Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

Baron Wrangel, not bound by Kolchak’s ceasefire commitment, left Samara within a week of the Maid’s first whistle-stop tour to support General Denikin’s forces along the Ukrainian frontier. Fresh attacks there by Red partisans had thrown the AFSR off-balance and required Wrangel’s cavalry to chase down the partisan bands. With the Baron covering Denikin’s rear, the AFSR advanced to the outskirts of Oryol by mid-October, less than three hundred fifty versts from Moscow. But without support from Kolchak’s Siberian Army, Denikin dared not inch closer.

The Red Army used this respite to good effect, fortifying Moscow, Petrograd, and neighboring cities, though suffering badly from shortages of arms and supplies. With the Allied blockade intact, most rail lines to the south severed, and with Denikin’s AFSR holding both the Don coal mines and Baku oil wells, fuel was tightly rationed for Comrade Trotsky’s armored trains, gunboats and fighting vehicles. As for the civilian population, Petrograd was nearly without bread, and unless the Allied blockade were lifted and the White Army repulsed before the snows fell, precious little coal, oil, or wood would be on hand to warm Soviet citizens over the winter. Scattered food riots had already broken out in many northern cities, and fears of starvation, freezing and epidemics grew each day that the ceasefire dragged on.

During Zhanna’s brief stays in Samara between recruiting and visiting the troops, she spent much of her free time in obligatory meetings with foreign diplomats and the press, being trotted out to show them the progressive face of Admiral Kolchak’s new interim government. To her, anything was better than idleness. Her only regret was not being able to spend more time at camp with Tolstov and her volunteers, preparing them for the inevitable battles to come.

Sometimes Zhanna’s appearances were stage-managed by her backers in the press, including Mark McCloud, who had by now succeeded in making the Maid of Baikal a household name across America. Her simple message of patriotism, persistence, and trust in God had resonated powerfully with Americans, and slowly but surely turned public opinion against President Wilson’s hitherto stubborn refusal to recognize the White Regime. McCloud’s triumph was complete when the Secretary of State Robert Lansing finally recognized the Omsk Government as sole representative of the Russian people, as Ambassador Morris had promised. Britain, France, Italy, and Japan followed suit within the week.

Strangely enough, just as Zhanna’s star reached its zenith with the American public, Allied diplomats, and ordinary Siberians, it declined among elite circles close to Admiral Kolchak. The whisperings against her had begun soon after Kolchak’s election as regent, when the Maid’s prominent role in his inauguration overshadowed certain ambitious legislators and bureaucrats who felt they deserved more recognition. Soon after, her outspoken opposition to the French-sponsored ceasefire rankled both Guins and S-R party leaders, who denounced her as a warmonger. And the left-leaning press, aiming to undermine her influence among the troops, called her an evil sorceress who led unsuspecting workers and peasants to their doom. Even Comrade Trotsky joined in, penning an open letter to Admiral Kolchak that accused him of sanctioning ceasefire violations under the Maid’s pernicious influence.

At the same time, certain Ural Cossack officers who had remained behind at Uralsk to protect their home stanitsas, fretted that the Maid had kept General Tolstov and his Ural Cossack regiments away from home too long. In response, Zhanna penned a hasty note, in which she wrote: “I shall never abandon the Ural Cossacks as long as I live. Though the regent has made a truce with the Red Army, I do not know if I will keep it. For we cannot rest until victory is ours.”

When a leading newspaper published the note, Guins called the Maid into his office in Samara to reprimand her. From then on, it was clear to her supporters that Zhanna’s growing circle of enemies at court intended to keep her at arm’s length from Kolchak, Dieterichs, and from anyone else who might be able to protect her. Before long, rumors arose that the Maid was tired, disillusioned, slowing down, and thoroughly dissatisfied with the government and its conduct of the war.

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Early one morning during the second week in October, Ned rode out with some British staff officers to Zhanna’s encampment outside Samara. A quiet and gracious autumn had settled into the forest along the Volga, with the pungent scent of rotting leaves and tree bark filling the air. To either side of the dusty track, the poplars’ yellow leaves fluttered to the ground while thorn bushes seemed wrapped in flame. Only the distant honking of geese in the azure sky and the mechanical tapping of woodpeckers rose above the sound of horses’ hooves and creaking wagon wheels.