The movement was ultimately defeated, while the British-led Allied forces withdrew from Northern Russia after fighting a number of defensive actions against the Bolsheviks, such as the Battle of Bolshie Ozerki.

The US government declared war on the German Empire and its allies in April, after learning of the former's attempt to persuade Mexico to join the Central Powers.

Coincidental with the Treaty, Lenin personally pledged that if the Czechoslovak Legion would stay neutral and leave Russia, they would enjoy safe passage through Siberia on their way to join the Allied forces on the Western Front.

Also worrisome to the Allied Powers was the fact that in April 1918, a division of German troops had landed in Finland, creating fears they might try to capture the Murmansk–Petrograd railroad, the strategic port of Murmansk and possibly even the city of Arkhangelsk.

[1] Faced with these events, the leaders of the British and French governments decided the western Allied Powers needed to begin a military intervention in North Russia.

They had three objectives: they hoped to prevent the Allied war materiel stockpiles in Arkhangelsk from falling into German or Bolshevik hands; to mount an offensive to rescue the Czechoslovak Legion which was stranded along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and resurrect the Eastern Front; and by defeating the Bolshevik army with the assistance of the Czechoslovak Legion, to expand anti-communist forces drawn from the local citizenry.

In July 1918, against the advice of the US War Department, Wilson agreed to a limited participation in the campaign by a contingent of U.S. Army soldiers of the 339th Infantry Regiment, that was hastily organized into the American North Russia Expeditionary Force, which came to be nicknamed the Polar Bear Expedition.

"[12] Lieutenant General Frederick Poole, who had previously spent two years in Russia, was appointed by the British Secretary of State for War, Lord Milner, to lead the expedition to Archangel.

In the following months, British forces in the area were largely engaged in small battles and skirmishes with White Finns in support of the Red Army.

[1] A trainload of Bolshevik troops was also found at Kandalaksha heading north, but Maynard managed to convince them to stop, before Serb reinforcements arrived and took over the train.

[43] However, on 11 November, the armistice between Germany and the Allies was signed, ending the First World War, meaning that the primary objective of re-establishing the Eastern Front was now irrelevant.

[44] On 2 August 1918, anti-Bolshevik forces, led by Tsarist Captain Georgi Chaplin, staged a coup against the local Soviet government at Archangelsk.

On 27 October, Allied forces were ambushed at Kulika near Topsa, losing at least 27 men killed and dozens wounded, a figure that could have been higher if it had not been for a detachment of Poles who bravely covered the retreat as others panicked.

The Allied force withdrew to a defensive line for the winter, first driving off a number of attacks with the help of a Canadian Field Artillery battery, culminating in a very heavy assault on 11 November.

[56] Within four months the Allied Powers' gains had shrunk by 30–50 kilometres (19–31 mi) along the Northern Dvina and Lake Onega Area as Bolshevik attacks became more sustained.

[57] When the news came through of the Armistice with Germany, many of the British troops in Archangel eagerly anticipated a quick withdrawal from North Russia, but their hopes were soon dashed.

'A' Company of 2/10th Royal Scots had to be sent to reinforce a heavily pressed force on the Vaga, marching with sledges over 50 miles (80 km) in temperatures 40–60 degrees below freezing.

[61] The Bolsheviks originally drove back the American and Scots defenders but the following morning saw the Allied forces retake the settlement after a determined counter-attack.

In the Murmansk sector, the British decided that the only way to achieve success in ejecting the Bolsheviks from power was by raising, training and equipping a large White Russian Army.

[63] On 22 September, with the Allied withdrawal already ongoing, a British detachment from the Royal Scots was sent by river to Kandalaksha on four fishing boats to stop sabotage operations carried out by Finnish Bolsheviks against the railway there.

[64][65] One of the fatalities, a Private from Ormesby, Yorkshire, who succumbed to his injuries on 26 September, was the last British servicemen to die in action in Northern Russia.

[69] The battle of Shenkursk was a key turning point in the campaign, and the Allied loss put them very much on the back foot for the next few months along the railway and Dvina fronts.

The Royal Marines unit had been expressing its dissatisfaction with being forced to stay in Russia after the Armistice since February, and had been openly demanding to their commanding officers that they be sent home.

[101] The final two months on the Dvina front, August and September 1919, would see some of the fiercest fighting between British and Red Army troops of the Civil War.

[64] On 6 September, the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion Hampshire Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Sherwood-Kelly, published an open letter in the Daily Express lambasting the North Russia campaign, stating that the volunteer British troops were being used for offensive actions (despite being told that they wouldn't be) and that the regional White "puppet" government "rested on no basis of public confidence and support".

In January 1919 the Daily Express was echoing public opinion when, paraphrasing Bismarck, it exclaimed, "the frozen plains of Eastern Europe are not worth the bones of a single grenadier".

From April 1919, the inability to hold the flanks and mutinies in the ranks of the White Russian forces caused the Allied Powers to decide to leave.

[119] On 22 September, with the Allied withdrawal already ongoing, a British detachment from the Royal Scots was sent by river to Kandalaksha on four fishing boats to stop sabotage operations carried out by Finnish Bolsheviks against the railway there.

[64][65] One of the fatalities, a Private from Ormesby, Yorkshire, who succumbed to his injuries on 26 September, was the last British servicemen to die in action in Northern Russia.

Minor operations to keep open a line of withdrawal against the 7th Red Army as far south as Lake Onega and Yomtsa River to the east took place along the Arkhangelsk Railway with an armoured train manned by the Americans.