Intervention in Siberia 1918---????

[Jerry Asher]

I may have missed any previous discussion relating to the Chinese participation in the Siberian intervention--If so can any refer me to previous citations? In particular what and when was the transport to and from Vladivostok and were there navy escorts? Apparently they were dispatched in July 1918 and deployment was completed in August. No info at all on its withdrawal. Have seen references to Japan and Canadian forces--American is available. Will post on Italian board. A reference to a work in Chinese would be welcome and I would search University of California and World Cat holdings for an Interlibrary Loan. Of particular note is that major Chinese warships may at that point been based in south China and not available to the Central government.

[The 51st Division]

According to my memory (can't get access to any resources at the moment)

About Vladivostok, China sent the elite 33rd Regiment, 9th Division (one of the best Chinese unit at the time, German-equipped I believe).
China also deployed its own navy (which was actually quite surprising, considering how..."not good" the Chinese navy was). The Chinese cruiser Hai'rong (海容) and its accompanying small fleet sailed to Vladivostok along with other powers' navies. Most units made it to the Russian far east through land routes, but some were also transported by the navy. What time was all this exactly I'm not sure, my guess is probably late September?

Fun Fact: the Chinese didn't really fight the Bolsheviks as they were supposed to do, they actually got along quite well. At one instance the cruiser Hai'rong actually helped the Russians to fight against the Japanese (庙街事件, the Miaojie Incident, although the Russians probably have a different name for it--Russian far east was originally part of China until the Russian Empire took it in one of those unequal treaties, so the names are all messed up, for example Vladivostok is still called Haishenwai in Chinese)

Other than Russian far east, the Chinese also sent troops to Outer Mongolia as a part of the Intervention.

Most of the money from the infamous Nishihara Loans was spent on infrastructure and industrialization and welfare, but a tiny amount was also used to organize a brand new Japanese-trained and Japanese-equipped modern army that was up to every western standards at the time. (It was called 参战军 in Chinese which literally means "War-Participating Army", though I'm not sure if that's the actual official designation at the time or is it just a generalizing term made up by historians) This army was going to be sent to Europe for WWI, or help the Entente in the Asia theatre (at least that's what he said, I doubt if Duan actually wanted to fight for the "western imperialists", more likely he was just using WWI as a convenient excuse to build up a new army for himself, being the warlord that he was).

The "War-Participating Army" was re-organized into the Northwest Border Army (which eventually became the foundation of the "Northwest Army", a warlord clique). Under the command of Xu Shuzheng, the Army was sent to fight against the communists in Outer Mongolia...well the real purpose was probably to regain Chinese control over the de facto independent Mongolia. It was quite a successful mission in that sense, the Chinese managed to hold Outer Mongolia for a few more decades.