Following the war, Koehler was part of a navy reconnaissance team sent to report on the
Russian Civil War. He met many of the major military figures of both the
Bolshevik and
White Russian factions, including General
Anton Denikin, Lt. General
Alexander Kutepov and General (Baron)
Pyotr Wrangel, notably taking part in Wrangel's raid into
Taurida, where Koehler narrowly escaped capture at
Melitopol. He was awarded three of the small number of Russian Imperial military decorations that were distributed during this time and also recommended for award of the
Distinguished Service Medal by his commanding officer, Rear Admiral McCully.
Germany , U.S.N,
Vice Admiral Sir Montague E. Browning K.C.B, M.C.O., R.N, (unknown officer), Captain Ryozo Nakamura, I.J.N. Koehler surveyed Germany in 1919, shortly after its defeat in World War I and the
German Revolution of 1918–1919, which first brought down the monarchy and then cleared the way for the establishment of the
Weimar Republic after supporters of a parliamentary system defeated advocates of a soviet-style
council republic. Koehler's instincts were
aristocratic but his impulses were
proletarian. During his initial six-week inspection tour of various German port cities and towns, beginning with
Wilhelmshaven and on to
Hamburg,
Bremen and
Kiel, he observed conditions of both the German capital ships and the general population. "We found the German ships all in a frightful state, both as regards cleanliness and preservation. They had evidently been hastily put out of commission for there was no one on board... The ships that were in commission, as for example the new light cruiser
Koenigsberg were also in hopeless condition, although they had large crews on board... As this rabble came out on deck, where we were patiently waiting, the men crowded around us so it was necessary to ask the captain to have them withdraw sufficiently to allow us breathing space... The men moved slowly away and sulked and muttered. We also inspected the destroyers, submarines and the aircraft station. Conditions were everywhere alike: everything unspeakably filthy, no work being done, everything going to rack and ruin..." In his report to Admiral Sims, Koehler wrote, "The one sure thing about the German navy is that it is finished-finished far more effectively than if every officer and man and ship had been sunk. With the exception of U-Boat men, the navy and everyone in it is in disgrace. The U-Boat men were loyal throughout the whole revolution, and are loyal to the central government today, but even they appear ashamed of the navy for many of them wear soldier uniforms. Hardly anywhere does anyone see a sailor in uniform. So thoroughly is the shame of the navy felt that the blue uniform is considered almost a badge of disgrace, and except for the uniforms of men of the few ships still in commission one never sees any blue, although the streets are crowded with men in the forest gray of the infantry." At Wilhelmshaven, he put in "a good many hours" reading newspapers, handbills and political pamphlets distributed by the "Workmen's Council", the
Socialists and the civil government, with titles such as, "
Tirpitz the Grave Digger of the German Navy". Koehler saw the outcries of the masses expressed in placards that read, "We have a right to something besides work." "We have a right to bread." "Labor, which alone produces wealth, alone has the right to wealth." "No more profit." "I asked the people about the
Kaiser (Wilhelm II), the sum of all their answers was that the Kaiser today, even if not openly popular, nevertheless has a greater hold on the respect and affections of the Germans as a whole than has any other in the Empire. The crown prince is not popular. They say the Kaiser was badly advised, but that after all, no man in Germany has the interests of Germany so close at heart or worked so hard or tirelessly as did the Kaiser. Another idea which is also very widespread is that the great
general staff which he reared so carefully became a car of
Juggernaut and rolled over him. They all agree that he was weak about the use of gas. They say that he forbade the use of
gas, but was later overruled by the
militarists. No one thinks that the use of gas was wrong, though quite a number think it was very foolish to start off on a small scale. They argue that if the Kaiser had allowed the use of gas on a tremendous scale, as the general staff wanted to at the beginning, they would have won the war before the
allies could have provided themselves with gas masks. It is also said that the kaiser opposed air raids on undefended towns in
England, but was overruled by the general staff. I have heard a great many bitter criticisms of the German chemists who could not discover a nonflammable gas for
Zeppelins, while American chemists did." Koehler assessed the two needs of Germany in the few months following the Armistice: food and raw materials. Food to keep her poor people from suffering and actual starvation within weeks, since they had no money to purchase food at
profiteer prices, and to keep her workmen out of
bolshevism. Raw materials were needed partly for the same reason, to block bolshevism and to help Germany to regain her place in the commercial world and also to repay the enormous war debt saddled on her by the Kaiser and his military advisors. "The Germans are not starved yet, but they are pretty hungry. One sees a good many double chins and paunches still, that is among the men. The women look really emaciated. They have suffered from the food shortage a great deal more than the men. The saddest thing, however; is the suffering among children. They show it markedly. Infant mortality has been very high and still is, though not as bad as in the winter of 1916–17. Meat sells at from 29 to 30 marks a pound, including the bone. To illustrate the scarcity, during an attack of Spartacans in Wilhelmshaven, a horse in a passing cart was shot. Within 20 minutes after it fell, every shred of flesh had been stripped from its bones. This indicates that meat shortage even more plainly than the empty butcher shops do. Grocery shops appear fairly well stocked, but the prices are enormous. Practically everything is rationed, including clothing. Great quantities of potatoes and cabbages are on hand, and, counting the difference in exchange, they can be bought cheaper here than in England. practically no vegetables of any other kind are on hand. No tinned vegetables are obtainable in any of the shops. Fats do not exist. There is an almost total absence of soap. They have a substitute which is said to be very poor. The bread is bad. It is made of wurzel meal, as potatoes cannot be spared for meal. There is very little milk in the country." Germany's solution to its economic woes would be a massive emigration to the United States that would both create a new market for Germany to revitalize its industrial capacity and facilitate
remittances back to Germany as the new immigrants prospered, Koehler believed. Receiving Koehler's report, Admiral Sims replied, "My opinion of the value and the interest of this letter is such that... I have had it mimeographed for circulation among our forces here... I am also sending copies to the O.N.I. (Office of Naval Intelligence) and to certain officers....I should be glad if, as opportunity provides, you would continue similar observations and send them in to headquarters." Koehler's assessment of conditions in Germany were reprinted in American newspapers. , left, and the battleship
Baden, aground in Swanbister Bay,
Scapa Flow, sometime soon after the majority of the interned German battle fleet was scuttled on June 21, 1919 Koehler made a follow-up inspection and report from Wilhelmshaven and Kiel on June 16, reporting that "The whole harbor of Kiel was filled with decaying men-of-war. It is almost impossible to conceive how complete is the ruin that comes to men-of-war in just a few months of neglect, for these splendid ships of only six months ago are even now almost beyond recall..." Less than a week after Koehler wrote his report, the German navy in defiance of the terms of the Peace "diktat",
scuttled most of its ships interned at Scapa Flow. Reporting from Scapa Flow a week later, Koehler wrote, "All Germany and particularly naval officers are jubilant about the sinking of the German ships at Scapa Flow... Everywhere in Germany I heard the cry against the clause in the peace terms that provides for the trial of the Kaiser and others responsible for the war..." Koehler saw that over-reaching by the other allies, particularly France, would be problematic for the next generation. "In those questions on which the United States has taken a different stand than the Allies, Germans attribute it to a latent friendship for Germany- a friendship somewhat disturbed these last years but that still exists. It is difficult to point out that the attitude of the U.S. is not that of favoring Germany but simply the earnest desire to do the right thing and bring about a peace that does not contain in the very peace terms the germs of another war. That the U.S. took none of the surrendered
U-boats is well known in Germany and considered a good omen that the U.S. has no desire to take anything from Germany. Extreme bitterness toward the English seems to be lost in their greater hatred of France. They say France has only one idea of peace- to ruin Germany utterly- and the only thing that can keep France from doing this is the British sense of fair play and this latent friendship from America....A restaurant manager asked the same question that greeted us on all sides: He was surprised when I mentioned it seemed likely the places to which Americans would flock after peace had been declared were the battlefields at
Ypres, the
Somme, and
Château-Thierry, and not the spas of Germany...."
First American Officer in Berlin While newspapers reported that Hugo Koehler was the first American naval officer to enter Germany following the Armistice, Koehler did not enter Germany until February 1919. He does have the distinction of being the first American officer to enter
Berlin following the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, officially ending the war. The Allied Naval Armistice Commission was at Hamburg embarked on the British cruiser, . The city was under
martial law and none of the British officers were interested in going ashore, unlike Koehler and
Chief Yeoman Walter Dring, USN (1894–1984). Despite warnings of the danger, and armed with a notebook and pencils, Koehler and Dring sauntered down the gangplank and strode to the
Hamburg-American Line pier. pushing through a crowd that was jostling for sugar and cigarettes, the pair were headed towards the main street, when two German military police on a
sidecar motorcycle stopped and picked them up for questioning. Brought to German naval headquarters, they were interrogated by Admirals
Scheer,
Von Hipper and
Von Reuter. Koehler explained that
Coventry was the first inspection ship to arrive at Hamburg following the treaty and that the British officers preferred to remain on board. The Germans were greatly amused that the British were reluctant to come ashore and gave the American naval spy and his
scribe permission to travel to Berlin by night train, provided they remained confined to their compartment. At 7 a.m. the following morning, Koehler and Dring arrived as the first American military to enter Berlin. They flipped a coin to see who would be first off the train, but "both landed on the platform at the same time in a heap". Koehler hailed a cab, an emaciated horse drawing a cart with bare, iron wheels, and directed the driver to the
Adlon Hotel, where he reminisced with the owner,
Lorenz Adlon (1849–1921) about meeting him in Berlin 25 years earlier with his grandfather, and gave the man two chocolate bars, soap and cigarettes. After breakfast, the duo's sightseeing was interrupted by three policemen who escorted them back to the hotel. With no papers other than their orders from London, they were directed to take the 6 o'clock train out of Berlin. But Koehler had other plans, and instead of going back to Hamburg and HMS
Coventry, he took Dring to the best hotel in
Düsseldorf. From there they boarded a train to
Hanover, then on to
Cologne, where Koehler sought out British officers of the
Army of Occupation who promptly locked them up as spies. "Hugo looked like the Kaiser with that damn little mustache," complained Dring. When they were released, they took a train to
Brussels and then on to Paris, where Koehler told Dring that he was "going to duck for three or four hours before reporting to the
embassy." Left to face the
Red Cross alone and standing in line for breakfast with other servicemen, Dring was questioned and declared that he had just come from Germany. Red Cross officials disbelieved his story and the
MP's believed he was a spy, so Dring was again arrested and continued to go hungry.
