A Nasty Little War

Chillingly original Max Hastings

Brilliantly depicts a disastrous failure Antony Beevor

Witty and elegant . . . Excellent background to todays events Anne Applebaum

Britains most forgotten war, brilliantly remembered Simon Jenkins

Vivid and remarkably timely Martin Sixsmith

From the bestselling author of Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine

The extraordinary story of the Wests intervention into the Russian Civil War

In the closing months of the First World War, Britain, America, France and Japan sent 180,000 soldiers to revolutionary Russia, in a doomed attempt to unseat the Bolsheviks. Entangled in what they termed a comic opera conflict, they crisscrossed the shattered empire in sleds, trains and paddlesteamers, bivouacked in log cabins and felt yurts, torpedoed warships from speedboats, improvised the worlds first air-dropped chemical weapons, and organised several coups and at least one assassination. Cheered on by Churchill, they also turned a blind eye to their Russian allies many atrocities.

Two years later, as the Red Army swept the board, the West evacuated, leaving Russia more blood-stained and suspicious than ever. A Nasty Little War brings this forgotten misadventure vividly to life.