A Nasty Little War: The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution (Paperback) - Anna Reid

The extraordinary story of how the West tried to reverse the Russian Revolution.

'Chillingly original' Max Hastings

'Brilliantly depicts a disastrous failure' Antony Beevor

'Witty and elegant . . . Excellent background to today's events' Anne Applebaum

'Britain's 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 West's 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 world's 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.

About the Author

Anna Reid is a historian and journalist. Her previous books are Borderland: a Journey through the History of Ukraine, now in its fourth edition, The Shaman's Coat: a Native History of Siberia, and Leningrad: Tragedy of a City under Siege, 1941-44, which was shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and has been translated into eighteen languages. She is a former Kyiv correspondent for The Economist, and a trustee of the Ukrainian Institute London.