The Penguin History of the Second World War by Guy Wint & Guy Wint & John Pritchard

Author:Guy Wint & Guy Wint & John Pritchard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141959887
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1989-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

The issues in East Asia grew more complex and divided. One of the most serious problems to arise was the Siberian Intervention, which grew out of the chaos of the Russian Revolution of 1917. For a time it appeared that the Revolution might spill over into Manchuria and Korea. At an Allied conference meeting in December 1917, General Foch pressed for an invasion of Siberia. The idea met with a cool response from Britain and the United States. The Japanese, however, began to study the respective advantages and disadvantages of intervening on their own. In the following month, the British came round to the French idea and suggested the possibility of seizing Vladivostok in order to safeguard the huge Allied war supplies – some 600,000 tons – that lay stockpiled there. Within a fortnight, two Japanese cruisers and a British cruiser reached Vladivostok harbour and dropped anchor to await developments.

The British asked the United States to reconsider the French proposal and suggested Japanese occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railway. President Wilson flatly rejected the idea. Even ruling circles in Japan, however, were divided on how far they should venture in attempting to halt the advance of bolshevism: it was arguable that direct intervention might prolong the war or lead to an Anglo-Russian reconciliation and possibly provoke further trouble after the eventual restoration of peace. On the other hand, Japanese occupation of Eastern Siberia and the Maritime Provinces was an attractive notion in its own right.

Eventually the arguments in favour of military intervention became irresistible after the Czech Legion, striving to escape from Russia in a mass exodus via the Trans-Siberian Railway, was caught up in a hopeless tangle of international (dis)agreements, orders and counter-orders. The trains were stopped: time passed, and the 70,000 Czechs gradually lost patience, strung out in troop trains over a distance of 6,000 miles of track from beyond the Volga to Vladivostok. Trotsky ordered his Red Army to disarm the Czechs and utilize them as conscript labour battalions. The Czechs intercepted his messages and fought their way out, capturing the great port of Vladivostok and holding the eastern sections of the Trans-Siberian Railway. As fighting continued, the Czechs moved back into the interior and allied themselves with the White Russian and Cossack armies operating right across Siberia to the Urals. It was their military effectiveness more than their predicament which persuaded the Western Powers and Japan to act in ‘support’ of the Czechs.

In July 1918 British, Chinese, Czech, French, Japanese and United States representatives at Vladivostok declared that the Allied Powers would henceforth assume responsibility for the safety of the area. British troops began coming ashore on 3 August, followed a week later by the Japanese. An American division arrived and so did smaller French and Canadian contingents. Although the British troops soon made their way as far westwards as Irkutsk, the other Western forces scarcely made their presence felt. The Japanese, however, dispatched some 70,000 troops, a force vastly greater in number than the other Powers

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