4

Between Germany and Japan:
Wilson, the Czecho-Slovaks,
and the Decision to Intervene,
May–July 1918

Between the spring and mid-summer of 1918, the Wilson administration struggled to devise a policy toward Siberia that would reconcile a military intervention with the primary goal of furnishing economic assistance to the region. It was the threat of an expanded German influence in the Russian Empire that ultimately forced Wilson to undertake a limited intervention in support of the Czecho-Slovak legion and to temporarily postpone economic assistance. This interpretation does not discount the genuine humanitarian concern Wilson felt for the welfare of the Czecho-Slovak Corps. More important, this view is entirely consistent with the arguments that have emphasized Wilson’s desire to preempt Allied pressure for a large-scale Japanese intervention. However, this analysis goes further to present a comprehensive picture of the dangers that preoccupied the Wilson administration in the summer of 1918.

At this critical phase of the war on the western front, Wilson opposed a Japanese intervention precisely because this step might force crucial segments of the Russian population to accept even closer ties with Germany out of their legitimate concern over Japan’s ambitions in the Russian Far East. In other words, the Wilson administration’s Siberian policy was essentially motivated by the underlying clash of competing German and American world systems, which had been the catalyst for America’s entry into the war. In supporting an intervention on behalf of the Czecho-Slovaks, Wilson believed he had found a strategy that would facilitate the process of reconstruction in Siberia amid the complex challenges America faced in the region: the instability resulting from war and revolution, the menace of bolshevism, the urgent threat posed by German economic influence, and the rival aspirations of Japan, Britain, and France.

American assumptions concerning Siberia’s unique social structure hold the key to understanding Wilsonian policy toward Siberia after the Bolshevik Revolution. During this period the views of Paul Reinsch, the American minister to China, were a particularly important influence on the administration’s policy, since, as a progressive internationalist and student of Frederick Jackson Turner, his recommendations received special attention at the White House.

In a cable dated May 10, Reinsch proposed the formation of an American-led Allied commission to furnish Siberia with commercial assistance. In his view, American aid would be particularly beneficial since “conditions in Siberia [are] not unlike America therefore we can be most helpful.”¹ However, Reinsch emphasized that Allied support should come in the form of economic assistance rather than through a military intervention, and that, “should intervention come first there is danger that it will be understood to be in favor of reaction and capitalism and will alienate the people permanently.”²

By May, Wilson had decided the only practical means for providing economic assistance to Russia was through a program of barter trade, featuring the exchange of American manufactured goods for Russian raw materials. The consensus of opinion Wilson received advocated some form of barter trade because of the dislocation of normal commercial activity and the consequent collapse of the ruble. During a conversation about the Russian situation at the White House on May 13, Wilson agreed with Cyrus McCormick’s view that barter was the only means through which America could “negotiate with the Russian people.” Wilson suggested that he would request Secretary of Commerce William C. Redfield to convene a conference of businessmen with experience in Russian affairs to solicit “practical suggestions as to what barter … could be undertaken.”³

While Russia’s social and economic instability necessitated an elementary program of barter with Siberia, this context only reinforced Wilson’s belief that commerce was an important agent for promoting international harmony. Once, in a speech before the Chicago Commercial Club in 1902 Wilson declared that commerce was the “most statesmanlike occupation” since the trader had to have even a better grasp of social and political conditions on the international level than the statesman. Wilson continued: “Tradesmen have been inside the life of nations the outside of whose policy statesmen have observed, and traders have been able to tell statesmen the things necessary to control a policy, and to dictate it, make it intelligent. It is the trader’s business, in short, to know the world. Instinctively, therefore, men who are engaged in commerce feel the pulse of affairs.”⁴

Hence, the merchant fostered mutual understanding among societies through intimate contact with, and sympathy for, foreign cultures. This faith in the virtue of commerce explains Wilson’s resolve to “negotiate” with the Russian people through the instrumentality of barter. American traders could be counted on to reliably assess the prevailing mood and aspirations of the enigmatic Russian population, as well as their material requirements.

A system of barter between the United States and Russia was therefore uniquely suited to advance Wilson’s vigorously liberal moral objectives. First, barter served profoundly humanitarian ends by providing basic manufactured goods to a desperate population. Concurrently, the resumption of simple commercial transactions would begin the process of reconstruction by encouraging self-help initiatives among the population at the local level. Finally, a barter program would demonstrate America’s friendly intentions toward Russia and distinguish its motives from the other powers’ ambitious financial schemes—difficult to implement under highly unstable conditions, but likely to further erode Russian sovereignty. Barter thus appealed to Wilson as an expedient application of economic policy to the higher purpose of moral statesmanship.

By the end of June 1918, after soliciting advice from organized business groups such as the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce, Wilson decided that commercial assistance would have to be undertaken by the private sector, without government financing. The president evidently rejected a recommendation by Commerce Secretary Redfield for a $100 million government-financed program of commercial assistance for Siberia, because he did not think Congress would appropriate the funds. While he believed that commercial operations could be effectively handled by private interests, he nevertheless thought their activities would have to be supervised by a coordinating commission to prevent exploitation of the Siberian population.⁵

Near the end of May 1918, Reinsch stressed a dimension of the Siberian question that was rapidly becoming a critical factor in American calculations about commercial assistance to the region. He argued that the Allies must take immediate action in Siberia to deny Germany the rich resources of western Siberia. On May 30, he warned that “all sources indicate extreme need for Allied action [in] Siberia. German influence extending eastward while armed prisoners, though strategically unimportant, facilitate pro-German organization. West Siberia[n] source of supplies, is at stake. Positive action is required also in order to prevent Russian moderate elements in despair accepting German influence.”⁶ This cable stressed two important points that would soon influence Wilson’s decision to support a limited intervention. First, Reinsch emphasized that the German prisoners posed a potential danger because they could mediate the extension of German purchasing activities in Siberia. Second, as Germany expanded its economic links with European Russia and Siberia, the propertied classes and moderate political elements would accept German help in their desperate search for an alternative to Bolshevik rule. Eventually, a German-sponsored “Thermidor” would inevitably draw these groups into a close association with the German continental system.

Wilson’s views toward the questions of intervention and economic assistance were being shaped by these considerations. On May 16, Reinsch concluded a cable on the Siberian situation with the recommendation that the “situation in Siberia seems more favorable than ever for effective joint action of Allies and American initiative. A commission authorized to command moderate financial support would be able to reconstruct at least Siberia as an Allied factor. Should America remain inactive longer friendly feeling is likely to fail.”⁷ Wilson thought this suggestion important enough to request Lansing’s “comments and judgment” on the matter.

