A curious chapter in Russian history was the intervention in Russia's civil war of Britain, France, Japan and the United States against the [G 04 / Bolsheviks] from 1918 to 1922.
Ever since the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the United States had been under increasing French and British pressure to mount a joint [G 01 / Allied] expedition at [M 008 / Vladivostok] to restore the Eastern Front the Bolsheviks had abandoned in 1917. Neither the French nor the British were able to commit substantial resources, therefore they proposed that America and Japan contribute the bulk. The American president, Woodrow Wilson, agreed to send a small force to protect supplies at Vladivostok and the rear of [G 07 / Czechs] operating from there. With Wilson's consent as a green light, Tokyo set its own plans in motion breaking every principle of this policy of non-intervention in Russia's internal affairs.
Protection of the Trans-Siberian from [M 008 / P 033 / Vladivostok to Lake Baikal] had been assigned to the Americans and Japanese by Allied accord. However, the surrender of the Central Powers in November 1918 rescinded the Allies' justification for their presence in Russia.
Early in 1919, Wilson tried to bring the Bolsheviks and the [G 22 / Whites] together for peace talks, but failed. This left the British, French and Americans with the choice of either withdrawing or giving Kolchak further aid. Britain and France adopted the second course, but America dragged her feet. Wilson finally consented on June 12 to go along with the British and French in return for guarantees that the White dictator Admiral Kolchak establish a democratic regime.
The Allies, skeptical of a White victory and their efforts to support it, withdrew their missions from the capital of the White government at Omsk shortly before the Bolshevik Red Army entered the city on November 14, 1919. They were followed by Admiral Kolchak's ministers on their way to reinstate the government at Irkutsk.
For the Allies the intervention had been a humiliating failure and had even strengthened the communists' determination to protect their regime against domestic and foreign enemies. With the exception of Japan, the Allies withdrew from Siberia on April 1, 1920.
