polar Bear's personal equipment was focused less on defeating his enemy and more on his

ability to withstand the abysmally cold temperatures of his environment. What the Polar Bears

were provided with hardly met the criteria for cold protection, and soon army issue boots and

coats were discarded in favor of the long boots, heavy coats and the ubiquitous dual flapped

Russian hat, the ushanka, which was favored by the Russian natives themselves.72
 36

The cold defined the expedition, not only did it give the Polar Bears their name, but it also

defined their daily lives, and their strategy in fighting off the Bolsheviks. The Polar Bears rarely

made any form of open camp since heavy shelter was absolutely necessary to withstand the sub-

arctic temperatures that came with nightfall, and as such many of the Polar Bears spent their time

in Russia quartered in blockhouses they built themselves, scattered along the rail lines which

provided their only supply line of food and necessities, huddling together against the cold.73

Others would march through the snowy landscape of North Russia, but stop for the nights in

Russian towns, often sleeping in close quarters with the Russians themselves.74 As this practice

continued, the Polar Bears quickly learned more about how to survive the cold from the local

Russians, with many growing quite fond of the large central ovens that the Russians slept upon.75

The cold forced the Polar Bears into a partnership with their Russian allies, a necessity to survive

the frigid world in which they now resided.

Beyond the obvious gnawing effect of the cold on the Polar Bears, Russia itself was (and is)

defined by its temperatures, causing the Polar Bears to land and live in a truly foreign and alien

environment compared to anything they were even remotely familiar with. From the

cosmopolitan streets of Detroit and the modern roads of Michigan the Polar Bears were now in a

world where sleds pulled by reindeer and dogs were the primary form of transportation. Rail lines

were few and far between, and some even built upon the frozen river themselves, creating new

routes that were only open in the winter.76 Traditional American sensibilities such as privacy and

space were completely superfluous traits in Russia, where families packed themselves into tiny

one and two room huts. While foreigners in a foreign land, the arctic conditions of North Russia

probably made the Polar Bears feel as if they had landed on another world, rather than in another

country.
 37

Many soldiers of the Polar Bear Expedition were also disturbed and disoriented by the living

conditions of the north Russian people. Coming from relatively stable urban and rural areas of

America, many Polar Bears were hard pressed to deal with the general poverty of North Russia,

in particular the custom of local children and orphans to beg for scraps of food.77 Many soldiers

made it a habit to give these children their leftovers and their trash, only to have the children

gleefully thank them, further showing the great poverty the children were in.78 In this frozen

landscape the Polar Bears were assaulted by poverty stricken children and the general feeling of

anxiety and war. It is little wonder that so many Polar Bears wrote about how much more they

appreciated their home after having traveled abroad.

Beyond the culture shock of having traveled from urban America to rural Russia, the Polar Bears

arrived not only in a foreign country, but in a war torn land, where a bloody civil war was raging.

The Polar Bears themselves were caught up in this civil war by virtue of their vague mission

parameters and their alliance with the local white Russian forces, and the Polar Bears ended up in

active fighting against Bolshevik red army troops throughout their stay in Archangel. The

fighting between the Bolsheviks and the Americans was comparatively small to the blood baths

in western Europe, with a little more than eighty American men killed in all, but the confusion of

their orders, their unfamiliar weaponry, and the Russian winter made the Polar Bears' conflicts no

less intense and dangerous for them.79

The Polar Bears mainly fought in four different fronts against the Bolsheviks, the Divna River,

the Vaga River, the Archangel Railway, and the Onega River, all located east and south of

Archangel. These fronts formed a protective ring around Archangel, preventing the Bolsheviks

from seizing the important port where the White Government of the North was stationed, as well

as the embassies of many Allied and foreign powers.80 While the men of the 339th and other
 38

groups fought primarily to secure the safety of Archangel, as they did so they entered the Russian

Civil War, a war that was neither small nor simple.

The Polar Bears fought in the Russian Civil War on unfamiliar ground with unclear orders, but

perhaps worst of all they fought with unfamiliar weapons. The Polar Bears trained with the

Springfield during their time in Camp Custer and were familiar with American machine guns and

other weapons, but once they were reassigned for Russia their equipment got mixed up with the

rest of Allied intervention. The British provided the majority of the weapons and ordinance the

Polar Bears had access to, including Vickers and Lewis Machine guns when the Polar Bears

arrived at Archangel (neither of which had the machine gun troops trained with).81 Beyond the

British ordinance, The Polar Bears were provided with French mortars and grenade-guns, and

quickly set about using British, French, and captured Russian artillery as soon as they were

able.82 The Polar Bears quickly learned to fight with whatever it was they could.

The nebulous nature of the Civil War itself provided many challenges to the Polar Bears. Rarely

did either the Red or the White armies have any from of uniform to wear in combat, preferring

the same heavy winter clothes that the Polar Bears themselves had adopted. While battle lines

helped mitigate friendly fire dangers, the difficulties of fighting non-uniformed enemies go far

beyond such concerns. The Russian people were divided by how they believed they should be

governed, either by the Bolsheviks or by something else, and this belief was not readily apparent

when looking at a Russian man or woman. The Polar Bears constantly worried that the local

Russians who they were spending a great deal of time with, and living with in such close

quarters, could actually be Bolsheviks.83 While the Polar Bears understood that their enemy in

Russia was a member of the Bolshevik party (and called him a 'bolo' among other terms) they did

not and could not know what a Bolshevik looked like, causing a great deal of apprehension and
 39

anxiety among them.

