Page 89 - All About History - Issue 72-18

A WORLD WAR WITHOUT END?

WHITE RUSSIAN DAGGER

This khanjali dagger was presented to French General Henri
Gouraud by a White Russian officer who joined the French
following nationalist defeat in the Civil War. With its origins
in Georgia and the Caucasus, the double-edged khanjali
was traditionally worn by Don Cossacks. Their militaristic
culture and long history of service to Russia’s emperors
made them instinctively loyal to the Tsarist regime and a
natural source of manpower for the White Army, and the
Don Cossack host joined the White cause in 1919.

RUSSIAN REFUGEE CRISIS

A 1923 passport issued in Belgrade, capital of the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats
andSlovenes,forapairofyoungRussianrefugees.Followingtheinstabilityofthe
Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War an estimated one to three million refugees
– many of them the families of anti-communist White officers and intellectuals seen
asfriendlytotheoldregime–eithercrossedthefluctuatingborderswiththeBaltic
states and Poland, or across the Black Sea from Ukraine to Turkey. From there they
crossedbackintosoutheastEuropethroughGreeceandBulgaria.

“TO ARMS!

JOIN THE

LIGHTNING

ARMY!”

Mistakenly seen as
easy prey by the
belligerent Bolsheviks,
the newly formed
Second Polish Republic
had no desire to doff
the cap to the Russian
Empire, communist
or otherwise. Warsaw
decided instead to
strike eastward and
expand its borders
to those regions of
Ukraine and Belarus
with a significant Polish
population. The Polish-
Soviet War of 1919-
1921 quickly faced an
overwhelming counter-
attack as the Red Army
gained the upper hand ©Riga, collection du Latvijas Kara Muzejs ; MoD Military History Institute and Museum, Budapest, Hungary ; ECPAD / Photograph: Marcel Lorée ;
in the Civil War and was Paris, Musée de l’Armée RMN-Grand Palais / Thierry Ollivier ; Paris – Musée de l’Armée, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Émilie Cambier ; Archives OFPRA ; Muzeum wojska polskiego (musée de l’armée polonaise) ; Paris - Musée de l’Armée, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Émilie Cambier
able to free soldiers for
a second front.

89