Red Guards

“ Women with spades, some with rifles and bandoleers, others wearing the Red Cross on their arm-bands-the bowed, toil-worm women of the slums. Squads of soldiers marching out of step, with an affectionate jeer for the Red Guards; sailors, grim-looking; children with bundles of food for their fathers and mothers; all these, coming and going, trudged through the whitened mud that covered the cobbles of the highway inches deep. We passed cannon, jingling southward with their caissons; trucks bound both ways, bristling with armed men ”

“ Interested as we were, for a considerable time we didn't notice a change in the attitude of the soldiers and Red Guards around us. As we strolled from room to room a small group followed us, until by the time we reached the great picture-gallery where we had spent the afternoon with the yunkers, about a hundred men surged in after us. One giant of a soldier stood in our path, his face dark with sullen suspicion. ”

“ Here the White Guards were taken in hand by their new commander, Capt. Akutin, and reorganized into fighting units, taking name from the villages whence they came. Thus the Trufanagora Company of White Guards rallied about a leader who stimulated them to drill for the fight to regain their own village from the Reds who at that very moment were compelling their Trufanagora women to draw water and bake bread and dig trenches for the triumphant and boastful Red Guards. ”

“ At the first cross-roads two soldiers ran out in front of us, waving their rifles. We slowed down, and stopped.
"Passes, comrades!"
The Red Guards raised a great clamour. "We are Red Guards. We don't need any passes.... Go on, never mind them!"
But a sailor objected. "This is wrong, comrades. We must have revolutionary discipline. Suppose some counterrevolutionaries came along in a truck and said: 'We don't need any passes?' The comrades don't know you."
At this there was a debate. One by one, however, the sailors and soldiers joined with the first. ”

“ We are terrorized by the Red Guards, who are recruited mostly from drunkards and criminals. If there are any honest soldiers among them, it is because hunger and poverty force them to enlist in order to escape starvation. If we demand justice and fair play, we are shot down by the Red executioners. And all the while the Germans are advancing into Russia, and nobody is sent to fight them, our real enemies. ”

“ All our best [91] troops have gone to crush the English. Any men are good enough to defeat these red-snouted pigs. The Guard Corps has gone to destroy your Guards;" and then the fellow would go on to say where the various German corps were stationed, which was valuable information. In this way I first learned that the English Guards were in France; and many important details of the fighting there—details which it was troublesome to verify, but I did verify them: and so various and important was the information I gathered that I was, for a time, much employed in this work by the Russian staff. ”

“ The Looming Figure of Huerta
A MINUTE later they were agreeing with the oldsters in one detail of managing the war, namely, that simultaneously with the movement on Tampico and Vera Cruz, the National Guards and Rangers should cross over and take possession of every Mexican border town and water hole clear to the Pacific.
"The first line of defense is the enemy's territory," was the unanimous judgment.
Little they reck, these younglings of our nation, of what is before them. Their feet are a-tingle to be out on the old red way of man. Colts and calves play in the pastures. ”

“ The deep red tints of the golden sun, setting amid fiery haze beyond the Elbe and the tiny hills of Hanover, lay in all their richness on the creek, on the villa and its flowers and shrubs: on Altona in the background, with all its rows of poplars and pointed roofs; and Ellinor often paused in her work, and, wooed by the lap, lap, lapping and murmur of the tide, sank into a kind of dream. ”

“ A portion of the recruits were taken to the Nicholas Station and told they were going out of town to manœuvre. Imagine their feelings when they discovered that they were locked into the cars, promptly despatched to the front, and (still in civilian clothes) thrust straight into the firing line!
Every man of the Red army is supposed to have taken the following oath:
“I, a member of a labouring people and citizen of the Soviet Republic, assume the name of warrior of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Army. ”

“ These colored soldiers should be attached to the Home Guard. They will make Herculean defenders. Colored men, it will be remembered, fought the glorious battle of Red Bank, when the city was in peril in 1777. ”

