Month: February 2024

One of the big puzzles about the British involvement in Siberia in 1918 is whether there was a higher purpose than defeating Prussia and helping those who had fought on the Eastern Front. The initial British reconnaissance mission, led by Colonel Josiah Wedgewood DSO, recommended that any involvement to assist the British refugees fleeing from the Red Terror should be conducted through the formal Anglo-Japanes treaty. The subsequent landing of a Royal Marine detachment (under Japanese command) to facilitate this humanitarian assistance and the arrival of a further scoping mission led eventually to a medium scale operation, which was divided into six parts: logistics (delivering millions of tonnes of war equipment to the White Army); medical (assisting in countering epidemic typhus); the railway mission (helping to secure and operate the Trans-Siberian Railway); training (in military acadamies, schools and formations such as the Jaeger Artillery Brigade and Anglo-Russian Infantry Brigade); fire support (such as the Royal Navy Guns commanded by Tom Jameson on the Kama river); and military intelligence.

Given the scale of the campaign, it is not surprising that some academics have suggested that there was a higher purpose to separate Siberia from Russia, but I have found little material in London archives to support this theory. There is much more evidence to suggest that the higher purpose was the same reason that the West now supports Ukraine in their efforts i.e. the British government’s hatred of military authoritarianism. They knew about this state of affairs because several Russian and British liaison officers, who served together on the Eastern Front, were involved in the Siberian Military Intelligence mission.

The MI imperative can be seen from the instructions to the Senior British Military Commander, Major General Sir Alfred Knox, which are shown in the document below. This reveals that the first group of British officers to travel to Siberia included three Russians: Henry Kartchkal Peacock had lived in Siberia for eight years and was well-versed in its culture (he was awarded an MBE in the Siberian Honours); William Gerhadi (awarded an OBE for his work as Knox’s aide), was later described by Evelyn Waugh in the highest terms: “I have talent, but you have genius”. The third member of this group, Captain Leo Steveni (awarded an OBE in the Siberian Honours), arrived in May and was already working with the White Russians when this document wes sent. Steveni’s unpublished memoir in the King’s College London Liddell Hart Collection was a vital source for my book.

The sad death of Alexei Navalny in a Siberian prison highlights the brutal way political prisoners are treated in Russia, but this is not new. The death rate has always been high and reached a peak after the Head of the Secret Police, Felix Dzerzhinsky, developed the Nackenschuss technique in 1918, which caused instant death and avoided the loss of much blood. A full understanding of how this was used to govern the Soviet Union can be found in George Popov’s 1925 book The Tcheka: The Red Inquisition.

The Foreign Office Committee to Collect Information on Russia interviewed many of the prisoners who returned from Moscow in 1920 and published a comprehensive report that can be found in the Archives of Nuffield College, Oxford. The cross-party committee included the Conservative MP for Bassetlaw, the Liberal MP for Middleton and Prestwich and the Labour MP for Rhondda East. The Committee concluded that although the treatment of the British captives was appalling, it was better than the conditions endured by Russian political prisoners who were routinely tortured and killed.

In his recent television interview with Tucker Carlson, President Putin talked about a prisoner exchange deal for US Journalist Evan Gershkovich. This diplomatic tactic has been a Russian point of reference with the West for more than a century to the early days of the Soviet Union. The Copenhagen Agreement was signed on 12th February 1920 between the British Prime Minister’s representative, Jim O’Grady (the MP for Leeds South East) and the Soviet Government’s Assistant Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, who had been exchanged for Britain’s agent in Russia, Robert Bruce Lockhart.

The agreement reaped immediate dividends with hundreds of British civilians and prisoners-of-war released from Moscow jails in April. They followed a well-worn route by train to Petrograd (now St Petersburg) and then across the Finnish frontier to Helsingfors (now Helsinki) where they were picked up by British ships. Among this cohort were several officers captured in Siberia, including Captain Francis McCullagh, who was with Brian Horrocks in Krasnoyarsk and Lieutenant Colonel Johnson, captured at Tomsk.

During my research I found several newspaper articles with lists of refugees and prisoners-of-war returning to Britain. It has been particularly rewarding when I have been contacted by descendants of some of the military personnel, including a Victoria Cross winner and a Royal Naval Air Service officer, Anthony Mantle, who was captured in Southern Russia in 1919 and can be seen wearing his RNAS hat in the photograph below (taken, it is believed, outside the last Tsar’s summer palace).

Some of the British Prisoners-of-War in Russia Exchanged in April 1920

When Brian Horrocks and his fellow prisoners-of-war arrived in Irkutsk after their ordeal in Krasnoyarsk, they collectively breathed a huge sigh of relief. They knew a treaty had been signed recently between the Governments of Lloyd George and Lenin in Copenhagen, which made provision for the repatriation of all PoWs. Much to their relief a train carrying a Union Jack appeared a few days later with Captain Rex Carthew, who had been assigned the task of bringing them to Vladivostok.

Unfortunately, the Bolshevik Commissioners, who had recently executed Admiral Kolchak, only allowed Carthew to take the last British civilians and informed the soldiers that they were being transported to Moscow as hostages. Carthew, who earned the Military Cross at the Battle of Arras in 1917 was one of the last British soldiers to serve on military operations in Siberia and waited patiently with provisions for the prisoners in Chita for two months until he knew they were not coming east before travelling home.

I found a fascinating telegram about Carthew when I was researching the prisoners’ story. It confirms his movement from Manchuria to Chita prior to arriving in Irkutsk. What makes it so interesting is that the cypher has been decoded by the recipient and it is clear that the headquarters in “Wladivostock” only deployed two officers, so they too were deceived by the Russian authorities, which reneged on the Copenhagen Treaty.