Later, on May 30, in a conversation with the British agent William Wiseman over the question of intervention, Wilson vigorously expressed his objections to Britain’s proposals for a Japanese intervention on the grounds that it would push Russia into Germany’s hands. Wilson told Wiseman that he thought an advance along the Trans-Siberian Railroad by “a large British-American force” might “have rallied the Russian people to assist in defense of their country.” But if the Western allies relied mainly on Japanese military assistance, he believed “we should rally the Russians against us,” with the exception of a “small reactionary body who would join anybody to destroy the Bolsheviki.” Wiseman off-handedly remarked that in any case the situation could not possibly get worse than it was already. But Wilson “entirely disagreed” with this attitude. On the contrary, he was convinced “We would make it much worse by putting the Germans in a position where they could organize Russia in a national movement against Japan. If that was done he would not be surprised to see Russian soldiers fighting with the Germans on the Western Front.” When Wiseman retorted in frustration with the query whether the Allies should simply do nothing, Wilson responded firmly, “No, we must watch the situation carefully and sympathetically, and be ready to move whenever the right time arrived.”

Wilson proceeded to explain that he was inclined to send to Siberia and Murmansk a “Civil Commission” consisting of British, French, and American personnel, which would help organize the railroads, food supplies, and a system of barter. While he was aware “it would take a long time before any results could be expected from such a movement,” Wilson did leave open the possibility that “if in the meantime we were invited to intervene by any responsible and representative body, we ought to do so.”⁸

Wilson’s desire to pursue a constructive policy of economic assistance would be hindered throughout the summer by the Allies’ persistent efforts to draw him into a large-scale intervention through Siberia. But when the Czecho-Slovak Corps became embroiled in the Russian civil war, Wilson perceived an opportunity to solve his dilemmas in Siberia. Wilson gambled that the popular Czecho-Slovak Corps could at once be used to diffuse Allied pressure for a large-scale intervention, to neutralize German influence in Siberia, and to provide the security for an American-led reconstruction program.

Evidence of German attempts to infiltrate the Siberian economy were filtering through to the State Department by the spring and early summer of 1918. Menacing reports from American foreign service personnel confirmed the presence of German purchasing agents in western Siberia during the spring of 1918. Upon his arrival at the International Harvester Company offices in Omsk on March 9, Commercial Attaché William C. Huntington was alarmed to learn that German influence had penetrated deep into Siberia’s interior when he recorded that the “International Harvester officials gave us authentic reports of German agents actively at work taking orders for mowers and insisting not on cash but raw materials in payment!”⁹ Huntington was also informed that there were large quantities of grain and dairy products in the area.

In early April, J. Butler Wright, who had been serving as counselor to the American embassy in Petrograd, substantiated the existence of large stores of wheat in western Siberia’s Altai district, as he traveled across the Trans-Siberian Railroad during his return to Washington. While noting that the peasants were only willing to barter their wheat for needed supplies he added, “German commercial agents are coverning [sic] the country promising early delivery of such supplies. This region is perilously near the Urals.” Finally, Wright warned that “every effort is being made by German agents to secure metals of the Urals principally gold, platinum, regarding the latter of which mine is owned” (presumably by German interests).¹⁰ Near the end of April the American consul in Omsk reported that a German purchasing commission was in the city and buying wheat, potatoes, cotton, wool, flax, and smoked meat for delivery to Germany.¹¹

Many American and Allied statesmen believed western Siberia’s grain surplus might decide the outcome of the economic warfare against Germany in Russia. In July Consul General Poole explained the potentially decisive role western Siberia’s grain could play in guaranteeing Germany’s continental conquest. Favorable weather conditions were offsetting reduced sowings in European Russia, presenting the possibility that European Russia would be self-supporting after the 1918 harvest. However, large amounts of European Russian grain were required to feed Germany’s population, making this crop insufficient to the combined need of both Germany and Russia. Therefore, the “key to the situation which is in turn the key to German success or failure in Russia, is the stored grain of [the] western section [of] Siberia.”¹² Without western Siberia’s grain, German requisitioning policies would create food shortages in European Russia and threaten to ignite social unrest against Germany. Civil disorder would then disrupt production needed by Germany to sustain its war effort.

Poole urged an immediate intervention in support of the Czech Army Corps (which had by this time taken control over most of the Trans-Siberian Railroad since their uprising against Bolshevik forces in late May) to reestablish a front running from the Murmansk peninsula south along the Kama and Volga Rivers to the Kuban.¹³ Therefore, although the Wilson administration would remain adamant in its rejection of Anglo-French appeals for a Japanese military expedition to interdict supplies around the Urals, Washington was aware of German designs on the region.

But Germany’s efforts to extend its influence in the Russian economy were only the first stages of a process through which it hoped to attract the Russian Empire into its continental system. In building its influence in the Russian economy, Germany hoped to attract support from the Russian bourgeoisie, who sought an end to Bolshevik rule. As resentment toward bolshevism intensified, Germany awaited the moment when nationalist and bourgeois elements would favor a German intervention against Lenin’s regime. Subsequently, in its role as ultimate guarantor of social stability and of bourgeois rule in Russia, Germany would assume a position of great influence within the empire.

Indeed, by late June 1918, the German minister plenipotentiary Wilhelm Von Mirbach discussed this scenario in a report to German State Secretary Richard von Kuhlmann. Mirbach was confident the Bolsheviks would soon fall and that “we should seek to ensure that we are in a position to fill the vacuum which will result from its disappearance with a regime which would be favorable to OUR designs and interests.” But Mirbach did not recommend that Germany support purely monarchist elements, who he considered “too confused and lazy,” and who were “fundamentally only interested in winning back their former secure and comfortable living conditions with our help.” Instead, in a statement that revealed the sophistication and breadth of Germany’s continental ambitions, Mirbach explained that

The nucleus of which we are thinking should be composed of moderates from the right wing, Octobrists and Kadets (these reaching as far to the left as possible), especially as such a combination would ensure that we had a large percentage of the influential men of the industrial and banking worlds serving our essential economic interests.

