The Soviets made peace with the Central Powers in March 1918, but a Russian Civil War then raged for some years, with British and Allied intervention on behalf of the Whites, meaning there was a state of undeclared war between Britain and the Bolsheviks. In the final months of 1919, North gave all the help he could to a group of Royal Navy sailors, led by Lieutenant L. E. S. Napier, captured during the British campaign in the Baltic and being held at Andronievsky Monastery, which had been converted into a prison. In January 1920, North was given permission to conduct a party of four of them to Finland.