Major-General Lionel Dunsterville and Captain. S. Topham, his aide-de-camp at Kasvin in northern Persia, 1918

Photograph, World War One, Caucasus (1914-1918), 1918.

Dunsterville commanded the 1,000-strong British Military Mission to the Caucasus, better known as Dunsterforce. It was tasked with bolstering the Allied position there after the Russian armies collapsed following the October Revolution (1917). Their main goal was safeguarding Baku oil installations.

Before arriving there they spent several months in north Persia engaged in famine relief work and civil construction projects. Dunsterville's men also trained local levies so that they could defend their villages from bandits and Turkish backed-tribesmen.

From an album of 334 photographs compiled by Maj W Leith-Ross, Army Staff and 13th Frontier Force Rifles, 1918-1920.