A Nasty Little War

"Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from sixteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, it stoked global political conflict worldwide for decades to come. In A Nasty Little War, historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict. Initially launched to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum left by the Russian Revolution, the Intervention morphed into a bid to destroy Bolshevism on the battlefield. But Allied arms and money could not prevent Russia's anti-Bolshevik armies from collapsing, and the Interventionists retreated in defeat. The humiliation checked Britain's imperial swagger, sapped American idealism, and destabilized France and Germany. Combining immersive storytelling and sharp analysis, A Nasty Little War reveals how the Allied Intervention reshaped the West's relationship with Russia."