Baltic Countdown: A Nation Vanishes

by Peggie Benton

"A soldier emerged from the turret of the tank and motioned to the policemen to step back. There was a moment's hush, and then someone waved a red flag and the masses surged forward once more. With an angry rattle the gunner swung his weapon, sending a swathe of bullets into the densely-packed crowd. There was a moment of total silence and then screams as the onlookers struggled to push past the dead and dying and escape. The soldier watched dispassionately, his hand on the trigger. Within moments the square was empty but for the bodies on the ground, some still, some writhing. The policemen slipped their revolvers into the holsters. The turret of the tank closed as it drew off, and we hurried through the gathering dusk in the direction of home. As we reached our part of the town not a soul was to be seen on the streets."In 1938, diplomats Peggie and Kenneth Benton were posted to Riga, Latvia. While Peggie processed visa applications to the Commonwealth as Europeans fled German and Soviet aggression, Kenneth worked in secret, decrypting covert messages for the British Secret Service. Their posting coincided with an extraordinary and horrifying period in the nation's history when the Soviet Union invaded two years later.With troops pouring into Riga and Second World War battle fronts cutting off escape routes to the west, the Bentons embark on an epic, eventful journey back to London on the Trans-Siberian Express, through the heart of Communist Russia – bureaucratic, intriguing and often simply bizarre. Baltic Countdown is an extraordinary and unique tale of a pivotal period in the history of the Baltic states, by turns travelogue, memoir and social history."A British diplomat's wife's beautifully observed eye-witness account of the Soviet occupation" -- Condé Nast Traveler

283 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 21, 2011

Reviews

[E. Ozols · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pretty underwhelmed here, and I think the main reason why is because the narrative was very difficult to follow. Another reviewer called in "uneven," and I think that hits the nail on the head. I've been on a Latvian/Baltic kick recently, re-exploring my people's history through literature I guess, and was looking forward to seeing how an outsider viewed Latvian events from the inside during WWII. But half the time I had no clue what she was talking about. It's unclear to me who her target audience is, or if she even had one, and her tone was tough to follow. Fascinating tidbits were peeking out here and there, but they were difficult to learn from without much context. To my own surprise I thought the book got more interesting once she was on the train crossing Siberia, when the storytelling became more linear, and the story became easier to follow. But "some westerners complain about dirty windows on a Siberian train ruining their view during war time" wasn't exactly the riveting tale I thought I was signing up for. The title gave the impression that this book would be along the lines of In The Garden of Beasts, detailing what a nation is like on the brink of tragedy, but instead we got kinda jumbled explanations of what was happening peppered amongst boring stories about going to a beach house.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

An uneven story of the events from the fall of Czechoslovakia when the author and her husband were transferred to Riga by the British government through the period were the USSR absorbed the Baltic states and the employees of the British Consulate evacuated to Canada by way of the trans Siberian railroad.