The actual day to day fighting of the Polar Bears against the Bolsheviks was something of a roller

coaster, with a great deal of ups and downs. Long periods of time elapsed where there was only

sporadic fighting, or no fighting at all, only to be interrupted by short periods of heavy fighting

lasting from a few days to a few hours.84 The Diary of Cleo Colburn, an American artillery

gunner shows that he had his first engagement with the Bolsheviks on September tenth, and did

not fire a single shot again until September 29th, leaving him nineteen days of little to no action.85

These long periods of inactivity and boredom, coupled with the fact that intense fighting and

death could occur without warning, frayed the nerves of the Polar Bears, who huddled in their

snowbound trenches and battlements on the other side of the world from their homes.

The Polar Bears were stationed in and around Archangel, which the war had remade as one of the

most cosmopolitan cities in the world at the time, despite the areas abject poverty. French, British

and other western embassies were in Archangel, as well as the newly formed White Russian

Government centered there, in addition to soldiers from every corner of the world, including

British, French, Italian, Australian, and even New Zealand troops fighting on behalf of the

British. It was in this environment, surrounded by allies of many different nationalities that the

Polar Bears arrived, still confused about their mission. The various groups in Archangel, the

British, the Canadians, and even the Bolsheviks themselves were only to happy to explain the

situation to them, while those who might have had a different view on Allied Intervention, such

as the French and the local Russians themselves, were unable to make their voices heard.
 40

Chapter 3 “A Michigan Polar Bear in Archangel”

Section 1: What did the Polar Bears know?

The reasons for the Allied intervention, and specifically the United States involvement and the

decision to send the 339th and others to Archangel were a complicated morass of politics and

wartime stratagems that have been outlined earlier in this work. To this very day many of the

reasons and circumstances that led to the landing of the Polar Bears at Archangel remain obscure

and contentious, so it is not surprising that few within the Polar Bears themselves had a firm

grasp of their mission when they arrived at Archangel, as their leaders did not fully understand

their situation either. While the Polar Bears did not fully understand their situation when they

first arrived, very few of them left Archangel without some manner of deeper understanding of

the situation, as most of the major powers were all too happy to explain to the confused

Americans what their role in the conflict in Archangel was.

The group most able to explain the situation at Archangel to the American soldiers was the

British, who had been the ultimate architects of Allied intervention in Northern Russia to begin

with. The wartime reasons for intervention, though occasionally mentioned by the British, were

not the reasons that were stressed to the Americans or other allies when they arrived in

Archangel. The Americans in particular were in a prime position to have their involvement in

Archangel explained by the British, as many groups of the Polar Bear expedition were paired

with British officers.86 Perhaps because the military reasons for the Allied occupation in

Archangel were not deemed clear enough for the other allies, or perhaps because many British

officers saw the expedition to Archangel as something more than an act of the Great War, the

allied soldiers who intervened in Russia were told by the British a narrative of their mission that

emphasized a general war with the Bolsheviks, and with socialism, rather than a continuation of
 41

the war with Germany.87

The British version of the war presented to the Allied soldiers under their command is best

explained by examining Frank J. Shrive, a Canadian RAF pilot who was part of the Canadian

armed forces and transferred to Archangel. By his own admission, Shrive had very little

understanding of his enemy in Archangel, or his reason for traveling there at the outset “We [the

RAF forces] hear strange rumours [sic] of the fighting line which is a hundred miles or more up

the river and I've increased my knowledge inasmuch to know that it's the Bolsheviks we're

fighting.”88 During his time in Archangel, however, Shrive learned to have a clear, vilified

enemy: the Russian Bolshevik. “...We have a good idea of the practical side of it [intervention in

Russia] and although none of us have any desire to stay out here another minute, we can see that

it is as important as the war with Germany. If allowed to spread this Bolshevism would probably

spread in other countries and then of course Britain has her own interests to look after.”89 Shrive

did not see a real connection between his actions in Russia and the Great War at all, and soon his

animosity to the Bolsheviks increased. In a letter written on February 17th,1919 Shrive wrote,

“And again (though this may sound contradictory to one of my recent letters) I'm glad to have

had a crack at the Bolo. The sooner he is completely exterminated the better it will be for all.

[original underlined] I'm beginning to half respect the German since the Bolo has become in

vogue and it is a 'plague' we are fighting now more than a fellow human being.”90 The British,

rather than attempt to explain to common soldiers (or even highly trained and specialized airmen)

the military reasons for the intervention in northern Russia, defaulted to simply vilifying the men

shooting at them, using the ideological conflict in Russia to explain to the allied soldier what

they were fighting for, and portraying the Bolshevik as a marauding communist with plans to

dominate and destroy the world.

 42

American soldiers, who were both confused and ignorant of the reasons for their presence in

Archangel were first confronted with a bombardment of British opinion defaming the Bolshevik.

British opinion of the Bolshevik Revolution was particularly abysmal with its papers and media

reporting it as an utterly reprehensible organization.91 This popular opinion was transmitted by

the Polar Bears' British soldier allies and their own British officers. The idea of fighting the

Bolsheviks to save the world from a greater threat than the Germans must have had a certain

appeal to soldiers thousands of miles from home fighting in sub-arctic conditions. It allowed

them to think that not only was their suffering necessary, but that victory was paramount to

preserving their way of life, and thus their fighting in northern Russia was not some obscure

military action but an important part of a war effort. Whether that war was with Germany or with

Russia, however, was not extremely important in the explanation given by many of the most

senior British and other Allied officers at Archangel. The British needed soldiers willing to fight

to the death against Russian forces, and the truth about the supplies and the complicated way in

which the eastern front was paramount to success in the west must not have seemed terribly

likely to produce a garrison of soldiers in Archangel with high morale, especially when one such

attempt in an American newspaper in Archangel produced little in the way of confidence.92

Rather than try to encourage troops that their fight was paramount to the war effort thousands of

miles away, a version of the Bolsheviks' own story was contracted to turn the conflict in

Archangel into part of much greater ideological struggle that would determine the future of

western civilization. Whether or not all Americans, Canadians, British, French, or colonial

soldiers believed this story (though Shrive certainly did), it was one of the most prominent

explanations offered to a group of confused soldiers far from home.

