| Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia 1918-1920 Clifford Kinvig (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006), 400 pages Reviewed by: Wm. Matthew Kennedy, University of Texas at Austin This book finds itself among very few other works that deal with the British contribution to the White Army during the formative years of the Soviet Union. Further distinguishing itself, Churchill’s Crusade investigates the military intervention in Russia during and after the First World War as a function of Churchill’s own persona. The title appears deceptive, for the work itself centers on the interactions of the British Generals commanding the three fronts of the conflict, and their exchanges with both the overbearing Churchill government and the incoherent White Russian government. Kinvig provides a very illuminating and particular study into the lives of the British commanders and how they conducted their operations. In so doing, he reveals the deplorable state of both the British and White Russian armies after the 1914-1918 war. In several discussions regarding the myopia of the War Office, and the Churchill government as a whole, Kinvig communicates the extent to which ministers scraped the British Army’s barrel to deploy forces to Russia, and thus how these decisions doomed the intervention from the outset. The author also makes quite clear the complete lack of unity between the several contingents of anti-Bolshevik Russian governments and forces. He ultimately argues that the attempted integration of disorganized and inadequately motivated Russian troops around the core of poor-quality multinational forces dealt a mortal blow to the entire campaign. Therefore, without any clear aim or objective except for an abstracted concept of victory, the lack of coherence fatally incapacitated the anti-Bolshivek movement, and resulted in the defeat of the White forces. While his argument transmits itself clearly through the several anecdotes, letters, and war diaries, readers may find Kinvig’s organization hard to follow at times. Those unfamiliar with the 1919-1921 Russian Civil War will occasionally find themselves lost in chronology or in geography, resulting from sudden jumps from the Siberian front to the Karelian front. Nevertheless, Churchill’s Crusade ultimately succeeds in lending far more than sufficient evidence to prove that the stubborn prosecution of an unwinnable war resulted in defeat. Although it cannot stand as the foundational piece for the Allied intervention in Russia during 1918- 1921, Kinvig’s book provides an invaluable look into the problems behind the military fiascos and those who perpetuated them. |
| © Copyright 2006-08 British Scholar. All rights reserved. |