Siberian intervention

Following the Russian October Revolution of November 1917, the new Bolshevik government in Russia signed a separate peace treaty with the Central Powers in March 1918. The Russian collapse on the Eastern Front of World War I in 1917 presented a tremendous problem to the Entente powers, since it allowed Germany to boost numbers of troops and war matériel on the Western Front. Meanwhile, the 50,000-strong Czechoslovak Legion in Russia, fighting on the side of the Allied Powers, became stranded in non-Allied territory within Soviet Russia, and in 1918 started attempting to fight its way out to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, moving along the Bolshevik-held Trans-Siberian Railway. At times the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia controlled the entire Trans-Siberian railway and several major cities in Siberia.

Faced with this situation, the United Kingdom and France decided to intervene in the Russian Civil War on the anti-Bolshevik side. The Western European powers had three objectives in intervening:

1. to prevent the Allied matériel stockpiles in Russia from falling into German or Bolshevik hands
2. to help the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia and return it to the fighting
3. to resurrect the Eastern Front by installing a White Russian-backed government

The British and French asked the United States to furnish troops for both the North Russia Campaign and the Siberian Campaign. In July 1918, against the advice of the United States Department of War, President Wilson agreed to send 5,000 US troops as the American North Russia Expeditionary Force (a.k.a. the Polar Bear Expedition to Arkhangelsk) and 10,000 US troops as the American Expeditionary Force Siberia. Originally reluctant himself, Wilson agreed to send troops to Siberia on 6 July 1918 solely with the aim of helping the Czech Legion.[5] In the same month, the Beiyang government of the Republic of China responded to an appeal by Chinese people in Russia and sent 2,000 troops by August.[6] The Chinese later occupied Outer Mongolia and Tuva and sent a battalion to the North Russian Campaign as part of their anti-Bolshevik efforts.

Wilson appealed to Japan for a joint intervention to help the Czechs and suggested that they send no more than 7,000 men to Siberia, although Tokyo eventually sent ten times as many troops as this.[5] Britain decided to assist and first sent a battalion to Siberia commanded by Liberal Party MP and trade-union leader Lieutenant Colonel John Ward.[7] This unit, the first Entente land force to reach Vladivostok, landed on 3 August 1918. A 500-strong French colonial regiment was sent to Vladivostok from Indochina in August 1918.[7]

Czechoslovak Legion soldiers in Vladivostok, 1918

The joint Allied intervention began in August 1918.[22] The first landing was by British troops in Vladivostok on 3 August. The Japanese entered through Vladivostok and points along the Manchurian border with more than 70,000 Japanese troops eventually being involved by the beginning of November.[24] The deployment of such a large force for a rescue expedition made the Allies wary of Japanese intentions.[22] The Americans landed their forces from 16 August-early September, eventually landing a total of 8,763 men.[24] The British, Italian and French contingents joined the Czechs and Slovaks in an effort to re-establish the Eastern Front west of the Ural Mountains; as a result, the European allies trekked westwards.[22] It was agreed that 543 infantrymen and machine-gunners from Ward's British unit and the other Allied units would be sent Westwards to 'be used defensively and in reserve' until the Japanese arrived in strength.[29] The Japanese, with their own objectives in mind, refused to proceed west of Lake Baikal[22] and stayed behind. The Americans, suspicious of Japanese intentions, also stayed behind to keep an eye on the Japanese.[22] By November, the Japanese occupied all ports and major towns in the Russian Maritime Provinces and in Siberia east of the city of Chita.[22]

In the summer of 1918 onwards, the Japanese army lent its support to White Russian elements;[22] the 5th infantry division and the Japanese-backed Special Manchurian Detachment of Grigory Semyonov took control over Transbaikalia and founded a short-lived White Transbaikalia government.

The Allied forces helped hold the line against the Bolsheviks in the far-east in the Ussuri River district, 70 miles north of Vladivostok.[30] The British unit helped the Whites defend the line at Kraevesk. Outnumbered and outgunned, the small Allied forces were forced to withdraw. Two British armoured trains with two 12-pounder naval guns and two machine guns each were sent from Vladivostok as reinforcements.[29]

The British armoured trains were in action on the Ussuri front between 14–24 August 1918.[31] Operating under a Japanese commander, the small British unit and other Allied forces played a small but important part in the battle of Dukhovskaya between 23–25 August. Five Bolshevik armed trains were attacked, supported by the British forces' own two armoured trains, and there were 600 fatal Japanese casualties. This limited but decisive action entirely eliminated organised Bolshevik resistance on the Ussuri front.[32]

The various Allied forces did not function well together, because of the underlying chaos and suspicion.[33] In a letter to Canadian Minister of Militia and Defence Sydney Mewburn, James H. Elmsley, commander of the British and Canadian forces, gave a description of the situation:

The general situation here is an extraordinary one—at first glance one assumes that everyone distrusts everyone else—the Japs being distrusted more than anyone else. Americans and Japs don't hit it off. The French keep a very close eye on the British, and the Russians as a whole appear to be indifferent of their country's needs, so long as they can keep their women, have their vodka, and play cards all night until daylight. The Czechs appear to be the only honest and conscientious party among the Allies.[34]

In one incident an American unit, 27th Infantry Regiment (Wolfhounds) was part of the Evgenevka incident, a face-off between the Wolfhounds and the Japanese military.

