Australia’s Lost Heroes

Anzacs in the Russian Civil War 1919

By Damien Wright

Published by Big Sky Publishing

RRP $32.99 in paperback | ISBN 9781923144064

 

Damien Wright is a historian and author with a lifelong interest in Australian military history. He is a recognised expert on British military operations in Russia and author of the book, Churchill’s Secret War with Lenin: British and Commonwealth Military Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918-20.

In 2019 he travelled to Russia with the grandson of Sergeant Samuel Pearse, VC, MM and held a commemoration on the 100th Anniversary at the site of his death and posthumous Victoria Cross action, the first time an Australian had visited the location in 100 years.

But of course the big question is: why is so little known of Australian involvement in British efforts to defeat the Red Army in Russia in 1919, after the war in Europe had officially ended?

The first Allied troops to set foot in Russia in March 1918 as part of the British military intervention in the Russian Civil War were Royal Marines tasked with protecting Murmansk harbour and the tons of war stores donated by the British. That was before the Armistice.

In May that year, a call went out to Empire armies for volunteers of the rank of sergeant and above. Nine Australians volunteered for the North Russia Expeditionary Force, which finally left in September 1919.

The Anzac volunteers fought an arduous campaign. They also had to fight a war within, avoiding the treachery and mutiny of White Russian ‘allies’. The White Russian army proved entirely incapable of holding the line left by the British forces.

Remarkably, two Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross, one posthumously, their brave deeds largely unrecognised by history, their graves lost and forgotten.

Follow the author’s journey to a remote corner of Russia with the grandson of Samuel Pearse in the hope of identifying the lost grave and in some way close the book on a traumatic event that had impacted the family for generations.

An extraordinary story of national importance dedicated to those forgotten Australian heroes who fought and died in Russia after the Armistice.

But beyond that story is the story of the birth of Soviet Russia and the territory it was forced to secede to its enemies.

One sentence struck me particularly considering recent history: the Bolsheviks also had to endorse the independence of the German-protected government of the Ukraine.

Are we at a point where history repeats itself? Where Germany and its European allies once again become Ukraine’s protector?

VERDICT: On the one hand this is the personal journey of one man in search of his lost grandfather. On the other hand, it is a journey into the unlikely and little known history of Anzac involvement beyond the end of WWI in the Russian civil war. A fine piece of research and a story well told.