US/Anglo-French Intervention in the Russian Civil War

The Americans, British, French and Japanese all invaded Russia in 1918.

American troops in Vladivostok parading before the building occupied by the staff of the Czecho-Slovaks. Japanese marines are standing to attention as they march by. 

Siberia, August 1918

The Allies became concerned at the collapse of the Eastern front and the loss of their Russian ally to Communism and there was also the question of the large amounts of supplies and equipment in Russian ports, which the Allies feared might be commandeered by the Germans or the Bolsheviks. 

Also worrisome to the Allies was the April 1918 landing of a division of German troops in Finland, increasing speculation they might attempt to capture the Murmansk-Petrograd railroad, and subsequently the strategic port of Murmansk and possibly Arkhangelsk. 

Other concerns regarded the potential destruction of the Czechoslovak Legions and the threat of Bolshevism, the nature of which worried many Allied governments.

Meanwhile, Allied matériel in transit quickly accumulated in the warehouses in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. Estonia had established a national army with the support of Finnish volunteers and were defending against the 7th Red Army's attack.

Faced with these events, the British and French governments decided upon an Allied military intervention in Russia.

They had three objectives:

prevent the German or Bolshevik capture of Allied material stockpiles in Arkhangelsk

mount an attack helping the Czechoslovak Legions stranded on the Trans-Siberian Railroad

resurrect the Eastern Front by defeating the Bolshevik army with help from the Czechoslovak Legions and an expanded anti-Bolshevik force of local citizens and stop the spread of communism and the Bolshevik cause 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, this force, which become known as the "American North Russia Expeditionary Force" (a.k.a. the Polar Bear Expedition) were sent to Arkhangelsk while another 8,000 soldiers, organised as the American Expeditionary Force Siberia, were shipped to Vladivostok from the Philippines and from Camp Fremont in California. 

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 included Australian and Indian troops.

A Royal Navy squadron was sent to the Baltic under Rear-Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair. This force consisted of modern C-class cruisers and V- and W-class destroyers. 

In December 1918, Sinclair sallied into Estonian and Latvian ports, sending in troops and supplies, and promising to attack the Bolsheviks "as far as my guns can reach". 

In January 1919, he was succeeded in command by Rear-Admiral Walter Cowan.

The Japanese, concerned about their northern border, sent the largest military force, numbering about 70,000. They desired the establishment of a buffer state in Siberia,[8] and the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff viewed the situation in Russia as an opportunity for settling Japan's "northern problem". The Japanese government was also intensely hostile to communism.

The Italians created the special "Corpo di Spedizione" with Alpini troops sent from Italy and ex-POWs of Italian ethnicity from the former Austro-Hungarian army who were recruited to the Italian Legione Redenta. 

They were initially based in the Italian Concession in Tientsin and numbered about 2,500.

Romania, Greece, Poland, China, and Serbia also sent contingents in support of the intervention.

Personnel of the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force with truck in Vladivotok.

Jan.-May 1919

Numbers of foreign soldiers who occupied the indicated regions of Russia:

50,000 Czechoslovaks (along the Trans-Siberian railway)

40,000 British (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)

28,000 Japanese, later increased to 70,000 (in the Vladivostok region and north)

23,351 Greeks (part of I Army Corps under Maj. Gen. Konstantinos Nider, comprising 2nd and 13th Infantry Divisions, in the Crimea, and around Odessa and Kherson)

17,000 Poles - mostly 5th Rifle Division (almost 12,000 men) in Siberia and 4th Rifle Division (ca. 4000 men) in "Southern Russia", also a single 400-men-strong battalion in Murmansk within the Anglo-Slavic Legion

13,000 Americans (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)

12,000 French and French colonial (mostly in the Arkhangelsk and Odessa regions)

11,500 Estonians in northwestern Russia

4,192 Canadians (in the Vladivostok region)

4,000 Serbs (in the Arkhangelsk region)

4,000 Romanians (in the Arkhangelsk region)

2,500 Italians (in the Arkhangelsk region and Siberia)

2,300 Chinese (in the Vladivostok region)

1,100 Canadians (in the Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions)

150 Australians (mostly in the Arkhangelsk regions)

41 Canadians (in the Baku Region)

These numbers make a total of 255,503 foreign troops stationed in Russia during the civil war.

Captured British Mark V Tank in Arkhangelsk

A Japanese lithograph showing troops occupying Blagoveschensk.

Plane dicthes alongside HMS Vindictive after returning from air raid, 

Baltic Sea, 1919

British forces denied the Bolsheviks the ability to move by sea, RN guns bombarded the Bolsheviks on land in support of Estonian and Latvian troops, and provided supplies.

