World War 1, Russia, North Russia Relief Force, 45 Battalion Royal Fusiliers,1919

At the end of World War 1 Russia was engulfed in a bloody civil war as the Bolshevik regime sought to establish itself. In mid 1918 a small British-French-American expeditionary force seized Murmansk and Archangel to retrieve Allied supplies which had been given to the crumbling White Russian forces of the Czar, but with the fanciful further goal of creating a situation which might lead to the fall of the new Bolshevik regime.
A number of British and Australian soldiers, particularly those who had enlisted late in the war, volunteered to join the force raised to relieve British and Allied troops already in Russia. The campaign was to last more than a year, a year of hard-fought battles against strong Bolshevik forces.
The Australian volunteers were enlisted in the British Army for the duration of the campaign, and allotted to the 45th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers or to a Machine Gun battalion. Two companies of the 45th Battalion were entirely Australian. The British brigade mounted a major offensive on 10 August 1919 that enveloped and destroyed a large enemy force, inflicting heavy casualties and taking 3000 prisoners. On 29 August the two Australian companies of the 45th Battalion routed another Bolshevik force in a violent bayonet charge.
The British actions were instrumental in opening the way for peace negotiations which lead to the evacuation of the Allied forces in September and October 1919.