Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Foreign interventions in Russia between 1918 and 19201925}}

* Allied Powerspowers withdrawal

* WhiteAnti-Bolshevik victory in Finland, Latvia, and Estoniathe Baltic states

| {{flagdeco |Russian Empire}} [[White movement]]

| {{flagcountry| United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} (1918–1920)

* {{flag| Canada|18681907}} (1918–1919)

* {{flag| Australia}} (1918–1919)

* {{flag| British Raj|name=India}}

* {{flagcountry| Union of South Africa|1912}}<ref>Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 15, Nr 4, 1985, [http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za/pub/article/viewFile/477/510 pp. 46–48]. Accessed January 24, 2016.</ref>

| {{flagcountry| United States|1912}} (1918–1920)

| {{flagcountry| French Third Republic}} (1918–1920)

| {{flagcountry| Empire of Japan}}

| {{flagflagcountry|Kingdom Estoniaof Greece|state}}

| {{flagcountryflag| Kingdom of SerbiaEstonia}}

| {{flagcountry| Kingdom of ItalySerbia}}

| {{flagcountry|Kingdom of RomaniaItaly}}

| {{flag| Far Eastern Republic}}

| {{flagicon imageflag|Latvian FlagSocialist ofSoviet Republic|name=Latvian SSR 1919.svg}} [[Latvian| Socialist Soviet Republic{{flag|LatvianUkrainian SSR]]|1919}}

| {{flagdeco |Russian Empire}} [[Mikhail Diterikhs]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian Empire}} [[Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov|Grigory Semyonov]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian Empire}} [[Nikolai Yudenich]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian Empire}} [[Evgeny Miller]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian Empire}} [[Anton Denikin]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian Empire}} [[Pyotr Wrangel]]

| {{flagdeco |Czechoslovakia}} [[Radola Gajda]]

| {{flagdeco |Czechoslovakia}} [[Stanislav Čeček]]

| {{nowrap| {{flagdeco|Czechoslovakia|1918}} [[SergeiSergey WojciechowskiVoytsekhovsky|Sergej Vojcechovský]]}}

| {{flagdeco |Empire of Japan}} [[Kikuzo Otani]]

| {{flagdeco |Empire of Japan}} [[Yui Mitsue]]

| {{flagdeco |United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} [[Frederick Poole]]

| {{flagdeco |United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} [[Lionel Dunsterville]]

| {{flagdeco |United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} [[William Montgomerie Thomson|William Thomson]]

| {{flagdeco |United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} [[Wilfrid Malleson]]

| {{flagdeco |United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} [[Walter Cowan]]

| {{flagdeco| Canada|18681907}} [[James H. Elmsley]]

| {{flagdeco |French Third Republic}} [[Henri Mathias Berthelot|Henri Bertholot]]

| {{flagdeco |French Third Republic}} [[Philippe Henri Joseph d'Anselme|Philippe d'Anselme]]

| {{flagdeco |Kingdom of Romania}} [[Ernest Broșteanu]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Vladimir Lenin]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Leon Trotsky]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Jukums Vācietis]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Sergey Kamenev]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Pavel Dybenko]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Nikolai Krylenko]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Mikhail Frunze]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Vasily Blyukher]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Alexander Samoylo]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Joseph Stalin]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Kliment Voroshilov]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Fedor Raskolnikov]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Dmitry Zhloba]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Semyon Budyonny]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Hayk Bzhishkyan]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov|Mikhail Muravyov]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Dmitry Nikolayevich Nadyozhny|Dmitry Nadyozhny]]

| {{flagdeco |Russian SFSR|1918}} [[Dmitri Parsky]]

| {{flagdeco |Far Eastern Republic}} [[Alexander Krasnoshchyokov]]

| {{flagdeco| Czechoslovakia|1918}} 50,000–70,000 troops

| {{flagdeco |French Third Republic}} 15,600 troops

| {{flagdeco |Kingdom of Greece|state}} 30,000 troops{{sfn|Wright|2017|p=302}}

| {{flagdeco |United States|1912}} 11,000 troops

| {{flagdeco |Estonia}} 11,300 troops

| {{flagdeco |Empire of Japan}} 70,000 troops

| {{flagdeco |United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland}} 59,150 troops{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|pp=297, 304}}{{sfn|Sargent|2004|p=33}}{{sfn|Winegard|2016|p=229}}{{sfn|Wright|2017|pp=305–306, 394, 526–528, 530–535}}

