Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War

Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War or Allied Powers intervention in the Russian Civil War consisted of a series of multi-national military expeditions which began in 1918. The Allies first had the goal of helping the Czechoslovak Legion in securing supplies of munitions and armaments in Russian ports; during which the Czechoslovak Legion controlled the entire Trans-Siberian Railway and several major cities in Siberia at times between 1918 and 1920. By 1919 the Allied goal became to help the White forces in the Russian Civil War. When the Whites collapsed the Allies withdrew their forces from Russia by 1920 and further withdrawing from Japan by 1922.

The goals of these small-scale interventions were partly to stop Germany from exploiting Russian resources, to defeat the Central Powers (prior to the Armistice of November 1918), and to support some of the Allied forces that had become trapped within Russia after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. Allied troops landed in Arkhangelsk (the North Russia intervention of 1918–1919) and in Vladivostok (as part of the Siberian intervention of 1918–1922). The British intervened in the Baltic theatre (1918–1919) and in the Caucasus (1917–1919). French-led Allied forces participated in the Southern Russia intervention (1918–1919).

Allied efforts were hampered by divided objectives and war-weariness from the overall global conflict. These factors, together with the evacuation of the Czechoslovak Legion in September 1920, compelled the western Allied powers to end the North Russia and Siberian interventions in 1920, though the Japanese intervention in Siberia continued until 1922 and the Empire of Japan continued to occupy the northern half of Sakhalin until 1925.

Western historians tend to portray the Allied interventions as minor operations—sideshows subsequent to the First World War. Soviet and Russian interpretations can magnify the role of the Allies as attempts to suppress Bolshevik world revolution and to partition and cripple Russia as a world power.

Background

Revolution

In early 1917 the Russian Empire found itself wracked by political strife – public support for World War I and Tsar Nicholas II had started to dwindle, leaving the country on the brink of revolution. The February Revolution of March 1917 affected the course of the war; under intense political and personal pressure, the Tsar abdicated () and a Russian Provisional Government formed, led initially by Georgy Lvov (March to July 1917) and later by Alexander Kerensky (July to November 1917). The Provisional Government pledged to continue fighting the Germans on the Eastern Front.

The Allied Powers had been shipping supplies to Russia since the beginning of the war in 1914 through the ports of Arkhangelsk, Murmansk (established in 1915), and Vladivostok. In April 1917 the United States entered the war on the Allied side. US President Woodrow Wilson dropped his reservations about joining the war with the despotic tsar as an ally, and the United States began providing economic and technical support to Kerensky's government.

The war became increasingly unpopular with the Russian populace. Political and social unrest grew, with the Marxist antiwar Bolshevik Party, under Vladimir Lenin, increasing its support. Large numbers of common soldiers either mutinied or deserted from the Imperial Russian Army. The Kerensky Offensive started on , but a German and Austro-Hungarian counterattack defeated the Russian forces. This led to the collapse of the Eastern Front. The demoralised Russian Army stood on the verge of mutiny and most soldiers had deserted the front lines. Kerensky replaced Aleksei Brusilov with Lavr Kornilov as Commander-in-Chief of the Army (19 July 1917).

Kornilov attempted to set up a military dictatorship by staging a coup (). He had the support of the British military attaché in Petrograd, Brigadier-General Alfred Knox, and Kerensky accused Knox of producing pro-Kornilov propaganda. Kerensky also claimed that Lord Milner, member of the British War Cabinet, wrote him a letter expressing support for Kornilov. A British armoured-car squadron commanded by Oliver Locker-Lampson and dressed in Russian uniforms participated in the failed coup. The October Revolution of led to the overthrow of Kerensky's provisional government and to the Bolsheviks assuming power.

According to William Henry Chamberlin, "A few weeks after the Bolshevik Revolution, on December 23, 1917, an Anglo-French convention had been concluded in Paris, regulating the future operations of British and French forces on Russian territory. This convention defined as a British 'zone of influence' the Cossack regions, the territory of the Caucasus, Armenia, Georgia and Kurdistan, while the French zone was to consist of Bessarabia, Ukraina and Crimea. There was a certain economic background for this convention; British investment predominated in the Caucasian oil-fields, while the French were more interested in the coal and iron mines of Ukraina."

