Commander of the Volunteer Army in the Civil War. Volunteer army and navy. Forces, organization and supply Commanded a volunteer army

The civil war in Russia is a confrontation between two forces in the struggle for power. On the one hand, acted white army, and on the other, as you know, the Red Army. The southern troops acted as an opponent of the "Reds", hoping to finally overthrow them and settle in the country's administrative apparatus. The worst thing is that both of them propagandized dictatorship in their political activities, in addition, the ideological struggle for a better life grew into a confrontation between the two camps "us" and "them". The actions of those years can rightly be called fratricidal.

The Bolsheviks dreamed of regaining their importance, privileges and reasserting themselves as an organ of power and supremacy. Their representatives were the bourgeoisie, the landlords, and the intelligentsia. All those who were tired of the Bolshevik policy voluntarily joined the ranks of the rebels. The civil war in Russia lasted from 1918 to 1922 and affected neighboring states. The Civil War was preceded by the October Revolution of 1917, and created social, economic and political inequality in the country. The causes of the Civil War also include:

signing between Russia and Germany of the Brest peace treaty;
worsening relations between Bolsheviks and peasants;
nationalization of production;
SR policy.

Intervention foreign states in conflicts, the country only strengthened and incited the rebels to aggressive methods of fighting the "reds" in the hope of splitting Russia.

The main military force of the "whites" in southern Russia in years of the Civil War was Volunteer army . According to the new style, it appeared in January 1918. Its founders are General Alekseev and the military detachment he led. Absolutely everyone who opposed the Bolshevik government joined it voluntarily: fugitive officers, high school students, cadets. Their allies initially were the Don Cossacks. The strategic association was located in Novocherkassk and rather quickly, in less than a year, the number of troops increased from two to three thousand people. It included:

shock regiment of Kornilov;
artillery batteries;
battalions;
squadrons and batteries, and other detachments.

The volunteers wanted to increase the number of the military to 10 thousand and built a grandiose plan, but in 1918 the Red Army forced them to leave the territory of the Don region.

Interesting! The civil war in Russia is considered one of the bloodiest in the world, because all the participants in the conflict were ready to carry out cruel reprisals and violence against each other!

Representatives of the Southern Regiment went to Yekaterinodar (in the Kuban), which later became known as the First Kuban Campaign. There is another name for this movement - the Ice Campaign. The actions took place in February, the army failed to capture Yekaterinodar due to terrible weather conditions and the unpreparedness of the soldiers to resist them. As a result, many people died from cold and disease.

After Kornilov dies on April 13, General Denikin takes his place. He led the troops of the Volunteer Army to the south of the Don region, where he received support from the Don Cossacks and Ataman Krasnov. It was Krasnov who gave the "whites" military equipment and weapons from the Germans.

In June 1918, volunteers go to the Second Kuban campaign and still capture Yekaterinodar. By September, the Volunteer Army subjugates the main part of the Kuban and the Black Sea province.

Autumn. The southern troops began to receive large supplies of weapons from the Entente. The number of troops is growing rapidly. In 1919, during the Civil War, the Volunteer Army inflicted a strong counterattack on the Red Army. And in February 1919, volunteers captured the territory of the entire North Caucasus. After high-profile victories and the split of the Red Army into parts, the “whites” form a special detachment of the best military men and send it to the territory of Crimea.

On January 8, 1918, Wrangel led the volunteers and the army became the representative of the Armed Forces in the southern regions of Russia.

April 1919 - the army of the "whites" forces its enemy to retreat from the territory of the Don, Kharkov regions and Donbass.

July 1919 - The Volunteer Army plans to capture the following cities:

Tulu;
Kursk;
Eagle.

The number of troops consisted of about 50 thousand volunteers and Cossacks. The capture of the city of Orel is considered the pinnacle of white successes. But during this battle, the military suffered great losses in numbers. And by December 1919, the Red Army managed to defeat the bulk of the soldiers of the Volunteer Army.

Defeat of the Southern troops

In the winter of 1920, a fierce battle took place between the "Reds" and the "Whites" near Odessa and in the lands of the North Caucasus, where the Volunteer Army was defeated. Those soldiers who managed to survive managed to move to the Crimea and join the Russian army under the command of Wrangel.

Interesting! Denikin in his "Essays on Russian Troubles" described how the Volunteer uprising fell morally, turning its activities into vandalism and robbery! (described the "white terror").

The defeat of the Volunteer Army was due to the cruelty, which is described in textbooks as the "White Terror". The troops carried out lynching, robbed and intimidated the population. Of course, today many supporters of the "white" guard rewrite historical information and describe the irrefutable facts of the dictatorial power of the "reds". But if we take into account the fact that ordinary peasants made up the majority of the population in those years, then at the beginning of the Civil War they supported the “whites”, since the power of those times did not suit the working population. During the war, people realized that the policy dictated by Denikin and other generals was, in fact, even tougher than the "Red Terror", and gradually began to move from volunteers to Red Army soldiers.

Important! When the Red Terror was declared, more than 2,500 people were killed in Petrograd in one night. As a result of the Civil War, an agreement was signed on the creation of the USSR. After the collapse of the Volunteer Army and the retreat of the Whites, the confrontation between the two forces did not subside, but continued the war between the special services: the People's Labor Union and the State Security Committee.

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From the beginning of December 1917, L. G. Kornilov, who arrived on the Don, joined in the creation of the army. At first, the Volunteer Army was staffed exclusively by volunteers. Up to 50% of those who signed up for the army were chief officers and up to 15% were headquarters officers, there were also cadets, cadets, students, high school students (more than 10%). Cossacks were about 4%, soldiers - 1%. From the end of 1918 and in 1919-1920, due to mobilizations in the territories controlled by the whites, the officer cadre lost its numerical predominance; peasants and captured Red Army soldiers during this period made up the bulk of the military contingent of the Volunteer Army.

By the end of December 1917, 3 thousand people signed up for the army as volunteers. By mid-January 1918, there were already 5 thousand of them, by the beginning of February - about 6 thousand. At the same time, the combat element of the Dobroarmiya did not exceed 4½ thousand people.

The supreme leader of the army was General Staff General of Infantry M. V. Alekseev, Commander-in-Chief - General Staff General of Infantry Lavr Kornilov, Chief of Staff - A. S. Lukomsky, Chief of the 1st Division - General Staff Lieutenant General A. I. Denikin. If Generals Alekseev, Kornilov and Denikin were the organizers and ideological inspirers young army, the person remembered by the pioneers as a commander capable of leading the first volunteers into battle directly on the battlefield was the “sword of General Kornilov” of the General Staff, Lieutenant General S. L. Markov, who first served as chief of staff of the Commander-in-Chief, then chief of staff 1st Division and commander of the 1st Officer Regiment, formed by him and given his personal patronage after Markov's death.

The leadership of the army initially focused on Russia's allies in the Entente.

Immediately after the creation of the Volunteer Army, numbering about 4 thousand people, entered into fighting against the Red Army. In early January 1918, she acted on the Don together with units under the command of General A. M. Kaledin.

Before the start of the Kuban campaign, the losses of the Dobroarmiya amounted to 1½ thousand people, including at least a third of those killed.

On February 22, 1918, under the onslaught of the Red troops, the Dobrarmia units left Rostov and moved to the Kuban. The famous "Ice March" (1st Kuban) of the Volunteer Army (3200 bayonets and sabers) began from Rostov-on-Don to Yekaterinodar with heavy fighting, surrounded by a 20,000-strong group of red troops under whom. Sorokin.

General M. Alekseev said before the campaign:

We are leaving for the steppes. We can return if only there is the grace of God. But you need to light a torch so that at least one point of light is among the darkness that has engulfed Russia ...

In the village of Shenzhiy, on March 26, 1918, a 3,000-strong detachment of the Kuban Rada under the command of General V. L. Pokrovsky joined the Volunteer Army. The total strength of the Volunteer Army increased to 6,000 soldiers.

March 27-31 (April 9-13) The Volunteer Army undertook failed attempt take the capital of the Kuban - Yekaterinodar, during which the Commander-in-Chief General Kornilov was killed by a random grenade on March 31 (April 13), and General Denikin took command of the army units in the most difficult conditions of complete encirclement by many times superior enemy forces, who was able to withdraw to all sides in the conditions of incessant fighting army from under flank attacks and safely get out of the encirclement on the Don. This was largely due to the energetic actions of Lieutenant General S.L.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, events developed as follows:

At about 4 o'clock in the morning parts of Markov began to cross the railroad tracks. Markov, having captured the railway gatehouse at the crossing, deployed infantry units, sent scouts to the village to attack the enemy, hastily began crossing the wounded, the convoy and artillery. Suddenly, the armored train of the Reds separated from the station and went to the crossing, where the headquarters was already located along with Generals Alekseev and Denikin. There were a few meters left before the crossing - and then Markov, showering the armored train with merciless words, remaining true to himself: “Stop! Such-rasta! Bastard! You will suppress your own!”, rushed on the way. When he really stopped, Markov jumped back (according to other sources, he immediately threw a grenade), and immediately two three-inch guns fired grenades point-blank at the cylinders and wheels of the locomotive. A heated battle ensued with the crew of the armored train, which was killed as a result, and the armored train itself was burned.

In May 1918, after completing his campaign from the Romanian Front to the Don, a 3,000-strong detachment of the General Staff of Colonel M. G. Drozdovsky joined the Volunteer Army. About 3000 volunteer fighters came with Drozdovsky, perfectly armed, equipped and uniformed, with significant artillery (six light guns, four mountain guns, two 48-line guns, one 6-inch and 14 charging boxes), machine guns (about 70 pieces of various systems) , the Verny armored car, airplanes, cars, with a telegraph, an orchestra, significant stocks of artillery shells (about 800), rifle and machine-gun cartridges (200 thousand), spare rifles (more than a thousand). The detachment had an equipped sanitary unit and a convoy in excellent condition. The detachment consisted of 70% front-line officers.

On the night of June 22-23, 1918, the Volunteer Army (numbering 8-9 thousand), with the assistance of the Don Army under the command of ataman P. N. Krasnov, began the Second Kuban campaign, which ended in the defeat of almost 100,000 Kuban group of red troops and the capture on August 17 Ekaterinodar.

On August 15, 1918, the first mobilization was announced in part of the Volunteer Army, which was the first step towards turning it into a regular army. According to the Kornilov officer Alexander Trushnovich, the first mobilized - Stavropol peasants were poured into the Kornilov shock regiment in June 1918 during the battles near the village of Medvezhye.

The state of the material part of the Army during this period was evidenced by the Markov artillery officer E. N. Giatsintov:

It's funny for me to watch films in which the White Army is depicted - having fun, ladies in ball gowns, officers in uniforms with epaulettes, with aiguillettes, brilliant! In fact, the Volunteer Army at that time was a rather sad, but heroic phenomenon. We were dressed in any way. For example, I was in trousers, in boots, instead of an overcoat I was wearing a jacket of a railway engineer, which the owner of the house where my mother lived, Mr. Lanko, gave me in view of the late autumn. He was in the past the head of the section between Ekaterinodar and some other station.
This is how we flaunted. Soon the sole of the boot on my right foot fell off, and I had to tie it with a rope. These are the "balls" and what "epaulettes" we had at that time! Instead of balls, there were constant battles. All the time we were pressed by the Red Army, very numerous. I think we were one against a hundred! And we somehow fired back, fought back, and even at times went over to the offensive and pushed the enemy back.

On January 23, 1919, the army was renamed the Caucasian Volunteer Army. On May 22, 1919, the Caucasian Volunteer Army was divided into 2 armies: the Caucasian, advancing on Tsaritsyn - Saratov, and the Volunteer Army itself, advancing on Kursk - Orel.

In the summer - autumn of 1919, the Volunteer Army (40 thousand people) under the command of General V. Z. Mai-Maevsky became the main force in Denikin's campaign against Moscow (for more details, see Denikin's campaign against Moscow). The main unit of the Volunteer Army in 1919 was invariably the 1st Army Corps of Gen. A. P. Kutepov, consisting of selected "colored regiments" - Kornilovsky, Markovsky, Drozdovsky and Alekseevsky, subsequently deployed during the attack on Moscow in the summer - autumn of 1919 in the division.

