A small brown 36 page album containing 48 photographs.

There are seemingly two categories of photographs that start at either end of the album and meet in the middle. The larger collection has some annotation and is labelled ‘Archangel River Expeditionary Force June 1919’ on the inside cover. This set of photographs concentrates on images of the vessels with little indication of place or people. One place that is noted is Trosta where the church is visible as are tents set up along the river. The vessels that are shown and identified are: HMS Hydrabad (1917), HMS Bordino – flagship of the senior naval officers, HMY Kathleen (1899), HMS Cicala (1915), HMS Monitor 27, 31 and 33, Duty Launch 2, Coastal Motor boats 27, 35, 36 and 77, TL9 and NT 334. The last image from that group is of prisoners wearing thick clothing looking towards the camera through barbed wire fence whist two men in uniform in front of the fence have their backs to the camera.

The cover and some pages are loose.

Allied intervention in Russia began in March 1918 –one of the objectives was to safeguard the stockpiles of military stores which lay unused in Russian ports from falling into the hands of the Germans after the signing of the Brest-Livtovsk treaty on 3rd March 1918. In 1919 the British Expeditionary Force was sent to Archangel as reinforcement to hold back the Bolshevik river flotilla on the Dvina while British troops withdrew from the region. This album contains photographs of the ships involved including HMS Hyderabad ex Q ship (1917), HMS Borodino (ex Russian paddle steamer), HMY Kathleen (1899),and HMS Cicala (1915).There are also photographs of coastal motorboats, magnetic mines suspended from wooden barge T373 and views of the River Dvina.

There are also photographs of the oil fields at Baku on fire and other views of Baku. Baku was the main base of the British Caspian Fleet during the naval campaign on this inland sea, 1918-1919.

Unfortunately the photographer/owner of this album has not been identified –presumably he was a relative of the donor Miss Coe. Some of the photographs have been captioned by the unknown photographer/owner. Bibliography: ‘For them the War was not over. The Royal Navy in Russia 1918-1920’ by Michael Wilson (1910) and Bolos and Barishynas, The North Dvina 1919 by G R Singleton-Gates.