‘Crossing the Diyalah at Qizl Rabat’, Dunsterforce armoured car, 1918 (b/w photo)

‘Crossing the Diyalah at Qizl Rabat’, Dunsterforce armoured car, 1918. Photograph, World War One, Caucasus (1914-1918), 1918. Growing worries about the chaotic situation in the Caucasus following the Russian Revolution (1917) forced the British to send a small military mission there in January 1918. Under Major-General Lionel Dunsterville, Dunsterforce was ordered to head north to secure Baku’s oil fields and if possible then move to Tiflis where they were to establish a base for recruiting and directing irregular forces against the Turks. Driving cars, vans and armoured cars they travelled over 300 miles northeast from Baghdad through difficult Persian terrain, over the 7,600 feet Asadabad Pass, down to Hamadan, and then north another 250 miles to Enzeli on the Caspian Sea, where they embarked for Baku by ship. From an album of 334 photographs compiled by Major W Leith-Ross, Army Staff and 13th Frontier Force Rifles, 1918-1920.