The international intervention into the Russian Civil war at first was similar to the Battle of Warsaw with the Royal Air force and the Luftstreitkräfte ravaging the Republican lines. With the already dismal supply situation for the Republicans turning into a blazing pile across the Caucasus. The city of Baku became an isolated ruin with near constant air raids ravaging the city. Leon Trotsky the man that the entire intervention had started over escaped the air raids due to his truck breaking down south of Tbilisi and started his long run from reprisal. Yet as Trotsky ran the Worker's Revolutionary Republic collapsed.
The international intervention was focused into three main blows. The majority of the European forces landed along the Black Sea coast and struck inland towards Baku while liberating Georgia from the Republican menace. The Turkish, Assyrian-Kurdish, and Arab forces all struck up from the south through Russian Armenia aiming to meet up with both the European forces and the Persian forces striking to the west. Speaking of the Persians they were marching up through Azerbaijan for the second time in the Russian Civil War. The official aim was for all of the international forces to meet at the siege of Baku and from there crush the Republicans if they refused to surrender.
The British, Germans, French, Portuguese, Italians, Austro-Hungarians, and Byzantines gradually formed a massive fleet with the Royal Navy being joined by the Hochseeflotte, Marine Nationale and Royal Portuguese Navy in the Atlantic. The Italians and Austro-Hungarians met up with the combined fleet in the Adriatic. When the combined fleet passed the Dardanelles the Imperial Byzantine Fleet joined the combined fleet and they all set course for Georgia. The European landings took place at the port town of Poti and began with a bombardment by the HMS Lionheart, FS France, SMS Deutschland, SMS Kaiser Franz Joseph I, RPS Carlos I, RN Andrea Doria, and IBS Justinian I. The plasma from the Royal Navy combined with the shells of the allied fleets reduced the town and any opposition within it to ash and blood before the infantry force that they had been escorting begun to storm the shores. Ponti fell on the 17th of September 1923 a month after the Diplomatic note to the Worker's Revolutionary Republic had been refused.
Ponti fell quickly and the International force began to move through Georgia pushing towards Baku. The majority of the Republican forces were focused in the northern region of Georgia with a large force around the western summit of Mount Elbrus. The propaganda opportunities of defeating the Republicans on the tallest peak of Europe was to good to be missed and both the Imperial Russian forces pushing down from the north and the combined European forces pushing from the south. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders alongside the Byzantine Imperial Guard attacked the two Battalions defending the mountain. The battalions were defeated quickly due being assaulted from both the north and south. The last few Republican defenders fell at the summit defending the Red Flag raised to symbolise the future Socialist dominance of both Europe and the world. The flag was burnt to ashes by a series of plasma shots and was replaced with a pair of flags. The Russian Empire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Second Byzantine Empire. With the fall of Mount Elbrus, the Russians and European forces met up and began to push towards Baku in a unified front bearing the banner of freedom and democracy into Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The Turkish, Assyrian-Kurdish, and Arab forces moved up through Russian formerly Ottoman Armenia. The official aim was to capture Armenia and if possible southern Georgia and western Azerbaijan. In reality there was three goals. The Turkish goal was to revitalize the Turkish people and military following their disastrous defeat in the Balkan War. The Arab's goal was to prove that they were the defenders of Islam and all who followed it and the Chechens represented the prefect way to demonstrate their piousness towards the Muslim people of the world and the Caucasus especially. The Assyrian-Kurdish goal was to unite the disparate peoples of the region into a single united army.
-Extract from Light in the Black: The International Interventions in the later Russian Civil War
As the International forces marched across Georgia the few forces that they faced broke within a few hours at absolute best. The Republican forces had entered a spiral of defeat after defeat and their morale collapsed. The level of desertions and mutinies skyrocketed at the end of the Russian Civil War with only the First Baku Division having no desertions due to the international agreement that all members of the Division would be tried for war crimes. While the First Baku Division was recalled to its namesake the few forces that remained loyal were ordered to hold the wrath filled International forces off at small mountain passes. While many of these last stands ended in defeats in a few there was no battle at all. Today we get to talk to one Appaz Iliev a Colonel in the Red Army during the end of the Russian Civil War and his famous desertion at Red Bridge.
Interviewer: Hello it is a pleasure to be here with you.
Appaz Iliev: Thank you it is a pleasure to meet you.
Interviewer: Firstly, I would like to ask you about what you are most well known for the Red Bridge Desertion. Some of our viewers may not know what happened so could you explain it for them please.
Appaz Iliev: The desertion to be honest was anticlimactic. Since word came about the murder of our Chechen brothers many of the Muslim soldiers left in the Red Army had lost faith in the government. I had been given command of what was officially called the Battalion of the Liberation of the Arab People but was in reality a few hundred men and a barrier. We had been ordered to hold the Red Bridge between Georgia and Azerbaijan to protect the ***** in Baku that called themselves the Worker's Liberation Council. Absolute ******** they had gotten to the point that since only the Baku Murderers were loyal to them and were just sacrificing the disloyal members of the Red Army in stupid vain last stands. When me and my men reached the Red Bridge, our discontent reached a peak. My XO suggested that we just join the Imperial forces that we knew were drawing close to our position. The Political Commissar caught wind of the plot. Instead of doing the smart thing of joining us or ignoring it he walked up to my XO and shot him in the face. Of course, we shot him up and chucked his corpse into the river. The irony was his actions actually fully pushed us into the mutiny. When the British and Byzantine forces reached the bridge well you got that world-famous photo of me shaking the hand of what was his name. Ah yes Emmanouil Manousogiannakis. We surrendered and the International forces marched from Georgia into Azerbaijan.
