Dunsterforce

Established in 1917, Dunsterforce was an Allied military mission of under 1,000 Australian, New Zealand, British, and Canadian troops (drawn from the Mesopotamian and Western Fronts), accompanied by armoured cars, deployed from Hamadan some 350 km across Qajar Persia. It was named after its commander General Lionel Dunsterville. Its mission was to gather information, train and command local forces, and prevent the spread of German propaganda. Later on, Dunsterville was told to take and protect the Baku oil fields. The force was initially delayed by 3,000 Russian Bolshevik troops at Enzeli but then proceeded by ship to the port of Baku on the Caspian Sea. This was the primary target for the advancing Turkish forces and Dunsterforce endured a short, brutal siege in September 1918 before being forced to withdraw. Dunsterville took the blame for the debacle, and the force was reconstituted as Norperforce under the command of Major-General William Montgomery Thomson, who re-entered Baku on 16 November 1918.

Order of battle
The British element of Dunsterforce comprised 39th Brigade of 13th (Western) Division. On July 1, 1918 the brigade received orders to be detached from the division for attachment to the Norperforce. The brigade's component units left the division between July 10 and August 19. Brigade HQ arrived in Baku at Dunsterforce HQ on August 24.


 * 39th Brigade
 * 9th (Service) Battalion, The Royal Warwickshire Regiment
 * 7th (Service) Battalion, The Gloucestershire Regiment
 * 9th (Service) Battalion, The Worcestershire Regiment
 * 7th (Service) Battalion, The North Staffordshire Regiment
 * 39th Machine Gun Company, Machine Gun Corps (MGC)
 * 39th Supply & Transport Column, Army Service Corps (ASC)
 * 39th Trench Mortar Battery

Soviet account
Soviet archivist Vasili Mitrokhin claimed that Dunsterforce's objective was, under the guise of defending British India, to secure a foothold in the Caucasus. The force would then co-operate with counter-revolutionary forces to overthrow the Baku Soviet and seize control of the whole of the oil-rich Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and all surrounding regions. Mitrokhin claimed that Gen. Dunsterville had "forty Ford vans loaded with gold and silver" to pay for the operation.