Civil War. Testimonials of an American General

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Nowadays, you can often find historical evidence of the crimes of Jewish commissars during the Jewish revolution of 1917, but in that civil war, the "whites", who are now considered the elite of imperial Russia at that time, acted no better.

It is useful to correlate this evidence with modern events in Ukraine …

Major General William Sidney Graves (1865-1940) commanded the US Army Expeditionary Force in Siberia from 1918-1920. After retirement he wrote the honest book America's Siberian Adventure (1918-1920).

Fragments of the book "America's Siberian Adventure (1918-1920)"

* * * Admiral Kolchak surrounded himself with former tsarist officials, and since the peasants did not want to take up arms and sacrifice their lives for the return of these people to power, they were beaten, flogged with whips and killed in cold blood by the thousands, after which the world called them "Bolsheviks."In Siberia, the word "Bolshevik" means a person who neither word nor deed supports the return to power in Russia of representatives of the autocracy.

* * * Soldiers of Semyonov and Kalmykov, protected by Japanese troops, roamed the country like wild animals, killing and robbing people; if Japan wished, these killings could end in a day. If questions arose about these brutal murders, the answer was that those killed were Bolsheviks, and this explanation, obviously, was quite happy with the world. Conditions in Eastern Siberia were dire, and there was nothing cheaper than human life.

Horrible murders were committed there, but they were not committed by the Bolsheviks, as the world thinks. I will be far from any exaggeration if I say that for every person killed by the Bolsheviks in Eastern Siberia, there are one hundred killed by the anti-Bolsheviks.

* * * It is difficult to imagine a man like Kalmykov existing in modern civilization; there was hardly a day without reports of the terrible atrocities committed by him and his troops.

* * * Kalmykov remained in Khabarovsk and established his own regime of terror, violence and bloodshed, which eventually caused his own troops to mutin and seek protection from the American army. Under the pretext of fighting Bolshevism, he groundlessly arrested any wealthy people, tortured to obtain their money and executed many on charges of Bolshevism. These arrests were so frequent that they intimidated all classes of the population; it is estimated that Kalmykov's troops executed several hundred people in the vicinity of Khabarovsk. * * * It is surprising that the officers of the Russian tsarist army did not realize the need for changes in the practices used by the army under the tsarist regime. The atrocities committed east of Lake Baikal were so shocking that they left an open-minded person in no doubt about the veracity of many reports of excesses. * * * The views of the Russian monarchists on the ethical methods of seeking funding are characterized by the following: Colonel Korf, Russian liaison officer with the American command, told the US intelligence officer Colonel Eichelberger that General Ivanov-Rinov and General Romanovsky have enough power to stop the tide criticism of both me and all Americans and American politics, and if I secure US $ 20,000 a month for the Russian army, the propaganda against the Americans will cease.* * * In March, a young woman, a rural teacher, came to the headquarters of the American troops. She asked to provide security for herself and her brothers so that they could return to their village, Gordievka, and bury their father, who was killed by the troops of Ivanov-Rinov. The woman said that Russian troops came to Gordievka in search of young men for compulsory conscription, but the youth fled, and then the troops detained ten men in the village, whose age was higher than the conscript, tortured and killed them, and put guards at the bodies to prevent relatives to bury them. It sounded so cruel and unnatural that I ordered an officer with a small detachment to go to Gordievka and conduct an investigation, and informed the woman of my intentions.

The officer sent to investigate reported the following:

Upon arrival at the Gordian school building, I was greeted by a crowd of 70 or 80 men, all armed with rifles, mostly Russian army rifles, as well as some old single-shot 45-70 rifles. All the information I gathered was obtained in the presence of these 70 or 80 armed villagers and about 25 or 30 women. Most of the information was obtained from the wives of the victims, these women lost their feelings many times during this difficult ordeal for them. The first interviewee said that her husband walked to the school with his rifle to hand it over to the Russian military in accordance with orders. They seized him in the street, beat him on the head and torso with a rifle, and then took him to a house near the school, where they tied him with his hands tied to a pin in the rafters by the neck and beat him terribly on the torso and head until blood splattered even the walls of the room. … The marks on his body showed me that he was also hung by his legs.

Later he was put in a row with eight other men and was shot at 14:00. There were ten men in the line, all were killed except one, whom the soldiers of Ivanov-Rinov left to die. Next I interrogated the woman in whose house everyone was beaten and then shot behind her threshing floor. She stated that on the morning of March 9, 1919, at about 11:00, several officers of Ivanov-Rinov came to her house and forced her to take her husband to another house, but at 11:30 they took her husband back and beat him along with the others; They broke his arm, cut off his nails and knocked out all of his front teeth. Her husband was disabled and crippled.

