Malleson Mission

The Malleson mission was a military action by a small autonomous force of British troops, led by General Wilfrid Malleson, operating against Bolshevik forces over large distances in Transcaspia (modern Turkmenistan) between 1918 and 1919.

In 1918 Russian Turkestan was in chaos. The Bolshevik Tashkent Soviet was under attack from various groups, including cossacks, who had claimed independence for their respective regions. In addition, there were dealings between the White Russian forces and the British. Geopolitically, from the British point of view, the area was of interest to them because of its proximity to British India and Persia and their general sphere of influence. While Russia remained an ally this was not an issue for the British, but with the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, it became one. To add to the complex situation, around 28,000 German and Austrian soldiers were in the area, as prisoners of war.

Concerned about the Bolsheviks and German and Turkish military activity, the British Government decided to send a force to the area, from India. The force was to be led by General Wilfrid Malleson. His mission was given as “to combat German and Turkish propaganda and attempts to organise men, railways and resources towards assisting hostile enterprises, aggression or active operations against us or our Allies.”

Malleson instructed Reginald Teague-Jones to make preliminary contact with the Ashkhabad Committee, the group in control of the anti-Bolshevik Transcaspian Government. The first military action occurred when a machine gun detachment was sent across the Indian border to aid the Transcaspian forces against the Bolsheviks. The detachment of Indian gunners, led by a British officer, assisted some local units in a battle against the Tashkent Soviet Bolsheviks. The local units were outnumbered, disorganised and nearly defeated. However, the two Indian machine gun crews inflicted 350 casualties and prevented a total rout of the Transcaspians.

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