The Polar Bears' American officers told them a different story as to their involvement in northern
 43

Russia, a much more conservative version rooted deeply in the military reasons for intervention,

and one that emphasized the temporary nature of the Polar Bears' mission. American officers had

little to work with in explaining the American involvement in Archangel other than President

Wilson's own words on the subject. Wilson's Aide Memoire is an unclear and problematic

document which states that “...Military action is inadvisable in Russia, as the Government of the

United States sees the circumstances... Whether from Vladivostok or Murmansk and Archangel,

the only legitimate object for which American or Allied troops can be employed, it submits, is to

guard military stores which may subsequently be needed by Russian forces and to render such aid

as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their own self-defense.”93 With little

more than this document to work with in explaining their mission, and little more time than the

journey to North Russia to explain it, American officers could only tell their troops the sticking

points of Wilson's policy: that the American soldiers would be a garrison force at Archangel to

prevent the city's seizure by any unfriendly troops. This explanation quickly began to prove

unsatisfactory to many Polar Bears as they were shipped to four different battle fronts in direct

support of the Russian government in Archangel. Despite the vagueness of Wilson's directive,

most Polar Bears were likely aware of it because of Wilson's general popularity among them.

Thomas R. O'Kelly, a captain in the Canadian army, wrote to his superiors, “Archangel looked

like an election day for President Wilson. His photo was everuwhere [sic] and I noticed it on

wrappers of various articles.”94 Along with the President, the American officers of the Polar

Bears were telling their soldiers a vague explanation of their duty in Archangel, with the

reasoning originating in the war effort. Ironically, what must have been one of the most

unsatisfactory explanations of the many they were given for their presence there, Wilson's was

the one most accurate, in that it emphasized that the Polar Bears' presence in Archangel was a
 44

direct result of the Great War, and a military action of the Untied States involvement in that war,

in support of its British and French allies.

The Polar Bears also had contact with French servicemen in Archangel, who were there with the

intention of keeping the eastern front open to prevent an influx of German troops into France, as

well as to support their close British allies. The French troops may well have told the Polar Bears

that the primary reason for their presence in Russia was to make sure the eastern front remained

open, so that tens of thousands of German and Austrian troops would not move from Russia and

the Ukraine to the battlefields in France where the French were already stretched to the very

brink. Although many French could have explained a fairly accurate reason for the American

presence in Archangel, the communication barrier of language prevented much in the way of

discourse between the French and American soldiers. In The History of the American Expedition

Fighting the Bolsheviki, Polar Bear soldiers wax nostalgic on the difficulty of speaking with

French officers, and a general mistrust of the French, in part because of this breakdown in

communications, as they speak of a story where a problem with equipment orders caused a great

deal of agitation and anger between French and American officers.95 With the language barrier

between the French and American soldiers making even simple supply requests difficult, it is

unlikely that complicated topics such as the cause of allied intervention were all that common

conversation between French and American soldiers. The French fought alongside the Americans

in Russia very specifically to defend their homeland in France, but were largely unable (and

perhaps unwilling, should the Americans' distrust have been mutual) to communicate this to their

American allies. As such, the French soldiers' version of why the Americans' were in Archangel

was one that was not largely known to the Polar Bears, and instead they continued to fall back

mostly to the teachings of their own officers and their British officers.
 45

Perhaps the group that the American soldiers in Russia could most easily have identified with

would have been their Canadian comrades also stationed in Archangel: the Elope force. The

Canadians sent two military units to Archangel, the Syren force, which was stationed in the

Murman area on the west side of the White Sea, and the Elope force stationed in Archangel

alongside the Polar Bears. With a common language and homes quite close to each other,

especially with Detroit's proximity to Windsor, American and Canadian soldiers would have

many commonalities with each other that they could identify with, as both of them were far from

home fighting in a war that wasn't even on their own continent. The Canadian soldiers had a great

deal of contact with their American counterparts in Archangel, fighting together on many

occasions, with the Polar Bears gaining a great deal of respect for the Canadian artillery in

particular.96 Unlike their American brethren, who had only recently come into the war, the

Canadian forces had been fighting since the beginning of the war, and much of the Elope force

had even been pulled from the front lines in France for their mission in Archangel. Being such

combat veterans, the Canadians might have been able to explain the reasoning for their presence

in Archangel better than anyone else to the American's, but as Shrive's correspondence shows,

few of the Canadians understood the wartime reasons for their intervention in Archangel any

better than the Americans. The Canadians, who were bombarded with the same anti-Bolshevik

propaganda as their American comrades, simply reinforced the British version of the war as part

of a great struggle against the evils of Bolshevism.

Another group that would have had trouble communicating any explanation for the Polar Bears'

involvement in the Russian civil war is the local White Russians themselves, either as fighting

men affiliated with the White Russian government established in Archangel with British backing,

or as noncombatants who lived in the area around Archangel. American soldiers encountered
 46

many local Russians during their time in North Russia, and, as stated earlier, they would often

sleep in quarters provided by North Russians, learning the custom of sleeping on a great stone

oven, with many speaking of the extremely close quarters they shared with their Russian allies.97

Doubtless, many conversations occurred, to the best of both parties' abilities, in such tight,

confined quarters. Although somewhat uncommon, American soldiers also had a great deal

contact with the local White Russians during their travels, because the White Russians were

entirely in charge of allied transportation in the area.98 Again, the long periods of travel time in

North Russia, either by train car or by sled, allowed the local Russians and the Americans a great

deal of time to converse. The North Russians themselves, however, would have great difficulty

explaining to the allied soldiers why they were there, partly due to a great language barrier

(similar to the French), and also because a typical Russian farmer near Archangel in 1918 may

well have been more surprised that American troops in his country than the Americans

themselves were. The Russian peasantry of Archangel and the surrounding area were farmers and

herders, and had little contact with the outside world, significantly limiting their understanding of

world affairs and wartime politics.

