Nikolayevsk Incident

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The Nikolayevsk Incident (尼港事件, Niko Jiken^?) was a series of events from February through March 1920 during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, cumulating in the massacre of several hundred Japanese at the town of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur in Russian Far East.

Nikolayevsk-on-Amur was occupied in September 1918 by Imperial Japanese Army. In early February 1920, the town of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur had a Japanese civilian community of around 450 people, and a military garrison of 350 men from the Imperial Japanese Army's 14th Infantry Division as part of Japan's Siberian Intervention force. Besides Japanese garrison, in the town was located the White Russian Army's troops of around 300 men. Total civilians was about 15 thousand. In January 1920, the town was surrounded by partisans around 4 thousand strong under the command of anarchist Yakov Triapitsyn, who was loosely allied with the Bolshevik Red Army.

On February 24, 1920, realizing that he was outnumbered and far from reinforcement, the Japanese garrison commander allowed Triapitsyn's troops to enter the town under a flag of truce. However, when Triapitsyn began to round up and execute White Movement supporters, the Japanese garrison launched a surprise attack on 12 March 1920 that failed miserably, and resulted in the execution of the surviving garrison and the slaughter of all but 122 Japanese civilians. As a Japanese relief expedition approached Nikolayevsk-on-Amur in late May, Triapitsyn executed all remaining prisoners, both Japanese and Russian, and burned the town to the ground.

The Japanese government lodged a protest against the Bolshevik government in Moscow, demanding compensation. The Russian government responded by capturing and executing Triapitsyn; however, the Japanese government felt that this was not sufficient, and used the incident as an excuse to occupy the northern half of Sakhalin island, and to delay diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union until 1925.

[edit] References

• Hara, Teruyuki. Niko Jiken no Shomondai (Problems in the Incident at Nikolaevsk-na-Amure) // Roshiashi Kekyuu, 1975, No. 23.
• Gutman, Anatoly. Ella Lury Wiswell (trans.); Richard A. Pierce (ed.) The Destruction of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, An Episode in the Russian Civil War in the Far East, 1920. Limestone Press (1993). ISBN 0-919642-35-7
• White, John Albert. The Siberian Intervention. Princeton University Press (1950)