ISSN 0043-6534 !-»- f< ^A WISCONSIN |V MAGAZINE OF .-.djl^'^^ h.rj\ c\''K <*. HISTORY sf^'s "•'" The State Historical Society of Wisconsin • Vol. 62, No. 3 • Spring, 1979 t" • 1^ ^ • •. (fff .. l4 •"ft.""--'-' . .-^.'«m, JT W^; 'jf*^ BranH ••#! j•v_#.^^ HP-'H- . ' ••.... :x , ^ ''•;•.. • { S^^^^^^B^u^ > dwn. ^iWHb^ > •^"s^ .' • 1.2 7i ?• " .ii-—:'* ra^ ii t "• \, 1 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN RICHARD A. ERNEY, Director Officers WILLIAM HUFFMAN, President F. HARWOOD ORBISON, Treasurer JOHN C. GEILFUSS, First Vice-President RICHARD .\. ERNEV, Secretary ROGER E. AXTELL, Second Vice-President THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846—two years before statehood—and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and dissemi­ nating knowledge of Wisconsin and of the trans-Mississippi West. The Society serves as the archive of the State of Wisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic ma­ terials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and re­ search facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; and it publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular. MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Annual membership is $15, or $12.50 for persons over 65 or members of affiliated societies. Family membership is $20, or $15 for persons over 65 or members of affiliated societies. Contribu­ ting membership is $50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200-500; patron, $500 or more. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes, ex officio, the Governor, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the President of the Uni­ versity of Wisconsin, and the President of the Society's Auxiliary. The other thirty-six members of the Board of Curators are elected by the membership. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover. The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, at the juncture of State and Park streets on the University of Wisconsin campus. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows: General administration 262-3266 Library circulation desk 262-3421 General information 262-3271 Maps 262-9558 Affiliated local societies 262-2316 Membership 262-9613 Archives reading room 262-3338 Microforms reading room 262-9621 Contribution of library materials and Museum exhibits and services 262-2704 artifacts 262-0629 Museum tours 262-9567 Editorial offices 262-9603 Newspapers reference 262-9584 Film collections 262-0585 Picture and sound collections 262-9581 Genealogical and general reference Publications orders 262-9613 inquiries 262-9590 Public information office 262-9606 Government publications and reference 262-2781 Sales desk 262-3271 Historic preservation 262-1339 School services 262-9567 Historic sites 262-3271 Speakers bureau 262-3266 ON THE COVER: Members of the Czech Legion aboard their armored train on the Trans-Siberian Railway, 1918-1920. This issue contains a number of heretofore unpublished documents and photographs by Wisconsin participants in the Russian revolution and civil war. [National Archives photo lll-SC-75877] Volume 62, Number 3 / Spring, 1979 ^^NrEHlSTQ^ f'sbsS WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF > OF WlS'^ HISTORY (ISSN 0043-6534) Published quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Distributed to members as part of their dues. (Annual member­ ship, .|15, or $12.50 for those over 65 or members of affiliated Railways and Politics: societies; family membership, The Russian Diary of George Gibbs, 1917 179 $20, or $15 for those over 65 or members of affiliated societies; Edited by Joe Michael Feist contributing, $50; supporting, $100; sustaining, $200-500; patron, Steadying Efforts: $500 or more.) Single The "War at Archangel, 1918-1919 200 numbers from Volume 57 forward are $2. Microfilmed By Richard Goldhurst copies available through University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, A Wisconsin Man in the Russian Railway Service Michigan 48106; reprints of Corps: Letters of Fayette W. Keeler, 1918-1919 217 Volumes 1 through 20 and most issues of Volumes 21 through Edited by Joe Michael Feist 56 are available from Kraus Reprint Company, Route 100, Millwood, New York 10546. 245 Communications should be Book Reviews addressed to the editor. The Society does not assume Book Review Index 258 responsibility for statements made by contributors. Second- Wisconsin History Checklist 259 class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin, and at Accessions 261 additional mailing offices. rosTMASTER: Send address 264 changes to Wisconsin Magazine Contributors of History, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706. Copyright © 1979 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Paid for in part by the Maria L. and Simeon Mills Editorial Fund and by the George B. Burrows Fund. PAUL H. HASS EDITOR WILLIAM C. MARTEN ASSOCIATE EDITOR JOHN O. HOLZHUETER ASSISTANT EDITOR A '«#-_' Novosti from Sovfoto 155301 Restricted These Russian soldiers, unwilling to fight any longer for the czarist regime, simply turned their backs on Ihe war and went home in the spring of 1917• 178 Railways and Politics: The Russian Diary of George Gibbs, 1917 Edited by Joe Michael Feist INTRODUCTION further weakened by the destructive influence of the Siberian monk Rasputin on the royal family, and by the widely believed rumors HEN the United States en­ that Empress Alexandra (who came from a W;tere d World War I early in German principality) was a German agent. 