American Soldiers in Siberia: The Forgotten War

American Soldiers in Siberia by U.S. Army officer Sylvian G. Kindall (first published in 1945), recounts his experiences as a member of the American Expeditionary Force Siberia from 1918 to 1920. AEF Siberia was involved in the Russian Civil War in and around Vladivostok at the end of World War I following the October Revolution. The futility and unpreparedness of the mission is apparent throughout the book, as is the author's intense disdain for the Japanese troops, who were witnessed in repeated acts of violence against an unarmed citizenry. President Woodrow Wilson's claimed objectives for sending troops to Siberia were both diplomatic and military: (1) rescue the 40,000 men of the Czechoslovak Legions, who were being harassed by Bolshevik forces as they attempted to make their way along the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Vladivostok; (2) to protect the large quantities of military supplies and railroad rolling stock that the United States had sent to the Russian Far East in support of the prior Russian government's war efforts on the Eastern Front; (3) the need to "steady any efforts at self-government or self defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance." At the time, Bolshevik forces controlled only small pockets in Siberia and Wilson wanted to ensure that neither Cossack marauders nor the Japanese military would take advantage of the unstable political environment along the strategically important railroad line located in this resource-rich region. For similar reasons, about 5,000 American soldiers were also sent to Arkhangelsk (Archangel), Russia by President Wilson as part of the separate Polar Bear Expedition.