Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We have an incredibly
intense stack of sources today. Totally, really
do. And I am just thrilled to have you here with
us to explore it. Whenever we sit down to sift
through these things, you know, historical encyclopedia
entries, naval records, raw casualty logs, I'm
always hunting for that one narrative that completely
reframes how we understand a specific moment
in time. Right. And today we have a story that
frankly feels like it belongs in a tense, claustrophobic,
historical thriller rather than just tucked away
in the footnotes of the early 20th century. We
are plunging into the British naval campaign
in the Baltic from 1918 to 1919, officially codenamed
Operation Red Trek. It's a massive geopolitical
clash that happens right on the heels of the
First World War. And our objective today is to
take this mountain of military data and extract
the most fascinating, chaotic, and significant
nuggets for you. It's a period that is almost
universally overshadowed by the global conflicts
that bookend it. Absolutely. But the sheer complexity
of what happened in those freezing waters shaped
modern borders. I want you to just imagine the
psychological whiplash of this scenario for a
second. Put yourself in the boots of an everyday
sailor in late 1918. You have survived the unimaginable
meat grinder of the First World War. The armistice
is signed. You're finally breathing that sigh
of relief, thinking you're heading home to your
family. But you aren't. No. Instead of a victory
parade, you receive new orders. You are immediately
deployed into the unpredictable ice -choked waters
of the Baltic Sea to fight in a completely confusing,
multi -sided civil war. It is a staggering demand
to place on a human being, transitioning from
the sudden relief of survival directly into an
entirely new theater of war. A freezing one at
that. Right. One characterized by some of the
most unforgiving maritime conditions on Earth.
It requires a level of endurance that is hard
to fully comprehend today. OK, let's unpack this.
Because to understand how a British fleet ends
up dodging ice flows in the Baltic right after
a global war, we have to look at the sheer scale
of the power vacuum left behind in the region.
Let us establish the board as it look in November
1918. The Russian Empire has essentially collapsed,
and that collapse has created a massive, highly
volatile void in the Baltic region. Just a total
free -for -all. Exactly. The formal German military
occupation of the Baltic countries has ended,
but the dust is nowhere near settled. You have
a dizzying array of factions stepping into that
void, all vying for control. Right. The Bolshevik
Red Army is pushing outward. Meanwhile, white
Russian forces are mobilizing to reclaim the
territory. You still have rogue German paramilitary
units known as the Freikorps operating aggressively
in the area. It's just chaos. And right in the
center of the storm, you have the newly forming
national armies of Estonia and Latvia desperately
trying to establish and defend their newfound
independence. Before we go any further into the
specific actions of these factions, I want to
make something very clear to you, the listener.
Yes, this is crucial. The sources we are analyzing
today contain records of highly politically charged
events involving the Bolsheviks, the White Russians,
and various other factions. We want to state
unequivocally that this deep dive is strictly
impartial. We are not taking any side. Exactly.
We are not taking any side or endorsing any of
the viewpoints of the groups involved. Our role
today... is solely to report the historical record
provided in the sources and help you understand
the mechanics and the human cost of this specific
campaign. That is a critical baseline for our
analysis today. So into this incredibly volatile
environment sails the British Royal Navy. We
see Rear Admiral Edwin Alexander Sinclair arriving
on the scene to take command. And he does not
arrive quietly. No, he doesn't. He sails in with
a squadron of C -class cruisers, which were these
very modern, incredibly fast light cruisers designed
for the rough conditions of the North Sea, along
with a complement of destroyers. And he makes
quite the statement. Almost immediately upon
arrival, Sinclair issues this incredibly bold
directive. He publicly promises to attack the
Bolsheviks, quote, as far as my guns can reach.
That is quite the cinematic entrance. But it
begs a massive question. Why is the British military
establishment authorizing a promise like that?
Why commit valuable, cutting -edge ships and
utterly exhausted crews to a localized civil
war thousands of miles from home? right after
World War One. What's fascinating here is the
layered motivation driving the war cabinet in
London. The actual goals of Operation Red Trek
were highly strategic and multifaceted. OK. Yes.
A primary objective was to stop the spread and
rise of Bolshevism in the region. But they were
also deployed specifically to support the fragile,
newly independent countries of Estonia and Latvia.
