To Verkhne - Udinsk

May the 2nd we were still in the woods and were passing the Udga River south and crossed a bridge and ran along some high cliffs and came to the Selenga River and behold we at last made Verkhne Udinsk.

Postcard and Caption from George's album

Here we unloaded and made our way through the woods about a mile and a half from the town of Verkhne Udinsk. Here is where the work begun as we had to clear a way through the woods as the trees were very close. The weather was just fine and it had to be as we only had tents to live in. In a few days after we got here it was sure cold and we did not have any cots to sleep on. The first month we were here we spent almost all the time clearing away trees. Verkhne Udinsk is a trading town and the word means upper country. It has a population of about 3000, about all Russians with about one thousand Mongos or Mongolians who were mostly from or consist of herdsmen. There is a large trail that comes in here from Udga and from there to Peking.

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Verkhne Udinisk is now known as Ulan-Ude

Chita and the Continental Divide

Trans Baikal Distance From Vladivostok 1702 miles

The first day of May (1919) we arrived in Chita. Here is the main headquarters of General Semenov. This city has a population of 3500 people, all Russians, that is the greater part, there being a few Mongolians. This place is the coldest city in Siberia. The ground around here was very sandy and very little green grass we could see. The streets were all sand and it made it very hard to walk. At all the places we stopped we were always uptown even before the train stopped and at every large place we stopped for at the smallest an hour and some times three hours. It all depended on how the train crew felt. Sometimes we had to get after them as they did not seem to care how long they took and believe me, I did not care anymore as when we got to our new camp it meant work.

After leaving Chita about a hundred miles we came to the Continental Divide of Asia. Here there also was a tunnel and on both ends they had a tableau on which was written, "All water on this side flows toward the Pacific and the other to the Atlantic Ocean". This of, of course, was written in Russian.

AEF in Siberia Newsreel

Interesting video from public.resource.org. At just under 30 minutes, it tells the history of the Siberian Intervention pretty concisely, at least the official version. The film is an installment of an Army produced newsreel called the "Big Picture" Some pretty great film and pictures. Can't help but wonder if George is in there somewhere.

Impressions of Harbin, the Gobi Desert, and Chita

Harbin, China - Population 200,000 - 483 miles to Vlad.

Railway center of Trans Siberian and Chinese Eastern railway

This is the finest town in Manchuria. Large, big station with pork and foul running up to. There are three parts to this town, New, Old Harbin, and China Town. On this section they have American locomotives. The city has thousands of rickshaw run by coolies. The Songhua River runs through this town. Big boats come here. About twenty miles south of here the decisive battle was fought between the Russians and Japanese*. There is a line that runs to Port Arthur on the Chinese Eastern Railway. The town has many fine churches.

Actual Journal Image

Gobi Desert

A very large desert in Manchuria and Mongolia. It is very windy and the sand blows most all summer. There are many caravan trails leading into China, especially to Udga, Peking, Canton. The main travel is the camel. On this desert there are large herds of them, herded by Mongolians. They are of the two humped kind.

Chita - Population 90,000 - 1358 miles to Vlad.

A pretty large place. The country is pretty. A large wireless tower west of the city, near a small lake. This is a very cold place in the winter of which there is eight months.Seminof headquarters here. The country is very rough to travel.
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* I assume George is talking about the Siege of Port Arthur here when he refers to the decisive battle between the Russians and Japanese, a bloody battle in the Russo-Japanese War.

Harbin to Chita: Buryats and Cossacks

The 29th we were back in the Gobi desert. Here we saw large herds of Camles that were herded by Buriats or Mongolians. On this part of the desert there are a few Caravan Trails leading to Peking, Udga, and Canton, China. At night we arrived in Manchuria, this is the border town of Mongolia, China, and Siberia. This town has a population of forty thousand, most all Mongolians and Chinese.

Buryats circa 1900 via Wikipedia

Here we got the news that General Semenov would not leave us go into Siberia, as he said he could take care of it himself, and our Colonel told him to go to hell. We left Manchuria City at midnight into Siberia again and had breakfast at Karimskaya* Junction, this line has not been running for two years as every train they did try to run was blowed off the track.At Blagovestchench in 1914 the Cossacks drove 2400 Chinese Boxers into the Amur River and drowned the whole bunch of them.

Cossack Lancers from George's Collection

In this part of Siberia the woods are very fine, we would ride for a whole day and hardly see a break in the woods. From this Junction there is double track all the way to Omsk, 3500 miles clear into Europe. We followed the Amur River for over a hundred miles and it was very beautiful along this river. Here they only have about four months of warm weather and at times in the winter it gets as low as 65 below zero.
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From General Graves book on the Siberian Expedition,

Two hundred and thirty-five miles from Manchuria is Karimskaya, the nearest town to the junction point between the Chinese Eastern and the Amur railway, an all Siberian railway line, which runs northeast and north of the Amur River to Habarovsk and thence south to Vladivostok.From Nikolsk to Karimskaya the railroad is only a single track but, from this point west, it is double tracked.

