As the last guns sounded on the Western Front, 4,200 Canadian
soldiers, some of them conscripts, travelled from Victoria to
Vladivostok to open a new theatre of war in Siberia. Part of the Allied
intervention in Russia's civil war, the force sought to defeat
Bolshevism, but grim conditions, conflict among the Allies, and local
opposition eventually forced Canada to evacuate the troops.
This ground-breaking book brings to a life a forgotten chapter in
the history of Canada and Russia. Combining military and labour history
with the social history of British Columbia, Québec, and Russia,
Benjamin Isitt examines how the Siberian Expedition exacerbated
tensions within Canadian society at a time when a radicalized working
class, many French-Canadians, and even the soldiers themselves objected
to Canada's military adventure designed to alter the outcome of
the Russian Revolution.
Military historians have tended to write off the Siberian
Expeditionary Force as a mere sideshow, an embarrassing episode in the
larger context of the First World War. By bringing the story of the
expedition to centre stage, Benjamin Isitt illuminates a forgotten
chapter in the history of labour radicalism and the complex factors
that have shaped foreign policy. The result is a highly readable and
provocative work that challenges public memory of the First World
War.