Advertising postcard map of European Russia, with inset images of a mounted Cossack lancer, a troika, and St. Petersburg.
Text in French and Dutch:Il n'est pas de meilleur Amidon que l'Amidon REMY, Fabrique de Riz Pur.Er bestaat geenen beteren Stijfsel dan den Stijfsel REMY, Vervaardigd met Zuiveren Rijst.There is no better starch than Remy Starch, made of pure rice.Reverse:Demandez L'Amidon REMY en paquets de 1, 1/2 et 1/4 kg.Vraagt het stijfsel REMY in pakken van 1, 1/2 et 1/4 ko.Ask for REMY Starch in packages of 1, 1/2, and 1/4 kg.
"On May 23 [1918] the British War Cabinet had taken a decision to dispatch a 560-strong military mission to the port of Archangel, and a further six hundred men to Murmansk, to guard the British military stores there, that had earlier been sent through the Arctic as Britain's military contribution to the Russian army. The British also offered to train the hundreds of thousands of anti-Bolshevik Russians to defend themselves against any future Bolshevik assault. Three days later, in Siberia, 60,000 Czech troops, who had made their way through Siberia to the Far East of Russia after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had liberated all Austrian prisoners-of-war, turned actively against the Bolsheviks."
Russia's inadequate railways resulted in many of the supplies France and Britain sent to support the Russian Empire's war effort never making it from their ports of entry on the Arctic Ocean and White Sea in northern Russia. With control of the railways, the Bolsheviks controlled the supplies. Britain, France, and the United States would send additional troops in an ultimately failed attempt to overthrow the Bolshevik government. The Czech Legion was prepared to fight for independence from Austria-Hungary, but had to cross Russia to the Pacific port of Vladivostok. In the course of their journey, the Bolsheviks tried to ensure the Czechs were not a military force that could turn on the Revolution and began to disarm them. The Czechs eventually resisted.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 425, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
1918-05-23, 1918, May, Archangel, Murmansk
