January 1918, he invaded Transbaikal, but by February, had been forced by Bolshevik partisans to retreat back to Manzhouli, where he was visited by R.B.Denny, British Military Attache in Beijing, who formed an "extremely favourable impression of him". On his recommendation, the Foreign Office in London agreed to pay Semyonov £10,000 a month, with no conditions attached,. The French government also decided to give him financial aid, while the Japanese placed an intelligence officer, Captain Kuroki Chikayochi, in Semyonov's headquarters. The British subsidies ended, by which time "Japanese influence was so strong that Semyonov was for practical purposes a puppet." In April 1918, Semyonov launched another raid into Siberia and with the help of the Czechoslovak Legions by August 1918 he had managed to consolidate his positions in the Transbaikal region, where he set up a provisional government. On 6 September, his men captured Chita, and slaughtered 348 of its citizens. He made Chita his capital. Semyonov declared a "Great Mongol State" in 1918 and had designs to unify the Oirat Mongol lands, portions of Xinjiang, Transbaikal, Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, Tannu Uriankhai, Kobdo, Hulunbei'er, and Tibet into one Mongolian state. The region under his control, also called Eastern Okraina, extended from Verkhne-Udinsk near Lake Baikal to the Shilka River and the town of Stretensk, to Manzhouli and northeast some distance along the Amur Railway. In early 1919, Semyonov declared himself ataman of the Transbaikal Cossack Host. In his rule over the Transbaikal, Semyonov has been described as a "plain bandit [who] drew his income from holding up trains and forcing payments, no matter what the nature of the load nor for whose benefit it was being shipped". He handed out copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the Japanese troops with whom he became associated. With Japanese protection, he recognised no other authority. When Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, who based in Omsk, in Siberia, was declared Supreme Ruler by the White Armies, Semyonov refused to submit to him. They had met once, in Manzhouli, in May 1918, when Semyonov insulted Kolchak by failing to be at the railway station to greet him. Kolchak considered sending an army into Transbaikal to remove Semyonov, but had to abandon the idea because Semyonov was protected by the Japanese, who had 72,000 troops in Siberia. In October 1919, Kolchak recognised Semyonov as commander-in-chief of the Transbaikal region. In December 1919, Semyonov