In Siberia Podcast Relaunch Episode 1

The first episode of the new and improved In Siberia Podcast will be available here on Wednesday Dec. 9 and on iTunes too. Subscribe on iTunes (you can do that now if you want) and get the monthly episodes. Just search in iTunes for In Siberia

General Semenov

The railroad has a tunnel two mile long on the top of this mountain range and is guarded by Chinese soldiers who have a cement fort built on both sides of the tunnel. On the other side we had to wait for an armored train. This time it was one of General Semenov's trains. He believes in traveling in style as he has a girl for everyone of his officers, and, at any of the towns he stops, if he sees a good looking girl, why, he just takes them with him until he gets tired of them and then he gets some more. In one car he had all girls in it. We could see them through the windows. If any of the families resist in taking a girl, why, he just takes them out and kills them.

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The image above comes from George Voegeli's personal collection. Semenov is marked with an "x". More on General Semenov and the Cossacks later.

Harbin & Manchuria City

The trip back to Harbin was made in fine time, taking just two days, and on all the other days we went over, we took three days.

Here we took our Mules off for some exercise. The Russians never saw such large mules before and they were afraid of them and would not go anywhere near them.

Harbin to Manchuria City

April 26th we left Harbin at five-thirty. We had a Captain from the American Engineers who pulled our train over the first division and he did sure make our train go some. The Russian train crew were afraid he would take us off the track as they never had went so fast.

Khingan

In the morning we were in the Gobi Desert and not a thing in sight, we were in this desert all day long. This desert is a very long one, as it is about 1500 miles long and about 500 miles wide. We saw a lot of wild ducks and Chinese pheasants. The 28th we made the Khingan Mountains. Over this mountain range the railway has a very long grade to make. We had American engineers at all the stations along the line and the one at the foot of this grade told us that the railroad makes a climb of 3000 feet in two miles over the Khingan Loop.

we are coming back, revamped, soon...

Hoping for Home

At evening our company came along and when we saw the fellows we asked them where they were going and they said that they did not know but they thought they were going to the States and when we told them that they were still going further inland they were disappointed. After we had left, they still thought they were going to Vladivostok. In the morning we were in Manchuria and they though different.

Blog Update

I went back a little while ago and labeled all of the posts that contained George Voegeli's journal entries with the label of "journal". This will allow you, the reader, to read just those posts should you want to. Here is a link. Just click the link and go to the oldest post and read backwards. This is a great option if you are new to the blog, too, and want to catch up. Also, you can access the label "journal" on the right hand side of the blog a little ways down from now on.

Danger on the Tracks

The 24th (of April 1919), within a mile of Nikolskoye, we were stopped by a Chinamen, and not fifty feet from where the engine stopped the Bolsheviks had tore up one rail length. If it had not been for this Chinamen we would have run into a river as we were just about a hundred feet away from the approach to the bridge. Here we were stalled for a whole hour as we could not find the rail as I think they must have put it in the river. So, we had to take up a rail behind us. We were only about three miles from Nikolskoye and the only thing we could make out for taking out the rail was they must have thought they were going to wreck a troop train as some of our troop trains from Khabarovsk were due any time. When we got to Nikolskoye two of our companies were here and left.

The Last Leg for the Show Troupe

The 18th we got to Harbin. This is quite a city having a population of two hundred thousand people, half of which were Chinese. The city has no car line but it has hundreds of rickshaws and droskys. Here the Chinese Easter Railway comes from Port Arthur. About twenty miles south of here the decisive battle was fought.

Harbin is divided in two parts. One is Chinese and the other is every nationality one can think of. The city has some very large sugar factories and a few places where they make Opium.

We played here three days and left Harbin for Spasskoye back over the route we came. We got to the Manchurian Mountains. When we passed our headquarters moving to Verkhne Udinsk 1700 miles away we got orders to move back to Nikolsk and join our companies there. Our whole regiment had left Kharbarovsk and started on our Spring campaign. This time we were to have over 1800 miles of track to guard. So we had to go back three hundred miles to meet our companies and then come back over the same track.
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This marks the end of George's time in the show troupe. He played the piano with a group of soldier-musicians traveling throughout Siberia and parts of China and Manchuria. Unfortunately, he does not write much about the actual performances the troupe put on for the other soldiers. It would be interesting to know more about them I think. It seems likely that the music played was rag time but from what I gather about the rise of Jazz it could be possible that they were playing a little early jazz as well.

The In Siberia Podcast Episode 4

Please check out the In Siberia podcast, Episode 4: Czech Legions right here.

Nikolsk to Harbin, China 600 Miles

This line was built after the Japanese-Russian War. The country from Nikolsk to Chin Chow settlement was very flat and was at one time a great wheat country. Chin Chow is the boarder town of Siberia and Manchuria, China.

The 17th we got into the Manchurian mountains and had some large grades to make with two engines in the back and some times we had two pulling us. You can not realize what would have happened if our train would have broken apart as the train did not have any air brakes at all.
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The Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904 after years of conflict. Japan's ultimate victory in the war resulted in Japan becoming a power in Asia and led to the Russian Revolution of 1905 which was a precursor to the Russian Revolution a decade later that ultimately resulted in the formation of the Soviet Union. More basic info can be found here.

The photo comes from George's photo album and the caption identifies the area as The Chinese Wall, "Chin" Chow. The "Chinese Wall" is obviously the Great Wall of China. The identity of the man in the photo is a mystery to me.