This bloc, which is already quite powerful as it stands, could be further strengthened and hardened if we could draw the Siberians into it—though this would indeed be our hardest problem. Then, even further vistas, based on the mineral resources of Siberia, would appear, and, in this connexion, I will just touch on a few wider, almost unlimited possibilities of development which point us to the far and farthest East.¹⁴

The Wilson administration was closely monitoring Mirbach’s activities in Russia. In early June, William Bullitt passed on to Wilson a memorandum from the French Embassy that exhibited the approach Mirbach was taking with certain conservative bourgeois groups in Moscow. The French consul general at Moscow reported, from a source he considered to be reliable, that Mirbach had been attempting to cultivate support from conservative Kadet party elements by asserting that “although Germany had made it a principle not to meddle with Russian domestic affairs, all her sympathies went to the parties of order and industry. If those parties should succeed in setting up a government, he was authorized by Emperor William to announce that if appealed to he could have German troops at Moscow in forty-eight hours.¹⁵

Mirbach also endeavored to appease the nationalist sentiments of these conservative bourgeois groups by alleging that “Germany would be disposed to revise the Brest Litovsk treaty as she never intended to make that instrument the true foundation of her future economic relations with Russia which she desires, in accordance with her interests and sympathies, to see restored to a normal and prosperous life.”¹⁶

Similar reports reached the State Department from American military intelligence officers stationed in Scandinavia. At Christiania, Norway, U.S. military intelligence learned from a Kadet source that in early May Mirbach had proposed to the Kadet Central Committee in Moscow that Germany would finance its efforts to overthrow the Bolsheviks. On this occasion he even promised that Germany would assist the reunification of the Ukraine with Russia and that it would effect a fair settlement of the disputes between Finland and Russia. The Kadet Central Committee rejected these German offers to reconcile relations between their nations.¹⁷

Throughout the critical period between May and August 1918, the Kadet party Central Committee staunchly resisted German overtures as it continued to declare its allegiance to the Allied cause. However, some prominent Kadets did waver in their loyalty to the Allies. None other than Pavel Miliukov, perhaps the most prominent Kadet leader, seriously explored the possibility of accepting German help to overthrow the Bolsheviks. Miliukov suddenly shifted his position with regard to Germany after he witnessed the occupation of Rostov by German troops in mid-May 1918. He had remained in the city when the White forces of Kaledin and Kornilov were driven south by Bolshevik forces in March. Miliukov was so impressed with the Germans’ ability to maintain order in the areas under their control that he actually entered into negotiations at Kiev between early June and mid-July with German ambassador Baron Philip Mumm and with officers from the general staff, over the possibility that Germany could assist Kadet efforts to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in Russia proper. These negotiations were cut short by the assassination of Mirbach in early July and by the Allies’ decision to support the Czecho-Slovak Corps, events that reinforced German resolve to hold the Ukraine and to continue its relationship with the Bolsheviks, who constituted a buffer against the Allied-backed Czecho-Slovaks.¹⁸

By the beginning of the summer of 1918, the threat of German economic penetration in Siberia gave urgency to the administration’s debates over American policy in the region. In particular, memoranda by J. Butler Wright and the War Trade Board demonstrate that the immediate objective of any assistance program would be to counter German efforts to draw Siberia into its economic orbit. Wright’s memo carefully outlined the situation and recommended a detailed program for assisting Siberia and Russia that was very similar to what Wilson was contemplating.

The views of the highly respected Wright, who now joined Basil Miles in the State Department’s Russian section, undoubtedly received careful attention within the administration in light of his firsthand knowledge of the current conditions in Siberia. From his personal observation of conditions along the Trans-Siberian Railroad during March and April and his extensive contact with reliable official and private sources, Wright believed Siberia was not as “saturated” with German military and economic influence as European Russia. He believed Bolshevik authority was “waning” and the “Red Guards” were “feared and detested throughout the country.” Nevertheless, a predominantiy military intervention, especially one with “preponderant Japanese participation,” would arouse resentment and opposition among the Siberian population and lend credibility to German propaganda. Conversely, a program principally designed to rehabilitate the Trans-Siberian Railroad and to furnish agricultural and economic assistance would be welcomed by the “better peasant classes,” the railway workers, the “great Russian Co-operative Societies,” and the “better elements.”¹⁹

Wright also pointed out why some form of intervention would necessarily have to accompany a program of economic assistance. He emphasized “that the maintenance, operation and control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad be made the initial and preeminently important step in a program of immediate assistance to Siberia and neutralization of German economic and political endeavor in that region.” The Russian Railway Service Corps, which was still awaiting duty at Harbin, should now be utilized to reorganize the whole railroad system and to prepare the way for commercial and humanitarian assistance.²⁰ However, during their meeting at Harbin in April, John Stevens had insisted to Wright that he “absolutely refused to allow his men to extend their work along the Trans-Siberian without adequate protection.”²¹ Therefore, Wright estimated that an “Allied Military Police Force” of twenty-five thousand men divided equally into five-thousand-man contingents from the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and China should be organized for the sole purpose of protecting the Railway Service Corps and its auxiliary units.²²

In Wright’s view educational work and reconstructive assistance should follow the extension of the Railway Service Corps’ activities. Experts from the Department of Agriculture would disseminate technical knowledge adapted to Siberia’s particular conditions. Furthermore, “information and advice regarding our solution of the problem of the disposition of the National Domain—which is the basic consideration in the all important Agrarian Question should also be provided.” As in the case of Reinsch, the pervasive frontier “mentalite” figured prominently in Wright’s recommendations for Siberia. Educational work and humanitarian efforts by the YMCA and Red Cross would undertake the formidable task of rebuilding Siberia’s social infrastructure, including its inadequate educational system, medical, and sanitary facilities.

Wright believed the United States and Russia should develop mutually profitable trade relations either through an American purchase of Russian supplies or through barter. In particular he noted that commercial operations should further the “distribution of agricultural implements, which are sorely needed throughout Russia and small quantities of which the Germans already are endeavoring to tempt the peasants to relinquish their stores of grain.” An “Allied Commission or Council” composed of representatives from the five Allied powers would administer these activities, supplemented by a military staff from the Allied Police Force. This commission would operate either by majority vote or delegate its authority to a “Commissioner-in-Chief.” Wright thought the Czecho-Slovak troops spread across Siberia could play an integral role in the Allied policing operations.²³

At the end of May, War Trade Board chairman Vance C. McCormick established a committee within the agency to examine methods for encouraging the exchange of goods between Russia and America and for maintaining the economic blockade against Germany in Russia.²⁴ The committee, composed of Thomas L. Chadbourne, Clarence M. Woolley, and John Foster Dulles, based their report of June 5 on discussions with individuals who had recently returned from Russia, including J. Butler Wright.

