The Southern Front was a military theater of the Russian Civil War.
The Southern Front was a military theater of the Russian Civil War.
In the aftermath of the October Revolution, politicians and army officers hostile to the Bolsheviks gravitated to the Don Cossack Host after its ataman, General Aleksey Kaledin, publicly offered sanctuary to opponents of the Soviet regime. [2] Among those seeking refuge in the Don was the former chief of staff of the tsarist army, General Mikhail Alekseyev, who immediately began organizing a military unit to oppose both the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers. Alekseyev was soon joined by other prominent tsarist generals, including the charismatic Lavr Kornilov. The two men, along with Kaledin, assumed top roles in the anticommunist White movement taking shape in the Don region during the winter of 1917 – 18.
Militarily, the White forces remained weak into the spring of 1918. The ranks of the Volunteer Army formed by Alekseyev and Kornilov never exceeded over 4,000 combatants during its first months. [3] On paper, Kaledin held nominal command over tens of thousands of Don Cossacks but most of these were either unwilling to fight or were outright opposed to his rule. Without substantial help from the Don Cossacks, the tiny Volunteer Army was unable to prevent the Red Guards under Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko from overrunning the Don region in late February 1918. To escape the Red onslaught, the Volunteer Army was forced to flee south into the lands of the Kuban Cossack Host while Kaledin remained behind and committed suicide. [4]
During the months of March and April 1918, the Volunteer Army incorporated anticommunist Kuban Cossacks into its ranks and made an abortive attempt to capture the Kuban capital of Yekaterinodar from Red forces. Among the casualties in the latter operation was Kornilov, leaving General Anton Denikin to assume command of the Volunteer Army. In early May this so-called "Icy March" ended when the Volunteer Army returned to the Don Cossack Host, which by then was experiencing widespread revolts against Soviet occupation. [5]
The anticommunist insurrection in the Don began in early April 1918 amid Cossack and peasant furor against Bolshevik food-requisitioning detachments. As ordinary Don Cossacks eagerly took up arms that spring, a Don Cossack Army was formed and a new elected ataman, General Pyotr N. Krasnov, took office. Krasnov established cordial relations with the German army of occupation in neighboring Ukraine, and through them he received arms and munitions, some of which he forwarded to the Volunteer Army. [6]
During the summer and fall of 1918, the Don Cossacks under Krasnov continued to the campaign to liberate their homeland from the Red Army while Denikin's Volunteer Army cleared the Kuban Cossack Host and other areas of the North Caucasus of Red forces. In the winter of 1918 – 19, after the Volunteer Army had shattered the main Red forces in the North Caucasus, it redirected its efforts to the north in the Donbas region as the Don Cossacks again lost heart and began to give ground to their Red opponents. [7]
On 8 January 1919, as the Don Cossack Army was collapsing due to plummeting morale among its troops, Krasnov subordinated his forces to Denikin thereby creating the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR). The Volunteer Army was renamed the Caucasian Volunteer Army. However, it reverted to its original name in May 1919. Besides the Volunteer and Don armies, the AFSR eventually included the Crimean-Azov Army, the Army of the Caucasus and the Army of Turkestan.
