CHAPTER

 1.  From Hong-Kong to Siberia
 2.  Bolshevik successes
 3.  Japan intervenes
 4.  The battle of Dukoveskoie and Kraevesk
 5.  Japanese methods and Allied far-eastern policy
 6.  Administration
 7.  Further incidents of our journey
 8.  Beyond the baikal
 9.  Omsk
10.  Along the Urals
11.  What happened at Omsk
12.  The capture of Perm:  The Czechs retire from the fighting 13.  The December royalist and Bolshevist conspiracy 14.  A bombshell from Paris and the effect
15.  More intrigues
16.  Russian labour
17.  My campaign
18.  Omsk re-visited
19.  In European Russia
20.  Making an ataman
21.  Homeward bound
22.  American policy and its results
23.  Japanese policy and its results
24.  General conclusions

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Col.  John Ward, C.B., C.M.G., M.P. Frontispiece

LANDING OF THE 25TH MIDDLESEX AT VLADIVOSTOK

ALLIED COMMANDERS IN FRONT OF HEADQUARTERS AT VLADIVOSTOK

Gen.  Detriks (Czech) and col.  Ward after the Allied council at
Vladivostok

A conference outside headquarters wagon.

Col.  Ward and the Czech leader (col.  Stephan) examining the Ussurie
front

BRITISH PARADE AT OMSK

RUSSIAN HEADQUARTERS “STAFFKA,” OMSK

British staff and C.O.’s wagon

ARRIVAL OF THE BRITISH AT IRKUTSK

ADMIRAL KOLTCHAK

WITH THE “DIE-HARDS” IN SIBERIA

CHAPTER I

FROM HONG-KONG TO SIBERIA

The 25th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment had already such a record of travel and remarkable experiences to its credit that it was in quite a matter-of-fact way I answered a summons from Headquarters at Hong-Kong, one morning in November, 1917, and received the instruction to hold myself and my battalion in readiness to proceed to a destination unknown.  Further conferences between the heads of departments under the presidency of the G.O.C., Major-General F. Ventris, revealed that the operations of the battalion were to be conducted in a very cold climate, and a private resident at tiffin that day at the Hong-Kong Club simply asked me “at what date I expected to leave for Vladivostok?”

The preparations were practically completed when orders to cease them were received from the War Office at home, followed by a cable (some time in January, 1918) to cancel all orders relating to the proposed expedition.  So we again settled down in Far Eastern home quietly to await the end of the war, when we hoped to return to the Great Old Country and resume the normal life of its citizens.