Meet the forgotten U.S. soldiers who invaded Russia (in 1918)

[unhappycamper]

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson sent 5,500 American soldiers to northern Russia in the last days of World War I.


Meet the forgotten U.S. soldiers who invaded Russia
By James A. Fussell | Kansas City Star
Posted on Saturday, November 27, 2010

True or false: America once invaded Russia.

Nice try. The answer is true.

Although few people know it, in 1918 President Woodrow Wilson sent 5,500 American soldiers — including some from Missouri and Kansas — to northern Russia in the last days of World War I. Thanks to harsh conditions that cut off communications, the troops were left there for eight months after the war ended.

With dwindling supplies and no word from home, many wondered if their country had forgotten them.

~snip~

"President Woodrow Wilson was pressured by the British to send American soldiers to Russia to fight a new force called the Bolsheviks, an early name for Communists," Peak said. "Winston Churchill (then Britain's secretary of war) saw that the Bolsheviks were pulling the czar's forces — our allies — out of the war as they were taking over Russia. So Churchill got this bright idea that if we could amass forces in northern Russia, we could stop communism at its birth."



unhappycamper comment: This camper argues that this invasion/incursion was the root cause of the Cold War that started after WW II.

[Dennis Donovan]

1. I love learning things I hadn't known before... like this.

Thanks, UHC!:thumbsup:

[unhappycamper]

3. Here's a few book titles if you're interested in the backstory of our 'democracy':

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41kbAc9CgAL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg



If you're interested in the Afghanistan quagmire, I would suggest this book:

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Great book suggestions!!!!!

Got any more??????

I have Zinn, have not heard of the other 2.

[unhappycamper]

5. I bumped into Paul at the 2010 Veterans Day parade in Boston.

We walked and talked for a bit. I told him that his writing kinda reminded me of Zinn. Paul said "He was my thesis adviser." I've picked up a number of things I never knew about American aggression/policy from Paul's book.

One day I decided to go into the main Boston Library with the specific intent of picking up books on Afghanistan. "Retreat From Kabul" is about the first (failed) British invasion of Afghanistan. It gives insights into the outcomes of the British colonial process.

I *really* recommend them both.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. I found this one just now:

Carl Boggs, Professor of Social Sciences at National University in Los Angeles, has written a splendid book on the US state's world military role since 1945:

"My central thesis is that the U. S. stands today as the most fearsome outlaw nation in the world."
He shows how it is now a rogue state, using the `war on terror' as cover for endless wars for resources.




Adding to my Santa Wish list.
Better yet, might send as gifts.

[unhappycamper]

8. Thanks!

I'll pick that up and add it to the pile.

My next book?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41EQoj04-eL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

[rhett o rick]

11. Looks very interesting. I put it on hold at local library. nm

[Gaedel]

2. Supposedly

The northern Russia force was intended to see that large stocks of US/UK weapons provided to keep Russia in the war did not fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks.

There was another US force landed at Vladivostok.

[malmapus]

6. I never knew about them till a few years ago.

My dad and I have made it a tradition to go out to our local cemeteries here and put out flags for Memorial Day. My dad even took the time to study the people and we remember why they died in the service to our country. One of them died in Siberia, part of that force that was sent there. Didn't get his body sent home till way later though. Really a sad story, as the war was over but not for these guys stuck there.

[MadHound]

9. Interesting stuff, thanks.

But this certainly wasn't the root cause of the Cold War. That had more to do with various post WWII land deals in Eastern Europe and the unnecessary military build up by the US.

[KharmaTrain]

10. Wilson Supported Kerensky & The Whites...

I first read about this story back in the 70s...they were involved in an attack on Archangel in hopes of creating a second front and relieving the pressure on the White/Czarist forces. The suspicion between the US and the Bolsheviks had already taken root...a combination of them taking Russia out of the war just as the US was getting in and the possible social agitation it could create within the U.S.

There's a huge hole in the wars that happened in Eastern Europe as a result of the Russian revolution. The civil war there lasted until 1921 and also included a very bloody war with Poland. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland broke away...there were a lot of seeds for World War II sown during that time.

Cheers...

[rhett o rick]

12. I was aware of this. My college history teacher pointed this out and other things Wilson did

to maintain our empire.

[TBF]

13. Woodrow Wilson was president, Palmer was AG -

Palmer of the Palmer Raids. Democrats fighting communists both abroad and at home ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmer_Raids

[bemildred]

14. Wilson was another guy who was elected to keep us out of a war,

and who then promptly got us into it or kept us in it once elected. One of a long list.

[naaman fletcher]

15. Phiilipomea

There are some good books about the Philippines and TR. Wholesale murder of male children as official government policy. An interesting side not of Goerings testimony at Nuremberg was that he didn't see what the Germans did in trying to build their living space as any different than what the US and the British did. He was wrong as targetting Jews for extinction was different but the general taking of land and cleansing it of it's native population was no different than what we did.

An interesting side note is that Goerings dad was the administrator of gernman south west africa where the Germans did what the English and French had previously done in africa... Cleansed it.

Goering spent childhood years there. And guess where the Nazi brownshirts came from? Left over German colonial uniforms.

Please I'm not defending Goering in any way, far from it. But it puts a lot of things in perspective.

[Vogon_Glory]

16. One of My Great Uncles Had a Chance To Join The AEF to Siberia

One of my great-uncles (now deceased) had a chance to join the American Expeditionary Force to Siberia. He'd been summoned to his reserve officer's training program's commandant's office because of the Allied armistice with the Axis (November 1918) and was told that he could either leave the program and return to civilian life and law school or he could continue with the program, get commissioned, and join the American Expeditionary Force to Siberia.

He chose to leave the reserve officer's training program and went back to law school.

---

I disagree with the idea that the AEF's intervention was the root cause of the Cold War. Such arguments belittle the very serious intentions of Lenin's and Stalin's to spread Communist revolution world-wide. Considering Soviet acts of aggression in such places as the Baltic states, Finland, and Poland in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, and the long Soviet campaigns to conquer Central Asia in the 1920's, this argument doesn't match Soviet behavior.

I'm not saying that there wasn't American imperialism or militarism in the last century (And just before it), but the tunnel-vision focus by many progressives SOLELY on American actions and deliberately ignoring the militarism and aggression of other major powers is dishonest and childish.