ABSTRACT
At the time, there existed within the interested Western nations an image of the Russian situation which held all the similarities of a contemporary morality play, albeit one of considerable proportions. There was a cosy reassurance that given time, the good (the Whites) must ultimately overcome evil (the Reds). While allied means and ends consistently failed to meet, the optimists argued that in the final event right would prevail. Such imaginative yet hollow arguments sought to go some way towards excusing an allied predicament which had come to a head in January 1919. With the notable exception of the Japanese, the weary allied governments accepted the fact that they could no longer send into Siberia a fresh transfusion of reliable troops either for offensive or defensive purposes. Some would argue that perhaps this was unimportant for in this heady age of new horizons in international relations, a peace conference might be able to bring to a close Russia’s long, cruel conflict. A political consensus did agree to take such a course of action which was the least unpalatable of three options introduced by Lloyd George. The allies rejected as militarily impossible a proposal to destroy the Bolsheviks by force and, as politically impractical, the imposition of a stricter blockade. Initially, France dismissed any possibility of entering into a dialogue with the Bolsheviks. There was therefore, in the planning stage, no prospect of being able to convene in Paris a separate Russian peace conference as an extension of the larger in-being Peace Conference. It seemed appropriate that the invitations to the Russian Peace Conference should be drafted by President Wilson on behalf of the ‘Great Friendly Powers’ who called ‘upon all the Governments, parties and peoples in States and territories in question to abstain from further aggressions, hostilities and reprisals and require them to keep peace 119both at home and with their neighbours’. The invitation beamed out in morse code from the Eiffel Tower on 22 January 1919, setting 15 February as the time and Prinkipo Island as the place.