| {{flagdeco |Canada|18681907}} 4,700+ troops

| {{flagdeco |Kingdom of Italy}} 2,500 troops

The '''Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War''' consisted of a series of multi-national [[military expedition]]s that began in 1918. The initial impetus behind the interventions was to secure munitions and supply depots from falling into the [[German Empire]]'s hands, particularly after the [[Bolsheviks]] signed the [[Treaty of Brest -Litovsk]], and to rescue the Allied forces that had become trapped within Russia after the 1917 [[October Revolution]].{{sfn|Mawdsley|2007|pp=[https://archive.org/details/russiancivilwar00evan/page/54 54–55]}} After the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918]], the Allied plan changed to helping the [[White movement | White]] forces in the [[Russian Civil War]]. After the Whites collapsed, the Allies withdrew their forces from Russia by 1925.<ref name=":0" />

Allied efforts were hampered by divided objectives, [[war-weariness]] after [[World War I]], and a rising discontent among some troops and sailors who were reluctant to fight the world's first [[socialist state]],; this reluctance sometimes eruptingled into [[mutiny]].^{[according to who]} These factors, together with the evacuation of the Czechoslovak Legion in September 1920, led 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 {{Interlanguage link|Japanese occupation of Northern Sakhalin|lt=occupy the northern half|ru|Японская оккупация Северного Сахалина}} of [[Sakhalin]] until 1925.<ref name="beyer">{{cite book|last= Beyer|first= Rick|year= 2003|title= The Greatest Stories Never Told|publisher=A&E Television Networks / The History Channel|isbn=0060014016|url-access= registration |url=https://archive.org/details/greateststoriesn00beye |pages=152–53}}</ref>

The Allied Powerspowers 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. U.S. 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.<ref name="beyer"/>

Kornilov attempted to set up a military dictatorship by staging [[Kornilov affair|a coup]] ({{OldStyleDate | 10 September | 1917 | 27 August}}). 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 [[Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner|Milner]], a 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.<ref>''Intervention and the War'' by Richard Ullman, [[Princeton University Press]], 1961, pp. 11–13</ref><ref>{{Cite webbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wbxwAwAAQBAJ&dq=general+buchanan%2C+moscow%2C+kornilov&pg=PA285|title=Strategy and Supply (RLE The First World War): The Anglo-Russian Alliance 1914-1917|first=Keith|last=Neilson|date=24 April 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317703457 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite webbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4SGDAAAQBAJ&dq=barter%2C+moscow%2C+kornilov&pg=PA113|title=INSIDE THE ENIGMA: British Officials in Russia, 1900-39|first=Michael|last=Hughes|date=1 July 1997|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=9781441127907 |via=Google Books}}</ref> The [[October Revolution]] of {{OldStyleDate |7 November| 1917 |25 October}} 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, UkrainaUkraine 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."<ref name="wc2">{{cite book |last1=Chamberlin |first1=William |title=The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921, Volume Two |date=1935 |publisher=The Macmillan Company |location=New York |pages=153–154}}</ref>

In early 1918, forces of the Central Powers invaded Russia, occupying extensive territory,<ref>

Faced with these events, the British and French governments decided upon an Allied military intervention in Russia. The first British landing in Russia came at the request of a local (Bolshevik) [[Soviet (council)|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.{{sfn|Wright|2017|p={{page needed|date=October 2020}}}} In the summer of 1918, [[Leon Trotsky]], the head of the [[Red Army]], welcomed the arrival of British, American, and French troops in Murmansk.<ref name=Flake><!-- Flake (2019) Nonsense From the Beginning-->{{cite Q|Q116739770}}</ref>