These sources all agreed certain general conditions had to be taken into account in planning a program of economic assistance. First, the complete breakdown of transportation had made it impossible to distribute food and materials in many areas. Second, the collapse of the ruble meant the population, and particularly the peasantry, was no longer willing to exchange commodities for currency. Therefore, since the population lacked basic manufactured goods such as boots, shoes, socks, cotton goods, nails, corrugated iron, railway materials, agricultural machinery, and seed grain, these types of products could be offered to the Russians in exchange for their primary commodities. Yet, in contrast with the State Department’s recommendations, this committee urged that America should only exchange goods on a nonremunerative basis to gain the Russian peoples’ trust and to disassociate its motives from Britain, France, and Japan. Since President Wilson had always expressed America’s goodwill toward Russia, the committee believed any offer of economic assistance would be received with favor by the Soviet government. Although the Wilson administration clearly was not inclined to render assistance to the embattled Soviet regime, the committee’s essential point concerning the Russians’ mistrust of Allied motives would not be lost on the administration.

Prompt steps were also necessary to counter Germany’s strategy of supporting conservative client governments, such as the Ukraine and Finland, as alternatives to Bolshevik rule. Germany was presently courting the conservative bourgeois elements in Soviet-controlled Great Russia with the hope these groups would eventually prefer German hegemony to Bolshevik rule. Therefore, while the War Trade Board was immediately concerned with the humanitarian and strategic angles of the Russian question, it was because these factors were at the forefront in the struggle “to prevent the enemy from securing permanent hold upon Russian economic resources and commercial opportunities,” and “to prevent Russian acceptance of German political leadership.”²⁵

To accomplish these objectives the War Trade Board committee recommended sending an industrial mission to Russia under the direction of a Russian commissioner who would be responsible for coordinating its activities from Washington. The mission’s work was to be performed by specialized departments dealing with commercial transactions, financial matters, and transportation. After arriving at Vladivostok, the mission would begin to advance westward with a local chairman selected from among the body of experts. As the mission advanced along the Trans-Siberian Railroad it would establish contact with the cooperative societies and thereby help facilitate the exchange of necessities in Siberia. On June 14, in a note to Second Assistant Secretary William Phillips, Miles indicated he essentially concurred with this plan when he commented, “The plan outlined is to my mind a good one and could be adopted to anything now under consideration.”²⁶ While the War Trade Board’s proposal bore a strong resemblance to Wright’s recommendation of June 3, it was distinguished markedly by its provision that America act independently of the Allies in Siberia. The administration’s mistrust of the Allies and its subsequent decision to pursue an independent program of commercial assistance would encounter the obstructions posed by the Allies’ unilateral initiatives.

Throughout this period when American policy toward intervention and economic assistance was being debated, Basil Miles, head of the State Department’s Russian section, advocated an even more ambitious range of economic measures and a substantial amount of governmental support in order to block German influence in Russia. He went so far as to suggest that the government should support efforts to purchase the stocks of Russian companies in order to forestall Germany’s attempts to monopolize these assets. Moreover, the administration should finance barter exchanges with Russia, while endeavors to safeguard Russian supplies from German control “should be supported as far as called for.”²⁷

While Miles, Wright, and the War Trade Board experts may have overestimated the threat of German activity in Siberia, their concern, and the breadth of their recommendations, was necessarily influenced by the military crisis that had arisen on the western front from the early successes of Germany’s massive spring offensive, which made even the potential access to Russian raw materials vital strategically. Taking this analysis of the State Department’s political economy a step further, they correctly perceived that German commercial policy was not merely a wartime exigency, but part of a persistent effort to acquire financial dominion over Russian resources.

By early June, the State Department was exploring the possibility of encouraging the Russian population to resist German influence. On June 5, at Lansing’s request, Consul General Poole was instructed to determine the views of the Union of Siberian Cooperative Unions and the Central Union in regard to the organization of resistance against Germany in Russia.²⁸ One week later Poole cabled a lengthy statement from Alexander Berkenheim of the board of the All-Russian Union of Cooperative Societies, which included the Union of Siberian Cooperative Unions and had relations with the prominent Siberian Creamery Associations.

American sources regarded Berkenheim as a thoroughly reliable representative of the Siberian cooperative associations because he had proven himself as an able manager of their purely business activities. In his statement Berkenheim asserted that the cooperative societies were prepared to help save the people of European Russia from starvation during this period of economic crisis, but foreign assistance would nevertheless be needed. While the European Russian population generally opposed Germany, they were now willing to accept military intervention by “either the Allies or even the Central Powers” out of their desire for an end to Bolshevik rule and the restoration of stability. Berkenheim stressed that the cooperatives’ political sympathies were with the Allies, and “in Siberia where the Cooperative Societies represent the people here in the fullest measure there is a special feeling of friendliness fixed and unshaken toward America.” A military intervention by the Allies was the only means of resisting Germany, but the Western allies had to participate in any expedition because Japan was not trusted among the Siberian population. Consequently, if America guaranteed Russia’s sovereignty, the Siberian population and the cooperative societies would welcome an Allied intervention.²⁹ Prior to this, during a secret conference in April the Siberian Creamery Associations had already decided to call for an intervention by the Western allies.³⁰

Lansing brought Berkenheim’s statement to Wilson’s attention on June 19. Without delay Wilson enthusiastically replied, “this dispatch has interested me very much. These associations may be of very great service as instruments for what we are now planning to do in Siberia.” Wilson added that Thomas Masaryk, president of the Czech National Council, also approved of the plan.³¹

This communication held particular importance for American policy as the odyssey of the Czecho-Slovak Corps rapidly unfolded. Events in Siberia would now revolve around the Czecho-Slovaks’ effective occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, which offered Wilson an opportunity to solve his dilemma over the issue of military intervention. During March 1918 approximately forty thousand Czecho-Slovak troops, formerly Austrian prisoners of war, began a journey to Vladivostok for trans-shipment to the western front. The Wilson administration held these troops and their political leadership in the highest regard, believing they represented the democratic aspirations of the eastern European peoples, were loyal to the Allied cause, and enjoyed friendly relations with the Russian population. The determination of the Czechs’ political leadership to contribute their troops to the western front was part of their campaign to further justify Czechoslovakia’s claim to national independence. These factors made the Czechs a particularly attractive agent for promoting Wilsonian objectives in central Europe.