So it's about drawing lines on a map. Essentially.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, it
was fundamentally about protecting broader British
imperial interests and ensuring the freedom of
the seas in a critical trade quarter. They needed
a stable Bolshevism. And they were willing to
project naval power to force that stability.
But that projection of power came with a very
swift, devastating reality check. It did. The
armistice was in November 1918. Just weeks later,
on the night of December 4th, the British cruiser
HMS Cassandra is on patrol duties north of Liposha.
She strikes a German -laid mine. It's just tragic.
The ship goes down, and 11 crew members lose
their lives. These were 11 people who had survived
the Great War. only to be killed weeks after
the global conflict supposedly ended. It grounds
the strategic posturing in a very grim reality.
The sinking of the Cassandra underscores a terrifying
truth about this theater. The environment itself
was relentlessly lethal. The mines scattered
across the Baltic did not know that a peace treaty
had been signed in France. Wow. Yeah, that's
a chilling way to put it. And the political situation
on land was just as treacherous as the waters.
Let's talk about that political situation, because
the newly formed governments in the region were
operating in a state of absolute panic. I was
reading through the diplomatic exchanges and
our sources, and there's this detail about the
Estonian prime minister that really stopped me
in my tracks. The protectorate request. Yes,
he was facing the advancing Bolshevik forces,
and his position was so tenuous that he was literally
begging Britain to send ground troops. When they
hesitated, he went so far as to request that
Estonia be formally declared a British protectorate.
That is a remarkable historical detail. Think
about the implications of that request. You have
a newly formed nation tasting independence for
the first time, and their leadership is willing
to immediately surrender their sovereignty to
a foreign empire just to guarantee their physical
survival against an advancing army. It speaks
volumes about the sheer terror of the Bolshevik
advance. How did London respond to that kind
of desperate plea? With a very firm boundary.
The war cabinet had made a definitive ruling.
They would send a substantial naval force to
provide offshore support, but they would absolutely
not commit British boots on the ground. Which
makes sense. Deploying ground troops into a Russian
civil war was simply a bridge too far for a British
public that had just endured four years of trench
warfare. So they denied the troops, but they
did offer the full weight of their naval artillery.
The Royal Navy ships sailed right up the coast.
close to the Estonian -Russian border, and laid
down devastating barrages on the Bolshevik supply
lines. And they were effective. Very. And the
instability wasn't isolated to Estonia. The records
show that the situation in neighboring Latvia
became so dire that the Latvian prime minister,
Carlos Omanis, was actually forced to flee his
own capital. Yes, the Saratov incident. He ended
up hiding on board a ship called the Saratov,
which was anchored under the direct protection
of British naval guns. When a nation's prime
minister is forced to govern from the deck of
a ship because the mainland is entirely hostile,
you begin to understand just how fragile these
new Baltic states were. Completely. The British
Navy wasn't just supporting these governments.
In some cases, they were literally serving as
their physical shield. Which brings us to the
actual engagements at sea. Because they weren't
just bombarding shorelines, there were direct
ship -to -ship clashes. On December 26th, British
warships engage and capture two Bolshevik destroyers.
Yes, the Avtroyal and the Spartak. What makes
this engagement particularly dramatic is the
context. Right. They were busy. The British didn't
just stumble upon them. They captured these destroyers
while the Bolshevik ships were actively shelling
the port of Tallinn. And the sources show the
British took those captured ships and immediately
handed them over to the Estonian provisional
government. Talk about a field promotion. Seriously.
They renamed them the Lenik and the Vambola.
And those two vessels literally formed the nucleus
of the very first Estonian Navy. It is a brilliant
tactical move. You remove two threats from the
board and instantly create an allied naval force
in one stroke. It is highly effective. And the
capture of the Spartak yielded another significant
prize. The British captured the newly appointed
Commissar of the Baltic Fleet. Fedor Raskolnikov,
who happened to be on board during the engagement.
Oh, wow. So a high value target. Very high value.
They held him prisoner until May of the following
year, eventually exchanging him for 17 British
officers who had been captured by Soviet forces.
It is high stakes hostage diplomacy playing out
on the high seas. While the British are executing
these clean tactical victories at sea. The environment
on land remains incredibly brutal, doesn't it?
It does, and we must confront the darker realities
detailed in our sources to maintain a balanced
historical picture. This was a vicious civil
war. Yeah, we have to talk about Nisar. Right.