Russia exits the war

In early 1918 forces of the Central Powers invaded Russia, occupying extensive territory
and threatening to capture Moscow and to impose pliant regimes. Lenin wanted to negotiate with Germany, but failed to get approval from his council until late February. In a desperate attempt to end the war, as promised in their slogan ‘Peace, Bread, Land’, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), ending the bloodshed. The Allied Powers felt betrayed and turned against the new regime, aiding its "White" enemies and landing troops to prevent Russian supplies from reaching Germany. According to historian Spencer Tucker, the Allies believed the Bolsheviks wouldn't provide an orderly enough regime to stand up to German domination. "With Brest-Litovsk, the spectre of German domination in Eastern Europe threatened to become reality, and the Allies now began to think seriously about military intervention."

The perception of betrayal removed whatever reservations the Allied Powers had about overthrowing the Bolsheviks. According to William Henry Chamberlin, even before Brest-Litovsk, " Downing Street contemplated a protectorate over the Caucasus and the Quai d'Orsay over Crimea, Bessarabia and Ukraine" and began negotiating deals for funding White generals to bring them into being. R. H. Bruce Lockhart and another British agent and a French official in Moscow tried to organize a coup that would overthrow the Bolshevik regime. They were dealing with double agents and were exposed and arrested. French and British support for the Whites was also motivated by a desire to protect the assets they had acquired through extensive investment in Tsarist Russia.

Czechoslovak Legions

The Czechoslovak Legion was at times in control of most of the Trans-Siberian Railway and all major cities in Siberia. Austro-Hungarian prisoners were of a number of various nationalities; some Czechoslovak POWs deserted to the Russian Army. Czechoslovaks had long desired to create their own independent state, and the Russians aided in establishing special Czechoslovak units (the Czechoslovak Legions) to fight the Central Powers.

The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ensured that prisoners-of-war (POW) would be repatriated. In 1917, the Bolsheviks stated that if the Czechoslovak Legions remained neutral and agreed to leave Russia, they would be granted safe passage through Siberia en route to France via Vladivostok to fight with the Allied forces on the Western Front. The Czechoslovak Legions travelled via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok. However, fighting between the Legions and the Bolsheviks erupted in May 1918.

Allied concerns

The Allied Powers became concerned at the collapse of the Eastern Front and the loss of their Tsarist ally to communism, and there was also the question of the large quantities of supplies and equipment in Russian ports, which the Allied Powers feared might be seized by the Germans. Also worrisome to the Allied Powers was the April 1918 landing of a division of German troops in Finland, increasing speculation they might attempt to capture the Murmansk-Petrograd railway, and subsequently the strategic port of Murmansk and possibly Arkhangelsk. Other concerns regarded the potential destruction of the Czechoslovak Legions and the threat of Bolshevism, the nature of which worried many Allied governments. Meanwhile, Allied materiel in transit quickly accumulated in the warehouses in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. Estonia had established a national army and, with the support of the British Royal Navy and Finnish volunteers, were defending against the 7th Red Army's attack.

Faced with these events, the British and French governments decided upon an Allied military intervention in Russia. Ironically, however, the first British landing in Russia came at the request of a local (Bolshevik) Soviet council. Fearing a German attack on the town, the Murmansk Soviet requested that the Allies landed troops for protection. British troops arrived on 4 March 1918, the day after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Germany and the Bolshevik government.

Severely short of troops to spare, the British and French requested that President Wilson provide American soldiers for the campaign. In July 1918, against the advice of the United States Department of War, Wilson agreed to the limited participation of 5,000 United States Army troops in the campaign. This force, which became known as the "American North Russia Expeditionary Force"E.M. Halliday, ''When Hell Froze Over'' (New York City, ibooks, inc., 2000), p. 44 (a.k.a. the Polar Bear Expedition) were sent to Arkhangelsk while another 8,000 soldiers, organised as the American Expeditionary Force Siberia,Robert L. Willett, ''Russian Sideshow'', pp. 166–167, 170 were shipped to Vladivostok from the Philippines and from Camp Fremont in California.

