Royal Navy's Murmansk Mutiny of 1919 [audio 1st 8min]

Biographer and broadcaster Vanessa Collingridge and the "Making History" team discuss listeners' historical queries and celebrate the many ways in which we all 'make' history. In the summer of 1919, fighting in the Great War was over but the grandfather of a "Making History" listener was still at sea with Britain's Royal Marines, helping out with the evacuation of Murmansk. But, rather than confront Bolshevism, the Marines seemed more intent in tackling their own officers! Listener Alan Wenham asked "Making History" if his grandfather, Leonard, could have been involved in the Murmansk Mutiny of 1919, so the programme consulted Major (Retired) Mark Bentinck, the Royal Marines historian, at the Naval Historical Branch. After the Russian Revolution, the British Navy was sent into action against the Russians. It proved ineffective, but this ineffectiveness had less to do with the efforts of the Bolsheviks than with the unwillingness of the British seamen to fight: There were mutinies on a number of ships. It should be remembered that the government had repeatedly pledged that only volunteers would be sent to fight against the Russians, but this was not the practice employed by the Admiralty. Also, there was a large mutiny in a Marine battalion at Murmansk, and many other mutinies occurred in North Russia. News of the North Russian mutinies was suppressed. They highlighted the reluctance of British sailors to fight against Russia when the government was theoretically committed to a policy of peace. The "Making History" webpage includes Maj Bentinck's detailed recounting of the Murmansk Mutiny.