After posting the blog yesterday, it occurred to me that perhaps I needed to be a bit more specific in some areas, clarify some statements that I made. I am afraid I was a bit casual in throwing out some statements about the American experience in Siberia. Perhaps some of the statements were made with a bit too much cynicism and sarcasm, and the subject treated too lightly. Whatever the case may be, I will try to correct or redirect some of those statements and comments in today's blog.
When President Wilson and the U.S. government accused Lenin and Trotsky of being the agents of German Imperialism, they were sort of right. Lenin, who had been in exile in Germany prior to the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, was financed by Germany to return to Russia to destabilize the government, thereby causing Russia to pull out of World War One. Lenin was provided with millions of dollars worth of funds and given a first class train ticket to Moscow. Lenin and his Bolshevik cohorts did put Kaiser's money to good use and destabilized the Russian government, and caused Russia did pull out of the war. So, in a sense, the accusations were somewhat correct. However, Lenin did not work on behalf of Germany, as the accusations suggested.
America's participation in World War One lasted about 19 months, from April 1917 until the signing of Armistice in November of 1918. America's involvement in Russian civil war was just as long, perhaps a bit longer, from August of 1918, before World War One ended, until April of 1920. The first American combat units, two infantry Regiments, the 27th and 31st, landed in Vladivostok on August 16th and 21st of 1918. The rest of the dough boys, some 5,000 members of the 8th Infantry Division, arrived from Philippines in November of 1918. During their entire stay some 189 G.I.s were killed. But it is not clear whether they died in combat or by some other means. In the earlier blog I made mention that the G.I.s did not spend all their time eating borscht and drinking vodka, but G.I.s being G.I.s, they did swill quite a bit of vodka and patronized local houses of ill repute. It was a problem for the commanders of troops who were stationed in populated areas like Vladivostok and were charged with guarding U.S. interests.
During the first winter, there were inadequate supplies of winter clothing for American G.I.s. As mentioned in the earlier blog, Japanese woolen overcoats (largest they could find) were purchased for some of the troops. However, by the second winter, the G.I.s no longer wore Japanese clothing. Japanese Arisaka rifles were used also, since ammunition was easily obtained from the Japanese. The Japanese, who had over 70,000 troops in Siberia had a huge stockpile of supplies, arms and ammunition in Vladivostok. It was easy enough for them to ship the goods in from northern Japan. Even back then, Japanese showed their proclivity for marketing their goods!
Despite the fact that Japan was our ally during World War One and during our "Intervention" in Russia, our relations with Japan were not all that great on the ground. Our commanders were constantly at odds with the Japanese commanders. The Japanese had a totally different agenda from us. Theirs was a plan of conquest and occupation to gain territory. Ours was a somewhat misguided idea of providing stability and supporting the already defeated Tsarist government. Initially we went into Siberia to rescue a 40,000 man Czechoslovakian Legion that was stranded. This Legion was supposedly composed of pro Tsarist Czech volunteers. The rescue never really occurred, since the Legion was almost completely decimated by the time we arrived. There were also English and French troops in Siberia, and they too used Japanese Arisaka rifles and ammunition. The Japanese were the biggest winners of that misguided campaign! They not only sold a bunch arms and goods to their "allies," but gained a huge chunk of real estate in the form of Sakhalin Island.
The Japanese were double dealing behind the backs of their allies. They used guerrillas, especially Cossack guerrillas that operated inland, to massacre their own people, to clear out the territory for the Japanese! The Cossack guerrillas were nothing but brigands, willing to sell their services to anyone able to pay their price. The Japanese paid the right price. Also, the Japanese troops were ruthless in their treatment of local population, and many guerrilla groups fought not only Bolsheviks, but Japanese as well. In other words, they fought anybody an everybody! Not a very smart or practical move, but these guerrillas were the ones who were simply tired of everyone meddling. They mostly ended up later in Manchuria.
We seem to have shown an early propensity for getting involved in distant lands in conflicts where we didn't belong. Perhaps our intentions, though misguided, were honorable and good, but the outcome was the same. We gained nothing from that experience except to lose some lives and spend money supplying and maintaining those dough boys in a far away land. Was it worth it? Did we stop the Bolsheviks? Considering that we became allies with the same Bolsheviks only some 20 years later and enemies with the Japanese who were our allies, what was all that about?
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