The Bolsheviks tried to influence the American soldiers in Archangel not only to leave, but also

to convert to a socialist mindset. Bolshevik fliers containing socialist and Marxist idealism

written in English were dropped upon allied soldiers, in particular Americans, in the hope of not

only demoralizing them and convincing them to pull out of the war, but also to convert them to

the Marxist Revolution, and to rise up against their capitalist oppressors and continue the

revolution in their homeland.99 While not common, occasionally American soldiers would be

captured by Bolshevik troops, such as Earl Fulcher, who was captured by the Bolsheviks and

before being released was allowed to write messages to his superiors from captivity.100 While in
 47

Bolshevik hands, an American soldier could easily be exposed to the Bolshevik explanation of

Allied intervention. The Bolsheviks also attempted to influence American soldiers through large

English publications left behind for the Allies to find, these messages spoke of the socialist

cause, that the Allies were fighting solely to collect on Russia's war debt, and urged them to

return home.101 Through these various methods, the Polar Bear soldiers were told by the

Bolsheviks that they were there as oppressors, that this battle was the inevitable class struggle

between the proletariat and the ruling class, and that they were serving the side of the capitalist

powers and fighting against their own interests. In this way, the Bolsheviks attempted to explain

to the Polar Bears, who were confused and far from home, that they were there as pawns of evil

overlords, and that they should not be fighting their fellow workers. Rather than fly in the face of

the British explanation of the Polar Bears presence in north Russia, the Russian explanation

almost mirrored its British counterpart, only deviating significantly in where to lay the blame of

the war. This similarity between these explanations, given to them by both their allies and their

enemies, must have made for a convincing argument that the Polar Bears were part of a larger

ideological struggle.

The American people themselves were (and in most cases remain) more ignorant of the reasons

for the Polar Bear Expedition and Allied intervention than even the Polar Bears themselves. In

the greater news coverage of the Great War, the sending of a few thousand troops to Archangel

was hardly a headline worthy story, and most people during the war were not even aware of the

Polar Bears' involvement. While this was partially intentional in order to retain the secrecy of this

military operation, it is also because the Polar Bears themselves came from a relatively small

area, so their fate as a rule only concerned people form Michigan. The Polar Bears fought and

died for a cause most Americans were completely ignorant of.

 48

Despite Americans' general lack of understanding of the Polar Bear Expedition during Allied

Intervention, the people of Detroit, in particular its media, picked up much of the slack for the

rest of the country in showing support for their troops in North Russia. With the vast majority of

the Polar Bears being Michigan residents, the Detroit papers and media constantly reported on

them throughout the entire North Russian Campaign, and these reports to this day remain some

of the few public discourses regarding the American intervention in the Russian Civil War. In

addition to the media coverage, the people of Detroit were able to put a great deal of pressure on

Wilson to bring their sons home, with great success despite their comparatively small size on a

national scale. In time, the people of Michigan and the families of the Polar Bears convinced

Wilson to abandon Allied intervention and bring their sons and husbands home as soon as the

Archangel port thawed.

In the end, the majority of the Polar Bear expedition believed that while their struggle was rooted

in the Great War, as their officers told them, they (perhaps inevitably) believed that their war was

with the Bolshevik party and their soldiers. The Polar Bears constantly refer to their enemy as

either Bolsheviks or 'Bolos', rather than simply 'Russians', showing at least a vague understanding

of the Russian Civil War that they had entered.102 Beyond that, although the Polar Bears fought

as a result of the Great War, they did not truly fight in the Great War. Even the most confused of

Polar Bears knew that he fought Bolshevik Russians, who were different than White Russians,

alongside a plethora of Allies who believed in a capitalist world, while the Bolsheviks believed in

a socialist world. Socialism itself was famous enough that many of the educated members of the

Polar Bear Expedition would have already been familiar with its grievances with the west's

general method of government and economy, and those that weren't were happily taught by both

British officers and the Bolshevik Russians themselves. The most consistent explanation the
 49

Polar Bears received in regards to why they were in Russia was that their engagements with the

Bolsheviks were part of a larger ideological conflict between socialism and the rest of the

capitalist, imperialist world. Not only did the British give this explanation in lieu of a more

grounded reasoning based on the Great War, but the Russians, Canadians, and in some cases even

the American's own officers repeated this sentiment, and those nations that might have given a

more accurate explanation had trouble explaining the situation to the American soldiers,

primarily through language barriers. Competing with this explanation were the seemingly

incongruous French and American explanations dealing with the Great War, which was being

fought hundreds of miles away in France by the time the Americans arrived, and that American

troops were there to guard British supplies for use in the war, supplies that were in fact given to

the Americans to fight the Bolsheviks.103

The most constant, easily understandable, and obvious explanation that the American soldiers

had was that they were in north Russia to stop the spread of Bolshevism in Russia, and since

their own orders were to directly fight Bolshevik Russians it must have made a great deal of

sense. In the end most of the American troops, like their Canadian counterpart Shirve, accepted

the British explanation. The Allied leaders never truly believed that reasoning however, and as

such when the war was over, it was only a matter of time before the Allied troops in Archangel

were removed. In fact, the main reason the Allied troops remained as long as they did was not

some halfhearted attempt by the Allies to war with the Bolsheviks, but was a result of the

inability to remove the troops until spring, when the ice in the port melted.104 The vast majority

of the Polar Bears entered Russia with very little understanding of why they were fighting in

Archangel against Bolsheviks, but left Russia believing that they had fought as part of a greater

struggle against the Bolsheviks and socialism, as the British and Bolsheviks had both told them.
 50