Rear Admiral Newton McCully and North Russian Operations , ca. 1921 When Dring finally got to the American embassy in Paris, officials asked where Koehler was. The roving commander showed up a few days later and wrote his follow-up report on conditions inside Germany. On July 7, the adventure was over and Dring was ordered back to London. Before he left, he introduced Koehler to Rear Admiral
McCully, who had recently arrived from
Allied operations in North Russia. In Paris, Koehler was assigned as aide to McCully, the senior Navy member of the
American Commission to Negotiate Peace. As a lieutenant commander in 1904, McCully had been a military observer embedded with the
Imperial Russian Army during the
Russo-Japanese War, arriving at the front lines in
Manchuria via the
Trans-Siberian Railway. Returning to the United States in 1906, McCully had submitted a lengthy report on his findings. In 1914, McCully was assigned as
naval attaché at St. Petersburg. By 1916, fluent in Russian and knowledgeable of the fluid political, military and social conditions there, he warned the State Department that food shortages, official corruption and a demoralized populus might soon force Russia out of World War One. In 1917 he witnessed the beginnings of the
Russian Revolution. Shortly after this, he was ordered back to sea duty in the Atlantic and promoted to rear admiral in September 1918. Less than a month before the Armistice, McCully was designated as Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Northern Russia, and read his orders aboard the on October 24, 1918. With ''Olympia's'' departure for Scotland on November 8, McCully and a small contingent of officers and
bluejackets were the American naval presence for the
Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, the struggle between the
Bolsheviks and those who opposed them (often known as the
"Reds" and
"Whites", respectively). The 8,000 American troops of the
American Expeditionary Force Siberia sent by President
Woodrow Wilson to
Vladivostok to guard the billion-dollar investment of American guns and equipment along the
Trans-Siberian railroad and protect the
Czech legion tried to remain in a defensive posture. A larger force of British "
Tommies", freezing alongside the Czechs, fought among themselves as much as against the Bolsheviki. The separate 5,000 troop
Polar Bear Expedition was sent to
Archangel to guard the
Murman and
Archangel-Vologda railways and Allied supply stockpiles in the vicinity. American military action was deemed admissible only to assist the Czechs in defending themselves against armed Austrian and German prisoners that were attacking them and to steady efforts at self-government by the Russians. American policy was stated on August 3, 1918, the day after the Allied occupation of Archangel, "Whether from Vladivostok or from Murmansk and Archangel, the only present object for which American troops will be employed will be to guard military stores which may subsequently be needed by Russian forces and to render such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their self-defense." No interference with Russian political sovereignty or intervention in her internal affairs was planned. Despite this directive, during their 19 months in Siberia, 189 soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force Siberia died from all causes, including combat. The smaller American North Russia Expeditionary Force experienced 235 deaths from all causes during their nine months embedded during fighting near Archangel. Through March 1919, McCully's men primarily operated ashore from
Murmansk and engaged in intelligence gathering and reporting to Admiral Sims in London on the political, financial, military, naval, and economic conditions. McCully reported that the Whites and Allied forces controlled about two-thirds of
Archangel province, south to
Murmansk and west to the border between
Finland and
Karelia. Concerning naval conditions there was little to report, for there had been no naval operations, the Bolsheviks not having a deep-water naval presence in North Russia. With his familiarity of Russia and its language, unquestionably, McCully was the Navy's top "Russia man". In a report to Admiral Sims in late February, McCully reported that the military situation in the Archangel region was precarious and that Allied forces along both the Archangel-Vologda railway and the Murman railway were insufficient. He urged stationing vessels at both Archangel and Murmansk and providing another to cruise along the 1,600-mile coast and visit other ports. During May through June, the patrol gunboat ,
protected cruiser and three
Eagle-class patrol boats were detached to McCully, to supplement the
Spanish American War-era, steam-schooner that he had taken as his
flagship in February. By order of the Secretary of the Navy dated June 30, two days after the signing of the peace treaty at Versailles, McCully was detached from his command in Northern Russia and directed to proceed to London. Following the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces from Archangel and its vicinity in July, with a backdrop of deteriorating morale and American public opinion, the last remaining U.S. naval vessel,
Des Moines stood out from Archangel on September 14, 1919, and steamed down the
Northern Dvina River for
Harwich, England, marking the conclusion of American naval operations in North Russia. File:USS_Yankton_in_Russia_1919.jpg| at Ivanovski Bay, Russia, 1230 a.m., May 1919 File:USS Des Moines (C-15) snowbound in White Sea Russia 1919.jpg| in 15 feet of snow and ice, White Sea, Russia, May 19, 1919 File:Rear_Admiral_Newton_McCully_aboard_USS_Des_Moines_Archangel_Russia_1919.jpg|L to R, Rear Admiral Newton McCully, unknown Russian naval captain, Captain Zachariah Madison, commanding, aboard , Russia, June 1919 File:USS_Eagle_No._3_at_Archangel_Russia_1919.jpg|Preparing to tow USS
Eagle Boat 3 (PE-3), June 1919 File:USS_Sacramento_at_Archangel_Russia_1919.jpg| at Archangel, Russia, 1919 File:339th_on_parade_at_archangel_1919.jpg|339th US Army Infantry Regiment, at Archangel, May 30, 1919 File:USS_Des_Moines_sailors_at_Archangel_1919.jpg| sailors on parade at Archangel, June 1919 File:Memorial_at_US_Army_and_Navy_cemetery_at_Archangel_Russia_1919.jpg|Memorial at US Army and Navy cemetery at Archangel, Russia, May 30, 1919
With McCully's "Mission to South Russia" On August 6, Koehler was sent on another fact-finding survey in Germany, where he inspected floating
dry docks. Before returning to Paris, he was ordered to London to brief
Winston Churchill at the
War Office on conditions inside Germany. With the exception of Churchill, the allies had been reluctant to enter the Russian morass. Foreign intervention in the
Russian Civil War would not have proceeded without Churchill's persistence. As he warned the
House of Commons in March 1919, "
Bolsheviks destroy wherever they exist but by rolling forward into fertile areas, like the vampire which sucks the blood from its victim, they gain means of prolonging their own baleful existence." In the spring of 1919, the army of Admiral
Alexander Kolchak, organizer of the
"White" resistance in
Siberia had advanced to the
Volga River. The forces of Russian general
Yevgeny Miller were fighting the
"Reds" as far as
Petrograd. From the west, a small army under General
Nikolai Yudenich had also advanced on Petrograd, while in South Russia, the forces of General
Anton Denikin had begun to advance on
Moscow. But by the summer, the advances of all the various White factions, and their fortunes, reversed almost simultaneously, except for those in South Russia that continued to advance into autumn. Seizing the opportunity to fill the void of the departed German army, newly independent
Poland occupied parts of
Lithuania, eastern
Galicia and
Ruthenia, before advancing into western
Ukraine, where
Nestor Makhno, an
anarchist with a band of militarist peasants was attacking both Red and White troops. With the governments of Britain and America yielding to public pressure at home and withdrawing their troops from Archangel, Murmansk and
Olonets, Miller's troops were left to face the Reds alone, and swift defeat. Yudenitch overreached his advance and the Reds repulsed his forces back to the
Baltic states, where they disbanded. To the east, Kolchak's over-extended troops were trounced before they could reach the Volga and began a torturous retreat to Siberia, without supplies and forced to strip corpses for clothes and shoes. Denikin reached within 200 miles of
Moscow, and filled with
hubris, debated which horse he would triumphantly ride into the city, but over-extended and with broken supply lines, in October, the Reds pummelled his forces at
Oryol and forced him to retreat with his disintegrating army. by Denikin's White Army, ca. 1918, 1919 Driven southward, his troops surrendered
Kharkov to the Bolsheviks on December 13, 1919. By the end of that year, the struggle between the Bolsheviks and the Whites had driven thousands of retreating White Army troops and civilian refugees to the northern shore of the
Black Sea and into the
Crimean Peninsula, where they could expect no mercy from the Bolsheviks. The Peace Commission concluded on December 10, and while the other American staff members returned to the United States, McCully was ordered to London as a representative on the Commission on Naval Terms. At the suggestion of
Admiral Mark L. Bristol, Commander, Naval Forces, Turkish Peninsula, McCully was proposed to lead a special mission for the U.S.
