Baker Brothers: Diaries from The Eastern Front 1914-1919

Many diaries were kept through the years of the First World War. In bringing these ones to print, we move to an account of a little known theatre of war, almost the story of a private fighting force raised in the same way as local troops were brought together one hundred years before by local landowners. In this instance, our focus is on two dozen men from the town of Cromer who, together with others from East Anglia, Ulster and further a field made up the Russian Armoured Car Division. Oliver Locker-Lampson was Member of Parliament for Ramsey, Huntingdonshire, but had a home in Cromer and relied on justified local loyalty to gather the volunteers he needed. With the support of his friend First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, a man not adverse himself to the adventures of war, he used his personal funds and his business connections to equip a Squadron of armoured cars. The Western Front proved to be an inappropriate place for them to operate and thus the men and cars were shipped to the Russian front, initially to support the armies of the Czar, before finding themselves in a rather more confusing situation as to who their allies were. At that point they were withdrawn before being sent off to a further adventure in Mesopotamia, where the control of oil fields was a critical issue.

Recruited as sailors rather than soldiers, the men were pleased to volunteer to be appointed Petty Officers at a pay rate considerably better than they would have received had they been conscripted at privates in the Army.

Amongst the recruits were the three Baker brothers. Together with friends they knew from their small town, they were to find themselves stuck in the frozen north for many months, then transferred to the heat of Turkey, Romania and Galicia. Their respective diaries and letters are woven together to tell a story with little dramatic fighting, and their distance from formal army regulations enabled cameras to be used freely. In fact keen photographer William Baker was charged by Commander Locker-Lampson to keep a record in pictures and his album provides the core of the picture record which accompanies the diaries and letters.