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with an armistice with Germany. However, the United States, while represented in
Petrograd at the time, did not attach a signature to this note. A late entrant into World
War I, it was not party to the September 1914 agreement and was not privy to the
original note of protest given by the Allies. The US military attaché in Petrograd,
Lieutenant-Colonel Monroe C. Kerth, gave a followup protest to Dukhonin (who was
still recognized by the Allies as the rightful Commander in Chief) expressing a firm
protest from the American government. The note did not contain a threat to use force,
however.
Japan’s aims in the conflict were not the aims shared by the Allies. Whereas the
Allies wanted to overthrow the Bolshevik government, protect Allied materiel in
Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, and reopen the Eastern front of the war with Germany
over Bolshevik aims to secure a general peace in the continent, Japan was mostly
in business for itself. Japan was ambivalent on the new leadership in Russia, caring
only for a general state of chaos or disorder that would allow Japan opportunity to
aggrandize its position in the boundary between Russia and China. In particular, Japan
wanted to control the Trans-Siberian Railway, dismantle the Russian naval base in
Vladivostok and occupy the city, which Japan’s military attaché in London discussed
privately with the British Foreign Office through 1917. Finally, after considerable
push from the French government, Japan joined the conflict with a show of force on
January 17, 1918. By this date, Japan had sent four warships to Vladivostok, comple-
mented by one warship from the British. By February 27, the French and British had
effectively given a blank check to Japan to do as it saw fit regarding Vladivostok and
the Trans-Siberian Railway.
The United States’ first participation came the day after Japan moved. On January
18, 1918, partly curious about Japanese intentions as well as the officially stated desire
to protect national interests in Vladivostok (i.e., stores owned by foreign nationals),
the United States dispatched the USS Brooklyn to waters proximate to Vladivostok.
US President Woodrow Wilson was initially reluctant about intervention but came to
support the project after considerable persuasion by the British, French, and Ameri-
can generals in and around Russia. The logic of the British, proposed to the United
States, was that joint intervention was necessary if the Allies were to have any input or
oversight of an inevitable Japanese foray into Siberia and Vladivostok. That Russia’s
armistice with Germany was nearing conclusion made it a fait accompli. Wilson had
a change of heart days after agreeing to Japanese intervention in Siberia but finally
came around on July 6 when the Czechoslovak Legion appeared in trouble in Siberia
and needed to be saved. An official statement on August 3 outlined the official stance
for intervention. Despite an initial entry to “patrol” Vladivostok on April 5, Japan
withheld a formal commitment to intervention in Siberia until the United States agreed
to participate.
While the contention over American reservations about intervention in Siberia pre-
occupied the Allies and Japan, there was a corollary intervention in Murmansk and
Arkangelsk. This was more led by the British and French, which feared that Allied
materiel previously stored in North Russia could be seized by the Bolsheviks or ceded
to the control of the Germans. It was precipitated by the arrival of a German battalion
in Finland in April 1918. As Germany marched East (in World War I) to preclude a
new Eastern Front, Great Britain and France endeavored to create one. Threats of a