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MongoliaBeginning of Modern Military Practices, 1911-21
In terms of a consciously expressed military tradition,
modern Mongolian military history began in 1911 with the autonomy
of
Outer Mongolia (see Glossary) and
the establishment of a new-style army with Russian military assistance. Russia, after its
disastrous defeat in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, noted the
modernization of the Chinese army and realized the need for a
buffer between a resurgent China and Russia's tenuous lifeline to
eastern Siberia, the Trans-Siberian Railway. Consequently, Russia
looked with favor on Outer Mongolia's efforts to free itself of
Chinese rule in 1911. The tsar received a Mongolian delegation in
August 1911, and he agreed to furnish arms and ammunition to
Outer Mongolia. When the Chinese revolution occurred in October,
the Mongolians proclaimed their freedom, receiving diplomatic
support from Russia
(see The End of Independence
, ch. 1).
In 1912 a small Russian military mission arrived in
Yihe Huree
(present-day Ulaanbaatar--see Glossary) to train a
Mongolian army of conscripts furnished by the ruling nobles. As
increments of this force were trained, they were sent as first
priority to the Chinese frontier. About half the army was
retained near Yihe Huree as a general reserve. In the summer of
1912, elements of this fledgling army fought their first battle,
forcing the surrender of a Chinese garrison at Hovd in western
Mongolia. On November 3, 1912, a secret Mongolian-Russian
agreement supported Mongolia's claim for its own national army
and promised to prohibit Chinese troops in Mongolia.
The Mongolian government of monks and nobility lacked both
the funds and the will to pay for such an armed force. The
Mongolians, who wanted the Chinese to leave, were disappointed by
the Sino-Russian Declaration of November 1913, which recognized
Chinese suzerainty over Outer Mongolia and substituted the vaguer
concept of autonomy for the Mongolian claim to independence. In
addition, not all the nobility, particularly not those in western
Outer Mongolia, willingly accepted Yihe Huree's hegemony over
their territories, and the Chinese initially held Hovd. The new
national state still did not see the need for a modern armed
force for its preservation, seemingly relying on Russia's
diplomatic support and promises, as well as on its own estimate
that revolution-torn China was little to be feared.
In February 1913, Russia granted the Mongolian government a
loan of 2 million rubles (then equivalent to about US$1 million)
for the maintenance and training of an army consisting of two
cavalry regiments with a machine gun company, a four-gun battery
of artillery, and 1,900 soldiers and officers. The loan and a
Russian military mission did not solve the problem. The Russians
promptly made a new loan of 3 million rubles, but this they time
sent a Russian financial adviser to control the expenditures.
Russia's objective of creating a Mongolian self-defense and
internal security capability encountered further difficulties in
1913. Freedom-loving Mongolian recruits did not relish the idea
of two years of barracks life under harsh discipline.
Furthermore, the Russian colonel in charge insisted on infantry
drills, which were anathema to hard-riding nomadic cavalry. The
desertion rate was high, and one unit actually mutinied against
its Russian instructors, who called out the Russian Cossack
Legation Guard to suppress the uprising. The Mongolian
government's lack of interest in an effective military force
further plagued the Russian effort; for the most part, misfits
and sick men were sent as recruits.
Mongolian irritation at the harshness of the Russian
instructors and the constant Russian pressures for government
moral and material support resulted in the one-year agreement's
being allowed to lapse on its termination date. Russia won
reluctant Mongolian agreement to its being allowed to maintain
1,000 troops and thus to reduce its military mission by only
half; however, by the end of 1914, continued resentment against
the Russian instructors and reluctance to support a regular army
forced the recall of the military mission.
World War I diverted Russia's attention from Mongolia.
Russia's principal effort with respect to Mongolia and China was
to call a tripartite meeting in Kyakhta, on the Siberian side of
the Mongolian-Russian border, in 1915. Chinese and Mongolian
representatives attended with considerable reluctance, but
eventually a treaty resulted
(see Period of Autonomy, 1911-21
, ch. 1). Its principal military effect was to limit Chinese forces
in Mongolia to a 200-strong guard for the residence of the
Chinese high representative at Yihe Huree. Between 1914 and 1919,
the Mongolian army languished, but it retained some semblance of
order. During these years, the expenditures for the army varied
from 20 to 25 percent of the total government budget. Although an
agent of the
Communist International (see Glossary),
also called
the Comintern, said while visiting Yihe Huree in 1919 that there
was no army, 2,000 troops were actually on the rolls.
The Chinese took advantage of the Russian preoccupation with
their own revolution at home to reinforce their consular guard at
Yihe Huree in 1918--in violation of the 1915 Treaty of Kyakhta.
The Russians protested, but with the collapse of effective White
Guard forces in Siberia in late 1919, the Chinese brought in
3,000 more troops. In October 1919, General Xu Shucheng arrived
with an army of 4,000 (later increased to 10,000); he suppressed
the autonomous government, carrying out numerous executions,
looting, and other atrocities. Thus the army of autonomous
Mongolia came to an end after a scant eight years of tenuous
existence. The army was to live on, however, in a small cadre of
demobilized Russian-trained soldiers that was led by Sukhe Bator
and aspired to again free Mongolia from Chinese rule.
