While Allied agents militated against the Soviet regime in Petrograd and Moscow, persistent rumors swirled of an impending Allied military intervention in Russia which would overthrow the fledgling Soviet government in favor of a new regime willing to rejoin the ongoing war against the Central Powers. On 4 August 1918, an Allied force landed at Arkhangelsk, Russia, beginning a famous military expedition dubbed Operation Archangel. Its professed objective was to prevent the German Empire from obtaining Allied military supplies stored in the region. In retaliation for this incursion, the Bolsheviks raided the British diplomatic mission on 5 August, disrupting a meeting Reilly had arranged between the anti-Bolshevik Latvians, UDMF officials, and Lockhart. Unperturbed by these raids, Reilly conducted meetings on 17 August 1918 between Latvian regimental leaders and liaised with Captain George Alexander Hill, a multilingual British agent operating in Russia on behalf of the Military Intelligence Directorate.