Pyotr Wrangel
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was a Russian officer in the Imperial Russian Army and commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the stages of the Russian Civil War. After his side lost the civil war in 1920, he left Russia and became one of the most prominent exiled White émigrés. Wrangel was born in Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire; the Wrangel family was of the local Baltic German nobility. Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was only distantly related to the famed Arctic explorer Ferdinand von Wrangel and the Prussian Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich von Wrangel. After graduating from the Rostov Technical High School in 1896 and the Institute of Mining Engineering in St. Petersburg in 1901, Wrangel volunteered for the prestigious Life Guards cavalry and was commissioned a reserve officer in 1902 after graduating from the Nikolaev Cavalry School, he soon resigned his commission, travelled to Irkutsk, where he was assigned to special missions by the Governor-General.
At the start of the Russo-Japanese War, in February 1904, he reenlisted and was assigned to the 2nd Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Corps. In December 1904, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. After the war ended, in January 1906, he was reassigned to the 55th Finland Dragoon Regiment, which under General A. N. Orlov took part in pacifying rebels in Siberia. In 1907, he returned to the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. In 1908, he married Olga Mikhaylovna Ivanenko in St. Petersburg, the marriage produced two sons and two daughters. Wrangel graduated from the Nicholas Imperial General Staff Academy in 1910 and the Cavalry Officers' School in 1911. With the start of World War I, Wrangel was promoted to captain and assigned command of a cavalry squadron. On October 13, 1914, he became one of the first Russian officers to be awarded the Order of St. George in the war, the highest military decoration of the Russian Empire. In December 1914, he was promoted to the rank of colonel. In October 1915, Wrangel was transferred to the Southwestern Front and was appointed commander of the 1st Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossacks.
This unit was active in Galicia against the Austrians, Wrangel distinguished himself during the Brusilov Offensive. He was promoted to the rank of major general in January 1917, took command of the 2nd Brigade of the Ussuri Cavalry Division, merged with other cavalry units to become the Consolidated Cavalry Corps in July of the same year, he was further decorated with the George Cross for his defense of the Zbruch River in the summer of 1917. Following the end of Russia's participation in the war, Wrangel resigned his commission and went to live at his dacha at Yalta in the Crimea. Arrested by the Bolsheviks at the end of 1917, he was released and escaped to Kiev, where he joined Pavlo Skoropadskyi's Ukrainian State. However, it was soon apparent to him that the new government existed only through the waning support of Germany, in August 1918, he joined the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army based at Yekaterinodar, where he was given command of the 1st Cavalry Division and the rank of major general in the White movement.
After the Second Kuban Campaign in late 1918, he was promoted to lieutenant general, his Division was raised to that of a corps. As an aggressive commander, he won a number of victories in the north Caucasus. From January 1919, his military force was renamed the Caucasus Volunteer Army. Wrangel soon clashed politically with Armed Forces of South Russia leader Anton Denikin, who demanded a quick march on Moscow. Wrangel insisted instead that his forces should take Tsaritsyn first, to join up with the army of Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, which his troops accomplished on June 30, 1919 after three previous attempts by Pyotr Krasnov had failed in 1918. Wrangel gained a reputation as a skilled and just administrator, who, in contrast to some other White Army generals, did not tolerate lawlessness or looting by his troops. However, after he was unable to join forces with Admiral Kolchak and at the insistence of Denikin, he led his forces north towards Moscow on a failed attempt by the Whites to take the capital in Autumn 1919.
Continuing disagreement with Denikin led to his removal from command, Wrangel departed for exile to Constantinople on February 8, 1920. Yet Denikin was forced to resign on March 20, 1920, a military committee led by General Abram Dragomirov in Sevastopol asked that Wrangel return as Commander-in-Chief of the White forces in Crimea, he assumed the post on April 4, 1920 at the head of the Russian Army, put forth a coalition government which attempted to institute sweeping reforms. He recognized and established relations with the new anti-Bolshevik independent republics of Ukraine and Georgia, among others. However, by this stage in the Russian Civil War, such measures were too late, the White movement was losing support both domestically and overseas. Wrangel is immortalized by the nickname of "Black Baron" in the marching song The Red Army is the Strongest composed as a rallying call for a final effort on the part of the Bolsheviks to end the war. After defeats in which he lost half his standing army, facing defeat in Northern Tavria and the Crimea, Wrangel organized a mass evacuation on the shores of the Black Sea.
