The dramatic account of 15 British soldiers abandoned in Bolshevik Russia during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. In Churchill’s Abandoned Prisoners, Rupert Wieloch details how the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 affected the Allied war effort. The threat drove the formation of an Allied force, including British, American, French, Czech, Italian, Greek, and Japanese troops, stationed across Russia to support the anti-Bolsheviks (the “White Russians”). But war-weariness and equivocation led Allied powers to dispatch just enough troops to maintain a show of interest in Russia’s fate, but not enough to give the “Whites” a real chance of victory. Among these troops is Emmerson MacMillan, an American engineer, who joins the British army in 1918. He becomes one of a select group of British soldiers ordered to “remain to the last” and organize the evacuation of refugees from Omsk in November 1919. After saving thousands of lives, they depart on the last train out of the city before it is seized by the Bolsheviks. But their mad dash for freedom through freezing temperatures ends when they are captured in Krasnoyarsk. Abandoned without communications, they endure a fearful detention and become an embarrassment to Prime Minister David Lloyd George and War Secretary Winston Churchill. After a traumatic incarceration, they survive against all the odds and are eventually released. As a new Cold War heats up, it is even more important to understand the origins of the modern relationship between Russia and the West. This stirring tale of courage and adventure only lifts the lid on an episode that sowed distrust and precipitated events in World War II and today.

The Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War from 1918-1920 forms the backdrop to this extraordinary story of the fate of 15 British soldiers abandoned in Bolshevik Russia.

During the Second World War over 400,000 Germans and Italians were held in prison camps in Britain. These men played a vital part in the life of war-torn Britain, from working in the fields to repairing bomb-damaged homes. Yet despite the role they played, today it is almost forgotten that Britain once held POWs at all. For those who worked, played or fell in love with the enemies in their midst, despite restrictions and the opinions of their peers, those times remain vivid. Whether they took tea on the lawn with Italians or invited a German for Christmas dinner, the POWs were a large part of their lives. This book is the story of those men who were detained here as unexpected guests. It is about their lives within the camps and afterwards, when some chose to stay and others returned to a country that in parts had become a hell on earth.

Free Libya! was the chant heard throughout Libya during the Arab Spring revolution that ended with the death of Colonel Gadaffi in October 2011. The story is about British involvement in Libya since the first treaty signed with the rulers in Tripoli in January 1692. The book is divided into four eras. The first covers the period up to the Italian invasion in 1911; the second covers the First World War and Italian pacification; the third covers the Western Desert Campaign; and the final part brings the reader up to date with recent events. In the words of the Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, the 1911 Italian invasion of Libya “led straight to the catastrophe of 1914”. Using memoirs of politicians and correspondents from both sides of the conflict, the author pieces together British involvement, shedding new light on the Senussi Campaign and the Duke of Westminster’s rescue of 100 British PoWs at Bir Hakkeim, as well as the story of Colonel Milo Talbot, who did as much as TE Lawrence to establish British influence with Arab leadership, but was never rewarded for his work. Even though hundreds of books have been written about the Western Desert Campaign, this book includes much unpublished material in addressing the contentious issues and explains why General Brian Horrocks wrote: “Command in the desert was regarded as an almost certain prelude to a bowler hat”. The final part of the book begins with Britain’s operations to establish Libya as an independent kingdom and the rise of nationalism that led to Gadaffi’s coup in 1969. The story of the tense relationship with the Brotherly Leader during the “Line of Death” era and subsequent rapprochement precedes an authoritative account of the 2011 revolution. The final chapter, brings the reader up to date with the current conflict as well as the migration crisis and the Manchester Arena bombers.

At the height of the Russian Civil War in 1919 Britain poured in thousands of troops and vast amounts of munitions to assist the White Russian opponents of Lenin’s Communist forces. This was despite exhaustion following the Great War and the Spanish flu epidemic. One man involved was 23-year-old Royal Marines officer, Thomas Henry Jameson. His mission took him and his men on a journey of 5,000 miles from Vladivostok to the battlegrounds not far from Moscow. As part of a White Russian Flotilla they steamed down the huge Kama River and fought a series of successful battles against superior Bolshevik gunboats. Later they were forced to retreat and, becoming cut off behind enemy lines, had to fight their way out knowing that, if captured, they faced summary execution. Eventually after a long and hazardous journey they made it back to their parent ship. Jameson and his Marines faced a multitude of hazards in this cruel civil war including disease which he described as ‘the biggest challenge of all.” In some other British units there were reports of mutiny due to terrible conditions. Yet, as this fascinating book describes, remarkably he succeeded not only to keep his men alive but inflict significant damage on a ruthless enemy.

Historians of Winston Churchill's career customarily mention his innovations, whether realized or not, in prison treatment and sentencing during his Home Secretaryship between February 1910 and October 1911. Little mention is made, however, of what motivated him. This book traces the evolution of Churchill's thinking as it has survived in the documentary records of his Home Secretaryship held in the Home Office archive, together with other evidence, both primary and secondary. This evidence incorporates the exchange of views concerning specific prison treatment and sentencing issues in which Churchill engaged with his senior Home Office staff and His Majesty's Prison Commissioners in the course of their day-to-day transaction of the business of criminal justice. These issues continue to be relevant, given the ongoing debate about modification of the criminal justice system, the internal organization and management of the Home Office as its overseer and more particularly prison treatment and sentencing. The book also sheds light on Churchill as a person, a politician and a government minister by focusing on his working methods and his relationships with his staff, reminding us of a side to his character which is an important element in understanding his long parliamentary and ministerial career.