ONE hundred years ago, Major Cyril Sladden of the Worcestershire Regiment was involved in a little-known military campaign known as Dunsterforce.

Cyril Sladden had grown up in Badsey, one of eight children of brewer Julius Sladden and his wife, Eugénie. On the outbreak of war, he was commissioned into the 9th Battalion. Following service in the Dardanelles in 1915 and early 1916, Cyril then saw action in Mesopotamia. It was at the end of July 1918 that he became part of the secret mission known as Dunsterforce, named after its leader, Major-General Lionel Dunsterville.

Amidst the turmoil of World War I and the breakup of the Russian Empire, Baku, the capital of the newly-declared Republic of Azerbaijan, became a battlefield as four factions sought for control of its oilfields. Into the cauldron of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Armenians and Azeris, London sent a tiny imperial force on an impossible mission: to prevent Baku falling into the hands of the Ottomans or the Germans, both desperate for Azerbaijan’s oil. London also feared that Baku could be a staging post for an assault on Central Asia and, from there, on British India. With control of the city changing almost weekly, the force of roughly 1000 men and a few armoured cars fought its way from Baghdad to Baku; this was “Dunsterforce”.

Baku, on the Caspian Sea, is situated some 1100 km from the British railhead in Mesopotamia.

After a long march which took 10 days, he then moved on by motor, finally taking a short sea voyage to Baku, where he expected to be involved in a spell of fighting.

The Turkish attack of Baku had begun on 26th August. Cyril Sladden was in command of the battalion during operations.

Dunsterville tried to organise the local Baku force to help to defend the city, but they had left a critical section of the city’s defences unmanned. Realising that the situation was hopeless, Dunsterville organised an evacuation by sea on September 15 and extracted all his men without further loss of life.

Despite losing Baku, Dunsterville could claim some success. He had held off the Turks long enough to stop them exporting significant quantities of Baku’s oil or threatening India before the war ended.

But, perhaps inevitably, Dunsterville took the blame for the debacle. The force was reconstituted as Norperforce (North Persia Force) under the command of Major-General William Montgomery Thomson, and re-entered Baku on November 16.

As a result of his exploits at Baku, Cyril was awarded the DSO. He wrote excitedly but modestly to his fiancée, Mela Brown Constable, on October 23: “I have just recently been informed of a piece of good news ….. The award is of course for the Baku operations. The mere luck of commanding a battalion in that show, which was never a very alarming one, though it looked at one time as if it might become so, hardly seems sufficient by itself to have justified so great a reward….. I know you will be delighted and that is the part of it all I like to think of most.”

On October 30 1918, the Armistice with Turkey was signed, with hostilities ending at noon the next day. Cyril was present at the Armistice celebrations at Government House in Resht. But it was to be nearly five months before he was able to return home, as he explained: “We are far too much in the wilds for any very sudden changes to be effected, and none of us rashly supposes that an armistice means a hasty ticket to England. “

With the war ended, British forces found their mission changing, as they became involved with the tangled politics of revolutionary Russia. “The politics of the district are most extraordinarily confusing,” wrote Cyril. “North and south alike of the mountain range the country is split up into little patches, 50 to 100 miles across perhaps, and the population of each patch has entirely its own set of violent likes and dislikes, the only rule apparently being that no two neighbours agree.”

In a letter December 20 1918 he said: “I rather gather that a good many people at home are a bit worried to know what we are doing here at all; if they could realise the state of things here they would hardly need to ask. It is no good putting out the main part of a big fire, and leaving a dozen little patches still burning in various places, and quite capable of setting the whole thing ablaze again. Everybody here has come to regard a state of complete insecurity and muddle as the ordinary thing.”

At last it was time for Cyril to go home. He arrived back in England towards the end of March 1919. He had been parted from Mela for almost four years; they married six weeks later.

Cyril Sladden’s war-time letters have been deposited at The Hive in Worcester and at the Imperial War Museum. A team of volunteers from The Badsey Society has transcribed the letters which may be viewed on The Badsey Society website, badseysociety.uk.

The Badsey Society is also publishing a book about Badsey, Aldington and Wickhamford at the time of the First World War, due for publication on November 9. If you would like to order an advance copy at the special pre-publication price of £5, please contact treasurer@badsey.net for a subscription form or call Maureen Spinks on 831154.