American Troops Need Coaxing to Fight Bolsheviki, April 10, 1919

From the Daily Times, Wilson, N.C., April 10, 1919

American Troops Refuse to Fight the Bolshevik on the Archangel Front Until Appealed to by Their Commander Who Told Them It Might Mean Their Very Lives Were at Stake

Archangel, April 10—A company of American troops who recently showed some hesitation in returning to the fighting front south of Archangel declared that the war with Germany was over and that the United States was not at war with the Bolsheviki.

The Regimental commander in the speech to them informed them that they were fighting a desperate defensive battle and advised them to stick out. He explained to them their very lives were in danger.

In their criticism of the course of their country in the waging of war against Germany and that was finished now and that America is not at war with the Bolsheviki, and that furthermore the entire Bolsheviki question with its principles involved was a debatable question even in the United States, and so far as they were concerned they were unable to see why they were fighting when there was no war.

In addition to telling his men that they were fighting a desperate defensive, probably in order to save their own lives and those of their comrades, he appealed to them as men and as American soldiers whose valor and patriotism had never been sullied by defeat or insubordination.