tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">CHAPTER 10. — ALONG THE URALS
CHAPTER 11. — WHAT HAPPENED AT OMSK
CHAPTER 12. — THE CAPTURE OF PERM: THE CZECHS RETIRE FROM THE FIGHTING
CHAPTER 13. — THE DECEMBER ROYALIST AND BOLSHEVIST CONSPIRACY
CHAPTER 14. — A BOMBSHELL FROM PARIS AND THE EFFECT
CHAPTER 15. — MORE INTRIGUES
CHAPTER 16. — RUSSIAN LABOUR
CHAPTER 17. — MY CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER 18. — OMSK RE-VISITED
CHAPTER 19. — IN EUROPEAN RUSSIA
CHAPTER 20. — MAKING AN ATAMAN
CHAPTER 21. — HOMEWARD BOUND
CHAPTER 22. — AMERICAN POLICY AND ITS RESULTS
CHAPTER 23. — JAPANESE POLICY AND ITS RESULTS
CHAPTER 24. — GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Transcriber's Note: Copies of some illustrations from the original text were not available.

Gen. Detriks (Czech) and Col. Ward After the Allied Council at Vladivostok

A Conference Outside Col. Ward's Headquarters Wagon

Col. Ward and the Czech Leader (Col. Stephan) Examining the Ussurie Front, After Taking Over the Command.

British Parade at Omsk

Russian Headquarters "Staffka" At Omsk

British Staff and C.O.'s Wagon

Admiral Koltchak

WITH THE "DIE-HARDS" IN SIBERIA

CHAPTER I

FROM HONG-KONG TO SIBERIA

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

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

Things remained in this condition until June, 1918, when we were suddenly startled by an order to call upon the half of my battalion stationed at Singapore to embark on the first ship available and join me at Hong-Kong. This seemed to suggest that the truly wonderful thing called "Allied Diplomacy" had at last made up its mind to do something. After a great deal of bustle and quite unnecessary fuss the whole battalion embarked on the Ping Suie on a Saturday in July, 1918.

It should be remembered that my men were what were called "B one-ers," and were equipped for the duty of that grade; but, after our arrival at Hong-Kong, Headquarters had called in most of our war material to replenish the dwindling supplies of this most distant outpost of the British Empire. Very little information could be gathered as to the kind of duty we might expect to be called upon to perform, and the ignorance of the Staff as to the nature of the country through which we were to operate was simply sublime. Added to this, most of the new material with which we were fitted was quite useless for our purpose. Those things which