On the night of 4 December, the cruiser HMS Cassandra struck a mine while on patrol duties north of Liepāja, and sank with the loss of 11 of her crew.

On 26 December, British warships captured the Bolshevik destroyers Avtroil and Spartak,which at the time were shelling the port of Tallinn. 

Both units were presented to the Estonian Provisional Government and, as Lennuk and Vambola, formed the nucleus of the Estonian Navy. Forty Bolshevik prisoners of war were executed by the Estonian government on Naissaar in February 1919 despite British protests.

The new Commissar of the Baltic Fleet—Fedor Raskolnikov—was captured onboard Spartak. He was exchanged on 27 May 1919 for 17 British officers captured by the Soviets and later appointed Commissar of the Caspian Flotilla by Trotsky.

In the summer of 1919, the Royal Navy bottled up the Red fleet in Kronstadt. 

Several sharp skirmishes were fought near Kotlin Island. 

In the course of one of this clashes, on 31 May, during a Bolshevik probing action to the west, the battleship Petropavlovsk scored two hits on the destroyer HMS Walker from a distance of 14,000 yards (12,802 m), when a flotilla of British destroyers attempted to catch the outgunned Bolshevik destroyer Azard. 

Walker suffered some damage and two of its crew were wounded, but the British destroyers disengaged when they came too close to Bolshevik coastal artillery and minefields.

A flotilla of British Coastal Motor Boats under the command of Lieutenant Augustus Agar raided Kronstadt Harbour twice, sinking the cruiser Oleg and the depot ship Pamiat Azova on June 17 as well as damaging the battleships Petropavlovsk and Andrei Pervozvanny in August, at the cost of three CMBs in the last attack.

The British claim that the motor boats damaged the Petropavlosk is dismissed by Soviet records.

The first raid was intended to support a significant mutiny at the Krasnaya Gorka fort which was eventually suppressed by the 12 in (300 mm) guns of the Bolshevik battleships.

In early July the British received reinforcements which included the aircraft carrier HMS Vindictive whose aircraft carried out bombing and strafing runs against gun and searchlight installations at Kronstadt.

Significant unrest took place among British sailors in the Baltic.

This included small-scale mutinies amongst the crews of HMS Vindictive, Delhi—the latter due in part to the behaviour of Admiral Cowan—and other ships stationed in Björkö Sound. 

The causes were a general war weariness (many of the crews had fought in World War I), poor food and accommodation, a lack of leave and the effects of Bolshevik propaganda.

RN ships lost in the Baltic include:

Light cruiser HMS Cassandra – mined

V-class destroyers:

HMS Verulam – mined

HMS Vittoria – torpedoed by Bolshevik submarine Pantera

Submarine HMS L55 – surface action against Bolshevik destroyers.

Arabis-class sloop: HMS Gentian and Myrtle – mined

Coastal Motor Boats: CMB-24, CMB-62 and CMB-79 – surface action against Bolshevik Fleet

CMB-67 – stranded

The 112 deaths of British servicemen—107 RN personnel and five RAF personnel—are commemorated on a memorial plaque, which was unveiled in 2005 at Portsmouth Cathedral in England,with similar memorials in churches in Tallinn and Riga.

The Apartheid State of Israel

"The wealthy, crowded progressive Jewish State lies in the plains, and on the areas outside Palestine, around it in the hills and the uplands, stretching far and wide into the illimitable deserts, the warlike Arabs of Syria, of Trans-Jordan, of Arabia, backed by the armed forces of Iraq, offer the ceaseless menace of war. 

To maintain itself, the Jewish State must be armed to the teeth, and must bring in every available able-bodied man to strengthen its army. 

But how long would this process be allowed to continue by the great Arab populations in Iraq and Palestine? 

Can it be expected that the Arabs will stand by impassively and watch the building up with Jewish world capital and resources of a Jewish army equipped with the most deadly weapons of war until it was strong enough not to be afraid of them? 

And if ever the Jewish army reached that point, who can be sure that cramped within their narrow limits, they would not plunge out into the new undeveloped lands that lie around them?.

If Palestine should be partitioned’, he concluded, ‘I find it difficult to resist the conclusion that the steam would lead inevitably to the complete evacuation of Palestine by Great Britain."

Winston Churchill, 1937

"Irgun is in fact rapidly becoming the 'SS' of the new state. There is also a strong 'Gestapo' – but no-one knows who is in it.

