Army History - 1900s
In terms of a consciously expressed military tradition, modern Mongolian military history began in 1911 with the autonomy of Outer Mongolia 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.
In 1912 a small Russian military mission arrived in Yihe Huree (present-day Ulaanbaatar) 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.
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