British Campaign in the Baltic 1918-19
Encyclopedia
The British Campaign in the Baltic 1918-19 was a part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War
Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
The Allied intervention was a multi-national military expedition launched in 1918 during World War I which continued into the Russian Civil War. Its operations included forces from 14 nations and were conducted over a vast territory...

. The intervention played a key role in enabling the establishment of the independent states of Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

 and Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

 but failed to secure the control of Petrograd by Russian White forces
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...

, one of the main goals of the campaign.

Context

The purposes of Operation Red Trek in the wake of the Russian collapse and revolution of 1917
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

 were to stop the rise of Bolshevism, protect Britain's interests and to extend the freedom of the seas
Freedom of the seas
Freedom of the seas is a principle in the international law and law of the sea. It stresses freedom to navigate the oceans. It also disapproves of war fought in water. The freedom is to be breached only in a necessary international agreement....

.

The situation in the Baltic states in the aftermath of World War I
Aftermath of World War I
The fighting in World War I ended in western Europe when the Armistice took effect at 11:00 am GMT on November 11, 1918, and in eastern Europe by the early 1920s. During and in the aftermath of the war the political, cultural, and social order was drastically changed in Europe, Asia and Africa,...

 was chaotic. The Russian empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 had collapsed and Bolshevik Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 and White Russian
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...

 forces were fighting across the region. Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

 had been occupied by the German army in 1917 and German Freikorps
Freikorps in the Baltic
After 1918, the term Freikorps was used for the paramilitary organizations that sprang up around the German Empire, including in the Baltic states as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I...

 and Baltic-German Landeswehr
Baltische Landeswehr
Baltische Landeswehr was the name of the unified armed forces of the Couronian and Livonian nobility from 7 December 1918 to 3 July 1919.- Command structure :...

 units were active in the area. Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

 had established a national army with the support of Finnish
Heimosodat
The term in Finnish historiography heimosodat in English literally "Kindred Nations Wars", "Wars for kindred peoples" or "Kinship Wars" for Finnic kinship. It is often erroneously translated as "Tribal Wars"...

 volunteers and were defending against the 7th Red Army's attack.

Soviet forces

The Russian Baltic Fleet
Baltic Fleet
The Twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet - is the Russian Navy's presence in the Baltic Sea. In previous historical periods, it has been part of the navy of Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. The Fleet gained the 'Twice Red Banner' appellation during the Soviet period, indicating two awards of...

 was the key naval force available to the Bolsheviks and essential to the protection of Petrograd. The fleet was severely depleted after the First World War and Russian revolution but still formed a significant force. At least one Gangut-class
Gangut class battleship
The Gangut-class battleships were the first dreadnoughts begun for the Imperial Russian Navy before World War I. They had a convoluted design history involving several British companies, evolving requirements, an international design competition, and foreign protests...

 battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

, Pre-dreadnought battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines were available. Many of the officer corps were on the White Russian side in the Civil War or had been murdered, but some competent leaders remained.

British forces

A Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 squadron was sent under Rear-Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair
Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair
Admiral Sir Edwyn Sinclair Alexander-Sinclair, GCB, MVO was a British Royal Navy officer, notable for firing the first shots of the Battle of Jutland, and for leading a squadron of light cruisers in the Baltic to support independence of Estonia and Latvia in 1918-19.-Naval career:Born in Malta and...

. This force consisted of modern C-class cruiser
C class cruiser
The C class was a group of twenty-eight light cruisers of the Royal Navy, and were built in a sequence of seven classes known as the Caroline , Calliope , Cambrian , Centaur , Caledon , Ceres and Carlisle classes...

s and V- and W-class destroyer
V and W class destroyer
The V and W class was an amalgam of six similar classes of destroyer built for the Royal Navy under the War Emergency Programme of the First World War and generally treated as one class...

s. In December 1918, Sinclair sallied into Estonian and Latvian ports, sending in troops and supplies, and promising to attack the Bolsheviks "as far as my guns can reach". In January 1919, he was succeeded in command by Rear-Admiral Walter Cowan
Walter Cowan
Admiral Sir Walter Henry Cowan, 1st Baronet, KCB, MVO, DSO & & Bar , known as Tich Cowan, was a British Royal Navy admiral who saw service in both World War I and World War II; in the latter he was one of the oldest British servicemen on active duty.-Early days:Cowan was born in Crickhowell,...

.

Main actions

British forces denied the Bolsheviks the ability to move by sea, RN guns bombarded the Bolsheviks on land in support of Estonian and Latvian troops and provided supplies.

On the night of 4 December, the cruiser struck a mine while on patrol duties north of Liepāja
Liepaja
Liepāja ; ), is a republican city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea directly at 21°E. It is the largest city in the Kurzeme Region of Latvia, the third largest city in Latvia after Riga and Daugavpils and an important ice-free port...

, and sank with the loss of 11 of her crew.