Wrangel gave every officer and civilian the choice to evacuate and go with him into the unknown, or remain in Russia and face the wrath of the Red Army. Wrangel evacuated the
3rd Rifle Division (Soviet Union)
The 3rd Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Army. It was formed in 1921 in Crimea; the division relocated to Svobodny in the Far East during 1939 and moved to Blagoveshchensk soon after. The division fought in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and was disbanded in 1946, it was formed 5 June 1921 in the Ukraine Military District. It appears that Order No. № 724/284 created the division from 46th Separate Rifle Brigades. At the beginning of World War II it was located in Blagoveshchensk, assigned to the 2nd Red Banner Army of the Far Eastern Front; the division remained on the Far Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945 and was not redeployed to fight the Germans. At the end of World War II it was involved in the Sungari Army Group Operation with 2nd Red Banner Army, it forced the Amur and Ussuri rivers, captured several cities in China from the Japanese Kwantung Army. Immediate post war the Division was in 1st Red Banner Army, Transbaikal-Amur Military District, 136th Rifle Corps, alongside 12 RD, 396th Rifle Division and 101st Fortified Region/MGAD.
For its actions in Manchuria, the division was awarded the Order of the Red Banner on 14 September. It was disbanded on 30 August 1946 after being transferred to the 26th Rifle Corps; the Division's full name just before being disbanded was 3rd Rifle Red Banner Division named for the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Crimean ASSR. Affairs Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union. Сборник приказов РВСР, РВС СССР, НКО и Указов Президиума Верховного Совета СССР о награждении орденами СССР частей, соединениий и учреждений ВС СССР. Часть II. 1945 - 1966 гг. Moscow. Feskov, V. I.. I.. A.. A.. Вооруженные силы СССР после Второй Мировой войны: от Красной Армии к Советской. Tomsk: Scientific and Technical Literature Publishing. ISBN 9785895035306
Southern Front (RSFSR)
The Southern Front was a front of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, formed twice. The front was first formed in September 1918, fighting against the White Don Cossacks and the Volunteer Army in southeastern Russia, it advanced into the North Caucasus in January 1919, but was forced to retreat from eastern Ukraine by an attack of the Armed Forces of South Russia in May and June. The Southern Front retreated in the face of the latter's Moscow offensive, launching a counterattack in August that advanced into northeastern Ukraine and to the Don River. With its rear disrupted by White cavalry raids, the front retreated north in September and early October, moving as far as Orel. In October the front launched a counteroffensive, defeating the AFSR, leading to the latter's precipitate retreat to the Black Sea by early January; the front was redesignated the Southwestern Front on January 10, 1920, at the beginning of the Red advance into the North Caucasus. The front was formed for a second time in September 1920, with troops transferred from the Southwestern Front.
It fought in the defeat of Pyotr Wrangel's Russian Army in Crimea, forcing the evacuation of the latter in November with the Perekop–Chongar operation. The front was disbanded in December, reorganized into the Armed Forces of the Crimea; the Southern Front was first formed by an order of the Revolutionary Military Council on 11 September 1918, which replaced the Red Army's organization into screens with fronts, under the command of Pavel Sytin. It included all troops part of the Bryansk and Kursk areas of the Western Screen, the Voronezh and Balashov-Kamyshin areas of the Southern Screen, the Red Army of the North Caucasus, the Astrakhan Group of Forces, it is referred to in some sources as the Southern Front against Krasnov and Denikin to distinguish it from the front's 2nd formation. The front headquarters was formed from units of the Southern Screen headquarters and its Military Council from the Military Council of the North Caucasus, it was based at Kozlov. When it was first formed, the front was tasked with maintaining the demarcation line between the Red Army and Austro-German troops in Ukraine, fighting Pyotr Krasnov's Don Cossack Host and Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army in southeastern Russia.
On 3 October, the front's sector was divided into five areas, which were reorganized as 8th Army: from the Bryansk and Voronezh regions of screen forces, on the Yevstratovka and Kalach directions, 9th Army: units on the Povorino and Balashov directions, 10th Army: units on the Kamyshin and Tsaritsyn directions, 11th Army: units of the Western region of the North Caucasus, 12th Army: units of the Eastern region of the North Caucasus, when the Red Army formed numbered field armies. Between September and November, it defended against Don Cossack attacks on Tsaritsyn and Kamyshin, in the area of the Povorino-Tsaritsyn railway, towards Voronezh. Due to the 11th and 12th Armies in the North Caucasus being cut off by White advances from the rest of the front, on 2 November, the two armies were subordinated to the Caspian-Caucasian Section of the Southern Front, it launched a failed offensive in November, which resulted in the replacement of Sytin with Latvian Rifleman Pēteris Slavens on 9 November.