Sukhe Bator--whose name means Ax Hero--was poor and jobless
when he was called up at the age of nineteen as one of the first
conscripts for the new army in 1912. His lack of wealth and
position reportedly was more than compensated for by intelligence
and vigor. Sukhe Bator soon became a junior noncommissioned
officer (NCO). During border clashes with the Chinese, he
distinguished himself in combat and was promoted to senior NCO
rank. As a member of a machine gun company, a technical and
prestigious assignment for that time, he was associated closely
with Russian instructors, and he learned some Russian. He also
reportedly was a natural leader, liked and respected by his
peers, and he was an accomplished practical soldier.
In late 1918, the recently demobilized Sukhe Bator,
anticipating the return of the Chinese, formed a group of like-
minded army friends to plan a new revolution and encouraged
discharged soldiers to await his call. In November 1919, under
the aegis of Russian Bolshevik agents in Yihe Huree, Sukhe
Bator's group joined with a similar small group of
revolutionaries led by Choybalsan. In 1920 Sukhe Bator and
Choybalsan, with about fifty followers, escaped the returning
Chinese forces and moved to Siberia where they received further
military training.
As Bolshevik victories grew, some opposing White Guard troops
retreated into Outer Mongolia, where they were supported and
encouraged by Japanese forces in Manchuria and eastern Siberia.
The largest White Guard band was 5,000 strong and was led by
Baron Roman Nicolaus von Ungern-Sternberg. After an abortive
attack on Yihe Huree in October 1920, von Ungern-Sternberg
attacked again in February, drove out the Chinese troops, and
declared an independent Mongolia.
In February 1921, Sukhe Bator, Choybalsan, and their
followers were joined in Irkutsk by a Mongolian delegation from
Moscow. In March 1921, they moved to Kyakhta, where they formed
the Mongolian People's Party and a provisional national
government. Sukhe Bator was named minister of war. The partisan
forces, now numbering 400, were combined to form the Mongolian
People's Revolutionary Army, with Sukhe Bator as commander in
chief and Choybalsan as commissar.
In mid-March 1921, Sukhe Bator drove the Chinese out of the
trading settlement now known as Amgalanbaatar across the
Mongolian-Russian border from Kyakhta, and he established a
provisional capital under the new name of Altanbulag. In April
1921, the provisional Mongolian government announced the
conscription of all males older than nineteen in the territory
under their control. At the same time, they asked for the
assistance of the Russian Red Army in opposing the White Guards.
Von Ungern-Sternberg's force struck north against the new
Bolshevik-sponsored government in May. The provisional
government, assisted by a division-size task force from the Fifth
Red Army, resisted. The White Guard offensive began May 22, 1921,
and Altanbulag was attacked June 6, 1921. The Red Army force
divided to meet this two-pronged attack; there was a Mongolian
contingent in each column, one under Sukhe Bator at Altanbulag,
and the other under Choybalsan. The attacks were repulsed, and
the combined Red Army-Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army force
swept toward Yihe Huree. Yihe Huree was captured on July 6, 1921,
and it was renamed Niyslel--capital--Huree. A provisional
national government was proclaimed on July 11, 1912, under close
Bolshevik supervision. Von Ungern-Sternberg escaped with a
remnant of the White Guards. In late August 1921, Mongolians in
his own forces seized him and turned him over to the Red Army for
execution
(see Revolutionary Transformation, 1921-24
, ch. 1).
The Mongolians are extremely proud of these revolutionary
feats. On every public patriotic occasion--such as the
anniversary of the founding of the Mongolian People's
Revolutionary Army on March 18, 1921, the day marking the
expulsion of Chinese forces from Maimaicheng--speeches of
national leaders invariably refer glowingly to the events of 1921
and to the virtues of the participants, as well as to the
fraternal help of the Red Army. Sukhe Bator died suddenly, and,
some thought, mysteriously, in 1923 while still a young man. The
tragedy of his early death assisted in his immortalization as the
great young hero of the revolution. A heroic-size equestrian
statue of Suhke Bator stands in the main square of Ulaanbaatar
(Red Hero).
The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Army of Sukhe Bator and
Choybalsan provided a convenient patriotic symbol to inspire
Mongolians and established a new military tradition. This army
also formed the nucleus of the eventual Mongolian People's Army,
which was to expand to a strength of 10 percent of the population
by the late 1930s in response to the Japanese threat. It also
acted as a modernizing force and gave the nation a generation of
political leaders. Choybalsan led the nation militarily in the
1920s and the 1930s as commander in chief of the army, and he was
premier and top party leader from 1939 until his death in 1952
(see Modern Mongolia, 1911-84
, ch. 1).
Data as of June 1989
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