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At a point beyond Lake Baikal the river Amur makes a sudden detour, sweeping far toward the north before it again descends, thus enclosing a large bit of Manchuria in a form not unlike the State of Michigan. Many miles of the projected road might be saved by crossing the diameter of this semi-circle and moving in a straight line to Vladivostok, across Chinese territory.
I was advised before I started from Vladivostok that Nikolsk, the junction of the Manchurian and Central Siberian Railways, was the most important strategical point on the South Siberian end of the line, and that though the position on the Ussurie was pretty hopeless and retirement might take place at any moment, we were not in any circumstances to retire below Nikolsk.
As I was leaving Vladivostok I heard that the Red forces that had been organised in the American neutral zones had at last boldly attacked their protectors. If this was correct, it may be the reason why Admiral Koltchak was able to report their defeat and rout over the Chinese border and we were back again at the point at which British and Czech co-operation had arrived a year previously.
The port of Archangel in the north was ice-bound, or with great difficulty kept partially open by ice-breakers, and was in any case only connected with Russia by one narrow-gauge and lengthy line; while the only remaining port of Vladivostok was six thousand miles away, and closed also during a part of the winter.
Five days afterwards, on the morning of Saturday, May 27, this proud array of men-of-war steamed into the open throat of the Straits of Korea, steering for victory and Vladivostok. On the morning of Monday, the 29th, a few battered fragments of this grand fleet were fleeing for life from their swift pursuers.
Motives similar to those which led to the Vanderlip concession are forcing friendship with Russia upon all Americans who have Siberian interests. If Japan were engaged in a war with America, the Bolsheviks would in all likelihood seize the opportunity to liberate Vladivostok and recover Russia's former position in Manchuria.
And he never complained about the lights or the television or the hot water, except to grumble occasionally that they were a little old and out of date and that the mail-order catalog showed that better models were available in Vladivostok.
After sleeping, one woke unable to open one's eyes. The absence of any protection wore out the patience and nerves of the men, and the searching Bolshevik shells were accepted as a welcome diversion. No blame was attached to my chiefs; I was fully equipped as a B1 Garrison battalion, and as such I was dispatched to Vladivostok.
It was not until the shameful peace of Brest-Litovsk in February, 1918, that Professor Masaryk decided that the Czecho-Slovak army should leave Russia via Siberia and join the Czecho-Slovak army in France. The Bolsheviks granted them free passage to Vladivostok. This journey of some 5000 miles was not, however, an easy task for an army to accomplish.
He, in common with all Americans who had seen the Japanese methods of frightfulness in Siberia, was filled with hatred. "One night," he said, "a company of Japanese soldiers entered the little village six hundred miles north of Vladivostok where we were located. They announced that they were hunting for Bolsheviks.
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