Many of these Polar Bears went to their graves believing this idea, because in the later years of

their lives, the Polar Bear Expedition took new prominence and importance in part of the 'war

against communism' and the later Red Scare of the Cold War.
 51

Chapter 4: “Conclusion”

When the men of the Polar Bear expedition returned to Detroit, their time in Russia did not brand

them heroes to all. The time spent in Russia caused many to be suspicious of the Polar Bears and

their families, culminating in a massive arrest in 1919.105 The American government clearly took

the Bolsheviks' attempts at converting the men of the 339th to socialism seriously, almost

certainly more seriously than the soldiers of the Polar Bear Expedition did. While this may have

reinforced the idea that they had been part of a larger ideological struggle between communism

and capitalism in the minds of many Polar Bears, this did little to improve their opinion of the

experience of the Polar Bear Expedition. But what was the Polar Bear Expedition? Was it truly

just a fruitless excursion at the end of the war, or was it really the first part of the Cold War?

It is vitally important to remember that the Polar Bears have significance beyond simply

confirming Lenin's fears that the world powers were out to get him. The Polar Bears represent a

breakdown in Wilson's policy, both his isolation policy and his postwar policy regarding proper

conduct between nations. For Wilson, the general ignorance of the American people of this great

blunder is a boon, but one that would not save him from the countries' reluctance to agree to his

own policies. In the end, the United States did not even join his League of Nations, countries

continued to make war on one another, and his great peacetime commitments amounted to

naught, and were shattered by a second world war. The Polar Bears represent one of the very first

failures of Wilsonian policy, that despite his insistence that the United States remain an

independent military power in the Allies, politically it was clear the British and the French could

still pressure the United States into supporting them even when it was only questionably in the

United States best interest.

The odd fact is, however, that the true reason for Allied intervention, that of the Great War, is not
 52

the source of the historical significance of the Polar Bear expedition at all. Allied intervention's

effect on the outcome of the Great War is negligible to the point of comedy. The war of attrition

that bled Europe dry finally favored the Allies, with their new ally the United States, and the

exhausted Central Powers simply collapsed from attrition and starvation. The notion that the

Allied commanders had in sending troops to Russia; that they would somehow keep the Germans

from leaving Russia, that they would secure Allied war supplies, and that they would allow the

Czech legion to travel east to France were shown to be unnecessary, and in some cases simply

ludicrous. In the scope of World War One scholarship, the Polar Bear expedition is an oddity, an

interesting end note that shows just how desperate the Allied commanders were growing when

Russia pulled out of the war.

The Polar Bear expedition, however, does in fact gain great historical significant when the Soviet

Union rises to power as one of two great superpowers who dominate the world. Relations

between the East and the West during the Cold War are paramount, because in a nuclear world

the very fate of humanity was held in the balance of these two powers. The Polar Bear

Expedition was perhaps one of the worst ways for a growing United States of America, who was

just becoming a power in its own right, to encounter for the first time the burgeoning Soviet

Union. The Polar Bear Expedition from the Russian perspective can almost only be seen as an

outright invasion of Russia, with not only simple combat between Americans and Russians, but

charges of funding enemies and bandits falling to the United States through its association with

the Allied Powers. Although the incident is extremely obscure in America, the Russians did not

forget that their blood had been spilled by American soldiers in their homeland. The Polar Bear

Expedition shaped a great deal of the tension between the two great superpowers of the later half

of the twentieth century, and it was a tension that nearly destroyed the world more than once. It is
 53

in this respect that the Polar Bears, and the larger action of Allied intervention in the Russian

Civil War, gain their historical significance.

It is perhaps the greatest irony of the Polar Bear Expedition that the convenient lie that the

American troops and their allies received when they entered Archangel has become in most

senses true. The Polar Bears were the first battle in a great ideological conflict between socialist

communism and capitalist democracy, one that would be played out again and again in

diplomacy and war, in Korea, Vietnam, and South America. Although the truth remains that the

Allied intervention was a result of the Great War, Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War

was a thoroughly insignificant part of the Great War, and an incredibly significant part of the

Cold War, which would not be truly waged for another thirty years after the Polar Bears left

Archangel in 1919. The men of the Polar Bear expedition stepped from their boats in the

Archangel harbor into a political and ideological morass of global proportions, and in some ways

did not truly step out of it again until the fall of the Soviet Union more than seventy years later in

1993. A social history of the Polar Bears reveals a group of intelligent young men who performed

a distasteful and in many ways absurd task in truly commendable style, but a more thorough

examination of the Polar Bears reveals them to be just on the fringes of the public consciences,

for decades, silently pushing events years into the future. The Polar Bears nine month foray in

Russia would affect the very shape of the world for nearly a century to come, and it is no surprise

that almost every man of the expedition identified himself a Polar Bear until the day he died, and

even afterward, as the graves in White Chapel Cemetery prove.

 54

APPENDIX A: ENDNOTES

1. Bentley Historical Library, Materials from the Nora G. Frisbie papers, Folder 1, Item 2. Sargent
Robert Granvill, Personal Correspondence, 1918-1919. Pg 1-12.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/88311.0001.003
2. Michael Kettle, The Road To Intervention (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall,
1980),135-136.
3. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44.
4. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 54.
5.Michael Carely, Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil
War 1917-1919 (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1983), 61-67.
6. Michael Carely, Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil
War 1917-1919 (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1983),61-67.
7. Michael Carely, Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil
War 1917-1919 (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1983), 61-67.
8. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 51-54,127-129.
9. Robert Willett, Russian Sideshow: America's Undeclared War 1918-1920 (Washington D.C.:
Brassey's INC, 2003),186.
10. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 114-116.
11. Raymond Esthus, "Nicholas II and the Russo-Japanese War," Russian Review, no. 40 No. 4
(1981): 396-411.
12. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 114-116.
13. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 114-116.
14. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 15-16.
15. David Foglesong, America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the
Russian Civil War, 1917-1920. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press,
1995), 76-106.
16. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 125-126.
17. Lanny Thompson, “The Imperial Republic: A Comparison of the Insular Territories under
U.S. Dominion after 1898,” The Pacific Historical Review, no. 71, No 4 (2002): 535-574.
 55

