[Peace-discuss] War in Popular Culture

Tue Mar 6 14:49:25 UTC 2018

We talked about anti-war themes in semi-recent popular culture on Sunday .  I mentioned the movie War Dogs. I mixed up the plot with another similar movie which name I cannot remember. War Dogs stars Jonah Hill and Miles Teller with a plot from real life. I hope the attachment works. 
Sent from my LG Phoenix 2, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
------ Original message------From: Karen Aram via Peace-discussDate: Mon, Mar 5, 2018 6:59 AMTo: Peace-discuss List (peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net);Cc: Subject:[Peace-discuss] Forgotten History

      -
Many Americans would be surprised to learn that the USA, along with Britain, France, and Japan, fought a  in Russia just after the Great War (World War I). The primary objective of this action
 was the re-establishment of an Eastern Front following the collapse of the Russian government during the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, but Allied fear of communist ambitions in other countries also played into the intervention as will be seen below. The overall
 campaign was named the Polar Bear Expedition, but was also known as the Northern Russian Expedition, the American North Russia Expeditionary Force - ANREF or the American
 Expeditionary Force North Russia - AEFNR.
These efforts are not mentioned in most history survey courses, and few texts even mention that US troops (or those of any other nation) fought against the Bolsheviks during this period. The presence
 of US Army units from Michigan in Vladivostok, Archangel, and other Russian locations is rarely noted although the University of Michigan maintains an archive of photographs and other primary evidence relating to the period.

From the Louis E. Schicker collection in the University of Michigan's Polar Bear archives
Troops were sent to Russia near the close of World War I for several reasons, all of which were related to the instability of the Russian government. First, the Russian army's disastrous defeat at the
 hands of the Germans resulted in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Initially his government was replaced by an interim democratic administration (the only democratic regime that has ever existed in Russia) under the leadership of Alexander Kerensky. This
 change in government structure caused president Woodrow Wilson to change his mind about participation in the war. He had initially refused to commit the US to an alliance with the despotic Tsarist government. Thus, US troops were mustered for action on the
 Western Front.
However, in October 1917 the Bolshevik revolution replaced the Kerensky government with communist rule under Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. This resulted in the withdrawl of Russian troops from the Eastern
 front as the new government negotiated a separate peace with Germany under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Loss of the Eastern Front placed additional pressure on Allied troops from the US, France, Britain, and other countries fighting on the Western Front. The
 Germans were able to move troops from Eastern borders to French battlefields, thus strengthening their hand.
The change of government also left at risk vast amounts of military materiel and armaments provided by Britain to the Kerensky government. There was concern that these supplies would be captured by the
 Germans or (worse) the Bolsheviks. This was unacceptable, both from a military and economic standpoint.
There was also a concern that the armaments might be used against other European powers once the newly established communist government built up the newly minted red Army's power. Western nations greatly
 feared Marxism, which taught that industrial powers would eventually be overthrown in "peoples' revolutions" as the "proletariat" took their rightful place. The idea of a heavily armed communist state was, as a result, extremely unpalatable to most Western
 governments.
The various Allies are estimated to have sent the following strength of troops to the Russian campaign (from Wikipedia):

50,000 [4] (along
 the Trans-Siberian railway)
28,000 Japanese (later increased to 70,000[5],
 all in the Vladivostok region)
24,000 Greeks (n 
Note: All information contained in these pages is © 2008 Richard E. Joltes. Excerpts may be used where proper credit is given and permission is obtained in advance. All rights
 reserved.

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