The ‘Autos-Canons-Mitrailleuses’ corps operating in Russia

The Belgian ‘Autos-Canons-Mitrailleuses’ (ACM) corps was a unit of armoured cars with cannons and machine guns on them.

Created at the end of 1914, the unit stayed behind the Yser front. After an official request of the Russian authorities, the corps left Brest by ship for Archangelsk (Russia) on 22 September 1915. Till September 1917, it successively fought along with the tsarist army and Kerensky’s troops against the German and Austrian troops in Galicia (now the Ukraine).

On the outbreak of the Russian October Revolution and subsequent civil war, the corps had to leave Russia by taking the Trans-Siberian railway. From Vladivostok they crossed to San Francisco where they were welcomed as heroes. At the end of May 1918, the corps took part in the Memorial Day parade in New York.

On 24 June 1918, after travelling around the world for nearly three years, the unit came back to France where it was disbanded.