A Splendid Little War (52 page)

There can be no doubt that the Intervention left Russia feeling threatened on all sides. After World War Two – when 1919 was only a generation ago – the Iron Curtain had one great merit from the Soviet point of view: it defended Russia's borders against attack. In 1957 Nikita Khrushchev, on a visit to the United States, declared: “All the capitalist countries of Europe and America marched on our country to strangle the new revolution … Never have any of our soldiers been on American soil, but your soldiers were on Russian soil. Those are the facts.” The Intervention of 1919 cast a long shadow.

None of this can be confirmed or refuted by reading an Official History of the Intervention, because that work was never written (or, if written, was never published). No doubt Lloyd George's government saw
nothing but embarrassment in detailing the decision-making behind a venture that was costly in blood and money at a time when Britain could afford neither, and which ended in total failure. Compared with other campaigns, few first-hand accounts of the Intervention survive.
The Day We Almost Bombed Moscow
, by Christopher Dobson and John Miller (Hodder & Stoughton, 1986) tells the story of that incident and of many other facets of the Intervention. Two sets of memoirs by serving officers are very revealing.
Farewell to the Don
(Collins, 1970) is the journal of Brigadier H.N.H. Williamson, an artilleryman whose task was to advise and instruct Denikin's armies. He travelled widely and saw both the best and the worst of the Russian soldier.
Last Train Over Rostov Bridge
(Cassell, 1962) is by Captain Marion Aten D.F.C., whose squadron flew Camels in many combats against the Red air force. They arrived in Russia full of enthusiasm and left it, months later, a lot wiser and not sorry to get out. The immediacy of their experience makes their accounts invaluable reading. Of other books on the subject,
The Victors' Dilemma: Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War
, by John Silverlight (Barrie & Jenkins, 1970) is scholarly and invaluable.

Any factual errors, of course, are down to me.

D.R.

 

 

DEREK ROBINSON
writes about wartime flying and flyers better than anyone else. Yet there is more to his novels than the air combat of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force. There is a rich cast of characters for whom humour comes as naturally as breathing. It is this combination – men who take nothing seriously except flying – that makes Robinson one of the outstanding storytellers of his day.

He says that he owes much to luck. The Education Act of 1944 let him jump the class barrier and escape a Bristol housing estate for Cambridge. He read Modern History (which inexplicably ended in 1914) and escaped again to advertising agencies in London and New York. He escaped a third time to write two long and unpublishable novels, and finally, at the age of thirty-nine, got it right.
Goshawk Squadron
was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1971. It made enough money to finance the next novel. The rest is ink, sweat and tears …