VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIA: The Japanese Occupation

A 1919 poster depicting the Japanese occupation of Vladivostok. Note the Russian flag is in a French pattern.

Vladivostok became capital of the Maritime Territory in 1888 and grew rapidly after the completion (1903) of the Trans-Siberian RR.

During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 a Japanese squadron of warships attacked the city with over a hundred shots. The Vladivostok Cruiser Group participated in the war, blocking the approaches to the besieged Port-Arthur.  It developed as a naval base after the loss of Port Arthur to Japan in 1905.

In World War I the Allies used the city as a major supply depot, and after the Russian Revolution of 1917 they occupied it. On December 31, 1917 Japanese, British, and American cruisers entered the Golden Horn Bay. In April 1918, the Japanese firm Isido was attacked in Vladivostok. After this incident the Japanese and British Commands landed their troops under the pretext of protecting their citizens.   Most of the occupying forces were Japanese, but there were also about 7,500 Americans and contingents of British, Italian, and French troops. Canada sent 4,000 troops, with headquarters in the Pushkinskaya Theatre and barracks at Second River and Gornostai Bay.

By 1920, when Vladivostok was included in the newly proclaimed Far Eastern Republic, the Japanese continued to occupy the region and installed a counterrevolutionary Russian puppet government. By 1922 all the interventionist forces had withdrawn and the city came under Soviet control.