The first comprehensive history of the failed Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, a decisive turning point in the relationship between Russia and the West Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from fifteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, its consequences stoked global political turmoil for decades to come. In A Nasty Little War, top Russia historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict. Initially launched to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum in Eastern Europe left by the Russian Revolution, the Intervention morphed into a bid to destroy the Bolsheviks on the battlefield. But Allied armaments, supplies, and loans could not prevent Russia’s anti-Bolshevik armies from collapsing, and the Allies were forced to retreat in defeat. The humiliation sapped British imperial swagger, chastened American idealism, and stoked militarism and nationalism in France and Germany. Combining immersive storytelling with deep research, A Nasty Little War reveals how the Allied Intervention reshaped the West’s relations with Russia, and set a pattern for other interventions to come.

A covert rescue mission left special forces operative Michael West stranded in a tropical wilderness with beautiful Alyssa Kelleher. The military renegade was to deliver the damsel to safety, but his instincts insisted on another destination — his bed. Michael’s strict code of honour kept his hunger for Alyssa in check...until one torrid kiss toppled all reason. Loving Alyssa opened a door to unrivaled intimacy, and Michael vowed to make the fiery widow his wife! For she was his temptation, and how better to live with fervent desire than to fulfill it...night after night after night?

In this fast-moving account of his life, Tim Spicer describes all the events surrounding the catastrophe in Papua New Guinea, when he was captured at gunpoint and held in captivity - and came away with his life, his men, and 36 million dollars. Here too is a discussion of the notorious Arms for Africa affair - the Sandline Affair of 1996, which tied Robin Cook, the Foreign Office and Customs and Excise in a knot over whether Sandline had broken a UN embargo on supplying arms to the legitimate government-in-exile of Sierra Leone. Training troops in Africa or Asia, rescue missions to the Congo and developing a new concept for military operations are all part of Spicer's story.

'Chillingly original' Max Hastings 'Brilliantly depicts a disastrous failure' Antony Beevor 'Witty and elegant . . . Excellent background to today's events' Anne Applebaum 'Britain's most forgotten war, brilliantly remembered' Simon Jenkins 'Vivid and remarkably timely' Martin Sixsmith From the bestselling author of Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine The extraordinary story of the West's intervention into the Russian Civil War In the closing months of the First World War, Britain, America, France and Japan sent 180,000 soldiers to revolutionary Russia, in a doomed attempt to unseat the Bolsheviks. Entangled in what they termed a 'comic opera' conflict, they crisscrossed the shattered empire in sleds, trains and paddlesteamers, bivouacked in log cabins and felt yurts, torpedoed warships from speedboats, improvised the world's first air-dropped chemical weapons, and organised several coups and at least one assassination. Cheered on by Churchill, they also turned a blind eye to their Russian allies' many atrocities. Two years later, as the Red Army swept the board, the West evacuated, leaving Russia more blood-stained and suspicious than ever. A Nasty Little War brings this forgotten misadventure vividly to life.