Snow Trenches

Snow Trenches, first published in 1931, is author Dan Steele's novel-like account of his adventures in World War One as part of the North Russian American Expeditionary Forces, fighting communist Bolsheviks in the far north of Russia near the Dvina River and the city of Archangel (now Arkhangelsk). The troops, poorly provisioned, and in cold, unforgiving terrain, are a little known chapter in American military history; their ill-defined mission was doomed from the start to failure. Snow Trenches paints a picture of the soldiers struggling to survive in a strange, bleak landscape against a determined foe. Along the way, the main character meets and falls in love with a young Russian woman, and together they fight to survive in this remote conflict.