Churchill's Secret War With Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918-20

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After three years of great loss and suffering on the Eastern Front, Imperial Russia was in crisis and on the verge of revolution. In November 1917, Lenin's Bolsheviks (later known as 'Soviets') seized power, signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers and brutally murdered Tsar Nicholas (British King George's first cousin) and his children so there could be no return to the old order. As Russia fractured into loyalist 'White' and revolutionary 'Red' factions, the British government became increasingly drawn into the escalating Russian Civil War after hundreds of thousands of German troops transferred from the Eastern Front to France were used in the 1918 'Spring Offensive' which threatened Paris. What began with the landing of a small number of Royal Marines at Murmansk in March 1918 to protect Allied-donated war stores quickly escalated with the British government actively pursuing an undeclared war against the Bolsheviks on a number of fronts in support of British trained and equipped 'White Russian' Allies. At the height of British military intervention in mid-1919, British troops were fighting the Soviets far into the Russian interior in the Baltic, North Russia, Siberia, Caspian and Crimea simultaneously. The full range of weapons in the British arsenal were deployed including the most modern aircraft, tanks and even poison gas. British forces were also drawn into peripheral conflicts against 'White' Finnish troops in North Russia and the German 'Iron Division' in the Baltic. It remains a little known fact that the last British troops killed by the German Army in the First World War were killed in the Baltic in late 1919, nor that the last Canadian and Australian soldiers to die in the First World War suffered their fate in North Russia in 1919 many months after the Armistice. Despite the award of five Victoria Crosses (including one posthumous) and the loss of hundreds of British and Commonwealth soldiers, sailors and airmen, most of whom remain buried in Russia, the campaign remains virtually unknown in Britain today. After withdrawal of all British forces in mid-1920, the British government attempted to cover up its military involvement in Russia by classifying all official documents. By the time files relating to the campaign were quietly released decades later there was little public interest. Few people in Britain today know that their nation ever fought a war against the Soviet Union. The culmination of more than 15 years of painstaking and exhaustive research with access to many previously classified official documents, unpublished diaries, manuscripts and personal accounts, author Damien Wright has written the first comprehensive campaign history of British and Commonwealth military intervention in the Russian Civil War 1918-20. Cover Details Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction Part One: North Russia: Murmansk (‘SYREN’ FORCE) 1918–19 1. Murmansk: Operations in Karelia, March 1918–January 1919 2. Murmansk: General Maynard’s Offensive, February–April 1919 3. Murmansk: Railway Offensive, May–July 1919 4. Murmansk: Lake Onega Operations, June–September 1919 5. Murmansk: Final operations, August–October 1919 Part Two: North Russia: Archangel (‘ELOPE’ FORCE) 1918–19 6. Archangel: Occupation and Operations August 1918–September 1919 7. Archangel: Dvina River Front September–December 1918 8. Archangel: Railway Front September 1918–September 1919 9. Archangel: Vaga River Front January–September 1919 10. Archangel: Dvina River Front January–June 1919 11. Archangel: Dvina River Front June–July 1919 12. Archangel: Dvina River Front August 1919 offensive 13. Archangel: Dvina River Front September 1919: Final Operations Part Three: Russia 1918–20: Campaigns on other fronts 14.Siberia: April 1918–February 1920 15.Eastern Baltic: December 1918–December 1919 16.South Russia and Crimea: November 1918–May 1920 17.Turkestan and Caspian: August 1918–May 1920 18.Spies and Secret Agents: November 1917–August 1918 19.Moscow Prisoners of War: August 1918–October 1920 Appendices Appendix I Roll of Honour: British and Commonwealth Servicemen Appendix II British and Commonwealth Known Prisoners of War of the Soviets Appendix III Roll of Australians known to have served in Russia 1918–20 Appendix IV Roll of South Africans & Rhodesians known to have served in Russia 1918–20 Appendix V Roll of New Zealanders known to have served in Russia 1917–20 Appendix VI NREF Order of Battle including Allied Contingents, 15 December 1918 Appendix VII Allied Dispositions Archangel Command, Midnight 9 August 1919 Appendix VIII His Majesty’s Ships, North Russia, March 1918–October 1919 Appendix IX British Forces in North Russia, March 1918–October 1919 Appendix X His Majesty’s Ships, RN Eastern Baltic Fleet December 1918–December 1919 Appendix XI Participants in the Raid on Kronstadt Harbour, 18 August 1919 Bibliography Index Back Cover