the Suffolks and Berks reached them, Thackeray and his remaining two officers, Lt Edward Phillips and 2 Lt Garnet Green, had all been wounded. He and Phillips led the 120 survivors of the 3rd Regiment out of the Wood. Green brought up the rear and was the last South African to leave the wood. On reaching safety, Thackeray reported "...I am glad to report that the troops under my command (the 3rd Regiment) carried out your instructions to hold Delville Wood at all costs and that not a single detachment of this regiment retired from their position, either on the perimeter of the Wood or from the support trenches." Historians today agree that the losses incurred by the South African Infantry Brigade holding Delville Wood had no strategic purpose, as did that of the entire Somme offensive, of which Delville Wood formed a small part. Casualties The most costly action that the South African forces on the Western Front fought was the Battle of Delville Wood in 1916 – of the 3,153 men from the brigade who entered the wood, only 780 were present at the roll call after their relief. Demobilisation The end in France By the time the South Africans crossed the River Selle at Le Cateau, it was evident that the war was drawing to a close. The SA Brigade was withdrawn from the line at 0130 on 20 October 1918 and marched via Reumont to Serain. The brigade remained at Serain until 1 November 1918. Volunteers to support the White Russians In December 1917, the Don Cossacks had risen in revolt against the Communist Government in Russia. With light skirmishes at first, in the areas of Odessa, Kiev, Orel, Voronezh, Tsaritsyn and even reaching to Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga, the uprising grew in size and geographic distribution. In August 1918, a small British-French-American force under command of Major General Sir Edmund Ironside had arrived at Archangelsk, with the stated purpose of retrieving war material loaned to the previous Tsarist Regime. They were also tasked with to moving south to link up with the 42,000 strong Czechoslovak Legion enveloped in Russia, assisting them to return home. It was hoped that the presence of this Allied force, as well as the Czechoslovak force moving back towards Germany, would firstly invigorate the White Russian counter-revolution to oust the Communists and secondly, to encourage the Czechoslovaks to