The operation ended with the defeat of the White forces in the North Caucasus and the evacuation of the remnants of the Volunteer Army, reduced to a corps, to Crimea. The Red Army advanced to the borders of Georgia and Azerbaijan by the end of the operation, which was followed by an invasion of Azerbaijan.
The Soviet plan provided for the four armies of the right wing and center to launch a strong frontal attack towards Yekaterinodar along the line from the mouth of the Don to Sadovoe and destroy the White troops, preventing them from retreating towards the Kuban. On the left wing, the 11th Army was to simultaneously launch an offensive against Kizlyar and Svyatoy Krest. Subsequently, the offensive of the front was to be directed towards the center and left wing, using converging attacks to defeat the White troops in the central and southern North Caucasus and capture Stavropol, Mineralnye Vody, the Grozny oilfields, and Dagestan.[1]
The main shock group of the Caucasus Front was composed of the 1st Cavalry Army of Semyon Budyonny, the 8th Army of Grigory Sokolnikov, the 9th Army of Alexander Stepin, the 10th Army of Alexander Pavlov, and the Consolidated Cavalry Corps of Boris Dumenko for a total of 29,000 infantry and 19,000 cavalry, with about 450 guns and more than 2,000 machine guns. It was tasked with defeating the Separate Volunteer Corps and the Don and Caucasus Armies, preventing them from gaining bridgeheads on the left banks of the Don and Sal, and preparing the way for an attack on the headquarters of Denikin at Tikhoretsk after reaching the line of Yeysk, Velikoknyazheskaya and Lake Lopukhovatoe. The shock group faced the main forces of the Armed Forces of South Russia, numbering 29,000 infantry, 25,000 cavalry, up to 440 guns, and about 1,100 machine guns. The AFSR commanders counted on the coming rasputitsa to halt the Red offensive on the lower course of the Don and Sal, then planned to bring up reserves and launch a counterattack.[1]
Don and Manych
A map of the operation
The first phase of the offensive, described in Soviet historiography as the Don–Manych Operation, occurred between 17 January and 6 February. During the operation, the Caucasus Army retreated to the Manych in the face of the 40 to 60 kilometer-deep advance of the Red center and left wing. The greatest success was achieved by the 11th Army of Matvey Vasilenko who seized a bridgehead on the left bank of the Manych in the Divnoe area after outflanking the AFSR. Despite this, the Soviet troops failed to destroy the AFSR and reach their objectives, although the AFSR was forced to commit all of its operational reserves, which suffered heavy losses and were thoroughly exhausted in fierce fighting. On the left flank of the 11th Army, the 2nd Consolidated Brigade reached the Kuma and elements of the Expeditionary Corps of Yu.P. Butyagin took Svyatoy Krest on 25 January. Meanwhile, in the deep rear of the AFSR, 2,500 pro-Bolshevik partisans of the Red Army of the Black Sea under E.S. Kazansky disrupted White control.[1]
At the beginning of February Denikin ordered the subordination of the Separate Volunteer Corps to the Don Army for a counterattack, but the Caucasus Front preempted this by resuming the advance.[1]
Tikhoretsk and Stavropol
The second phase of the offensive, described in Soviet historiography as the Tikhoretsk Operation, ran from 14 February to 2 March. During the operation, the Red attack decisively defeated the AFSR, splitting the White front in the North Caucasus in two and creating the conditions for the final attack. As a result, the strategic initiative in the Caucasus finally passed to the Red Army. To stave off complete defeat, Denikin began a retreat into the Kuban. Simultaneous with the Tikhoretsk Operation, the 11th Army cooperated with pro-Bolshevik partisans at Stavropol to carry out the Stavropol Operation, during which that city was taken on 29 February, and the Kuban Army (the renamed Caucasus Army) pushed back into the Kuban.[1]
Soviet pursuit
Denikin aboard a destroyer during the Novorossiysk evacuation
The third phase of the operation was defined in Soviet historiography as lasting from 3 March to 7 April. The main forces of the Caucasus Front conducted the Kuban–Novorossiysk Operation between 3 and 27 March, during which the defeat of the AFSR was completed in the North Caucasus. The 1st Cavalry Army captured Tikhoretsk on 9 March, then moved towards the Terek River. The 35,000-strong remnants of the Separate Volunteer Corps and parts of the Don Army evacuated from Novorossiysk to Crimea by 26 March.[4] The core of the Don army evacuated from Tuapse. The final stage of the offensive of the 11th Army was also developed, along a 400-kilometer front. The troops of the army divided into three groups: the Stavropol towards Armavir, the Georgiyevsk towards Mozdok, and the Expeditionary Corps towards Petrovsk. On 17 March elements of the Stavropol Group took Armavir and Nevinnomyssk. As a result of the Red victories, pro-Bolshevik partisans in the Terek became active and captured Mineralnye Vody on 14 March. On the next day they took Pyatigorsk and held it until the approach of Red Army units.[5]
