The North Russia intervention, also known as the Northern Russian expedition, the Archangel campaign, and the Murman deployment, was part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War after the October Revolution. The intervention brought about the involvement of foreign troops in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement. The movement was ultimately defeated, while the British-led Allied forces withdrew from Northern Russia after fighting a number of defensive actions against the Bolsheviks, such as the Battle of Bolshie Ozerki. The campaign lasted from March 1918, during the final months of World War I, to October 1919.
Reasons behind the campaign
In March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II in Russia abdicated and was succeeded by a provisional government. The US government declared war on the German Empire and its allies in April, after learning of the former's attempt to persuade Mexico to join the Central Powers. The Russian Provisional Government, led by Alexander Kerensky, pledged to continue fighting Imperial Germany on the Eastern Front. In return, the US began providing economic and technical support to the Russian provisional government, so they could carry out their military pledge.
The Russian offensive of 18 June 1917 was crushed by a German counteroffensive. The Russian Army was plagued by mutinies and desertions. Allied war materiel still in transit quickly began piling up in warehouses at Arkhangelsk (Archangel) and the ice-free port of Murmansk. Anxious to keep Russia in the war, the Royal Navy established the British North Russia Squadron under Admiral Kemp.
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, came to power in October 1917 and established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. Five months later, they signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, which formally ended the war on the Eastern Front. This allowed the German army to begin redeploying troops to the Western Front, where the depleted British and French armies had not yet been bolstered by the American Expeditionary Force.
Coincidental with the Treaty, Lenin personally pledged that if the Czechoslovak Legion would stay neutral and leave Russia, they would enjoy safe passage through Siberia on their way to join the Allied forces on the Western Front. However, as the 50,000 members of the Legion made their way along the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Vladivostok, only half had arrived before the agreement broke down and fighting with the Bolsheviks ensued in May 1918. Also worrisome to the Allied Powers was the fact that in April 1918, a division of German troops had landed in Finland, creating fears they might try to capture the Murmansk–Petrograd railroad, the strategic port of Murmansk and possibly even the city of Arkhangelsk. It was also feared that large military stores at Arkhangelsk might fall into unfriendly hands.
Faced with these events, the leaders of the British and French governments decided the western Allied Powers needed to begin a military intervention in North Russia. They had three objectives: they hoped to prevent the Allied war materiel stockpiles in Arkhangelsk from falling into German or Bolshevik hands; to mount an offensive to rescue the Czechoslovak Legion which was stranded along the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and resurrect the Eastern Front; and by defeating the Bolshevik army with the assistance of the Czechoslovak Legion, to expand anti-communist forces drawn from the local citizenry.
On November 11, the armistice between Germany and the Allies was signed, marking the end of World War I, which made the goal of re-establishing the Eastern Front obsolete. However, British forces remained. From this point, their primary aims shifted to reinstating a White government and overthrowing the Bolsheviks.
Severely short of troops to spare, the British and French requested that US President Woodrow Wilson provide U.S. troops for what was to be called the North Russia campaign, or the Allied intervention in North Russia. In July 1918, against the advice of the US War Department, Wilson agreed to a limited participation in the campaign by a contingent of U.S. Army soldiers of the 339th Infantry Regiment, that was hastily organized into the American North Russia Expeditionary Force, which came to be nicknamed the Polar Bear Expedition. Under his Aide Memoire, Wilson set the guidelines for American intervention by saying the purpose of American troops in Russia was "to guard military stores which may subsequently be needed by Russian forces and to render such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their own self-defense."
International contingent
British Army Lieutenant General Frederick Poole, who had previously spent two years in Russia, was appointed by the British Secretary of State for War, Lord Milner, to lead the expedition to Arkhangelsk.
The international force included:
British Empire
- Headquarters elements,
- 2/10th (Cyclist) Battalion, Royal Scots,
- 2/7th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry,
- 548th (Dundee) Army Troops Company, Royal Engineers,
- 253rd Company, Machine Gun Corps,
- Canadian Malamute company of experienced sled dogmen
- 236th Infantry Brigade,
- 17th (Service) Battalion (1st City), King's (Liverpool) Regiment
- 6th (Service) Battalion, Green Howards
- 13th (Service) Battalion, Green Howards
- 11th (Service) Battalion (1st South Down), Royal Sussex Regiment
- 237th Infantry Brigade,
- "Karelian Regiment" of three "columns" of 3680 locally recruited Karelians.
- Two "columns" of Serbian troops amounting to 1120 troops.
- 238th Infantry Brigade,
- "Finnish Legion" of Red Finns, commanded by British officers.
- Infantry company from 2/9th (County of London) Battalion, London Regiment
- Two detached sections from 253rd Company, Machine Gun Corps,
- Two detached sections from 548th (Dundee) Army Troops Company, Royal Engineers
- 238th Trench Mortar Battery
- 52nd Battalion, Manchester Regiment,
- and elements of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
- Slavo-British Allied Legion (SBAL): a British-trained and led contingent composed mostly of anti-Bolshevik Russian volunteers (including Dyer's Battalion).
