Hard times come again no more: General William S. Graves and the American intervention in Siberia, 1918--1920.

摘要

This dissertation focuses on the military and diplomatic problems encountered by the United States military while intervening in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. Major General William S. Graves and the United States Army detachment sent to Siberia as part of a joint American-Japanese force encountered problems, confusion and hostility on many fronts.;This dissertation examines General Graves' actions in Siberia and shows that his leadership and decisions helped to avoid a serious political and military crisis, not only with the Bolsheviks, but with the Japanese and the White Russians as well.;Intervention was an amalgam of presidential, military, and diplomatic decisions and programs revolving around President Woodrow Wilson, the War Department, and the Department of State. The United States' position vis-a-vis the other occupying forces, particularly those of the Japanese, presented American forces in Siberia with a very difficult mission. In order to satisfy his orders as he saw them, General William S. Graves, the expedition's commander, sought to assure American independence of action while at the same time maintaining a working relationship with his British, French and Japanese counterparts who often pursued their own agendas. At the end of the First World War, the Allied rationale for intervention, preserving an Eastern front against Germany, repatriating a large Czechoslovakian force composed of former prisoners and expatriates, and combating what was reported as large numbers of armed German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war evaporated. The ensuing political, diplomatic and military problems encountered by Graves and his command illustrate the problems associated with a military mission that was subject to confused direction by several policy-making departments.;Forced to remain in Siberia following the Armistice, Graves' response to the difficult conditions he discovered, particularly in relation to Japan's presence in Siberia, resulted in hard feelings among the Allies but maintained the American Open Door policy in the region. Graves was instructed to remain neutral rather than siding with anti-Bolshevik factions as the British and French wanted. Graves' actions were influenced in great part by the experiences and recommendations of the American Chief of Staff, Peyton C. March. Squabbles between the War Department and the Department of State made the American military's job even more difficult in Siberia. By frustrating Japanese territorial ambitions, the Americans prevented a blatant Japanese land grab. Difficulties with competing Russian factions subsidized by the Japanese and to some extent the British and French made the AEF-Siberia's task even more difficult.