2-481-406 - © Fine Art Images/Heritage Images

Admiral Alexander Kolchak (sitting) with British officers on the Eastern Front, Russia, 1918. Kolchak (1874-1920) commanded the White (anti-Bolshevik) forces during the Russian Civil War. He was supported and supplied by the British, who hoped that he could overthrow the Bolsheviks and bring Russia back into the war against Germany. After some initial success, the tide of the war turned against Kolchak and the Whites and in 1920 he was turned over to the communist authorities in Irkutsk and executed by firing squad. Found in the collection of the State Museum of the Political History of Russia, St Petersburg.