- Canadian Field Artillery
- (67th and 68th Batteries of the 16th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery)
- Royal Field Artillery
- (86th and 135th Batteries of the 32nd Brigade)
- 6th Brigade
- 420th Battery
- 434th Battery
- 435th Battery
- 1203rd Battery
- a flotilla of over 20 ships including the seaplane carriers HMS Pegasus and HMS Nairana
- 6th Battalion Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI),
- contingent comprising Airco DH.4 bombers, Fairey Campania and Sopwith Baby seaplanes along with a single Sopwith Camel fighter.
1919 reinforcements
In late May 1919, the British North Russia Relief Force (British Army) arrived to cover the withdrawal of British, US and other anti-Bolshevik forces. It was made up primarily of:
- the 45th Battalion and 46th Battalions, Royal Fusiliers,
- 2nd Battalion, Hampshire Regiment,
- 1st Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
- two companies of the 201st Battalion, Machine Gun Corps,
- an armed company of the Chinese Labour Corps
- 55th Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery
- 240th Light Trench Mortar Battery,
- 241st Light Trench Mortar Battery,
- 250th Signal Company, Royal Engineers
- and the 385th Field Company, Royal Engineers.
United States
- 310th Engineers,
- 339th Infantry,
- 337th Field Hospital,
- and 337th Ambulance Company.
- Also the 167th and 168th Railroad Companies, which were sent to Murmansk to operate the Murmansk to Petrograd line. US Navy: the cruiser USS Olympia during August and September 1918 (including 53 personnel attached to British naval units).
Italy
1,350 men in the Corpo di spedizione italiano in Murmania commanded by Colonel Sifola.
Russia
"White Russian" forces included the Northern Army (previously the army of Alexander Kerensky's provisional Russian government, led by General Evgenii Miller)
Opposing forces
Opposing these international forces were the Bolshevik Sixth and Seventh Red Army, combined in the Northern Front (RSFSR), which was poorly prepared for battle in May 1918.
Landing at Murmansk
The First British involvement in the war was the landing in Murmansk in early March 1918. Ironically, the first British landing in Russia came at the request of a local Soviet council. Fearing a German attack on the town, the Murmansk Soviet requested that the Allies landed troops for protection. Leon Trotsky had ordered the soviet to accept Allied aid after the German invasion of Russia in February–March 1918. 170 British troops arrived on 4 March 1918, the day after the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Germany and the Bolshevik government.
White Finns volunteers who had crossed the border during the Finnish Civil War had captured the Russian town of Pechenga, and it was feared that the Whites would hand over the town to the Germans who would then use the bay as a submarine base. The Germans were allies of the White Finns as they had been assisting them militarily during their Civil War. British troops saw action for the first time in early May, when a party of White Finns ski troops beat off a patrol led by Royal Marines and sailors from HMS Cochrane. The second clash took place on 10 May at Tunturimaja, where Royal Marines and their local guides were outflanked and forced once again to retreat. The British forces, alongside Red Guards, eventually prevailed and secured Pechenga by 11 May with several casualties. In the following months, British forces in the area were largely engaged in small battles and skirmishes with White Finns in support of the Red Army. Command of the British forces in the area was given to Major General Sir Charles Maynard. In late June, 600 British reinforcements arrived. By this time, Soviet–Allied relations were passing from distrust to open hostility. A Bolshevik force was sent to take control of the town up the Murmansk-Petrograd railway, but in a series of skirmishes the Allied forces repelled the attack. This was the first real fighting between the troops of the Allies and Soviet Russia. A trainload of Bolshevik troops was also found at Kandalaksha heading north, but Maynard managed to convince them to stop, before Serb reinforcements arrived and took over the train.
In September, the British forces, who had so far mainly only engaged White Finns in small battles and skirmishes, were reinforced by the arrival of a force of 1,200 Italians as well as small Canadian and French battalions. By early Autumn, British forces under Maynard in the Murmansk region were also 6,000 strong. However, on 11 November, the armistice between Germany and the Allies was signed, ending the First World War, meaning that the primary objective of re-establishing the Eastern Front was now irrelevant. The British forces did not leave. From this point onwards, the sole objectives of the British were to restore a White government and to remove the Bolsheviks from power.
Landing at Arkhangelsk
On 2 August 1918, anti-Bolshevik forces, led by Tsarist Captain Georgi Chaplin, staged a coup against the local Soviet government at Arkhangelsk. British diplomats had traveled to the city in preparation of the invasion, and General Poole had coordinated the coup with Chaplin. Allied warships sailed into the port from the White Sea. There was some resistance at first and Allied ships were fired on, but 1500 French and British troops soon occupied the city. The Northern Region Government was established by Chaplin and popular revolutionary Nikolai Tchaikovsky; to all intents and purposes, however, General Poole ran Arkhangelsk, declaring martial law and banning the red flag, despite the decision of the Northern Region Government to fly it.
It was reported in the British press in early August that the Allied Powers had occupied Arkhangelsk, although not officially confirmed by the British authorities at the time. By 17 August it was being reported that the Allies had advanced to the shores of Onega Bay.