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.

Picture of the Show Troupe

This photo comes from George's personal album. The cation reads: "Capt. Niklas-1st Lieutenant Osbourne Show Troupe." As you can see they are standing in front of a Y.M.C.A.

Since we are currently following George on his side trek playing piano on tour through parts of Siberia and China with a show troupe I thought it would be appropriate to show a photograph of two of the members of the troupe.

Click on the photograph for a larger view.

Impressions of Nikolsk and Harbin

Nikolsk

Pop. about 50,000 63 miles from Vlad.

This town is the junction and end of double track from Vlad. The main line runs to Harbin, the Amur line to Khabarovsk, 1175 miles away. This town has a large railroad yard and also a nice city. This place is where the Zcecks had a hard fight with the Bolsheviks, killing many. The country West of here is good country and is very level for about 60 miles. Toward Khab. it also is in good shape.

Harbin, China

Pop. 2000,000 483 miles to Vlad.

Railway center of Trans-Siberian and Chinese Eastern Railway. This is the finest town in Manchuria. Large big station with a park (unreadable) There are three parts to this town, New, Old Harbin, and China Town. On this section they have American locomotives. The town has thousands of rickshaws run by coolies. The Soogaree (Songhua) river runs through this town, big boats come here. About 20 miles south of town a decisive battle was fought between the Russians and the Japanese. There is a line that runs to Port Arthur on the Chinese Eastern Railway. The town has many fine churches.
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More on Harbin here.

On To China

April the 15th we got to Nikolsk where we showed to shows. Leaving here we were to make a long trip over 600 miles to Harbin, Manchuria, China.

Our cars were put on a freight train and we started over the main line of the Trans-Siberian Railway which is single track from here to Manchuria City, Mongolia, China over 1200 miles across the Gobi Desert.

Imperial Russian Belt Buckle

George brought back two belt buckles from his time in Siberia. One he gave to his son, one to his grandson. This is a picture of one of the buckles. After some limited research, I have concluded this buckle is an Imperial Russian Belt Buckle. From what I can gather it seems as though the buckles were probably used by the Cossacks. Otherwise, I'm not sure where George would have gotten them. the story is that he took them off of two dead bodies, a pretty macabre thing, but definitely not uncommon in war time.

Maybe someone out there knows more about this...