American Expeditionary Force-Siberia (AEFS)
By Jamie Bisher
AEFS Staff at Vladivostok Headquarters. The commander, Major General William S. Graves, is seated at center (3rd from right).
Graves (1865-1940) was a Texan and a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy (Class of 1889) who had seen combat in the Philippines in 1899 and was commander of the U.S. Border Patrol 1913‑1914.
US President Woodrow Wilson sent the U.S. Army to Siberia to facilitate the evacuation of the Czechoslovak Legion in 1918. The Legion had been fighting against the Central Powers on the Eastern Front until the Bolsheviks made peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Czechoslovaks' only way to rejoin the Allies was to traverse Russia to a Pacific port and sail halfway around the world to France. While they were in Russia, the AEFS doughboys were also expected to keep an eye on the Japanese, who had swarmed into the Russian Far East under the guise of restoring order. No wonder that the chief purpose of the Allied intervention was unclear to the U.S. commander, Major General William Sidney Graves. Weeks earlier during a brief rendezvous in the Kansas City railroad station, U.S. Secretary of War Newton Baker had handed Graves a copy of Washington's vague orders as the General boarded a train, saying, "This contains the policy of the United States in Russia which you are to follow. Watch your step; you will be walking on eggs loaded with dynamite." Major General Graves later wrote, "I was in command of the United States troops sent to Siberia and I must admit, I do not know what the United States was trying to accomplish by military intervention." His troops were mystified as well.
To confuse matters further, a U.S. Navy landing party had gone ashore from the U.S.S. Olympia on August 3, 1918, at Archangel, a European port on the Arctic Ocean several thousand miles to the west, and begun aggressively pursuing Bolsheviks down the rail line. No one was sure of what they were expected to do.
To confuse matters further, a U.S. Navy landing party had gone ashore from the U.S.S. Olympia on August 3, 1918, at Archangel, a European port on the Arctic Ocean several thousand miles to the west, and begun aggressively pursuing Bolsheviks down the rail line. No one was sure of what they were expected to do.
AEFS Intelligence Officers in Ataman Semenov's Territory
December 1917 - January 1919
December 1917 - January 1919
Assigned to
Manchuli Chita Chita Chita Chita Chita Verkhne-Udinsk |
Officer
1st Lt. Robert J. Scovell Capt. Conrad Skladal Lt. Col. Barrows Capt. Frederick F. Moore 1st Lt. R.L. Baggs 1st Lt. Justis S. Davidson 1st Lt. Ralph L. Baggs |
Date
Oct. 31, 1918 - Nov. 1, 1918 - Dec. 8, 1918 - Jan. 2, 1919 Dec. 11, 1918 - Jan. 24, 1919 Jan. 24, 1919 - Apr. 6, 1919 Apr. 2, 1919 - Oct. 31, 1918 - Jan. 23, 1919 |
Copyright 2016, J. Bisher