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.{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|p=115}} 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.{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|p=29}} Allied warships sailed into the port from the [[White Sea]].<ref>{{Citation|author=David S. Foglesong|title=America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War 1917–1920|chapter=Fighting, But Not At War|year=2014|publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-1469611136|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RUHn9nCC9EoC&q=US+intervention+in+Russia}}</ref> There was some resistance at first,{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|p=34}} but 1,500 French and British troops soon occupied the city.{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|p=35}} The [[Supreme Administration of the Northern Region|Northern Region Government]] was established by Chaplin and popular revolutionary [[Nikolai Tchaikovsky]].{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|p=38}}

In early July 1919, another White unit under British command mutinied and killed its British officers, with 100 men then deserting to the Bolsheviks.{{sfn|Balbirnie|2016|p=136}} Another White mutiny was foiled later in the month by Australian troops.{{sfn|Wright|2017|p=174}} On 20 July, 3,000 White troops in the key city of [[Onega, Russia|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.{{sfn|Balbirnie|2016|p=142}} This event led to the British losing all remaining trust for the Whites and contributed to the desire to withdraw.{{sfn|Balbirnie|2016|p=142}} 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.{{sfn|Wright|2017|p=170}} 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.{{sfn|Wright|2017|p=171}} 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.{{sfn|Kinvig|2006|p=255}}

[[File:Russian civil war west.svg|thumb|[[Russian Civil War]] in the west in 1918–191918–1919]]

On 18 December 1918, a month after the armistice, the French landed in [[Odessa]] and [[Sevastopol]]. In Odessa, a 7-hour battle ensued between the French and the forces of the [[Ukrainian People's Republic]] before they gained full control of the city.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Kenez|first=Peter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sdVoAAAAMAAJ|title=Civil War in South Russia, 1919–1920: The Defeat of the Whites|date=1977|publisher=Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace|page=182|isbn=978-0520033467|language=en}}</ref> The landings began the intervention in southern Russia (later Ukraine) which was to aid and supply General [[Denikin]]'s White Army forces, the [[Volunteer Army]], fighting the Bolsheviks there. The campaign involved mainly French, Greek and Polish troops. The morale of the French troops and the sailors of their fleet in the Black Sea was always low, and most wanted to be demobilised and sent home. The morale of the Greek and Polish interventionist forces was no better.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Shmelev|first=Anatol|date=2003-06-01|title=The allies in Russia, 1917–20: Intervention as seen by the whites|journal=Revolutionary Russia|volume=16|issue=1|pages=93–94|doi=10.1080/09546540308575766|s2cid=145442425|issn=0954-6545}}</ref> A local warlord, [[Ataman|Otaman]] [[Nykyfor Hryhoriv]], aligned himself with the Bolsheviks on 18 February 1919 and advanced his army against the foreign invaders. With his army of 10–12,000 men, he first attacked allied-held [[Kherson]] on 2 March which was occupied by just 150 French, 700 Greek and a few hundred Volunteersvolunteers of questionable reliability. After heavy fighting, the city was taken on 9 March. The French lost 4 killed and 22 wounded, while the Greeks had some 250 casualties. Local Greek residents were also killed in the aftermath. After the conquest of Kherson, Hryhoriv turned his forces against [[Mykolaiv|Nikolaev]], where there were even less allied troops present. There were still 12,000 well equipped German troops in the city, but they had no intention to participate in the fighting.

In 1957, former [[Communist Party USA]] member, [[Frederick L. Schuman]], wrote that the consequences of the expedition "were to poison East-West relations forever after, to contribute significantly to the [[origins of World War II]] and the later '[[Cold War]],' and to fix patterns of suspicion and hatred on both sides which even today threaten worse catastrophes in time to come."<ref name="two foes">Frederick L. Schuman, ''Russia Since 1917: Four Decades of Soviet Politics'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957), 109.</ref> For Soviet leaders, the operation was proof that Western powers were keen to destroy the Soviet government if they had the opportunity to do so.<ref>Robert J. Maddox, "The Unknown War with Russia," (San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press., 1977) p. 137</ref> Modern historian Robert Maddox summarised, "The immediate effect of the intervention was to prolong a bloody civil war, thereby costing thousands of additional lives and wreaking enormous destruction on an already battered society."<ref>{{Cite webbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5m23RrMeLt4C&dq=robert+maddox%2C+russian+civil+war&pg=PA16|title=Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong|first=James|last=Loewen|date=8 April 2008|publisher=The New Press|isbn=9781595586537 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

