Where did British troops fight during the allied intervention in the Russian Civil War?

Question

In particular, did they fight in the territories of modern-day Belarus or Lithuania?

Online sources such as Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, National Archives UK, and saving the war or killing bolshevism in the cradle state that troops were deployed in North Russia, the Caucasus and Siberia. Furthermore there was a British naval force in the Baltic as mentioned by @JohnDallman.

However, I've not yet found clear sources indicating the precise actions and movements of British forces (which are typically described as 'muddled and half-hearted'), and in particular, whether the British presence ever extended to the Southern Front.

Answer 1

The British did fight in North Russia, for example; Topso; Tulgas; Emtsa and Bolshie-Ozerki. There are memorials,two at Archangel and one at Murmansk that commemorates British soldiers killed in North Russia

Answer 2

There's an English-language subtlety here. In English "troops" specifically means land forces, and excludes naval forces.

There was a British naval force in the Baltic supporting the Whites in parts of the Russian Civil War, but they provided sea control and bombardment, rather than troops. They helped establish the independence of Estonia and Latvia, but not Lithuania, as far as I know.

Answer 3

I would check the Wikipedia articles on Major Bruce Cameron and the Battle of Tsaritsyn.

In June 1919 the above Scottish officer and a handful of other British troops had been sent to Denikin's White army near Tsaritsyn to train them in the use of British tanks supplied to them. Despairing of the Russians slow progress in learning how to operate the tanks, Cameron decided to show them how it was done and ordered the handful of British troops to take one of the tanks and attack Tsaritsyn themselves. Totally surprised, the Red troops panicked and fled or surrendered, allowing this tiny British force to capture the city and turn it over to Denikins White Russians

Tsaritsyn was later renamed Stalingrad, in honour of Joseph Stalin who was one of the defending Red commanders. Thus, Britain succeeded in capturing Stalingrad where the Germans later failed.

Answer 4

The British troops did not really fight. The British landed in Murmansk with the explicit purpose to prevent the transfer of the allies military supplies previously provided to Russia from being seized by the Germans. In the beginning of 1918 the new communist government of Russia surrendered to Germany, and the Western part of the empire (if not the whole empire) fell into a complete disorder. There was a danger that the allies military supplies stored in Murmansk may fall into German hands.

When in the fall 1918 Germany surrendered on the Western front, and the war ended, the British forces withdrew. There was no real fighting between the British and the Communist government.

The British also had some limited involvement in Transcaucasian republics which became independent for a short period after the 1917 revolution. They also withdrew when Germany was defeated and WWI ended.

Another thing is that Britain supported the whites in the Russian civil war with supplies. This support was very limited, and did not include any British troups, only some technicians. A British tank captured from Denikin's troops still stands on the main square of Kharkiv.

Somewhat similar was the story of American troops landed in the Far East. Their purpose was to prevent Japan from seizing Russian Far East.

Communist historians later called these things "foreign intervention". But there was no organized fighting between British or American troops and the Red army.

Answer 5

My answer is entirely based on Anthony Beevor's Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921

British troops did fight during the Russian civil war, in several parts of Russia. But not in Belarus.

They did fight in:

• Northern Russia, where they advanced from Arkhangelsk to the South in the idea of meeting White Russian troops of Siberia, under Admiral Koltchak
• In the Baltic sea and Baltic lands, with a fleet that gunned several times Red Russian troops and fortresses, and even conduct a "special operation" with explosive boats aiming to neutralize Russian ships in their harbour
• Eventually, armoured cars, tanks and planes helping White Russian forces of Denikine did fight in the SOuth, a litte in Ukraine and mainly near the Caspian Sea and Tsaritsyne (future Stalingrad)