The officer also added:

I found that the floor of the room where these men were beaten was covered in blood, and all the walls were splattered with blood. The wire and rope loops that tied their necks were still hanging from the ceiling and covered in blood. I also found that some of the men were doused with boiling water and burned with hot irons heated in a small oven I found in the room.

I visited the place where these men were shot. They were lined up and shot, each body with at least three bullet holes, some with six or more. Obviously, they were first shot in the feet, and then higher in the torso.

The young officer conducting the investigation received and included in his report much more testimony, and the testimony that I am not citing is in every detail the same as the one quoted.

This incident seemed so disgusting to me that I ordered the officer to report to me personally. He was not a cadre, he was called up for the duration of the war. I will never forget what this officer said to me after I finished interviewing him. He declared:

General, for God's sake, don't send me anymore on such expeditions. I could hardly restrain myself from ripping off my form, joining these unfortunates and helping them all that was in my power

* * * Turning to those fellow citizens who believe that it is necessary to fight Bolshevism regardless of US policy, I will note that I could never determine who exactly was a Bolshevik and why he was. According to the Japanese representatives and their paid puppets in Siberia, all Russians were Bolsheviks who did not want to take up arms and fight for Semyonov, Kalmykov, Rozanov, Ivanov-Rinov; and in fact in the criminal archives of the United States you will not find characters worse. According to British and French representatives, everyone who did not want to take up arms and fight for Kolchak were Bolsheviks.

* * * Military uniforms for the mobilized Russians were mostly provided by the British. General Knox said Britain had supplied one hundred thousand kits to Kolchak's forces. This is partly confirmed by the number of Red Army soldiers wearing British uniforms. General Knox was so disgusted with the fact that the Reds wear British uniforms that he was later reported to have said that Britain should not supply Kolchak with anything, because everything supplied turns out to be with the Bolsheviks. Generally speaking, Red Army soldiers in British uniforms were the same soldiers who were given these uniforms while they were in Kolchak's army. A significant part of these soldiers was not inclined to fight for Kolchak.

The methods used by the Kolchakites to mobilize Siberians caused anger that is difficult to calm. They went into service, embittered by fear, not of the enemy, but of their own troops. As a result after the issuance of weapons and uniforms, they deserted to the Bolsheviks in regiments, battalions and one by one.

On April 9, 1919, I reported:

The number of so-called Bolshevik gangs in Eastern Siberia has increased as a result of the order of mobilization and the extraordinary methods used in its implementation. The peasants and the working class do not want to fight for the Kolchak government.

* * * The harsh measures used by the tsarist regime to prevent prisoners from escaping did not disappear by the time I passed through Irkutsk. I saw about twenty prisoners who had healthy chains chained to their ankles, to the end of which were attached large balls; for the prisoner to walk, he had to carry the ball in his hand.

* * * In Krasnoyarsk, I learned something about General Rozanov, with whom I tried to work in Vladivostok. He was the very man who ordered his troops on March 27, 1919:

1. When occupying villages previously occupied by bandits (partisans), demand the extradition of the leaders of the movement; where you cannot capture the leaders, but have sufficient evidence of their presence, shoot every tenth inhabitant.

If, when troops move through the city, the population, having the opportunity, does not report the presence of the enemy, monetary compensation is required from everyone without restriction.

Villages where the population meets our troops with weapons should be burned to the ground, all grown men should be shot; property, houses, carts should be requisitioned for use by the army.

We learned that Rozanov held hostages, and for each of his supporters who met death, he killed ten hostages. He spoke of these methods used in Krasnoyarsk as handling the situation with gloves, but announced his intention to take off his gloves after arriving in Vladivostok in order to deal with the situation without the restraint that he showed to Krasnoyarsk people …

Rozanov was the third most abominable character from those whom I knew in Siberia, although the level of Kalmykov and Semyonov was unattainable for him

* * * To indicate the combat capability of Kolchak's troops in August 1919, I will try to analyze the official messages that came to me. One of the reports read:

It is estimated that, with the exception of officials and the military, the Omsk government supports no more than 5% of the population. At the rate, the Reds are supported by about 45%, the Socialist-Revolutionaries by about 40%, about 10% is divided among other parties, and 5% remain on the military, officials and supporters of Kolchak.

From that time until the fall of the Omsk government, Kolchak's army was a retreating gang.

* * * The ambassador and I left Omsk for Vladivostok around August 10th. We stayed in Novonikolaevsk, Irkutsk, Verkhneudinsk and Harbin. Until we found ourselves on the territory of Semyonov, nothing interesting happened. By this time, it was well known that Semyonov had organized what was known as "killing stations" and openly boasted that he could not sleep well if he had not killed at least someone during the day.

