861.00/4481a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
1920. For Secretary of State and McCormick.
Secretary of War has shown me General Graves’s telegram number 281 May 4th which he transmitted to President with recommendation that forces in Siberia must cooperate with Kolchak or be withdrawn.
I have told the Russian Chargé d’Affaires here that the Omsk military authorities must continue on friendly terms with the American troops and General Graves in Siberia at all costs and that their failure to do so might well lead to the collapse of the railway plan and seriously weaken the prospects of the Omsk Government itself. I put this very emphatically to the Chargé d’Affaires and suggested he might think it advisable to inform the Omsk Government and the Russian representatives at Paris accordingly.
From previous telegrams you have seen the gradual development of what has become a dangerous situation in Eastern Siberia. This has been due primarily to the character of the instructions issued to General Graves which he has interpreted as requiring a rigid and aloof neutrality on his part. The British are concerned by the claim that General Graves has announced categorically that so far as his troops are concerned in guarding the railway, he is responsible to his Government and to no one else and will not consider orders from the Japanese Commander or the Railroad Committee. I understand confidentially the British military authorities in Siberia have told General Graves that in view of their own specific instructions to support the Kolchak Government they find it difficult to maintain relations with him at all if he considers himself required to keep altogether aloof from the Kolchak commanders.
Secretary of War has been kind enough to show me some of General Graves’s written reports to the War Department which to my mind show that he has been, to say the least, tactless in his dealings with the Japanese military commanders, and further that his views of the situation in Siberia seem based entirely upon the opinions he has formed as a result of the arbitrary and stupid conduct of General Ivanoff-Rinoff and the buccaneering tactics of the Cossack leaders, Kalmikoff and Semenoff. I understand one of the results is that the British regard him as apparently sympathizing with the Bolsheviks rather than with the Omsk authorities.
[Page 494]The American command in Siberia has always required a high degree of tact and large experience in affairs. I cannot help thinking that, in spite of the narrow limitations set by his instructions, General Graves has proved lacking in both these qualifications. I am quite confident that if we decide not to recognize the Omsk Government or determine not to give that Government open support, General Graves will be unable to continue in command without open rupture either with the Russians or the Japanese or possibly with both.
I hope you will find it possible to discuss this matter with the President and Mr. Lloyd George and reach some common agreement as to our future course in Siberia. As you know, I am in the meanwhile trying to persuade the Japanese to the idea that the railway plan has altogether changed the situation since we sent our combined forces to rescue the Czechs and steady the Russians; that everybody’s business now is to restore the railways and emphasize the economic and constructive character of our undertaking and make the military side of it altogether subordinate.
Even if I succeed with the Japanese, I still think that first, the matter of coming to a common understanding with the British Government is absolutely necessary, and second, that if we do not somehow relieve the situation in which General Graves finds himself, our policy in Siberia will prove a total failure just at the moment when it seems to promise real success.