Blackmore's Russian Civil War Sacrifice. Remembering William Scudder

Blackmore’s Russian Civil War sacrifice

By Sean Wood

In the corner of St. Laurence churchyard, just behind the tower, you will come across a very unassuming gravestone, seemingly no different to any other. It is dedicated to William James Scudder; his son, Henry William Scudder; and daughter, Lilian Mary Russell Simpson. All three died within a period of a year-and-a-half; the father and daughter died within a week of each other, in December 1920, quite possibly succumbing to Spanish flu towards the end of the epidemic that claimed three- to five-percent of the world’s population.

One day, a couple of months ago, Stuart Jennings mentioned to me about this memorial, telling me that he knew about the grave, in the churchyard, of a British serviceman who had been killed in Russia. Intrigued, Stuart and I took a walk together to take a look at the gravestone, noting that it mentions that William James’ son, Henry William was “killed while on active service in Russia, 1919, aged 20 years”; I was frustrated by the lack of further details on the memorial. With my own connections to Russia, and previously having read about British forces being active in the North of Russia – not too far from where I live in the city of St. Petersburg – during the Russian Civil War, I was curious to see if I could discover anymore details.

Whilst the end of the First World War, one hundred years ago this month, for many servicemen in the British Armed Forces marked the end of their active service, it is little remembered that at the end of 1918 a sizable contingency of British troops (possibly as many as 60,000, but the conflict is so poorly documented it is difficult to discover accurate figures) were sent to various parts of Russia to fight alongside the Russian White Army who were in armed resistance against the Bolshevik Red Army who had seized power in Russia during the October Revolution in November 1917 (the Revolution is so-called, because it took place on 25^th October, according to the Russian old-style calendar). Interestingly, I was in St. Petersburg, the location of the Revolution – which would become the precursor to the Russian Civil War – in November 2017 at the time of the 100^th anniversary. There were strange, seemingly paradoxical, commemorations in Palace Square in front of the Hermitage, the Tsar’s Winter Palace, celebrating a revolution that has since been reversed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, celebrating the feats and achievements of the Soviet Union still very much serves the Russian government’s long-term policy of nurturing Russian historical pride and nationalism with the aim of encouraging greater loyalty and support for the current régime.

As I began my research into the life of Henry William Scudder, one of the first details I uncovered was actually connected with his father. It turns out that William James Scudder was the landlord of The Leather Bottle from at least 1906, up until his own death in 1920. After his death, his wife, Martha – Henry William’s mother – then took over as landlady until sometime around 1925. I was also very quickly able to discover that the date of Aircraftsman 1^st Class Henry William Scudder’s death was 2^nd July 1919, and that he is actually buried in the city of Arkhangel’sk, Russia at the Archangel Allied Cemetery. This almost definitely confirmed my initial suspensions that he participated in what is known as the ‘North Russia Intervention’. What still remained elusive, however, were the circumstances surrounding his death.

As a simple aircraftsman 1^st class, and not an officer, it is more difficult to find out the details of Henry William’s death. However, having discovered the date, I then came across an event, detailed in Royal Navy dispatches, that had taken place on the same date as Henry William’s death, on the Northern Dvina River, near a village called Topsa, about 160 miles south of the city of Arkhangel’sk. The account in the dispatches lauds the heroics of a certain Lieutenant R. H. Fitzherbert-Brockholes who came to the rescue of a hospital barge after a mine was spotted floating towards it. The Lieutenant, as the dispatches note, “jumped out of his bunk and into a skiff which happened to be alongside and reached the mine before it could do any damage. He was in the act of securing it, when it exploded, instantly killing him and the three men forming the crew of the boat.” Due to the fact that Henry William was an aircraftsman, and thus a member of the Royal Air Force, detailed Royal Naval rolls of honour do not seem to mention his name, however there are other rolls of honour where his name appears alongside that of Lieutenant Fitzherbert-Brockholes and the other sailors who also seem to have been members of the crew of the skiff that is mentioned in the dispatches. It would seem that Henry William was, almost certainly, also a brave member of that crew who sacrificed themselves in order to protect a hospital barge from the threat of an approaching mine.

Henry William’s sacrifice seems all the more tragic when understood in the wider context of Britain’s involvement in the Russian Civil War. The Royal Navy had sent a flotilla of minesweepers and gunboats down the Northern Dvina River in Northern Russia, towards Central Russia, with the objective of clearing out Bolshevik forces and joining up with other Allied and White Army troops, as well as the Czechoslovak Legion, fighting the Bolsheviks on multiple fronts in the south and east of Russia. However, by April 1919 the Allied forces were struggling against sustained Bolshevik attacks, constant mutinies from within the ranks of the supporting White Russian forces, who were defecting to the Bolsheviks, and an increasingly disgruntled public, back home in Britain, angered at the sacrifice of British servicemen in the cause of the Russian Civil War. As a result, the decision was made to retreat and withdraw all British troops from Russia. Henry William, along with the rest of the Allied forces, were therefore in the process of retreating at the time of the incident on 2^nd July 1919; and, less than 3 months after the incident, on 27^th September 1919, British forces completed their evacuation of the city of Arkhangel’sk. White Army resistance to the Bolsheviks eventually collapsed and the Bolsheviks were able to consolidate their control over the entire territory of Russia.

Henry William Scudder of Blackmore made a brave sacrifice far from home, in Northern Russia, in what was to, ultimately, become a tragic and largely forgotten Allied defeat. Unfortunately, I’ve so far been unable to discover any records of Henry William receiving a posthumous award for his sacrifice that day, on 2^nd July 1919.