Advance Along The Northern Dvina
A British River Force of eleven Monitors (HMS M33, HMS Fox and others), minesweepers, and Russian gunboats was formed to use the navigable waters at the juncture of the Rivers Vaga River and Northern Dvina. Thirty Bolshevik gunboats, mines, and armed motor launches took their toll on the allied forces.
The Allied troops, led by Lionel Sadleir-Jackson, were soon combined with Poles and White Guard forces. Fighting was heavy along both banks of the Northern Dvina. The River Force outflanked the enemy land positions with amphibious assaults led by American Marines, together with coordinated artillery support from land and river. Their Lewis Gun proved to be an invaluable and effective weapon, since both sides were only armed with the Standard Issue Russian rifle of World War I, the Mosin-Nagant.
The Allied troops were inactive in the winter of 1918, building blockhouses with only winter patrols sent out.
Read more about this topic: North Russia Intervention
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