Encounters on the eastern front: The Royal Naval Armoured Car Division in Russia 1915–1920

Abstract

The Royal Naval Armoured Car Division was dispatched to fight with the Russian Army in 1915. In diaries, letters, and post-war exercises in autobiography, members of the unit expressed a sense of disconnection from the ‘real war’ in the west. In fact, their tour of Russia exemplified many aspects of the wartime Anglo-Russian alliance: the profusion of channels of authority; the logistics of wartime supply; the interventionist schemes designed to keep Russia in the war at all costs. This article examines how the connections between the western and eastern fronts were understood and navigated by diplomats and strategists, and by soldiers encountering an unfamiliar theatre of war.