That same month, the Canadian government agreed to the British government's request to command and provide most of the soldiers for a combined British Empire force, which also included Australian and Indian troops. Some of this force was the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force; another part was the North Russia Intervention. A Royal Navy squadron was sent to the Baltic under Rear-Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair. This force consisted of modern s and s. In December 1918, Sinclair sailed into Estonian and Latvian ports, sending in troops and supplies, and promising to attack the Bolsheviks "as far as my guns can reach". In January 1919, he was succeeded in command by Rear-Admiral Walter Cowan.

The Japanese, concerned about their northern border, sent the largest military force, numbering about 70,000. They desired the establishment of a buffer state in Siberia,Humphreys, ''The Way of the Heavenly Sword: The Japanese Army in the 1920s'', p. 25 and the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff viewed the situation in Russia as an opportunity for settling Japan's "northern problem". The Japanese government was also intensely hostile to communism.

The Italians created the special "''Corpo di Spedizione''" with Alpini troops sent from Italy and ex-POWs of Italian ethnicity from the former Austro-Hungarian army who were recruited to the ''Italian Legione Redenta''. They were initially based in the Italian Concession in Tientsin and numbered about 2,500.

However, while Soviet propaganda often portrayed Allied intervention as an alliance dedicated to crushing a nascent, worldwide communist revolution in the cradle, in reality the Allies were not particularly interested in intervention. While there were some loud voices in favour, such as Winston Churchill, these were very much in the minority. The main concern for the Allies was to defeat the German Empire on the Western Front. While the Bolshevik's repudiation of Russia's national debt and seizure of foreign-owned industries did cause tension, the main concern for the Allies was the Bolshevik's desire to get Russia out of the First World War. The Allies disliked the Whites, who were seen as nothing more than a small group of conservative nationalists who showed no signs of planning reform. Government ministers were also influenced by anti-White public opinion, which was being mobilised by trade unions. The low casualties suffered by the Allies is indicative of the low-level of their combat involvement. However, the Soviets were able to exploit the Allied intervention for propaganda purposes.

Churchill, the loudest voice in favour of action, was a vehement anti-socialist and saw Bolshevism as socialism's worst form. As a result, he attempted to gain Allied support for intervention on ideological grounds. Most of the British press were ideologically hostile to the Bolshevik regime, and supported the intervention. Many newspapers actively encouraged Allied intervention during the war.

Foreign forces throughout Russia

Numbers of foreign soldiers who were present in the indicated regions of Russia:
* 1,500 French and British troops originally landed in Arkhangelsk
* 14,378 British troops in North Russia
* 1,800 British troops in Siberia
* 50,000 Romanian troops belonging to the 6th Romanian Corps under General Ioan Istrate, in Bessarabia.
* 23,351 Greeks, who withdrew after three months (part of I Army Corps under Maj. Gen. Konstantinos Nider, comprising 2nd and 13th Infantry Divisions, in the Crimea, and around Odessa and Kherson)
* 15,000 French also in the Southern Russia intervention
* 40,000 British troops in the Caucasus region by January 1919
* 13,000 Americans (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)
* 11,500 Estonians in northwestern Russia
* 2,500 Italians in the Arkhangelsk region and Siberia''A History of Russia'', 7th Edition, Nichlas V. Riasanovsky & Mark D. Steinberg, Oxford University Press, 2005.
* 1,300 Italians in the Murmansk region.
* 150 Australians (mostly in the Arkhangelsk regions)
* 950 British troops in Trans-Caspia
* 70,000+ Japanese soldiers in the Eastern region
* 4,192 Canadians in Siberia, 600 Canadians in Arkhangelsk
* 2,300 Chinese troops in Vladivostok

Campaigns

North Russia

The First British involvement in the war was the landing in Murmansk in early March 1918. 170 British troops arrived on 4 March 1918, the day after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. On 2 May, British troops took part in their first military engagement. A party of White Finns had captured the Russian town of Pechenga, and British marines fought alongside Red Guards to capture the area by 10 May with several casualties. In this first engagement, British troops had fought against a White force in support of the Red Army. In the following months, British forces in the area were largely engaged in small battles and skirmishes with White Finns. However, Soviet–Allied relations were passing from distrust to open hostility. A Bolshevik force was sent to take control of the town up the Murmansk-Petrograd railway, but in a series of skirmishes the Allied forces repelled the attack. This was the first real fighting between the troops of the Allies and the Reds. A trainload of Bolshevik troops was also found at Kandalaksha heading north, but the British managed to convince them to stop, before Serb reinforcements arrived and took over the train.