In the spring of 1919, anticommunist revolts again erupted among Don Cossacks behind the Red Army front in the upper Don region. Despite considerable Soviet efforts to crush the rebellion, the Don Cossack insurgents managed to hold out until the Don Cossack Army was able to go over to the offensive and relieve them in early June. Meanwhile, the Volunteer Army in the Donbas region was also able to go over the offensive, managing to take Kharkiv on 25 June, Kursk on 20 September and Oryol on 13 October. On the eastern end of the AFSR's front, the Caucasian Army under Baron Pyotr Wrangel captured Tsaritsyn on 30 June. [8]
Despite the AFSR’s successes in the summer and autumn of 1919, its rear was beset by rampant corruption among administrators, anti-White revolts among various ethnic groups, anarchist uprisings, pogroms against Jews and political infighting between the White generals and Cossack leaders. In October, Red Army counterattacks managed to recapture Oryol from the Volunteer Army while the Red Cavalry Corps under Semyon Budyonny drove a wedge between the Volunteer Army and Don Cossack Army. With no stable rear to fall back on, the remnants of the AFSR eventually retreated south to the Crimea and behind the Don River. In late February 1920, the Red Army renewed its attacks and succeeded in forcing the Whites to abandon the North Caucasus. Amid a disastrous evacuation at Novorossiysk, tens of thousands of Volunteer and Don Cossack troops did manage to embark on ships that transported them safely to the Crimean Peninsula. But due to insufficient tonnage, an even greater number of Cossack soldiers and civilians fleeing with the Whites were left behind at Novorossiysk where they were forced to either surrender or continue to retreat south. [9]
After reaching the Crimea in early April 1920 Denikin, the Commander-in-chief of the AFSR, passed all his powers to General Wrangel, who re-formed these units into his Russian Army . [10]
The formation of Wrangel's "Russian Army" heralded the last phase of the Russian Civil War in the South. The Crimean peninsula served as the White's last stronghold, where all the remnants of the other defeated White Armies gathered. In May 1920, the Reds destroyed the Army of the Caucasus, which had been part of the AFSR; the survivor's fled either to join Wrangel or to Georgia. By July 1920 Wrangel had 25,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, 13 tanks, 25 armored cars, 40 aircraft, 2 battleships, 3 cruisers, 11 destroyers, 4 submarines and 8 gunboats. This expanded by October 1920 to 41,000 infantry and 17,000 cavalry. However, despite the rise in manpower, Wrangel was unable to undertake a successful offensive towards Moscow or break out of his Crimean stronghold. A raid into the Kuban area in August 1920 under the command of General Sergei Georgievich Ulagay failed to expand White-held territory.
The final assault on the Crimea by the Bolshevik re-constituted Southern Front (early November, 1920) under the command of Mikhail Frunze proved successful in defeating the last great White threat to the Reds. Entente vessels evacuated the last survivors of the White armies to Istanbul (16 November 1920). In 1921 they transferred to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, where they finally disbanded.
At the Same time, the Reds were also fighting against the Ukrainians, as well as the Poles. With the defeat of Germany in the First World War, the pro-German Government, The Hetmanate, under Pavlo Skoropadsky was overthrown and the relative safety Ukraine had under German occupation and protection was gone. The Reds set up their own Bolshevik Ukrainian government. The Ukrainian National Republic (UNR) faced many enemies from late 1918 onward. It faced the Reds to the north-east, Whites (who were against Ukrainian separation) to the south-east marching northwards against Moscow and the Anarchist Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine of Nestor Makhno springing up all over Ukraine. The UNR came to terms with the Rumanians and the Entente who occupied Odessa in February 1919, and this allowed the UNR to release troops to face the Whites, Reds and Poles. Fighting broke out in January 1919 and the Reds pushed the Ukrainian forces back. Kyiv fell to the Reds in February 1919 and had pushed the UNR's forces against Polish ones moving into Volhynia. This cut the UNR's armies in two. By May 1919, the UNR occupied a small strip of land around Brody and at the same time were negotiating with the Poles, with an armistice with the Poles, the Ukrainians could push forwards and they attacked south-eastwards to Kamanets Podil'skyi. With Denikin launching an offensive against the Reds in the north, along with spontaneous peasant uprisings allowed the Ukrainians to retake Kiev in August 1919, but they were expelled by Denikin's forces. With Denikin's defeat and the Ukrainians in severe trouble, they made an alliance with the Poles in April 1920, the combined Polish-Ukrainian forces pushed back the Reds, who occupied most of Ukraine. This was part of the Polish–Soviet War, and ended up with gains for Poland after the treaty of Riga in 1921, but with nothing for the Ukrainians who were fully defeated. The Ukrainians based in Poland tried to launch offensives and raids into Soviet Ukraine, but these failed considerably.