“ I said one day, “what made you join the Red army?”
“You think we have any option?” he retorted. “If an officer doesn’t want to be shot he either obeys the mobilization order or flees from the country. And only those can afford to take flight who have no family to leave behind.” ”

“ Common soldiers have become expert regimental commanders, artillery officers, and cavalry leaders. In many cases opportunities which were formerly unknown, but are now offered, make of such people, of whose courage and determination there can be no doubt, convinced supporters of the present régime. Provided he signs on as a member of the Communist Party any clever adventurer who devotes his talent to the Red army can rise to great heights and make for himself a brilliant career. ”

“ There is always a sentry at our corner of the garrison, and it was this sentinel who was attacked, and it is the general belief among the officers that the Indians came to this corner hoping to get the-troops concentrated at the beat farthest from the stables, and thus give them a chance to steal some, if not all, of the cavalry horses. But Mr. Red Man's strategy is not quite equal to that of the Great Father's soldiers, or he would have known that troops would be sent at once to protect the horses. ”

“ At this juncture some good-natured moderate men joined the Reds, with the view, it appears, of moderating their offensive tactics, and the result was a manifesto which set forth, amongst other things—That the Red Ribbon Army entertained no feelings of ill-will toward those who did not agree with them, and invited all to join their ranks, and that they assured abstainers that there was always iced water on the sideboard of the smoke room for their convenience. ”

“ Never will the 157th Division forget the indomitable dash, the heroical rush of the American regiments up the Observatory Ridge and into the Plain of Monthois. The most powerful defenses, the most strongly organized machine-gun nests, the heaviest artillery barrages—nothing could stop them. These crack regiments overcame every obstacle with a most complete contempt for danger; through their steady devotion the Red Hand Division, for nine whole days of severe struggle, was constantly leading the way of the advance of the Fourth Army. ”

“ And they went in--the Coldstreams and the Grenadiers--to take over the trenches from the Canadians, to delve and sweat, carrying loads of ammunition on their backs, crawling into No Man's Land, laying mines, shooting Germans or braining them with the butts of their rifles, or treating them to the cold steel, as imperturbable as you see them now--it being all in the day's work. The popularity of the Guards arouses no jealousy in the other divisions. "We don't grudge 'em what they get," remarked a sergeant in a line regiment; "they work hard, and they deserve it. ”

“ For the black regiment.
"Now," the flag-sergeant cried,
"Though death and hell betide,
[501] Let the whole nation see
If we are fit to be
Free in this land; or bound
Down, like the whining hound,—
Bound with red stripes of pain
In our old chains again!"
Oh, what a shout there went
From the black regiment!
"Charge!" trump and drum awoke;
Onward the bondmen broke;
Bayonet and sabre-stroke
Vainly opposed their rush.
Through the wild battle's crush,
With but one thought aflush,
Driving their lords like chaff,
In the guns' mouths they laugh ”

“ Part of the troops of the Southern front, following the panic-mongers, have left Rostov and Novochercassk without severe resistance and without orders from Moscow, covering their banners with shame.
The population of our country, who love and respect the Red Army, start to be discouraged in her, and lose faith in the Red Army, and many curse the Red Army for leaving our people under the yoke of the German oppressors, and itself running east. ”

“ The chief of the patrol came forward and answered—‘Vengeance!’ I remember wondering at the moment why he spoke so loud in giving the pass-word, when suddenly I saw three men rush forward, seize our captain, and throw him down. At the same time two or three hundred men, dressed as National Guards, threw themselves into the camp, rushed upon the sleeping artillery-men with their bayonets, and then fired several volleys into the tents where our poor comrades were asleep. What I had taken at first for National Guards were only those devils of sergents-de-ville dressed up! ”