We stopped at a small station and two Americans from the Russian Railways Service Corps boarded our train. They told us about the killing of Semyonov by the soldiers two or three days before our arrival a whole train of Russians, in which there were 350 people. I don’t remember if there were only men, or also women.

The Americans reported the following:

The train of prisoners passed the station, and at the station everyone knew that they would be killed. The Corps officers went to the execution site, but were stopped by Semyonov's soldiers. One hour and fifty minutes later, the empty train returned to the station. The next day, the two went to the scene of the murder and saw evidence of the mass execution. From the cartridges on the ground, it was clear that the prisoners were being shot from machine guns: the spent cartridges lay in heaps in places where they were thrown by machine guns. The bodies were in two recently dug ditches. In one trench the bodies were completely covered with earth, in the other many arms and legs were visible.

* * * I doubt that in the history of the last half century there is at least one country in the world where murders would be committed even more calmly and with less fear of punishment than it was in Siberia under the regime of Admiral Kolchak. One example of cruelty and lawlessness in Siberia is a typical case in Omsk, Kolchak’s residence, which occurred on December 22, 1918, just a month and four days after Kolchak assumed the powers of “Supreme Ruler”. On this day in Omsk there was an uprising of workers against the Kolchak government. The revolutionaries succeeded in part, opening the prison and letting two hundred prisoners escape.

Among them, 134 were political prisoners, including several members of the Constituent Assembly. On the day this happened, the Omsk commander-in-chief of Kolchak issued an order requiring all those released to return to prison, and stated that those who did not return within 24 hours would be killed on the spot. All members of the Constituent Assembly and a number of other well-known political prisoners returned to prison. On the same night, several Kolchak officers took the members of the Constituent Assembly out of prison, telling them that they would take them to the place of their trial for the crimes of which they were accused, and all were shot. There was nothing for this cruel and lawless murder to the officers. Conditions in Siberia were such that such atrocities could easily be hidden from the world.

The foreign press constantly asserted that it was the Bolsheviks who were the Russians who committed these terrible excesses, and the propaganda was so active that no one could even imagine that these atrocities were committed against the Bolsheviks

* * * Colonel Morrow, who commanded American troops in the Trans-Baikal sector, reported the most brutal, heartless and almost incredible murder of an entire village by Semyonov. When his troops approached the village, the residents apparently tried to escape from their homes, but Semyonov's soldiers fired at them - men, women and children - as if they were hunting rabbits, and dumped their bodies at the scene of the murder. They shot not just one person, but everyone in this village.

Colonel Morrow forced a Japanese and a Frenchman to go with an American officer to investigate this massacre, and what I have told is contained in a report signed by an American, a Frenchman and a Japanese. In addition to the above, the officers reported that they found the bodies of four or five men, who were apparently burned alive.

People naturally wondered what could be the purpose of such gruesome murders. The purpose is similar to the reason why camp guards keep sniffer dogs and use other means to intimidate prisoners; to prevent escape attempts. In Siberia, the persecuted people were not prisoners, but those responsible for these horrors were convinced that all Russians should at least act as if they sincerely support the Kolchak cause. Such treatment has sometimes succeeded in causing people to hide their true sentiments for a time. This was the case in Siberia, and I am convinced that the Americans do not know anything about these terrible conditions.

* * * When the Americans first got to Siberia, most of us naturally expected that the experience of war and revolution would change the thinking of the government from the former ruling class, but when this ruling class began to commit terrible atrocities in Siberia, it became it is clear that they never learned anything.

* * * It was well known in Vladivostok that from November 18, 1919 to January 31, 1920, Rozanov killed from five hundred to six hundred men, without commenting on his murders. First, a decision was made on the execution, then a military tribunal was assembled to legalize the intended murder; this was the method used by Rozanov. This procedure was well known in Vladivostok; in one of the cases, I personally checked the accuracy of the information at the request of a Russian woman who lived at one time in New York.

* * *

General Knox served in Russia as a military attaché under the tsarist regime. He could speak Russian and undoubtedly thought he understood Russians. He probably understood the character and characteristics of those Russians with whom he was associated in Petrograd, but I cannot believe that he understood the aspirations of the vast mass of the Russian people. If he understood these people, he probably would not have thought - and he obviously thought that way - that Russian peasants and workers would take up arms and fight to bring to power the supporters of Kolchak who committed such atrocities. against those people who were looking for military support. General Knox shared with me his thought: "the poor Russians were just pigs."

Personally, I never thought that Kolchak had any chance to establish a government in Siberia, but the belief of Knox and others like him that the masses of the people were pigs, and they could be treated like pigs, hastened the fall of Kolchak.

America's Siberian Adventure (1918-1920), Major General William Sidney Graves (1865-1940)