This article seeks to outline the entirety of Wilson’s intervention in North Russia and Siberia. It should be presented based on the U.S.’s various motives toward Russia and differences in the characteristics of the interventions in North Russia and Siberia that have been provided by an earlier scholarship. Additionally, both interventions should be considered as not completely separate but intertwined with one other as an integral part of Wilson Administration’s policy toward Russia.

The U.S. was more receptive to intervention in North Russia than in Siberia. President Wilson regarded the intervention in North Russia as part of his war strategy against the Central Powers, classifying it as an essential aspect of the cooperative coalition with the Allies. In Siberia, Wilson approved U.S. expedition to secure safe transportation of Trans-Siberian and Chinese-Eastern Railways, which would contribute to social and economic stability in Russia. Inevitably, he supposed, this condition would enable the Czechs’ eastward passage via Vladivostok while mitigating Japanese territorial expansion in the Russian Far East.

Note that the developments of the Czechs played a key role in the Allied intervention in Russia. In North Russia, the Czech Legion was regarded as an influential figure to restore resistance to the Germans in the East. While in Siberia, the Czechs had to be transferred to the Western Front through repatriation to support the Allies, and their existence was vital to guard the Trans-Siberian and Chinese-Eastern Railways for the stabilization of Russia. As seen in his Aid-Memoir of June 17, 1918, Wilson placed the U.S. expedition in North Russia and Siberia within the whole picture of its intervention in Russia. The nucleus of U.S. intervention in Russia was the existence of the Czech Legion. In that sense, it was tragic that the U.S. and the Allies severely underestimated the divisions among the various anti-Bolshevik groups.

Wilson hoped for the emergence of a liberal Russia based on the free election and self-government. The “unintended consequence (the effect of the armed intervention),” however, baffled his promise for the future of Russia. Confronting confused local information and the untrustworthy Bolshevik government, America’s major concern and priority was to defeat Germany in World War I. Therefore, Wilson had no choice but to consider coalition diplomacy based on strategic coordination with Britain and France. Yet, this blinded the administration to the negative effect of America’s military intervention in Russia. By the very decision of armed intervention in Russia, however, Wilson’s policy toward Russia brought inconsistency in the principle of Point Six of his Fourteen Points Address and resulted in paying a price that he did not expect.

This article reconsiders Japanese diplomacy towards China during the period of the initial establishment of the Hara Takashi cabinet, concentrating on the problem of having industrial loans included in the formation of the “New Four-Power Consortium”.

Previous research has concentrated on the transition from “Old Diplomacy” to “New Diplomacy”, and has stated that the Hara cabinet altered the policy of the previous Terauchi Masatake cabinet. Compared with the old consortium, the new consortium is characterised by the inclusion of industrial loans in its scope of business. However, this has only been pointed out by a few researchers, who have clarified the relationship between this problem and “New Diplomacy”. My research concentrates on the domestic preparation for participating in the new consortium, and the changes it brought to Anglo-Japanese relations.

In October 1918, the Hara cabinet decided not to supply loans that would pose an obstacle to North-South peace in China, such as the “Nishihara Loans”. This decision was certainly ground-breaking, but the Army Ministry demanded certain exceptions.

The US government tried to restrain Japanese economic influence on the Chinese government and proposed forming a new consortium. The US State Department insisted that the new consortium should include not only administrative loans, but industrial loans. The British government and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation had been opposed to including industrial loans when the Six-Power Consortium was formed in 1912. The Japanese government expected that the British government and bankers would be opposed to including industrial loans this time as well. However, the British government pledged “exclusive support” to the British syndicate to unify British banks connected to China. Therefore, the Japanese government could not expect the British party to state its opposition.

J. J. Abbott, an American banker who had visited Japan, had held talks with Prime Minister Hara and Deputy Foreign Minister Shidehara Kijuro. Abbott and the State Department were optimistic that Japan would want to include industrial loans. T. W. Lamont, representing the American syndicate, suggested in the inter-group conference in Paris that the new consortium should include not only administrative loans but industrial loans. Yokohama Specie Bank, representing the Japanese syndicate, agreed to his proposal. However, the bank’s stance did not represent all Japanese banks closely related to China. These banks could not fully agree to his proposal because the Hara cabinet had not yet made preparations to organize a syndicate formed of multiple banks. It was only after the Paris conference that the Hara cabinet assembled eighteen banks in Tokyo and Osaka to let them participate in the new consortium.

In conclusion, it was not difficult for the Hara cabinet to agree to include industrial loans in the process of forming the new consortium. However, the Hara cabinet had not been able to organize the Japanese syndicate. The argument is also advanced that the Japanese syndicate formed by the Hara cabinet had its origins in the syndicate under the Terauchi cabinet.