ALLIED INTERVENTION

The Russian Revolution of 1917, occurring in the third year of World War I, initially inspired great hopes in the countries engaged in the brutal struggle against the Central Powers that was exacting so terrible a carnage and so enormous a financial drain. The prospect of a new ally, the United States, seemed bright, since a war without the Romanov autocracy as an ally could now be claimed to be truly one of democracy against the old order of Europe, of which Russia had been one of the bastions. Unfortunately, Russia was already severely weakened by the war, both on the battlefield and on the home front. It was left to the United States to provide direct aid and a moral presence, but time was running out, and opposition to the war, with its huge human sacrifices and economic burdens, was a persistent trend in the new "democratic" Russia. The inability of the Provisional Government, headed by Alexander Kerensky, to deal with the situation led to a victory of the left wing of the revolution in the form of a Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917.

This created a dilemma for the Allies, because the Bolsheviks were largely committed to ending the war. If the new Soviet government withdrew from the war, considerable German military forces would be shifted from the Eastern Front to the Western Front in 1918, thus nullifying the mounting American presence there. Opinion was sharply divided on a course of action. Some Allied agents in Russia believed that Bolshevik leaders could be persuaded to delay a peace or even to continue a military effort in return for desperately needed aid. Others advocated direct military intervention to maintain an Eastern Front, especially because of evidence that some units of the old Russian army remained intact and committed to continuing the war. American and British representatives in Russia, such as Raymond Robins and Robert Bruce Lockhart, campaigned for the former course, while influential political leaders urged direct military intervention, some maintaining that an American force of 100,000, could not only maintain a viable Eastern Front but also destroy the "communist threat."

The crisis came in March 1918 with the Soviet government's negotiation of terms for a peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. Since there had been no forthright pledge of assistance, Vladimir Lenin felt that ratification of the treaty was necessary, but about the same time, due to deteriorating conditions in the major ports that contained large amounts of Allied supplies for Russia, detachments of marines from Allied warships in the harbors landed to safeguard personnel and reestablish order in the old port of Archangel on the White Sea, in the new one of Murmansk in March 1918, and at Vladivostok on the Pacific in April. Doing anything more at the time was precluded by the concentration of available men and supplies on the Western Front to stem a surprisingly successful German offensive. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk gave Germany access to a large part of the Russian Empire and to valuable military supplies, much of Allied origin. Moreover, a large number of liberated German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war were able to return to combat in the West or control large areas of Russia, such as Siberia.

With the German offensive in the West stopped, but the Russian situation continuing to deteriorate, the Allies considered a more substantial military intervention. President Woodrow Wilson was reluctant to interfere in another country's affairs, especially because it might result in dividing the old Russian Empire and its resources among the other Allies. But, in the interests of Allied harmony (and their commitment to a future League of Nations), he agreed in July 1918 to send American forces to northern Russia and Siberia. About 4,600 American troops, dubbed the Polar Bears, arrived in Murmansk and Archangel in August 1918, accompanied by a slightly larger British force and smaller Allied units (a total of about 12,000). The expeditionary force was under British command, much resented by the Americans throughout the campaign. Its mission was to protect the supplies in the ports, but also to secure lines of communication by water and rail into the interior. The latter resulted in a number of skirmishes with Red Army units during the winter of 1918 to 1919 and several casualties (though the influenza epidemic would claim many more). This intervention on Russian territory was supported by much of the local population, which was represented by a non-Bolshevik but socialist soviet at Archangel, thus complicating the question of what kind of Russia the Allied forces were fighting for. The end of the war challenged the legitimacy of an Allied intervention and provoked opposition among the troops there and at home.

The opening of a Second Russian Front in Siberia was rather different, since it involved a more substantial American expeditionary force (around 9,000) under its own command and a much larger Japanese army of approximately 70,000, along with 4,000 Canadians and token "colonial" units of French, Italian, Chinese, and British. Their illdefined mission was to assist the transfer to the Western Front of a Czecho-Slovak Legion consisting of 60,000 former prisoners-of-war who supported the Allies, to protect munitions in and around Vladivostok, and to guard against one another's imperialist ambitions. On the long way to the Western Front, the Czech Legion managed to seize most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to prevent released German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war in the area from forming a "German front" in Siberia; and to provide aid to what at first seemed a viable anti-Bolshevik government centered in Omsk under the leadership of Admiral Alexander Kolchak. For the United States, limiting Japanese ambitions for a more permanent occupation was a major factor. In any event, the American commander, General William S. Graves, was under strict orders from Washington not only to avoid coming under the control of the larger Japanese army, but also to desist from direct hostility with any Russian military units, of which there were several of various political orientations. Most of the Allied expeditionary force remained in the vicinity of Vladivostok and at a few points along the Chinese Eastern and Trans-Siberian railroads until the decision to withdraw in May–June 1919.

Another commitment of men, supplies, and financial assistance came to the south of Russia but only late in 1918, when the end of war allowed passage through the Straits into the Black Sea. The catalyst here was the existence of substantial White armies under Anton Denikin and his successor, General Peter Wrangel. In the spring and summer campaigns of 1919, these forces won control of extensive territory from the Bolsheviks with the support of about 60,000 French troops (mostly Senegalese and Algerians), smaller detachments of British soldiers with naval support, and an American destroyer squadron on the Black Sea. Divided command, low morale, vague political objectives, the skill and superiority of the Red Army, and, finally, Allied reluctance to provide major aid doomed their efforts. This "crusade" came to a dismal end in late 1920. Besides a direct but limited military presence in Russia, the interventionist powers provided financing, a misleading sense of permanent political and economic commitment to the White opposition, but also medical and food relief for large areas of the former Russian Empire.

Allied intervention in Russia was doomed from the beginning by the small forces committed, their unclear mission and divided command, the low morale of the Allied soldiers and their Russian clients, the end of the war of which it was a part, and the superiority of Soviet military forces and management. Throughout, it seemed to many that the Allied interventionists were on the wrong side, defending those who wanted either to restore the old order or break up Russia into dependent states. To many Americans, for instance, the Japanese posed more of a threat to Siberia than did the Bolsheviks. In the aftermath, genuinely anti-Bolshevik Russians felt betrayed by the failure of the Allies to destroy their enemy, while the new Soviet power was born with an ingrained sense of hostility to the interventionist states, marking what could be claimed as the beginnings of the Cold War. An immediate tragedy was the exodus of desperate refuges from the former Russian Empire through the Black Sea and into Manchuria and China, seeking assistance from erstwhile allies who had failed to save the world for democracy.

See also: brest-litovsk peace; siberia; united states, relations with; white army; world war i

bibliography

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Norman E. Saul