The Siberian intervention or Siberian expedition of 1918–1922 was the dispatch of troops of the Entente powers to the Russian Maritime Provinces as part of a larger effort by the western powers, Japan and China, to support White Russian forces and the Czechoslovak Legion against Soviet Russia and its allies during the Russian Civil War. The Imperial Japanese Army continued to occupy Siberia even after other Allied forces withdrew in 1920.
Background
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:
- to prevent the Allied matériel stockpiles in Russia from falling into German or Bolshevik hands
- to help the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia and return it to the fighting
- 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. 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. 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. Britain decided to assist and first sent a battalion to Siberia commanded by Liberal Party MP and trade-union leader Lieutenant Colonel John Ward. 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.
Participants
British Empire
The British Army deployed 1,800 troops to Siberia in two battalions. The troops came from the 1/9th (Cyclist) Battalion, Hampshire Regiment (deployed from India) and the 25th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (deployed from Hong Kong and Singapore). The Middlesex battalion was the first Allied force to land in Vladivostok on 3 August 1918 The battalion was commanded by the trade unionist and Liberal Member of Parliament John Ward.
The British also sent a military mission of 500 men to Siberia, made up of 250 officers and 250 non-commissioned officers, who took part in the training and equipping of the White forces. The military mission was commanded by General Alfred Knox. At least 64 Royal Marines and Royal Navy sailors from HMS Suffolk were also involved of the manning of guns of armoured trains at the front in Siberia.
Canada
The Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force, authorised in August 1918 and commanded by Major General James H. Elmsley, was sent to Vladivostok to bolster the Allied presence there. Composed of 4,192 soldiers, the force arrived in Vladivostok on 26 October 1918 but returned to Canada between April and June 1919. During this time, the Canadians saw little fighting, with fewer than 100 troops proceeding "up country" to Omsk, to serve as administrative staff for 1,800 British troops aiding the White Russian government of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. Most Canadians remained in Vladivostok, undertaking routine drill and policing duties in the volatile port city.
China
At the request of Chinese merchants, 2,300 Chinese troops were sent to Vladivostok to protect Chinese interests there. The Chinese army fought against both Bolsheviks and Cossacks.
Italy
The "Corpo di Spedizione Italiano in Estremo Oriente" was made of Alpini troops, supported by 2,500 Italian ex-POWs who had fought in the Austro-Hungarian Army and enrolled in the Legione Redenta.
The Italians played a small but important role during the intervention, fighting together with the Czechoslovak Legion and other allied forces using heavily armed and armoured trains to control large sections of the Siberian railway.
The main areas of operation were the Irkutsk, Harbin and Vladivostok regions.
France
The French sent a small, token, 500-strong force to Vladivostok in August 1918. This was a colonial regiment from Indo-China. This composite force was known as the Bataillon colonial sibérien.
Japan
The Japanese were initially asked in 1917 by the French to intervene in Russia but declined the request. However, the army general staff later came to view the Tsarist collapse as an opportunity to free Japan from any future threat from Russia by detaching Siberia and forming an independent buffer state. The Japanese government at first refused to undertake such an expedition and it was not until the following year that events were set in motion that led to a change in this policy.
In July 1918, President Wilson asked the Japanese government to supply 7,000 troops as part of an international coalition of 25,000 troops, including an American expeditionary force, planned to support the rescue of the Czechoslovak Legions and securing the Allied war matériel stockpiles. After heated debate in the Diet, the administration of Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake agreed to send 12,000 troops, but under solely Japanese command, independent of the international coalition.
Once the political decision had been reached, the Imperial Japanese Army took over full control under Chief of Staff Yui Mitsue and extensive planning for the expedition was conducted. The Japanese first started landing troops in Vladivostok on a large scale on 8 August 1918, and by the end of the month 18,000 Japanese troops had arrived at the port with a further 6,000 moved up through Manchuria to Manzhouli. On 18 August the Japanese General Otani Kikuzo assumed command of all the Allied forces.
United States
The American Expeditionary Force, Siberia was commanded by Major General William S. Graves and eventually totalled 8,763 officers and enlisted men. The AEF Siberia included the US Army's 27th and 31st Infantry Regiments, plus large numbers of volunteers from the 13th and 62nd Infantry Regiments along with a few from the 12th Infantry Regiment. Set up to operate the Trans-Siberian railroad, the Russian Railway Service Corps was formed of US personnel.
Although General Graves did not arrive in Siberia until September 4, 1918, the first 3,000 American troops disembarked in Vladivostok between August 15 and August 21, 1918. They were quickly assigned guard duty along segments of the railway between Vladivostok and Nikolsk-Ussuriski in the north.
Unlike his Allied counterparts, General Graves considered his mission in Siberia to be to provide protection for American-supplied property and to help the Czechoslovak Legions evacuate Russia, and that it did not include fighting against the Bolsheviks. Repeatedly calling for restraint, Graves was often at odds with commanders of British, French and Japanese forces who wanted the Americans to take a more active part in the military intervention in Siberia.
Others
Small detachments of Poles, Serbs, and Romanians were also sent to Vladivostok between August–September 1918.
Allied intervention (1918–1919)
The joint Allied intervention began in August 1918. 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. The deployment of such a large force for a rescue expedition made the Allies wary of Japanese intentions. The Americans landed their forces from 16 August-early September, eventually landing a total of 8,763 men 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. 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. The Japanese, with their own objectives in mind, refused to proceed west of Lake Baikal and stayed behind. The Americans, suspicious of Japanese intentions, also stayed behind to keep an eye on the Japanese. By November, the Japanese occupied all ports and major towns in the Russian Maritime Provinces and in Siberia east of the city of Chita.
In the summer of 1918, the Japanese Army lent its support to White Russian elements; 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. 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.
The British armoured trains were in action on the Ussuri front between 14 and 24 August 1918. 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 and 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 eliminated organised Bolshevik resistance on the Ussuri front.
The various Allied forces did not function well together, because of the underlying chaos and suspicion. 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.
In one incident an American unit, the 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. The Czechs ambushed the Bolshevik forces on the east side of the tunnel and defeated them by 31 August, after which they continued along the railway towards Vladivostok.