For instance, the records note that in February
1919, the Estonian government executed 40 Bolshevik
prisoners of war on an island called Nisar. 40
prisoners. Yes. And they carried out these executions
despite direct forceful protests from the British
Naval Command. It serves as a stark reminder
that while the British were providing the military
umbrella, they did not have ultimate control
over the internal vengeance or the operational
ethics of the localized factions they were backing.
That volatility sets the stage for a major shift
in British strategy. Early in 1919, command of
the British force passes to Rear Admiral Walter
Cowan. And Cowan decides it is time to escalate
the pressure. He wants to choke them out. He
shifts the Royal Navy's focus toward establishing
a direct blockade, aiming to bottle up the Red
Fleet right in their home base at Kronstadt.
Kronstadt is essentially the gatekeeper to Petrograd,
which is modern -day St. Petersburg. It is a
heavily fortified island fortress. So it's tough
to crack. Very. By bottling the Soviet forces
up inside that harbor, Cowan is attempting to
entirely neutralize their ability to project
power across the broader Baltic. But the Soviet
fleet wasn't entirely dormant. There is an intense
clash detailed on May 31st. A flotilla of British
destroyers is attempting to lure out an outgunned
Bolshevik destroyer. A classic bait tactic. Right.
But during this maneuver, the Soviet battleship
Petropavlovsk opens fire. And according to the
logs, this battleship scores two direct hits
on the British destroyer HMS Walker from a distance
of 14 ,000 yards. To contextualize that distance
for you, 14 ,000 yards is roughly eight miles.
Eight miles. Hitting a fast -moving, relatively
small destroyer at that range, utilizing the
optical rangefinders and fire control technology
of 1919 while firing from a pitching deck is
an extraordinary feat of naval gunnery. It's
incredible. It proved to Admiral Cowan that while
the Russian Baltic fleet was depleted and trapped,
its heavy dreadnoughts were still incredibly
lethal. The walker takes damage, two crewmen
are wounded, and the British are forced to retreat.
when they drift too close to the coastal artillery.
It becomes glaringly obvious to Callan that his
current blockade distance isn't effective. It's
too far out. Yeah, he needs a forward operating
base closer to Kronstadt. So he moves his naval
units to a new anchorage at Bjorka Sound. But
closing the distance just invites new tragedies.
It does. On June 9th, Soviet destroyers launch
a retaliatory raid on this new location. In the
resulting chaos, the British submarine HMS L55
is forced into an enemy minefield and sunk. Every
single soul on board perishes. The loss of the
L55 forces the British into a defensive posture.
They have to frantically lay their own minefields
just to protect their new anchorage. The campaign
is rapidly devolving into a stagnant, highly
lethal stalemate of attrition. Here's where it
gets really interesting. Because the British
decide to break that stalemate with a tactic
that sounds completely unhinged. Enter Lieutenant
Augustus Agar and his flotilla of coastal motorboats,
or CMBs. This is such a wild part of the history.
When I was reading about these CMBs, I was expecting
some sort of heavily armored, specialized warship.
What exactly were these things? They were quite
the opposite of heavily armored. Coastal motorboats
were essentially... 40 -foot, extremely fast
wooden speedboats armed with torpedoes. Wooden
speedboats? Yes. The tactical concept was that
their high speed and incredibly shallow draft
would allow them to literally skip right over
the tops of the submerged minefields that would
instantly destroy a traditional steel warship.
That is insane. They could dash into a heavily
defended enemy harbor, deploy their payload,
and use their speed to escape before the coastal
guns could accurately track them. It is absolute
madness. Yeah. You're putting men... in a wooden
speedboat, driving them over active mines in
the dead of night and pointing them at dreadnoughts.
But against all odds, they actually execute the
plan. They do. In June, Agar and his CMB flotilla
raid Kronstadt Harbor and managed to sink the
Soviet cruiser Oleg. Later that summer, they
return and sink the submarine depot ship Pamyatazova.
It is a remarkable display of asymmetrical warfare.
However, as we analyze the historical records
regarding these specific CMB raids, we encounter
a fascinating discrepancy that highlights how
history is often contested by opposing sides.