On 8 December, the Caspian-Caucasian Section became the independent Caspian-Caucasian Front. The Group of Forces on the Kursk direction, formed on 18 November, was subordinated to the front on 19 December; the front achieved success in a January 1919 offensive against the Don Army, advancing along the Tsaritsyn-Velikoknyazheskaya railway and reaching the Don. On 24 January, Vladimir Gittis replaced Slavens; the Group of Forces on the Kursk direction was renamed the Donetsk Group of Forces on 15 February, was expanded into the 13th Army on 5 March. On 13 March, the Don River Flotilla was operationally subordinated the front, remaining with it until its disbandment on 28 June. Between March and June, the front fought to suppress the Vyoshenskaya uprising of the Don Cossacks in stanitsas on the Upper Don. By April, it had taken Rostov-on-Don, crossed the Manych River, advanced towards Bataysk and Tikhoretsk. On 27 April the 2nd Ukrainian Soviet Army joined the front. In May, the Armed Forces of South Russia launched an offensive, which forced the front to retreat from the Don Host Oblast, the Donbass, Belgorod and Tsaritsyn.
On 21 May, the 11th Separate Astrakhan-Caspian Flotilla were subordinated to the front. Between 8 June and 10 January 1920, the Orel Military District was operationally subordinated to the front. On 17 June, the Special Corps was subordinated to the front, it had been formed on 10 June as the Separate Expeditionary Corps from troops assigned to suppress the Vyoshenskaya uprising, but was disbanded on 1 July. On 28 June, the Ukrainian Group of Forces was formed from the 12th Army and 14th Army, as well as the troops of the Kharkov Military District military commissariat for combat on the left bank of the Dnieper, it was led by the 12th Army commander Nikolai Semyonov. After the army was transferred on 26 July, the group was dissolved. On 13 July, Gittis was replaced by Vladimir Yegoryev. On 23 July, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic ordered that the 9th and 10th Armies become a shock group directly subordinated to him for the main attack against the AFSR towards Rostov and Novocherkassk.
However, on 27 July, the group, renamed the Special Group and commanded by Vasily Shorin, was operationally subordinated to the front. The front retreated in
Oka Ivanovich Gorodovikov
Oka Ivanovich Gorodovikov was a Soviet cavalry general of Kalmyk and Cossack ethnicity, a Hero of the Soviet Union. During July and August 1920, he commanded the 2nd Cavalry Army, he served as Inspector-General of Cavalry from 1938 to 1941, as Deputy Commander of Cavalry from 1943 until his retirement in 1947. The town of Gorodovikovsk in his native Kalmykia was named after him in 1971. Biography in Russian
Dnieper
The Dnieper is one of the major rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk and flowing through Russia and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the fourth-longest river in Europe; the total length is 2,200 km with a drainage basin of 504,000 square kilometres. The river is noted for hydroelectric stations; the Dnieper is an important navigable waterway for the economy of Ukraine and is connected via the Dnieper–Bug Canal to other waterways in Europe. In antiquity, the river was part of the Amber Road; the name Dnieper may be derived either from Sarmatian Dānu apara "the river on the far side" or from Scythian Dānu apr "deep river." By way of contrast, the name Dniester either derives from "the close river" or from a combination of Scythian Dānu and Ister, the Thracian name for the Dniester. In the three countries through which it flows it has the same name, albeit pronounced differently: Russian: Днепр older Russian: Днѣпръ; the late Greek and Roman authors called it Δάναπρις - Danapris and Danaper Old East Slavic name used at the time of Kievan Rus' was Slavuta or Slavutych The Huns called it Var, Bulgars - Buri-Chai.