State Department with the purpose of keeping the government informed of developments in that region and to protect American lives and interests. On December 23, 1919,
Secretary of State Robert Lansing cabled McCully designating him Special Agent for the Department of State and instructing him to proceed with a detachment including Koehler, who was then also fluent in Russian as his second-in-command, and nine other naval officers and enlisted men, "to the south of Russia with a view, first, to make observations and report to this Department upon political and economic conditions in the region visited, and second, to establish informal connection with General Denikin and his associates." ("South of Russia" meaning the area roughly encompassed by
Ukraine and
Crimea.) Taking a train from Paris to Italy, on New Year's Day 1920, Koehler and McCully sailed aboard the steamer
Karlsbad bound for
Salonika, Greece. Six days later they arrived at
Constantinople. En route through Greece, Koehler characteristically took the opportunity to engage the locals and analyze the economic and social conditions. In a letter to his mother, he showed remarkable astuteness in commenting on the economic imbalance of the Greek economy that led to its
debt crisis nearly a century later. "I talked to .... a professor at the University of Athens, [who] spoke at great length about Greek claims to
Smyrna. I asked what these claims were and what they were based on. They were all based on historical reasons, he answered but was vague as to the exact historical reasons.... I commented that... what Greece needed was raisins rather than historical reasons-- raisins and olive oil to pay for her tremendous imports being paid for only by loans and paper... But apparently the Greeks believe that there is no need for such mundane things as raisins and olives while loans are plentiful and they can get flour and automobiles for paper money...."
Odessa, February 1920 Vice Admiral Bristol detached one of the various destroyers in his command, to operate along the northern Black Sea coast to assist the Mission, enabling McCully to continuously maintain mail and radio communication. Bristol dispatched Lt. Hamilton V. Bryan to serve as McCully's agent at
Odessa in Ukraine, and he also kept Bristol informed of happenings. On the morning of February 10, 1920, Koehler came ashore at
Odessa lighthouse from the destroyer on a mission to evacuate the few American citizens believed still in the city, which had been overrun by the Bolshevik Red Army in the
Odessa Operation after General
Nikolai Shilling, Denikin's appointed commander of White forces in the Odessa area, had failed to mount any defense and been among the first to evacuate. Russian and British mission officers, along with 5,000 refugees were being evacuated by sea under the protection of the British cruiser . Negotiating his way up from the lighthouse keeper, who was loath to go into the city, to the captain of the
Red Guard, Koehler quickly arranged to be taken to meet with General
Ieronim Uborevich of the Red Army, the victor of Odessa that had vanquished Denikin's Whites from the town. Repeatedly questioned by a
commisar what
Entente men-of-war were doing in the harbor and why they had fired on
Bolshevik troops, Koehler steadfastly and calmly parried the charges, insisting that no firing had occurred since
Talbot anchored in the harbor, that the Americans were there for the sole purpose of evacuating
refugees, and that he understood the reason for prior naval gun fire was because Odessa had been occupied by "marauders and thieves" before the Red Army entered. When Uborevich questioned Koehler about American opinion of Bolshevism and its recent victories, Koehler responded that he "had not been in America since the war, so he "did not know American opinion in detail, but that in general, I thought that American opinion was not impressed with the chance of success of any government based on the will of so minute a minority as that of the present Bolshevist regime." Koehler was initially told by Uborevich and a
commisar that they would need "word from Moscow" on his request to make contact with the Americans, that might take two or three days. Koehler was able to expertly manipulate around the delay and avoid becoming an extended "guest" of the Reds. When Uborevich asked Koehler what he thought of the recent Red victories, Koehler told him that his impression was that the Red advance was more an example of the weakness of Denikin's forces than the strength of the Red Army. "No one made any comment on this reply and I became very definitely of the opinion that at heart they agreed with me." Accompanied by a general, orderly and a guard, Koehler first went to the address of Mrs. Annette Keyser (1893–1971), a Russian-born composer, singer and widow of an American citizen. As the grateful woman wrote a few years later to
Secretary of the Navy,
Edward Denby, "I happened to be sick in bed with pneumonia and tonsillitis, and I wrote a letter to the American mission, imploring them to save me... I could not believe my eyes when I beheld a tall man entering my room dressed in a black cloak, conveyed by two armed Bolshevists. Is it possible? An AMERICAN OFFICER, I exclaimed.... Lt. Cmdr. Hugo W. Koehler-- came close, he said, 'Yes, it is possible; here I am to help you, as I know you are sick." I broke down, crying like a child, and begged the kind officer to take me to America, to my Mother, as I had no one in Odessa but my beloved husband's grave... During the sad scene one of the armed Bolshevists took stations at the door, and the other, evidently knowing the English language, came closer to hear the conversation. Lieutenant Commander Koehler tried to quiet me, explaining that he had orders to take the refugees to Constantinople only. The neighbors hearing this, advised me to remain, as I was too ill to travel. Lieutenant Commander Koehler, also finding this best, advised me to stay.... Thinking that I was in need, he offered me money... and he assured me that I was not in danger, and if he found out that I was, he would come and take me with him. After he left, my friend explained to me that his (Koehler's) life was in danger, as there was no government to be responsible if anything should happen to him.... [I] prayed to be in a position to come to the United States some day in order to find Lieutenant Commander Koehler and to thank him personally and to tell the world that there are still some noble and kind people who will endanger their lives to help a little, weak woman, a mere stranger." The Secretary of the Navy wrote to Koehler that his "chivalrous efforts" were "the kind of service that makes life worthwhile." From her studio in
Los Angeles, California, Annette Keyser recalled a dozen years later, "I was ill with pneumonia at Odessa.... My condition was too serious to permit my removal and Commander Koehler came ashore and with the aid of Capt. [James] Irvine got a promise from the revolutionists that upon my recovery I would be permitted to leave. This I did and was put on board a Turkish steamer and reached Constantinople safely." After Koehler had made arrangements with the Reds to secure Keyser's safety and eventual evacuation to Constantinople, with his Red escort he next visited the addresses of three American men, and determined that two had already made it safely out of Odessa; however, the third was believed to be in the city and "strongly suspected of pro-Bolshevik leanings". Koehler was then taken back to Red headquarters, where he was able to delay his voluntary departure for a day, and make further observations as he walked ten miles through the besieged city. "I entered two food shops and although there was not a great abundance of supplies, both shops had customers buying food. All money is current:
Soviet, Romanov,
Kerensky, even
Denikin army money, in accordance with the decree to the effect that shopkeepers are required to accept every kind of Russian money tendered to them.... Streets of the town were in deplorable condition. Numerous dead horses and dogs were lying about, but I saw no human bodies,... the Americans I was endeavoring to locate lived in widely separated quarters of the town, so I was able to go practically everywhere I wished... I was particularly on the lookout for signs of German influence, German officers or munitions, any trace of German activity, but failed to discover anything...." About a week after Koehler's departure from Odessa, the Bolshevik government sent a long wireless dispatch to President Wilson and the
League of Nations, complaining that after "Captain Keller" had left the city and "given [his] word" that he would not fire on the town, "a murderous fire was opened up from [his] entire squadron and hundreds of innocent women and children were killed thereby." As Koehler wrote to his mother about the deceitful fabrication, "And incidentally, although this message described me as a very terrible and very wicked man, I've always been grateful to the Bolsheviks for it, for in light of these tactics I was able to understand many things not clear to me before."
