From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada's Siberian Expedition, 1917-19 (Studies in Canadian Military History) Review

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From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada's Siberian Expedition, 1917-19 (Studies in Canadian Military History) ReviewIn June 1917 the "BC Federationist" editorialized that the Russian revolution would echo in working class uprisings across the world. The Ottawa government, fearing revolution would come to Canada, decided to support the White Russians. The Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force (CEFS) was one realization of this policy.
A naval projection of force across the Pacific to Russia's far east would be a dramatic debut for Canada as an independent actor on the international stage, satisfying the Prime Minister's ambitions. To him, Vladivostok seemed an easy target with the White Russian Army dominant in Siberia, the Red Army's front line far away in the Ural Mountains and the origin and seat of the Bolshevik revolution in St. Petersburg, much farther still.
That was not the view of Canada's military leaders. They predicted failure before the first ship sailed for Vladivostok in October 1918. "From the strictly military standpoint, however, Canada's Siberian Expedition--the first military campaign spearheaded by the Dominion and its inaugural adventure in the Far East--can be described as a fiasco. `This expedition was a political error, a military mistake, and a wanton extravagance,' Dr. Henri Severin Beland, MP for Beauce, told the House of Commons on 10 June 1919." after the last Canadian left Vladivostok. Prime Minister Robert Borden prevailed over the military objections.
Many of the conscripts were not enthusiastic about the mission. French Canadians mutinied in Victoria and the ethnic Russians were considered unreliable. The primary accomplishment came early in the campaign when CEFS expelled the Vladivostok Cultural Enlightenment Society from the Pushkinsky Theatre and established their headquarters there. A Vladivostok trade association protested the seizure in a letter on November 1, 1918:
"...the Cultural-Enlightenment Society which has existed in Vladivostok for more than 30 years. The Trade-Manufacturers' Assembly owns the best library, school, courses, and theatre in the city and spends almost all income on enlightenment and charity. It would seem that such a Society has a right to inviolability, however, our Allies, namely the Canadian command, have grasped the Society's premises and have deprived its members and their families, numbering 700 persons, and all trained and manufacturing classes, from continuing cultural-enlightenment and public work."
As a labor historian, Isitt presents the anomalous military invasion of Vladivostok in the context of Canadian and international labor movements of the time, perhaps giving credence to Borden's revolution fears. However, the CEFS was not the panacea as labor councils across Canada passed resolutions opposing it. On December 6, 1918 the Victoria and District Trades and Labor Council sent a protest letter to the government in Ottawa:
"Now that the war is won and ended, the members of the various workmen's' organizations and the common people in general fail to see any justification for a military enterprise being pursued in that direction. More particularly, as we as a country and a nation are not at war, nor have been at war, with the Russian people. I am therefore to recommend to you and the Government the advisability of immediately abandoning the Siberian Expeditionary effort and at once recall all Canadian forces that may be in that country now or on the way there."
The Ottawa Ministry of Militia and Defense replied:
"The Department does not consider Canada at war with the Russian people, but that they, the Government of Canada, are supporting certain governments in Russia, such as that organized a Omsk and Archangel, which governments are, by the way, quite socialistic. At any rate no aggression is meant by the Dominion Government, rather an economic development."
Soon labor's opposition escalated beyond verbal resolutions to strikes.
An additional motivation for the CEFS may have been "...the Imperial Russian Gold Reserve, the largest holdings of the precious metal in the world. ... One-quarter of this gold had been shipped from Vladivostok to Vancouver... to guarantee British war credits." The rest remained in Siberia under the control of the White Russian forces for a few more months.
If you haven't heard of this military undertaking, you aren't alone. It lasted a half-year and then was officially forgotten. "Canada lost in Siberia, its first foray as a world power, and then quietly ignored this history." Not until 1962 did the government publish an account of the military expedition in Canada's official World War I history--and even there it only amounted to six brief pages.
Not long after the end of the Canadian debacle, the Bolsheviks overran the White Russians in Siberia and reached Vladivostok. In Canada, the Tory government fell at the next election.
With its 5 maps, 37 illustrations, 86 pages of appendices and notes, this is the book that provides a detailed narrative of the expedition within the context of contemporary labor movements.From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada's Siberian Expedition, 1917-19 (Studies in Canadian Military History) Overview

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