18. Michael Kettle, The Road To Intervention (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1980)
,39-40.
19. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 30-35
20. Bertrand M. Patenaude, "Peasants into Russians: The Utopian Essence of War Communism,"
Russian Review, no. 54, No 4 (1995): 552-570.
21. Michael Kettle, The Road To Intervention (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1980.),
23.
22. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 117.
23. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 85-88.
24. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 85-92.
25. Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 166-205.
26.Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 92-98.
27. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 92-98.
28. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 52-53.
29. Michael Kettle, The Road To Intervention (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1980),
19.
30. National Archives (United Kingdom), CAB 23/6. Records of the War Cabinet Office, War
Cabinet and Cabinet: Minutes, Nos. 379-437. War Cabinet 427, June 6 1918. Pg 156-159.
31. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 235.
32. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 100.
33. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 49-55.
34. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007),52.
35. Canadian National Archives, Box: MG30, E233, Resume and extracts from letters written
by Frank J. Shrive to his parents in Hamilton, Ont. 1918-1919. Pg 1-37.
36. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 157-158.
37. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 157-158.
38. Michael Kettle, The Road To Intervention (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1980),
17-20.
39. Michael Kettle, The Road To Intervention (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1980),
17-20.
40. Michael Kettle, The Road To Intervention (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1980),
22-23.
41. Leonid Strakohvsky, Intervention at Archangel: The Story of Allied Intervention and Russian
 56

Counter-Revolution in North Russia 1918-1920 (New York: Howard Fertig, 1971), 2.

42. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 187.
43. Leonid Strakohvsky, Intervention at Archangel: The Story of Allied Intervention and Russian
Counter-Revolution in North Russia 1918-1920 (New York: Howard Fertig, 1971), 2.
44. Leonid Strakohvsky, Intervention at Archangel: The Story of Allied Intervention and Russian
Counter-Revolution in North Russia 1918-1920 (New York: Howard Fertig, 1971), 2.
45. Yanni Kotsonis, “Regionalism and Populism in the Russian Civil War,” Russian Review, Vol.
51, No.4 (October 1992), 534-536.
46. Canadian National Archives, Box: MG 30 E231-235. Sargent Thomas R. O'kelly, H.Q.C.
2626 Vol.4. April 9th 1919. Pg 1-4.
47. Bentley Historical Library, Transcript of Cleo M Colburn Diary from the Cleo M Colburn
papers, 1918-1919, Folder 1 Item 1. Cleo M Colburn, Personal Record. 1918-1919. Pg 1-4.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/86712.0001.001
48. Bentley Historical Library, The American Sentinel No 3, “Why Allied Forces can't Quit
Russia at this time: A statement by Lord Milner, December 24, 1918. Pg 1-2.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/3241550.0001.003
49. Bentley Historical Library, The American Sentinel No 6, “BOLSHEVIK ARMY HEMMED
IN ON ALL SIDES RETREATS ON EAST AND SOUTH RED RULE REPORTED
TOTTERING,” The American Sentinel, January 17, 1919. Pg 1.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/3241550.0001.006
50. Bentley Historical Library, List of Official U.S. Photographs Illustrative of the Activities of
the North Russian Expeditionary Force. From the United States Army Signal Corps photograph
collection, Folder 1 Item 1, 1918-1919. Pg 1-43.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/921010.0001.001
51. Bentley Historical Library, Author Unknown. Russia, Route Zone A: Murman Railway and
Kola Peninsula: information and route notes Murmansk to Petrograd. Military Monograph
Subsection M.I.2, Military Intelligence Division, General Staff. Washington, GPO, 1918. Pg 1-
118.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/3104788.0001.001
52.Bentley Historical Library, Clark. R.S. The Creation of Russia and other Rhymes of the
A.N.E.F. Detroit, Ray Printing Co. 1931. Pg 23.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/3146888.0001.001
53. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 275-285.
54. George Kennan, The Decision to Intervene (New York: Atheneum, 1967), 3-14.
55. Ilya Somin, Stillborn Crusade: The Tragic Failure of Western Intervention in the Russian
 57

Civil War 1918-1920 (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1996), 1-21
56. Ilya Somin, Stillborn Crusade: The Tragic Failure of Western Intervention in the Russian
Civil War 1918-1920 (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1996), 1-21
57. Ilya Somin, Stillborn Crusade: The Tragic Failure of Western Intervention in the Russian
Civil War 1918-1920 (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1996), 1-21
58. George Kennan, The Decision to Intervene (New York: Atheneum, 1967), 3-14.
59. John Swettenham, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967), 44. 54.
60. “AMERICANS CUT THROUGH REDS. Surrounded Americans Fight 10 Times Their
Number; lose 13 men. Sergt. John Benson, Highland Park, Decorated For Bravery,” The Detroit
Free Press, December 2, 1918.
61. Bentley Historical Library, Letter From Fargo Engineering Company, Frank Burdette Kiel
papers, 1917-1923. Folder 1 Item 1. Frank B. Keil Company Record, Fargo Engineering
Company, Frank B. Keil, December 15 1917. Pg 1.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/88458.0001.002
62. Bentley Historical Library, Biography of Malcom K Whyte, Malcom K Whyte papers 1917-
1926, Folder 2 Item 1. Pg 1.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/016.0002.001
63. E.M Halliday, When Hell Froze Over (New York: Simon and Schuster Inc, 1958), 43.
64. E.M Halliday, When Hell Froze Over (New York: Simon and Schuster Inc, 1958), 43.
65.Yanni Kotsonis, “Regionalism and Populism in the Russian Civil War,” Russian Review, Vol.
51, No.4 (October 1992), 526-544.
66.Yanni Kotsonis, “Regionalism and Populism in the Russian Civil War,” Russian Review, Vol.
51, No.4 (October 1992), 526-544.
67.Ludmilla Novikova, “Northerners into Whites: Popular Participation in the Counter-
Revolution in Arkhangel'sk Province, Summer-Autumn1918,” Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 60,
Issue 2 (2008): 277-293.
68. Ludmilla Novikova, “A Province of a Non-existent State: The White Government in the
Russian North and Political Power in the Russian Civil War, 1918-20,” Revolutionary Russia,
Volume 18, Issue 2 (2005), 124-144.
69. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 4-5.
70. Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 115-148.
71. Bentley Historical Library, Oral History Transcript from the Hugo K. Salchow papers, 1919
and 1971, Folder 1 Item 2. Hugo K. Salchow, Personal Record, 1918-1919. Pg 6.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/86640.0001.002
72. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia. Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920. Pages 224.
 58