1917, practically every quarter of American When bread riots and strikes broke out in society surged with enthusiasm and a fervent Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) in March, desire to do away with the German menace. 1917, government troops sent to quell the up­ But for one of our Allies, crippled and ex­ rising instead joined the demonstrators. With hausted Russia, the general attitude was much no base of support, Nicholas abdicated and the opposite. Since the outbreak of hostilities the Romanov dynasty melted away with hard­ in 1914, the Russian people, not unwilling ly a whimper. to fight in the beginning, had been a suffer­ The creation of the new "democratic" Rus­ ing partner with the czarist government in an sian Provisional government delighted Presi­ ineffectual prosecution of the war. The Rus­ dent Woodrow Wilson. Now, said Wilson, sian soldier was thrust into battle with little the United States had a "fit partner for a or no training, obsolete weapons, and few league of honor."' From the beginning, how­ supplies. By the early months of 1917, about ever, the Provisional government operated fifteen million Russians had been mobilized with the authority to govern Russia, but not to fight the war; of these, two million had the power. The power (but not the authori­ been killed and another four million wounded. ty) rested, if anywhere, in the Petrograd So­ Besides these staggering casualties, the Rus­ viet (Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Depu­ sian war aims were neither understood nor ties), an extralegal body through which the appreciated by the average Russian. Drained Bolsheviks eventually gained control. Russia, materially, physically, and emotionally, the therefore, was in the midst of a titanic up­ Russian people simply wished to fight no heaval when the United States entered the longer. Great War. Although Czar Nicholas II, the Russian The deep-seated conditions which led to emperor, was a weak man, he represented the downfall of Nicholas, and which were still and carried on the tyrannical excesses of three brewing in Russia, were simply not grasped centuries of Romanov rule. As more Rus­ by the American government. The Wilson ad- sians were killed and maimed, as food became more scarce, as destruction continued un­ * U.S., Department of State, Papers Relating to Ihe checked, the czar lost the confidence and re­ Foreign Relations of the United States, Russia, 1918 spect of his people. The czar's position was (Washington, 1931), I: 17. Copyright @ 1979 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin All rights of reproduction in any form reserved 179 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY SPRING, 1979 to Russia to survey the situation and to dem­ onstrate American support of the Provisional government. After receiving the reluctant approval of the Russians (who accepted the commission only in the hope of gaining equip­ ment) and the acquiescence of President Wil­ son, Daniel Willard, a railroad man and chairman of the Advisory Commission on National Defense, was requested to name five railway experts to compose the commission. One of these men was George Gibbs. ORN April 19, 1861, to Francis S. B'an: d Eliza Hosmer Gibbs, George Gibbs was the scion of an old and distinguished New England family. His earliest American an­ cestors had arrived from England in the mid- seventeenth century and, through the years, the family was engaged in shipping and mer­ chant concerns. Oliver Wolcott, Gibbs's great- great-grandfather, was a signer of the Declara­ tion of Independence. His grandfather, WHi (X3) 34310 George Gibbs III, was a noted mineralogist George Gibbs, from his passport photograph, and horticulturist. Francis Sarason Gibbs, 1917. his father, was involved in shipping and grain exporting both in the United States and the ministration's primary, perhaps exclusive, Orient. "Inherited qualities determined the concern was Russia's continued participation direction of my career in early life," George in the struggle against Germany. Thus, every Gibbs wrote. "Several generations of Gibbs effort was directed toward that end. had been fond of the natural sciences—chemis­ One area of utmost significance was Russia's try and mineralogy; these leanings in my case transportation difficulties, particularly the took the form of a fondness for engineer­ appalling condition of the Trans-Siberian ing .