POLAR BEAR EXPEDITION: THE U.S. ARMY IN RUSSIA
Song: Cold Cold War
This is one of the more bizarre events from World War One and after. General Pershing himself selected recruits from Wisconsin and Michigan to serve in North Russia because they were thought to be more acclimated to the cold. They were first sent to guard stockpiles of weapons from getting into German hands. But as time wore on, the Russian Civil War got underway, and the U.S. soldiers were…still there, they started fighting on the side of the Imperial White Army against the Bolshevik Red Army. And they stayed there long after the armistice that ending the fighting on the Western Front.
Note: This is not a comprehensive list of resources (or even close to one). These are resources that I can vouch for because I’ve read, listened to, or watched them. And they have directly impacted the writing of After the War: 1919 and the Search for Peace. If you have a resource you’d like to share, I want to know! Please send me an email at remember@mobilizethepoets.com. -Ken
Books
I first learned of James Nelson from his previous book The Remains of Company D: A Story of the Great War from my stepdad whose uncle went MIA from that Company. Like that book, this is a deep dive into what happened and what it was like as an American fighting in Russia in 1919. Cold, exhausting, tragic, bizarre. He hits on all the points.
Archangel: The American War with Russia by John Cudahy
A 1924 memoir by Milwaukeean John Cudahy (of the famous Cudahy family). He holds no punches in this scathing account of his time in Northern Russia. Cudahy himself led a pretty extraordinary life after the war. He became an amabassador to Poland and Belgium as well as U.S. Minister to the Irish Free State. He also interviewed Hitler for Life Magazine in 1941.
Podcasts
Incident at Chelyabinsk: The Russian Revolution and Conflict in Eastern Europe, Part by I
The Object of Power: The Russian Revolution and Conflict in Eastern Europe, Part II
A brilliant deep dive into the strangeness of the U.S. intervention in the Russian Civil War from Elizabeth Lunday’s The Year That Was podcast.