In September, a force of 1,200 Italians arrived as well as small Canadian and French battalions. By early Autumn, British forces were also 6,000 strong. On 2 August 1918, anti-Bolshevik forces, led by Tsarist Captain Georgi Chaplin, staged a coup against the local Soviet government at Archangelsk. General Poole had coordinated the coup with Chaplin. Allied warships sailed into the port from the White Sea. There was some resistance at first, but 1,500 French and British troops soon occupied the city. The Northern Region Government was established by Chaplin and popular revolutionary Nikolai Tchaikovsky.

On the Murmansk front, the British 6th Royal Marine Light Infantry Battalion was ordered to seize the village of Koikori on 28 August as part of a wide offensive into East Karelia. The attack on the village was disorganized and resulted in three marines killed and 18 wounded. An attack on Ussuna was also repulsed. The next morning, faced with the prospect of another attack on the village, one Marine company refused to obey orders and withdrew themselves to a nearby friendly village. As a result, 93 men were sentenced to death and others received substantial sentences of hard labour. In December 1919, the government, under pressure from several MPs, revoked the sentence of death and considerably reduced the sentences of all the convicted men.

On 4 September 1918 the promised American forces arrived. Three battalions of troops, supported by engineers and under the command of Colonel George Stewart, landed in Archangel. This force numbered 4,500 troops. A British River Force of 11 monitors ( HMS ''M33'', HMS ''Fox'' and others), minesweepers, and Russian gunboats was formed to use the navigable waters at the juncture of the rivers Vaga and Northern Dvina. Some 30 Bolshevik gunboats, mines, and armed motor launches took their toll on the Allied forces.

The 2/10th Royal Scots cleared the triangle between the Dvina and Vaga and took a number of villages and prisoners. By late September, US Marines and 2/10th Royal Scots had reached Nijne-Toimski, which proved too strong for the lightly equipped Allied force. On 27 October, Allied forces were ambushed at Kulika near Topsa, losing at least 27 men killed and dozens wounded, a figure that could have been higher if it had not been for a detachment of Poles who bravely covered the retreat as others panicked. The allied troops were mainly inactive in the winter of 1918, building blockhouses with only winter patrols sent out.A. Michael Brander, ''Famous Regiments Series: The Royal Scots (The Royal Regiment)'', London: Leo Cooper, 1976, , pp. 75–78. On the first occasion that White Russian troops were sent into the line of combat during the North Russian campaign, on 11 December 1918, the White Russian troops mutinied. The ringleaders were ordered to be shot by General Ironside.

Within four months the Allied Powers' gains had shrunk by along the Northern Dvina and Lake Onega area as Bolshevik attacks became more sustained. The Bolsheviks launched their largest offensive yet on Armistice Day 1918 along the Northern Divina front, and there was heavy fighting at the Battle of Tulgas (Toulgas). When the news came through of the Armistice with Germany, many of the British troops in Archangel eagerly anticipated a quick withdrawal from North Russia, but their hopes were soon dashed.

On 27 January 1919, word was received at Archangel that the Bolsheviks had fired poison gas shells at British positions on the Archangel-Vologda railway. The use of poison gas by the Bolsheviks was soon announced in the British press. The Bolsheviks would use poison gas shells against the British on at least two occasions in North Russia, although its effectiveness was limited.