In combat terms, some units and formations of the Volunteer Army had high fighting qualities, since it included a large number of officers who had considerable combat experience and were sincerely devoted to the idea of the White movement, but since the summer of 1919 its combat effectiveness has decreased due to heavy losses and the inclusion it included mobilized peasants and captured Red Army soldiers.

Commanders of the Volunteer Army

General Staff General of Infantry L. G. Kornilov (December 1917 - March 31 (April 13), 1918)
General Staff Lieutenant General A. I. Denikin (April 1918 - January 1919)
General Staff Lieutenant General Baron P. N. Wrangel (January - May 1919, December 1919 - January 1920)
General Staff Lieutenant General V. Z. Mai-Maevsky (May - November 1919).

Composition of the Volunteer Army

I AM A VOLUNTEER

1) I AM A VOLUNTEER, because I gave my youth and shed my blood for the power of the United Indivisible Russia.
2) I AM A VOLUNTEER I stand for the convocation of the National Assembly, elected by the whole people, because I believe that it will give happiness, peace and freedom to everyone: both left and right, and the Cossack, and the peasant, and the worker.
3) I AM A VOLUNTEER I give land to all peasants - real workers, and in such a way that each peasant will be the complete and eternal owner of his piece and therefore will work it with great love.
4) I AM A VOLUNTEER I stand for the restoration of factories and factories, for the workers to come to an agreement with their masters and organize labor, so that no master can offend the worker, so that the worker can have his own unions to protect his interests. And whoever is an enemy to the worker and will do him harm, than will interfere with the restoration of industry, that enemy is also me, a volunteer. Where I am, there is fresh meat, and bread costs 1-2 rubles. lb.
5) I AM A VOLUNTEER, I leave it to everyone to believe in their God and pray as they wish, and most of all, as a Russian, I love my Orthodox faith.
6) I AM A VOLUNTEER, I love even those with whom I am now at war - I, on the orders of my leader, General Denikin, do not shoot, but take prisoner and bring justice, which is terrible only for enemies of the people - commissars, communists.
7) I AM A VOLUNTEER and so I say:
May peace be restored in desecrated and tormented Russia!
No domination of one class over another!
Free and quiet work for everyone!
No violence against civilians, no murders, no extrajudicial executions!
Down with the predators who oppress Russia! Down with the commune!
Long live the United Great Indivisible Russia!
Leaflet

By the beginning of the 1st Kuban campaign

Consolidated officer regiment (gen. Markov) - from 3 officer battalions, the Caucasian division and the naval company.
Kornilov shock regiment (regiment Nezhentsev) - parts of b. Georgievsky regiment and partisan detachment regiment. Simanovsky.
Partisan regiment (gen. A. P. Bogaevsky)
Junker battalion (gen. Borovsky) - from the former Junker battalion and the Rostov regiment.
Artillery battalion (regiment Ikishev) - out of four batteries, two guns each. Battery commanders: Mionchinsky, Schmidt, Erogin, Tretyakov.
Czech-Slovak Engineering Battalion - under the control of a civilian engineer Kral and under the command of Captain Nemetchik.
Mounted units
- regiment. Glazenapa - from the Don partisan detachments
- officer's squadron (colonel Gerschelman) - regular
- lieutenant colonel Kornilov - from the former parts of Chernetsov.

Total: 3200 fighters and 148 medical staff, 8 guns, 600 shells, 200 rounds of ammunition per person.

By the beginning of the 2nd Kuban campaign

Volunteer army at the end of 1918

In November 1918, the tactical and strategic deployment of the army began - the 1st, 2nd and 3rd army corps and the 1st cavalry corps were formed. In December, the Caucasian group, Donetsk, Crimean and Tuapse detachments were created as part of the army. In the Crimea, from the end of 1918, the 4th Infantry Division was also formed. In December 1918, the army consisted of three army corps (1-3), the Crimean-Azov and the 1st cavalry corps. In February 1919, the 2nd Kuban Corps was created. and the 1st and 2nd army corps included units of the former Astrakhan and Southern armies transferred by the Don ataman. On January 10, 1919, with the formation of the Crimean-Azov Volunteer Army on the basis of the Crimean-Azov Corps, it received the name of the Caucasian Volunteer Army, and on May 2, 1919, it was divided into the Volunteer (as part of the All-Russian Union of Youth Union) and the Caucasian Army.

Army strength

Losses in personnel

The army suffered the heaviest (relative to its size) losses during 1918, that is, precisely when the officers made up a particularly significant part of it. From the beginning of formation, more than 6000 people entered the army, and when leaving Rostov, the number of fighters did not exceed 2500, we can assume that she lost at least 3,500 people. About 400 people died in the 1st Kuban campaign. and taken out about 1500 wounded. After leaving Yekaterinodar to the north, about 300 people. was left in Art. Elizavetinskaya (all finished off by the pursuers) and another 200 - in Dyadkovskaya. The army suffered no less heavy losses in the 2nd Kuban campaign (in some battles, for example, during the capture of Tikhoretskaya, losses reached 25% of the composition), and in battles near Stavropol. In individual battles, losses amounted to hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dead.

Volunteer army in the composition of V. S. S. R. "Campaign to Moscow"

It was formed on May 8, 1919 as a result of the division of the Caucasian Volunteer Army. By mid-June 1919 it included the 1st Army and 3rd Kuban Corps, the 2nd Kuban Plastun Brigade. At the end of July, the Group of Gen. Promtov and the newly formed 5th Cavalry Corps. By September 15, 1919, the 2nd Army Corps was formed from the 5th and 7th Infantry Divisions. On October 14, 1919, another 1st separate infantry brigade was formed.

However, during the “camp on Moscow”, the army included only two corps - the 1st Army from the “colored units”: the 1st and 3rd infantry divisions deployed in mid-October into four divisions - Kornilovskaya, Markovskaya, Drozdovskaya and Alekseevskaya and the 5th cavalry corps of two non-Cossack regular cavalry divisions: the 1st and 2nd cavalry. In addition, the army included: Consolidated regiment of the 1st separate cavalry brigade, 2nd and 3rd separate heavy howitzer divisions, Separate heavy cannon tractor division, 2nd radio-telegraph division, 2nd, 5th , the 6th separate telegraph company, the 1st and 2nd tank divisions and the 5th automobile battalion. The army was also attached to the 1st aviation division (2nd and 6th air detachments and the 1st air base), armored vehicles: the 1st division, 1st, 3rd and 4th detachments.

The 2nd Army Corps (commander M.N. Promtov) as part of the Troops of the Kiev Region of the All-Union Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia advanced in the Kiev-Chernigov region, and the reserve units, from which the 3rd Army Corps, originally intended to strengthen the Moscow direction, were to be re-formed, were thrown against Makhno, who broke through the front of the Whites at the end of September.

Having reached its maximum strength due to mobilizations in the occupied provinces of southern Russia and the enlistment of surrendered Red Army soldiers, by mid-October 1919 the Volunteer Army occupied a vast area along the line Chernigov-Khutor Mikhailovsky-Sevsk-Dmitrovsk-Kromy-Naryshkino-Orel-Novosil-Borki- Kostornoe. During the Oryol-Kromsky battle on October 11-November 18, 1919, she suffered a strategic defeat and was forced to leave all previously occupied areas, retreating to the Don by December 1919. On January 6, 1920, she was reduced to the Volunteer Corps (due to huge losses and a catastrophic decline personnel- 5000 people at the time of the Novorossiysk evacuation). However, the Volunteer Corps survived as a combat unit and was not destroyed. With continuous fighting, the corps retreated in March 1920 to the port of Novorossiysk. There, the Volunteer Corps is a priority, thanks to the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the All-Union Socialist League, General Lieutenant. A. I. Denikin and the iron restraint of his commander, Lieutenant General A. P. Kutepov, embarked on ships and arrived in the Crimea, which remained white thanks to the successfully organized defense of its isthmuses by the troops of Major General Ya. A. Slashchev. The Volunteer Corps in the Crimea formed the powerful backbone of the Russian Army, General Denikin's successor as White Commander-in-Chief, Baron Wrangel.

Army strength

By mid-June 1919, the army numbered 20 thousand units. and 5.5 thousand sab., at the end of July - 33 thousand pieces. and 6.5 thousand sab., as of October 5 - 17791 pcs. and 2664 sub. at 451 pools. and 65 op. At the beginning of December 1919, there were 3,600 units in the Volunteer Army. and 4700 sub. In total, the army, including the rear and emerging units, by July 5, 1919, there were 57,725 people. (including 3884 officers, 40963 combatants, 6270 auxiliary and 6608 non-combatant lower ranks).

Notes

, T. II. - Ch. XIV. .
, With. 54.
, With. 53.
, With. 35.
Markov and Markovites. M.: NP "Posev", 2001
Calendar "Holy Rus" 22.02.1918 − Beginning heroic Ice campaign Volunteer army gen. Kornilova // Website publishing house Russian Idea (www.rusidea.org) (Retrieved 2 February 2013)
Drozdovsky M. G. Diary . - Berlin: Otto Kirchner and Co., 1923. - 190 p.
Drozdovsky and the Drozdovites. - M.: NP "Posev", 2006. - 692 p. - ISBN 5-85824-165-4, p.79, 383
Hyacinths Erast Notes white officer / Enter. article, preparation of the text and comments. V. G. Bortnevsky. - pp.66-67
, T. V. - Ch. II. .
Baylo Andriy. Timchasy union UGA z Dobrarmієyu ta yogo naslіdki (Ukrainian) // Ukraine: cultural recession, national svіdomіst, statehood: Collection of scientific practices. - Lviv: Institute of Ukrainian Studies im. I. Krip'yakevich NAS of Ukraine, 2009. - Issue. 18 . - S. 353-362.
Tomuk I. M. Causes of that after wary about day Ukrainian Galician army z volunteer army order A. I. Denikina (leaf fall – breast, 1919 ) // Bulletin of the National University "Lviv Polytechnic": Thematic issue "State and Army". - 2008. - Issue 612. - pp. 86-91. - ISSN 0321-0499.
Soldatenko V. F. The tragic side of the history of the "one Ukrainian front: the agreement of the UGA with the Belarusians// Conciliarity as official Ukrainian soviet creation (until 90-Richch Aktu zluki) / For red. R. Ya. Piroga. - Kiev, 2009. - S. 53-63. - 229 p.
Abinyakin R. M. The officer corps of the Volunteer army: social composition, outlook, 1917-1920. Monograph. - Orel: Publisher A. Vorobiev, 2005. - 204 p. - ISBN 5-900901-57-2.
Volunteer army//White movement in Russia: organizational structure. Alphabetical index // Site historian Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov (swolkov.ru) (Retrieved 2 February 2013)

The history of the Russian Volunteer Army, better known as the White Army, is the history of the military disgrace of some and the military glory of others.

Why shame? Contemporaries and participants in the events almost unanimously admit that in the cities where the officer Volunteer Army was originally formed (Rostov, Novocherkassk, Taganrog) at that time there were tens of thousands of military officers of the tsarist army, and the strength of the Good Army by the time it left the Don was 3.5 thousand bayonets and sabers. Moreover, it cannot be said that all this was entirely officers - there were quite a few (over 1000 people) cadets, students, even cadet boys and high school students ... It reached the point of absurdity: according to many testimonies, the first volunteers, including the leadership, went to in civilian clothes (so as not to tease the "left public" on the Don), and regular officers, who walked without turning their heads past the recruiting centers of the Good Army, flaunted, as expected, in military uniform with gold shoulder straps! It should be noted that in the Region of the Don Cossacks, which was not subordinate to the Bolsheviks, there were officially operating military institutions of the old army (not to mention the structures of the Cossack army), rear, economic, mobilization, etc., which had funds. But they did not take any part in organizing an armed rebuff to the Bolsheviks.

Who is more to blame here: the evading officers or the leadership of the Good Army, which chose the “democratic”, contractual way of recruiting, is now difficult to say. The organizers of the Dobroarmiya, Generals Alekseev and Kornilov, not without reason, were known in the old army as “core workers”, “Febralists”, and most of the officers did not feel much desire to fight under their leadership for “one and indivisible Russia”. They thought something like this: “Yeah, you made this mess, and now you are offering us to clear it up! No, when you overthrew the tsar-father, you didn’t ask our consent, so you can sort it out yourself.”

