laststandonzombieisland

In late 1915, it was hit on an idea for the soldier-rich but equipment-poor Imperial Russian Army– which had lost immense supplies of pre-war arms and ordnance in their series of sweeping defeats delivered by the Germans in the 12 months from Tannenberg in August 1914 to the capture of Warsaw in August 1915– that one of the best ways to help its allies in France was to send men there to fight with French-supplied arms.

While the French asked for a 400,000-strong Russian Expeditionary Force, the REF led to the piecemeal dispatch of ultimately five picked two-regiment brigades, plus an artillery brigade and an engineer battalion, some 44,319 volunteers in all.

The 1st Russian Special Brigade, 180 officers and 8,762 enlisted under Maj. Gen. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Lokhvitsky, left Moscow on 3 February 1916 and, during the coldest stretch of the Russian winter, set out East across the Trans-Siberian Railway to board four waiting French ships that would take them to the Western Front via the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal.

After 80 days and 30,000 miles of travel by rail and ship, on 20 April 1916, the first two ships (Amiral Latouche-Tréville and Himalaya) carrying the lead elements of the brigade arrived in Marseille, having passed through Samara, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Harbin, Dairen, Saigon, Colombo, and Port Said.

It would be the first time that armed Russian formations had marched through France since Alexander I’s boys came in 1814 to get rid of Napoleon.

While only the officers and NCOs shipped out with their personal arms (handguns) and a picked “colors company” was equipped with Mosins, by and large, the Russians came sans small arms.

The newly arrived Russians were billeted at the training camp at Mailly-le-Camp in Champagne, where they learned to use their new French equipment, which included primarily Mle 1874/80/14 Gras rifles (often with Mle 66 bayonets) that had been rechambered to fire 8mm Lebel ammunition, Hotchkiss machine guns, gas masks, and Adrian helmets.

After the 3rd brigade (the 2nd and 4th brigades had been sent to the Salonika front in the Balkans) arrived in France in September 1916, it was merged into a “square” four-regiment division under Major Gen. Mikhail Ippolitovich Zankevich at Mourmelon-le-Grand, then sent to the Front.

Russian units took part in the Battle of Verdun. After serious losses during the April offensive of 1917 on the Western Front, amounting to 5,183 soldiers and officers killed and wounded– more than a quarter of their strength– the Russian 1st and 3rd Brigades were withdrawn to rest in the La Courtine military camp near Limoges.

Although the Revolution back home in Russia eventually caught up to the REF aboard– resulting in a widespread mutiny that had to be put down by French forces in September 1917– reformed Polish, Lettish (Latvian) and Russian Legions emerged from the REF’s ashes in 1918 and continued to fight until the Armistice. The two-battalion Russian Legion of Honor (Légion d’Honneur Russe) was notably folded into the colonial troops of the Moroccan Division (Division marocaine, 1re D.M), and provided notable service and ended the war on occupation duty in Worms, Germany, in 1919.

Some 9,000 who elected in March 1918 to continue fighting as their country had signed the peace with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk, were sent to North Africa to perform hard labor in construction projects under the watchful eyes of the French Foreign Legion. As the war continued, nearly 1,000 of these later requested to go back to the front!

Sent back home in waves via French ships, the trio of legions would form key parts of the Latvian, Polish, and White Russian armies in early 1919. By 1920, those left in North Africa were repatriated home, or given the option to join White Russian exiles then streaming into Europe.

Of the six brigade and division commanders of the REF that remained with the force to Armistice, all went back to Russia and fought with the Whites, then fled in exile after the Bolshevik Reds won the Civil War. Four, Lokhvitsky, Zankevich, Leontiev (4th Brigade Cdr), and Taranovsky, all settled in France, with Leontiev later opening a nightclub on the Riviera and retiring to Tahiti.

Today, more than 900 Russian war dead are interred at Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand Cemetery near Mourmelon, outside of Reims, while numerous monuments exist around France to the Adrian-helmeted troops of the Tsar that arrived to die for the Republic some 110 years ago this week.

They are well remembered by the Brigades Russess 16-18 Association.