their resolve to leave it entirely free to decide as to its destiny; but while the Japanese were committed by their past and their future to safeguard and promote their own interests, the Ameri- cans were enjoined to restrict themselves to guarding railway communications and stores, and the French colonial troops held aloof. The British followed a middle course in the sense that part of their contingent, Col. J. Ward's Hampshire Regi- ment, was pushed forward right through Siberia, but there was no clear military aim in that operation and steps were retraced when the real difficulties set in. Material support was given by the British more than by anybody else, but these measures were in the nature of a risky speculation dependent on the trend of home politics and on the ability of the " White Guards " to win the game.
A somewhat different situation arose in the north of Russia, where the rule of the Soviet Commissars was overthrown both in Archangel and in the Murman, and a patriotic Government was set up under the leadership of N. Tchaikovsky, a " Popular Socialist," who had lived in England for many years as an exile. The opposition between progressive and conservative circles, and the difficulty of conducting business with the available demoralized elements, were also felt there, but Great Britain's stake in the game was much more conspicuous, and the British detachments under Generals Maynard and Ironside formed a very important part of the forces operating against the Bolshe- viks. There was, however, no real cohesion between the Russians and their British allies, although cases of acute hostility were exceptional. Apart from such dissensions the ground was felt to be shaky on account of the war-weariness and the fickle temper of the common people. The massacre of the British officers by the men of Dyer's battalion showed that Bolshevik propaganda and Bolshevik habits were by no means a thing of the past.
The southern front, organized by General Denikin after Alexeiev's death, was suffering from similar weakness. The Voluntary Army constituting its backbone had become an efficient and powerful instrument of war; the officers' division, which had formed its bulk in the beginning, had expanded grad- ually into several corps by drawing into its ranks veteran soldiers who had learnt their trade in the terrible battles against Germans and Austrians. But the trusty regiments named after Kornilov, Alexeiev, Markov and Drozdovsky, had to act together with the levies of the Don and the Kuban Cossacks, who, though unrivalled as irregular horsemen, had their own axe to grind in the conflict. The Don province had been subjected to repeated attacks and devastation, and many of the Cossacks were anxious to keep to their frontiers and to manage their own affairs. As for the Kuban people, they were divided among two sets: the men of the " line " in the north were patriotic enough and fought brilliantly, but the Black Sea Cossacks, mostly descendants of the Zaporog Cossacks transferred to the Kuban from the Dnieper by Cather- ine II., were animated by a spirit of separatism and ready to follow leaders who worked for a Cossack Republic. A great deal depended on the skill and the political insight of Denikin's administration, and in this respect, as on the eastern front, grievous blunders and abuses occurred. The main direction was necessarily in the hands of military commanders inclined to insist above all on discipline, and contemptuous as to political theories and subtle distinctions. Denikin himself, though per- fectly honest and straightforward, held systematically aloof from constitutional disputes, and declared his task to be pri- marily one of liberation and restoration. His principal assist- ants, Generals Dragomirov and Lukomsky, had even less taste for political " metaphysics," and one of the civil advisers, Prof. K. Sokolov, openly expressed the view that the only regime suited to the circumstances of the time was a " democratic dic- tatorship " satisfying the needs of the common people. Although nothing was prejudged as to the ultimate form of Government, the organization of the southern territories occupied by Denikin was cast in the mould of the supreme authority of the command- er-in-chief. By his side stood a Special Council composed of the heads of departments and of a few representatives of public
opinion. All the members some twenty were nominated by the commander-in-chief. The elements of military and civil bureaucracy were decidedly predominant, and the " Left " was confined to three Cadets, all moderate Liberals. The Socialist parties were excluded from the Government and kept under strict supervision as regards their Press. One of their influential leaders, Schreider, was deported by order of the Government; many others left of their own accord for the Crimea. The greatest difficulty was experienced in holding the balance between the aims of the Volunteer Army engaged in the reestablishment of a National State and the aspirations of the Cossack communi- ties tending towards federalism. The problem of reconciling these contradictory tendencies was a most difficult one. The Kuban Rada (Assembly) manifested openly separatist leanings: its leaders, Bytch and Makarenko, were dissatisfied with a dual- istic arrangement contrived after many efforts between the Higher Command and the Rada. They wanted the political independence of the Kuban to be recognized, and sought an alliance with other Cossack territories in order to strengthen their demands. This political strife reacted in a most unfa- vourable manner on the conduct of operations in the field.
Reds v. Whiles. Disgust with the hypocritical tyranny of the Bolsheviks and the humiliation of Russia found a vent in con- spiracies and risings among the intellectuals. The German as- cendency was challenged by the murder of the ambassador, Count Mirbach, in July 1918. Almost simultaneously the commissar in charge of the police in Petrograd, Uritsky, was killed, and Lenin himself dangerously wounded by a Socialist. The Social Revolutionaries made an attempt to overthrow the Bolsheviks in Moscow, but were suppressed with great slaughter. Later on, the most experienced of Terrorists, Boris Savinkov, engineered a rising in Yarosla.vl and neighbouring districts; it was quelled after bitter fighting. These. isolated attempts in the heart of Russia were not so dangerous as the simultaneous advance from the east and the south. Kolchak's armies reached at one time Kazan and Simbirsk, Denikin pushed as far as Orel, and in the north there was some hope that Gen. Iron- side's British column might have joined hands with Kolchak's force near Kotlas. The Communists made desperate efforts to meet the onslaught. The Red hosts were reorganized by former officers of the Imperial army, with Polivanov, Theremissov, Klembovsky, Parsky, Dalmetov at their head. Even Brussilov lent the prestige of his name to the cause of the Moscow Soviet. These men were inspired not only by the pressure of want and despair, but in many cases by a fatalistic belief that they were serving the interests of Russia under the Red flag as against reactionaries and foreigners. An iron discipline was reintro- duced, disobedience, treachery and cowardice were promptly punished with death, desertion was repressed as far as possible, there was no more indulgence for committee discussions or for the " self-determination " of military units which had wrought havoc in the last stage of the war against the Central Empires. In every battalion, squadron and battery nuclei of devoted Communists were inserted in order to watch and to lead the apathetic rank and file. Altogether the proletarian dictators reverted without any scruple or confusion to the practices they had fiercely denounced in the time of defeatist propaganda. The cadres of the army were gradually filled by wholesale mobilizations, and although crowds of conscripts were swept away by desertion, there remained enough in the ranks to out- number the White forces: the fact that the Bolsheviks had got hold of the solid centre of Great Russia against the weaker out- lying portions of the Empire was bound to assert its overwhelm- ing influence in the end. Of course, if there had been an ele- mental popular rising against the proletarian leaders, they could not have withstood the attack. But the Great Russian peasantry, although by no means sympathetic to Communist doctrines and hostile to many of the commissars, were yet under the spell of the opinion that they were defending their newly conquered land against the squires who wanted to get it back. While this broad basis of popular support remained unshaken the dictators could exert their cruelty and lusts with impunity.