Novorossiysk, March 1920 aboard at
Novorossiysk, March 1920 After the fall of Odessa to the Reds, Koehler and McCully returned to
Sebastopol and a short visit to the battle front. Returning to
Novorossiysk on February 20 aboard the cruiser , they found the city flooded with refugees from Kharkov and
Rostov. Denikin blamed his subordinates for his military failures, particularly General
Pyotr Wrangel, who had advocated a concentration of White forces in the Crimea to make a last stand there in December, a plan that Denikin had rejected. Now in March, it was a disastrous, headlong retreat into the port of Novorossiysk that Denikin had made no provisions for. Instead, while many in the White army and navy had called on Denikin to replace the incompetent Shilling with Wrangel, Denikin had banished Wrangel, a respected and highly competent soldier, to
Constantinople. Rear Admiral McCully, a humanitarian and a naval officer, recommended to the State Department, that the Russian refugees from the
Caucus and
Kuban be granted asylum, but was turned down. Although Admiral Bristol was also a humanitarian, and ultimately played a major role in the resettlement of displaced persons from the region, he did not then want to be saddled with thousands of refugees and ordered McCully to bring no more than 250 down the
Bosporus Strait in his ships. About 200 women and children were transported on
Galveston and the destroyer, to
Proti Island in the
Sea of Marmara, with another thousand transported on American ships to the
Crimea. On the morning of March 27,
Galveston stood out from Novorossiysk, with 3-inch shells from Red shore batteries falling perilously close, as the beleaguered city fell to the Reds. Koehler wrote, "Several small boat trips were made from the
Galveston in a last effort to rescue a few more women and children, but it was impossible to get any considerable number of them through the throng." Besides troops and refugees pouring into the Crimea, another 50,000 refugees were transported to the Bosporus on Russian ships. Koehler described the plight of those who could not flee, but instead sought to negotiate with the Bolsheviks for surrender, "The Reds promised immunity to all except malefactors, on the condition the troops would march against the Poles; but immediately on the surrender being accomplished, the Reds began the usual slaughter of officers and stripped the soldiers of their clothes. The
Cossacks again took to arms, about 10,000 taking to the hills and about 2,000 escaping across the
Georgian border. Unable to take them along, about 700 children were drowned at the beach by their mothers, who then took to the hills with the men." File:American Red Cross Officer, Lt. L.M. Foster with mobile, Army field kitchen at Novorossisk Russia.jpg|
American Red Cross Officer, Lt. L.M. Foster with mobile, surplus army field kitchen at Novorossiysk Russia, three days before the City fell to the Reds, March 1920 File:Russian refugees on Red Cross Relief Ship Sangamon, Novorossiysk, March 1920.jpg|Russian refugees on Red Cross Relief Ship, Sangamon, Novorossiysk, March 1920 File:Russian children refugees on Red Cross Relief Ship Sangamon with Lt. L. M. Foster at Novorossiysk March 1923.jpg|Refugee children that were separated from their parents during the Novorossiysk exodus with Lt. L.M. Foster, aboard the relief ship, Sangamon, March 1920 "The Black Baron" The debacle at Novorossiysk completely discredited Denikin, who fled the Crimea on March 21 and sailed to England. One of his last acts was to begrudgingly appoint General (Baron) Pyotr Wrangel as commander in chief of the White resistance. On April 4, Denikin issued a proclamation to the
Don,
Terek and
Kuban cossack representatives dissolving the democratic government that had been formed on February 4, but making no provision for representative institutions. Wrangel, known as the "Black Baron" by the Reds, immediately locked down the Crimea as the last enclave of the White movement, ruthlessly restoring discipline by executing all looters, agitators, speculators and
commissars, in one instance parading 370 men in front of him and then having them all shot. The remaining men were offered the alternative of joining the White Army. On April 10, Wrangel sailed with an expedition to
Perekop in the
Sea of Azov and after six days of heavy fighting had made a slight advance to secure a path for egress of the Crimean forces to the north, a tactical and symbolic advance that revived morale among the White troops and the confidence of the people that supported the resistance. With the reorganization of the White forces, on June 1, 1920, the "Black Baron" had an operational army of 40,000, consisting of
First Corps under General
Alexander Kutepov at
Perekop with 7,000
Volunteer Army infantry, 46 guns, 12 tanks, 21 aeroplanes and 500 cavalry;
Second Corps under General
Yakov Slashchov, organized for a combined naval and military expedition to a port on the Sea of Azov, with 10,000 men in all, 58 guns, 3 aeroplanes, 5 armored motorcars and 400 cavalry; Third Corps under General A. Pisarev at the
Sivash Isthmus with 11,000 men total, 19 guns, 9 aeroplanes, 3 armored trains, and 1,960 cavalry; and Fourth Corps, composed of dismounted Kuban cossacks, 14 guns, and about 16,000 men in reserve near Sivash. Wrangel also improved the naval assets of the White forces, with a Black Sea and separate Azov Sea
flotilla. Receiving coal shipments from Constantinople in April and May to enable the ships to steam, the
Black Sea ships numbered a battleship, three cruisers, ten destroyers and eight gunboats, and in the Azov Sea the Whites had fifteen shallow-draft boats. Morale was also greatly improved, and while for the first time since the spring of 1918, the
Cossacks did not figure as the prominent element of the White army, with a corresponding decrease in
cavalry superiority, the army was now made up of men who were determined to fight the enemy. As Koehler wrote in his report, "The Cossacks are fighting to get back to their
stanitzi in the Don and the Kuban- nor do they see much beyond that. They do not loot now, but resent being deprived of (as they look at it) a well-earned privilege... Russia means nothing to them... They... fight any... power or regime or idea that interferes with their old privileges."
Melitopol, June 1920 On April 3, Koehler and McCully reached the Crimean port of
Yalta, where Koehler met Baron Wrangel hours after the general had returned from Constantinople to take charge of the remaining men of the White Army, and then headed to
Sebastopol. While her husband commanded the White forces in South Russia, Baroness Wrangel remained in Constantinople with her three children, where she helped the
American Red Cross care for the thousands of Russian refugees who were driven from their homes by the collapse of the Denikin forces. Baroness Wrangel was a daily worker on the island of Proti where the Red Cross cared for a colony of more than a thousand of these homeless and destitute people. In early June, McCully and Koehler stood out on the destroyer from Sebastopol for the Sea of Azov based on information that the White army was making a landing there. Entering the
Kerch Strait on June 6, the ship hugged the port shoreline to avoid the Red shore batteries on the starboard side. They were taken under fire, and the first shot came close as the destroyer sped up to 25 knots and hugged the west side of the straight, making it through to reach the
Sivash front and General Slashchov's troop landing at the small village of Kirilovkar. McCully and Koehler went ashore, with McCully returning to the ship later that day with ten wounded Russian soldiers that were transported that night by the destroyer through the Kerch Strait to Sebastopol. On daybreak of the third day, Koehler joined a small cavalry detachment headed toward the fighting in
Melitopol. "Upon arrival at the outskirts of Melitopol we found Reds still held Melitopol station and were bombarding the town from armored trains at a distance, but the south Russian forces had occupied the main part of town. I continued on into the town and went at once to headquarters where I found General Tsichetski installed in the building hurriedly vacated a few hours previously by the Bolshevik Central Committee." At his request, Koehler was given three cossacks to accompany him to the address he had earlier obtained from a prisoner for the headquarters of the Bolshevik Tchresvichaika. Breaking the locks, the group began collecting up the papers that seemed of value, until seeing a group of White cavalry galloping by, they learned they were caught in the middle of Red troops that had counter-attacked and reentered the city. Rather than try to flee, Koehler and his party commandeered a cart and hid with their load of papers by a flour mill for a few hours, until the Red troops themselves retreated with White cavalry on their flank. Koehler and his group rode on to Radionovka "with their loot". Within a few days, Slashchov had conquered the entire province and doubled Wrangel's White-held territory, secured enough grain to feed the Crimea and his cavalry's horses, and improved the standing of the White cause in Europe. When Pisarev attacked at
Chongar and Kutepov's
Volunteer Army troops engaged the main Red forces at
Perekop, the Reds were caught off guard and had to retreat to avoid being surrounded. The day Koehler headed back to Crimea,
Leon Trotsky arrived in
Alexandrovsk and announced that the
Tauride with its great stores of grain, had to be retaken, since a winter of starvation for the Reds had to be avoided at all costs. Koehler observed the White army equally needed the Tauride and its grain, "For the south too, will go hungry without this grain, and the army would be the first to starve... An army that has known cold and hunger as has this army, will fight hard before it leaves plenty to go back to cold and hungry." For Koehler's exploit in Melitopol, Rear Admiral McCully recommended him for award of the
Distinguished Service Medal in July 1923 with the following citation, "During the capture of Melitopol by the Wrangel forces on June 10, 1920, he was in the advance guard [that] entered the town, immediately proceeding to the Bolshevik headquarters and began collection of their papers. While engaged in this work the town was recaptured by the Bolshevik troops and Lt. Cmdr. Koehler for several hours was cut off from the troops which he accompanied. He managed to conceal himself and in addition saved the papers which he had secured and which were of much value." The Bureau of Navigation declined to make the award, presumably not prepared to officially recognize an American naval officer in
Bolshevik Russia, much less, in
combat. troops guarding
American Red Cross medical supplies, June 1920 In a letter to Dolly Gladstone, Koehler gently chided her for Britain's investment in Denikin, having lately turned its sympathy from the cause of the White Russians under Denikin's successor, Wrangel, to the Bolshevists, "I'm afraid your experiment in backing Denikin has been much more costly for you and for Russia and for the world than the simple L400,000,000 (in stores, etc.,) you ventured on the project... Poor old Denikin- simple, honest, and a patriot, but undoubtedly one of the stupidest men who ever came into power in any country. Surrounded by incompetents and dishonesty, badly advised by his allies, he distinguished himself by not one single sound or wise measure. If he had thrown dice for every decision he would have improved just fifty percent. General Wrangel is of a different caliber: fine soldier, good general, honest, capable, full of courage and initiative, no great statesman, but he knows it and surrounds himself with men who can take care of that end of the game... His miracles continue. But he cannot beat bolshevism by force of arms- nor can any army. Bolshevism fattens on military opposition. It will collapse without it... I like the Russians, immensely so, in fact, and we've become great friends.... General Kutepov (the commander of the First Corps) and I have become sworn brothers. He is about the finest type of soldierman I've ever seen- and I'm very fond of him. Many other of my friends are not as estimable, I am afraid, for about all the brigands, thieves, murderers, and similar pleasant scoundrels that disturb the peace hereabouts count themselves among my intimate friends... It is difficult to keep things in a land such as this, when the need is so great; one has almost a guilty feeling if one owns a sheet or an extra shirt. So long ago I gave away all I had, and now if I had a sheet or an extra shirt I wouldn't know what to do with it except to give it to some poor woman to make a child's dress... I'm afraid I've given you a rather chaotic picture of it all- but you might take the chaotic effect simply as a bit of realism, for life is indeed chaos here; it resembles reasonable conditions just about as much as that famous
cubist picture
Nude Descending a Stair resembles anything real. In the first months I was here I accumulated great stacks of loot, from pictures and furs to old earrings and relics. But I've decided to take none of it from Russia. I've given it all away again." Koehler's appeal on behalf of the suffering masses in Russia did not fall on deaf ears. Rear Admiral McCully's July 15, 1920 report to the Secretary of State noted, "Recently representatives of a British Fund established by Lady Muriel Paget have established a hospital in Sebastopol, and a
British Red Cross and Children's Relief Organization are also at work."