The Bolshevik authorities and the Czechs had signed an agreement on March 26 that allowed the Czechs passage on the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Vladivostok. This agreement required the Czechs to surrender their arms at Penza and travel as civilians, not military detachments. Mutual distrust between the Bolsheviks and Czechs was evident from the beginning and resulted in numerous delays. At the end of May, while the first contingent of fifteen thousand Czechs had already arrived at Vladivostok, fighting broke out between Bolshevik forces and the remaining Czechs in central and western Siberia. In late June the Czechs at Vladivostok took control of the city and appealed to the Allies for a military force to assist the rescue of their comrades stranded deep in the Siberian interior.³²

The Czech uprising finally gave Wilson the moral grounds upon which he could agree to U.S. participation in a military expedition with the Allies while strictly limiting its objectives to a supporting role. More importantly from the American standpoint, however, was the Czechs’ occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railroad itself. With the support of the Czech forces the United States could begin to restore railroad operations across Siberia and finally commence a program of commercial assistance. This fortuitous development gave the Wilson administration hope that it was now in a position to reconcile the problematic relationship between military intervention and economic assistance.

Differences of opinion had existed between the Allies from the beginning over the disposition of the Czech troops. As early as April 1, the British War Office suggested maintaining the Czechs in Siberia as a nucleus around which the eastern front could be reopened. Both the French and Czechs strongly opposed this idea at the time, insisting these forces must be transported to the western front. At the Supreme Allied War Council meeting in early June, Britain only reluctantly agreed to the transportation of the Czechs to western Europe and to request Japan to supply the tonnage. Britain was particularly dissatisfied with the diversion of Japanese shipping for this task, since it would prevent Japan from mounting an expedition into Siberia. In fact, much evidence indicates Allied officials encouraged the Czech revolt in the Bolsheviks’ rear to threaten Germany with the possibility of restoring the eastern front.³³ Since May, many State Department officials such as William Phillips, Basil Miles, and Joseph E. Grew, acting chief of the west European division, also believed the Czechs should be kept in Siberia.³⁴

Therefore, a good deal of sentiment already existed within the State Department that viewed the Czechs as essential to a reconstruction program, when a telegram from Minister Reinsch in Peking arrived at Washington on June 13. Reinsch stressed the opinion of the Allied representatives in Peking, with which he fully concurred “that it would be a serious mistake to remove the Czecho-Slovak troops from Siberia.” The Czechs needed only a small amount of assistance from the Allies in order to “control all of Siberia against the Germans,” since “they are sympathetic to the Russian population, eager to be accessories to the Allied cause, the most serious menace to [the] extension of German influence in Russia. Their removal would greatly benefit Germany and further discourage Russia. If they were not in Siberia it would be worthwhile to bring them there from a distance.”³⁵

Wilson reacted favorably to this recommendation on June 17 when he commented to Lansing, “There seems to me to emerge from this suggestion the shadow of a plan that might be worked, with Japanese and other assistance. These people are the cousins of the Russians.”³⁶ Since Reinsch had specifically been emphasizing the danger of German economic penetration in Siberia, Wilson’s response suggests he eagerly endorsed the view that the Czecho-Slovaks’ presence there would assuage Russian sensibilities over an unavoidable Japanese presence in Siberia. In other words, Wilson appears to have been deeply impressed with the prospect that a Czecho-Slovak occupation of the Trans-Siberian Railroad would demonstrate to the Siberian population the Allies’ commitment to restore regional stability under the auspices of a military force sympathetic to the Russian population.

The State Department was also elated with information from Adm. Austin M. Knight of the flagship Brooklyn that the Czechs at Vladivostok had “completely modified” their attitude about retiring from Siberia. On June 21, Knight reported that the Czechs were now willing to cooperate with the Allies against German activity in Siberia and to participate in the reestablishment of the eastern front. The Czech presence would also allay the Siberian population’s misgivings of an Allied military intervention by subordinating Japan’s role.³⁷ J. Butler Wright seized on this news with alacrity, urging Miles that “This is a ‘Godsend’. It’s just the news we want. Masaryk is in town! Let’s concentrate on this with all our power at once!”³⁸ For the Russian division the Czech uprising was the catalyst they had been looking for to hasten the organization of an economic program for Siberia. In a letter to Wilson on June 23, Lansing revealed the true thrust behind America’s sudden interest in maintaining the Czechs in Siberia when he suggested, “Is it not possible that in this body of capable and loyal troops may be found a nucleus for military occupation of the Siberian Railway?”³⁹

At the beginning of July 1918, the Wilson administration was prepared to undertake a limited military intervention in Siberia to support a program of commercial assistance, but events rapidly overtook Wilson’s deliberate approach to the problem. On July 2, the Supreme War Council forced Wilson’s hand with an urgent appeal for his immediate consent to a military intervention in Siberia. While Wilson would not accept the Allies’ recommendations, their message raised dangers that were consistent with the warnings he had been receiving from Reinsch and from the American ambassadors in Europe. In this message the Allies presented the issue of intervention in terms that placed Wilson’s moral leadership on the spot. First, the Allies argued it was a moral obligation to assist the large Czech forces who were in danger of being cut off in central and western Siberia. An expedition in support of the Czechs would also enable the Allies to establish stability in Siberia. Second, Allied intervention was necessary to prevent Germany from gaining control over western Siberia’s resources. Finally, the reestablishment of an eastern front was crucial for the whole war effort since Germany would then be prevented from transferring divisions to the western front. To further assuage Wilson’s reservations, Japan was willing to guarantee Russian sovereignty and promised not to interfere in Russia’s domestic politics.⁴⁰

The State Department used the Allied message as a means of prodding Wilson to take the initiative on the question of intervention in Siberia. On July 4, Lansing initialed a memorandum to the president that stressed that the remarkable success of the Czecho-Slovak forces across Siberia had introduced “a sentimental element” into American calculations. He asserted that America had a responsibility for protecting the Czecho-Slovaks because they were supposedly in danger from German and Austrian prisoners who the Bolsheviks were arming to attack them. Lansing suggested that the fifteen thousand Czech troops at Vladivostok be furnished with enough arms to relieve the twenty-five thousand west of Irkutsk. Some Allied troops should be sent to help police the railroad and provide logistical support for the Czechs. Lansing emphasized that this expedition would not attempt to restore order or interfere in the civil war. Nevertheless, he believed the Japanese would have to provide most of the troops although he thought it “wise” and “probably necessary” that American and Allied troops also participate. He also believed the policy should be publicly announced immediately and it should include a declaration promising noninterference in Russia’s internal affairs and the withdrawal of all military forces once the danger of German and Austrian aggression was over.