“ The red flag, temporarily lowered, was again shaken aloft. Men with faces distorted by wrath and a desire for vengeance were shrieking their anger, flourishing their clubs, brandishing knives, daggers, pistols, gathering from the street missiles of any and every kind with which to charge upon their enemy. They could not conceive that sixty Guardsmen in khaki, with rifles and bayonets, could check the murderous onslaught of five hundred desperate and daring men. ”

“ THE RED ARMY
The day I joined my regiment I donned my Red army uniform, consisting of a khaki shirt, yellow breeches, putties, a pair of good boots which I bought from another soldier (the army at that time was not issuing boots) , and a grey army overcoat. On my cap I wore the Red army badge—a red star with a mallet and plough imprinted on it. ”

“ And, on the contrary, if the soldiers of the Red Army keeps close contact with and takes an interest in the lives, then they will be exactly what they are meant to be—the armed organ of the revolutionary masses. ”

“ I do not criticize them: their ways are their own, and their own problems loom large to them. The English production of parts has come through, or is proceeding satisfactorily, but the rest is in hopeless confusion. The Red menace from Russia is the prime reason, of course. With the Reds mobilizing their forces, we cannot blame her neighbors for preparing to defend themselves. But our program!—and the sure invasion that will come in six short months!—to be fighting among ourselves—it is damnable! ”

“ When they were distitute of organized armed forces and surrounded by a multitude of enemies the world said that they could not defend themselves and would be crushed; but they built up the Red Army and drove back all their foes. ”

“ To hold the ground with our formation was simply impossible. The order to retire was given; and facing by the rear rank—the Regiments preserving their ranks as best they could in that thicket of black-jack, and carrying their wounded,—among them our Major, shot through the chest—made their way to the open space in rear of the wood. The colors of our regiment were seized,—but the first Rebel hand upon them relaxed from a death shot,—another was taken with the Regiment,—and the flag brought off in triumph. ”

“ The Red Guard commandant, chafing under the restrictions imposed upon him by the Russian and Japanese forces (in which the British also joined when Captain Edwards could get near with his good ship Kent) , decided to attack the unsuspecting Americans themselves. The Red Guard were very clever in their operations. The American troops were guarding the Vladivostok-Suchan Railway; the neutral zone was situated at the extreme end of the line. If the Red Guard had attacked the end near the zone their tactics would have been discovered at once. ”

“ While the Press of the Western world was full of talk of peace, the Soviet journals were insisting on the creation of a mighty Red army that should set Europe and the globe aflame with world-revolution. ”

“ Imperial Cuirassiers in helmets and corslets of glittering steel; French horse artillery with caps of fur and pelisses covered with red braid. There, too, were many of our own staff officers, with their plumed hats; even the Turkish cavalry escort of some pasha, stolid-looking fellows in scarlet fezzes, were there, their unslung carbines resting on the right thigh; and I saw some of our Land Transport Corps, in red jackets braided with black, loitering about, as if some important movement was on the tapis ”

“ They were eager to know what changes the Revolution had made, and they heard with amazement that in the Red Army the soldiers themselves elected their officers, and that even a commissar or general did not dare insult a private. They thought it wonderful that officers and men were on a footing of equality, and that all shared the same rations. ”

“ As Guard regiments we form one whole, and, therefore, what affects one casts its shadow on the others likewise, for people do not say such and such a thing happened in the 'Golden Butterflies,' but simply 'in the Guards.' Such a thing is frightful, for more than all the other regiments we must maintain outwardly, at any rate, a good reputation. ”

“ Until the reign of Her present Majesty, red was worn by all the drummers and buglers of the regiment of Artillery; but although, from the earliest period, it was deemed the great national colour of our forces, it is somewhat remarkable that it was not adopted by the English or Irish Militia, until the year 1759, and a song of that period begins:—
"Ye mounseers, give ear, we have nothing to fear,
For the Militia are now clothed in RED, Sirs!
They have hearts that are stout and will never give out,
With Rockingham bold at their head, sirs! ”