'The shopkeepers are afraid not so much of shells as of raids by Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang. These young toughs, who are beyond whatever law there is have cleaned out most private houses of the richer classes & started to prey upon the shopkeepers.' "

—Clare Hollingworth reporting on West Jerusalem June 2, 1948

In 2006, Simon McDonald, the British ambassador in Tel Aviv, and John Jenkins, the Consul-General in Jerusalem, wrote in response to a pro-Irgun commemoration of the King David Hotel bombing: 

"We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated." 

They also called for the removal of plaques at the site which presented as a fact that the deaths were due to the British ignoring warning calls. 

The plaques, in their original version, read:

"Warning phone calls had been made urging the hotel's occupants to leave immediately. For reasons known only to the British the hotel was not evacuated and after 25 minutes the bombs exploded, and to the Irgun's regret and dismay 91 persons were killed."

McDonald and Jenkins said that no such warning calls were made, adding that even if they had, 

"this does not absolve those who planted the bomb from responsibility for the deaths."

The Soldier's Creed

NOT Safe For Work...

Pre-2003 Version of U.S. Soldier's Creed

(Introduced in the wake of the My Lai Massacre)

I am an American Soldier.

I am a member of the United States Army – a protector of the greatest nation on earth.

Because I am proud of the uniform I wear, I will always act in ways creditable to the military service and the nation it is sworn to guard.

I am proud of my own organization. I will do all I can to make it the finest unit in the Army.

I will be loyal to those under whom I serve. I will do my full part to carry out orders and instructions given to me or my unit.

As a soldier, I realize that I am a member of a time-honored profession—that I am doing my share to keep alive the principles of freedom for which my country stands.

No matter what the situation I am in, I will never do anything, for pleasure, profit, or personal safety, which will disgrace my uniform, my unit, or my country.

I will use every means I have, even beyond the line of duty, to restrain my Army comrades from actions disgraceful to themselves and to the uniform.

I am proud of my country and its flag.

I will try to make the people of this nation proud of the service I represent, for I am an American Soldier.

Post-2003 Version of U.S. Soldier's Creed

(Introduced on the direction of Donald Rummsfield)

(Based upon "The Warrior Ethos")

I am an American Soldier.

I am a Warrior and a member of a team.

I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.

I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.

I am an expert and I am a professional.

I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.

I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.

I am an American Soldier.

Egypt, 2011: Karl Rove's Coup

The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.

On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.

He has already been arrested by Egyptian security in connection with the demonstrations and his identity is being protected by The Daily Telegraph.

The crisis in Egypt follows the toppling of Tunisian president Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, who fled the country after widespread protests forced him from office.  . . .

“Egypt Protests: America’s Secret Backing for Rebel Leaders Behind Uprising” By Tim Ross, Matthew Moore and Steven Swinford; Daily Telegraph; 1/28/2011.

" Note, again, that the dissident was conferring with U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey in December of 2008, while Bush was still in office.

The United States has been covertly preparing a regime change in Egypt for the last two years secretly assisting the leaders who were preparing a blueprint to bring representative government to Egypt now emerged as leaders or organizers of the mass uprising that the world is witnessing today.

The US State Department officials, US Congressmen and their immediate staff were engaged in having discussions with the Egyptian rebel leaders on US soil. The US embassy in Cairo was instrumental in organizing a summit in New York in 2008 to meet one of the young Egyptian activists. On his return to Cairo this activist was detained by the Egyptian intelligence unit.

All these and more are now revealed in a classified diplomatic cable sent from the American embassy in Cairo to Washington, dated 30 December 2008 disclosed by WikiLeaks which the Asian Tribune will place before its readers.

This young Egyptian activist was arrested and detained in this week’s uprising in Cairo, it has been revealed.

The name of this young Egyptian leader is withheld for obvious reasons. The WikiLeaks released Cairo US embassy cable is very clear that the United States government was overtly supporting the Mubarak regime, while covertly endeavoring to undermine it and replace it with a representative government.

Sensing some eruption in the future against the autocratic Mubarak regime and to safeguard U.S. interests in the region, the U.S. was forced, in the interest of its national security, to find an alternative, this diplomatic cable very clearly depicts the grand design of the super power.

A plan concocted by the Egyptian dissident groups to remove Hosni Mubarak from power before the scheduled September 2011 presidential election and replace his rule with a representative democratic government was relayed to Washington through the embassy in Cairo. . . ."

“US covertly Aided Egyptian Protest Leaders for Regime Change, Secret December 2008 WikiLeaks Cable Reveals” by Daya Gamage; The Asian Tribune; 1/30/2011.