Finally, he recommended that a peaceful commission headed by a political high commissioner should immediately proceed to Vladivostok. Its members should include representatives from industry, commerce, finance, and agriculture together with spokesmen on moral issues. Their purpose would be to assist the “Russian people by restoring normal conditions of trade, industry and social order.” This commission would closely follow the Czechs westward “with due regard to safety,” and “the final destination [of the Commission] should depend in large measure upon their reception by the Russians and the resistance made to the military forces.”⁴¹

Two days later on July 6, Wilson decided to embark upon a policy of intervention in Siberia during a conference at the White House that was attended by Lansing, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, Gen. Peyton C. March, and Adm. William Benson. Wilson remained adamant that the United States should reject the Allied appeals to reestablish an eastern front, because the task was “physically impossible.” Under the present circumstances Wilson insisted that no advance beyond Irkutsk should be considered. America’s consent to military action would be based strictly on its obligation to help the Vladivostok Czechs reestablish contact with their compatriots in western Siberia. Although the United States could not furnish any considerable forces on short notice to assist the Czechs, Wilson decided that a joint military force of seven thousand American and seven thousand Japanese troops should be used to guard the Czech communication lines. Japan should supply the Vladivostok Czechs with the necessary arms and the U.S. government would share the expense. Wilson stated that further steps should await developments. Lansing informed Japan’s ambassador, Viscount Kikujirō Ishii, of America’s proposal on July 8, yet Wilson did not wish to consult Britain and France until after Japan had agreed to a joint and equal military expedition.⁴²

While Wilson had decided to proceed first with an intervention on behalf of the Czecho-Slovaks, he was essentially struggling to reconcile the necessity of some form of intervention with a program of economic assistance for Siberia. He revealed to House on July 8 that he was preoccupied with this dilemma when he confided: “I have not written recently because I have been sweating blood over the question what is right and feasible (possible) to do in Russia. It goes to pieces like quicksilver under my touch, but I hope I see and can report some progress presently, along the double line of economic assistance and aid to the Czecho-Slovaks.”⁴³

Indeed, Wilson’s thought on this question had evolved rapidly in early July, as his conversations with British ambassador the Marquis of Reading clearly demonstrate. On July 3, Wilson told Reading that he was still primarily interested in sending an economic commission to Siberia. Reading reported to the foreign office Wilson’s belief that:

although we could not consider an Eastern Front at the moment we should consider intermediate courses and he informed me that he [Wilson] had been still considering and examining the plans for an Economic Commission on a great scale and that he recognized that it would be necessary to protect this Commission. His idea was that the Commission should be of first importance, that the policy of economic assistance to Russia should be kept to the front and that the military force should play a secondary part.⁴⁴

In his summary of this interview with Wilson, Reading emphasized “that it shows that the President’s mind is crystallizing (if he has not already decided) in the direction of the Economic Commission and the armed protective force.” Wilson particularly recognized “the necessity for armed protection of the Commission so that as it advances it may be protected from attack in the rear or from being cut off, and that it is incumbent upon U.S. and Allies to assist and protect the Czecho-Slovaks and that immediate action must be taken.”⁴⁵

Three days after this interview, Wilson shifted his stance when he gave priority to support for the Czecho-Slovaks. On July 9, Lansing explained to the Allied ambassadors that because of the urgent need to assist the Czechs the United States would “not wait for the formation of the Economic Commission but will in the first instance send troops and will send the Commission later thus reversing the order of the original proposal.”⁴⁶ However, Wilson had not altered his views on the question of intervention or in the importance he attributed to an economic assistance program. Rather, he had come to the conclusion that he must immediately extend support to the Czecho-Slovaks, because they must necessarily initiate any Allied-sponsored reconstruction efforts.

The sequence of events that took place between mid-June and early July 1918 indicate that Wilson’s decision to support an intervention on behalf of the Czecho-Slovak forces was part of an astute maneuver on his part that aimed to achieve a number of related American objectives in Siberia. First, this course of action was certainly an attempt to forestall Allied appeals for a large-scale military intervention. More important, since the cable from Ambassador Reinsch on June 13, Wilson had been considering the possibility of retaining the Czecho-Slovaks on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, both as an anti-German force and as a vanguard for the distribution of economic assistance through the cooperative societies. In the weeks prior to his July 6 decision, the consensus of opinion Wilson received from Allied and American diplomatic sources indicated the Bolsheviks were on the verge of collapse.⁴⁷ By July, the accumulated weight of these reports must have presented a compelling case to Wilson that speedy Allied military action might be required to prevent Germany from filling the political vacuum in European Russia, and possibly western Siberia, that would result from a Bolshevik collapse. At this point, the Supreme War Council’s urgent appeal of July 2 finally forced Wilson’s hand on the question of intervention by impressing him with the desirability of helping the Czecho-Slovaks to consolidate their forces, an operation that would necessarily solidify Allied control over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Yet, the decision to intervene created a new dilemma, because the sudden introduction of Japanese forces would have been the wrong signal to send to liberal segments of the Russian population, for it would have increased the risk of legitimizing a German protectorate as a curb against Japanese incursions. This danger may explain why Lansing’s July 4 memo advised that an Allied intervention be represented strictly as a humanitarian mission on behalf of the Czecho-Slovaks. As William Bullitt had warned in early March, if the Allies intervened in Russia for the explicit purpose of restoring order, what could morally prevent Germany or Japan from doing likewise? But if the Western powers intervened for the purpose of saving the stranded Czecho-Slovak forces, this would deter Germany or Japan from launching a large-scale intervention under the pretext of a “police action.” Lansing hinted at this political motive when he suggested that “furnishing protection and assistance to the Czecho-Slovaks, who are so loyal to our cause, is a very different thing from sending an army into Siberia to restore order or to save the Russians from themselves. There is a moral obligation to save these men from our common enemies, if we are able to do so.”⁴⁸

Wilson’s decision to undertake a limited intervention also demonstrates that he was able to discriminate between the Allies’ alarmist appeals regarding the necessity for a large-scale intervention to restore a second front and the longer-term threat of German economic hegemony in Russia. Nor did Wilson overestimate the extent of Germany’s current hold over Russia, for he recognized that it would take Germany a year and a half to tap significant quantities of Russian resources.⁴⁹

In favoring a westward advance by the Czecho-Slovaks, Wilson believed he would be furnishing support to a force that enjoyed particularly friendly relations with the Russian population. From his standpoint, their presence in Siberia appeared to offer a particularly favorable opportunity for an Allied effort to reestablish a degree of social stability along the Trans-Siberian railway, an initiative that would undercut German commercial influence or the potential appeal of Germany as a bulwark against bolshevism or Japan.

