Successful movements against war?

I think the internal demoralization, from the states point of view, of the US military and the increasing size, frequency and militance of domestic protests ended the war in southeast Asia, with all due respect for the Vietnamese.

Didn't the movement really only emerge once military defeat was pretty much a certainty anyway? I've got a book with an article I meant to read on this, so I'll check it out as soon as I can.

THE RUSSIAN FRONT

There is some evidence of fraternisation between Russian revolutionaries and the allied armies sent to put them down, even in the Northern Sector. In December 1918 an occupation of the barracks by Russians of the First Archangel Company, who were sympathetic to the revolution, was supported by fraternising allied troops, who picketed the town so as to shut it off from the barracks. The mutiny was suppressed when Russian NCOs, under British command, mortared the barracks, killing at least one innocent civilian bystander.

In February 1919 men of the Yorkshire Regiment refused to march on Seletskoe. Two sergeants, delegated to express the battalion's refusal to fight, were arrested, court-martialled and sentenced to be shot. In the light of 'secret' orders from the King prohibiting executions after the Armistice, these sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment. News of the Yorkshire's mutiny spread rapidly through the allied forces. The first to follow suit were the French battalion at Archangel, who refused to return from leave.

Much has been said about the determination of Russian workers to protect the revolution from the Western allies. What has rarely been recorded is how weak the Bolshevik armed forces were. When clashes with the allied Navy occurred, Bolshevik commanders often surrendered immediately. And the few planes the RAF had commandeered easily took command of the air. In one instance an RAF pilot was able to follow a Bolshevik plane to its aerodrome and land there, after shooting it up, before making a safe return. The ultimate Bolshevik military victory was not due to the superiority of Lenin's forces in the field, but to the decision of the Allies to pull out - a decision largely influenced by the mood of their own soldiers. Major setbacks on the battlefield were largely due to vast numbers of Whites going over to the other side, rather than the superior forces of the Bolshevik armies.

In June 1919, in spite of the fact that the Bolshevik forces on the Dvina were on their knees, the Hampshire Regiment refused contact and withdrew from the battle. To prevent similar acts of indiscipline the ringleaders were sent home for demobilisation. Maintaining discipline, however, proved to be more difficult than it was thought. On July 7 the Slavo-British Legion, which had been at Dvina for only 3 days, mutinied, killing five British officers and four Russian officers. Several mutineers called for volunteers to join the Bolsheviks and some 50 did so, another 50 deserting. Two of the mutineers were captured, tried and shot. The rest of the battalion was disarmed and turned into a labour unit.

The situation in Russia was unique. Here was an army inflicting heavy losses on the Bolshevik forces, breaking through their lines with relative ease, and yet, from the reports of mutinies, it was evident that the whole Archangel force might easily collapse. It is against this background that we can understand the decision to withdraw allied troops from Russia. By September 1919 the evacuation of an army, scarcely damaged by Bolshevik forces, was well under way.