We can say that the Volunteer Army, like the Red Army, was a product of the revolution. Of course, unlike the Red Army, its uniform, symbols, patriotic slogans, loyalty to Orthodoxy evoked in many people associations with old Russia. However, it can hardly be called a counter-revolutionary force in the classical sense. In essence, the civil war in Russia was the war of the February and October revolutions. In fact, there was no war between the revolution and the monarchist counter-revolution. However, there is a paradox: those officers who nevertheless went to the Good Army were, for the most part, monarchists. But they were not allowed to express their views openly. There were cases when counterintelligence even shot members of monarchist organizations in the White Army (by order of the notorious General Slashchev).

By February 1918, a dramatic situation had developed in the Don region, close to farcical. The Cossack units, not listening to the persuasions of Ataman Kaledin, began to leave en masse for their villages. Against the mass of thousands of Red Guards who were pressing from the north, they fought at stations and railway junctions (the war then went mainly along the lines railways) only hundreds of poorly armed and even worse dressed volunteers. And the boulevards, cafes, entertainment establishments of Rostov, Novocherkassk, Taganrog were still filled with thousands of idle officers! Unfired boys, cadets and cadets, defended veterans who had seen the sights and did not want to fight with anyone else!

But then another page opens - the page of Russian military glory. Not being able to defend a significant Don region without the support of the Cossack units, Generals Alekseev and Kornilov decide to march on the Kuban. It is difficult to say whether it was an offensive or, on the contrary, a retreat. The Bolsheviks were everywhere - front and back. We had to move forward, leading continuous battles with superior forces of the Reds. A handful of volunteers crossed fast, non-freezing rivers, furiously took village after village, replenished with Kuban Cossacks (still not numerous). Subsequently, this legendary campaign will be called Ice.

Inspired by success, General Kornilov decided to take Yekaterinodar by storm on the move, Big City with 20,000 Bolshevik garrison. In the suburbs, railway station fierce fighting ensued. But at the height of the assault, Lavr Georgievich Kornilov was killed by a shell explosion. The new commander, General Anton Ivanovich Denikin, and the political leader of the army, General Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseev, decided to lift the siege of Ekaterinodar and return back. Already taken once Kuban villages again had to be taken with a fight. It is not known how it would all end, but in April the Don rebelled against the Reds. From the west, the rebels were helped by the brigade of Colonel Drozdovsky, who made his way from the Romanian front, from the east, from the Salsky steppes, the Cossack detachment of the marching ataman Popov hit, volunteers approached from the south. The Bolsheviks were defeated everywhere. The Cossacks quickly formed the Don Army, which significantly outnumbered the volunteers (up to one hundred thousand sabers and bayonets).

But friction immediately began between Alekseev, Denikin and the newly elected Don ataman Krasnov. General Pyotr Nikolaevich Krasnov advocated allied relations with the Germans, and the command of the Good Army considered itself to be at war with them. Krasnov and the Cossack elite declared the Donskoy Army Region an independent state within Russia, while Alekseev and Denikin did not recognize any "sovereignty". All this led to the fact that the Don and volunteers fought completely autonomously, turning their backs on each other: the Don army went to Tsaritsyn and Voronezh, and the Volunteer army went to Yekaterinodar and Stavropol.

The finest hour of the volunteers came in 1919, when Denikin still managed to subjugate the Donets and Kuban. The volunteer army was now only a part of Denikin's army, which was called the Armed Forces of the South of Russia and was replenished through mobilizations. The total number of VSYUR reached 152 thousand bayonets and sabers. In May 1919, the general offensive of the whites began. Under their unstoppable onslaught, the Bolsheviks left Yuzovka, Lugansk, Yekaterinoslav, Poltava, Kharkov, Kiev, Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Orel, Mtsensk. Moscow was only 250 miles away.

But we must remember that the forces of the Red Army in 1919 already numbered about 3 million people. Trotsky had practically unlimited reserves and freely transferred them either to the Volga, when Kolchak approached it, then to Petrograd, where Yudenich was advancing from Pskov, then back to Moscow, to which Denikin was approaching. But the white armies had no reserves. Their front was greatly stretched. Only 59 thousand bayonets and sabers were concentrated in the direction of the main attack.

The hitch with the decision to gather a fist near Tula from all combat-ready units turned out to be fatal. At first slowly, with heavy fighting, and then faster and faster, Denikin's armies rolled back south. But they did not manage to hold out even in the North Caucasus. At the end of March 1920, the remnants of the Whites evacuated from Novorossiysk to the Crimea in an atmosphere of complete chaos. The command of the VSYUR passed from Anton Ivanovich Denikin to Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel.

Denikin's attack on Moscow was the last major operation of the civil war, which could lead to the overthrow of the Bolsheviks. But this did not happen. Until now, disputes about whether this is bad or good have not ceased. The Whites, even as "Februaryists", still represented the Russian national force. Their defeat seriously affected the position of the Russian majority not only in the USSR, but also in the current "erefiya". Lenin said bluntly that the Russians should pay for everything, and Putin and Medvedev still follow this doctrine. But Denikin and Kolchak were too dependent on the West to revive a great power. "White Russia" would have the future of Chiang Kai-shek China - and this is even in the best case. And, of course, there can be no question of "White Russia" being able to stop the German "onslaught on the East." If the commanders of the White Army could not defeat Trotsky, then they would not have defeated Hitler for nothing. Reflections on what Hitler would not go for " white Russia", are ridiculous - he went to the" white Poland ". Only Stalin's Red Army could defeat Hitler, and therefore, Stalin and the Red Army were more necessary to history than the White Army.

Andrey Vorontsov

Volunteer army of the Odessa region. Formed in Odessa. On the steamer of the Volunteer Fleet "Saratov" under the leadership of Major General and A.N. Grishin-Almazov, volunteer units were formed from officers, cadets and student youth, who on December 8, 1918 cleared the city of Petliurists, after which the formation of army units began. In reality, the Rifle Brigade was created (see. Odessa Rifle Brigade).

Volunteer army. Created in Novocherkassk from Alekseevskaya organization. The first volunteers who arrived with Gen. Alekseev on November 2, 1917, were settled in infirmary No. 2 in house No. 39 on Barochnaya Street, which was a disguised hostel, which became the cradle of the Volunteer Army. November 4 was formed Consolidated officer company. In mid-November (at that time there were 180 volunteers) an official entry into the Alekseevsky organization was introduced. All arrivals were registered at the Bureau of Records, signing special notes indicating their voluntary desire to serve and obliging them for a period of 4 months. At first, there was no salary. At first, all maintenance was limited only to rations, then they began to pay small sums of money (in December, officers were paid 100 rubles a month, in January 1918-150, February 270 rubles). On average, 75-80 volunteers came and enlisted in the army per day. At first, colonels played a prominent role in the reception of volunteers: the brothers of Prince. Khovansky, who fled from Moscow K.K. Dorofeev and Matveev, St. George Regiment I.K. Kirienko and Prince. L.S. Svyatopolk-Mirsky. Volunteers were first sent to headquarters (Barochnaya, 56), where they were distributed in parts (this was first led by Colonel Schmidt, and then Colonel Prince Khovansky; the appointment of generals and staff officers remained in the hands of the head of the Novocherkassk garrison, Colonel E. Bulyubash ).

In the second half of November, the Alekseevskaya organization consisted of three formations: Consolidated officer company, Junker battalion And Consolidated Mikhailovsko-Konstantinovskaya Battery, in addition, formed Georgievskaya company and was enrolled in the student brigade. At that time, officers made up a third of the organization and up to 50% - junkers, cadets and young students - 10%. The first battle took place on November 26 at Balabanova Grove, the 27th-29th combined detachment of the regiment. book. Khovansky (actually the entire army) stormed Rostov and on December 2 the city was cleared of the Bolsheviks. Upon returning to Novocherkassk, a reorganization was carried out. By this time, the membership of the organization had greatly increased (a volunteer who arrived on December 5 testifies that his security number was 1801). With the arrival on December 6 in Novocherkassk L.G. Kornilov and other “Bykhovites”, the Alekseevskaya organization finally turned into an army. On December 24, a secret order was announced on the entry into command of its forces, Gen. Kornilov, and on December 27, its armed forces were officially renamed the Volunteer Army. In the appeal (published in the newspaper on December 27), her political program was made public for the first time. In the hands of Gen. Alekseev, the political and financial part remained, the gene became chief of staff. Lukomsky, Gen. Denikin (under the chief of staff, General Markov) led all parts of the army in Novocherkassk; all other generals were listed at the army headquarters. On December 27, the army moved to Rostov.

Before performing in 1st Kuban campaign the army consisted of a number of formations, which were almost all predominantly officers. These were: 1st, 2nd and 3rd Officers, Junkers And Student battalions, 3rd and 4th Officers, Rostov And Taganrog officer, Marine, Georgievskaya And Technical company, Detachment of General Cherepov, Officer Detachment of Colonel Simanovsky, Shock Division of the Caucasian Cavalry Division, 3rd Kiev School of Ensigns, 1st Cavalry Division, 1st Separate Light artillery battalion And Kornilov shock regiment. A detachment from the consolidated companies of these units was commanded from December 30, 1917 in the Taganrog direction by the regiment. Kutepov (see Detachment of Colonel Kutepov). On February 9, 1918, the Volunteer Army set out from Rostov on its legendary 1st Kuban ("Ice") campaign against Yekaterinodar. Its number was 3683 fighters and 8 guns, and with the convoy and civilians over 4 thousand.

At the very beginning trip to st. The Olginskaya army, which had previously consisted of 25 separate units, was reorganized (the battalions turned into companies, the companies into platoons) and began to include: Consolidated officer, Kornilov shock And Partisan Regiment, Special Junker Battalion, 1st Light Artillery Battalion, Czechoslovak Engineering Battalion, Technical Company, 1st Cavalry Division, Colonel Glazenap's Cavalry Detachment, Lieutenant Colonel Kornilov's Cavalry Detachment, Security Company of the Army Headquarters, the convoy of the army commander and the field hospital (Dr. Treiman). Shortly after joining March 14, 1918 with Kuban detachment the army was reorganized. The 1st Infantry Brigade (gen. Markov) included Consolidated Officer And Kuban infantry regiment , 1st Engineering Company, 1st and 4th separate batteries, in the 2nd (gen. Bogaevsky) - Kornilovsky And Guerrilla regiments, the Plastunsky battalion (Kuban), the 2nd engineering company (Kuban) and the 2nd, 3rd and 5th separate batteries, into the equestrian brigade - Horse (see. 1st Cavalry General Alekseev) And Circassian shelves, Kuban equestrian division(regiment) and horse battery (Kuban).

In the beginning. June 1918, after joining the army (May 27) , before the performance 2nd Kuban campaign, it included 1st 2nd And 3rd Infantry And 1st horse divisions, the 1st Kuban Cossack brigade and the Plastunsky battalion that were not part of the divisions (see. Plastun detachment of Colonel Ulagay), a 6-inch howitzer, a radio station and 3 armored cars (" Loyal», « Volunteer" And " Kornilovets"). During the 2nd Kuban campaign were formed 1st and 2nd Kuban Cossack divisions and the Plastunskaya brigade (gen. Geiman). The army also had Separate Kuban Cossack brigade, 1st Stavropol officer regiment, Soldier regiment, 1st Astrakhan Volunteer Regiment, 1st Ukrainian Volunteer Regiment and other units. In November 1918 the 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions were deployed to 1st and 2nd Army Corps, formed 3rd army And 1st cavalry corps. In December, the Caucasian group, Donetsk, Crimean and Tuapse detachments were created as part of the army. In the Crimea, from the end of 1918, a 4th Infantry Division. By the beginning of 1919, the Volunteer Army consisted of five corps (1-3 army, Crimean-Azov and 1st cavalry), which included 5 infantry and 6 cavalry divisions, 2 separate cavalry and 4 plastun brigades. Created in February 1919 2nd Kuban Corps, and the 1st and 2nd corps included units of the former Astrakhan And Southern armies. January 10, 1919, with the formation on the basis of the Crimean-Azov Corps , was named Caucasian Volunteer Army, and on May 2, 1919 it was divided into Volunteer (as part of the VSYUR) And Caucasian army.

