near-british

Updated: June 25, 2025

These latter were an uncertain lot of change-of heart Bolshevik prisoners and deserters and accused spies and so forth, together with Russian youths from the streets of Archangel, who for the uniform with its brass buttons and the near-British rations of food and tobacco had volunteered to "help save Russia." By the rugged old veteran, Dyer, they had been licked into a semblance of fighting trim.

Lewis E. Jahns - The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki: Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919