In the Murmansk sector, the British decided that the only way to achieve success in ejecting the Bolsheviks from power was by raising a large White Russian Army. However, recruitment and conscription attempts failed to provide a sizable enough force. It was therefore decided in February 1919 to move south to capture more populated areas from which recruits could be conscripted. This would be the first significant action on the Murmansk front between the Allies and the Bolsheviks. Met with stiff opposition, the town of Segeja was captured and half the Red Army garrison was killed, wounded or taken prisoner. During the February offensive, the British forces pushed the Red Army beyond Soroko and as far south as Olimpi. Despite an attempted Bolshevik counter-attack, by 20 February 3,000 square miles of territory had been taken.

The furthest advance south on the northern front in early 1919 was an Allied Mission in Shenkursk on the Vaga River and Nizhnyaya Toyma on the Northern Dvina. The strategically important city of Shenkursk was described by British commander Ironside as 'the most important city in North Russia' after Archangel and he was determined to hold the line. However, British and Allied troops were expelled from Shenkursk after an intense battle on 19–20 January 1919. Over the following days, RAF aircraft flew several bombing and reconnaissance missions to support the withdrawal from Shenkursk. The battle of Shenkursk was a key turning point in the campaign, and the Allied loss put them very much on the back foot for the next few months along the railway and Dvina fronts.

On the railway front south of Archangel, the Allied forces were gradually advancing. On 23 March, British and American troops attacked the village of Bolshie Ozerki, but the first wave of attackers were pushed back. The next day, 500 Bolsheviks attacked Shred Mekhrenga but were eventually repelled, with over 100 Red troops being killed despite the British suffering no fatal casualties. Another Bolshevik attack was launched on Seltskoe, but that attack also failed. In total, the Bolsheviks lost 500 men in one day in the two attacks.

Many of the British and foreign troops often refused to fight, and Bolshevik attacks were launched with the belief that some British troops may even defect to their side once their commanders had been killed. The numerous White mutinies demoralised Allied soldiers and affected morale. The Allied forces were affected by their own mutinies, with the British Yorkshire Regiment and Royal Marines rebelling at points as well as American and Canadian forces.

A major offensive was launched in May in the Murmansk sector. During the advance on Medvyeja-Gora on 15 May, the stubborn Bolshevik defence was only ended with a bayonet charge. British and Bolshevik armoured trains then traded blows as the British attempted to seize control of more of the local railway. The town was finally seized on 21 May, as Italians and French troops pushed forward with the British. The May offensive never quite carried the Allies as far as the largest town in the region, Petrozavodsk.

In April, public recruiting began at home in Britain for the newly created 'North Russian Relief Force', a voluntary force which had the claimed sole purpose of defending the existing British positions in Russia. By the end of April 3,500 men had enlisted, and they were then sent to North Russia. Public opinion regarding the formation of the force was mixed, with some newspapers being more supportive than others. The relief force eventually arrived in North Russia in late May–June.

On 25 April a White Russian battalion mutinied, and, after 300 men went over to the Bolsheviks, they turned and attacked the Allied troops at Tulgas. In May and June, the units of the original British force which had arrived in Archangel in August and September 1918 finally received orders for home. In early June the French troops were withdrawn and the Royal Marines detachment was also sent home, followed by all Canadian troops after it was requested that they be repatriated. All remaining American troops also left for home. The Serbian troops (perhaps Maynard's best infantry fighters) became unreliable as others withdrew around them. By 3 July, the Italian company was on the verge of mutiny as its men were seriously disaffected with their continued presence in Russia so long after the Armistice. In mid July, the two companies of American railway troops were also withdrawn. The French and American troops stationed in the north were similarly reluctant to fight, and French troops in Archangel refused to take part in any action that was not merely defensive. Despite being told when volunteering that they were only to be used for defensive purposes, plans were made in June to use the men of the North Russian Relief Force in a new offensive aimed at capturing the key city of Kotlas and linking up with Kolchak's White forces in Siberia. The villages of Topsa and Troitsa were attacked in anticipation of this action, with 150 Bolsheviks being killed and 450 being captured. However, with Kolchak's forces being pushed back rapidly, the Kotlas offensive was cancelled.