The army (having lost several thousand people during the period from November 1917 to February 1918) entered the 1st Kuban campaign in the number (according to various sources) of 2.5-4 thousand, the Kuban units that joined it numbered 2-3 thousand ., about 5 thousand returned from the campaign, the Drozdovsky detachment at the time of connection with the army numbered up to 3 thousand. As a result, in the spring of 1918 the army numbered about 8 thousand people. In early June, it grew by another thousand people. By September 1918, there were 35-40 thousand units in the army. and sab., in December there were 32-34 thousand in the active troops and 13-14 thousand in reserve, emerging units and garrisons of cities, i.e. only about 48 thousand people. By the beginning of 1919, it numbered up to 40 thousand units. and sab., 60% of whom were Kuban. With regard to volunteers, the army was bound by contract (the first period of the contract for the old volunteers ended in May, the second in September, the third in December). However, on October 25, 1918, Order No. 64 was issued on the drafting of all officers under 40 into the army. At the same time, volunteers released from the army were asked to either be drafted or leave the territory of the army within seven days. On December 7, by order No. 246, four-month contracts were finally abolished.

The army suffered the heaviest (relative to its strength) losses during 1918, i.e. precisely when the officers made up a particularly significant part of it. Considering that since the beginning of its formation, more than 6,000 people entered the army, and when leaving Rostov the number of fighters did not exceed 2,500, we can assume that it lost at least 3,500 people. IN 1st Kuban The campaign killed about 400 people. and taken out about 1500 wounded. After leaving Yekaterinodar to the north, about 300 people. was left in Art. Elizavetinskaya (all finished off by the pursuers) and 200 more - in Dyadkovskaya. No less heavy losses were suffered by the army and during 2nd Kuban campaign(in some battles, for example, during the capture of Tikhoretskaya, losses reached 25% of the composition), and in battles near Stavropol. In individual battles, losses amounted to hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dead. December 26, 1918 the army became part of Armed Forces of the South of Russia (VSYUR). Since January 10, 1919 (with a separation from it Crimean-Azov Volunteer Army) was called Caucasian Volunteer Army. May 8, 1919 was divided into Caucasian army and the Volunteer Army - see ).

The supreme leader is Gen.-Inf. M.V. Alekseev. Commanders: gen.-inf. L.G. Kornilov, general-lieutenant. A.I. Denikin (March 31 - December 27, 1818), lieutenant general. bar. P.N. Wrangel (December 27, 1918 - May 8, 1919). Beginning headquarters - gen.-lieutenant. I.P. Romanovsky, general lieutenant. I. Yuzefovich (Vrid; from January 1, 1919), Major General P.N. Shatilov (until May 1919).

Volunteer brigade. Cm. Volunteer division.

Volunteer division. It began to form in the summer of 1919 in Omsk as a Special Detachment, created with the aim of establishing communication between the left-flank units in the future. Eastern Front and right flank units VSYUR. The leading role in the units being created should have been played and played by the so-called "southerners", that is, ranks Volunteer army who made their way to Siberia from the south of Russia through the southern Russian and Central Asian steppes. By the time the formation of the units of the Special Detachment was completed, the situation at the front no longer allowed the plan to be implemented. In the late autumn of 1919, the Special Detachment, renamed the Volunteer Division, took part in the battles east of the Ural Mountains, on the territory Western Siberia. The division consisted of four (actually three) rifle volunteer regiments and an artillery battalion. Around the same time, she was given a separate detachment of Bakhterev, consisting of two squadrons and two companies, formed in August 1919 from the ranks various parts. During the Siberian Ice Campaign, groups of ranks of various units, as well as small units, joined the remnants of the division: the 4th Battalion of Naval Riflemen, a detachment of Gen. Makri and others. Upon arrival in Transbaikalia in February 1920, the division was reduced to a brigade consisting of 1st Volunteer Regiment, 3rd Consolidated Volunteer Regiment and the Volunteer Artillery Battalion (two batteries) Regiment Regiment. Bakhterev, reduced to a separate equestrian division, remained with the brigade. The brigade joined 2nd rifle corps . In Primorye in March 1921 the brigade split. At a general meeting of officials of the brigade, Gen. Osipov (brigade commander), Col. Circassian (to-r 1st regiment), regiment. Khromov (Kr. Krasnoufimsk division) and lieutenant colonel. Gaikovich (batteries) announced their transfer to Grodekovskaya group of troops, and the regiment Urnyazh (room of the 3rd regiment) and regiment. Bakhterev (commander of the cavalry division) remained in the corps. Volunteers wore black shoulder straps with red edging, officers - the same shoulder straps with red gaps. On shoulder straps - a large capital letter "D". Volunteer officers did not wear golden shoulder straps. Heads of the division and brigade: Major General Kramarenko (until March 1920), Major General Osipov.

Volunteer Corps of St. book. Lieven. Cm. Livensky detachment.

Volunteer Corps. Cm. Volunteer Army (as part of the VSYUR) And Russian Army.

Volunteer Partisan Detachment of Lieutenant Colonel Kappel. Cm. Separate rifle brigade people's army .

Don army. Created in the spring of 1918 during the uprising of the Don Cossacks against the Bolsheviks on the basis of the rebel units and the detachment of Gen. P.H. Popov, who returned from steppe campaign. Throughout 1918 it acted separately from Volunteer. In April, it consisted of 6 foot and 2 cavalry regiments of the Northern Detachment Regiment. Fitskhelaurov, one cavalry regiment in Rostov and several small detachments scattered throughout the region. The regiments had a stanitsa organization with a strength of 2-3 thousand to 300-500 people. - depending on the political mood in the village. They were on foot, with an equestrian unit from 30 to 200-300 checkers. By the end of April, the army had up to 6 thousand people, 30 machine guns, 6 guns (7 foot and 2 horse regiments). It (since April 11) consisted of three groups: Southern (colonel S.V. Denisov), Northern (senior troops E.F. Semiletov; former Steppe detachment) and Zadonsk (Major General P.T. Semenov , Colonel I.F. Bykadorov).

On May 12, 1918, 14 detachments were subordinate to the military headquarters: major generals Fitskhelaurov, Mamontov, Bykadorov (formerly Semenov), colonels Turoverov, Alferov, Abramenkov, Tapilin, Epikhov, Kireev, Tolokonnikov, Zubov, military foremen Starikov and Martynov, EU. Vedeneeva. By June 1, the detachments were consolidated into 6 larger groups: Alferov in the North, Mamontov near Tsaritsyn, Bykadorov near Bataysk, Kireev near Velikoknyazheskaya, Fitskhelaurov in the Donetsk region and Semenov in Rostov. In the middle of summer, the army increased to 46-50 thousand people, according to other sources, by the end of July - 45 thousand people, 610 machine guns and 150 guns. By the beginning of August, the troops were distributed over 5 military districts: Rostov (Major General Grekov), Zadonsky (Major General I.F. Bykadorov), Tsimlyansky (Major General K.K. Mamontov), Severo-Zapadny (regiment Z.A. Alferov), Ust-Medveditsky (Major General A.P. Fitskhelaurov). From August 1918, the stanitsa regiments were brought together, forming numbered regiments (2-3 battalions on foot, 6 hundred mounted battalions), distributed among brigades, divisions and corps. In the autumn of 1918 - at the beginning of 1919, the military districts were renamed into fronts: Northeastern, Eastern, Northern And West. At the same time, the formation Young army. The officers in the regiments were natives of the same villages. If there were not enough of them, they were taken from other villages, and in case of emergency - non-Cossack officers, who at first were not trusted.

In the summer of 1918, not counting the permanent Young army, there were 57 thousand Cossacks under arms. By December, there were 31.3 thousand fighters at the front with 1282 officers; The young army numbered 20 thousand people. The army included Don Cadet Corps, Novocherkasskoye (see Ataman) school, Don officer school and military paramedic courses. By the end of January 1919, the Don Army had 76.5 thousand people under arms. The Don regiments in 1919 had 1,000 sabers in service, but after three months of fighting, their strength was reduced to 150-200. Marine Directorate of the VVD (Rear Admiral I.A. Kononov), was formed Don flotilla.

After unification with the SUR on February 23, 1919, the army was reorganized. The fronts were transformed into 1st, 2nd And 3rd Army, and groups, regions and detachments - into corps (non-separate) and divisions of 3-4 regiments. Then (May 12, 1919) the armies were transformed into separate corps, the corps were consolidated into divisions, and the divisions into brigades of 3 regiments. After the reorganization, the army consisted of 1st, 2nd and 3rd Don separate buildings, to which on June 28 was added 4th. In August 1919, a new reorganization followed: four-regiment divisions turned into three-regiment brigades, which were reduced to nine-regiment divisions (3 brigades each). In the autumn of 1919, the army was also temporarily attached 3rd Kuban Corps. In total, by July 5, 1919, there were 52,315 people. (including 2106 officers, 40927 combatants, 3339 auxiliary and 5943 non-combatant lower ranks). On October 5, 1919, she had 25834 pieces, 24689 sabers, 1343 sappers, 1077 pools, 212 op. (183 light, 8 heavy, 7 trench and 14 howitzers), 6 aircraft, 7 armored trains. 4 tanks and 4 armored vehicles. In the army, unlike others constituent parts VSYUR, the former award system of the Russian army operated. On March 24, 1920, a Separate Don Corps was formed from the units of the army taken to the Crimea, and on May 1, all Don units were consolidated into Don Corps.

Commanders: Major General K.S. Polyakov (April 3-12, 1918), Major General P.Kh. Popov (April 12 - May 5, 1918), Major General S.V. Denisov (May 5 - February 2, 1919), Gen.-Inf. IN AND. Sidorin (February 2, 1919 - March 14, 1920). Beginning headquarters: Major General S.V. Denisov (April 3-12, 1918), Col. (Major General) V.I. Sidorin (April 12 - May 5, 1918), Col. (Major General) I.A. Polyakov (May 5 - February 2, 1919), Lieutenant General. A.K. Kelchevsky (February 2, 1919 - March 14, 1920).

Table
The combat composition of the Don army

date	Fighters (thousand)	guns	machine guns
May 1, 1918	17	21	58
June 1, 1918	40	56	179
July 1, 1918	49	92	272
middle (end) July 1918	39	93	270
August 1, 1918	31	79	267
November 20, 1918	49,5	153	581
February 1, 1919	38	168	491
February 15, 1919	15	—	—
April 21, 1919	15	108	441
May 10, 1919	15	131	531
June 16, 1919	40	—	—
July 15, 1919	43	177	793
August 1, 1919	30	161	655
September 1, 1919	39,5	175	724
October 1, 1919	46,5	192	939
October 15, 1919	52,5	196	765
November 1, 1919	37	207	798
December 1, 1919	22	143	535
January 1, 1920	39	200	860
January 22, 1920	39	243	856
February 1, 1920	38	158	687