PLOT TO ASSASSINATE VICE PRESIDENT GORE? by Sherman H.Skolnick

PLEASE NOTE: the first sending of this story on Wednesday, July 14, 1999, WAS APPARENTLY BLOCKED BY THE E-MAIL COMPUTER OF AMERITECH.NET. WHAT DO YOU CALL THAT? CENSORSHIP. 

Apparently, the Establishment did not want this discussed on the same day as the Chicago Sun-Times Story, 7/14/99. 

Also please note: Admiral Engen, expert on Air Traffic Control, former head of FAA, was murdered just after the apparent assassination attempt on Gore. 

The press fakers said his glider somehow fell apart in the air, killing him. Some believe he was among the small group of admirals and generals that have since 1995 sought to arrest their Commander-in-Chief Clinton for treason. 

If Clinton arrested them for mutiny, they intended, if they survived and were not assassinted, to defend themselves at Courts Martial charging HIM with documented treason which they had. 

We are about the only ones writing about these very brave flag officers, and about certain murder plots. Savvy historians compare the current dark period of American history with that of Caligula in Roman times.

POST THIS STORY FAR AND WIDE FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD. 

PLOT TO ASSASSINATE VICE PRESIDENT GORE? by Sherman H.Skolnick 

Moderator/producer, public access Cable TV Program "Broadsides" in Chicago and chairman/founder, Citizen's Committee to Clean Up the Courts

Two or more airplanes were all headed reportedly for a crash with Air Force Two carrying Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., as his plane flew over the Chicago area. The incident apparently occurred July 9, 1999, but was kept embargoed, that is, delayed or suppressed, until an eleven paragraph story ran in the Chicago Sun-Times, July 14, 1999. 

So far, others in the mass media have steered clear of the story? Why? Like the murder of President Kennedy, were the mass media either informed in advance or ordered how,if at all, to run the story?

One of two major newspapers in Chicago, the Sun-Times is owned by British tough-nose financier Conrad Black jointly with reportedly mysterious Red Chinese and ethnic Chinese billionaires who have an unpublicized armlock on the Chicago markets. Their fortunes based reportedly on dope smuggling into the U.S. primarily through Chicago, of high purity heroin called "China White", clandestine weapons deals, and the harvesting of human body parts sold to U.S. hospitals. The body parts, sold as casually as auto pieces, are from political prisoners in mainland China arbitrarily condemned to death as the orders come in for hearts, livers, kidneys, and such. 

[So as not to damage the human body parts, the political prisoners are not shot but rather, beheaded.]

 The illicit funds are a massive river of loot reportedly laundered on the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange. 

Although an open secret, major newspapers, such as the Sun-Times, and other financial papers like the Wall Street Journal, publish virtually nothing about the Chinese and the Chicago money laundries. The Chinese funds are disguised as soybeans and foreign currency trading.

Are the Chinese through the Sun-Times story blackmailing Clinton into silence about nuclear secrets sold or given to the Chinese? Under a a headline "Quirk of radar jars VP's plane", the Sun-Times had details such as "Gore was in the government 747 traveling from Seattle back to Washington when the pilot received urgent instructions from air traffic controllers to make a jarring 60 degree turn to avoid a crash. 

Radar showed a second plane 25 miles away--only a couple of minutes apart--at the same 33,000-foot altitude and in conflict with the vice president's aircraft. Air Force Two was traveling about 600 m.p.h." 

According to other sources, the FAA and the Sun-Times are reportedly concealing that yet a third plane likewise almost crashed into Gore's plane.

Aviation sources familiar with air traffic control say they never heard of a situation where two or more airplanes were all headed for a crash with another plane. 

Foul play, they contend, should rightfully be suspected when two OR MORE airplanes were all somehow steered into a possibe crash with the Vice President's plane.

Here are some other factors that assassination researchers would consider: 

1. Reportedly fronting for the Chinese in Chicago in the reputed clandestine deals as well as blackmail and extortion, is Rahm Emanuel, for many years Clinton White House Senior Advisor and now a heavy-hitter with Wasserstein & Perrella, Chicago unit of a New York based financial services firm that reportedly handles deals for the Red Chinese. 

Described as a campaign fund "fixer" and expert in blackmail, Rahm Emanuel in recent statements seems cold to the idea of supporting Gore as Presidential candidate in the 2000 election. 

{By the way, with more expected dirty tricks like the apparent aircrash scenario, there is no guarantee that the 2000 election will be conducted just as usual.] 