Okay, what's the discrepancy? The British official
records claim that during these daring raids,
their motorboats also severely damaged two massive
Soviet battleships, the Petropavlovsk and the
Andrey Provolzvany. Yet when historians examine
the Soviet records from the exact same period,
the Soviets completely dismissed the claim that
the Petropavlovsk was ever damaged by the British
boats. When you have two primary sources directly
contradicting each other on something as massive
as a damaged dreadnought, how do historians actually
reconcile that? Often they look for corroborating
evidence like repair yard logs or subsequent
ship movements. In the fog of war, a massive
explosion near a hull can look like a direct
hit to an escaping CMB pilot, while the defending
ship might record it as a near miss. That makes
a lot of sense. But regardless of the exact tonnage
damaged, what is not in dispute is the terrible
human cost of these operations. The second CMB
raid effectively ended the immediate sortie threat
from the Kronstadt fleet, but the price was devastating.
Yeah, it was steep. Three of these wooden motorboats
were obliterated. Six British officers and nine
readings, which is the naval term for enlisted
sailors, lost their lives. Nine more men were
pulled from the water and taken prisoner. They
achieved the strategic objective of neutralizing
the harbor, but the human sacrifice was immense.
And what is so frustrating about this campaign
is that while these high stakes heroic actions
are happening at sea, the larger geopolitical
goal on land is completely falling apart. Correct.
In the autumn of 1919, the British naval forces
shift to providing massive offshore gunfire support
for a major ground offensive. This is Yudinich.
Yes, the White Russian Northwestern Army, commanded
by General Nikolai Yudinich. They are making
a massive concentrated push to finally capture
Petrograd from the Bolsheviks. I was looking
through the records of that White Army push,
and the British brought in a ship called the
HMS Erebus, which is classified in the sources
as... a monitor, what role does a monitor play
in a land defensive? Think of a monitor as essentially
a floating, shallow draft gun platform designed
specifically for coastal bombardment. The Erebus
was packing massive 15 -inch guns, the kind of
artillery usually reserved for the largest battleships.
They parked it off the coast and used it to systematically
pound the Bolshevik coastal fortresses to clear
a path for Yudinich's advancing army. Amidst
this massive bombardment, the sources detail
a deeply tragic and ironic event. Three Soviet
destroyers, the Gavril... The Constantine and
the Svoboda attempt to navigate out of the war
zone. Why were they moving during such a heavy
offensive? They weren't moving to attack. They
were actually attempting to flee the Soviet fleet
and defect to the Estonians. But in the pitch
black of the Baltic night, while trying to escape
the conflict entirely, all three of these defecting
ships accidentally sailed straight into a freshly
laid British minefield. And they sank. They sank
with massive loss of life. It is a moment that
perfectly encapsulates the lethal, unpredictable
confusion of this entire campaign. You have ships
destroyed by the very forces they are attempting
to surrender to. And ultimately, despite the
massive 15 -inch guns of the Erebus and the total
naval blockade, General Udenich's white army
offensive completely collapses. They fail to
take Petrograd and are forced into a brutal...
disorganized retreat. The whole offensive crumbles.
And it is right around this time in late 1919
that you really start to see the human breaking
point for the British naval forces. We have to
deeply consider the psychological toll this campaign
was extracting from the British sailors. The
naval records explicitly detail that significant
unrest began to boil over, culminating in actual
mutinies across several ships. Really? Most notably
the HMS Vindictive and the HMS Deli. It is wild
to wrap your head around the idea of a highly
disciplined Royal Navy crew. Fresh off the victory
of World War I, choosing to mutiny against their
own officers. But when you look at the environmental
and psychological factors at play, it makes perfect
painful sense. It is the result of a catastrophic
compounding of miseries. First and foremost is
profound war weariness. Many of these crews were
combat veterans who had just survived four grueling
years of global slaughter. They thought they
were done. They were promised peace, and instead
they were handed a freezing civil war. Add to
that the logistical failures, poor quality food,
freezing onboard accommodations, an absolute
lack of shore leave to decompress, and the reportedly
harsh, unsympathetic discipline enforced by Admiral
Cowan. It's a powder keg. Furthermore, these
exhausted sailors were constantly being subjected
to highly targeted, effective Bolshevik propaganda.