Don artillery. Consisted of cavalry artillery batteries, combined into divisions (2 batteries each) and attached to brigades and divisions Don Army. On January 1, 1918, there were 213 officers, on January 1, 1919 - 296 of their own (10 generals, 34 colonels, 38 military foremen, 65 yesauls, 29 sub-deauls, 38 centurions and 82 cornets) and 214 seconded (3 generals, 11 colonels, 11 lieutenant colonels , 13 captains, 25 captains, 43 lieutenants, 53 second lieutenants and 55 ensigns) officers. Lost in civil war 52 officers (in the world - 6). Commanders of the Don Artillery: Major General I.P. Astakhov, Col. B.A. Leonov, general-lieutenant. F.I. Gorelov, Major General L.M. Kryukov, Major General A.I. Polyakov. Artillery inspectors of fronts and groups, division commanders: Major General P.A. Markov, I.I. Zolotarev, A.N. Ilyin, colonels N.N. Upornikov, F.F. Yuganov, D.G. Baranov, A.A. Kiryanov, V.M. Markov, O.P. Potsepukhov, A.A. Dubovskoy, V.M. Fedotov, F.I. Babkin, Stepanov, Mikheev, A.S. Foraponov, A.F. Gruzinov, A.A. Leonov. Battery Commanders: Colonels L.A. Danilov, V.A. Kovalev, A.V. Bochevsky, N.P. Shkuratov, P.I. Kostryukov, A.I. Lobachev, B.I. Turoverov, S.M. Tarasov, V.S. Tararin, A.V. Pervenko, Ya.I. Golubintsev, A.A. Bryzgalin, I.F. Filippov, I.I. Govorukhin, military foremen Svekolkin, V.V. Klimov, A.I. Nedodaev, A.N. Pustynnikov, A.I. Afanasiev, G.G. Chekin, N.A. Gorsky, A.A. Upornikov, G.V. Sergeev, P.D. Belyaev, P.A. Golitsyn, K.L. Medvedev, G.I. Retivov, M.S. Zhitenev, A.I. Kargin, A.P. Kharchenkov, A.P. Pivovarov, P.P. Kharchenkov, V.A. Kuznetsov, S.G. Nagornov, Shumilin, M.S. Zhitenev, V.S. Golitsyn, V.M. Nefedov, lieutenant colonel. Rudnitsky, Yesauly G.S. Zubov, P.A. Zelik, V.I. Tolokonnikov, B.E. Turkin, A.P. Sergeev, B.P. Troyanovsky, S.V. Belinin, F.D. Kondrashev, S.G. Nagornov, K.D. Sklyarov, B.A. Rodionov, I.A. Motasov, V.N. Samsonov, E.E. Kovalev, M.I. Eronin, Ya.I. Afanasiev, S.M. Pletnyakov, V.S. Mylnikov, Kozlov, I.G. Konkov, captains V.D. Maikovskiy, R.I. Serebryakov, escorts D.K. Polukhin, Z.I. Spiridonov, N. Dondukov, T.T. Nezhivov, A.M. Dobrynin, captains Yu.V. Trzhesyak, A.F. Bochevsky, I.Z. Popovkin, A.I. Nedodaev, centurions Proshkin, F.N. Popov, I.M. Grekov, since. A.A. Melnikov, choir. K.D. Taranovsky. From the Don artillery, 26 generals and St. 200 officers, of which only one returned, by March 20, 1921, there were 151 in the ranks. By January 1, 1936, 20 had died in emigration. R OBC, prev. - Major General A.V. Cheryachukin).

Don Ataman Brigade. Formed in Don Army. In 1919, after the reorganization of the corps, it was part of Consolidated Corps of the Caucasian Army. Colonel commander. Egorov (August 1919).

Don armored railway brigade. Formed within Don Army in 1918 out of 4 divisions, 3 armored trains and 2 separate armored trains. Their crews consisted of 9 officers and 100 soldiers. By the summer of 1919, the brigade was divided into two armored railway regiments (colonels Rubanov and Lyashenko) each with 8 armored trains, a repair train, and a naval heavy artillery battery division. The 1st regiment included: " Ivan Koltso”, “Ataman Orlov”, “Razdorets”, “Azovets”, Gundorovets”, “Mityakinets”, “Ataman Platov”, “Ermak", in the 2nd -" General Baklanov, Ilya Muromets, Cossack Zemlyanukhin, Atamanets, Ataman Kaledin, Ataman Samsonov, General Mamontov, Partisan Colonel Chernetsov". Commander - Major General N.I. Kondyrin.

Don Guards Brigade. Cm. 1st Don Cavalry Division.

Don Reserve Brigade. Formed in Don Army. Commander - Major General I.T. Zhitkov (until March 1920; killed).

Don Engineering Hundred. Formed on about. Lemnos in the composition Don Corps from created after the evacuation Russian Army from Crimea to Chataldzha of the Don Technical Regiment R OBC until the 1930s was, despite the dispersion of its ranks over different countries, cropped part. She left Lemnos in the number of 86 people, in the autumn of 1925 she numbered 68 people, incl. 43 officers. Commander - es. A.M. Tkachenkov.

Don officer battery. Formed after evacuation Russian Army from Crimea to Chatalje as part of Don Corps. After the transformation of the army into R OBC until the 1930s, despite the dispersion of its ranks in different countries, it was a cropped part. In the autumn of 1925, there were 85 people, incl. 78 officers. Commander - Major General A.I. Polyakov.

Don officer school. Created in Don Army in 1918 to train company commanders and hundreds of wartime officers. Persons who did not complete the course of the school were not appointed to these positions.

Don Consolidated Partisan Division. Formed in Don Army like Donskaya Partisan brigade Consolidated Corps of the 2nd Don Army. On May 12, 1919, it was reorganized into a division and became part of 2nd Donskoy separate building. included 1st Don Partisan, 2nd Don Volunteer, 3rd Don Separate Volunteer And 4th Don Cavalry Brigade. On October 5, 1919, there were 3363 pieces, 3351 sab., 59 sappers, 146 pools, 27 op. Commander - Col. N.Z. Namerrock. Beginning headquarters - cap. PC. Yasevich (since November 28, 1919).

Don Flotilla. Formed on May 11, 1918 by the Naval Directorate of the VVD (Rear-Adm. I.A. Kononov) on the initiative of Art. late. Gerasimov. Initially, it included 2 sea and 4 river steamers, 3 boats and a yacht. Steamboats were armed with three-inch guns and machine guns, barges with Canet's six-inch guns. During 1918-1919 assisted Don Army. Included in its composition, in addition to the river detachment, Azov Marine Detachment and marine railway batteries. In May 1919 she joined Black Sea Fleet. In the fall of 1919, the river flotilla of the same name included the 4th division of the River Forces of the South of Russia. Commander - Rear Adm. S.S. Fabritsky.

Don partisan detachments. Upon arrival at the Don at the end of 1917, the front-line Cossack units dispersed to the villages and actually disintegrated. Therefore, the only force that the Don government had at its disposal were volunteer detachments, led by the most determined officers and, to a large extent, consisting of officers (not only Cossacks). Particularly famous: Detachment of the centurion Grekov, units EU. R. Lazarev, military foreman E.F. Semiletov (2 hundreds), EU. F.D. Nazarov, lieutenant V. Kurochkin, centurion Popov (who died at the end of January at the Chekalov farm) and the largest - EU. V.M. Chernetsov (see. Detachment of Yesaul Chernetsov). There was also a Don officer squad (200 people, including 20 officers) and partisan artillery from volunteers: A separate platoon of the EU. Konkov and three more - the 1st partisan artillery platoon of the centurion E. Kovalev (2 op., 2 pool.), 2nd es. Abramov and 3rd subway. T.T. Nezhivov, as well as the Semiletov Battery (2 op.; piece-cap. Bukin) and individual guns (Es. A.A. Upornikov and centurion Lukyanov). With the abandonment of Rostov and Novocherkassk, part of the Don partisans joined Volunteer army and participated in 1st Kuban campaign as part of partisan regiment, and part went to steppe hike.

Don Cossack Host(Great Don Army). It occupied the territory of the Don Army Region. Counted St. 1.5 million people, incl. 30.5 thousand Kalmyks. It was divided into 10 districts (134 villages, 1728 farms): Cherkasy, Rostov, Taganrog, Salsky, 1st Donskoy, 2nd Donskoy, Donetsk, Khopersky, Ust-Medveditsky, Verkhne-Donskoy. Center - Novocherkassk. IN world war exposed St. 100 thousand people: 60 cavalry regiments (including the Life Guards Cossack and Atamansky), 23 separate and 55 special cavalry hundreds, 58 escort half-hundreds, a plastun brigade (6 battalions), 43 cavalry artillery batteries (incl. .h 2 separate), 6 spare cavalry regiments and a spare cavalry artillery battalion. By the beginning of 1918, there were about 6,000 officers in the army. The army did not recognize the power of the Bolsheviks. At the beginning of 1918, its territory was occupied, and several thousand of the most active opponents of the owls. power is scattered. After the uprising of the Cossacks in April 1918, a military circle was convened, which on May 3 elected a military government and an ataman. In the future, he fought against the Bolsheviks as part of Don Army, VSYUR And Russian Army(the headquarters of the troops from May 15, 1918 to July 17, 1919 was merged with the headquarters of the Don Army). Official press organs in exile - " Ataman Herald, Donskoy Ataman Herald" And " Cossack". The Cossack Word was also published (organ of the military government, Sofia, January - February 1922, 8 issues), Cossack Flash, (organ of the student village in Prague, by 1928 12 issues were published; in 1923 1 issue of its predecessor was published - the magazine "Cossack in a foreign land"), "Don calendar for 1928 (Prague, ed. - Colonel Dobrynin) and" Stanichnik "(organ of the village in Melbourne, Australia, since 1966, 8 issues). Military atamans: Gen.-Kav. A.M. Kaledin (until January 29, 1918), Major General A.M. Nazarov (January 30 - February 18, 1918), general-kav. P.N. Krasnov (May 3, 1918 - February 6, 1919), general-kav. A.P. Bogaevsky (February 6, 1919 - October 21, 1934), lieutenant general. gr. M.N. Grabbe (since 19 35), general lieutenant. V.G. Tatarkin (until October 14, 1947). Beginning headquarters: Major General I.A. Polyakov (May 15, 1918 - February 15, 1919), lieutenant general. A.K. Kelchevsky (February 15, 1919 - April 12, 1920), lieutenant general. N.N. Alekseev (since April 23, 1920).

"Donskoy Ataman Bulletin". Foreign Don Cossack magazine. The official organ of the Don Ataman gr. Grabbe. It was published under the name "Atamansky Bulletin" in 1935-1939. in Paris twice a year. Editor - B.F. Krishtofovich. 12 issues have been released. The publication was resumed under the present title (also as the organ of the Don Ataman) in 1952 in Howell, then in Sumter (USA) several times a year (20 pp. with appendix, rotator). Up to April 1989, 133 issues were published. Since 1994, the Russian version of the magazine has been published - under the same cover as the magazine " Kuban"(from No. 5).

"Don Bayan". light armored train Don Army. He was part of the 4th armored train division.

Don Emperor Alexander III Cadet Corps. Several dozen cadets of the corps participated in the battles near Rostov in November 1917, 1st Kuban And steppe campaigns. He resumed his activities after the cleansing of the Don from the Bolsheviks. By December 1918 there were 622 cadets. Issues 30 (1918) and 31 (1919; about 70 people) were translated into Ataman military school . At the beginning of 1920, he retreated in marching order to Novorossiysk, from where he was evacuated to Egypt (Ismailia), (Lt. Gen. P.G. Chebotarev) Disbanded in Ismailia in the autumn of 1922, was recreated at the base 2nd Don Cadet Corps and existed until 1933 in Gorazde (Yugoslavia). Upon disbandment, the Cadets and part teaching staff transferred to 1st Russian Cadet Corps. Among his cadets there were also many participants in the war (for example, out of 36 cadets of the graduation of 1924 - 28, including 9 Knights of St. George), many entered universities (from the same graduation - 23 out of 36). Its staff consisted of more than 35 people. in Egypt and over 70 in Yugoslavia. Directors: general-lieutenant. A.A. Cheryachukin (in Egypt), Major General I.I. Rykovsky, Major General Babkin, Major General E.V. Perret, class inspectors - Col. N.V. Surovetsky (Egypt), Major General Erofeev and Col. A.E. Warlocks. The cadets of the corps published handwritten magazines "Donets in a foreign land" (Egypt, 1920-1921, 19 issues), and "Donets" (Yugoslavia, 1922-1928, 21 issues).

