William S. Graves

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He served in the Spanish–American War in the Philippines until 1902. He fought at the Battle of Caloocan as a company commander during the insurrection. He was the assistant chief of the Army General Staff.

In 1918, the year after the American entry into World War I, he was given command of the 8th Division and sent to Siberia under direct orders from President Woodrow Wilson. He landed on September 1, 1918. His orders were to remain strictly apolitical amidst a politically turbulent situation. As a result, he was frequently at odds with his Allied peers, the State Department, and various Russian groups.

Given some 7,000 soldiers in what was called the American Expeditionary Forces (A.E.F.), and aided by Joseph D. Leitch as his chief of staff, he settled on the idea of making sure the Trans-Siberian railroad stayed operational and brought in a number of railroad experts to run the railway. His troops did not intervene in the Russian Civil War despite strong pressure brought on him to help the White army of Admiral Kolchak. Early on, Graves developed a strong distaste for Kolchak and his government.

Graves thought that the British, French, and Japanese forces in Siberia were all following self-serving political ambitions beyond the stated goals of the Allies, which were to protect supplies provided by the powers to their erstwhile Tsarist allies and to provide for the safe conduct of foreign allied troops, primarily Czechs, who were to exit Russia via Vladivostok. Graves believed that the British and French were trying to suppress Bolshevik forces. He also believed that the Japanese had plans to annex part of Eastern Siberia (the Amur region, east of Lake Baikal). The Japanese deployed an estimated 72,000 soldiers—some 6 times the authorized troop level of 12,000 set by the Allies.

U.S. forces operated the Trans-Siberian railroad for almost two years, while bandits roamed the Siberian countryside and the political situation turned chaotic. The U.S. military did accomplish its main objective and the entire Czech Legion was evacuated out of Russia via Vladivostok. The last U.S. soldiers left Siberia April 1, 1920. Historian Benson Bobrick wrote of Graves: "In the whole sad debacle, he may have been the only honorable man."

General Graves was promoted to the rank of major general on 11 July 1925, and retired from the army in 1928. He then wrote a book about his time in Siberia, entitled America's Siberian Adventure 1918-20.

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