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The 1920 Royal Navy Mission to Enzeli was a party of thirty-one officers and men of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy sent to Enzeli, North Persia, to assist with White Russian interned ships. The mission was detained in Baku, Azerbaijan, following the latter's invasion by the Red Army and the subsequent change of government. The party was imprisoned for six months until released in a prisoner exchange. == Background == From September 1918 to May 1919, Commodore David Norris RN had build up a flotilla of armed merchant cruisers (AMC) with which, by May 1919, he had wrested control of the Caspian Sea from the Soviet Navy. When Britain withdrew its forces from the area in August 1919, eight AMCs of the Caspian Flotilla were handed over to General Denikin's Volunteer Army.〔''The Naval Review 1920'' - The Royal Navy on the Caspian, 1918-1919, p. 218.〕 But in March 1920, advances by the Soviet Red Army threatened the fotilla’s base of Petrovsk (now Makhachkala) and General Erdeli (whom Denikin had appointed Russian Governor of Daghestan) was compelled to evacuate his forces by sea. With no other safe port to go to, the flotilla sailed to Enzeli, on the North Persian coast, where a detachment of Norperforce was stationed under the command of General Bateman-Champain. The sudden arrival of fourteen ships (six AMCs and eight transports) on 22 March 1920, had caught both Champain and the Persian authorities unprepared. The Persians responded by interning all the ships and ordering that they be disarmed. Champain had no naval personnel in Norperforce, so he requested Royal Navy assistance. The request was granted by Admiral John de Robeck, the high commissioner at Constantinople, despite his misgivings. He had previously advised the Admiralty in January, about a proposed earlier mission, that it should not proceed unless Baku was re-occupied and the safety of the Batum-Baku railway assured. Nevertheless, a party of volunteers (five officers and twenty six ratings) was assembled from ships at Constantinople.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1920 Royal Navy mission to Enzeli」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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