Of course all the accidents did not happen to Americans. During the
winter on the Railroad, a sad one happened to a fine British officer. A
brooding enlisted man of the American medical corps went insane one dark
night and craftily securing a rifle held up the first Englishman he
found. He roundly berated the British officer with being the cause of
the North Russian War on the Bolsheviki, told the puzzled but patiently
listening officer to say a prayer and then suddenly blew off the poor
man's head and himself went off his nut completely.

With the beginning of the winter campaign Pletsetskaya's importance to
the Red Army began to loom up. Trotsky's forces could be readily
supplied from that city and his forces could be swiftly shifted from
front to front to attack the widely dispersed forces of the Allied
Expedition. It was seen now clearly that the fall offensive should have
been pushed through to Plesetskaya by the converging Onega, Railroad and
Kodish Forces. And plans were made to retrieve the error by putting on a
determined push late in December to take Plesetskaya and reverse the
strategic situation so as to favor the Allied Expeditionary Forces.

The Onega Force was to make a strong diversion toward the Bolo extreme
left; the Kodish Force was to smash through Kodish to Kochmas assisted
by a heavy force of Russians and English operating on and through Gora
and Taresevo, and thence to Plesetskaya; the French-trained company of
Russian Courier-du-Bois were to go on snow shoes through the snow from
Obozerskaya to the rear of Emtsa for a surprise attack; and timed with
all these was the drive of the Americans and British Liverpools on the
Railroad straight at the Bolo fortifications at Verst 443 and Emtsa.
Study of the big map will show that the plan had its merits.

There were one or two things wrong with the plan. One was that it
underestimated the increased strength of the Bolshevik forces both in
numbers and in morale and discipline. The other was the erroneous
estimate of the time required to make the distances in the deep snow. Of
course it was not the fault of the plan that the information leaked out
and disaffected men deserted the Allied Russian auxiliaries' ranks and
tipped off the push to the Bolsheviki.

The story of the New Year's battles by "H" on the one hand and "K" on
the other have been told. It remains to relate here the "railroad push"
fiasco. The Courier-du-Bois got stuck in the deep snow,