Illustration Pioneer Platoon Has Fire at 455.

73. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 184-185, 256-258.
74. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 231-233.
75. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 231-233.
76. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 184-185, 256-258.
77. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 49, Illistration:
Thankful for What at Home We Feed Pigs.
78. Bentley Historical Library, Oral History Transcript from the Hugo K. Salchow papers, 1919
and 1971, Folder 1 Item 2. Hugo K. Salchow, Personal Record, 1918-1919. Pg 6-7.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/86640.0001.002
79. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 299-303.
80. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 39-45.
81. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 40.
82. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 40.
83. Bentley Historical Library, Diary of Frank W. Douma, WWI Service July 14, 1918-July 18,
1919, includes biographical information from the Frank W. Douma diary, 1918-1919 and 1959,
Folder 1 Item 1. Frank W. Douma, Personal Record, 1918-1919. Pg 7.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/86705.0001.001
84. Bentley Historical Library, Transcript of Cleo M Colburn Diary from the Cleo M Colburn
papers, 1918-1919, Folder 1 Item 1. Cleo M Colburn, Personal Record. 1918-1919. Pg 1-3.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/86712.0001.001
85. Bentley Historical Library, Transcript of Cleo M Colburn Diary from the Cleo M Colburn
papers, 1918-1919, Folder 1 Item 1. Cleo M Colburn, Personal Record. 1918-1919. Pg 1-3.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/86712.0001.001
86. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia. (Detroit, MI: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 231-242.
87. Canadian National Archives, Box: MG30, E233, Resume and extracts from letters written by
Frank J. Shrive to his parents in Hamilton, Ont. 1918-1919. Pg 4-14.
 59

88. Canadian National Archives, Box: MG30, E233, Resume and extracts from letters written by
Frank J. Shrive to his parents in Hamilton, Ont. 1918-1919. Pg 4.
89. Canadian National Archives, Box: MG30, E233, Resume and extracts from letters written by
Frank J. Shrive to his parents in Hamilton, Ont. 1918-1919. Pg 10-11.
90. Canadian National Archives, Box: MG30, E233, Resume and extracts from letters written by
Frank J. Shrive to his parents in Hamilton, Ont. 1918-1919. Pg 14.
91. Page R. Arnot, The Impact of the Russian Revolution in Britain (London: Lawrence and
Wishart, 1967), 94-100.
92. Bentley Historical Library, The American Sentinel No 3, “Why Allied Forces can't Quit
Russia at this time: A statement by Lord Milner, December 24, 1918. Pg 1-2.
93. Roger Crownover, The United States Intervention In North Russia-1918, 1919: The Polar
Bear Odyssey (Lewinston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 139.
94. Canadian National Archives, Box: MG 30 E231-235. Sargent Thomas R. O'kelly, H.Q.C.
2626 Vol.4. April 9th 1919. Pg 3.
95. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 231-233.
96. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 231-233.
97. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 231-233.
98. Canadian National Archives, Box: MG 30 E231-235. Sargent Thomas R. O'kelly, H.Q.C.
2626 Vol.4. April 9th 1919. Pg 2.
99. The Bentley Historical Library, Materials from All-Lies! Folder 1, Item 1. 1918-1919. Pg 1.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/4729036.0001.001
100. Bentley Historical Library, Statement of experience as POW (typescript) (Photocopy) from
the Earl Fulcher papers, 1919, Folder 1, Item 1. Private Earl Fulcher, Correspondence, May 7th
1919. Pg 1-2.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/038.0001.001
101. Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:
Campaigning in North Russia (Detroit: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920), 221-222.
102. The Bentley Historical Library, Short summary of activities of Medical Personnel with First
Battalion 339th Infantry, by Katz (photocopy) from the Henry Katz papers, 1919, Folder 1, Item
1. Capitan Henry Katz, personal record, September 1918. Pg 1.
Stable URL: http://name.umdl.umich.edu/86559.0001.001
103. E.M Halliday, When Hell Froze Over (New York: Simon and Schuster Inc, 1958), 43-44.
104. E.M Halliday, When Hell Froze Over (New York: Simon and Schuster Inc, 1958), 43-44.
 60

105. Roger Crownover, The United States Intervention In North Russia-1918, 1919: The Polar
Bear Odyssey (Lewinston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001), 75-97.
 61

REFERENCES

“AMERICANS CUT THROUGH REDS. Surrounded Americans Fight 10 Times Their Number;

lose 13 men. Sergt. John Benson, Highland Park, Decorated For Bravery,” The Detroit Free

Press, December 2, 1918.

