Dunsterforce or Dunsterfarce? Re-evaluating the British mission to Baku, 1918. Lemon, E. J. First World War Studies, March, 2015.
Dunsterforce or Dunsterfarce? Re-evaluating the British mission to Baku, 1918 [link]Paper  doi  abstract   bibtex   
In August 1918, 1500 British troops sailed across the Caspian Sea and occupied Baku. Dunsterforce – named after its leader Lionel Dunsterville – ended in tactical failure. One month after entering the city, the British force withdrew. Many historians have written Dunsterforce off as an ambitious, but ultimately unsuccessful, intervention on a peripheral front. In this article, however, I argue that the operation achieved greater strategic success than it is often given credit for. Dunsterforce's achievements, however, cannot be disentangled from broader developments on other fronts in late 1918. As such, this success was largely incidental. Although some authors have argued that Britain was driven by economic interests, the principal objective of Dunsterforce was the protection of Britain's position in the Middle East and India. By occupying Baku and thus controlling the Caspian, Britain hoped to forestall a Turko-German invasion of India. Operating in an unpredictable strategic environment, Dunsterforce's objectives evolved over time; the operation suffered from what modern strategists have labelled ‘mission creep’. Originally tasked with training local levies, Dunsterville's mission had evolved into a field force: Dunsterforce. Under relative autonomy from London, Dunsterville drove the intervention. His ambitions extended to restoring the entire Eastern Front by linking up with forces in the Ukraine. Three factors contributed to Dunsterforce's failure. First, it arrived too late. By the time Dunsterforce disembarked in Baku, the city was already under siege by the Turkish army. Second, the resources available to Dunsterville – both in terms of men and materiel – were insufficient to accomplish the mission's tactical end: holding Baku. Third, the residents of Baku were too occupied with in-fighting to mount a united defence. Despite being a military defeat, Dunsterforce achieved some successes. The British presence in Baku helped deny the Central Powers access to Baku's oil for six vital weeks. No oil from Baku travelled further than Tiflis (modern-day Tbilisi) by the time the armistice was signed. At a time when German forces on the Western Front were hampered by chronic fuel shortages, this was a significant feat. Indeed, on 17 November, a British force occupied Baku once more. The capture of Baku by the Army of Islam proved the zenith of the Pan-Turanian dream, and Turkey's expansionist plans were never realized. The British retained command of the Caspian from their base at Enzeli in north-west Persia, giving the British a foothold from which the successor of Dunsterforce, Noperforce, could operate against the Bolsheviks. India remained unthreatened, and thus Britain had secured its strategic objectives in the region.
@article{ lemon_dunsterforce_2015,
  title = {Dunsterforce or {Dunsterfarce}? {Re}-evaluating the {British} mission to {Baku}, 1918},
  volume = {Online First},
  issn = {1947-5020},
  shorttitle = {Dunsterforce or {Dunsterfarce}?},
  url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19475020.2015.1016582},
  doi = {10.1080/19475020.2015.1016582},
  abstract = {In August 1918, 1500 British troops sailed across the Caspian Sea and occupied Baku. Dunsterforce – named after its leader Lionel Dunsterville – ended in tactical failure. One month after entering the city, the British force withdrew. Many historians have written Dunsterforce off as an ambitious, but ultimately unsuccessful, intervention on a peripheral front. In this article, however, I argue that the operation achieved greater strategic success than it is often given credit for. Dunsterforce's achievements, however, cannot be disentangled from broader developments on other fronts in late 1918. As such, this success was largely incidental. Although some authors have argued that Britain was driven by economic interests, the principal objective of Dunsterforce was the protection of Britain's position in the Middle East and India. By occupying Baku and thus controlling the Caspian, Britain hoped to forestall a Turko-German invasion of India. Operating in an unpredictable strategic environment, Dunsterforce's objectives evolved over time; the operation suffered from what modern strategists have labelled ‘mission creep’. Originally tasked with training local levies, Dunsterville's mission had evolved into a field force: Dunsterforce. Under relative autonomy from London, Dunsterville drove the intervention. His ambitions extended to restoring the entire Eastern Front by linking up with forces in the Ukraine. Three factors contributed to Dunsterforce's failure. First, it arrived too late. By the time Dunsterforce disembarked in Baku, the city was already under siege by the Turkish army. Second, the resources available to Dunsterville – both in terms of men and materiel – were insufficient to accomplish the mission's tactical end: holding Baku. Third, the residents of Baku were too occupied with in-fighting to mount a united defence. Despite being a military defeat, Dunsterforce achieved some successes. The British presence in Baku helped deny the Central Powers access to Baku's oil for six vital weeks. No oil from Baku travelled further than Tiflis (modern-day Tbilisi) by the time the armistice was signed. At a time when German forces on the Western Front were hampered by chronic fuel shortages, this was a significant feat. Indeed, on 17 November, a British force occupied Baku once more. The capture of Baku by the Army of Islam proved the zenith of the Pan-Turanian dream, and Turkey's expansionist plans were never realized. The British retained command of the Caspian from their base at Enzeli in north-west Persia, giving the British a foothold from which the successor of Dunsterforce, Noperforce, could operate against the Bolsheviks. India remained unthreatened, and thus Britain had secured its strategic objectives in the region.},
  language = {en},
  urldate = {2015-03-26TZ},
  journal = {First World War Studies},
  author = {Lemon, Edward J.},
  month = {March},
  year = {2015},
  keywords = {english}
}

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