The Red and the White: Intervention

In 1918, towards the end of World War One, tens of thousands of foreign troops, Americans and British among them, were ordered to Russia in what became known as the Allied Intervention. Lucy Ash travels to the Arctic port of Archangel to look for evidence of a conflict which took place a century ago and transformed Russia’s relations with the West for decades to come. Accompanied by historian Lyudmila Novikova and producer Natalia Golysheva, who grew up in this region, Lucy uncovers the controversy still raging around this ill-fated war. In this episode, Lucy joins a group of local battlefield archaeologists as they comb the forest with a metal detector, explores the impact of Allied Intervention on the local population and meets the 93-year-old son of the Allied Commander, General Edmund Ironside, who kept detailed diaries of his Arctic mission and the frustrations behind it.

Producer: Natalia Golysheva

(Photo: British troops march through the streets of Archangel, Russia in the Spring of 1919. Credit: From the diaries of Field Marshal Edmund Ironside)