Historian John M. Thompson arguesargued that while the intervention failed to stop the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, it did preventprevented its spread to central Europe. He wrote:<ref>John M. Thompson, "Allied and American Intervention in Russia, 1918–1921," in ''Rewriting Russian History: Soviet Interpretations of Russia's Past,'' ed. Cyril E. Black (New York, 1962), pp. 319–380. [https://archive.org/details/rewritingrussian0000blac online], at p. 325.</ref>

According to Sheldon M. Stern, [[Stalinism|Stalinist]] propaganda later portrayed the Allied intervention as a U.S. military invasion of Russia while denying or minimizing the [[Russian famine of 1921–1922#Relief effort|American famine relief effort]] that saved millions of Russian lives during 1921–1923.<ref>{{cite web|last=Stern|first=Sheldon M.|url=https://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2008/07/cold-war-origins.html|title=Cold War Origins|work=[[Washington Decoded]]|date=July 11, 2008|accessdate=March 22, 2022}}</ref>

Winston Churchill, who had been the most prominent supporter of a campaign to remove the Bolsheviks from power, long lamented the Allies' failure to crush the Soviet state in its infancy. This was especially the case during the breakdown of western-Soviet relations in the aftermath of [[World War II]] and the start of the [[Cold War]]. In 1949, Churchill stated to the British parliamentParliament:

In a further speech at the [[National Press Club (United States)|National Press Club]], [[Washington D.C.]], in June 1954, Churchill lamented:

{{blockquote|If I had been properly supported in 1919, I think we might have strangled Bolshevism in its cradle, but everybody turned up their hands and said, ‘How"How shocking!’"<ref>{{Cite web|date=2016-03-11|title=Bolshevism: "Foul baboonery...Strangle at Birth"|url=https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/bolshevism/|access-date=2020-08-27|website=The Churchill Project – Hillsdale College|language=en-US}}</ref>}}

* {{Citecite journal|last=Balbirnie|first=Steven|date=2016-07-02|title='A Bad Business': British Responses to Mutinies Among Local Forces in Northern Russia|journal=Revolutionary Russia|volume=29|issue=2 |pages=129–148|doi=10.1080/09546545.2016.1243613|s2cid=152050937|issn=0954-6545}}

* {{cite book |last=Kinvig |first=Clifford |year=2006 |title=Churchill's Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia 1918–1920 |publisher=Hambledon Continuum |location= London |isbn=1852854774}}

* {{cite book|last=Mawdsley|first=Evan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QnwRMQAACAAJ |title=The Russian Civil War |date=2007 |publisher=Pegasus Books |isbn=978-1933648156 |language=en}}

* {{Citecite book |last=Moffat |first=Ian C. D. |title=The allied intervention in Russia, 1918–1920: the diplomacy of chaos|isbn=978-1137435736|location=Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire |oclc=909398151|date =2015}}

* {{cite book |first=Michael |last=Sargent |title=British Military Involvement in Transcaspia: 1918–1919 |url=https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/87659/04_apr.pdf |publisher= Conflict Studies Research Centre, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom |location= Camberley|date= April 2004}}

* {{cite book|last=Winegard |first=Timothy C.|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctv1005dpz|title=The First World Oil War|date=2016|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1487522582 |jstor=10.3138/j.ctv1005dpz}}

* {{cite book |last=Wright |first=Damien |date=2017 |title=Churchill's Secret War with Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918–20 |url=https://www.helion.co.uk/military-history-books/churchills-secret-war-with-lenin-british-and-commonwealth-military-intervention-in-the-russian-civil-war-1918-20.php |location=Solihull |publisher=Helion |isbn=978-1911512103}}

* {{Citation|author=Foglesong, David S. |title=America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War 1917–1920|year=2014|publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=978-1469611136|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RUHn9nCC9EoC&q=US+intervention+in+Russia}}

*{{cite journal |last1=Head |first1=Michael, S. J.|title=The Caspian Campaign, Part I: First Phase – 1918 |journal=Warship International |date=2016 |volume=LIII |issue=1 |pages=69–81 |issn=0043-0374}}

[[Category:ForeignMilitary intervention]]