Russian Expeditionary Force In France
The Russian Expeditionary Force was a World War I military force sent to France by the Russian Empire. In 1915 the French requested that Russian troops be sent to fight alongside their own army on the Western Front. Initially they asked for 300,000 men, an absurdly high figure, probably based on their assumptions about Russia's 'unlimited' reserves. General Mikhail Alekseev, the Imperial Chief of Staff, was opposed to sending any, though Nicholas II finally agreed to send a unit of brigade strength. The First Russian Special Brigade finally landed at Marseille in April 1916. A Second Special Brigade was also sent to serve alongside other Allied formations on the Salonika Front in northern Greece. In France, the First Brigade served with distinction until the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1917. With Brigade morale being sapped by political agitation, it was finally disbanded before the end of the year. However, some of the more determined formed the Légion Russe (French for Russian Legion), and continued to preserve a Russian presence in the west and, indeed, in the Great War itself, right up until the Armistice in November, 1918.
Read more about Russian Expeditionary Force In France: Before March 1917, Mutiny, Russian Legion
Famous quotes containing the words russian, force and/or france:
“Annie: Dances like Pavaliver, that child.
George Grainger: Dances like who?
Annie: Pavaliver—the Russian dancer. Don’t be so ignorant.”
—Reginald Berkeley (1890–1935)
“Misfortunes leave wounds which bleed drop by drop even in sleep; thus little by little they train man by force and dispose him to wisdom in spite of himself. Man must learn to think of himself as a limited and dependent being; and only suffering teaches him this.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)