Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/31

 another until all the important points along the Siberian line had fallen before him, and his men stood at the gates of the city of Irkutsk. Tomsk, Novo Nikolaevsk and Krasnoyarsk fell in succession. In the early stages Gaida never sent more than a battalion against a city of twenty-five thousand inhabitants; he relied upon surprise attacks, terrifying bomb throwing, and a considerable sprinkling of good old American bluff to put to rout the disorganized “Reds”; and he never had even a set-back.

The Bolsheviks retired beyond Irkutsk, abandoning that city without a battle, evidently counting upon making a final stand at the Baikal where the tunnels, the lake and the mountains offered splendid natural advantages for a defending army. But Gaida at one time sent forces some two hundred versts around on foot and surprised the Bolsheviks in the rear, at another time he despatched men across the lake to fall upon the Bolshevik rear, while upon still another occasion he deceived the enemy by means of false dispatches into believing that he was obliged to retire, and then laid an ambush for them, and nearly cut their forces to pieces. This sort of warfare was too brainly altogether for the simple