o the strength and equipment of Dutoff
or Denikin.

On the other hand, it was known that an Anglo-American force had landed
at Archangel, which it was presumed would be well supplied with winter
equipment, and if once a junction could be effected with this force, a
channel for European supplies could soon be opened. Every cartridge,
gun, rifle, and article of clothing had now to be shipped almost round
the world, and brought over about six thousand miles of more or less
disorganised railway communication. Koltchak had men, but no means for
making them into fighters unless supplied from outside. It was felt
certain that if his armies could smash their way through to Perm, and
hold a point somewhere between there and Vatka, the junction of the
Archangel and Petrograd Railway, the slightest movement of the Archangel
expedition would result in a combination which could and would move
straight forward to Petrograd, and free north Russia from the
Terrorists.

Originally I was to have operated in the centre with a detachment of the
25th Middlesex Battalion and four machine guns, and authority had been
given for my part in the advance. The complete defection of the Czechs,
however, threw the time-table out of joint, and not even the restless
energy of the Supreme Governor could make up this loss for nearly four
weeks. In the meantime the cold became so intense that the British
contingent, being only B1 men, had to drop out. General Gaida, with his
divisional generals, Galitzin, Pepelaieff, and Verzbitzky, pressed
forward their preparations, and after a splendid series of movements
captured Perm with 31,000 prisoners and an enormous booty of war
material. The losses of the Russians were about 6,000 killed, of the
Bolsheviks about 16,000. There were practically no wounded, for any man
who sank in the snow was dead in an hour. Thus did the admiral
consolidate the power that had been entrusted to him.

The Terrorists were completely demoralised, so that the army advanced to
Glasoff, 80 miles east of Vatka and 60 miles south of Koltass. We were
now only about 300 miles east of Petrograd, and there we waited for
seven months for the Archangel move, which never came off. For some
time the country was so absolutely clear of enemy forces that small
parties of men passed unmolested from Glasoff to Archangel and from
Archangel to Glasoff. Eventually the Terrorists got the correct measure
of this Northern expedition, contained it with a