White advances, Summer 1920 of the
Volunteer Army The decisive turn in the fortunes of Wrangel's army, was not the reorganization of his forces, as much as the
Polish–Soviet War. The Bolsheviks, recognizing their vulnerability in a two-front war, did not seek to engage the Poles. However,
Marshal Piłsudski, the Polish head of state had plans to annex the Ukrainian and White Russian provinces. Negotiations broke down and on April 25 the Poles began their attack, achieving a major victory on May 6 with the fall of
Kiev.
Vladimir Lenin complained, "In the Crimea Wrangel gathered more and more strength. His troops consisted almost entirely of officers in the hope that in the first possible moment the army would be expanded by entrance of peasants. Wrangel's army was equipped with tanks, cannons, and airplanes better than all the other armies which had fought in Russia. While we fought the Poles, Wrangel gathered his forces." But the end was still a couple months away, and on August 27, Koehler left by train from Sebastopol to Melitopol, where he called on General Kutepov at his First Army headquarters. "Even General Kutepov himself with all his indomitable energy plainly showed from overwork... He explained that although strictly military considerations might demand a withdrawal from the present extensive front on account of the heavy cost in casualties in holding so long a line against superior numbers, he felt that political conditions and loyalty to the inhabitants of the occupied territory who had aided Russian forces (and many of those younger men were now in the army), demanded that the Tauride be held at almost any cost." Perhaps Koehler did not see, or chose to overlook another side of Kutepov, his "sworn brother", who along with Pisarev, commonly executed people without trial and for minimal cause. Earlier that year, as military governor of Sebastopol, his number of executions and cruelty sparked complaints among the peasants and civic leaders. One particularly egregious instance, was the hanging of a young
Tartar poet, accused of nothing but vague, Bolshevist sympathies. Complaints were sent to Wrangel, and rather than investigate the claims, Wrangel summoned the mayor of Sebastopol before him. Recalling in his memoirs years later what he told the politician, Wrangel wrote, "I know all about your disagreement with General Kutepov, who is merely carrying out my orders. I am not going to discuss with you who is right, or which of us two has given orders. I am responsible to the Army and to the people, and I follow the dictates of my science. I am quite sure that were you in my place you would act differently; but as it happens destiny has given me and not you direction of the Russian Cause, and I will stop at nothing in the accomplishment of my duty, and I will not hesitate to cut down anyone who tries to stop me. You protest because General Kutepov has hanged a score or so of men who were a danger to the Army and to the Cause. I warn you should the necessity arise I would not hesitate to increase the number by one, and that one would be you." During the Russian Civil War, many White generals and a number of the Bolshevist leaders developed a great propensity for cruelty and
summary executions. They came to believe in violence for the sake of violence, to send a strong message to the enemy. It likely was counterproductive, as it only alienated and frightened the silent majority of citizens, while firming the enemy's resolve. Leaving Melitopol, Koehler went to Feodorovka and visited the headquarters of General Pisarev, Commander of Third Corps. As Koehler sardonically described the meeting, "He reviewed the military situation and seemed confident of success of his encircling movement, begun some two days before with the object of breaking through in rear of the advancing Red column and then surrounding it. Present tactics, both Bolshevik and Russian, represent nothing so much as a giant game of cross-tag: each side attempts to cut in behind the other, then to outflank the other's flanking column, then again to outflank this outflanking, flanking column-- and so on..." Koehler described the front line he visited in August 1920, "Whenever I arrived on the fighting line, I found the division commander and his chief of staff in the front line or ahead of it, instead of in their classic post two miles in the rear. I noted a general of artillery with a rifle wound in his leg and a saber cut in the head, certainly a most unorthodox proceeding, but here the artillery is immediately behind the infantry if not on the line with it.... Under cover of machine gun fire, the entire Russian line now took up the advance, moving in echelon at good speed... We now gained a slight eminence from which we had an excellent view of the entire movement, including the retreat of the Reds. [The Whites] were outnumbered about 3 to 1, but in actual battle the Red superiority in numbers really had comparatively little consequence on this front; they had encountered some single regiments that were worth more than other entire divisions. However, in maneuvering and the possibility of exerting a general pressure all along the line, numbers were of course, very valuable. The general said that regiments composed entirely of Communists invariably fought well, as also did the
Latvians and certain international regiments made up mostly of
Magyars...." On August 27, Koehler was awarded the
Order of St. Vladimir, fourth class, with swords and bow by Kutepov. A telegram from General
Vladimir Vitkovsky that was found in Koehler's papers years later reads, "With the feeling of sincere pleasure I learn that you have been awarded, sir, with the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th Class, with swords and bow and congratulate you with this high award, which commemorates the day of your visit to the fighting line of my corps." This, and two other Russian Imperial decorations, were among the last awarded to a foreigner or a Russian for that matter. As Koehler's published historiographer wrote, "The strict neutrality of the American Mission, so scrupulously adhered to by Admiral McCully, was evidently less than a pressing concern for the Commander." File:Soldiers_of_the_anti-Bolshevik_Volunteer_Army_before_the_Mark_IV_tank_'General_Drozdovsky',_South_Russia_1920.jpg|Soldiers of the anti-Bolshevik
Volunteer Army before the
Mark IV tank 'General Drozdovsky', South Russia 1920 File:Red_Army_Cavalry,_ca._1920.jpg|Red cavalry, ca. 1920 File:Red_Army_with_captured_Medium_Mark_B_tank,_ca._1920.jpg|Red troops with captured
Medium Mark B tank, ca. 1920 File:Kuban_Cossacks_in_the_Russian_Civil_War.jpg|Kuban Cossacks in the Russian Civil War, showing the variety of
cherkesskas and
beshmets worn File:South_Russia_Volunteer_Army_Armored_train_Kalita.jpg|South Russia
Volunteer Army armored train "Kalita" File:Red_Army_soldiers,_ca._1920.jpg|Red army soldiers, ca. 1920 File:White_Army_armored_train,_"United_Russia",_ca._1920.jpg|White armored train "United Russia" File:White_army_volunteers,_ca._1919.jpg|White army volunteers, ca. 1919 during the Russian Civil War Koehler's conversations with peasants and townspeople in the Tauride yielded insight into the comparative failure of both the Reds and the Whites to improve the economic fortunes of the common man. Asking a farmer the price of wheat, as he complimented the man on the quality of his grain, Koehler was told, "Who could tell?" he answered. "He went on to explain that Bolsheviks took it for nothing, Wrangels forces offered sheaves of paper money for it- if that was standard, he added critically, it evidently must be worth something. Yet Bolsheviks came a long way for it, and Whites were extraordinarily anxious to get it, so it must have value for everyone except the man who had grown it." Koehler concluded that the conditions in "Red Russia" had been harder on the townspeople than the peasants. "The more I learned directly of conditions in Red Russia... the more evident it becomes that it is townspeople who suffered most from the Bolsheviks and conditions brought about by the Red regime. They gladly welcomed the Russian troops and quickly aligned themselves with the new Wrangel regime. peasants, although they suffered a certain loss from seizure of grain and horses, and although bitter against mobilization, nevertheless in general never suffered any hunger or the many requisitions of clothing, linen, household effects, and about everything else of value townspeople had to endure; nor have they seen at close hand the conduct and methods of the
commissars... In these years the man who produces from the soil is king- even in Red Russia... But the spirit of the townspeople is broken- their brains and wills are as weak and starved from lack of food as are their bodies- sufferings have left them exhausted. Once these townspeople get sufficient food inside them to restore stamina, and when the interior weakness of bolshevism gives them an opportunity, they must restore commerce and industry, yet the latter would also restore the towns- and strengthened, people would no longer submit to the tyranny they have suffered for years. So even in its success, bolshevism contains the elements of its downfall. The millworker in Alimovka expressed the idea of thousands when he said that formerly the Russians had a
czar, a fool, to rule them, [and] taxes were very bad, but bread was five
kopeks a pound and plentiful, and a man could get all the shirts, and shoes, and sugar and tea and tobacco he wanted. Now Russia was ruled by very clever men, [and] there were no taxes at all, but bread was 500 rubles a pound and scarce, and neither shirts nor shoes nor sugar nor tea nor tobacco were to be had."
