Battle Scenes: “Our army attacks from sky, water and shore, and repulsed enemy of Siberia”. The Japanese propaganda version of The Siberian Intervention of 1918.

The Siberian Intervention (1918-22) was the dispatch of troops of the Entente powers to the Russian Maritime Provinces as part of a larger effort by the western powers and Japan to support White Russian forces against the Bolshevik Red Army during the Russian Civil War. In July 1918, President Wilson asked the Japanese government to supply 7,000 troops as part of an international coalition. Prime Minister Masatake agreed to send 12,000 troops, but under the command of Japan, rather than as part of an international coalition.

The Japanese Army planned to attack on two fronts, from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk along the Amur River and via the Chinese Eastern Railway to cut off the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway at Lake Baikal. By November 1918, more than 70,000 Japanese troops had occupied all ports and major towns in the Russian Maritime Provinces and eastern Siberia.

The Imperial Japanese Army continued to occupy Siberia long after other Allied forces had withdrawn in 1920. Japanese casualties from the Siberian Expedition included some 5,000 dead from combat, frostbite or illness, and the expenses incurred were in excess of ¥900 million.