NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 136, 6 December 1939, Page 12

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

AN ARCTIC CAMPAIGN

WAR IN THE TWILIGHT

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

The "twilight war" which the Finns and Russians are waging in the Petsamb region is not the first fighting that has occurred between modern armies within the Arctic Circle. An Allied expeditionary force arrived •ct Murmansk, which is not so far from Petsamo, in the early months of 1918. The object of this expedition, an ex-] tremely heterogeneous force, may be summed up as the restarting of the war on German/'^ eastern front. The Allies reasoned that a contingent of troops in North Russia would certainly 'obtain assistance from he dissatis-fied-elements in Russia, that the Bolsheviks, who had withdrawn from the war, might be overthrown, and the transfer of large German forces from east to west prevented. Towards tKj end the nations contributed men. Some 150 British marines landed at Murmansk in April. They were followed by forces which, at their maximum, approached 50,000 men—2o,ooo White Russians, 18,400 British, 5100 Americans 1800 French, 1200 Italians, 1000 Serbs. In May the Allies held the Kola Peninsula and had some detachments at Kandalakasha. They pushed southwards down the Petrograd railway and reached the point where the road to Archangel via Onega branches eastwards, thus protecting the ice-free port of Murmansk against any possible German move through Finland (Britain was afraid of Murmansk ' being used as a submarine base). Then they turned their attention to Archangel. When the commander returned to England early in October, Major-General W. E. Ironside, now Chief of the Imperial General Staff, succeeded him, and the two commands became independent. CAMPAIGN DIFFICULTIES. .The campaign presented difficulties which made it unique in the history of war. The Armistice, which brought relief to the troops of the Western Front, merely signalled, for the Northern Russian Expeditionary Force, the closing of the White Sea by ice. While the troops knew that demobilisation was proceeding on other fronts, they had.to fight on. Further, the object of the campaign was obviously no longer the same. Germany as an enemy had disappeared from the scene, and the Allied- troops never knew quite clearly why they were fighting. Actually what had happened was that in their efforts to re-create the eastern front the • Allies had espoused the cause of the White Russians, had come into conflict with-the Soviet Government, and were ho'fj now prepared to abandon the White Russians who had joined in the campaign. ■ The fighting was carried out that winter in intense cold and constant darkness. • Exposure after a wound meant certain death. To touch metal with'a bare hand was to brand the flesh. The.curious fioises in the forests during- intense cold made sentry-duty particularly exacting. Machine-guns CQuld. only be used in warmed blockhouses, 'and their field of fire might be destroyed in a night by a heavy fall of snow. Flying conditions/were intolerable .save,... in electrically-heated clothing. .Aerodromes had to be made by marching whole battalions back and forth across the snow. Capping these troubles there was the homely problem of food supply. Th 2 British quartermasters, must have, been driven almost distracted by t:.e demands of the mixed force. The British insisted on a,rum'ration, the Americans on coffee, the French needed their wine. There were .onions for the Italian., and double rations of bread for the White Russians. ' Food, clothing, and munitions had to be unified as far as possible. Yet the Allied troops made splendid efforts. They even succeeded in seizing the northern end of Lake Onega and presenting an effective threat against Petrograd, a threat which was answered by the transference of large Russian forces. In May and June relief brigades arrived and the evacuation of all troops which had spent the winter, in North Russia began at once. The lesson of that winter remained, and the evacuation of all Allied personnel in the, north followed before the winter of 1919. Admiral Kolchak's Siberians had been defeated and the junction with them for which the Allies had hoped proved to be impossible. The last men left Murmansk on October 12.