Crimea, September–October 1920 Koehler was back at the front two weeks later, taking the train to
Melitopol and meeting with General Kutepov, who told of the White's capture of
Alexandrovsk and seizing military assets of armored trains, 14 steamboats, 2,000 horses, 1,000 railroad cars and 33 "hot" (operational)
locomotives, along with scores of Red prisoners. Wrangel had reorganized his White army into Kutepov's First Army, consisting of the
Volunteer Army, old
Don Cossacks and the Second Army under General A.P. Dratsenko, consisting of the old Second and Third Corps and a
Terek Cossacks brigade. Wrangel also formed two independent
cavalry units, led by General Ivan Barbovich and the
Kuban Cossack General Nikolai Babiev. At that time, Wrangel's forces totaled 43,900. Kutepov was confident that there were no significant Bolshevik forces between Alexandrovsk,
Ekaterinoslav or
Kharkov, and felt he could take either town without great effort. He expected to hold
Mariupol that he had captured only long enough to destroy the Red naval base, capturing or killing all but 500 of the troops operating in the town. Retreating from there, Kutepov drew Red forces north of Mariupol after him, and captured 4,000 Red troops on October 12, after outflanking them. After meeting with Second Army General Dratsenko, Koehler was optimistic about the prospects of the White army as late as early October. "To draw away the large reserves of Red troops now at
Kahovka, First Army has planned an advance from Alexandrovsk into the rear of
Nikopol, and as soon as the Reds have withdrawn from Nikopol, all Second Army except Vitkovsky's corps will cross (the
Dnieper River) at Nikopol and advance towards
Berislav, while Vitkovsky's 34th Division will attempt a crossing at the French
monastery 25
versts below
Kahovka, and 13th Division ... will storm Kahovka... If this plan succeeds, the Russians will probably shift the whole First Army to the southeastern flank and attempt an advance into the
Donetz.... which if successful would mean the military power of bolshevism had come to an end." During a cavalry inspection, Koehler described witnessing the Cossack
lava movement, "I had seen the
lava, the famous Cossack attack, before, but never with the dash and spirit of [Second Brigade commander and
Don Cossack], General P. M. Agaev. Forming his bodyguard and transport train into the "enemy", he sent them in one direction and his own force disappeared in a cloud of dust in the opposite direction. Thirty minutes later we noted, from our position on the top of an old
Tartar burial mound, a mass of cavalry approaching in a solid formation. This mass soon spread into a long, thin line, which came on at a gallop. In the meantime, the enemy came and in a brilliant charge pierced the advancing line, which then split into two parts that retreated to the flanks, apparently in considerable disorder. At this point, the reserve hidden behind the advancing line suddenly came into sight, but on seeing the advancing enemy, it too wheeled and beat a hasty retreat with the enemy in hot pursuit. As the enemy pressed forward, the second reserve suddenly swept down and engaged the enemy in front, while the retreating first reserve, which had made a rather wide turn, now attacked on the enemy's flank while the two parts of the first line, which had retreated in apparent disorder, now came plunging in from the opposite flank and the rear, thus attacking the enemy from all sides at once. The result was a melee of men and horses, sabres and lances, banners and streamers, a whirlwind of dust. If battle is half as dangerous as this maneuver appears, one wonders how there can be any enemies of Cossacks left." During the inspection of the Cavalry Corps, Koehler witnessed General Wigran's entire brigade, cavalry, artillery and machine gun detachments charge up the reviewing hillock, and led by the general, give a rousing cheer, "America, America". Koehler learned it was the result of his giving a transcript to General Kutepov of a lengthy address by the Secretary of State that acknowledged the U.S. "strongly recoils [from] recognition of the Bolshevist regime," going on to say, the "United States feels that friendship and honor require that Russia's interests must be generously protected and... [we] have so instructed [our] representative in Southern Russia, Rear Admiral Newton A. McCully." During that time, Koehler heard a "great amount of favorable comment concerning this note and the work of the
American Red Cross..." On October 6, Dratsenko's army crossed the Dnieper at
Khortytsia, to the surprise of the Reds who did not expect a crossing there, and giving a momentary advantage as Dratsenko's forces captured Red troops and threatened communication lines. A couple days later, Koehler witnessed the crossing of the Dnieper by Kutepov with a shock force of three infantry and three cavalry divisions, writing in his report, "The crossing of the Dnieper on October eighth and the advance into the Ukraine was one of the most interesting operations I saw, as it perfectly illustrated General Kutepov's methods. On the previous day I had seen the capture on Chertisa Island... former stronghold from which the old
Zaporogian Cossacks directed raids against rich towns from Constantinople to Poland...At daybreak, as soon as the opposite shore could be made out, artillery began a brisk fire followed by all the noise the single machine gun company could produce. Twenty minutes later, at three of the most difficult places to get across- on account of the width and depth of the river-- the army began its crossing, Red artillery meanwhile pouring in an overwhelming fire on the ford being so carefully avoided. Result was one division across at a cost of eleven men wounded and en entire cavalry corps and another division crossed with no casualties whatsoever. Within forty minutes some nine hundred Bolshevik prisoners were busy hauling White Russian artillery across the river... I kept on with General Babiev's cavalry and by nightfall... counted over 3,000 prisoners..." 's Red Army First Cavalry, ca. 1920 Although peace negotiations between the Poles and Soviets only began on September 21, Wrangel knew he had to make his push across the Dnieper, realizing that Marshal
Semyon Budyonny's
First Cavalry would arrive from the Polish front to join with Red commander
Mikhail Frunze's
Sixth and
Thirteenth Armies and
Second Cavalry, headquartered at
Kharkov, dramatically increasing the numerical advantage of the Reds. As observed by Koehler, the White army's operation came "within an ace of success" but it was not to be. After the capture of 3,000 Reds on October 11, Babiev's cavalry outflanked the thorn of Kahovka while Wrangel's First Army under Kutepov north of Melitopol cut elements of the Soviet Sixth and Thirteenth armies to ribbons. Then key events conspired to doom the operation. On October 13, Wrangel ordered a frontal assault by General Vitkovsky on Kahovka. Inaccurate aerial reconnaissance reported sparse defenses; however, the city was heavily defended and Vitovsky's tanks were destroyed. As Babiev's Cossacks were about to surround the city, he was killed by an artillery shell, thoroughly confounding and demoralizing his Cossacks, who began to retreat. This, in turn, caused the inept Second Army commander, Dratsenko, to order a general retreat back to the left bank of the Dnieper. When the Whites regrouped on the left bank, they found that the Markov and
Kornilov divisions, General Babiev and his cavalry, Barbovich's corps, and the Sixth and Seventh Infantry divisions had been crushed and abandoned on the right bank. On top of these failures, news reached Wrangel that the Poles and Soviets had signed a peace treaty the previous day, October 12. Wrangel's forces began a steady retreat and any designs on spreading into the Ukraine were finished. Koehler returned to Sebastopol on October 17, as once again, thousands of beaten and despondent Whites retreated toward the narrow Perekop Isthmus and Sivash straights that separated Crimea from the northern Tauride. On the day of the Red's first offensive, October 28, they had 99,500 infantry and 33,700 cavalry to the White's 23,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry- nearly a 4 to 1 advantage. They also outnumbered the Whites 2 to 1 in guns and machine guns. In a matter of days, the Reds reached the Tauride. Wrangel ordered all available men to defend Perekop and ordered Kutepov to return and attack from the West. Kutepov's forces did as ordered, but when a Red force broke through on the Ushun sector, Kutepov withdrew into Crimea rather than risk encirclement. A week later, Koehler was in Yalta with McCully who wrote in his diary, "Summer is definitely over, although Koehler still goes in swimming." Wrangel had hoped that the tidal marshes at the neck of the Crimea would hold back the Bolsheviks, but a series of very low tides drained many and a cold spell froze over the rest, so that the Reds poured over, sending his remaining forces into full retreat to
Sebastopol and a desperate
rearguard action. He described the end of his campaign, "I gave the order in October 1920 for retreat. The troops fell back by forced marches on the seaports and embarked according to a plan previously arranged. The civil population, those who served in the rear, the sick, the wounded, women and children, were the first to be put on board. The evacuation took place in perfect order. I inspected personally on the Cruiser
Kornilov the harbours used, and I was able to assure myself that all who wished to quit Russian soil found it possible to do so." At the time of the collapse of the White army,
"mustang" rear admiral and early naval aviator
Jackson Tate was a "lowly ensign" attached to the off Sebastopol. He recalled writing a set of orders for himself "to escort the Princess Olga Sargieff Rostigieff, Rear Admiral McCully's secretary, out of the Crimea," a well-laid plan, until Koehler got wind of it. "Hugo Koehler tore up the orders and said HE was escorting the princess and I was assigned to escort out three children on the [destroyer] . There were over three thousand people aboard, mostly standing on deck. The children were not at all popular with the C.O. of the destroyer. They- and most of the refugees- had "
cooties", the nickname at that time for body lice... I saw little of Koehler. He was a very dapper and dashing individual and quite a lady's man. He spoke excellent Russian and was very highly thought of by Admiral McCully."
Sebastopol, November 1920 His work on the Mission to South Russia completed, on November 1, 1920, Koehler sailed for
Constantinople. After that, he made a yachting trip to
Egypt. The destroyer , was already at Sebastopol when the Bolsheviks defeated Baron Wrangel's White Army in November 1920.