To illustrate this point, an immediate task of an Allied force would be to ensure control over the German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners who were concentrated at different locations in Siberia, such as Omsk. In early 1920, shortly after the Bolshevik defeat of Admiral Kolchak, the American Red Cross commissioner to Siberia, Robert B. Teusler, thought the presence of these prisoners in Siberia was a “serious menace” because “so many of them are officers with university training and highly qualified professional men.” Besides these actual military prisoners, Teusler had discovered from his experiences that “there are also a large number of so-called civilian German prisoners in Siberia who are not imprisoned. These men have lived in Siberia for many years, were interned at the beginning of the war, and now remain to form very definite contacts with the Russian people themselves.”⁵⁰ For these reasons it is conceivable that these German prisoners in Siberia, both military and civilian, could have helped facilitate the extension of German economic influence in Siberia after Brest-Litovsk, had there been no Allied counter-measures.

In their role as an Allied gendarmerie for Siberia, the Czecho-Slovaks would help establish the preconditions for any assistance program that was subsequently undertaken. Initially, they would provide security for the Railway Service Corps along the whole of the Trans-Siberian railway system, a guarantee that John Stevens had insisted upon in his conversation with J. B. Wright. This protection would be essential for the reconstruction of Siberia, since commercial assistance could only be effectively furnished to the region after the American engineers restored operations across this transportation artery. The Czecho-Slovak forces would also directly assist the work of the American railroad engineers because they had several locomotive shop work battalions in their contingent. These units were assigned to work in various shops and roundhouses on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.⁵¹

Wilson understood that his consent to a military expedition was a calculated gamble. He admitted as much to General March at the July 6 conference when March dissented from the policy on grounds that Japan could not be trusted to comply with the terms of the United States.⁵² By mid-July Japan had still not replied to the proposal of the United States for a limited military intervention on behalf of the Czecho-Slovaks, while Britain had unilaterally begun to prepare its own expeditionary force. But Japan would not cooperate with Wilson’s proposal because it was fully aware of America’s strategy. During a meeting of Japan’s Advisory Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Minister Shimpei Gotō bluntly asserted that “America looks on the Czech forces as its own army.”⁵³

Wilson accordingly resorted to moral suasion with the Allies when he delineated America’s purposes in Siberia through an aide-mémoire that was given to the Great Powers on July 17. In this statement Wilson categorically refused to participate in any military intervention through Siberia that had as its aim the restoration of an eastern front, because it would only worsen “the present sad confusion in Russia rather than cure it, injure her rather than help her.” He declared that military intervention would “be merely a method of making use of Russia, not a method of serving her” and the Russian population would “be used to maintain foreign armies, not to reconstitute their own.” The United States would consent only to a military action “to help the Czecho-Slovaks consolidate their forces and get into successful cooperation with their Slavic kinsmen and steady any efforts at self-government or self-defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance.” Wilson called on the Allies to publicly assure the Russian people they would not interfere with Russia’s political sovereignty or infringe on Russia’s territorial integrity at the present time or in the future. In conclusion, Wilson indicated that the United States intended to provide economic assistance for the Siberian population. He modestly explained that the U.S. government would:

take advantage of the earliest opportunity to send to Siberia a commission of merchants, agricultural experts, labor advisers, Red Cross representatives, and agents of the Young Men’s Christian Association accustomed to organizing the best methods of spreading useful information and rendering educational help of a modest sort, in order in some systematic manner to relieve the immediate economic necessities of the people there in every way for which opportunity may open. The execution of this plan will follow and will not be permitted to embarrass the military assistance rendered in the rear of the westward-moving forces of the Czecho-Slovaks.⁵⁴

Wilson’s memorandum was consistent with the strategy he had been considering since mid-June of using the Czecho-Slovaks to block the spread of German economic influence in Siberia. Moreover, Wilson’s view that the Czechs could encourage efforts at “self-government or self-defense” among their “Slavic kinsmen” is crucial to understanding his conception of the reconstruction process. The reinvigoration of these basic civic capacities in the Siberian population would engender the confidence necessary to revive normal commercial activity and to reestablish governmental functions. In other words, implicit in Wilson’s emphasis on “self-government or self-defense” was the fundamental liberal precept that security for person and property was an essential basis for economic development.

American enthusiasm for the Czecho-Slovak Corps stood in sharp contrast to the reserved attitude the Wilson administration took toward the rival anticommunist political factions who were vying for Allied support in the late summer 1918. Instead of supporting any of the fragile Siberian governments—a move that would only embroil the United States in the Russian civil war—Wilson placed American support behind the Czecho-Slovaks’ occupation of the Trans-Siberian railway in an effort to help restore civil order. Wilson justified this limited intervention on the recognition that none of the Siberian governments were viable or sufficiently representative of the popular will. Near the end of July, Roland Morris, the American Ambassador to Japan and a longtime progressive Democrat, conveyed this position to representatives of the various anti-Bolshevik political movements who were attempting to form a unified government. For instance, Morris told P. V. Vologodskii of the provisional Siberian government that while the United States would not recognize his government, this did not mean that America “would treat such governments in an unfriendly way or withhold its sympathy and assistance.” In other words, the United States might be willing to enter into practical relationships with existing governments under certain circumstances. This statement foreshadowed the pragmatic approach Wilson would subsequently take toward the Kolchak government in 1919. Morris then made Wilson’s essential conditions for recognition more explicit in a meeting with representatives of Dmitri Khorvat’s ultraconservative Far Eastern Committee for the Defense of the Homeland. In a pointed comment that expressed Wilson’s disapproval of any reactionary political settlement, Morris told them that the United States would delay recognition of any government because “the convictions of the American people inclined them toward Government that arose from the bottom up, rather than in favor of the authority imposed from above.”⁵⁵ Events would soon justify American caution. The disparate Siberian political groups were completely out of touch with the region’s population and incapable of transcending their factional rivalries—even for the purpose of forming a united front against the Bolsheviks. Unity would only be achieved by force in November 1918, at the hand of Adm. Aleksandr Kolchak’s military dictatorship—a regime that rapidly imploded because of its callous disregard for the public’s welfare.