For their part, the Czechs were having difficulty fighting their way to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian railway. Although many had linked up with the forces at Chelyabinsk by early July 1918, the area surrounding Lake Baikal was an obstacle that needed to be overcome before the Legion could get to Vladivostok. In the area between the towns of Baikal and Kultuk on the southern point of the lake the Trans-Siberian railway ran through various tunnels, the final one of which was blown up by the Bolsheviks.[35] The Czechs ambushed the Bolshevik forces on the east side of the tunnel and defeated them by 31 August,[36] after which they continued along the railway towards Vladivostok.[35]

It was decided that the American forces would not in any way fight the Bolsheviks and would simply stay behind and guard the section of the Trans-Siberian railway south of Khabarovsk and protect the military stores in Vladivostok.[37] The Americans and Japanese had become rivals in Siberia over trade, with the Japanese interests in Siberia being less concerned with supporting the White drive westwards than in commercially dominating the Russian and Chinese territory nearest to their own home islands.[37]

On 26 October, a Canadian force of about brigade size landed in Vladivostok. The Canadians believed that there would be trade benefits from establishing a friendly Russian regime. By this time, the British force had finished its journey West from Vladivostok all the way to the front lines near Omsk. The unit stayed in the city for the next six months over the cold Siberian winter.[15] It may have played a role in the coup in the city in November 1918 which brought Admiral Kolchack to power as 'Supreme Leader' of Russia.[38] The force went forward with the advancing Czechs and Russians and continued to provide artillery support along the railway from Omsk to Ufa in October and November.[39] A Bolshevik offensive in December drove the White troops back, and the British armoured trains that had moved beyond Omsk to the front were forced to flee back east.[40] In April, many of the British forces were sent back to Vladivostok, but the 12,000-mile journey was not completed until 6 May.[40]

A small British Royal Marine force would later form an important part of the 'Kama River Flotilla', a White boat unit that attacked the Bolshevik forces along the course of the river. Two vessels were found for the British to use, one a tug and the other a river barge, and four 12-pounder naval guns and one 6-inch naval gun were mounted to the boats.[41] 35 British men were chosen to make up the small British unit, and the men and the naval guns were transported on trains from Vladivostok to the Kama river during April 1919.[41] Between May–July,[31] the British unit bombarded Red troop concentrations, protected bridges and provided direct fire support and attacked Bolshevik boats on the river. In one action, the flotilla sank the Bolshevik flagship on the river and destroyed one other boat. They were later driven back by the Bolshevik advance on Perm.[42]

On 28 October 1918 an independent Czech state had been declared, and this led the Czech Legion to lose any desire for fighting, since the troops now merely wanted to return to their country as free citizens. The Canadians also refused to play any part in fighting and signalled their desire to withdraw from Russia in April 1919.[43] The last Canadian forces left Siberia on 5 June 1919.

• North Russia intervention
• Southern Russia intervention

• Wright, Damien. "Churchill's Secret War with Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918-20", Solihull, UK, 2017
• Graves, William S. (1931). America's Siberian Adventure 1918-1920. New York: Peter Smith.
• Beattie, Steuart (1957). Canadian Intervention in Russia, 1918-1919 (MA). McGill University.
• Moffat, Ian C.D. The Allied Intervention in Russia, 1918–1920: The Diplomacy of Chaos (2015) excerpt
• Smith, Gaddis (1959). "Canada and the Siberian Intervention, 1918–1919". The American Historical Review. 64 (4): 866–877. doi:10.2307/1905120. JSTOR 1905120.
• Humphreys, Leonard A. (1996). The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2375-3.
• James, Brigadier E.A. (1978). British Regiments 1914–18. London: Samson Books Limited. ISBN 0-906304-03-2.
• Kinvig, Clifford (2006). Churchill's Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918–1920. Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 1-85285-477-4.
• White, John Albert (1950). The Siberian Intervention. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780837119762.

• Canada's Siberian Expedition website, by Benjamin Isitt
• WWI Siberian Diary, by W.C. Jones, 2nd Lt. U.S Army Russian Railway Service
• The Czech Legion