Arnot, R. Page. The Impact of the Russian Revolution in Britain. London: Lawrence and Wishart,

1967

Carley, Michael. Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil

War 1917-1919. Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1983

Clark. R.S. The Creation of Russia and other Rhymes of the A.N.E.F. Detroit, Ray Printing Co.

1931

Crownover, Roger. The United States Intervention In North Russia-1918, 1919: The Polar Bear

Odyssey. Lewinston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.

Esthus, Raymond. "Nicholas II and the Russo-Japanese War ." Russian Review, no. 40 No. 4

(1981). 396-411.

Foglesong, David. America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian

Civil War, 1917-1920. 1st. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press,

1995.

Halliday, E.M. When Hell Froze Over. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc, 1958.

Holquist, Peter. Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Kennan, George. The Decision to Intervene. New York: Atheneum, 1967.

Kettel, Michael. The Road To Intervention. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1980.

Kotsonis, Yanni “Regionalism and Populism in the Russian Civil War.” Russian Review, Vol. 51,
 62

No.4 (October 1992), 534-536.

Mawdsley, Evan. The Russian Civil War. New York: Pegasus Books, 2007.

Moore, Mead, and Jahns, The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki:

Campaigning in North Russia. Detroit, MI: The Polar Bear Publishing Co, 1920.

Novikova, Ludmilla. “A Province of a Non-existent State: The White Government in the Russian

North and Political Power in the Russian Civil War, 1918-20.” Revolutionary Russia, Volume

18, Issue 2 (2005): 121-144.

Novikova, Ludmilla. “Northerners into Whites: Popular Participation in the Counter-Revolution

in Arkhangel'sk Province, Summer-Autumn1918.” Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 60, Issue 2

(2008): 277-293.

Patenaude, Bertrand M. "Peasants into Russians: The Utopian Essence of War Communism ."

Russian Review, no. 54, No 4 (1995): 552-570.

Somin, Ilya. Stillborn Crusade: The Tragic Failure of Western Intervention in the Russian Civil

War 1918-1920. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1996.

Strakohvsky, Leonid. Intervention at Archangel: The Story of Allied Intervention and Russian

Counter-Revolution in North Russia 1918-1920. New York: Howard Fertig, 1971

Swettenham, John. Allied Intervention in Russia 1918-1919: and the part played by Canada.

Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1967.

Thompson, Lanny “The Imperial Republic: A Comparison of the Insular Territories under U.S.

Dominion after 1898.” The Pacific Historical Review, no. 71, No 4 (2002): 535-574.

Willett, Robert. Russian Sideshow: America's Undeclared War 1918-1920. Washington D.C.:

Brassey's INC, 2003.

 63

ABSTRACT

CIVIL WAR, WORLD WAR, AND POLAR BEARS: THE AMERICAN NORTH
RUSSIAN EXPEDITION

by

MARK COMFORT

August 2010

Advisor: Aaron B. Retish

Major: History

Degree: Master of Arts

At the height of the First World War the Russian Empire under Tsar Nicolas the II collapsed, to

be followed quickly by the Provisional government set up to replace it, plunging Russia into its

famous and bloody Civil War. The Russian Civil War took a primary Allie out of the war, forcing

an increasingly desperate Allied War Council to make every effort to somehow reopen the eastern

front, lest hundreds of thousands of German troops be shipped to already strained battlefields in

France. In their desperation the Allies, along with their newest ally, the United States of America,

sent troops directly to Russia in order to secure war supplies, ports, and perhaps even armies and

governments for the purpose of continuing the war with Germany. This led to the creation of the

American North Russian Expeditionary Force (A.N.R.E.F) who would be later known as the

Polar Bear Expedition, a group of about 5,500 men sent to Archangel, Russia's primary White

Sea port, for the winter of 1918-1919. The Polar Bear Expedition, made up extensively of men

from Michigan, found themselves, after enlisting and training to fight Germans in France,

fighting Bolshevik soldiers in frigid northern Russia. This work will build upon the work of

others who have already answered why the Polar Bears were sent to north Russia, and examine
 64

this question from the Polar Bears perspective. Did they understand what they were fighting for?

What were they told? And what did it mean to them to fight Bolsheviks? This work will examine

the Polar Bear expedition in a top down approach, beginning with the origin of the expedition in

World War One, continuing through its impact on the Russian Civil War, and finally examining

in detail the men of the Polar Bear Expedition, and their understanding of what they were doing,

and their place in history.

 65

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

I come from a strong, educated family. My mother is a practicing nurse with her bachelors, and

my father is a retired social worker with a masters in social work and a bachelors in English. My

parents have been married more than thirty years and raised me in a strong, loving environment

of learning, music, and family. History has always been of great interest to me, though I would be

lying if said I have always wanted to be a professional historian, as a child I wanted to be what

every historian wants to be, Indiana Jones. My interest in history grew in high school, but I never

really considered it my calling until my teacher introduced World War One to me as a 'neat little

war'. I was incensed at that inaccurate and thoroughly insensitive appraisal of the Great War, and

found myself more determined then ever to know the truth about the world before the Second

World War, which seems to be the great cut off of popular history. I attended Eastern Michigan

University and received what I consider to be a phenomenal education from a few very dedicated

and motivated professors, and a well thought-out curriculum. I have continued my study of

history with a focus on turn of the century and early twentieth century, with a special focus on

World War One, much as I have since I first saw the Young Indiana Jones series. I play a variety

of table top role playing games, continue to play in my churches band (a staple growing up in my

household) and continue to grow socially and academically, seemingly in spite of any misgivings

or anxiety I manage to drum up. My goal has been to remember above all else that the world is a

place of good and bad things, that the most horrible wars and the most astounding cultural

renaissances all happen, and will always happen, as long as the world turns. It is this perspective

(cynical or naive as it may be) that I value as my most cherished treasure from my study of

history.