Overton distributed relief supplies, provided transportation and communication services, and relocated refugees. A single ship could not cope with the massive influx of desperate people fleeing the fighting; however, and the Americans furthermore feared for the safety of their people trapped in the war. McCully cabled a request to the State Department, asking that the United States be allowed to assist in the
Evacuation of the Crimea. Not waiting for a response, he ordered Cdr. Alexander "Sandy" Sharp of the destroyer to load a group of refugees and stand out for Constantinople with a letter request to Admiral Bristol for more ships. With 550 Cossacks, women and children gathered from the Sebastopol docks, Sharp's destroyer stood out for Turkey. During the voyage, the Russians were spread out on the ship and ravenously wolfed down everything the navy cooks served up. Upon receiving the letter, Bristol gave emergency orders for the destroyers , , and to cease various operations in the Black Sea and immediately stand out for the Crimea to assist in the evacuation. The Americans nonetheless required additional ships and cabled for reinforcements including . Standing up the
Bosporus from Constantinople on November 13, 1920,
St. Louis rendezvoused with destroyer , and U.S. steamships
Faraby and
Navahoe, and the four vessels worked with other ships to rescue the Americans authorized by McCully to escape. Besides McCully's party, the ships pulled out U.S. consuls and their archives, representatives of the American Red Cross and
YMCA, relief workers from other agencies, and approximately 1,400 Russian refugees from Sebastopol and Yalta in the Crimea, Novorossiysk, Russia, and Odessa. On the morning of November 14, the destroyers dispatched by Admiral Bristol from Constantinople arrived at Sebastopol to find hundreds of mostly Russian and French boats in the harbor, many of which were crammed to the gunwales with fleeing White Russians.
Whipple, Lt. Cdr. Richard F. Bernard, commanding, stood by to evacuate selected individuals bearing passes from McCully. ''Whipple's
main battery was trained out and manned at all times. Armed boat crews carried evacuees out to the ship while her landing force stood in readiness. As her last boatload pushed off from shore, Bolshevik troops reached the main square and began firing on the fleeing White Russians. Whipple was the last American vessel out of Sebastopol, towing a barge loaded with wounded White Russian troops. When she was beyond range of the Red guns, she turned the tow over to Humphreys''. Passing Admiral McCully's destroyer, he bellowed from the bridge through a
megaphone, to Bernard and his crew, "Well done
Whipple." General Wrangel stayed on a
quay until all who wanted to leave Russia had done so, before he embarked on the
Russian cruiser Admiral Kornilov (1887) and sailed into exile, eventually settling in Belgium. It is estimated that between November 1920 and the end of 1921, the Reds executed between 50,000 and 150,000 Russians in the Crimea. In Constantinople, the city was deluged with the displaced Russians from the Crimea. Admiral Mark Bristol set up a disaster relief committee to coordinate the various American relief efforts that continued for many months. Sailors from the admiral's flagship,
St Louis, worked with his wife, Helen, and her committee of women and constructed a soup kitchen in the train station at
Stamboul. They fed 4,000 refugees daily that were being brought in for housing in makeshift camps. Restroom facilities and a dressing area for the women refugees were set up. Doling out hot chocolate, tea and bread, Helen Bristol and her women, worked in rain and mud to keep their canteen open past midnight. Ultimately 22,000 Russians were cared for by the Americans and housed in different parts of the city. Much larger contingents of British and French aid workers did similar good. Appropriately, Koehler returned to the United States from Europe aboard the , nicknamed "Ship Beautiful" for the society passengers she carried, sailing from
Southampton and arriving at New York with 3,000 passengers on January 30, 1921, after a rough six-day, eleven-hour passage averaging 20 knots. Also making the crossing were Sir
Ernest Shackleton,
Antarctic explorer and author, Sir
Philip Gibbs, British
war correspondent,
Vice Admiral Harry M. P. Huse, USN, Sir
Major-General Sir Newton James Moore KCMG and
Clare Sheridan, sculptor and first cousin of Sir
Winston Churchill, who had been in
Russia sculpting
busts of
Lenin and
Trotsky, The British Foreign Office had loudly opposed Sheridan's trip to Russia, denying her a British passport and almost forbidding the journey. Koehler met her on the ship as she was sailing to America to give lectures on her Russian experience. On the first day of her arrival in New York, Koehler took care of her young son, Dick, while she met with reporters, agents and others., Hugo Koehler (holding up her son, Dick),
Rear Adm. Harry Huse and others, aboard , bound for
New York City from
Southampton, January 1921 In her diary,
Mayfair to Moscow, published in 1921, Sheridan described Koehler as "heaven sent", writing that "Koehler promised to be at my side in case of need. He was amazingly kind and put up with infinite boredom and waiting on our account." In a letter Koehler wrote from Poland in 1922, he mentioned an incident that reminded him of the "famous Mrs. Sheridan at whom the Foreign Office thundered so loudly... and yet be it known (although this, of course, is closely guarded) that she was an agent for the British Intelligence Service." It was speculated, but later disproved, that Koehler may have been able to smuggle the Imperial family out of Russia. This was the subject of the book
Rescue of the Romanovs by New York journalist Guy Richards, that was published in 1975. Beginning in July 1921, the monthly periodical
The World's Work published a series of four articles by Hugo Koehler describing his observations during the Russian Civil War in 1920 and the defeat of the anti-Bolshevists. Koehler's belief that the Russian people would soon work through and cast off Bolshevism for a prosperous, free-market economy, while in line with the pro-business theme of the host publication, proved to be overly optimistic.
Naval Attaché to Poland Koehler was promoted to permanent lieutenant commander on June 3, 1921, and appointed naval attaché to the American
Legation at
Warsaw, Poland, in August of that year, to aid the State Department in monitoring the beginning of international relations between divided-Russia and Poland. Koehler described the practical aspect of his job, as spending a year "combing
Europe from one end to the other with no purpose more definite than to see what's really happening on the theory that might give us some idea of what's going to happen." His passport, signed by
Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes contained over sixty
visas stamped during his assignment. From 1795 to 1918 and the collapse of its neighboring nations, Poland had been variously controlled by
Imperial Russia,
Prussia and
Austria-Hungary. The new republic of Poland that was outlined by President Wilson in the thirteenth of his
Fourteen Points in January 1918, and agreed at
Versailles the following year, included parts of the former Russia, the
Congress Kingdom and
Kresy. The diverse ethnic groups of White Russians,
Lithuanians, Poles and
Ukrainians, along with small concentrations of
Jews made up the new country. The area of the new state ceded from Germany included the agrarian regions of
Pomerania and
Posen, plus the industrial regions of
Prussian Upper Silesia. From
Austria-Hungary areas of
West Galicia and
Austrian Silesia were designated for the new Polish state. The goal of establishing a unified nation from these diverse regions, with differing taxes, varying public education (to the extent it existed) and transportation infrastructure, was compounded by the destruction of six years of war on both cities and farmlands. In a letter to Capt. William Galbraith of the
Office of Naval Intelligence in early November, 1921, Koehler wrote of driving from Warsaw to Danzig, where he "passed in and out of Germany and Poland so often that we soon lost count of the number of frontier stations." Motoring from battle-scarred,
Brest-Litovsk he wrote that, "The most interesting thing there was the scrawl on the wall of the room where the
Bolshevik treaty with Germany was signed. 'Neither Peace, nor War.' it reads, and is signed 'Leon Trotsky, December 1917, Brest'- certainly not a bad estimate of the situation, especially so, considering the date." Heading on towards
Baranowicze, Koehler's party travelled through miles of burned land, for which he observed that, "[I]n accordance with age-old Russian strategy the armies laid waste the countryside as they retreated... Wonderfully thorough they were, these poor Russians, in destroying their own houses and fields." Arriving at the border, they found "a long line of prairie schooners coming in. 'Is this Poland? Are we out of Russia? God be praised!' came again and again in the same jabbering Russian, Polish and German. It happened that in this crowd were German colonists from Russia. They had been in Russia for many generations, they had never mixed with the Russians but kept close together in their little farm colonies along the
Volga.... I talked to one peasant who was under twenty-seven although he looked over forty- and small wonder, for he had tramped over five thousand versts and during the last stretch had dragged the cart himself, as the Bolsheviks had taken away his horse. I examined the cart he had brought all this distance and with so tremendous an effort. An old bed, bits of sacking, an assortment of battered pots and pans, an old sheepskin, part of a wolfskin, rags, nine potatoes, a handful of radishes, some pieces of tallow- nothing else. The complete inventory would not net a dollar; he explained that he had had a cow but the Bolsheviks had taken it away from him at the border. Yet he was much better off than thousands, for having been out in the open he was in comparatively good health although drawn and wasted, whereas the others who had come back by train were feeble and diseased and bleeding from bites. The children of course, were the most tragic sights. They are young only when they smile." In his travels through Germany, when Koehler met German women with babies, he would ask them if they were raising them to be
canonenfutter (cannon fodder). Invariably, they would respond, " 'No,' indignantly. But on further talking, they would just as invariably intimate that these boys would have to someday fight as their fathers did, because the French would not let them do otherwise.