The name in Crimean Tatar: Özü, hence Ochakiv The river is mentioned both by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus in the 5th century BC as Borysthenes. The total length of the river is variously given as 2,145 kilometres or 2,201 km, of which 485 km are within Russia, 700 km are within Belarus, 1,095 km are within Ukraine, its basin covers 504,000 square kilometres, of which 289,000 km2 are within Ukraine, 118,360 km2 are within Belarus. The source of the Dnieper is the sedge bogs of the Valdai Hills in central Russia, at an elevation of 220 m. For 115 km of its length, it serves as the border between Ukraine, its estuary, or liman, used to be defended by the strong fortress of Ochakiv. On the Dnieper to the south of Komarin urban-type settlement, Braghin District, Gomel Region the southern extreme point of Belarus is situated; the Dnieper has many tributaries with 89 being rivers of 100+ km. The main ones are, from its source to its mouth: Many small direct tributaries exist, such as, in the Kiev area, the Syrets in the north of the city, the significant Lybid passing west of the centre, the Borshahivka to the south.
The water resources of the Dnieper basin compose around 80% out of all Ukraine. Dnieper Rapids were part of trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, first mentioned in the Kiev Chronicle; the route was established in the late eighth and early ninth centuries and gained significant importance from the tenth until the first third of the eleventh century. On the Dnieper the Varangians had to portage their ships round seven rapids, where they had to be on guard for Pecheneg nomads. Along this middle flow of the Dnieper, there were nine major rapids, obstructing the whole width of the river, about 30–40 smaller rapids, obstructing only part of the river, about 60 islands and islets. After Dnieper Hydroelectric Station was built in 1932, they were inundated by Dnieper Reservoir. There are a number of canals connected to the Dnieper: The Dnieper–Donbas Canal; the river is part of the Quagga mussel's native range. The mussel has been accidentally introduced around the world where it has become an invasive species.
From the mouth of the Prypiat River to the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station, there are six sets of dams and hydroelectric stations, which produce 10% of Ukraine's electricity. The first constructed was the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station near Zaporizhia, built in 1927–1932 with an output of 558 MW, it was destroyed during World War II, but was rebuilt in 1948 with an output of 750 MW. The Dnieper River in different regions Major cities, over 100,000 in population, are in bold script. Cities and towns located on the Dnieper are listed in order from the river's source to its mouth: Arheimar, a capital of the Goths, was located on the Dnieper, according to the Hervarar saga. 2,000 km of the river is navigational. The Dnieper is important for the transport and economy of Ukraine: its reservoirs have large ship locks, allowing vessels of up to 270 by 18 metres to access as far as the port of Kiev and thus create an important transport corridor; the river is used by passenger vessels as well. Inland cruises on the rivers Danube and Dnieper have been a growing market in recent decades.
Upstream from Kiev, the Dnieper receives the water of the Pripyat River. This navigable river connects to the link with the Bug River. A connection with the Western European waterways was possible, but a weir without a
Filipp Mironov
Filipp Kuzmich Mironov was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader during and after the Russian Revolution. He supported the idea of democracy in the form of the Soviet Republic, was one of the first commanders in the Red Army. Loyal to the Revolution, he was condemned to death at a show-trial organized by Trotsky, he was pardoned on the eve of this execution, but re-arrested and shot. He was graduated from Novocherkassk military cadet school, he commanded the 2nd Cavalry Army between 6 September and 6 December 1920, with which he participated in the Siege of Perekop. "чпеообс мйфетбфхтб -- мПУЕЧ е. ж. нЙТПОПЧ". Militera.lib.ru. Retrieved 2013-10-27. "ВОЕННАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА -- Соколов-Соколенок Н. А. По путевке комсомольской". Militera.lib.ru. Retrieved 2013-10-27. "Миронов Филипп Кузьмич". Konnica.tut.su. Retrieved 2013-10-27. "КОМАНДАРМ МИРОНОВ. СВИДЕТЕЛЬ СОБЫТИЙ — ВОЕННЫЙ ШИФРОВАЛЬЩИК БОЯРЧИКОВ::: Боярчиков А.И. - Воспоминания::: Боярчиков Александр Иванович::: Воспоминания о ГУЛАГе:: База данных:: Авторы и тексты".