On 26 December, British warships captured the Bolshevik destroyers and which at the time were shelling the port of Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

. Both units were presented to the Estonian Provisional Government
Estonian Provisional Government
The Estonian Provisional Government was formed on February 24, 1918 by the Salvation Committee appointed by Maapäev the Estonian Province Assembly. The Provisional Government was led by Konstantin Päts...

 and, as Lennuk and Vambola, formed the nucleus of the Estonian Navy
Estonian Navy
The Merevägi is the navy of Republic of Estonia and is part of the unified Kaitsevägi .In total, there are about four commissioned ships in the Estonian Navy, including three auxiliary ships; the displacement of the navy is under 10,000 tonnes making it one of the smallest navies in the world...

. Forty Bolshevik prisoners of war were executed by the Estonian government on Naissaar
Naissaar
Naissaar is an island northwest of Tallinn in Estonia. The island covers an area of 18.6 km². It is 13-14 km long and 6 km wide, and lies about 8.5 km from the mainland. The highest point on the island is Kunilamägi, which is 27 meters above sea-level. The island consists predominantly of...

 in February 1919 despite British protests. The new Commissar
Commissar
Commissar is the English transliteration of an official title used in Russia from the time of Peter the Great.The title was used during the Provisional Government for regional heads of administration, but it is mostly associated with a number of Cheka and military functions in Bolshevik and Soviet...

 of the Baltic Fleet—Fedor Raskolnikov
Fedor Raskolnikov
Fyodor Fyodorovich Raskolnikov , real name Fyodor Ilyin , was a Bolshevik, participant in the October Revolution, commander of Red fleets on the Caspian and the Baltic during the Russian Civil War, and later a Soviet diplomat...

—was captured onboard Spartak. He was exchanged on 27 May 1919 for 17 British officers captured by the Soviets and later appointed Commissar of the Caspian Flotilla
Caspian Flotilla
The Caspian Flotilla is the oldest Russian military flotilla, stationed in the Caspian Sea. It was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1945.-Establishment:...

 by Trotsky. In the Baltic, Raskolnikov was replaced by Nikolai Kuzmin
Nikolai Kuzmin
Nikolai Nikolayevich Kuzmin was a Soviet political and military leader. He was the political Commisar of the Baltic Fleet during the time of the Russian Civil War....

.

In April 1919, Latvian President Kārlis Ulmanis
Karlis Ulmanis
Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis was a prominent Latvian politician in pre-World War II Latvia during the Latvian period of independence from 1918 to 1940.- Education and early career :Ulmanis studied agriculture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and...

 was forced to seek refuge on board the Saratov under the protection of British ships.

In the summer of 1919, the Royal Navy bottled up the Red fleet in Kronstadt
Kronstadt
Kronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt |crown]]" and Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: It is also...

. Several sharp skirmishes were fought near Kotlin Island
Kotlin Island
Kotlin is a Russian island, located near the head of the Gulf of Finland, west of Saint Petersburg in the Baltic Sea. Kotlin separates the Neva Bay from the rest of the gulf...

. In the course of one of this clashes, on 31 May, during a Bolshevik probing action to the west, the battleship scored a hit on the destroyer HMS Walker.

A flotilla of British Coastal Motor Boats under the command of Lt. Augustus Agar
Augustus Agar
Captain Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, VC, DSO, RN was a noted Royal Navy officer in both World War I and World War II and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.In...

 raided Kronstadt Harbour twice, sinking the cruiser Oleg
Bogatyr class cruiser
The Bogatyr-class were a group of protected cruisers built for the Imperial Russian Navy. Unusually for the Russian navy, two ships of the class were built for the Baltic Fleet and two ships for the Black Sea Fleet.- Ships :...

and the depot ship Pamiat Azova on June 17 as well as damaging the battleships Petropavlovsk and Andrei Pervozvanny
Andrei Pervozvanny class battleship
The Andrey Pervozvanny class were a pair of predreadnought battleships built in the mid-1900s for the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy. They were conceived by the Naval Technical Committee in 1903 as an incremental development of the Borodino class battleships with increased displacement...

in August, at the cost of three CMBs in the last attack. The first
raid was intended to support a significant mutiny at the Krasnaya Gorka fort
Krasnaya Gorka fort
Krasnaya Gorka is a coastal artillery fortress west of Lomonosov, Russia on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland, opposite Kotlin Island and the Baltic Fleet's base at Kronshtadt...

 which was eventually suppressed by the 12 in (304.8 mm) guns of the Bolshevik battleships.

In the autumn of 1919, British forces—including the monitor
Monitor (warship)
A monitor was a class of relatively small warship which was neither fast nor strongly armoured but carried disproportionately large guns. They were used by some navies from the 1860s until the end of World War II, and saw their final use by the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.The monitors...

 —provided gunfire support to General Yudenich
Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich
Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich , was a commander of the Russian Imperial Army during World War I. He was a leader of the anti-communist White movement in Northwestern Russia during the Civil War.-Early life:...

's White Russian
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...

