On Christmas Eve 1919, a dozen British families, who were fleeing from the Red Terror were stuck at Mariansk on the Trans-Siberian Railway Line with Captain Brian Horrocks and a troop of British Army soldiers, who had been ordered to remain behind to organise the evacuation of the White Russian capital, Omsk. The railway was in utter chaos because Admiral Kolchak’s army had been defeated and his government had collapsed, while he was stuck at Krasnoyarsk with the remains of the Imperial Treasury.
That evening, the British soldiers made the most of their situation. There was a babble of noise as 40 people squeezed into one carriage and ate their supper of soup, rice and vodka. A whisky bottle was shared around and they had an impromptu sing-song until 11.30 p.m. with a magnificent rendition of Helen of Troy and Give Me The Moonlight.
The soldiers’ incredible tale of survival through the Siberian winter, capture in Krasnoyarsk, deception in Irkutsk and imprisonment in Moscow is the subject of Churchill’s Abandoned Prisoners, with an introduction by Count Nikolai Tolstoy, whose father escaped from Russia in the same ship as one of the British soldiers on this train.
Brian Horrocks and the last British Army Prisoners-of-War in Russia
Rupert Wieloch 