The Suchan Valley Campaign was the clearing and occupation of the mining region around the Russian town of Suchan (currently Partizansk,

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

) in a climatically-unforgiving region of Russia's

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

during the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

. A relatively clean sweep, the operation inflicted heavy casualties on the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

Battle

With the failed Russian surprise assault against a numerically-inferior American force during the

Battle of Romanovka The Battle of Romanovka was fought in June 1919 during the Russian Civil War. Russian Bolsheviks of Yakov Tryapitsyn launched a surprise attack on an American army camp at Romanovka, near Vladivostok. As a result of the engagement, the attacks w ...

in June, the Suchan Mines were entirely cut off from

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

control of these mines prevented the Americans from fulfilling specified duties in the region, so a three-pronged offensive was launched to clear the valley of armed opposition. Five companies of the 31st Infantry,

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

, took on the responsibility of clearing the Suchan, while every stretch of captured territory within the valley was handed over to garrison guard forces manned by the U.S. Marines and

Navy A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the military branch, branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval warfare, naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral z ...

References

{{Reflist 1919 in Russia Battles of the Russian Civil War involving the United States 20th-century military history of the United States Campaigns of the Russian Civil War July 1919 August 1919 Battles of the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War Military operations of the Russian Civil War in 1919