With the defeat of the Whites in 1920, the Georgian Democratic Republic was under threat from the Red Army moving ever closer to her borders. The Reds offered an alliance with Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in order to defeat the Whites in the Caucasus, etc. The Georgians refused, going for a policy of neutrality; they also hoped they could negotiate their official independence with the Bolsheviks. Several attempts by Russians and Soviets to take over Georgia failed. In April 1920, the Soviets managed to place a Bolshevik regime in Azerbaijan, mainly due to the help of the 11th Soviet Red Army. Georgian communists asked for permission to take over Georgia but no real authorization was given. On May 3, communists loyal to the Russian SFSR launched a coup in Tbilisi, which was defeated by the Georgian army. The Georgian General staff started to mobilize and ready themselves for war, however this never came, as negotiations with the Reds (May 1920) managed to secure their independence, on the conditions that they allowed Bolshevik groups and organizations to exist and that no foreign troops could enter Georgian soil. Refused entry into the League of Nations, Georgia gained de jure recognition from the Allies on January 27, 1921. This, however, did not prevent the country from being attacked by Soviet Russia a month later.
The peace with Georgia, though initially supported strongly by Lenin, finally ended on February 11 when the Armenian and Georgian Bolsheviks organized a revolt in Lorri. The Armenia-based 11th Red Army marched on Tbilisi, while other Russian forces invaded from various directions. By February 25, the desperate resistance of the poorly organized Georgian military was broken at the capital and the Georgian Bolsheviks proclaimed the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. Almost simultaneously, Turkish troops took control over Ardahan Province, Artvin, and Batumi. On March 17, the Menshevik and Soviet representatives agreed to a ceasefire and joined their efforts to recover Batumi. On March 18, the leadership of the DRG left Georgia by the French ship Ernest Renan. By the Moscow-dictated Treaty of Kars with Turkey (October 13, 1921), Georgia had to abandon its claims on Artvin and Ardahan provinces in return for Batumi granted autonomous status within Soviet Georgia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia also gained autonomy.
Qoroghli, near Tbilisi, has a monument to the Georgian Junkers who fell in battles against the Red Army. Guerrilla resistance to the Soviet troops continued, but was finally crushed in 1924. This was followed by harsh repressions and the reign of terror in which thousands of Georgian nobles, intellectuals and common citizens were purged. The country was eventually incorporated into the Soviet Union — first as a part of a Transcaucasian SFSR (1922), then as its own Soviet Socialist Republic (1936).
Since 1918, the Armenian Republic had been at odds with almost all of her neighbors, several wars were fought with her fellow newly formed Caucasian nations, as well as a hard-fought war with the Turks in 1920. With enemies all around, the Armenians were weak and unable to defend themselves against an invasion by the Bolsheviks.
By March 1920, it was obvious that Soviet Russia would attack the much-needed Baku. Vladimir Lenin said that the invasion was justified by the fact that Soviet Russia couldn't survive without Baku oil. According to prevailing opinion in Moscow, Russian Bolsheviks were to assist Baku proletariat in overthrowing the "counter-revolutionary nationalists."
After major political crisis, the Fifth Cabinet of Ministers of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic gave its resignations on April 1, 1920. On April 25, 1920, the Russian XI Red Army crossed into Azerbaijan and entered Baku on April 27. They demanded the dissolution of Azerbaijani Parliament (Majlis) and set up their own Bolshevik government headed by Nariman Narimanov. The deputies obliged to do so to avoid bloodshed, and on April 28, 1920, the ADR officially ceased to exist. The Red Army met very little resistance from Azerbaijani forces in Baku, which were tied up on Karabakh front.
