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Show ALLIED FORCES IN hJMfi Withdraw on the Dvina Over Six Miles in Face of Overwhelming Over-whelming Numbers. ARCHANGEL, Northern European Russia, Thursday, Oct. 17. (By the Associated As-sociated Press) Allied forces on the Dvina have been withdrawn a little over six miles in the face of an attack by greatly superior forces, which hai been reinforced from Petrograd and apparently commanded by competent officers. The withdrawal was successful suc-cessful under a severe bombardment. At last roports the Bolshevik reinforcements rein-forcements wore reported advancing and the Allied forces were under a hail of shrapnel shells and "pompoms." "pom-poms." Occasionally a six-inch shell from a Bolshevik gun boat or a land battery would strike. The Allies have been handicapp'ed by a fall of tho river which left boats stuck on sand bars and barred passage pas-sage by gunboats at critical times. One. of the feats of the evacuation was tho removal of the American wounded from a hospital in tho zone of fire to a hospital boat. The American Ameri-can doctor commanding the vessel threo times slipped up tho river in the darkness through the zone of fire before he succeeded in getting the wounded away. It is believed the Bolsheviki are concentrating their efforts on driving the Russians and Allied troops "from the Dvina before ice closes the river. The troops opposing the Allies, in this region are mostly sailors and Lettish Let-tish mercenaries. While the Allies have been handicapped by the small-ness small-ness of their avallablo fprces in covering cover-ing hundreds of miles of territory, the enemy has been able to move troops from Petrograd to Kotlas and thence up tho river. Notwithstanding the various handicaps, handi-caps, heavy losses have been inflicted on the best troops of tho Bolshovlki: Apparently the enemy units are well led either by officers of the old Russian Rus-sian army mobilized forcibly or the new officers trained by the soviet. oo |