With Snow on Their Boots: The Tragic Odyssey of the Russian Expeditionary Force in France during World War I by Jamie H. s> Cockfield (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 36I Cockfield,Jamie H. WithSnowon TheirBoots:TheTragicOdyssey of theRussian Expeditionaiy Forcein FranceduringWorldWarI. St Martin's Press, New York, I998. xi + 396 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?45 ??O IN summer i9I6 severalthousand Russian troops disembarkedat Marseilles. Their arrival was the result of a deal struck the previous year. Worried by mounting casualtiesat home and the poor performanceof its ill-equippedally on the Eastern Front, the French government offered military hardware to Russia in exchange for soldiers.Initially,both sides anticipated that an army of 400,000 volunteers would be sent to the Western Front. In the event transport difficulties could not be overcome and the pool of likely recruits turned out to be smaller than expected. The 'Russian Expeditionary Force' (REF) comprised only two brigades confusinglynamed the Ist and 3rd and totalled no more than 20,000 men. Trouble began almost immediately. When the REF went into barracksfor training,some, but not all, soldiersrefusedto obey orders.In partthiswas due to the diverse social composition of the brigades. Volunteers drawn from Moscow's working-classdistrictswho formed the core of the Ist brigadewere quicklyradicalized, not least, speculatesthe author, because many had direct experience of the 1905 Revolution. The 3rd brigade, on the other hand, was made up of WestSiberianpeasantswho, by and large,were more conservative than the Muscovites. Both brigadestook part in the ill-fatedNivelle Offensive of April I9I7, but as news trickledthroughfromRussia,the REF began to disintegrate.Soldiers' committees sentdelegatesto the PetrogradSoviet and demanded repatriation. Fearfulof the effect these events might have on French units many were simultaneously in a near mutinous condition after the slaughter of Verdun and the failureof theApriloffensive and unableto persuadethe Provisional Government to accede to repatriation, at the end of May the French government isolated the entire REF in a remote location sixty miles from Limoges. There the riftsbetween the two unitswidened. While committees in the 'Siberian' 3rd brigade accepted the legitimacy of the new regime, Ist brigade's 'Muscovites'elected a Soviet and demanded an end to the war and the overthrow of the Provisional Government. Eventually the two brigades spontaneously segregatedthemselves, a prelude to a muddled three-day 'civil war' in mid September duringwhich the 3rd, encouraged and assistedby the French, attackedand disarmedthe Ist. Despite the defeat of the radicalsand theimprisonmentof theirleadersthisattemptto re-establishmilitarydiscipline failed. In any event the status of Russian soldiers on allied soil had become equivocal afterthe October Revolution. Consequentlythe Frenchgovernment wound up the REF. Some soldiers elected to fight in Salonika. Others were sent to work camps or penal colonies in Algeria. Many simply melted away into France. A small number, perhaps 400, formed the nucleus of the rightwing monarchist 'RussianLegion', which fought on in Franceuntil the end of the WVar and then merged with the White movement outside Russia. This, in brief, is the storywhich Dr Cockfieldhas to tell. Unfortunately, he does not tell it well. In the first place, the book is confused, repetitious and 362 SEER, 8I, 2, 2003 replete with platitudes. (The FirstWorld War, we learn, is 'one of the more curious events in the history of mankind. Oceans of ink have been used to debate its causes', p. II.) Secondly, unsupportableand rambling generalizations on life, culture and national characteristicsmar virtuallyevery page of the text. Russians,apparently,are 'suspicious'of foreigners,but 'extraordinarily generous' and 'warm and wonderful to the individual stranger'. On the other hand, 'cruelty will surface in a Russian', but 'only under the sudden stresswhen he is threatened. Then he will sometimeslash out with animal-like fury, only to become gentle again when the threat has passed' (p. 9). Finally, the author'sprejudices,while entertaining,add nothing to our understanding of the past. Soldiers on leave in Paris, for instance, came into contact with 'hostile and bitter' expatriates, 'malcontents', 'members of questionable organizations' who, having 'plied' them with drink 'planted the seeds of discontent against their sojourn in France and against their officers'(p. 79). Thus corrupted, many later became 'Russian Leftistsof some sort who were prostitutingthemselvesfor German gold, as Lenin did' (p. 240). This could have been a competent study of a mildly interestingepisode of the GreatWar.But it is not. Department ofSlavonic Studies CHRIS WARD University ofCambridge Robinson, Paul. The...