Russia
died in battle and of wounds, or
of sickness due directly to hardship
and exposure, this book is
reverently dedicated.

To Our Comrades and Friends

To our comrades and friends we address these prefatory words. The book
is about to go to the printers and binders. Constantly while writing the
historical account of the American expedition, which fought the
Bolsheviki in North Russia, we have had our comrades in mind. You are
the ones most interested in getting a complete historical account. It is
a wonderful story of your own fighting and hardships, of your own
fortitude and valor. It is a story that will make the eyes of the home
folks shine with pride.

Probably you never could have known how remarkably good is the record of
your outfits in that strange campaign if you had not commissioned three
of your comrades to write the book for you. In the national army, we
happened to be officers; in civil life we are respectively, college
professor, lawyer, and public accountant, in the order in which our
names appear on the title page. But we prefer to come to you now with
the finished product merely as comrades who request you to take the book
at its actual value to you--a faithful description of our part in the
great world war. We are proud of the record the Americans made in the
expedition.

We think that nothing of importance has been omitted. Some sources of
information were not open to us--will be to no one for years. But from
some copies of official reports, from company and individual diaries,
and from special contributions written for us, we have been able to
write a complete narrative of the expedition. In all cases except a few
where the modesty of the writer impelled him to ask us not to mention
his name, we have referred to individuals who have contributed to the
book. To these contributors all, we here make acknowledgment of our debt
to them for their cordial co-operation. For the wealth of
photo-engravures which the book carries, we have given acknowledgment
along with each individual engraving, for furnishing us with the
photographic views of the war scenes and folk scenes of North Russia.
Most of them are, of course, from the official United States Signal
Corps war pictures.

When we started the book, we had no idea that it would develop into the
big book it is, a de luxe edition, of fine materials and fine
workmanship. We have not been able to risk a large edition. Only two
thousand copies