 Northwestern army in its offensive against Petrograd. The Russians tried to disrupt these bombardments by laying mines using the s, Azard, Gavril, Konstantin and Svoboda. The latter three ships were sunk in a British minefield on 21 October 1919, during an attempt to defect to Estonia. The White army's offensive failed to capture Petrograd and on 21 February 1920, the Republic of Estonia and Bolshevist Russia
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....

 signed the Peace Treaty of Tartu
Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Estonian)
Tartu Peace Treaty or Treaty of Tartu was a peace treaty between Estonia and Russian SFSR signed on February 2, 1920 ending the Estonian War of Independence. The terms of the treaty stated that "Russia unreservedly recognises" the independence of Republic of Estonia de jure and renounced in...

 which recognised Estonian independence. This resulted in British Naval withdrawal from the Baltic.

The prolonged British presence at Björkö Sound and Cowan's demands to the Finnish government that the small Finnish squadron patrolling the area had to stay until the British withdrawal from the sound in December 1919 cost Finnish Navy three torpedoboats which sank when ice crushed their weak hulls. The loss of the three vessels meant that the newly independent Finland's small navy lost 20% of the heavier ships in a single stroke.

Significant unrest took place among British sailors in the Baltic. This included small-scale mutinies amongst the crews of , —the latter due in part to the behaviour of Admiral Cowan—and other ships stationed in Beryozovye Islands
Beryozovye Islands
Beryozovye Islands , alternatively spelled Berezovye Islands, is an island group in Leningrad Oblast, Russia. The islands are situated at the bottom of the Gulf of Finland, just outside the town of Primorsk on the Karelian Isthmus....

. The causes were a general war weariness (many of the crews had fought in World War I), poor food and accommodation, a lack of leave and the effects of Bolshevik propaganda.

British

RN ships lost in the Baltic include:
  • Light cruiser - mined
  • V-class destroyers:

} - mined
} - torpedoed by Bolshevik submarine Pantera
  • Submarine - surface action against Bolshevik destroyers.
  • Arabis-class
    Arabis class sloop
    The Arabis class was the third class of minesweeping sloops to be built under the Emergency War Programme for the Royal Navy in World War I as part of the larger "Flower Class", which were also referred to as the "Cabbage Class", or "Herbaceous Borders"...

     sloop
    Sloop-of-war
    In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...

    : and - mined
  • Coastal Motor Boats: CMB-24, CMB-62 and CMB-79 - surface action against Bolshevik Fleet
    CMB-67 - stranded


The 112 deaths of British servicemen—107 RN personnel and five RAF personnel—are commemorated on a memorial plaque, which was unveiled in 2005 at Portsmouth Cathedral
Portsmouth Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Portsmouth, commonly known as Portsmouth Cathedral, is the Church of England cathedral of the City of Portsmouth, England and is located in the heart of Old Portsmouth...

 in England, with similar memorials in churches in Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

 and Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

.

Soviet

  • Cruiser - torpedoed by CMBs.
  • Depot ship Pamiat Azova - torpedoed by CMBs.
  • Destroyers Spartak and Avtroil - captured.
  • Destroyers Gavril, Konstantin and Svaboda - mined while attempting to defect.


No figures for Soviet casualties were available

See also

  • North Russia Campaign
    North Russia Campaign
    The North Russia Intervention, also known as the Northern Russian Expedition, was part of the Allied Intervention in Russia 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...

  • British submarine flotilla in the Baltic
    British submarine flotilla in the Baltic
    A British submarine flotilla operated in the Baltic Sea for three years during the First World War. The squadron of nine submarines was attached to the Russian Baltic Fleet. The main task of the flotilla was to prevent the import of iron ore from Sweden to Imperial Germany...

  • Latvian War of Independence
  • Estonian War of Independence
  • West Russian Volunteer Army
    West Russian Volunteer Army
    The West Russian Volunteer Army or Bermontians was an army in the Baltic provinces of the former Russian Empire during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1920....

  • Defence Forces Cemetery of Tallinn
    Defence Forces Cemetery of Tallinn
    The Defence Forces Cemetery of Tallinn , sometimes called the Tallinn Military Cemetery, is one of the three cemeteries of the Tallinn City Centre Cemetery . It is situated about 3 kilometres outside the centre of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia...

  • Augustus Agar
    Augustus Agar
    Captain Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, VC, DSO, RN was a noted Royal Navy officer in both World War I and World War II and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.In...

  • Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis
    Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis
    Field Marshal Harold Rupert Leofric George Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis was a British military commander and field marshal of Anglo-Irish descent who served with distinction in both world wars and, afterwards, as Governor General of Canada, the 17th since Canadian...

  • Claude Congreve Dobson
    Claude Congreve Dobson
    Rear-Admiral Claude Congreve Dobson VC, DSO was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces....

  • Hubert Gough
    Hubert Gough
    General Sir Hubert de la Poer Gough GCB, GCMG, KCVO was a senior officer in the British Army, who commanded the British Fifth Army from 1916 to 1918 during the First World War.-Family background:...

  • John Alfred Moreton
    John Alfred Moreton
    Captain John Alfred Moreton, CMG, DSO, Royal Navy was an officer of the Royal Navy active in the First World War. Promoted to Captain on 1 January 1916 he commanded the monitors General Wolfe and Erebus. He took a leading rôle in the British Campaign in the Baltic 1918-19 as part of the Allied...

  • Gordon Charles Steele
    Gordon Charles Steele
    Captain Gordon Charles Steele VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Details:...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK