Books written by participants in the Allied Intervention in Russia.

[Guest]

Dear Forum.

 

I’m new and I was wondering if members could guide me in the direction of eyewitness accounts from participants (specifically British) of the Allied intervention in Russia. 

 

Many thanks for letting me join.

Josh.

[Black Maria]

Not my field of interest but looking through an old Turner / Donovan book catalogue with a section on the Allied Intervention he lists

a few memoirs but most are very rare and expensive . One that's quite common and cheap (ish ) is 'Farewell to the Don' by Brig H.N.H

Williamson , a British artillery officer with the White Russians , it was published by Collins in 1970 and is widely available .

Edited 19 September , 2018 by Black Maria

[NorthStaffsPOW]

There is also Colonel John Ward's, 'With the Die- Hards in Siberia' which is an account of the 25th Middlesex Regiment in Russia written by their commanding officer. It is free to read online through the Internet Archive website.

Edited 19 September , 2018 by NorthStaffsPOW

[Derek Black]

Old thread on one.

 

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/128454-an-officer-with-210th-battalion-the-royal-scots/

[seaJane]

John Buchan's Naval episodes of the Great War has one chapter on the episode. Although written by JB, I think he transmitted direct from someone who was there.

[MaureenE]

The book mentioned by seaJane is available full view to me on HathiTrust, not too sure who else can see it.  I cannot see the chapter she has referred to. Perhaps there are different editions? It says "First published 1938".

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015027341687?urlappend=%3Bseq=9

 

Also 

"The River Column in North Russia August 1918-June 1919" by  Lieut-Colonel A P Skeil, Commanding 2/10th Royal Scots. Page 297 The Long Road to Victory edited by John Buchan 1920 Archive.org

https://archive.org/stream/longroadtovictor00buchuoft#page/296/mode/2up

 

Cheers

Maureen

 

[seaJane]

Hm. Thanks for that Maureen, I'd better check the personal library!

[wrightdw]

Here is a selection, all of which were sources on my book on the British campaign in Russia 1918-20. I have marked the first hand accounts in bold.

 

