«Great Mongolia»: the failed Japanese project of a buffer state in Eastern Asia in 1919

Abstract

The paper is devoted to an episode of the struggle for national liberation inMongoliain 1911-1921.  The second year of the Civil War 1918-1922 was a time of ordeal for Soviet Russia, surrounded by a ring of fronts. The independence and integrity of the former Empire or its breakup into few weak and dependent states depended on who would win the conflict. Similarly, the period was the turning point for Russian colony inManchuriaand for the Russian Far East. An unsuccessful attempt of Ataman Semenov of creating «Great Mongolia» to be consisted of Russian Trans-Baikal region andOuter Mongolia, under Japanese protectorate in 1919 was very significant in this light. Ataman Semenov previously had actively participated in the liberation of Outer Mongolia fromChinain 1911. After the February Revolution, in the summer of 1917 he was sent to Trans-Baikal region to organize the recruitment of Mongol and Buryat volunteers to the German front. However, Semyonov formed the units used for the usurpation of power and the creation of a separatist regime in the region, with an active support ofJapan. After the fall of the Provisional Government in Petrograd and Admiral Kolchak’s coming to power inSiberia, Semenov refused to obey the new authorities and started preparations for struggle. With the same purpose the Japanese military command began to support actively the Mongolian self-rule movement on theterritoryofRussiaandChina, to lean on him in opposition with Kolchak. The main episodes of internal struggle in Pan-Mongolian movement, the Japanese project of creation of a puppet state inNorthern Chinaand the Russian Far East, and reasons for its failure are considered in the paper.