The Polar Bear Expedition (three stars)

Even as WWI was wrapping up the Allies (Britain, France and the United States) sent troops to Murmansk and Archangel, ostensibly to guard war material sent to their ally Russia. Russia, unfortunately, had come under the control of the Bolsheviks and had pulled out of the war, allowing the Central Powers to turn their full attention to the Allies fighting in France and Italy.

It turned out that the Allied intervention, led by the British, had more grandiose plans than simply guarding war material which, in any case, had been looted by the Bolos prior to their withdrawal into the hinterland. The British hoped to push past the Reds and to link up with White forces opposing the Bolsheviks, perhaps even as far as the Trans-Siberian Railroad. This was held at the time by the Czechoslovak Legion, an extremely well-armed and disciplined force that was an island of order in a land of chaos.

With this plan in mind, the British broke up the 339th Infantry Regiment and sent individual companies (and sometimes platoons!) up the Dvina and Onega Rivers to push the Bolsheviks away from the base at Archangel and to hold positions for other Allied forces to jump off from in the Spring of 1919... Allied forces that never came.

The author obviously did a lot of good research on this topic, much of which is based on personal accounts of those soldiers who participated in the operations. He discusses the poor weapons the doughboys were given (American-made Mosin-Nagants), the poor food provided by the British and the sidelining of the American regimental command and control structure. Add to poor morale was the obvious fact that the Bolos were increasing in numbers and despite giving way initially were getting bolder as the winter dragged on.

The style of writing gave me some pause, however. The author tried to grab the reader's attention at the beginning of each chapter by a gratuitous scene of violence and desperation, often by people he had not introduced us to yet. Also, the book opened with a serious mistake on page one of Chapter One, when it described the German's St. Michael Offensive as "advancing eastward." Advancing eastward would have had the Germans moving towards Berlin, not Paris, or in military parlance "retreating."

Illustrated with excellent photos and maps.