Some of them were actually carried out, with
the result that a strained feeling became manifest in the British camp
at Omsk, which caused me to propose to Brigadier-General Elmsley that
my headquarters should be transferred to Vladivostok. Luckily the
arrival of the 1/9th Hampshire Territorial Battalion on January 5,
1919, under the Command of Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson, led to an
improved condition of things all round us. This officer gripped
the situation at once, and took such steps, in conjunction with
the High Commissioner, Sir Charles Eliot, that I was prevailed upon
to withdraw my request for the removal of my headquarters. Colonel
Johnson was a great accession of strength to those who held the
purely English point of view, and his battalion, recruited as it
was from my home county, helped to make all our relations wonderfully
cordial. General Elmsley replied later refusing my request, so that
everything fitted in just right.
On January 8 a parade was called to present General Stephanik with the
Legion of Honour and Major-General Knox, the Chief of the British
Military Mission, and myself with the Croix de Guerre. It was a real
Siberian day, "62 below," and in five minutes ten men had frost-bitten
ears. General Ganin, the French Commander-in-Chief of the Allied forces,
made the presentations on behalf of the French Republic, uttering a few
words to each recipient.
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