gang of Cossacks, concluded that not all Russians felt he was Supreme Ruler material. In November he passed command of the Whites to the pesky Cossack Semenov. The dispirited Kolchak retreated east until captured by the opportunistic Czech legion. Sensing his barter value, the Czechs, in return for their safe passage out of Russia, turned him and his captured gold over to the crafty Reds. General Graves, now firmly in command of the port, bars, and restaurants of Vladivostok harbor, watched over the departure of the Czech soldiers as they finally shipped out home, more than a year after the end of World War I. There were no more cover stories. It was time to go. The American transport ships soon followed, loaded down with their war booty of eighty Russian wives of servicemen. The official figures put the American losses at 137 killed in action, with an additional 216 deaths from other sources, such as accidents and diseases.
The grabby Japanese stayed, still hoping to add a nice chunk of Russian tundra to their growing empire, but they eventually bowed to Bolshevik pressure and left in 1922.
In his book General Graves summed up his role in this amazingly stupid conflict with typical understatement: “I was in command of the United States troops sent to Siberia and, I must admit, I do not know what the United States was trying to accomplish by military intervention.”
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER
One would expect that when two heavyweights such as the United States and Russia go at it, the world would indeed change. And perhaps that may be the most amazing aspect of this madcap affair. It changed absolutely nothing, except to give the world a few more Czech World War I veterans and provide the Bolsheviks propaganda they could use for the next eight decades: America was trying to invade us. No one in the United States remembers, but they do.
Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919, and his wife became de facto president until the end of his term. During her time in charge she hid the ailing president from the vice president and the cabinet. She invaded no countries. Wilson died in 1924.
General William Graves retired from the army in 1928 and wrote a book damning the whole experience.
The Bolsheviks held Kolchak in prison for a few weeks and, as expected, placed him up against a wall and shot him on February 7. The gold found its way to the Bolsheviks in Moscow. On the bright side, a statue of Land Admiral Kolchak now stands in Omsk.
Vladimir Lenin suffered a series of debilitating strokes, starting in 1922, and died two years later. Josef Stalin took control of the Soviet Union and invaded many countries.
The Soviet Union remained communist until 1991.
SEVEN.
HITLER’S BEER HALL PUTSCH: 1923
What makes a good putsch?
Unlike the revolution, its more belligerent cousin, few have possessed the delicate touch to successfully pull off this somewhat subtle affair. Adolf Hitler, as we now know, wasn’t known for his delicacy.
A successful putsch is a lighthearted event, the fiesta of government overthrows. The putschists are only “giving the people what they want,” which is, of course, a new government run by the putschists. A well-run putsch should seem to magically spring from the streets and encounter light or no resistance, spilling only a soupçon of blood. Nothing dims the gleeful prospects of a good putsch faster than unnecessary bloodshed.
If there ever was a country ready for a putsch, it was Germany in 1923. And Munich was the perfect spot. Munich beerhalls were tailor made for putsch gathering spots: large caverns with food and beer to ply hungry irregular troops, perfect for inflammatory speeches and weapons caches. The political and military leaders of Munich and the entire province of Bavaria all detested anything vaguely resembling democracy and hungered for the security of a dictatorship, although no one could quite agree on what flavor. As the topper, the entire leadership of the region supported the overthrow of, well, themselves. They just had not yet figured out all the details, such as who would lead the new government.
Hitler, his rabble-rousing political skills already in full flower, had by then assembled many of his all-star cast of supporting characters that later successfully waged the largest, most devastating war of all time. The crew was headlined by the jovial World War I fascist hero of the air, Hermann Goering, and backed by the incomparably Prussian General Erich Ludendorff, the former leader of the spectacularly unsuccessful but widely admired German war effort in World War I.
Hitler was ready. Munich was ready. The beer was cold. There were plenty of unemployed former soldiers milling about, eager to put their bitter aggression to good use. It seemed like a slam dunk. But it all ended less than a day later with blood in the streets and short jail terms.
How could it have possibly failed?
THE PLAYERS
Adolf Hitler — a decorated veteran of the German army in World War I, native-born Austrian, nonsmoker, vegan, budding visual artist, uneducated, skill-free weirdo with absolutely no scruples, who somehow came up with the idea that he should be running the world and then convinced a lot of other people this sounded like a really good idea.
General Erich Ludendorff — Hitler’s ace-in-the-hole for the putsch. The bumbling Prussian who had blown the once-every-thousand-years opportunity to crush England and France in a one-front war after the Russians bowed out of World War I, had saved his reputation by inventing the “stabbed in the back by the lousy politicians on the home front” excuse, before fleeing to Sweden at the end of the war sporting a false beard.
