The Murmansk agreement

On 7 July 1918 the Murmansk Regional Soviet approved the “Temporary agreement concluded owing to exceptional circumstances” between the representatives of Great Britain, the United States and France and the presidium of the soviet. A week earlier, on 30 June, the soviet had broken with Moscow and decided to keep the Allied troops in Murmansk. It had then authorised its presidium, together with representatives of the fleet and the railwaymen, to negotiate a written agreement setting out the rights and obligations of both sides. Now such an agreement was ready. For the soviet it was signed by its chairman Aleksei Yuryev, his deputy, the secretary and the soviet’s business manager, Veselago, a former captain of the tsarist navy. For the Allies it was signed by General Frederick Poole, commander of the Allied forces in northern Russia, Captain Petit, commanding the French cruiser Amiral Aube, and Captain Bierer, commanding the American cruiser Olympia.

When the agreement was signed

Sources give different dates. The Russian translation printed and distributed in Murmansk at the time bore the date of 6 July, and this was confirmed by the American military attaché who was there. General Charles Maynard, commander of the British troops in Murmansk, wrote in his memoirs that the agreement was signed on 7 July. The British chronology of the war also records it under that date. Captain Bierer, on the other hand, reported on 6 July that the document had been drawn up and signed “yesterday”, that is on 5 July. The discrepancy can largely be explained. According to American diplomatic documents the soviet approved the agreement on 7 July, and under its penultimate article the agreement came into force precisely upon approval by the soviet. The text was written in English, and the Russian translation was prepared by the soviet itself.

What the parties promised

The agreement had 14 articles. The parties undertook to defend the Murmansk Region jointly against the powers of the German coalition. It comprised the former Alexandrovsk and Kem districts of Arkhangelsk Governorate, that is the whole Murman coast with Pechenga, Kandalaksha, Kem and Soroka. The supreme command of the Allied and Russian troops was to be organised as on the other Allied fronts. Russian units, both existing and newly formed, were to be subordinate to Russian commanders appointed by the soviet. Voluntary enlistment of Russians in the Allied forces was, however, permitted. The Allies were to help equip and train the new army.

All power in the internal affairs of the region belonged to the soviet. The representatives of the powers undertook not to interfere in those affairs and not to address the population directly, except in the front-line zone, where everyone was to carry out the orders of the Allied command at once. The Allies also promised, “as far as possible”, to supply food for the whole population of the region, including the workers and their families, according to the rations in force in the Allied forces in Murmansk, as well as textiles, basic necessities and building materials. The expenditure was to be charged to the Russian state debt to each of the three powers, with a separate account for the Murmansk Region. Financial aid to the soviet was to be settled by a further agreement. In the last article the Allies gave assurance that they had no intention of seizing the region or any part of it. The presidium of the soviet in turn declared before the Russian people that it was concluding the agreement solely in order to save the Murmansk Region “for a great undivided Russia”.

Promises and reality

The agreement was to remain in force until “normal relations” were restored between the central government and the soviet and the powers. It required approval by the Allied governments. The American admiral William Sims provisionally approved Bierer’s signature, and the State Department agreed to the agreement only in October. Maynard later wrote that the commitments on money and food were necessary because the region had been cut off from the rest of Russia, but that they became a source of constant trouble. In September the American ambassador David Francis reported that the Allies had paid the soviet no money at all and the British had sent only 1,200 tons of flour. Some workers had not been paid since June, others since January, and only then did the Allied representatives agree, subject to their governments’ approval, to put up 5 million roubles. According to Arthur Balfour, the region had about 130,000 inhabitants, although the figure fluctuated strongly because crowds of fishermen came here every year. For the Allies the agreement was above all the legal basis for further intervention in northern Russia. A few weeks later General Poole was able to take some of the troops from Murmansk and move on Arkhangelsk.