British reinforcements at Murmansk

On 23 June 1918 the transport City of Marseilles came alongside the quay at Murmansk. She brought two British forces code-named “Syren” and “Elope”. General Frederick Poole, for a month commander of the Allied forces in North Russia, stated in his report that the headquarters and troops of both forces arrived that day. “Syren” was commanded by Major-General Charles Maynard. He was to remain at Murmansk and, under Poole’s overall authority, take command of the troops in that area. “Elope”, under Brigadier-General Robert Finlayson, was a mission made up of a staff and instructors. It was to accompany Poole to Archangel, where it was intended to organise and train a new Russian army to fight the Germans.

A small force for a great task

The reinforcements were modest. According to Poole’s report, “Syren” consisted of an infantry company, a machine-gun company and a company of engineers. Maynard wrote in his memoirs that his expeditionary force was to number “a meagre 600 men”, almost all of them in so low a medical category that they were unfit for service in France. They were soldiers of a company of the 29th London Regiment, the 253rd Machine Gun Company and two sections of the 584th Field Company, Royal Engineers. Modern historians give a similar figure of 600 soldiers. The American naval history speaks of a thousand British soldiers, probably including the men of “Elope”. On the spot Maynard was to take over 400 Royal Marines, who had arrived at the end of May, a Serbian battalion and French artillery. In London it was understood that this was too little. But the crisis on the Western Front, where the Germans had just reached the Marne, did not allow more to be sent.

Both forces sailed from Newcastle on 18 June. The ship’s captain had sealed orders and, as Maynard recalled, apart from him and Finlayson no one on board knew for certain where they were going. On the way Spanish flu broke out on board. So many stokers fell ill that the ship slowed to almost half speed, and volunteers from among the soldiers had to be sent down to the boiler room. Beyond the North Cape the ship ran into fog. In the end two armed trawlers from Murmansk led her up the Kola Inlet. The welcome was not a grand one. On the empty quay stood two Marine sentries.

What Maynard found

Maynard found Poole aboard the flagship HMS Glory, with Rear-Admiral Thomas Kemp. They talked about the White Sea. The ice was already breaking up, but Archangel was still icebound, although the port usually opened before the end of June. The “Elope” mission therefore had to wait at Murmansk. Every day of delay gave the Bolsheviks time to prepare the defence of Archangel. Moscow, under pressure from Berlin, had been demanding the withdrawal of the Allies since the beginning of June, and on 8 June members of the local soviet read Poole a telegram from Lenin and Chicherin calling on foreign troops to leave the country. The soviet itself, however, was well disposed towards the Allies. Poole was counting on it breaking with Moscow.

Poole also described to Maynard the distribution of the troops. At Murmansk there were about 150 Royal Marines, 400 Serbs (almost all of them sick) and 150 newly enlisted Russians and Poles. At Kandalaksha there were the French, some of the Serbs and about 500 Finnish Red Guards, refugees ravaged by scurvy, from whom Poole formed the Finnish Legion. At Kem on the White Sea there were 250 Royal Marines and 250 Serbs, and at Pechenga 150 sailors from the cruiser Cochrane. Maynard noted that after deducting the sick and untrained he was left, for the defence of Murmansk, Pechenga and about 350 miles (c. 560 km) of railway, with about 2,500 men, including the new arrivals. On the other side, according to British estimates of the time, there were supposed to be more than 50,000 Germans in Finland and at least as many Finnish Whites. These figures were greatly exaggerated, but in June 1918 no one at Murmansk could check them.

Maynard’s arrival quickly changed the situation on the railway. On 27 June he set off to inspect the line to the south and on the way stopped trains carrying Red Guards to Murmansk. Relations with the Bolsheviks soon turned into open hostility. “Elope” had to wait until the turn of July and August for its expedition to Archangel. Maynard commanded the troops in the Murmansk area almost to the end of the Allied intervention in North Russia, which lasted until the autumn of 1919.