Agar, Augustus, Baltic Episode: A Classic of Secret Service in Russian Waters (London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1963)
Albertson, Ralph, Fighting Without a War (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Howe, 1920)
Altham, Captain E., CB, RN, A History of the White Sea Station, 1914–19 (London: Training & Staff Division,
Naval Staff, July 1921)
Arthur, Max, The True Glory: The Royal Navy 1914–39. A Narrative History (London: Coronet Books, 1996)
Ashmore, Leslie, Forgotten Flotilla: British Submarines in Russia 1914–18 (Portsmouth: Manuscript Press in
association with the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, 2001)
Aten, Marion, Last Train Over Rostov Bridge (New York: Julian Messner, 1961)
Bainton, Roy, Honoured by Strangers: the Life of Captain Francis Cromie CB, DSO, RN, 1882–1918 (Shrewsbury:
Airlife Publishing, 2002)
Baron, Nick, The King of Karelia. Colonel P.J. Woods and the British Intervention in North Russia 1918–1919. A
brief history and memoir (London: Francis Boutle, 2007)
Bennett, Geoffrey, Cowan’s War: the story of British naval operations in the Baltic, 1918–1920 (London: Collins,
1964)
Bennett, Geoffrey, Freeing the Baltic (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2002)
Bentinck, Major V. M., Mutiny in Murmansk: The Hidden Shame: The Royal Marines in North Russia 1918–1919
(Royal Marines Historical Society, 1999)
Blumberg, General Sir H. E., KCB, RM, Britain’s Sea Soldiers. A Record of the Royal Marines during the War
1914–19 (Devonport: Swiss and Co., 1927)
Body, Captain O. G., DSO, RFA & Bombardier W. G. Willmott, RFA, A Short History of 421st Battery, R. F. A.,
North Russia 1918-19 (Privately published, undated)
Boustead, Colonel Sir Hugh, KBE, DSO, MC, The Wind of Morning: An Autobiography (London: Chatto &
Windus, 1971)
Bradley, John, Allied Intervention in Russia, 1917–20 (New York: Basic Books, 1968)
Bujack, Philip, Undefeated: the Extraordinary Life and Death of Lt. Col. Jack Sherwood Kelly, VC, CMG, DSO
(Great Britain: Forster Consulting, 2008)
Callwell, Sir Charles Edward, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries, vol. 2 (London: Cassell,
1927)
Challinger, Michael, ANZACS in Arkhangel: The Untold Story of Australia and the Invasion of Russia 1918–19
(Richmond, Victoria: Hardie Grant Books, 2010)
Collishaw, Raymond, Air Command: A Fighter Pilot’s Story (London: Kimber, 1973)
Dobson, Christopher & Miller, John, The Day We Almost Bombed Moscow (London: Hodder & Stoughton,
1986)
Dukes, Paul, Red Dusk and the Morrow: Adventures and Investigations in Soviet Russia (London: Williams and
Norgate, 1922)
Dunsterville, L. C., The Adventures of Dunsterforce (London: Edward Arnold, 1920)
Edmonds, H. J., Norman Dewhurst, MC (privately published, 1968)
Ellis, C. H., The British Invervention in Transcaspia, 1918–19 (University of California Press, 1963)
Ewing, Major John, MC, The Royal Scots, 1914–19 (Edinburgh, London: Oliver and Boyd, 1925)
Ferguson, Harry, Operation Kronstadt: the true story of honor, espionage, and the rescue of Britain’s greatest spy, the
Man with a Hundred Faces (London: Arrow Books, 2008)
Fraser, Edward, The Royal Marine Artillery: 1804–1923 (London: Royal United Service Institution, 1930)
Gordon, Dennis, Quartered In Hell: The Story of American North Russian Expeditionary Force 1918–1919
(Missoula, MT: Doughboy Historical Society, 1982)
Haddon, Victoria (ed.), North Russia Expedition of Summer 1919: A Diary written by Mr R A Jowett (CreateSpace,
2014)
Halliday, E. M., The Ignorant Armies, The Anglo–American Archangel Expedition 1918–1919 (London: Weidenfeld
& Nicolson, 1961)
Hill, George A., Go Spy the Land: Being the Adventures of IK8 of the British Secret Service (London: Cassell &
Co., 1932)
Horrocks, Lieutenant-General Sir Brian, KCB, KBE, DSO, MC, A Full Life (London: Collins, 1960)
Hudson, Miles, Intervention in Russia 1918–20: A Cautionary Tale (Leo Cooper, 2004)
Ironside, Sir Edmund, Archangel 1918–19 (London: Constable, 1953)
Irwin, Mike, Victoria’s Cross: the story of Sgt. Samuel George Pearse, V.C., M.M.: from ANZAC to Archangel
(Victoria: Northland Centre, 2003)
Jackson, Robert, At War with the Bolsheviks (London: Tom Stacey Ltd., 1972)
Jameson, Captain Thomas, DSO, Expedition to Siberia, 1919: The Great War, Eastern Front (Portsmouth: Royal
Marines Historical Society, Special Publication No. 10, 1987)
Jones, H. A., Over The Balkans and South Russia 1917–1919: being the history of No. 47 Squadron Royal Air Force
(Elstree: Greenhill Books, 1987)
Jones, Ira, An Air Fighter’s Scrapbook (London: Nicholson & Watson, Ltd., 1938)
Kettle, Michael, Churchill and the Archangel Fiasco, November 1918–July 1919 (London: Routledge, 1992)
Kinvig, Clifford, Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918–1920 (London: Continuum, 2007)
556 C HURC HILL’S SECRET WAR WITH LENIN
Kreyer, J. A. C., and Uloth, G., 28th Light Cavalry in Persian and Russian Turkistan, 1915–20 (Oxford: private
publication, 1926)
Liddell-Hart, B. H., The Tanks: The History of the Royal Tank Regiment and its Predecessors, Heavy Branch, Machine-
Gun Corps, Tanks Corps, and Royal Tank Corps, 1914–45 (New York: Prager, 1959)
Livock, G. E., Imperial War Museum, To the Ends of the Air (London: HMSO, 1973)
Lockhart, R. H. Bruce, Memoirs of a British Agent; being an account of the author’s early life in many lands and of his
official mission to Moscow in 1918 (London: Putnam, 1932)
MacLaren, Roy, Canadians In Russia 1918–19 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Maclean-Hunter Press, 1976)
Maurice, Sir F. (ed.), Soldier, Artist, Sportsman: The Life of Lord Rawlinson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1928)
Maynard, Charles, The Murmansk Venture (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928)
McCullagh, Francis, A Prisoner of the Reds: the story of a British officer captured in Siberia (London: Murray, 1921)
Moore, Joel R., Mead, Harry H., Jahns, Lewis E., The History of The American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki
(Nashville, Tennessee: The Battery Press, 2003)
Muirden, Bruce, The Diggers Who Signed on for More: Australia’s Part in the Russian Wars of Intervention,
1918–1919 (Kent Town, S. Australia: Wakefield Press, 1990)
Neville, Sir J. E. H., History of the 43rd and 52nd (Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire) Light Infantry in the Great
War, 1914–1919 (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1938)
N.R.E.F., 16th Brigade, C.F.A., 67th and 68th Batteries: in North Russia, September 1918 to June 1919 (Bryant
Press Ltd., Toronto)
Pautovsky, Konstantin, The Story of a Life: Vol. 3, In that dawn (London: Harvill Press 1964, repr. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1982)
Phelps, Hodges, BRITMIS; A Great Adventure of the War; Being an account of Allied intervention in Siberia and of
an escape across the Gobi to Peking (London: Jonathan Cape, 1931)
Pieroth, Doris, A Canadian’s Road to Russia: The Letters of Stuart Ramsay Tompkins: Letters from the Great War
Decade (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1989)
Pigot, G., History of the 1st Battalion, 14th Punjab Regiment, Sherdil-ki-Paltan (late XIX Punjabis) (New Delhi:
Roxy Printing Press., 1946)
Quinlivian, Peter, Forgotten Valour, The story of Arthur Sullivan VC, Shy War Hero (Frenchs Forest, NSW,
Australia: New Holland, 2006)
Sayer, Major Herbert, A Somewhat Unusual Journey: Victoria Stations to Taganrog: A War Office Mission to Russia,
1919 (Chertsey: Sayer Press, 2014)
Shackleton, Sir Ernest, South (London: Heinemann, 1919)
Shrive, Frank J., The Diary of a P.B.O. (Poor Bloody Observer) (Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 1981)
Silverlight, John, The Victors’ Dilemma: Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War 1917–20 (London: Barrie &
Jenkins, 1970)
Singleton-Gates, G. R., Bolos and Barishynas: Being an account of the doings of the Sadleir-Jackson Brigade, and
Altham Flotilla, on the North Dvina during the summer 1919 (Aldershot: Gale & Polden, 1920)
Skuce, J. E., CSEF, Canada’s Soldiers in Siberia, 1918–19 (Access to History Publications, undated)
Smith, John T., Gone to Russia to Fight: The RAF in South Russia 1918–20 (Stroud: Amberley, 2010)
Soutar, Andrew, With Ironside in North Russia (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1940)
Strakhovsky, Leonid Ivan, Intervention at Archangel;the story of allied intervention and Russian counter-revolution
in North Russia, 1918–1920 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944)
Swettenham, John, Allied Intervention in Russia 1918–19, and the Part Played by Canada (Toronto: Ryerson
Press, 1967)
Thomson, John, Shackleton’s Captain: A Biography of Frank Worsley (Christchurch, NZ: Hazard Press, 1988)
Thornycroft, John I. (and Co.), A short history of the revival of the small torpedo boat (C.M.B.s) during the Great War
and subsequently in the Kronstadt, Archangel and Caspian Sea expeditions of 1919 (Privately published, 1920)
Tomaselli, Phil, Air Force Lives: A Guide for Family Historians (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2013)
Ullman, Richard Henry, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917–1921: Intervention and the War (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1961)
Uloth, Gerald, Riding to War (Monks, 1994)
Van der Spuy, Major General K., Chasing the Wind (Cape Town: Books of Africa, 1966)
Vining, L. E., Held by the Bolsheviks; the diary of a British officer in Russia, 1919–1920 (London: The Saint
Catherine Press, 1924)
War Office, Army: The Evacuation of North Russia 1919 (London: HMSO, 1920)
Ward, John, With the ‘Die-Hards’ in Siberia (London: Cassell, 1920)
Ward, William, A Well-kept Secret: The Allied Invasion of North Russia, 1918–19 (Privately published, 2010)
Williamson, H. N. H., Farewell to the Don; the Russian Revolution in the journals of Brigadier H. N. H. Williamson
(London: Collins, 1970)
Wilson, Michael, Baltic Assignment: British Submariners in Russia 1914–19 (London: Leo Cooper in association
with Secker & Warburg, 1985)
Wilson, Michael, For Them the War Is Not Over: The Royal Navy in Russia 1918–20 (Stroud: The History Press
2008)
Young, E. Hilton, By Sea and Land: Some Naval Doings (London: T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1920)

[David Filsell]

Mr w,

 A most generous gesture. Hope you get the thanks you deserve.

[tomcervo]

Re: Marion Aten and Last Train Over Rostov Bridge.

Anyone thinking of getting this should really get the new edition, described here: 

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/170367-new-edition-released-of-last-train-over-rostov-bridge/

The 1963 edition's departures from the truth and the reasons for same are fascinating reading, and I think might apply to some other memoirs.

The editors of the new edition do an extensive fact check of the original book, which make it a more reliable source.

Edited 26 September , 2018 by tomcervo
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[Black Maria]

' The War letters of a Light Infantryman' by J.E.H Neville is a series of letters sent to his father and sisters from the western front in 1917-18

but it also includes his letters from Russian between May-August 1919 when he was part of the relief force . Unfortunately it's one of those

rare and expensive books  ( x-boots library copy £90 on Amazon )

[James A Pratt III]

Note before you think of reading Aten and Collishaw's books you might want to read John Smith "Gone to Russia To Fight" first.

[vladimirdorda]

Good morning. I am here for the first time, I will be grateful to communicate with you. I am a correspondent and local historian from Taganrog, looking for information, photographs and books on the history of Taganrog in 1917-1920, especially about the tank corps. I will be very grateful to everyone for the information. My contact address v.dorda@mail.ru