In mid-March, the left flank units of the 10th Army (the 20th, 28th, and 32nd Rifle Divisions) reached Pyatigorsk, where they were operationally subordinated to the 11th Army. The command of the latter combined these with the Stavropol Group of Forces to form the Terek Group of the army on 18 March, tasked with advancing on Grozny and Vladikavkaz. Between 12 and 24 March the group conducted the Grozny operation, capturing that city on 24 March. On the same day, partisans supported by rebellious workers in Vladikavkaz seized that city and held it for six days until the approach of the Red Army units. The Soviet troops then advanced into Dagestan, where Derbent was occupied by partisans on 25 March and Petrovsk on 30 March by partisans and the Expeditionary Corps. As a result, by early April, the Dagestan operation of the 11th Army and partisans had captured the region from the AFSR. Simultaneously, Terek Oblast, Kabardia, North Ossetia, and Chechnya were occupied. The White strongholds of Fort Alexandrovsk and Chechen' Island on the Caspian, which had threatened Red communications, were also captured by two separate landing operations of the Caspian Flotilla of Fyodor Raskolnikov.[5]
The final operation of the third phase was the Tuapse operation between 27 March and 7 April, during which the 9th Army, a cavalry brigade of the 1st Cavalry Army and partisans from the former Red Army of the Black Sea[5] eliminated the Don Army and captured Tuapse on 7 April. Most of the latter surrendered, though remnants of the force retreated to Sochi, linking up with the Kuban Army. A 31,000-strong group of Kuban and Don Cossacks, with up to 30,000 refugees, was surrounded by Soviet troops in the area of Sochi, Adler, and Khosta. The Soviet blockade took place between the sea and the Georgian border against the last remaining large organized White force in the North Caucasus. By late April, about 12,000 Cossacks and 3,000 refugees had been evacuated to Crimea. The remainder surrendered between 4 and 7 May. Remnants of Cossacks moved into the mountains or crossed the Georgian border and were interned.[6]
Aftermath
In late April, the Caucasus Front advanced to the border of Georgia and Azerbaijan from the Black Sea to the Caspian, preceding the invasion of Azerbaijan. The front had captured an area of 296,000 square kilometers with a population of 6.91 million during the operation.[6][7]
The operation resulted in the destruction of a large portion of the AFSR, one of the strongest threats to the Bolsheviks; Soviet troops reported the capture of 163,600 White soldiers and officers, 537 guns, 723 machine guns, 23 armored trains, seventeen tanks, thirty armored cars,[7] about 3.4 million artillery shells, and 60 million cartridges, among others. The victory of the operation freed up large forces for the Polish–Soviet War and the Perekop–Chongar Offensive later that year.[6] In Crimea, Denikin gave up command to Pyotr Wrangel on 4 April and went into exile.[4]
Kuban Cossacks, or Kubanians, are Cossacks who live in the Kuban region of Russia. Most of the Kuban Cossacks are descendants of different major groups of Cossacks who were re-settled to the western Northern Caucasus in the late 18th century. The western part of the host was settled by the Black Sea Cossack Host who were originally the Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine, from 1792. The eastern and southeastern part of the host was previously administered by the Khopyour and Kuban regiments of the Caucasus Line Cossack Host and Don Cossacks, who were re-settled from the Don from 1777.
The Battle of the Caucasus is a name given to a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area on the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, Russia, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union, and the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku, to the Germans. Two days prior, Adolf Hitler issued a directive to launch such an operation into the Caucasus region, to be named Operation Edelweiß. German forces were compelled to withdraw from the area that winter as Operation Little Saturn threatened to cut them off.
The Southern Front of the Russian Civil War was a theatre of the Russian Civil War.
The Orel–Kursk operation was an offensive conducted by the Southern Front of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic's Red Army against the White Armed Forces of South Russia's Volunteer Army in Orel, Kursk and Tula Governorates of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic between 11 October and 18 November 1919. It took place on the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War and was part of the wider October counteroffensive of the Southern Front, a Red Army operation that aimed to stop Armed Forces of South Russia commander Anton Denikin's Moscow offensive.
The Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR or SRAF) (Russian: Вооружённые силы Юга России, romanized: Vooruzhyonniye sily Yuga Rossii, VSYuR) were the unified military forces of the White movement in southern Russia between 1919 and 1920.
The Battle of Tsaritsyn was a military confrontation between the Red Army and the White Army during the Russian Civil War for control of Tsaritsyn, a significant city and port on the Volga River in southwestern Russia.
