Britain and the United States should each send 7000 troops, and that Japan should provide a force* capable of effectively aiding the Czech Corps then at Irkutsk.

A week after the American announcement the War Office asked the Canadian Prime Minister if Canadian troops could be made available for service in Siberia. It had learned, unofficially, that two battalions of discharged soldiers could be raised in Canada—a procedure quite in keeping with the Allied policy of not diverting "any appreciable body of troops from the Western Front'l.171 Sir Robert Borden, who was in London at the time, examined the suggestion and, for reasons not wholly military, found himself favourably disposed to the dispatch of a small Canadian force to Siberia. "Intimate relations with that rapidly developing country", he wrote, "will be a great advantage to Canada in the future. Other nations will make very vigorous and determined efforts to obtain a foothold And our interposition with a small military force would tend to brine, Canada into favourable notice by the strongest elements in that great community.

Accordingly, on 12 July the C.G.S. in Ottawa was directed to organize a brigade headquarters, two battalions of infantry, a battery of field artillery, a machine—gun company, and certain other troops. In Siberia a British battalion was to join this force, and come under Canadian command.” The contingent, including the British unit, would be known as the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force, and would represent the British Empire among the Allied military expeditions operating in Siberia."’ The Cabinet -approved the idea in principle, and on 12 August a Privy Council instruction... was

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