| Japanese intervention in Siberia | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theRussian Civil War | |||||||||
 Japanese soldiers in Siberia | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Russian SFSR Far Eastern Republic |  Empire of Japan White movement | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| Leon TrotskyJukums VacietisSergey KamenevA. Krasnoshchyokov |  Yui MitsueOtani KikuzoGrigory Semyonov | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 600,000 (peak) | 70,000 (total) | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
7,791 casualties (1922 only)
| 3,116 death (total)
| ||||||||
TheJapanese Siberian Intervention (シベリア出兵,Shiberia Shuppei) of 1918–1922 was an invasion by the Japanese military forces on the Russian soilMaritime Provinces, as part of a pretext bylarger effort by western powers and Japan to supportWhite Russian forces against theBolshevikRed Army during theRussian Civil War. The Japanese suffered 1,399 killed and another 1,717 deaths from disease.[4] Japanese military forces occupied Russian cities (largest cityVladivostok) and towns in the province ofPrimorsky Krai between 1918 and 1922.
On August 23, 1914, theEmpire of Japan declared war onGermany, in part due to theAnglo-Japanese Alliance, and Japan became a member of theEntente powers. TheImperial Japanese Navy made a considerable contribution to the Allied war effort; however, theImperial Japanese Army was more sympathetic to Germany, and aside from the seizure ofQingdao, resisted attempts to become involved in combat. The overthrow ofTsarNicholas II and the establishment of aBolshevik government in Russia led to aseparate peace with Germany and the collapse of theEastern Front. The spread of the anti-monarchist Bolshevik revolution eastward was of great concern to the Japanese government.Vladivostok, facing theSea of Japan, was a major port with a massive stockpile of military stores and a large foreign merchant community.[5]
The Japanese were initially asked by the French in 1917 to intervene in Russia but declined.[6] However, in February 1918, a "Siberia Planning Committee" was formed by theImperial Japanese Army General Staff and theArmy Ministry with the aim of exploring the possibility that the Tsarist collapse was an opportunity to free Japan from any future threat from Russia by detachingSiberia and forming an independentbuffer state.[6] The Army proposed attacking on two fronts, from Vladivostok toKhabarovsk along theAmur River and also via theChinese Eastern Railway to cut off the RussianTrans-Siberian Railway atLake Baikal.[7] The Japanese government, then under the civilian leadership ofPrime MinisterHara Takashi, rejected the plan.[6]
In late 1917, the Japanese government was alarmed to find that the British government, despite the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, had approached the United States about a possible joint intervention at Vladivostok without consulting Japan. In December 1917, the British agreed that such a force should include Japan, but before the details could be worked out, the British orderedHMS Suffolk fromHong Kong to Vladivostok.[5] JapanesePrime MinisterTerauchi Masatake was outraged and ordered theImperial Japanese Navy to reach Vladivostok first. The task was assigned to Rear AdmiralKatō Kanji with the battleshipsIwami andAsahi. With crews working day-and-night over the new year holidays,Iwami was able to depart fromKure Naval District on January 9, 1918, and arrived at Vladivostok on January 12, only two days before HMSSuffolk.Asahi arrived on January 17, and became Katō's flagship.USS Brooklyn, which had been stationed at Vladivostok until December 1917, returned on March 1.[5]
_pic22_-_The_leaders_of_the_Japanese_Forces_in_Siberia%2c_General_Kikuyo_Otani_and_Lieut.-General_Mitsuya.jpg)
It was the original intent that thisshow of force by Allied warships would enhance the confidence of the local anti-Bolshevik forces and help restore public order; however, this proved to be overly optimistic. After an armed mob looted a Japanese-owned store, killing its owner, the Japanese government, without waiting for an investigation of the murder, permitted the landing of marines, who proceeded to occupy the entire city. The British also landed 100Royal Marines to protect their consulate, but the Americans took no action.[5] In July 1918, President Wilson asked the Japanese government to supply 7,000 troops as part of an international coalition of 25,000 troops, including anAmerican expeditionary force, planned to support the rescue of theCzechoslovak Legion and securing of wartime supplies stockpiled at Vladivostok. After heated debate in theDiet, the administration of Prime Minister Terauchi agreed to send 12,000 troops, but under the command of Japan, rather than as part of an international coalition.[citation needed]
Once the political decision had been reached, theImperial Japanese Army took over full control under Chief of StaffYui Mitsue and extensive planning for the expedition was conducted. The Japanese eventually deployed 70,000 troops under the command of GeneralKikuzo Otani – far more than any of the other Allied powers had anticipated.[8] Furthermore, although the Allies had envisioned operations only in the vicinity of Vladivostok, within months Japanese forces had penetrated as far west as Lake Baikal andBuryatia, and by 1920,zaibatsu such asMitsubishi,Mitsui and others had opened offices in Vladivostok, Khabarovsk,Nikolayevsk-on-Amur andChita, bringing with them over 50,000 civilian settlers. After the international coalition withdrew its forces, the Japanese Army stayed on. However, political opposition prevented the Army from annexing the resource-rich region. Japan continued to supportWhite Movement leader AdmiralAleksandr Kolchak until his defeat and capture in 1920, and also supported the regime ofAtaman Semenov, who they intended to take control under the planned buffer state but whose unstable government collapsed by 1922. In March and April 1922, the Japanese Army repelled large Bolshevik offensives against Vladivostok. On June 24, 1922, Japan announced that it would unilaterally withdraw from all of Russian territory by October, with the exception of northernSakhalin island, which had been seized in retaliation for theNikolayevsk incident of 1920.[9] The last Japanese soldiers left Vladivostok on October 25, 1922.[10] On January 20, 1925, theSoviet–Japanese Basic Convention was signed inBeijing. Following this convention, Japan undertook to withdraw its troops from northern Sakhalin by May 15, 1925.[citation needed]
Japan's motives in theSiberian Intervention were complex and poorly articulated. Overtly, Japan (as with the United States and the other international coalition forces) was in Siberia to safeguard stockpiled military supplies and to rescue theCzechoslovak Legion. However, the Japanese government's antipathy tocommunism andsocialism, a determination to recoup historical losses to Russia, and the perceived opportunity to settle the "northern problem" to Japan's advantage by either creating abuffer state[6] or through outright territorial acquisition were also factors. However, patronage of variousWhite Movement leaders left Japan in a poor diplomatic position vis-à-vis the government of theSoviet Union, after theRed Army eventually emerged victorious from theRussian Civil War. The intervention tore Japan's wartime unity to shreds, leading to the army and government being involved in bitter controversy and renewed faction strife in the army itself.[6] The official conduct of the Siberian Intervention was later bitterly attacked in the Japanese Diet, with the Army being accused of grossly misrepresenting the size of the forces sent, misappropriating secret funds, and supporting figures such as lieutenant generalRoman von Ungern-Sternberg, rumors of whose atrocities had reached the press.[2]
The Siberian Intervention resulted in an estimated 5,000 Japanese casualties, out of the total 12,000 men sent by Japan from 1918-1922.[11]