Frankreich muss noch weinen." ("The French will be made to weep again"), Koehler heard over, and over. He saw that Germany was selling its goods below the actual cost of production, and that while full employment might postpone the "crash", when it came it would be harder due to Germany's weak financial condition. "To pull through, Germany will need statesmanship wiser than the greed of manufacturers that has been the directing force since the Armistice. As it is, the German people seem blighted with the curse of false leaders, for the interests now at the helm, though more greedy than the old, are less farsighted; and again the German people will suffer for their lack of ability in choosing leaders...." A French officer travelling with Koehler for part of his journey, expressed bitterness seeing "all the smiling fields, and all the beautiful villages, and all the sturdy Germans working so industriously, all the busy factories at
Düsseldorf and
Essen and the
Ruhr..." while "he thought of devastated northern France." The sight of the German resolve and energy "struck terror to the soul of my French friend," prompting Koehler's conclusion that, "The tragedy is not only that the French do not realize that by keeping an army beyond their means they are weakening themselves, but the fear and terror that they all feel makes it impossible for them even to understand it until that terror is removed." Journeying through Poland, Koehler engaged in discussions of the viability of the new Polish republic. "And over and over again one hears it stated that if there had been any real vitality in the idea of a Polish nationality, the Poles would long ago have thrown off the yoke of the oppressors they hated so bitterly. But however sound these statements may be in themselves, I do not find they quite fit the Polish situation. It is all very well to say that a country should itself throw off the yoke if it aspires to nationhood, but when all is said and done, once Poland was partitioned, it was really impossible for Poland to rise until at least one of the oppressors had fallen. It is true that a country must itself achieve its independence, since the fundamental character of independence is that it cannot be received as a gift.... Poland has been reborn and has a fine start in life, but whether or not Poland will ever arrive at manhood depends entirely on the Poles. There is no royal road to knowledge, we were told as children, nor is there any royal road to manhood or statehood." Koehler recalled the "feeling in General Wrangel's army when the Poles were advancing to
Kiev. Although Wrangel's men were fighting for existence against the Bolsheviks, in the hardest and bitterest kind of fight, still there was a time, at the height of the Polish advance, when the feeling in Wrangel's army was such that they would almost have made common cause with the Bolsheviks rather than see the Poles advance into Russia." In a letter to his mother, Mathilda, written in July 1922, Koehler recounted that, "In the forest region there are many Jews in the little villages that here consist usually of a single row of houses around a square instead of the single, very broad street of the Russian style. I heard many complaints against the Jews: that they did no real work, no farming, no cutting of wood, yet they became rich on the labors of the peasants. 'If they do not farm and do not cut wood, then what do the Jews do?' I asked a peasant. 'Oh, they buy stolen logs and trade stolen horses and sell vodka,' was the answer. 'You wicked
anti-Semitic propagandist!' I reproached him; but his only reply was that just nine days before, his brother's horse had been stolen and found at a Jew's house seventeen versts away, and that currently everybody knew that Jews bought the stolen logs and cattle as well as the horses. 'But the peasants must steal the logs first in order to sell them to the Jews,' I answered. 'Yes,' he admitted, 'but if the Jews did not buy, the peasants would not steal.' I told him the parable about the pot and the kettle, but he was not impressed." Koehler recalled a particularly humorous encounter with frontier posts and visa stamps that again demonstrated his prodigious ability to persuade and manipulate. Motoring to
Kovno, about ninety minutes after crossing the
Lithuanian frontier and a small army post where Koehler's
retinue had asked directions, they came upon a line of soldiers with
bayoneted rifles gesturing urgently. An officer approached and told them they would need to go back to the frontier outpost for Koehler to have his passport stamped. Not wanting to backtrack over "very bad roads" and delay the trip for this bureaucratic exercise, Koehler "refused point-blank to go back but added that I would be glad to go to any station in the direction of Kovno, my destination." Ultimately taking the phone himself, he "talked to various regimental commanders, divisional commanders, and goodness knows what, all of whom repeated that the frontier was closed inasmuch as Poland and Lithuania were at war, and that I could therefore not have passed the frontier. In reply I suggested that the mere fact I was in the middle of Lithuania ought to be sufficient evidence that I had crossed the frontier. I replied that I would not go willingly and that under the circumstances I considered that the same
international law that applied to
blockades also applied to a frontier; that is, that just as a blockade in order to be binding must be effective, so it was with a frontier." Standing his ground, Koehler's suggestion that he should be allowed to proceed to divisional headquarters (on the way to Kovno) was finally agreed to. Reaching divisional headquarters, "the first result was more discussions, telephoning, arguing, and beseeching. But the
upshot of it all was that instead of proceeding to Kovno, I was told I should have to wait where I was until the Lithuanian Foreign Office had authorized the visa of my passport... However, as this process promised to take a good many hours if not days and weeks, and as the discussion had already lasted some four and a half hours, I cast about for a happy idea." Koehler matter of factly suggested to the general's
adjutant that he had only heard the Polish side of the controversy with Lithuania, and that it might be very interesting on the journey to Kovno to have "a really thorough explanation of the Lithuanian side of the case. The effect of this gentle hint was electric! The adjutant dashed off to his colonel, and within three minutes the answer came back that I could proceed at once to Kovno, and that, if I wished it, an officer would accompany me and show me the way." Koehler arrived at Kovno without further incident. While he was in Poland, it is likely that Koehler coordinated with Polish General
Jozef Pilsudski, the dominant leader in the newly independent Polish state, to support the White Army in Russia in its unsuccessful struggle against the Red Army. In this assignment he met the
Papal Nuncios to Poland and Germany, Archbishops Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti and Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli. The unfounded speculation surrounding these meetings, was that the Vatican and Koehler were discussing the potential for restoration of the
Habsburg empire, relative to the rumor that Koehler was the "lost" crown prince. The following year, Ratti became
Pope Pius XI, and on his death in 1939, Pacelli was elected to the papacy, taking the name
Pope Pius XII. Years after Koehler's death, his widow Matilda told a
confidante, "I think it was a shame how they got his hopes up." In February 1922, Koehler was witness for his friend
Hugh S. Gibson, American minister to Poland, at Gibson's wedding to Ynès Reyntiens, daughter of
Belgian Major Robert Reyntiens, who had been
Aide-de-camp to
King Leopold II, in Bruxelles. During the week of October 15, 1922, American diplomatic representatives in Middle and Western Europe, including Koehler, met in Berlin at a conference called by the U.S. Ambassador to Germany,
Alanson B. Houghton, to discuss the current state of affairs in their particular countries and work towards more cohesive cooperation in their missions. Two days before his assassination on December 16, 1922, Koehler's personal friend, the newly elected, first Polish president
Gabriel Narutowicz had expressed great interest to him in the work done in America to establish a national park system, and asked Koehler for information concerning policies and methods, with a view towards establishing a system in Poland patterned after the
National Park Service in order to preserve Poland's extensive forests, and in particular, those in the
Carpathian Mountains. Narutowicz asked Koehler to prepare articles for publication in Poland concerning the American national parks. Returning to the United States several days later, on leave before his next assignment, Koehler visited his mother, Mathilda, in Davenport, Iowa, during the
Christmas holidays and gave an interview to the local paper. Titled "Worse Times Coming in Germany", Koehler saw Germany at the beginning of a period of economic
deflation following the hyperinflation that had existed since the Armistice. While the current economic situation made it doubtful there would be any significant rise in exports to Europe, Koehler believed there was great future trade expansion potential since the old and new European nations did not believe the U.S. was "animated by ulterior motives". He noted that America loans money to those nations, not "loans" in the form of imported goods made in Britain as the British did. He saw Germany paying the price of Anglo-French political maneuvers in the
Near East, where the English were defeated in their diplomatic backing of Greece, as the French were victors in their backing of Turkey. That victory gave the French the courage to insist on their strong army policy towards the Germans. The balance of trade that was formerly in favor of Germany, was now against it, which augured ill for German prosperity. He reaffirmed his belief that Russia "will eventually escape domination of the bolshevik" but saw no possibility of ever reverting to a monarchy, since the peasants, who had "appropriated many things in addition to land" would resist it. Koehler saw Poland as "economically wealthy" with its tremendous natural resources of timber, oil, coal and mining, but "financially poor" for supporting a very large standing army and a close alliance with France. Politically, he regarded the situation in Poland as "perplexing", with 17 political parties, and strong political minorities of Germans, Russians, Jews and Ukrainians. He noted that 90 percent of the emigration from Poland was Jewish. Koehler opined that while all European nations worried over the invasion threat of the
Red army, they were "bluffed" since it was defensively, not offensively strong. "The Russian army has no artillery, no aviation force, no means of supply and while it could defend Russia effectively it could not campaign efficiently in an aggressive way," he stated. Commenting about "The Terrible Turk", Koehler felt it wasn't so "terrible" after all. "There isn't any danger in the present alliance between the Turk and the Bolshevik as far as a permanent threat against the peace of Europe is concerned.
Mohammedanism is fundamentally opposed to
Communism and therefore these two countries cannot remain friendly," Koehler accurately predicted. "Communism is a good excuse for a row but a poor foundation for a stable government," he declared. The recent assassination of the Polish president, Narutowicz, a Lithuanian by birth who had been conciliatory in resolving the boundary dispute with Lithuania that followed the Poles taking of
Vilna was a serious blow to the country's future, Koehler believed. "America has done an enormous amount of good for Poland and for other new countries of Europe in its relief work, work that will eventually react to the benefit of the United States. For two years we fed over a million children in Poland and they are tremendously grateful to us. The American businessman doesn't pay much attention to his foreign trade. We are too indifferent to find out the real market conditions. But we have great latent possibilities there as a result of our national activities in the past few years, possibilities which we will eventually capitalize." ==Later Navy career==