The Kuban Offensive, also called the Second Kuban Campaign, was fought between the White and Red Armies during the Russian Civil War. The White Army achieved an important victory despite being numerically inferior in manpower and artillery. It resulted in the capture of Ekaterinodar and Novorossiysk in August 1918 and the conquest of the Western part of Kuban by the White armies. Later in 1918 they took Maykop, Armavir and Stavropol, and extended their authority over the entire Kuban Region.
Prokofy Logvinovich Romanenko was a Ukrainian Soviet Army colonel general.
The Southern Front was a front of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, formed twice.
The Caucasian Front was a front of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War which existed between January 16, 1920 and May 29, 1921, and was the continuation of the Southeastern Front. The Front headquarters were located in Millerovo, and then in Rostov-on-Don. Its task was completing the liquidation of the North Caucasian group of Denikin's Army and conquering the Caucasus.
The Northern Caucasus Operation was fought between the White and Red Armies during the Russian Civil War between December 1918 and March 1919. The White Army captured the entire Northern Caucasus. The Red Army withdrew to Astrahan and the Volga delta.
The 10th Army was a field army of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War which existed from October 3 1918 until July 1920. It was formed from the troops operating in the area of Tsaritsyn and Kamyshin. On May 4, 1920 it was renamed the 10th Terek Army. It was dissolved in July 1920. It was part of the Southern Front, the South-Eastern Front and the Caucasian Front.
The Kharkiv Operation was a military campaign of the Russian Civil War in June 1919, in which White forces captured the important industrial center of Kharkiv from the Bolsheviks, in preparation for an advance on Moscow.
The August counter-offensive of the Southern Front was an offensive during the Russian Civil War by the troops of the Southern Front of the Red Army against the White Guard troops of Anton Denikin. Combat operations were conducted by two offensive groups, the main blow was aimed towards the Don region. The troops of the Red Army were unable to carry out the assigned task, but their actions delayed the subsequent offensive of Denikin's army.
The Donbas operation of 1919 was a military campaign of the Russian Civil War, in which the Southern Front of the Red Army regained control of the Donbas region from the Armed Forces of South Russia.
The Voronezh-Kastornoye operation was an offensive operation by the Red Army during the Russian Civil War in October and November 1919, which was successfully carried out by parts of the 8th and 13th Army, which formed the left wing of the Southern Front.
The Advance on Moscow was a military campaign of the White Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR), launched against the RSFSR in July 1919 during the Russian Civil War. The goal of the campaign was the capture of Moscow, which, according to the chief of the White Army Anton Denikin, would play a decisive role in the outcome of the Civil War and bring the Whites closer to the final victory. After initial successes, in which the city of Oryol at only 360 kilometres (220 mi) from Moscow was taken, Denikin's overextended Army was decisively defeated in a series of battles in October and November 1919.
Vasily Semyonovich Askalepov was a Soviet military officer, who participated in the Civil War in Russia and World War II.
The 176th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, originally formed as part of the prewar buildup of forces, based on the shtat of September 13, 1939. The division completed its formation at Kryvyi Rih in the Odessa Military District and at the time of the German invasion of the Soviet Union was in the same area, assigned to the 35th Rifle Corps. Being relatively far from the frontier it escaped the early disasters and retreated mostly in good order through southern Ukraine into the autumn as part of 9th Army. It then took part in the counteroffensive against the overextended German Army Group South that liberated Rostov-na-Donu for the first time in December. When Army Group A began its summer offensive in 1942 the 176th fell back into the Caucasus region, losing much of its strength in the process, but finally helping to take up a firm defense along the Terek River and finally in front of Ordzhonikidze. As a result of this fighting the division, along with its artillery regiment, were awarded the Order of the Red Banner. After the German 6th Army was surrounded at Stalingrad the 176th advanced into the western Caucasus and entered the so-called Malaya Zemlya bridgehead south of Novorossiysk in the spring of 1943 where it helped to defeat the German Operation Neptun in April and in the autumn took part in the liberation of the city, for which it was redesignated as the 129th Guards Rifle Division.
The 223rd Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Red Army, originally formed as one of the first reserve rifle divisions following the German invasion of the USSR. This first formation had a short and disastrous combat career; after arriving at the front in Ukraine in the first days of August it was immediately encircled and destroyed in the Uman Pocket.
Frolov, B.P. (2003). "Северо-Кавказская операция 1920" [North Caucasus operation 1920]. In Ivanov, Sergei (ed.). Военная энциклопедия в 8 томах [Military Encyclopedia in 8 volumes] (in Russian). Vol.7. Moscow: Voenizdat. pp.434–436. ISBN5-203-01874-X.
Khromov, S.S., ed. (1983). "Северо-Кавказская операция 1920"[North Caucasus operation 1920]. Гражданская война и военная интервенция 1918—1922: Энциклопедия (in Russian). Moscow: Soviet Encyclopedia. pp.528–529.
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