Map of the Russian Civil War during the Allied Intervention. The Allied intervention was a multi-national military expedition launched during the Russian Civil War in 1918. After the Bolshevik government withdrew from World War Foreign intervention russian revolution, the Allied Powers openly backed the anti-communist White forces in Russia. In 1917, Russia was in a state of political strife, and public support for World War I and Tsar Nicholas II was dwindling.
The country was on the brink of revolution. The Allied Powers had been shipping supplies to Russia since the beginning of the war in 1914 through the ports of Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, and Vladivostok. In 1917, the United States entered the war on the Allied side. The war became unpopular with the Russian populace. Political and social unrest increased, with the Marxist anti-war Bolshevik Party under Vladimir Lenin gaining widespread support. Kornilov attempted to set up a military dictatorship by staging a coup in late August 1917. He had the support of the British military attaché, Brigadier-General Alfred Knox, and Kerensky accused Knox of producing pro-Kornilov propaganda.
German troops invaded the Russian Empire and threatened to capture Moscow and impose its own regime in early 1918. Lenin wanted to cut a deal with Germany but was unable to get approval from his council until late February. Bolshevik Russia then switched sides and supported the German position. The betrayal removed whatever reservations the Allied Powers had about overthrowing the Bolsheviks. The Czechoslovak Legion was at times in control of most of the Trans-Siberian railway, all major cities in Siberia.
In 1917, the Bolsheviks stated that if the Czechoslovak Legions remained neutral and agreed to leave Russia, they would be granted safe passage through Siberia en route to France via Vladivostok to fight with the Allied forces on the Western Front. The Allied Powers became concerned at the collapse of the Eastern Front and the loss of their Tsarist ally to communism, and there was also the question of the large quantities of supplies and equipment in Russian ports, which the Allied Powers feared might be seized by the Germans. Faced with these events, the British and French governments decided upon an Allied military intervention in Russia. Severely short of troops to spare, the British and French requested that President Wilson provide American soldiers for the campaign. In July 1918, against the advice of the United States Department of War, Wilson agreed to the limited participation of 5,000 United States Army troops in the campaign. That same month, the Canadian government agreed to the British government’s request to command and provide most of the soldiers for a combined British Empire force, which also included Australian and Indian troops. The Japanese, concerned about their northern border, sent the largest military force, numbering about 70,000.