Don Corps. Formed in Russian Army May 1, 1920 Includes the 2nd and 3rd Don Divisions and the Guards Brigade. Since September 4, 1920 included in 1st army. Compound: 1st and 2nd Don Horse And 3rd Don Division. Evacuated from the Crimea as part of 22 thousand people. He was located in camps in the Chataldzhi region, and by the spring of 1921 he was relocated to about. Lemnos. It contains all the Don parts. Numbered 14630 people. It was reorganized by December 15, 1920 into two Don Cossack divisions of 3 brigades of two regiments each. 1st (head - Lieutenant General N.P. Kalinin, by April 20, 1921 - Lieutenant General G.V. Tatarkin; Chief of Staff Major General P.A. Kusonsky, by April 20, 1921 - Colonel V. A. Zimin, brigade commanders: 1st - Major General V. A. Dyakov, 2nd - Major General V. I. Morozov, 3rd - Major General A. P. Popov) included the 1st sheet. -Guards. Consolidated Cossack Regiment (Major General M.G. Khripunov), 2nd (Regiment Dronov), 3rd Ataman Kaledin (Colonel G.I. Chapchikov, by April 20, 1921 - Colonel A.N. Laschenov, vrid.), 4th ataman Nazarov (major general A.G. Rubashkin, by April 20, 1921 - colonel Leonov, vrid.), 5th ataman Platov (colonel A.I. Shmelev), 6th ataman Yermak (colonel F.N. Martynov, vrid.) Don Cossack and Terek-Astrakhan Cossack (Major General K.K. Agoev; was part of the 3rd brigade) regiments and the 1st Don Cossack cavalry -artillery division (Major General N.N. Upornikov). 2nd (head of lieutenant general A.K. Guselshchikov; chief of staff, major general G.S. Rytikov, by April 20, 1921 - major general S.K. Borodin; brigade commanders: 1st - Major General A.A. Kurbatov, 2nd - Major General I.N. Konovodov, 3rd - Lieutenant General A.P. Fitskhelaurov) included the 7th (regiment D.I. Igumnov), 8th (col. Dukhopelnikov), 9th Gundorovsky Georgievsky (colonel A.N. Usachev), 10th (colonel F.S. Avramov), 18th Georgievsky (major general G.I. Dolgopyatov) Don Cossack and Zyungar Kalmyk (colonel S.V. Zakharevsky) regiments and the 2nd Don Cossack Cavalry Artillery Battalion (Major General D.G. Baranov). The corps also included the Don Technical Regiment (colonel L.M. Mikheev) and Ataman military school. By April 20, 1921, the 3rd brigade of the 2nd division was disbanded (the 18th regiment left almost entirely for Czechoslovakia).

After the transformation of the army into R OBC preserved as one of 4 of his cropped connections. All parts of it since 1922 were in Bulgaria. By 1925 consisted of 3rd and 5th Don Cossacks, Gundorovsky Georgievsky And Terek-Astrakhan regiments, Don officer battery, Don engineering hundred, Don officer reserve and the Donskoy hospital (headed by supervising Soviet G. Yakovlev), as well as Ataman military school. By 1931, it also included the Don Separate Combined Cossack Hundred in Budapest (Es. Zryanin). The following were published in Lemnos: "Information Sheet of the Don Camp on the Island of Lemnos" (December 1920 - February 1922, 56 issues in total, ed. - Kunitsyn), "Bulletin of the Don Camp on the Island of Lemnos" (March - December 1921, 52 issues in total) and " Don ”(handwritten, brigades of Colonel Arakantsev, 9 numbers in total), in the Kabadzha camp -“ Donskoy Mayak ”(December 1920 - January 1922, 14 numbers, ed. - Ryazan). Commander - General Lieutenant. F.F. Abramov. Beginning headquarters - gen.-lieutenant. A.V. Govorov (1920), Col. PC. Yasevich (1921-1925).

Table
The combat composition of the corps for September 1925

Parts	Total	officers	% officers
Office of the Lemnos Group	25	—	—
Donskoy officer reserve	332	237	71,4
Don Officer Battery	85	78	91,8
Don Engineering Hundred	68	43	63,2
Gundorovsky regiment	854	318	37,2
3rd Don Cossack Regiment	377	81	21,5
5th Don Cossack Regiment	310	61	19,7
Terek-Astrakhan Regiment	427	211	49,4
Ataman military school	282	219	77,7
Don hospital	37	19	51,4
Total	2797	1267	45,3

Donskoy officer reserve. Upon arrival in the Crimea, most of the Don officers (500-600 people) were enrolled in the reserve, since their number far exceeded the staff of the newly formed Don units. He was stationed in Feodosia, where his ranks were in extremely difficult financial situation. Then, from a part of the reserve, the Don officer detachment of 6 hundred was formed, which served in the Sivash. More than half of the reserve officers died: one hundred at Perekop, and another three hundred (about 250 people) on the destroyer Zhivoi that sank during the evacuation. Replenished after evacuation Russian Army from Crimea to Chatalje, where he was in the composition Don Corps. After the transformation of the army into R OBC until the 1930s, despite the dispersion of its ranks in different countries, it was a cropped part. In the autumn of 1925, there were 332 people, incl. 237 officers. By 1931, transformed into a battalion. Head - Major General V.I. Morozov.

Don Foot Battalion. Formed in Volunteer army at partisan regiment. November 24, 1918 separated from the latter and included in the 2nd division. A cavalry hundred was formed under the battalion. Commander - Major General E.F. Semiletov (since December 6, 1918).

Don Plastun Junker Regiment. Formed during VSYUR in the spring of 1920 from the Junkers Ataman military school and the Donskoy Military School established in Evpatoria. Participated in the battles at the Kakhovka bridgehead. Commander - Major General Maksimov.

"Drozdovets". light armored train VSYUR And Russian Army. In July 1919, in the battles near st. Gotnya near Kharkov. He was part of the 9th armored train division. In the Crimea, from April 16, 1920, he was part of the 4th armored train division. He died on October 19, 1920 at the station. Sokogornoye during the departure from Northern Tavria. Commander - Capt. V.V. Ripke.

Drozdovskaya Artillery Brigade. Formed in VSYUR April 4, 1919 as the 3rd artillery brigade based on batteries ( 3rd separate light And Howitzer) Detachment of Colonel Drozdovsky(3rd separate light artillery battalion). Initially included divisions: 1st - 1st (formerly. 3rd separate light) and 2nd light batteries, 2nd - 3rd and 4th (from the artillery of the former. Voronezh Corps) lungs, 4th - 7th (formerly. Howitzer, then the 3rd light howitzer) and the 8th (from the artillery of the former. Voronezh Corps) light howitzer batteries, from July 1 - and the 3rd division: 5th (from May 27) and 6th (from July 21) batteries. Later included 4 divisions (8 batteries). On October 5, 1919, it had 20 light guns and 6 howitzers. Belonged to 3rd Infantry Division. With the transformation of this division on October 14, 1919 into Drozdovskaya, it received the name on October 22 and was part of Drozdov division. On April 16, 1920, it included only the 1st, 2nd and 4th divisions. From May to August 1920 lost 473 people. In Gallipoli rolled into Drozdovsky Artillery Battalion. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 7th batteries were awarded silver trumpets with ribbons of the Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. The ranks of the brigade wore crimson caps with a black band and red shoulder straps with black edging, gold guns and the letter "D".

Commanders: Major General V.A. Maltsev (until August 4, 1919), Col. (major general) M.N. Polzikov. Brigadier Adjutant - Lieutenant Colonel. Pinchuk. Division commanders: 1st - Regiment. V.A. Protasovich, 2nd - regiment. A.A. Shein, Col. V.A. Protasovich (since April 13, 1919), regiment V.V. Gorkunov (since November 28, 1919), 3rd - regiment. P.A. Sokolov, 4th - regiment. A.K. Medvedev (since April 13, 1919). Battery commanders: 1st - Regiment. V.P. Tutsevich (until June 2, 1919; killed), regiment. N.V. Chesnakov (from August 24, 1919), Col. ON THE. Kositsky (since September 23, 1920), 2nd - cap. Lazarev, lieutenant colonel. V.A. Protasovich (until April 13, 1919), cap. (colonel) P.V. Nikolaev (since April 24, 1919), 3rd - cap. N.F. Solovyov (since April 24, 1919), lieutenant colonel. P.A. Sokolov, Col. A.G. Yakubov (from August 24, 1919), 4th - regiment. A.A. Samuelov, 5th - regiment. Stankevich (since July 22, 1919), lieutenant colonel. A.V. Musin-Pushkin (until August 10, 1920; killed), lieutenant colonel. Gamel, 6th - Regiment. Belsky (July 22, 1919 - May 17, 1920), lieutenant colonel. L.L. Maslov, 7th - lieutenant colonel. Chizhevich, lieutenant colonel. (colonel) N.F. Solovyov, Col. S.R. Nilov, Col. A.K. Medvedev (until April 13, 1919), 8th - regiment. B.B. de Pollini (April 24 - October 23, 1919), Lieutenant Colonel. Abamelikov (May 1920), lieutenant colonel. D.M. Prokopenko.

Drozdov division(Officer Rifle Division of General Drozdovsky, from April 1920 Rifle Division of General Drozdovsky). Formed in VSYUR October 14, 1919 on the basis of the Officer Rifle General Drozdovsky Brigade created on July 30 3rd Infantry Division as part of 1st, 2nd and 3rd Drozdovsky regiments, reserve battalion, Drozdov engineering company And Drozdovskaya Artillery Brigade. Belonged to 1st Army Corps (I). In mid-October 1919, St. 3000 pcs. and 500 sub. in the cavalry. Since September 4, 1920, it included the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th rifle generals of the Drozdovsky regiment, Drozdov artillery brigade, Drozdov engineering company and Separate Cavalry General Drozdovsky Division. The Drozdovsky units that retreated to the Crimea at the end of October 1920 numbered 3260 units. and sub. It was one of the most reliable formations and suffered particularly heavy losses (for example, in the landing on Khorly, the division lost 575 people, on August 14, 1920 near Andreburg - 100 people). The total losses of the Drozdovites are estimated at 15 thousand killed and 35 thousand wounded. Among the dead, St. 4.5 thousand officers. In Gallipoli rolled into Drozdovsky Rifle Regiment. The Drozdov units wore crimson caps with a white band and crimson shoulder straps with a white edging with a yellow letter "D". Heads: Major General V.K. Vitkovsky, K.A. Kelner (July - August 1920), A.V. Turkul (August - October 28, 1920), V.G. Kharzhevsky (since October 28, 1920). Beginning headquarters - regiment. F.E. Bredov.

By the beginning of 1919, the volunteer army included: 5 infantry divisions, 4 plastun brigades, 6 cavalry divisions, 2 detached. con. brigades, an army artillery group, spare, technical units and garrisons of cities. The size of the army extended up to 40 thousand bayonets and sabers, with 193 guns, 621 machine guns, 8 armor. cars, 7 armored trains, and 29 airplanes.

The main mass of the troops was reduced to five corps: I, II and III army, Crimean-Azov and I cavalry (generals Kazanovich, May-Maevsky, Lyakhov, Borovsky and Baron Wrangel), later, in February, the II Cube was formed. Corps of Gen. Laying down. In February, the I and II Corps included units of the former Astrakhan and Southern armies transferred by the Don ataman, on which so many hopes were placed by German circles and which, unfortunately, were then already in the stage of complete collapse.

At the beginning of December 1918, the Volunteer Army was located in four main groups: 1. The Caucasian group (I, III, I kon., Later II kon. Corps with attached units) with forces of 25,000 and 75 guns was located between Manych and the Caucasian foothills at Mineralnye Vody. It had a common task - the final liberation of the North Caucasus to the Caucasus Range, mastery of the western shore of the Caspian Sea and the lower reaches of the Volga, which made it possible to get in touch with the British at Anzeli and with the Urals at Guryev and cut off Soviet Russia from Baku and Grozny oil.

2. Donetsk detachment (gen. May-Maevsky) with a force of 2.5–3.5 thousand and 13 guns. in the Yuzovka region, it covered the Donetsk coal region and the Rostov direction.

3. Crimean detachment of gene. Baron Bode (later Borovsky), initially only 1.5-2 thousand and 5-10 guns, covered Perekop and Crimea, bases and parking of the Black Sea Fleet; he was supposed to serve as a frame for the formation of the Crimean Corps on the site.

4. Tuapse detachment of gene. Cherepov (2nd division with attached units) with a force of 3000 and 4 guns. had the task of covering our main base - Novorossiysk - from Georgia.

Thus, we had 32,34 thousand of all active forces and about 100 guns, of which 76% were concentrated in the main theater.

The enemy had the following forces against us: 1. In the North Caucasus theater - XI and XII (forming) Soviet armies, numbering up to 72 thousand and about 100 guns.