In early July 1919 another White unit under British command mutinied and killed its British officers, with 100 men then deserting to the Bolsheviks. Another White mutiny was foiled later in the month by Australian troops. On 20 July, 3,000 White troops in the key city of Onega mutinied and handed over the city to the Bolsheviks. The loss of the city was a significant blow to the Allied forces as it was the only overland route available for the transfer of supplies and men between the Murmansk and Arkhangel theatres. This event led to the British losing all remaining trust for the Whites and contributed to the desire to withdraw. Attempts were soon made to retake the city, but in a failed attack in late July the British had to force detachments of White forces to land at gunpoint in the city, since they were adamant that they would not take part in any fighting. On one Allied ship, 5 Bolshevik prisoners captured in battle even managed to temporarily subdue the 200 White Russians on board and take control of the ship with little resistance. Despite the Allied setbacks, a battalion of marines, the 6th Royal Marine Light Infantry, was sent to assist the British at the end of July.

The final two months on the Dvina front, August and September 1919, would see some of the fiercest fighting between British and Red Army troops of the Civil War. In August, a major offensive was launched along the Dvina to try and strike a blow at Bolshevik morale and to increase the morale of the White forces before a withdrawal. As part of this, an attack was made on the village of Gorodok. During the attack, 750 Bolshevik prisoners were taken, and one battery was found to have been manned by German troops. The village of Seltso was also attacked, but a strong Bolshevik defence halted any British progress. However, the villages of Kochamika, Jinta, Lipovets and Zaniskaya were captured with little resistance. In total the offensive led to the deaths of around 700 Reds and was considered a success.

A final offensive on the Murmansk front was launched by the Allied forces in September, aimed at destroying the Bolshevik forces to leave the White forces in a good position after the planned withdrawal. Serbian forces supported the British as they attempted to push on to the Bolshevik villages of Koikori and Ussuna and attack Konchozero. However, the defences at Koikori and Ussuna were much stronger than expected, and the attacks failed. The Serbs and White Russian forces attacked again on 11 and 14 September, but these attacks also failed. However, the British did manage to reach the Nurmis river by 18 September, with 9,000 troops, including 6,000 White Russians, participating in this final offensive.

On 22 September, with the Allied withdrawal already ongoing, a British detachment from the Royal Scots was sent by river to Kandalaksha on four fishing boats to stop sabotage operations carried out by Finnish Bolsheviks against the railway there. The British party was ambushed even before landing and suffered heavy casualties, with 13 men killed and 4 wounded. Consequently, the unopposed Bolsheviks destroyed a number of bridges, delaying the evacuation for a time. One of the fatalities, a private from Ormesby, Yorkshire, who succumbed to his injuries on 26 September, was the last British servicemen to die in action in Northern Russia.

By this point, British troops had started withdrawing to Archangel in order to prepare themselves for the evacuation of North Russia. On the morning of September 27, 1919, the last Allied troops departed from Archangel, and on October 12, Murmansk was abandoned.

* British Empire
** Royal Navy: a flotilla of over 20 ships including the seaplane carriers; and
** British Army: 236th Infantry Brigade, 6th Battalion Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI), 548th (Dundee) Army Troops Company, Royal Engineers, 2/10th (Cyclist) Battalion, Royal Scots Royal Scots, 52nd Battalion, Manchester Regiment, and elements of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
** Slavo-British Allied Legion (SBAL): a British-trained and led contingent composed mostly of expatriate Russian anti-Bolshevik, Finnish and Estonian volunteers (including Dyer's Battalion).
** Canadian Field Artillery (67th and 68th Batteries of the 16th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery)
** Royal Air Force: contingent comprising Airco DH.4 bombers, Fairey Campania and Sopwith Baby seaplanes along with a single Sopwith Camel fighter.
* United States
** North Russia Expeditionary Force (also known as the Polar Bear Expedition): approximately 8,000 personnel from the US Army, including the: 310th Engineers, 339th Infantry, 337th Field Hospital, and 337th Ambulance Company. Also the 167th and 168th Railroad Companies, which were sent to Murmansk to operate the Murmansk to Petrograd line.
** US Navy: the cruiser during August and September 1918 (including 53 personnel attached to British naval units)
* France: 2,000 French Army personnel, mainly from the ''