Changes

Following the withdrawal of Allied diplomats from Petrograd and Moscow in 1918, the Allied leaders – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emmanuele Orlando – grappled with the question of how to address the Russian Civil War that erupted between the Bolsheviks and White Russian forces following the Russian Revolution.  After the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918, Japanese and Allied forces, including U.S. troops, occupied parts of Northern Russia, Ukraine, and Siberia to protect vital areas from falling into the hands of the Germans, as well as to provide assistance to the White Russians. When the First World War ended, however, Allied leaders found it difficult to justify leaving tens of thousands of war-weary troops in Russia.