White forces wonâand captured the city, which unbeknownst to the Reds was the repository of the monetary reserves of the Imperial government.
The gold and treasure had been transferred to Kazan to avoid its falling into German hands in Petrograd. According to most sources its value was estimated at 1,150,500,000 rubles; it was composed of platinum, stock securities, miscellaneous valuables and approximately five hundred tons of gold bullion, each ingot stamped with the Imperial seal.
It may well have been the greatest tonnage of raw gold men have ever moved in one shipment. When the city of Kazan fell into White Russian hands the treasure was loaded onto a train after several episodes reminiscent more of comic than of grand opera (a Red counterattack, misdirected reinforcements, the arrival of a pack of bickering White bureaucrats, the dispatching of confused plain-language telegraph inquiries that were intercepted but not understood by the Reds). Finally the gold train was taken away by members of the [anti-Bolshevik] West Siberian Commissariat. This group seems to have obtained the gold merely because it sent a more numerous delegation than any of the others.
The gold was shipped to the city of Omsk and was parked on a siding in the marshaling yards; it was placed under guard by a flimsy detachment of White Army troops. Before long, everyoneâWhite and Red alikeâknew it was there. But neither side seemed to attach very great importance to it and it stayed in the marshaling yards aboard its weather-beaten goods wagons for the next four months without incident. In the meantime both sides suffered for lack of funds.
4.
KOLCHAK: SUPREME RULER OF ALL THE RUSSIAS
Aleksandr Vasilyevich Kolchak was born in 1874 the son of a Russian army officer. Why he decided on a naval career was a mystery to his family butâoddly, in the light of forthcoming eventsâAleksandr Kolchak became a first-rate naval officer.
During the war against the Central Powers he commanded the Black Sea Fleet. His crews regarded him as a compassionate man; they were among the few who did not mutiny during the March 1917 naval revolts. Kolchak was also courageous (he had led several bold forays of exploration into the Arctic) and even efficient (he had been a key reorganizer of the Russian navy after its catastrophic defeat by the Japanese at Tsushima, a decade earlier).
In June 1917 the revolutionaries finally took control of his Black Sea Fleet. They demanded that Kolchak disarm his officers and surrender his sword to them. He expressed his contempt for these demands by tossing his sword over the side into the waters of Odessa harbor and stalking ashore. None of the revolutionaries had nerve enough to stop him.
Kolchak was diminutive and birdlike: impatient, pale, nervous in his quick movements. He always dressed impeccably and shaved with care. His small round head was dominated by a great curved prow of a nose which separated a pair of grey eyes of ferocious and penetrating brilliance. Precise, cold, mercurial, aloof.
In 1918 he was a vice admiral without a command. Toward the end of that year he made his way to Tokyo in order to offer his services to the British Royal Navy in whatever capacity they might see fit to employ him usefully, whether against the Germans or against the Bolsheviks. But the British hadnât much use for him and Kolchak languished as a near-charity case in a second-class Tokyo hotel: alert and energetic, but without purpose, he simmered in stunted hope for a reprieve from boredom. He did not drink very much but he came to know the pleasures of narcotic drugs and was known to use the stimulant cocaine; General Pierre Janin later insisted Kolchak was an addict.
Kolchakâs constant visits to the British Embassy brought him to the attention of the British Military Representative in Siberia, Major General Sir Alfred Knox.
There was none of the robust bearded-warrior quality of Russian ruthlessness
The gold and treasure had been transferred to Kazan to avoid its falling into German hands in Petrograd. According to most sources its value was estimated at 1,150,500,000 rubles; it was composed of platinum, stock securities, miscellaneous valuables and approximately five hundred tons of gold bullion, each ingot stamped with the Imperial seal.
It may well have been the greatest tonnage of raw gold men have ever moved in one shipment. When the city of Kazan fell into White Russian hands the treasure was loaded onto a train after several episodes reminiscent more of comic than of grand opera (a Red counterattack, misdirected reinforcements, the arrival of a pack of bickering White bureaucrats, the dispatching of confused plain-language telegraph inquiries that were intercepted but not understood by the Reds). Finally the gold train was taken away by members of the [anti-Bolshevik] West Siberian Commissariat. This group seems to have obtained the gold merely because it sent a more numerous delegation than any of the others.
The gold was shipped to the city of Omsk and was parked on a siding in the marshaling yards; it was placed under guard by a flimsy detachment of White Army troops. Before long, everyoneâWhite and Red alikeâknew it was there. But neither side seemed to attach very great importance to it and it stayed in the marshaling yards aboard its weather-beaten goods wagons for the next four months without incident. In the meantime both sides suffered for lack of funds.
4.
KOLCHAK: SUPREME RULER OF ALL THE RUSSIAS
Aleksandr Vasilyevich Kolchak was born in 1874 the son of a Russian army officer. Why he decided on a naval career was a mystery to his family butâoddly, in the light of forthcoming eventsâAleksandr Kolchak became a first-rate naval officer.
During the war against the Central Powers he commanded the Black Sea Fleet. His crews regarded him as a compassionate man; they were among the few who did not mutiny during the March 1917 naval revolts. Kolchak was also courageous (he had led several bold forays of exploration into the Arctic) and even efficient (he had been a key reorganizer of the Russian navy after its catastrophic defeat by the Japanese at Tsushima, a decade earlier).
In June 1917 the revolutionaries finally took control of his Black Sea Fleet. They demanded that Kolchak disarm his officers and surrender his sword to them. He expressed his contempt for these demands by tossing his sword over the side into the waters of Odessa harbor and stalking ashore. None of the revolutionaries had nerve enough to stop him.
Kolchak was diminutive and birdlike: impatient, pale, nervous in his quick movements. He always dressed impeccably and shaved with care. His small round head was dominated by a great curved prow of a nose which separated a pair of grey eyes of ferocious and penetrating brilliance. Precise, cold, mercurial, aloof.
In 1918 he was a vice admiral without a command. Toward the end of that year he made his way to Tokyo in order to offer his services to the British Royal Navy in whatever capacity they might see fit to employ him usefully, whether against the Germans or against the Bolsheviks. But the British hadnât much use for him and Kolchak languished as a near-charity case in a second-class Tokyo hotel: alert and energetic, but without purpose, he simmered in stunted hope for a reprieve from boredom. He did not drink very much but he came to know the pleasures of narcotic drugs and was known to use the stimulant cocaine; General Pierre Janin later insisted Kolchak was an addict.
Kolchakâs constant visits to the British Embassy brought him to the attention of the British Military Representative in Siberia, Major General Sir Alfred Knox.
There was none of the robust bearded-warrior quality of Russian ruthlessness
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