2. The Gore presidential campaign has, or is about to obtain, a reputed picture clearly showing presidential hopeful George W. Bush, now Texas governor and son of the elder Bush, snorting cocaine with Bill Clinton. 

More and more people, of course, are becoming aware that Bill has been a cocaine user whose nose is rodded out from the same. 

But it might come as a campaign surprise, helplful to Gore, to show George W. with Clinton. 

The picture, supplied by government agents, would open the whole question of George Herbert Walker Bush and his sons, Jeb, Neal, and George W., being involved with Clinton and others in dope smuggling through the southern states including through the Mena, Arkansas airport arranged by CIA. 

According to European publications, Jeb Bush, with his Columbia-born wife, are reportedly implicated with known criminals in Spain and elsewhere laundering dope and other clandestine funds through European banks. 

Neal Bush narrowly escaped jail in the downfall of his Silverado Savings & Loan Association of Denver, reportedly used by CIA to wash domestic assassination funding. A Chicago lawyer, Jay Steinberg, and others with Hopkins & Sutter, Chicago, reportedly whitewashed the Silverado mess. 

3. Gore campaign pundits apparently have advised Gore to distance himself from Clinton who, generally unknown to the public, has been very close to the elder Bush. Gore can probably rightfully claim he was, prior to "the picture", unaware of Clinton's dope connection to the younger Bush. 

Some believe Gore, to have any chance of winning the presidential election, would have to demonstrate that he is not interwoven in the numerous Clinton scandals, financial and sexual. 

At a post-election party in the past, Bill Clinton reportedly got Tipper Gore, Albert's wife, drunk, and raped her, that is, had some form of sex with Tipper NOT consenual. 

A member of the Gore circle, when confronted with these details, urged an independent-minded journalist not to go with the story but said it most likely did happen. 

Bill Clinton, according to his secret medical records, penetrated by savvy hackers, is reportedly HiV positive. Thus, if the records were revealed, numerous women messed over by Bill, would have to come forward to be examined for AIDS. 

Two newspapers have the documents, reportedly the Baltimore Sun and the Chicago Tribune, but whose lawyers have advised against publishing the same, as the newspapers might be drawn into liability of Federal Tort Claims actions brought by the women.

So, there are numerous reasons for the possible political assassination of Gore. Although a horrible matter to consider, it must candidly be discussed. Long ago it was said, "To kill the king, you need the aid of the Palace guards". 

Prior to the 1996 re-election, the Secret Service reportedly all disappeared from guarding Gore at a political rally. In assassination research jargon, this is a "security vacuum", making it easy for a would-be assassin, aided by the Secret Service, to blow away a high official. 

Remember, the head of what is now called the U.S. Secret Service, Lafayette C. Baker was part of the plot to murder President Lincoln. 

{See: "Lincoln Conspiracy" a compilation in paperback.] 

The Secret Service failed to fire back a single shot in protecting John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza. 

Questions: Did the Secret Service, as required, have one of their top people supervising the radar when Gore's plane flew into the zone of the Air Traffic Control in Aurora, the FAA facility just west of Chicago? 

[Some say the answer is no.] 

Or, at that moment, was there an Air Traffic Controller on duty with, as required, topmost security clearance? 

[Again, some say the answer is no.] 

This is a developing story. More details as they are available. 

Khrushchev/Nixon

In his autobiography Nikita Khrushchev describes his first meeting with John F. Kennedy after he had beaten Richard Nixon to became president of the United States.

"I was impressed with Kennedy. I remember liking his face, which was sometimes stern but which often broke into a good-natured smile. 

As for Nixon... he was an unprincipled puppet, which is the most dangerous kind. I was very glad Kennedy won the election... 

I joked with him that we had cast the deciding ballot in his election to the Presidency over that son-of-a-bitch Richard Nixon. 

When he asked me what I meant, I explained that by waiting to release the U-2 pilot Gary Powers until after the American election, we kept Nixon from being able to claim that he could deal with the Russians; our ploy made a difference of at least half a million votes, which gave Kennedy the edge he needed."

Richard Nixon met Nikita Khrushchev in Moscow, in 1959. In his memoirs Nixon described the impression that Khrushchev made on him.

Khrushchev's rough manners, bad grammar, and heavy drinking caused many Western journalists and diplomats to underestimate him. But despite his rough edges, he had a keen mind and a ruthless grasp of power politics. Bluntly ignoring Western invitations for disarmament and détente, Khrushchev openly continued to stockpile weapons... many believed that he would have no qualms about using them to unleash a nuclear war.