When US troops spent New Year’s Eve freezing in Russia

106 years ago, American troops were in a pitched battle for control of villages in northern Russia, fighting on a mission tied to a war that had ended a month prior. It was Dec. 30, 1918, and American soldiers from the Midwest were outside the village of Kadish, preparing to launch an offensive that would move from town to town, regaining territory ceded to Bolsheviks a month prior. It was part of one of the biggest fights between Americans and Russian communists, but it was years before the outbreak of the Cold War. 

World War I ended on Nov. 11, 1918 with the armistice. The guns fell silent on the Western Front. On the Eastern Front, fighting had stopped earlier in the summer when Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik government signed a treaty ending fighting with Germany. The Central Powers began shifting troops west. That’s why in the summer of 1918 the allies of the Entente Treaty sent thousands of soldiers to Russia, hoping to secure war materials and possibly reestablish the Eastern Front. After some goading from French and British leaders, American President Woodrow Wilson also agreed to help.