Anatols Leonids Līvens was a nobleman of Mežotne, a count (prince, knyaz), an officer of the Russian Empire army, a participant in the Latvian freedom battles. On January 15, 1919, in Liepāja, the Liepaja Volunteer Rifle Squad was founded under the leadership of quartermaster Count Anatol Lieven, more commonly known as "Lieven's unit".

At the beginning of the military operations, the unit had 65 people.

The formation was included in Landeswehr. Soldiers serving in the Russian army or volunteers, regardless of their nationality, were eligible to join the department. One company of the Baltic Landeswehr and captain Didorov's company soon joined the unit, Latvians also served in it, for example, Artūrs Silgailis. Therefore, Russians, Latvians, Baltic Germans, Estonians, Poles, etc. served in the unit. The unit was the adopted order of the Russian army (ustavs), ranks, the Russian national flag, the official language was also Russian.

Lieven's division was a unit of the White Movement, formally included in the Northwestern Army (at that time the Separate Northern Corps under the command of the Estonian Army Commander-in-Chief), which was founded with the primary goal of fighting against Bolshevism. Within the framework of political issues, the unit stuck to "uncertainty", i.e. after the defeat of the Bolsheviks, the future of Russia was expected to be decided in the Russian Constituent Assembly. This position was also proven after the April 16 coup, when A. Līvens and Jānis Balodis received an invitation to head the new government (directorate), but both refused. Along with the Latvian and German units, the Lieven's unit took part in the liberation of Ventspils, Kuldīga, Tukum, Jelgava, Riga and other cities.

On May 24, 1919, shortly after the liberation of Riga, A. Līvens himself was seriously injured in a battle with the retreating Red Army units of the USSR invaders near Garkalne, becoming disabled for the rest of his life.

On June 6, 1919, Lieven's unit was transformed into a Russian volunteer corps, which consisted of about 4,000 soldiers.

Lieven forbade his unit to participate in the Battle of Cēsis against the Estonian Army and the Northern Latvian Brigade, and because of this neutrality, Lieven's unit was later among the units that welcomed the Latvia's Provisional Government, as part of the honor guard.

From July 2, 1919, after the conclusion of the armistice of Strazdumuizha, Lieven was for a short time the commander of the newly created "Volunteer Army of Western Russia", in which two more Russian volunteer units joined his corps: "The Partisan Unit named after Cavalry General Count Keller" under the leadership of Pavel Bermont-Avalov and Colonel Virgolić's brigade

On July 9, 1919, Prince Lieven's units received an order from General Yudenich to go to the Narva front to join the Northwestern Army's planned march to Petrograd. The units commanded by Bermont-Avalov and Virgolich in Jelgava and Šauli refused to leave Latvia, withdrew from Līven's corps and founded the "Western Volunteer Corps named after Cavalry General Count Keller".

At the end of July 1919, a part of the troops (about 2100 people) was sent to the front in Narva, joining the Russian Northwest Volunteer Army, becoming its elite formation, reaching the outskirts of Petrograd in the fall.

Lieven's 5th Infantry Division fought in Yudenich's Northwestern Army near Petrograd until December 1919.

During the interwar period, the count himself became a citizen of Latvia and many Northwesterners became the main driving force of the Russian anti-Bolshevist movement in Latvia and Estonia.

His nephew Anatol Lieven (Peter Paul Anatol Lieven, 1960) is a well-known pro-Russian and pro-Kremlin British journalist and political scientist.

(Fragments: A. Gusachenko, etc.)