Central Powers no relation French Third Republic
Background
Following the Russian October Revolution of November 1917, the new Bolshevik government in Russia signed a separate peace treaty with the Central Powers in March 1918. The Russian collapse on the Eastern Front of World War I in 1917 presented a tremendous problem to the Entente powers, since it allowed Germany to boost numbers of troops and war matériel on the Western Front. Meanwhile, the 50,000-strong Czechoslovak Legion in Russia, fighting on the side of the Allied Powers, became stranded in non-Allied territory within Soviet Russia, and in 1918 started attempting to fight its way out to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East, moving along the Bolshevik-held Trans-Siberian Railway. At times the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia controlled the entire Trans-Siberian railway and several major cities in Siberia.
Faced with this situation, the United Kingdom and France decided to intervene in the Russian Civil War on the anti-Bolshevik side. The Western European powers had three objectives in intervening:
to prevent the Allied matériel stockpiles in Russia from falling into German or Bolshevik hands
to help the Czechoslovak Legion in Russia and return it to the fighting
to resurrect the Eastern Front by installing a White Russian-backed governmentThe British and French asked the United States to furnish troops for both the North Russia Campaign and the Siberian Campaign. In July 1918, against the advice of the United States Department of War, President Wilson agreed to send 5,000 US troops as the American North Russia Expeditionary Force (a.k.a. the Polar Bear Expedition to Arkhangelsk) and 10,000 US troops as the American Expeditionary Force Siberia. Originally reluctant himself, Wilson agreed to send troops to Siberia on 6 July 1918 solely with the aim of helping the Czech Legion. In the same month, the Beiyang government of the Republic of China responded to an appeal by Chinese people in Russia and sent 2,000 troops by August. The Chinese later occupied Outer Mongolia and Tuva and sent a battalion to the North Russian Campaign as part of their anti-Bolshevik efforts.
Wilson appealed to Japan for a joint intervention to help the Czechs and suggested that they send no more than 7,000 men to Siberia, although Tokyo eventually sent ten times as many troops as this. Britain decided to assist and first sent a battalion to Siberia commanded by Liberal Party MP and trade-union leader Lieutenant Colonel John Ward. This unit, the first Entente land force to reach Vladivostok, landed on 3 August 1918. A 500-strong French colonial regiment was sent to Vladivostok from Indochina in August 1918.
no relation