| Description Of Item | Towards the end of his stay he examined prisoners suffering from the effects of mustard gas and a new tear gas. Perhaps his most bizarre and unfortunate case was that of a man 'found dead after having celebrated with too much rejoicing his prospective return to England'. Since his heart showed recent endocarditis, however, his death was tactfully attributed to military causes so that his widow would be eligible for a pension.
On the political front Comrie believed that 'if the British cabinet would only adopt a firm attitude, send out a moderate force ... and announce that the Allies are definitely going to help the Russians right through till freedom is gained, Bolshevism would be dead by next Spring.' He realised that the 'average soldier' wanted to get home and thought they should not be there. Of four commissars he spoke to personally, one thought the Russians should be left to sort out their own affairs, but three thought there would be no peace unless a foreign power, preferably Britain, settled the matter.
However, when Comrie went to Koska, Russia to see the Bolshevik prisoners, or 'Bolos' as they were nick-named, being dis-infested for lice, he was surprised to find that 'a very large number, perhaps the majority, are very young lads; not the loafers, drunkards and hairy villains whom one expects to see'. Later he comments that out of the 2000 prisoners taken on the Dvina front, some 700 were in fact anti-Bolsheviks kept in the army 'through terrorism', and adds that the rank and file often show great resentment towards their commissars.
[Source: biography written by archivist Joy Pitman, c1990; see biographical file] |