2. In the Rostov and Crimean directions, during December, the united gangs of the “father” Makhno operated with a force of 5-6 thousand and in the lower reaches of the Dnieper - 2-3 thousand Petlyura ataman Grigoriev transferred to the side of the Soviets. In addition, the entire northern Tavria was flooded with unorganized, "apolitical" gangs engaged in robbery and robbery. Only from the end of December, after capturing Kharkov, did the Bolsheviks send the first regular divisions from the Kozhevnikov group through Lozovaya to the southeast, against Mai-Maevsky, and to the south, in the direction of Aleksandrovsk.

3. On the Sochi direction stood, echeloning from Lazarevka to Sukhumi, three to four thousand Georgian troops, under the command of the gene. Koniev.

In total, therefore, on the fronts of the Volunteer Army in contact with us Soviet troops there were about 80 thousand and Georgians 3-4 thousand.

When on December 26, 1918, the unification of the Volunteer and Don armies took place, and the theater of war expanded with new vast territories, it became necessary to separate the Volunteer Army and create a unifying headquarters body under me. I accepted the title of "Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia", the former army headquarters became the headquarters of the commander-in-chief, and for the Volunteer Army, the formation of a new headquarters was started.

There was a very important question about the appointment of the commander of the Volunteer Army. I considered the most worthy candidate for this post - in terms of the breadth of military horizons and personal prowess - a participant in the Volunteer Movement from the very first steps of his general Romanovsky. Once, after another report, I offered him a choice - the army or the headquarters of the commander in chief. I did not hide the fact that his departure would be difficult for me: there is no suitable deputy, I will have to appoint random person and I will remain alone in my great work and in my experiences. On the other hand (before our eyes we had the example of the unforgettable Markov), I had no doubt that Romanovsky, once in service, would emerge from the suffocating atmosphere of politics, quickly gain the recognition of the troops, deploy his combat abilities and cover himself and the army with glory. Ivan Pavlovich thought for a day and the next morning he said that he would stay with me ... He sacrificed his future to our friendship.

The paths of the Lord are veiled from our eyes with an impenetrable veil. Who knows what the fate of the army and Romanovsky would have been like then ... Whether it would have carried him to the crest of a wave or buried him in the abyss ... We know only one thing: this decision cost him his life later.

Having discussed the question of the commander with the chief of staff, they settled on the gene. Baron Wrangel. He was younger than other corps commanders and had only recently joined the Volunteer Army - this should have caused resentment. But in the last glorious battles in Urup, Kuban, near Stavropol, he showed great energy, impulse and the art of maneuver. The appointment of Baron Wrangel took place. One of the worthy corps commanders, pioneer, gene. Kazanovich resigned because of this, others grumbled but complied. The army chief of staff was Gen. Yuzefovich.

In view of the subsequent deployment of the Crimean-Azov Corps into the army, troops subordinate to Gen. Wrangel, received the name of the Caucasian Volunteer Army. From December 27 to January 10, to allow the gene to finish. Wrangel operation I con. corps on the tracks from Petrovsky to the Holy Cross line - Mineral water, the army was temporarily commanded by Gen. Romanovsky.

On January 1, 1919, I gave the order: “Fourteen months of hard struggle. Fourteen months of high feat of the Volunteer Army. Having started the struggle alone - when the statehood was collapsing and everything around, powerless, weak-willed, hid and gave up, a handful of brave people challenged the destroyers of their native land. Since then, blood has been shed, leaders and ordinary Volunteers are dying, dotting the fields of Stavropol, Don and Kuban with their graves.

But through the horrors of the war, through the malice and distrust of their secret enemies who had not learned anything, the Army brought the pure and unsullied idea of a United Great Power Russia. The exploits of the Army are immeasurable. And I, who shared with her long, hard days and sorrow and joy, am proud that I stood at her head.

I do not have the opportunity now to directly lead the Volunteer Army, but until the end of my days it will remain dear and close to my heart. I sincerely thank all my dear comrades-in-arms, whose unparalleled deeds live and strengthen the hope for the salvation of Russia.

The name "volunteer" - the army was retained only by tradition. For the correct mobilization was started in the Kuban Cossack units in the spring, and in the regular ones - from August 2, 1918. Three successive mobilizations of this year raised ten age classes in the North Caucasus (conscription age 1910–1920), in the Azov Territory - so far two (1917, 1918 and partly 1915, 1916), in the Crimea one (1918 - 1920). ). In view of the fact that the revolution had smashed the accounting departments everywhere, my headquarters could not establish the exact percentage of those who evaded. According to his approximate calculations, this figure for the North Caucasus was determined at 20-30%. The mobilized entered the spare parts, where they underwent a brief training, or - due to the arbitrariness of the military units - in large numbers directly into their ranks. The number of those who passed through the army receiver in 1918 was determined at 33 thousand people. By the end of 1918, a widely different source of replenishment was used - captured Red Army soldiers, who had already begun to enter the army in many thousands in both of these ways.

All this new element, pouring into the Volunteer cadres, gave them both strength and weakness. The ranks increased, but the appearance dimmed and the monolithic ranks of the old Volunteering stratified. The feverish pace of events in the midst of the unceasing conflagration of a general civil war, if it allowed superficial education, then ruled out the possibility of education. The mass of reserve battalions mobilized during their stay in the rear, in a peaceful environment, was completely passive and obedient. During the second half of 1918, about 5% deserted from the reserve battalions. But, having gone to the front, they found themselves in an extremely difficult psychological situation: fighting in the ranks of the Volunteers, they had against themselves their fellow villagers, fathers and brothers, also taken by the Red Army on mobilization; military happiness changed, their villages passed from hand to hand, changing their mood along with the authorities. And desertion at the front increased significantly. Nevertheless, the main Volunteer units were able to melt the entire heterogeneous element in the crucible of their combat traditions, and, according to the general opinion of the commanders, the mobilized soldiers outside their provinces for the most part fought valiantly.

As for the Kuban Cossacks, it bore much greater burdens: it put up ten age classes in the active army and during the struggle on the territory of the Kuban, almost without exception, they joined the ranks as garrisons of villages and separate, partisan-type detachments. Natural horsemen - Kuban reluctantly went to the plastun battalions; their infantry was therefore weak and small in number, but the cavalry divisions still made up the entire mass of the Volunteer cavalry, providing invaluable services to the army.

With regard to the old Volunteers, we were still formally bound by a four-month "contract". The first period for the main mass ended in May, the second in September, the third ended in December. Back in August, I wanted to put an end to this relic of the early days of Volunteerism, but the bosses concluded that psychologically it was premature ... It seems to me that even then they were already mistaken. On October 25, I ordered the conscription of all officers under 40 years of age, giving those of them who were released from the army either to leave its territory within seven days, or to undergo a mandatory conscription again ... And a month and a half later, an order was issued to cancel four-month terms of service, which became finally obligatory. To the credit of our Volunteer officers, it must be said that these orders not only did not meet with any protest, but did not even attract attention to themselves in the army - the conviction of the necessity and obligation of service was so firmly established.

So, from the end of 1918, the institution of volunteering finally receded into the realm of history, and the volunteer armies of the South became popular, since the intellectual predominance of the Cossack and service officer elements did not leave an outwardly class imprint on them.

From January 1919, a department was established at the headquarters that was in charge of the formations. Troops of special types of weapons were usually organized in the rear and were ready to go to the front; it was the same with the Kuban regiments, which were recruited territorially in their districts. With the formation of the infantry, the situation was different: it was unusually difficult to supply the material part of the regiments with the help of our feeble army commissariat, and the headquarters put up with the formations at the front, where the chiefs, who were directly interested in their strengthening, found the opportunity, with sin in half, to put on shoes, dress, arm and equip new parts.

But the battles were in full swing, the front, due to the great disparity of forces, always needed reinforcements, there were no reserves in the rear, and new units rushed into battle long before they were ready. The enemy did not give us time to organize. We did not have such a protective curtain, which for Ukraine was represented by the German cordon, for Siberia - the front of the People's Army, for Georgia - the Volunteer Army. Volunteer units were formed, armed, studied, educated, melted away and replenished again under fire, in incessant battles. Nevertheless, military units born and raised at the front in such a situation, sometimes due to the weakening of cadre regiments, were more combat-ready than rear formations.

Another major evil in the organization of the army was the spontaneous desire for formations - under the slogan of "the revival of the historical parts of the Russian army." The "cells" of the old regiments, especially in the cavalry, arose, became isolated, strove for separation, turning the combat unit - the regiment - into a mosaic team of dozens of old regiments, weakening the ranks, unity and strength of it. Such formations also arose in the rear, existed behind the scenes for whole months, extracting private funds or taking advantage of the connivance of authorities of various ranks, weakening the front and sometimes turning the ideological slogan “under native standards” into a cover for selfishness.

Also great was the desire of the chiefs to form "special purpose" units. Such, for example, are the "Flying detachment of the special purpose of the Caucasian Volunteer Army" (under General Wrangel), led by captain Baranov, who had a rather obscure purpose - to fight sedition ... "Wolf Hundreds" gene. Shkuro - his personal guard, gradually losing its combat value, burdened with booty ... "Punitive detachments", formed by the Stavropol military governor, General. Glazenap, turned into life guards of wealthy local sheep breeders, etc. ...

We struggled with all these everyday phenomena, but, obviously, not severely enough, since, changing external forms, they continued to exist.

By the time the Allies arrived, the remnants of our Black Sea Fleet, which had survived the Novorossiysk disaster, were on the Sevastopol roadstead. Among them are the battleship (dreadnought) Volia, the cruiser Cahul, more than a dozen destroyers, several submarines, old battleships and many small auxiliary vessels. Most of the warships required major repairs.

As I already said, with the arrival in Sevastopol, the Allies raised their flags on our ships and occupied them with their teams. Only on the Kagul, three destroyers under repair and on the old battleships there were still Russian flags.

It was necessary for someone to take over the protection of the Andreevsky flag and homeless Russian property. The centers of attraction were only the Ukrainian State and the Volunteer Army. The first substantiated its right to the Russian inheritance by the "historical borders of the Great Ukraine", which included the entire northern Black Sea coast, and the promise of the Germans to transfer the entire Black Sea Fleet to Ukraine by November. The second acted as the all-Russian military center of the South. The foundations of Ukraine by that time were so odious in the eyes of the Russian public and naval officers that the issue of subordinating the fleet was a foregone conclusion and did not require the slightest struggle.

The whole difficulty lay in choosing a person who could lead the fleet and successfully lead the cause of its revival. I had absolutely no acquaintances in sea circles and was forced to be guided by the opinion of the sailors who were in contact with the headquarters. The result was a picture of complete desolation. I was given only two names: one - Rear Admiral Prince Cherkassky, who remained somewhere in Soviet Russia and whom we never managed to find; the other is Vice Admiral Sablin; the activity of the latter as commander of the Soviet fleet before the Novorossiysk catastrophe still required clarification, and he himself lived then abroad. I had to stop at Admiral Kanin, who enjoyed a certain popularity in the marine environment and authority in maritime matters, but did not differ in the quality of a military leader ...

On November 13, I gave the order to appoint adm. Kanina i.d. commander of the Black Sea Fleet. Kanin, under the influence of the "Ukrainian" admirals Pokrovsky, Klochkovsky and others, hesitated for some time, then took office, and the accession of the Black Sea Fleet to the Volunteer Army was automatic and painless. Accession is nominal, since there was a command staff, but there were no combat ships at his disposal. A long, absurd and deeply offensive struggle began with the allied naval command for the right to exist for the Russian fleet.

Only at the beginning of January, the then senior French Admiral Amet offered Kanin to equip two destroyers that were still under repair; at the same time, the allied command gave permission to prepare the cruiser "Cahul" for shipment to Novorossiysk in order to ... raise the flooded steamer "Elborus".

Meanwhile, battles soon began along the coast of the Black and Azov Seas, and the help of the fleet became necessary. Again, as in the early days of Volunteerism - in the days of wooden armored trains and stolen cannons, young officers equipped old steamers and barges, with a quiet move and the wrong mechanism, armed them with guns and walked along the coast, engaging in battle with the Bolsheviks, risking hourly becoming a victim of the elements or fall into enemy hands. And our warships at that time were languishing in captivity from the allies ...

