Diplomatic conflict between the United States and Russia during World War I in the case of Charles Moser, American Consul in Harbin, based on documents from the archives of the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Empire

Scientific article

doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2025-1-67-82

For citation

Sinichenko, Vladimir V. (2025). Diplomatic conflict between the United States and Russia during World War I in the case of Charles Moser, American Consul in Harbin, based on documents from the archives of the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Empire, Herald of an Archivist, № 1, pp. 67-82, doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2025-1-67-82

Sinichenko, Vladimir V., Baikal State University, Irkutsk, Russia

Diplomatic conflict between the United States and Russia during World War I in the case of Charles Moser, American Consul in Harbin, based on documents from the archives of the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Empire

Abstract

The article describes the diplomatic conflict between the United States and Russia during World War I in the case of the American consul in Harbin Charles Moser on the basis of documents from the funds of the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (AVPRI, Moscow). The work uses the historical-systemic method based on the principles of historicism, which allowed us to come to the conclusion that American diplomacy since World War I has been based on the priority of American interests rather than the common interests of political coalition partners. The basis for the study was the lack of modern works on analyzing the reasons for the formation of the position of American diplomacy in relation to both allies and military-political adversaries. The history of Russian-American diplomatic relations is a rather multifaceted topic. The initial favorable attitude of the Russian Empire to the North American United States, which emerged in the late 18th century, was maintained throughout most of the 19th century. The reason for this was the rather tense relations of the United States with its former metropolis - the British Empire, the geopolitical adversary of the Russian Empire at that time. In addition, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the United States was one of the five main foreign trade partners of Russia. However, in the second half of the nineteenth century the situation changed. First, Russia built railroads to the Black Sea ports and began to export wheat to European countries through the Straits. Since the late 1870s, the main competitor for Russian bread in the European food market became the American one. Secondly, at the end of the nineteenth century, there was a significant immigration outflow from Russia to the United States, primarily of Jewish nationality. Many of the new U.S. citizens had a negative attitude to the country they had left, and all this also affected the political class of American society, which depended on the opinions of voters. As a result, in the early twentieth century, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, a significant part of the American establishment took a pro-Japanese position. During World War I, the U.S. government adopted a position of neutrality, which it maintained until the beginning of 1917, when a telegram sent by the Foreign Minister of the German Empire to the German ambassador to the United States fell into the hands of the U.S. authorities. It suggested that Mexico should be brought on the side of Germany in case the United States entered the war on the side of the Entente. This telegram prompted Washington's entry into the world war on the side of the Entente. However, until April 1917, the American government adhered to strict neutrality. Under these conditions, some American diplomats took a pro-German position and, moreover, committed acts in favor of the German side. One such episode occurred in 1915, when Charles Moser, the American consul in the Chinese city of Harbin, which was located on the territory of the Chinese Eastern Railway - the main line that ran through Manchuria, connecting Transbaikalia with Primorye, assisted officers of the German and Austro-Hungarian armies who had escaped from Russian captivity, provided them with money and advice on establishing contacts with pro-German Russian subjects and diplomatic representatives of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires in the Republic of China.

Keywords

World War I 1914-1918, Russian Empire, Entente, China, German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russian counterintelligence, CEL, consul, U.S. Secretary of State, Russian envoy to Washington, prisoners of war of World War I 1914-1918, Provisional Government, P. N. Milyukov, Harbin.

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Аbout authors

Sinichenko Vladimir V., Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Baikal State University, Vice-Rector for Research and International Affairs, Irkutsk, Russia, +7-964-733-49-29, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The article was received in the editorial office on 24.06.2024, recommended for publication on 20.12.2024