withdrawal of Chinese forces from Siberia/Mongolian

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Jerry Asher
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Location: California

withdrawal of Chinese forces from Siberia/Mongolian

#1

Post by Jerry Asher » 17 Oct 2015, 05:48

Can anyone share details on Chinese expeditionary forces to Siberia and clashes relating to Mongolia. Many thanks in advance. Sarhang work might be of assistance but I haven't figured out how to use paypal yet.

Stephen_Rynerson
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Re: withdrawal of Chinese forces from Siberia/Mongolian

#2

Post by Stephen_Rynerson » 24 Oct 2015, 20:17

Jerry, I haven't really focused on this subject yet, but going through my collection of books relating to "Allied" intervention in the Russian Civil War, I would say that White Terror: Cossack Warlords of the Trans-Siberian by Jamie Bisher (2005) looks like one of the better English-language sources covering both Siberia and Mongolia.

As to your specific question about clashes in Mongolia, it appears that the only significant engagements involving Chinese troops there were with the forces of Baron Roman Ungern-Sternberg between October 1920 and February 1921 around Urga (modern Ulaanbaatar), concluding in the Chinese garrison being wiped out. The battles are described in some detail in White Terror at pp. 272-75.

Due to Ungern-Sternberg's brutality against the local population after his victory (which was originally welcomed by the Mongols), the Bogdo Gegen sent a letter to the Chinese central government in April 1921 asking for military assistance in removing the baron in exchange for Mongolia returning to Chinese rule as an autonomous region. Zhang Zuolin was authorized by a presidential decree from Xu Shichang on May 30, 1921 to launch an expedition for this purpose (and nominally granted 10 million Mexican dollars to support the expedition, although it appears Zhang collected only 3 million), but Zhang merely advanced a small force to Kalgan and took no further action. This is generally attributed to Zhang being favorably disposed toward Ungern-Sterberg because of the latter's interest in restoring Manchu rule over China, as well as Zhang wanting to keep most of his forces close to Beijing, rather than dispersing them across Mongolia.

In any event, as a result of Zhang's inaction, after Ungern-Sternberg was captured and the main part of his forces destroyed in late June 1921, Bolshevik-backed Mongol troops easily took Urga from the residual White garrison there on July 7, 1921, with the rest of Mongolia falling over the next couple years. (It's worth noting that western Mongolia from 1917 to 1923 was loosely ruled by a messianic Buddhist who went by the name Ja-Lama. The Bolsheviks thought they could co-opt him at first, but ultimately OGPU agents assassinated him in 1923, at which point his cult of personality imploded and the remainder of the country came under influence of the Communist regime in Ulaanbaatar.)

Sources relied on for this post, besides White Terror, include:

Wu, Aitchen K., China and the Soviet Union, pp. 162-63 (1950).

Friters, Gerard M., Outer Mongolia and its International Position, pp. 191-93 (1951).

Znamenski, Andrei, Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia, pp. 133-42 (2011).

Hopkirk, Peter, Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of an Empire in Asia, pp. 129-36 (1995). Hopkirk has some vague discussions about Ungern-Sternberg's ambushes of Chinese forces returning to Urga shortly after his initial victory there that doesn't seem to be included in White Terror, but Bisher has more detail about the actual battle in Urga itself.

You may also want to check Ferdinand Ossendowski's Beasts, Men, and Gods (1925), which I can't locate my copy of at the moment, but it's one of the main sources relied on by Hopkirk and Bisher. There's also The Bloody White Baron by James Palmer (2008), which I haven't read, but, while it is reportedly rather sensational and mostly repeats Ossendowski's account, apparently it also includes some information from Russian sources that hasn't been reproduced in English before.


Jerry Asher
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Posts: 719
Joined: 06 Aug 2006, 03:48
Location: California

Re: withdrawal of Chinese forces from Siberia/Mongolian

#3

Post by Jerry Asher » 26 Oct 2015, 01:39

Thanks Steve: you always make my library searches interesting. PS I really do admire your work.

Stephen_Rynerson
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Posts: 266
Joined: 07 Jul 2013, 06:08

Re: withdrawal of Chinese forces from Siberia/Mongolian

#4

Post by Stephen_Rynerson » 30 Oct 2015, 06:04

You're welcome, Jerry! By the way, I should have clarified that I presumed from the context that you were talking about clashes relating to Mongolia from roughly the era of the Russian Civil War, so I omitted any discussion of the so-called Beitashan Incident that happened in 1947-48 on the border between Xinjiang and Mongolia.

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