Japanese Military Currency 1 Yen note Taisho Year. 7 - 1918, series for Japanese troops occupying Siberia during World War I (1918)
Great Japanese Government - Ministry of Finance. P-M16
Obverse: The note shows two Onagadori cockerels at the top with two dragons below & Russian legends at left and right: «1 Иен Японскою Монетою - Императорское Японское Правительство» - «1 Yen in Japanese Coin - Imperial Japanese Government».
Japanese Military Currency
Japanese Intervention in Siberia 1918-1922
10 Sen 20 Sen 50 Sen 1 Yen 5 Yen 10 Yen
The Siberian Intervention, or the Siberian Expedition, of 1918–1922 was the dispatch of troops of the Entente powers to the Russian Maritime Provinces as part of a larger effort by the western powers and Japan to support White Russian forces against the Bolshevik Red Army during the Russian Civil War. The Imperial Japanese Army continued to occupy Siberia even after other Allied forces had withdrawn in 1920.
The Japanese were initially asked in 1917 by the French to intervene in Russia but declined the request. However, the army general staff later came to view the Tsarist collapse as an opportunity to free Japan from any future threat from Russia by detaching Siberia and forming an independent buffer state. The Japanese government in the beginning refused to undertake such an expedition and it was not until the following year that events were set in motion that led to a change in this policy.
In July 1918, President Wilson asked the Japanese government to supply 7,000 troops as part of an international coalition of 25,000 troops, including an American expeditionary force, planned to support the rescue of the Czechoslovak Legions and recurring of wartime supplies. After heated debate in the Diet, the administration of Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake agreed to send 12,000 troops, but under the command of Japan, rather than as part of an international coalition.
Once the political decision had been reached, the Imperial Japanese Army took over full control under Chief of Staff Yui Mitsue and extensive planning for the expedition was conducted.