In late February 1919, the soldiers of Company B reached the breaking point, when griping gave way to mutiny.
The Americans had expected to face Germans on the Western Front. Yet three months after the Nov. 11 armistice ended the Great War, they were instead fighting Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia’s frigid European north.
Dozens of their fellow troops had succumbed to influenza on the sea voyage to the Russian port of Archangel. Others had been killed in combat by an enemy armed with a local’s knowledge of trails and villages. Wounded Americans had frozen to death awaiting rescue in snowy forests.
Over the fall and winter, U.S. troops felt misled by their government, deceived by their officers, abused by their allies and outgunned by their enemy, fighting in a war that was already over.
Many Americans demonstrated bravery and fortitude in the frozen-mud swamps and pine forests around Archangel. Others gave into the temptations of rebellion.
https://m.wsj.net/video-atmo/20181107/archangel_snow/archangel_snow_1000.mp4
Army troops fight and drill in the snow on the front lines outside of Archangel. Video courtesy of the National Archives. CLICK THE LINK TO OPEN THE VIDEO
The discontent blistered to the surface on Company B’s ration day, when the men in line realized the Army wasn’t issuing enough food to hold them until the next delivery. “Hey, fellows, let’s stop all the God damn talk and do something,” Pvt. Bill Henkelman told the other soldiers.
Pvt. Henkelman and three others drafted an ultimatum addressed to the regiment commander. If not withdrawn from the front by March 15, 1919, the soldiers wrote, “we positively refuse to advance” against the enemy.
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