When Hell Froze Over

the long version

On November 11, 1918, World War I officially ended. But for the men of the ill-starred American Expeditionary Force to North Russia, the fighting had only begun. Plagued by meager supplies, poor leadership, and the tack of a clear-cut objective, this small but valiant American contingent fought impossible odds, scoring several stunning victories against the Bolsheviks before superior numbers and the bone-breaking arctic winter that had defeated Napoleon forced them to withdraw. Now, in this clear, forthright account, E.M. Halliday re-creates one of the most obscure but important of America's foreign interventions: an epic of confusion, endurance, failure -- and gallantry -- that history almost forgot and the Russians never forgave. Only today, more than seventy years after the Allied occupation of Archangel, have American-Soviet relations begun to thaw.