Meanwhile, the staff of naval institutions grew exorbitantly, the naval officers gathered in large numbers in Sevastopol languished in idleness, and the combat readiness of even an insignificant number of ships that was provided to us was moving poorly. In March, Sablin arrived and replaced Kanin. Sablin already had to get into the wave of the first evacuation of the Crimea and be a witness to a difficult picture of how the allies, in a general panic mood, sank our best submarines, blew up the cylinders of cars on ships left in Sevastopol, drowned and took away supplies. It was unspeakably painful to see how the synodic of the remnants of the Russian fleet, which escaped death at the hands of the Germans, the Bolsheviks and the sailor oprichnina, grew ...

"Cahul", the submarine "Seal" and 5 more destroyers and 2 submarines in tugboats managed with great difficulty to take out to Novorossiysk, where they began to repair, arm and equip them. Our resolute protests, the indignation with which the Russian public reacted to the fact of the inactivity of the troops and fleet of the Allies in the tragic Odessa and Crimean events, and perhaps the increased confidence in the forces of the South, forced the Allies to stop counteraction: in the summer of 1919 during the operation on the secondary mastering the Crimea and Novorossia, the fleet already included 1 cruiser, 5 destroyers, 4 submarines and a dozen two armed steamers, boats and barges. By autumn, the allies returned to us all the other captured ships, including the Volya dreadnought, which received the name General Alekseev.

The supply of the armies was in the hands of the chief chief of supplies, directly subordinate to the chief of the military administration. Until February 1919, the main source of supply was the Bolshevik stocks we seized. At the same time, the troops, not trusting the requisition commissions, tried to use the captured for their own needs without a plan and system. Part of the stock was obtained from the former Romanian front. All this was accidental and extremely insufficient. In November, by the time the Allies arrived, the official report of the headquarters painted the following picture of our supply:

The lack of rifle cartridges took on catastrophic proportions more than once. “There were periods when several tens of thousands of cartridges remained for the entire Army, and if a machine gun had 2–3 belts at the beginning of the battle, then this was considered very, very prosperous” ... The same situation was with artillery cartridges: “By November 1 the entire stock of the army warehouse consisted of 7200 light, 1520 mountain, 2770 howitzer and 220 heavy shells. Outfit only cast-offs”… Sanitary supply… “may be considered non-existent. No medicines, no dressings, no underwear. There are only doctors who are powerless to fight diseases. There are no individual packages at all. Often there are cases when the complete absence of dressings forced the use of dirty linen by the wounded themselves ... "The menacingness of our situation was all the greater because by spring, thanks to continuous bloody battles and epidemics, the number of wounded and sick in medical institutions of the armies reached 25 thousand .

From the beginning of 1919, after the Germans left the Transcaucasus, we managed to get several transports of artillery and engineering supplies from the warehouses of Batum, Kars, Trebizond. And in February, the delivery of English supplies began. Since then, we have rarely experienced a lack of combat supplies. The sanitary facilities have improved. Uniforms and equipment, although they came in large sizes, but far from satisfying the needs of the fronts. In addition, it was gradually plundered at the base, despite the establishment of the death penalty "for the theft of items" captured weapons and uniforms. It melted along the way and, having finally arrived at the front, disappeared in abundance, carried away by the sick, wounded, prisoners, deserters ...

It is remarkable that any kind of theft of military property and its sale to the side met in society with an indifferent, often patronizing attitude. The market has its own laws: its ultimate contraction evokes opposition that is alien to moral motives. The uniforms that came to the Don, after distribution to the Cossacks, were usually sent to the villages and hid at the bottom of the Cossack hides that were still not empty.

With their own care, our supply agencies prepared an absolutely insignificant part of the needs. There are many reasons. There were also general ones arising from the financial difficulties of the army, the insufficient industrial development of the North Caucasus, the general collapse of trade and industry; there were also private ones - the templates of a normal war and a normal field situation, our lack of system and creativity, imperiously required by the situation, completely different and exceptional; finally - the general demoralization of morals.

One of the prominent army commissaries wrote at that time about the persecution raised by society and the press against the commissariat: “Industry is destroyed; there are no raw materials in the army, there are almost no technical and transport means; there are few experienced specialists, the market situation, which is not regulated by any financial and industrial bodies, willfully aspires to boundless heights. The rear, the supply agencies must strain all their creative, administrative and inventive abilities in order to give the army at least the little that is necessary under such conditions. Working conditions are immeasurably more difficult than during the Austro-German war, and require exceptional special knowledge, experience and energy.

Meanwhile, instead of competent workers, specialists, school and extensive experience prepared for the work of supplying the army, who are well acquainted with the organization of supply, the industrial world and the market, the supply business is in the hands of the officers of the General Staff, who are unfamiliar with either the market or trade. -the industrial world, neither with political economy, nor with the qualification of its goods and products.

Laws and norms are behind the times, and new ones have not yet been created. Each active purveyor is compelled at his own risk and fear to exceed many times the rights that are given to him by law. Events happen with incredible speed, and life does not tolerate delay. In order to keep up with life, one has to throw aside all paper norms and break all sorts of laws, which requires competent, honest performers, freedom of action and complete trust.

“Honest performers, complete trust”, of course, this is the fundamental basis for the success of the work. But where to get them! When on the Don, in the Kuban, panama hats came to light one after another ... When for several months the main commissariat of the armed forces was under the influence of Tagantsev's senatorial audit appointed by me ... The audit conscientiously searched for "guilty", brought to justice large small violators of the law, but did not know how to find the sins of the system, did not know how and could not change the general conditions that nourished crime.

In this regard, we saw little help from the public, which so unanimously responded to the needs of the army in 1916: the military-industrial committee, the Zemgor, the Red Cross were destroyed and were just beginning to show their activity. From "democracy"? One of Schrader's organs, Rodnaya Zemlya, describing the crying needs of the army, said: “Would the army need anything if it were surrounded by the ardent and loving solicitude of Russian democracy? Of course not: the Russian people know how to selflessly give their last shirt, their last piece of bread to someone they trust, in whom they see a fighter for the bright and just cause of the people. Obviously, there is something in the atmosphere surrounding the Volunteer Army that dampens our democracy ... ". The Russian people and Mr. Schrader's democracy are far from being the same thing. The people rejected this "democracy" on the Volga, in the East, in the South, throughout Russia. But he also did not adopt in his parental love either the red or the white army: he did not voluntarily sacrifice either his wealth or his life to them.

The notorious private trade apparatus apparently underwent a serious rebirth with the revolution: I do not remember the major transactions of our supply agencies with reputable trading firms, but on the other hand, the types of predatory speculators who corrupted the administration, robbed the population and the treasury and made millions were vividly imprinted in my memory: M - in the Kuban, Ch. - on the Don and in the Crimea, T. Sh. - in the Black Sea region, etc., and so on. But they were all partisans, born of timelessness and alien to the traditions of the industrial class.

A large commercial and industrial nobility appeared on the territory of the Army, mainly after the fall of Odessa and Kharkov in early 1919. Many people from its ranks managed to take out part of their wealth from the conflagration of the Russian temple, still retained credit, and most importantly, organizational experience on a wide state scale. We expected help from them, and above all with regard to the armies. This help was really offered, but in such a peculiar form that it is worth dwelling on it ...

On September 14, 1919, between the Don government, represented by the head of the department of trade and industry, Bondyrev, and the Mopit Partnership, an agreement was concluded for the supply of the Don army and the population of a foreign manufactory. “Mopit” was a commission agent of the treasury, taking upon himself “with the fullest assistance of the Don troops” on the territory of the Don and, without the knowledge of the command, on the territory of the Volunteer Army (§ 2) - buying up raw materials, sending and selling them abroad, buying them there and delivering them to Don Manufactory. Fixed capital for turnover, in general up to a billion rubles, was to be issued by the Don treasury in parts in advance; absolutely all expenses, somehow: transportation, storage, duties, etc., fell on the treasury. "Mopit" for the service of the Don army took 19% as "organizational expenses" and entrepreneurial profit for the purchase of raw materials and 18% for the operation with manufactory. The whole contract was full of ambiguities and omissions, which allowed, if desired, to significantly expand the size of profits. But the strangest thing was that the articles of the agreement made its fulfillment dependent on the goodwill of Mopita, provided him with the opportunity to take advantage of all the benefits of selling precious Don raw materials, which were bought relatively cheaply.

Article 9 read: “If the advances received by the partnership for the export of raw materials abroad and its sale are covered by the supply of goods or the currency proceeds from the sale of raw materials within the stipulated period, then the Partnership undertakes to return to the army the advances received, with interest accruing from the date of delay in the amount of collected by the State Bank for the accounting of promissory notes... And nothing more.

I got acquainted with this agreement from the newspapers. I did not have the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the sovereign Don, but since all exports were regulated by the Special Conference and the supply to the Don Army was not guaranteed by the contract, I ordered the Partnership to stop issuing permission to export raw materials and grain abroad. The Special Commission then considered the agreement and, after clarifying its articles by the founders and modifying it, the Special Conference found it possible to allow the activity of Mopit.

A. V. Krivoshein, explaining his participation in Mopiga, complained to me about “newspaper insinuations” and claimed that its founders pursued exclusively state goals, and he personally “got acquainted with the contents of the ill-fated agreement for the first time, when the newspaper campaign had already begun.” “The founders of Mopit,” he wrote, “an extensive group of Muscovites who have long enjoyed respect and all-Russian fame turned to me with a proposal to elect me as chairman of the council, attaching political importance to this as an extra opportunity to unite them on a common platform now and especially in view of the upcoming arrival in Moscow. The idea - to establish here a major Moscow business and, thus, to unite the black earth south with industrial Moscow more closely - seemed correct and timely "...

But the society, excited by this case, saw in it only commerce, not politics. Part of the press extremely sharply took up arms against the “Mopitians”, whom the most moderate in their conclusions “Priazovsky Kray” determined the guilt with the following words: “... There are no elements of deliberate deceit or deliberate introduction into an unprofitable deal in the contract ... Its difficult side lies in the fact that eminent Muscovites are also among the many who profit from the army, in the civil war "...

Be that as it may, the press, society, and the army gradually came to the same conclusion. No more Minins! And the army fought in difficult conditions and grumbled only when the enemy overcame and had to retreat.

Our treasury was still empty, and therefore the content of the Volunteers was positively beggarly. Established in February 1918, it amounted to 30 rubles per month for soldiers (mobilized), for officers from ensign to commander-in-chief, in the range from 270 to 1000 rubles. In order to imagine the real value of these figures, one must take into account that the subsistence minimum for a worker in November 1918 was determined by the council of the Yekaterinodar trade unions at 660-780 rubles.

Twice later, at the end of 1918 and at the end of 1919, by means of extreme tension, the scale of the basic officer content was raised, respectively, by 450-3000 rubles. and 700-5000 rubles, never reaching a match with the rapidly growing high cost of living. Each time an order was given to increase the content, the next day the market responded with a price increase that absorbed all the increase.

A lone officer and soldier at the front ate from a common cauldron and, although poorly, were dressed. Nevertheless, officer families and a large part of the non-front-line officers of headquarters and institutions were in poverty. A number of orders established increases for the family and high cost, but all these were only palliatives. The only radical means of helping the families and thereby raising the morale of their heads at the front would be a transition to subsistence allowance. But what the Soviet government could do with the Bolshevik methods of socialization, surplus appropriation and wholesale requisitions was impossible for us, especially in autonomous regions.

Only in May 1919 was it possible to provide pensions to the ranks of the military department and the families of the dead and killed officers and soldiers. Prior to this, only an insignificant lump-sum allowance of 1.5 thousand . rubles ... From the allies, contrary to the established opinion, we did not receive a penny.

The wealthy Kuban and Don, who owned a printing press, were in slightly better conditions. “For political reasons”, without any contact with the high command, they always established the maintenance of their servicemen at a higher standard than ours, thereby causing displeasure in the Volunteers. Moreover, the Donets and Kuban were at home, connected with him by a thousand threads - blood, moral, material, economic. Russian Volunteers, leaving the limits of Soviet reach, in the majority became homeless and destitute.

In addition to the garrisons of cities, spare, training and emerging units, which in general amounted to another 13-14 thousand.