By mid-month, East Front’s bayonets and sabers stood at almost 72,000 and its troop total at about 85,000. On 1 September, its bayonets and sabers exceeded 80,000, its troop total stood at about 100,000, and it had 72,000 more scheduled to arrive during the next 20 days. Its artillery pieces and machine guns had increased to 264 and 1,130 respectively. The Czech and White totals, according to Soviet estimates, then amounted to between 53,000 and 64,000 troops, 163 and 220 artillery pieces, and 950 and 720 machine guns, which would indicate a possible increase below 20 per cent while the East Front strength was being doubled. The Northeastern and Southern Screens benefited from the redeployment as well. Detachments withdrawn from the Finnish border and the area south of Soroka brought the Northeastern Screen to over 10,000 men by late August. Shifts away from the Ukrainian border enabled the Southern Screen to bring its strength in the sector between Povorino and Kashirin to almost 18,000 men. Those were sufficient to hold both places and to stage counterattacks jointly with the Tsaritsyn group that pushed the Cossacks away from the Volga and brought the first battle for Tsaritsyn to a successful conclusion on 6 September.33 The Cossacks’ withdrawal, particularly at Tsaritsyn, could possibly also have been influenced by Krasnov’s failure to secure German recognition and military assistance. ‘military action’ and ‘military intervention’ The Czechs, at the height of their success, were becoming disheartened. In accepting the role of Allied vanguard they had assumed that Allied troops and weapons would be arriving in short order. None had come, and winter was no more than a month away in the Arkhangelsk region and in Siberia. At Ekatrinburg, Kazan, and Nikolayevsk, they were embroiled in battles of attrition, the last thing they could afford. The Russian population was not rallying to the Allied cause. The workers, if they were anything, were pro-Bolshevik, and the anti- Bolshevik majority regarded the predominantly Left Social Revolutionary Samara government as no better than the Bolsheviks. On 19 August, the corps commander told the Czechoslovak National Council, ‘Our troops are extremely tired. All their hopes are pinned on the Allies’ sending us reinforcements. Their spirit remains high, but enthusiasm alone is not enough.’ On the 28th, in an assessment addressed to the US Government, Masaryk, as chairman of the National Council, stated that ‘the enemy will try to defeat and, if possible, annihilate our forces on the Volga’ and therefore ‘Allied troops must reinforce our army’s western elements in the absolute shortest time’.34 The far greater likelihood by then was that reinforcements would not materialize at all. The decision to intervene had hardened the Allies’contradictions, not resolved 61 the red army 1918–1941 them. British and French enthusiasm for a revived Eastern Front was at its peak but so were also the Western Front’s demands on their military resources. While the Japanese were willing to commit substantial forces in the Far East, they would do so only to serve their own interests, and those did not extend beyond Lake Baikal. The US President, State Department, and War Department considered the defeat of Germany on the Western Front to be the country’s sole objective and the employment of American troops elsewhere, except in limited numbers for strictly defined purposes, as militarily, politically, and morally indefensible. In an aide-memoire given to the Allied ambassadors on 17 July, the State Department had undertaken to clarify the American position by introducing a distinction between ‘military intervention’ and ‘military action’. Military intervention for the purpose of bringing Germany under attack from the east, it stated, would damagingly exploit Russia and not help win the war against Germany; consequently the United States could ‘not take part in such an intervention or sanction it in principle’. Military action by small forces would be admissible for two specific purposes: to protect the rear of the Czechs in the Far East who were fighting to restore contact with their comrades in Western Siberia (which was not done until late in August) and to guard military supplies and equipment stored at Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.
By mid-month, East Front’s bayonets and sabers stood at almost 72,000 and its troop total at about 85,000. On 1 September, its bayonets and sabers exceeded 80,000, its troop total stood at about 100,000, and it had 72,000 more scheduled to arrive during the next 20 days. Its artillery pieces and machine guns had increased to 264 and 1,130 respectively. The Czech and White totals, according to Soviet estimates, then amounted to between 53,000 and 64,000 troops, 163 and 220 artillery pieces, and 950 and 720 machine guns, which would indicate a possible increase below 20 per cent while the East Front strength was being doubled. The Northeastern and Southern Screens benefited from the redeployment as well. Detachments withdrawn from the Finnish border and the area south of Soroka brought the Northeastern Screen to over 10,000 men by late August. Shifts away from the Ukrainian border enabled the Southern Screen to bring its strength in the sector between Povorino and Kashirin to almost 18,000 men. Those were sufficient to hold both places and to stage counterattacks jointly with the Tsaritsyn group that pushed the Cossacks away from the Volga and brought the first battle for Tsaritsyn to a successful conclusion on 6 September.33 The Cossacks’ withdrawal, particularly at Tsaritsyn, could possibly also have been influenced by Krasnov’s failure to secure German recognition and military assistance. ‘military action’ and ‘military intervention’ The Czechs, at the height of their success, were becoming disheartened. In accepting the role of Allied vanguard they had assumed that Allied troops and weapons would be arriving in short order. None had come, and winter was no more than a month away in the Arkhangelsk region and in Siberia. At Ekatrinburg, Kazan, and Nikolayevsk, they were embroiled in battles of attrition, the last thing they could afford. The Russian population was not rallying to the Allied cause. The workers, if they were anything, were pro-Bolshevik, and the anti- Bolshevik majority regarded the predominantly Left Social Revolutionary Samara government as no better than the Bolsheviks. On 19 August, the corps commander told the Czechoslovak National Council, ‘Our troops are extremely tired. All their hopes are pinned on the Allies’ sending us reinforcements. Their spirit remains high, but enthusiasm alone is not enough.’ On the 28th, in an assessment addressed to the US Government, Masaryk, as chairman of the National Council, stated that ‘the enemy will try to defeat and, if possible, annihilate our forces on the Volga’ and therefore ‘Allied troops must reinforce our army’s western elements in the absolute shortest time’.34 The far greater likelihood by then was that reinforcements would not materialize at all. The decision to intervene had hardened the Allies’contradictions, not resolved 61 the red army 1918–1941 them. British and French enthusiasm for a revived Eastern Front was at its peak but so were also the Western Front’s demands on their military resources. While the Japanese were willing to commit substantial forces in the Far East, they would do so only to serve their own interests, and those did not extend beyond Lake Baikal. The US President, State Department, and War Department considered the defeat of Germany on the Western Front to be the country’s sole objective and the employment of American troops elsewhere, except in limited numbers for strictly defined purposes, as militarily, politically, and morally indefensible. In an aide-memoire given to the Allied ambassadors on 17 July, the State Department had undertaken to clarify the American position by introducing a distinction between ‘military intervention’ and ‘military action’. Military intervention for the purpose of bringing Germany under attack from the east, it stated, would damagingly exploit Russia and not help win the war against Germany; consequently the United States could ‘not take part in such an intervention or sanction it in principle’. Military action by small forces would be admissible for two specific purposes: to protect the rear of the Czechs in the Far East who were fighting to restore contact with their comrades in Western Siberia (which was not done until late in August) and to guard military supplies and equipment stored at Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.