The Soviets were broadcasting messages urging
the British working class sailors to stop fighting
a capital... You put a freezing, starving, exhausted
man on a steel ship, lock in the ice, tell him
he cannot go home, and then blast him with radio
messages telling him his officers are the real
enemy. It is a perfect recipe for a systemic
breakdown. Absolutely. And speaking of the ice,
there is one last incredibly tragic detail from
the sources that perfectly illustrates how the
Baltic environment itself was an enemy. Because
the British were facing these mutinies and stretching
their active forces thin, Admiral Cowan asked
the Finnish Navy to allocate a squadron of ships
to help protect the anchorage at Bjorka. The
Finnish command agreed to the request. They dispatched
a helpful squadron of gunboats, torpedo boats,
and motor mine sweepers to assist the British
defensive perimeter. But because Admiral Cowan
requested that the Finnish squadron remain on
station late into the season, right up until
the British were finally ready to evacuate the
area, they stayed just a few weeks too long.
The weather turned. The fierce Baltic winter
arrived with devastating speed. The sea completely
froze over around them, and the expanding, crushing
pressure of the winter ice literally crushed
the hulls of three Finnish C -class torpedo boats,
sinking them right there in the frozen harbor.
It is a visceral, terrifying reminder that in
the Baltic theater, the environment is an active,
belligerent force. You aren't just strategizing
against enemy fleets, you are fighting the shifting
sea and the crushing cold. So if we look at the
ledger at the end of 1919, we have failed land
offensives, sunken ships from mines, catastrophic
mutinies, and allied vessels crushed by ice.
It's a bleak picture. It sounds on paper like
a total unmitigated disaster. When the dust finally
settles on Operation Red Trek, what did it actually
achieve? Historically, it leaves a very mixed
legacy. From a strictly military standpoint regarding
the containment of the Bolsheviks, it resulted
in a muddy Anglo -Soviet military stalemate.
As we discussed, the White Army failed to take
Petrograd and the Bolsheviks maintained their
solid grip on Russia. However, the British mission
undeniably achieved its other primary, highly
consequential goal. By holding the line at sea,
neutralizing the Soviet fleet, and providing
crucial offshore artillery support, they gave
Estonia and Latvia the vital breathing room they
needed to survive their infancy. That's massive.
This direct intervention led to the 1920 Peace
Treaty of Tartu, where Bolshevist Russia formally
recognized Estonian independence. That sovereign
recognition simply would not have materialized
without the Royal Navy's violent interjection.
It is amazing how Actions that feel incredibly
chaotic and reactive in the moment end up permanently
shaping the map of the world. And there's a fantastic
visual fact from the source material that proves
just how lasting that British impact was. Ah,
the flags. Yes. If you look at the design of
the naval jacks, the flags flown at the bow of
warships for both Estonia and Latvia today, their
designs were actually heavily inspired by the
geometry of the British Union Jack. Wow. It is
a literal lasting legacy of this exact campaign
flying on the bows of modern ships right now.
It is a physical, enduring symbol of a shared
history that was forged in a very dark, very
cold and very desperate time. So what does this
all mean? For you listening, I think this deep
dive shows that even the most quote -unquote
forgotten operations, the ones that happened
in the long, messy shadows of major world wars,
are filled with incredible nuance, massive human
sacrifice, and consequences that dictate international
borders for a century. Exactly. The sailors on
the Cassandra or the L -55 weren't just footnotes.
Their actions in those freezing waters meant
everything to the people whose independence they
secured. It forces us to look past the grand
sweeping strategies drafted in London and look
closely at the brutal realities of execution
on the ground, or in this case, on the water.
And it leaves me with a lingering thought that
I think is worth exploring long after this discussion
ends. Let's hear it. If a global naval superpower
can sail into a chaotic power vacuum, effectively
blockade an enemy dreadnought fleet, and help
dictate the permanent borders of newly independent
nations, yet simultaneously face outright mutiny
from its own exhausted, war -weary sailors, where
does the true power of a military actually lie?
Is it in the advanced technology of the 15 -inch
guns and the daring coastal motorboats? Or does
it ultimately rest entirely on the fragile morale
of the everyday sailor? shivering in the freezing
ice, deciding whether or not they are willing
to follow orders just one more time. That is
exactly the kind of question we'd love to leave
you with. Thank you so much for joining us today,
and we will see you next time as we dive into
another incredible stack of sources. Keep learning,
keep questioning, and take care.