Sakharov-center.ru. Retrieved 2013-10-27. Http://www.hrono.ru/biograf/mironov.html "Филипп Кузьмич Миронов". Pseudology.org. Retrieved 2013-10-27. "п■п╬я│я┌я┐п© п╬пЁя─п╟п╫п╦я┤п╣п╫". Zhurnal.lib.ru. Retrieved 2013-10-27. "Геноцид казачества в 1919 году - 1 Августа 2011 - ПРИМОРСКАЯ КАЗАЧЬЯ ОБЩИНА". Primorski-kazak.at.ua. 2011-08-01. Retrieved 2013-10-27. "КТО БРАЛ КРЫМ В 1920 ГОООДУ". Rkka.ru. Retrieved 2013-10-27
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen or the Whites, was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought the Communist Bolsheviks known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War and to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations insurrectionists both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until World War II. During the Russian Civil War, the White movement was a big tent political movement representing an array of political opinions in Russia united in their opposition to the Communist Bolsheviks, from the republican-minded liberals and Kerenskyite social democrats who had profited from the February Revolution of 1917 on the left to the champions of Tsarism and the Russian Orthodox Church of Eastern Orthodox Christianity on the right. Following their defeat, there were remnants and continuations of the movement in several organizations, some of which only had narrow support, enduring within the wider White émigré overseas community until after the fall of Communism in the Eastern European Revolutions of 1989 and the subsequent Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990–1991.
This community-in-exile of anti-communists was divided between the liberals and the more conservative segments, with some still hoping for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty, including several claimants to the empty throne like Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia living in Italy and Prince Andrew Romanov in the United States and other exiles, still hopes for a true constitutional democratic republic in Russia. In the Russian context after 1917, "White" had three main connotations: Political contra-distinction to "the Reds", whose revolutionary Red Army supported the Bolshevik government. Historical reference to absolute monarchy recalling Russia's first Tsar, Ivan III, at a period when some styled the ruler of Muscovy Albus Rex; the white uniforms of Imperial Russia worn by some White Army soldiers. Above all, the White movement emerged as opponents of the Red Army; the White Army had the stated aim to keep law and order in Russia as the Tsar's army before the civil war and the salvation of Russia.
They worked to remove Soviet functionaries in White-controlled territory. Overall, the White Army rejected ethnic particularism and separatism; the White Army believed in a united multinational Russia and opposed separatists who wanted to create nation-states. American historians Richard L. Rubenstein and John K Roth state that 60,000 Jewish members of the Red Army were killed in combat against White forces during the Civil War of 1917 to 1923. British parliamentary influential leader Winston Churchill warned General Anton Denikin of the Imperial Army and a major White military leader, whose forces effected pogroms and persecutions against the Jews: y task in winning support in Parliament for the Russian Nationalist cause will be infinitely harder if well-authenticated complaints continue to be received from Jews in the zone of the Volunteer Armies. Many of the White leaders were conservative, accepting autocracy while remaining suspicious of "politics". Aside from being anti-Bolshevik and anti-Communist and patriotic, the Whites had no set ideology or main leader.
The White Armies did acknowledge a single provisional head of state in a Supreme Governor of Russia in a Provisional All-Russian Government, but this post was prominent only under the leadership in the war campaigns during of Admiral Alexander Kolchak of the previous Russian Imperial Navy. The movement had no set plan for foreign policy. Whites differed on policies toward the German Empire in its extended occupation of western Russia, the Baltic states and the Ukraine on the Eastern Front in the closing days of the World War, debating whether or not to ally with it; the Whites wanted to keep from alienating any potential supporters and allies and thus saw an monarchist position as a detriment to their cause and recruitment. White-movement leaders such as Anton Denikin advocated for Russians to create their own government, claiming the military could not decide in Russians' steads. Admiral Alexander Kolchak succeeded in creating a temporary wartime government in Omsk, acknowledged by most other White leaders, only for it to fall with the loss of his armies.
Some warlords who were aligned with the White movement, such as Grigory Semyonov and Roman Ungern von Sternberg, did not acknowledge any authority but their own. The White movement had no set political leanings as members could be monarchists, rightists, or Kadets. Among White Army leaders, neither General Lavr Kornilov nor General Anton Denikin were monarchists, yet General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was a monarchist willing to soldier for a republican Russian government. Moreover, other political parties supported the anti-Bolshevik White Army, among them the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, others who opposed Lenin's Bolshevik October Revolution of 1917. Depending on the time and place, those White Army supporters might exchange right-wing allegiance for allegiance to the Red Army. Unlike the Bolsheviks, the White Armies did not share a single ideology, methodology, or political goal, they were led by conservative generals with different agendas a
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