The British Armoured Car Expeditionary Force (ACEF) was a British military unit sent to

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. It fought alongside the Russian Empire on the Eastern Front between June 1916 and 1918. The unit consisted of 566 men.

History

By the end of 1915,

trench warfare Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising Trench#Military engineering, military trenches, in which combatants are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from a ...

on the Western Front meant that there was no scope for

armoured cars Armored (or armoured) car may refer to: Wheeled armored vehicles * Armored car (military), a wheeled armoured fighting vehicle * Armored car (valuables), an armored van or truck used to transport valuables * Armored car (VIP), a civilian vehic ...

to be stationed there. Three squadrons of armoured cars built by the

Royal Naval Air Service The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British ...

were supposed to be sent by ship to

Archangel Archangels () are the second lowest rank of angel in the Catholic hierarchy of angels, based on and put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the 5th or 6th century in his book ''De Coelesti Hierarchia'' (''On the Celestial Hierarchy'') ...

in Russia to fight on the Eastern Front alongside Russia. However, sea ice prevented them from reaching Archangel, so the unit ended up at Alexandrovsk instead. The ACEF fought alongside the

Imperial Russian Army The Imperial Russian Army () was the army of the Russian Empire, active from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was organized into a standing army and a state militia. The standing army consisted of Regular army, regular troops and ...

in Galicia,

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

and the

Caucasus Mountains The Caucasus Mountains * * Azerbaijani: , * * * * * * * * * * * is a mountain range at the intersection of Asia and Europe. Stretching between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, they are surrounded by the Caucasus region ...

until the Bolshevik coup of 1917, when the ACEF was withdrawn from Russia.{{Cite book, last=Fletcher, first=David, title=War Cars: British Armoured Cars in the First World War, publisher=HSMO

Notable personnel

Oliver Locker-Lampson Lieutenant Commander Oliver Stillingfleet Locker-Lampson, (25 September 1880 – 8 October 1954) was a British politician and naval reserve officer. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Ramsey, Huntingdonshire and Birmingham Handsworth from ...

- commander of the unit *

Walter Smiles Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Walter Dorling Smiles CIE DSO DL (8 November 1883 – 31 January 1953) was a Northern Irish politician. Sir Walter was the son of William Holmes Smiles, director of Belfast Ropeworks, and grandson of Samuel Smiles. ...

References

Military operations of World War I