In May 1920, there was a major uprising against the occupying Russian XI Army in Ganja, intent on restoring Musavatists in power. The uprising was crushed by the Bolsheviks by May 31. Leaders of the ADR either fled to Menshevik Georgia, Turkey and Iran, or were captured by Bolsheviks, like Mammed Amin Rasulzade (who was later allowed to emigrate) and executed (like Gen. Selimov, Gen. Sulkevich, Gen. Agalarov, a total of over 20 generals), or assassinated by Armenian militants like Fatali Khan Khoyski and Behbudagha Javanshir. Most students and citizens traveling abroad remained in those countries never to return again to their country.
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Soviet Union in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the Russian Revolution, which was one of the key events of the 20th century.
The White movement, also known as the Whites, was a loose confederation of anti-communist forces that fought the communist Bolsheviks, also known as the Reds, in the Russian Civil War (1917–1923) and that to a lesser extent continued operating as militarized associations of rebels both outside and within Russian borders in Siberia until roughly World War II (1939–1945). The movement's military arm was the White Army, also known as the White Guard or White Guardsmen.
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel, also known by his nickname the Black Baron, was a Russian military officer of Baltic German origin in the Imperial Russian Army. During the final phase of the Russian Civil War, he was commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia.
Andrei Grigoriyevich Shkuro was a Russian military officer of Cossack origin, lieutenant general (1919) of the White Army.
Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov, also known as Peter Krasnov, was a Russian military leader, writer and later Nazi collaborator.
The Don Army was the military of the short lived Don Republic and a part of the White movement in the Russian Civil War. It operated from 1918 to 1920, in the Don region and centered in the town of Novocherkassk.
The Ice March, also called the First Kuban Campaign, a military withdrawal lasting from February to May 1918, was one of the defining moments in the Russian Civil War of 1917 to 1921. Under attack by the Red Army advancing from the north, the forces of the Volunteer Army, sometimes referred to as the White Guard, began a retreat from the city of Rostov south towards the Kuban, in the hope of gaining the support of the Don Cossacks against the Bolshevik government in Moscow.
The Kuban People's Republic or Kuban National Republic was an anti-Bolshevik state during the Russian Civil War, comprising the territory of the Kuban region in Russia.
The Volunteer Army was a White Army active in South Russia during the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1920. The Volunteer Army fought against Bolsheviks and the Makhnovists on the Southern Front and the Ukrainian War of Independence. On 8 January 1919, it was made part of the Armed Forces of South Russia, becoming the largest force of the White movement until it was merged with the Army of Wrangel in March 1920.
Afrikan Petrovich Bogaewsky or Bogayevsky was a Russian military leader from the Don Cossack noble family of Bogaewsky. He served as a lieutenant general in the Imperial Russian Army and also served as the ataman of the Don Republic.
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.
The North Caucasus Operation was a strategic offensive conducted by the Caucasian Front of the Red Army against the White Armed Forces of South Russia in the North Caucasus region between 17 January and 7 April 1920. It took place on the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War and was a Soviet attempt to destroy White resistance.
The Donbas-Don operation was a military campaign of the Russian Civil War that lasted from January to February 1918, by forces of the Southern Revolutionary Front under the command of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, against the Cossack troops of Alexey Kaledin and Volunteer detachments on the territory of the Donbas and the Don Cossack region. It was the decisive operation in the complete conquest of Russia by the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution.
The battle for Donbas was a military campaign of the Russian Civil War that lasted from January to May 1919, in which White forces repulsed attacks of the Red Army on the Don Host Oblast and occupied the Donbas region after heavy fighting.
The Northern Taurida operation was a military campaign in the Russian Civil War between the Red Army and the White Army under Pyotr Wrangel for the possession of Northern Taurida. The campaign can be divided into 3 stages: the White offensive, trench warfare around the Kakhovka Bridgehead and the counterattack of the Red Army.
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.
Mikhail Arkhipovich Fostikov was a Cossack officer in the Imperial Russian Army and an officer of the counterrevolutionary White movement during the Russian Civil War, reaching the rank of lieutenant general.
Vyacheslav Grigoryevich Naumenko was a Kuban Cossack leader and historian.
 | This article needs additional or more specific categories .(July 2021) |