Why didn't American troops go to Moscow back in 1919 when they deployed in Archangelsk?

Question

It would have been so nice if they had overthrown Lenin. We wouldn't have had such a lot of problems. All my relatives were well off before the revolution and after it lived a miserable life.

Answer 1

They did try to overthrow him, they failed.

Answer 2

Moscow is not a city you want to try to invade today, let alone almost 100 years ago.  Winter can be too harsh, it is too far from a border to truly sustain supply lines, and since Napoleon failed, why would the USA of 1919 be able to succeed?

Answer 3

US foreign policy before and after WW1 called for isolationism. We didnt get involved in European affairs at all. We only got into the World Wars because we were attacked first. The sinking of the cruise liner Louisitania by German U boats during WW1 and the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941, entered America into the wars. I think it may be a good idea to go back to this policy of isolationism. Everyone wants the US to solve their problems, but no one wants the US to solve their problems. Strange aint it?

Answer 4

The troops in Archangel and Murmansk were there to "guard allied munitions" which were left there after Russia signed a separate peace with Imperial Germany. It was the British Minister of Munitions, Winston Churchill, who convinced President Wilson to send a National Guard regiment from Michigan. That regiment fought a lot of pitched battles with the Red Army on both sides of the Dvina River. Even though we shed American blood inside Soviet Russia the Russian people allowed the Bolsheviks to stay in power after they had overthrown the First Provisional Republic's government under Kerensky.

We learned from that experience. In 1922 we passed a law which forbids our troops from serving under operational control of any foreign commander. The British Brigadier who sucked us into that fight with the Red Army taught us a lesson.

The veterans' section of White Cross cemetery in Detroit still contains grave sites whose markers read: "Died in Soviet Russia".  

Answer 5

Simple mistakes make for a century of hard learning