Ansaldo A.1 Balilla - European users

We keep going with this Italian fighter, this time we cover its' European users, excluding the Polish and Italian users because those two will have their own posts.

The Ansaldo A.1 Balilla was sold to many European countries, the ones covered in this post are:

• Belgium: According to the Belgian Military Aviation archives, one Ansaldo A.1 was in service, with the code "1". Apparently it was in service from some 1920 until 1924 when it was written-off. Some sources claim that one Balilla was displayed in Brussels in order to sale it, but no orders were forthcoming. In anyway it's remarkable to point out that in order to make the return trip of that machine to Paris, it was fitted with a British compass taken from a Belgian airplane. As we couldn't find graphical evidence, the drawing is speculative.
• Greece: Eight Balillas were bought by Turkey in order to use them in their independence war against various European users, among them, Greece. In 1923 a Greek cruiser ship seized an Italian cargo ship bound for Turkey loaded with those airplanes which were retained by the Greeks. However, lacking an appropriate training and maintenance manuals they were never operative. They were used as trainers operating from Tatoi airfield, in Athens.
• Latvia: On August 1922 the Ansaldo operatives which were in Warsaw, selling armament to Poland, concluded a contract with Latvia. The contract stipulated four SVA.10 and A.1 with previssions for more. Those airplanes were to be flight-tested in Riga by Ansaldo crews and, on August 21st the Polish government wrote a letter supporting the qualities of those airplanes. In the end, Latvia bought 13 Balillas, but unfortunately, that success claimed the life of the Tenente Mainardi who spun in at Riga-Spilve airfield when performing low-level acrobatics at a festival held in 1924. The Latvian Balillas were used by a fighter squadron first and by a flying school later.
• USSR: The White Russian army bought some Balillas in order to equip some of their fighter squadrons in 1920 but they weren't delivered until 1922 when 18 airplanes arrived by ship via Odessa which was already under Bolshevik control, and were assigned to the Independent Navy Fighter Sections (IAO, later known as OMIAO) at Novy Petergof (2nd IAO) and Odessa (1st IAO) which were organized in the traditional Russian system of six operational aircrafts and two in reserve. The last two Balillas were used by the Moscow School for Advanced Pilots until 1925. It's also known that the 1st IAO used the Balillas from 1923 to 1925 and some accidents were, unfortunately, suffered by various pilots. Even if the data about those accidents are scant, it's known that the No.2 crashed on 7th July 1924 while piloted by Akulinichev and the No. 3 crashed on 26th May 1924 killing its' pilot, SF Paenkov. The type continued in service until 1927 with the 2nd IAO when it was retired from active service.  

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansaldo_A.1_Balilla
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
3. Windsock Datafile 88 - Ansaldo A.1 Balilla