PC March to Henry P. McCain

PC March to Henry P. McCain

March, Peyton Conway, 1864-1955

WWP22382

1918 May 28

Peyton March asks Henry McCain to forward the message from Woodrow Wilson to General Tasker in which he says that the United States needs to remain devoted to the principle of Russian territorial integrity and political dependence.

Library of Congress, Woodrow Wilson Papers, 1786-1957

MEMORANDUM for The Adjutant General:

Please cable the following to General Bliss at Versailles: "Secretary of War has presented your Number 115, May 26, to the President. The President's attitude is that Russia's misfortune imposes upon us at this time the obligation of unswerving fidelity to the principle of Russian territorial integrity and political independence. Intervention via Vladivostok is deemed impracticable because of the vast distances involved, the size of the force necessary to be effective, and financing such an expedition would mean a burden which the United States at this time ought not assume. In order to be effective, either to create a military situation on the eastern front which would relieve the pressure of the western front, or to prevent the Central Powers from exploiting the agricultural and other resources of Russia, such an intervening expedition would have to penetrate into European Russia and, however such an expedition were safeguarded by the approval and concurrence of the Allies, its appearance would be such that German propagandist would be able to persuade the Russian people that compensation at their expense and out of their territory was ultimately to be exacted. In this way and others Germany would be able to arouse Russian patriotic feeling and thus secure military and other aid from the Russians far outweighing any foreseeable advantage from so difficult an intervention. The idea of compensating Japan by territory in Asiatic Russia is inadmissible. The President is heartily in sympathy with any practical military effort which can be made at and from Murmansk or Archangel, but such efforts should proceed, if at all, upon the sure sympathy of the Russian people and should not have as their ultimate object any restoration of the ancient regime or any other interference with the political liberty of the Russian people. March."

General, Chief of Staff
peyton c. march

Letter

McCain, H. P. (Henry Pinckney), 1861-1941