Russia. Route Zone B. Southern Routes from Archangel, Information and Route Notes. Archangel-Vologda, Archangel-Kotlas-Vyatka

For the US troops in Northern Russia at the end of WW1 --- Preparing the US troops for the invasion of northern Russia: rare official and confidential guidebook and manual, published in Washington in 1918. No other copies traced at auctions and only four on OCLC (LoC, Stanford, University of Wisconsin and US Army War College), to which a possible Cambridge copy may be added. Shortly after Allied expeditionary forces occupied Arkhangelsk in August 1918, the so-called Polar Bear Expedition began, as approximately 5,000 US troops joined the Allied intervention in North Russia led by Great Britain and including forces from France, Canada, and Australia. Containing the fullest information on the Arkhangelsk region that US intelligence could obtain by 1 November 1918, the contents of this compact manual were "not to be communicated, either directly or indirectly, to any person not duly authorised by the General Staff". The campaign proved chaotic and unsuccessful. Morale among the troops had already begun to decline by the end of 1918, and from June 1919 American forces started to be withdrawn. By 23 July 1919, the American intervention in North Russia had formally come to an end, after the loss of over 220 men (see Long). Providing an advantageous northern gateway into Russia in the summer, Arkhangelsk offered several routes southwards. The introduction also mentions another northwestern entrance to Russia, Murmansk, described in a similar handbook titled Route Zone A. Murman Railway and Kola Peninsula, as an alternative branch of the same route. The two manuals were published roughly a month apart, each in 3,000 numbered copies, this being No. 686. Published a bit earlier than this edition, copies of Route Zone A are more common, whereas Route Zone B may never have been distributed in its full print run. The handbook opens with statistical data on temperature, precipitation, and winds, followed by advicelikely inspired by local remedieson the extermination of insects indoors, outdoors, and on the human body, and on the treatment of frostbite. The following intelligence material focuses primarily on logistics, detailing local infrastructure, railway and water routes accompanied by several maps, statistical and general information on villages and smaller settlements along these routes, power stations, harbour facilities, and telegraph communications. Eleven pages of photographs of Arkhangelsk and the region are included after an introduction to the Russian alphabet, vocabulary tables with pronunciation guidance, and conversion charts for different measurements. The last twenty pages were left blank for the recording and communication of new or updated information to the General Staff. Provenance: Physical description:Small 8vo (17 x 11.6 cm). 88 pp. incl. title and pp. 67-88 blank for additions and corrections, with 3 full-page maps and plans and [11] pp. black and white photographs. Original buff cloth with fold-over flap and button fastener, lettered in black. Condition:Slightly rubbed and soiled, fold-over flap creased; ownership inscription Francis Witts, 1999?, a couple of pencil inscriptions to endpapers. Bibliography:Long, John W. "American Intervention in Russia: The North Russian Expedition, 191819." Diplomatic History, vol. 6, no. 1, 1982, pp. 4567.…