-Exert from the interview with the last veteran of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War Appaz Iliev by the Newspaper the Moscow Exclaimer. Appaz Iliev would die in 2135 at the age of 239 the oldest man in the world.
The Red Bridge breakthrough propelled the international forward into Azerbaijan and the final march to Baku could begin. One of the famous propaganda posters of the Goa'uld war has its basis in that phase of the Russian Civil War. Men marching together with their flags streaming in the air while a pair of Death Gliders fly overhead marching to crush tyranny and free the people of Baku from the madmen that lurked in the heart of the city. As Winston Churchill put it in his famous speech "Attero Dominatus. I destroy tyrannies and that is what we are doing in Russia those madmen who lurk in Baku deserve death and they will get what they deserve.".
-Extract from Catherine Merridale's book Winston Churchill: PARLIAMENTYRY ADVENTURER!
As the noose tightened around Baku the condemned within the city began to dig in they had seen what happened to Constantinople and hoped to repeat the process on a smaller scale in Baku. However, unlike the last stand of the Ottoman Empire the Republican forces did not have military general comparable to Atatürk within their ranks and the Royal Air Force ruled the skies. The First Baku Division was officially named the Guardians of the Revolution and ordered to hold Baku at all costs.
The battle of Baku began on the 25th of December 1923. The early battle consisted of a bombardment that lasted until the 25th of April 1924 due to how cold the region had gotten during the winter. Thus, the International High Command decided to starve the Republican forces out while scouring them from the face of the earth utilizing the plasma artillery that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had brought in. By the time that the High Command deemed that the weather had warmed enough for the allied forces to storm the city the Norwegian, Japanese, and American expeditionary forces had arrived to participate in the final battle.
The authorization was given and for the first time in five months the artillery fell silent over Baku only for the international forces to charge in. The defences that the First Baku Division had managed to erect over the bombardment were little more then barricades formed from rubble and corpses. To the allied forces the barricades became the scenes of fierce resistance as the First Baku Division used the cover and occasional firing positions to make the allied forces pay a bloody price for their advance into the city. But advance they did and as the harbour slowly drew near the Republican resistance began to crumble as the Republican forces simply did not have enough men to hold out. The final surrender of the Worker's Liberation Council showed a few starving men singing a piece of paper before being dragged off to Vaduz to stand trial.
The day after the Republicans surrendered a small patrol of men from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders stumbled across Leon Trotsky hiding in a cave in the Greater Caucasus. With his capture the entire reason that the western world had intervened in the Russian Civil War had been found and could be dealt with in the halls of Vaduz.
The city of Vaduz was used for two vital aspects of the end of the Russian Civil war both the trials of the Republican leadership were held there and the exact ways that Russia's borders would change following the war.
The trials outcome was never in doubt as all knew that they would be found guilty but the exact punishment that they would get was a mystery. The majority of the surviving Worker's Liberation Council were returned to Moscow and hung on the orders of both Michael II and the Duma. Leon Trotsky on the other hand was tried before an international tribunal. The finding after a three days highly public trial was that Leon Trotsky was guilty of Crimes against Humanity, Treason, Murder, Theft, Rape, Arson and Genocide. He was executed by firing squad using plasma weapons. One of the members of the firing squad came from the Plantagenet Archipelago due to the sheer hatred that Trotsky had secured in the Anarcho-Communist society. Following his execution, the corpse of Trotsky was thrown into the Atlantic Ocean and left to rot.
While the corpse of Trotsky was dragged off to the RMS Titanic for his burial at sea the powers of the world turned their attention to the borders of Russia. The first decision was that all of the Japanese gains in the Far East would be kept so all of Sakhalin, Kamchatka and all land along the Sea of Okhotsk became permanently part of the Empire of Japan. While Russia kept Vladivostok and the trans-Siberian railway their far eastern holdings were weakened. The Kingdom of Mongolia was recognized under Bogd Khan though he would die within a year of the decision. The United Kingdom of Finland Estonia grew to include Karelia in return for free transit between Murmansk and the rest of Russia. The Baltic States and Poland all had favourable border corrections and Persia secured the Lankaran region of Azerbaijan. The United Sates secured land across the Bering Strait from Alaska the new territory of Jefferson. Finally, the Russian Empire would grant rights and protections to all of the ethnic minorities within the massive empire. Two years after the treaty Russia would formally become a federal state the year after that they joined the European Union. Yet that lies in the future in the shadow of the Goa'uld war for now all you need to know is that the Russian Civil War is over for it went Into the Death.
-Extract from Into the Death an IBU documentary