Perhaps further light can be shed on Wilson’s intervention policy by examining the memoranda of Julius Lay, the State Department’s trade adviser. Following Wilson’s aide-mémoire of July 17, Lay produced memoranda that were consistent with the policy enunciated in the president’s declaration and that were apparently drafted to offer recommendations on how the policy should be carried out. In the three memos that spanned the period from July 19 to 23, Lay advanced his views on how the specific military and economic aspects of the intervention should be implemented to achieve American objectives.

On July 22, Lay argued that the principal objective behind an intervention in Siberia was to defeat Germany. To achieve this goal, not only would it be necessary to divert German troops from the western front for strategic ends in the present war, but it would also be necessary to prevent Germany from dominating Russia after the war. Otherwise, regardless of the outcome of the war in the West, Germany would be left in control of enormous resources, which would radically alter the global relations of power.

In accordance with the president’s basic position, Lay did not advocate a large military intervention that would attempt to reopen an eastern front. Like Wilson, Lay believed hostilities against Germany could only be resumed in the east if the expeditionary forces boosted the population’s morale and became a nucleus around which Russian forces could rally and begin to organize an efficient army. Also consistent with the president’s decision to undertake a limited intervention, Lay recommended that a moderate-sized expedition should be sent to Siberia, in which American troops played a prominent role. These expeditionary forces should be composed largely of logistical troops who would support the Czecho-Slovaks, who, of course, would constitute the predominant military force.⁵⁶

Lay’s memoranda are particularly interesting for the emphasis he placed on using a limited military intervention by Allied forces as a means to counteract German economic influence in Siberia. Indeed, he was certain this step should actually precede economic measures. Lay shared the prevailing State Department view that the immediate objective of America’s Siberian policy should be to deny Germany the use of Russian resources for its war effort. He hoped the intervention would deprive Germany of the resources of western Siberia and of Russia east of the Volga, which would largely reestablish an effective blockade against Germany. However, while acknowledging the essentially economic nature of the German threat in Siberia, he nevertheless emphasized that it would be a mistake for the United States to initially undertake a strictly economic program to counter German influence, because “all classes and all parties have implored our aid against the Germans and interpret our promise to stand by them as a promise of military assistance.”⁵⁷ He warned that ever since the Brest-Litovsk Treaty the “gravest danger that had threatened the Allies in Russia” was the possibility that the bourgeois elements, “despairing of Allied aid,” would accept German intervention against bolshevism. Neither was Lay given to exaggerate the extent of German influence over Russian liberals and conservatives for, with the exception of a few monarchists, he believed they were “consistently pro-Ally.” Nevertheless, he had to take into account that “it is reliably reported that they have already through their leaders entertained German proposals.” On the basis of these assessments, Lay concluded his July 19 memorandum with a scenario that echoed the sentiments Wilson had just expressed in his aide-mémoire, when he stated that “Should a small Allied army entering Siberia meet with a sympathetic reception and Russian soldiers join the colors under their leadership to fight Germany, the pro-Ally elements in Russia might be encouraged to hold out against German overtures.”⁵⁸

In a memorandum from July 23, Lay also provides a possible explanation why Wilson, in his aide-mémoire, had subtly shifted his ground from advocating an economic commission that would operate on a “great scale” to a modest endeavor that would assist the people’s efforts to help themselves. Lay cautioned that

there is danger lest a purely economic mission should be regarded simply as a scheme by America to achieve economic penetration and commercial advantages. Such a view will be industriously circulated by German agents and much will be made of the popular idea that America thinks only of financial gain. It may be added that numerous articles are appearing in the Japanese press setting forth the same point of view.⁵⁹

Paul Reinsch related that this issue had been a very important consideration for Wilson throughout the summer of 1918 when many in the administration recommended that a prominent businessman, such as Herbert Hoover, head an economic commission for Russia. In discussing possible candidates for this position, Wilson told Reinsch that “he feared to place a representative of ‘big business’ in such a position; men would suspect selfish national motives. I felt he [Wilson] wished America to lead in giving the Russian people such aid in reorganizing their economic life as would permanently benefit them and preserve them for our common cause.”⁶⁰

If, then, Lay’s memoranda constitute a record of discussions from within the policymaking apparatus over how to proceed with the policy Wilson laid out in his July 17 aide-mémoire, then it also indicated the extent to which the president’s intervention policy was influenced by the potential threat of expanded German influence over the Russian political economy.

In retrospect, it may seem implausible that the threat of expanded German economic penetration in Siberia played such a prominent role in influencing the policymaking decisions of the Wilson administration from the spring to the end of the summer of 1918. Nevertheless, it cannot be disputed that the specter of German economic penetration into Siberia, whether actual, prospective, or merely hypothetical, attracted a great deal of attention at the State Department and the White House.

American officials may then seem vulnerable to the charge that they were fighting a phantom in believing Germany could derive any significant material benefits from Russia proper, or Siberia, at this stage of the war. Yet, in view of the highly unstable and rapidly changing conditions that existed throughout the vast Russian Empire, and considering the ongoing difficulties the administration encountered in obtaining accurate information, American policymakers had to take this danger seriously. At that time, with the outcome of the war on the western front still hanging in the balance and with Allied policy toward Russia paralyzed by deep divisions among the coalition powers, it would not be hard to envision a scenario in which important segments of the Russian population could reconcile themselves to a strong German political and economic position in the empire; this as an acceptable alternative to continued Bolshevik rule, or to Japanese encroachments upon the Russian Far East.

The case of Pavel Miliukov demonstrated how even a staunch Russian nationalist could entertain the possibility of a German protectorate. In this context, the decision to support the Czecho-Slovaks constituted a timely strategic initiative that demonstrated Allied resolve to counter German influence. Indeed, the Czecho-Slovaks quickly fulfilled this purpose, as a party of American officials reported upon their arrival at Harbin, Manchuria, in early September 1918 (they had been traveling with George Emerson of the American Railway Service Corps from locations in western and central Siberia). At that time Consul Douglas Jenkins learned from one of his colleagues that during June the Czecho-Slovaks’ occupation of the Tobolsk grain-producing area west of Omsk had blocked the activity of German purchasing agents.⁶¹ Although subsequent events undermined Wilson’s strategy, in mid-summer 1918 the Czecho-Slovaks’ hold over the Trans-Siberian railway system appeared to offer the United States the best possible circumstances for undertaking a program of economic assistance in this hotly contested region.