Paris Peace Conference 861.00/666
Mr. George T. Clerk
to the Secretary of State
Dear Mr. Lansing: Lord Curzon desires me to express his great regret that you
did not get the promised note upon Siberia, which I now enclose, before
you left London.
Believe me [etc.]
[Enclosure]
The British Foreign
Office to the Secretary of
State48
In a note communicated to the United States Ambassador on Febuary
26th last,49 His
Majesty’s Government endeavored to state their views in regard to
the policy which they conceived it was the object of the Allies to
pursue in Siberia pending a decision by the Allied Powers in Paris
in regard to the policy to be adopted towards the Russian problem as
a whole.
If the United States Government agree to the views which have been
put forward by His Majesty’s Government, the feeling of His
Majesty’s Government is that the instructions with which General Graves has been furnished
by the United States Government do not admit of the necessary
support being given to Admiral
Kolchak, with the result that a serious divergence of
views has arisen between the Russian representative of Admiral Kolchak and General Graves, as regards the
measures to be adopted for dealing with the situation east of Lake
Baikal.
[Page 500]
The particular instances to which the attention of His Majesty’s
Government has been drawn are as follows:
- 1.
- On March 4th it was reported that General Graves refused to
assist a Japanese detachment in serious difficulties against
several thousand Bolshevists. This was afterwards confirmed
by the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs at Tokyo in a
conversation with His Majesty’s Ambassador at that
place.
- 2.
- On March 8th, it was reported that General Graves declined
to send a representative to inquire into Bolshevist
atrocities.
- 3.
- On March 20th it was reported that the attitude of the
United States troops in the Suchan region rendered the
suppression of the Bolshevist rising impossible.
- 4.
- On March 25th it was reported by His Majesty’s High
Commissioner at Vladivostock that General Graves declined
to acknowledge General
Otani’s authority, though he had been
accepted as Allied Commander in Chief in the Vladivostock
area.50
General Graves
stated at the same time that no American troops would be
used to suppress a Bolshevist rising which was expected at
the time.
- 5.
- On April 4th it was reported that General Graves had
declared his neutrality, after being sent to assist
Czecho-Slovaks against the Bolshevist forces.
- 6.
- On April 15th General
Graves declined to go to the assistance of a
Russian detachment which was pursuing the Bolshevist forces
in the Suchan area, and in fact obstructed the operations in
such a manner that the Bolshevists escaped.
- 7.
- On April 5th, it was reported from Chita that three
incidents had taken place on the line with which the United
States troops were involved. On one occasion it was only
possible to prevent firing by the train passing out of the
station. On another occasion the Russian flag was torn down
from a train by the United States soldiers.
- 9 [sic].
- On April 11th it was reported that relations between
Kalmikoff’s troops and United
States soldiers were steadily becoming more strained and
conflicts occurred daily, between officers as well as
between men.
In drawing the attention of the United States Government to this
matter, His Majesty’s Government are actuated solely by a desire
that their representatives in the Far East should act in the closest
co-operation with the representatives of the United States
Government in pursuance of the policy which they believe the United
States Government, in common with themselves, have in view.
