1. My first appearance in the Volunteer Army In May, in the company of officers subordinate to the headquarters of the 105th division to the headquarters of the 32nd Army Corps, I finally left the front of the European War, from the Radzivilov borough, leaving behind the nightmarish days of Bolshevization, then Ukrainization

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

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, the military institutions of the old army officially operated (not to mention the structures Cossack army), rear, economic, mobilization, etc., who had money. 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. Only hundreds of poorly armed and even worse dressed volunteers fought at the stations and railway junctions (the war then went mainly along the lines of the railways) against the mass of thousands of Red Guards who were pressing from the north. 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. The once taken 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. Total population VSYUR reached 152 thousand bayonets and sabers. In May 1919, the general offensive of the whites began. Under their irresistible 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 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

To the moment October coup Bolsheviks in the Bykhov prison remained 19 officers and 5 generals: L. Kornilov, A. Deni I and Kuban KIN and Lukomsky, I. Romanovsky and S. Markov. Escape from prison did not present any particular difficulties, especially since the troops who sympathized with them guarded the prisoners. Recently appointed instead of M. Alekseev new boss of the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General N. Dukhonin also did not hide his disposition towards Kornilov and his associates. On the morning of November 19, 1917, he ordered the release of those arrested, and on the night of November 20, the future leaders of the white movement headed for the Don by different roads.

Dukhonin himself was well aware that by his decision he had signed his own death warrant. However, having the opportunity to hide, but being faithful to military duty, he remained at Headquarters. The next day, the Bolshevik Commander-in-Chief Ensign N. Krylenko arrived here, announcing his assumption of office. Having handed over his affairs, Dukhonin drove to the station in Krylenko's car, where a crowd of angry sailors tore the general to pieces and brutally abused his corpse.

At that time, officers, cadets, students, high school students - future volunteers - came to the Don from all over Russia in order to raise the banner of struggle against "German-Bolshevism" here, in the Cossack region, for the honor and dignity of the Motherland.

General M. Alekseev, who arrived here from Moscow in early November 1917, was already in Novocherkassk, the capital of the All-Great Don Army.

Mikhail Vasilievich Alekseev (1857-1918) was born in the family of a soldier. Over forty years he gave military service, having gone from ensign to general from infantry. Behind him were studies at the Moscow Junker School and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, participation in the wars: Russian-Turkish (1877-1878) and Russian-Japanese (1904-1905). First world war he was chief of staff of the Southwestern Front, and from August 18, 1915 he became chief of staff of the Supreme Commander of Emperor Nicholas II. During the days of the February coup, General Alekseev was one of the main supporters of the abdication of the tsar from the throne and exerted direct pressure on him for this purpose. Alekseev did not relieve himself of guilt and responsibility for this until the end of his life - he died of heart disease in Yekaterinodar in the autumn of 1918. From March 11 to May 22, 1917, Alekseev was the Supreme Commander of the Russian Army and had a negative attitude towards its involvement in political life. After the failure of the Kornilov speech, at the request of Kerensky, he again headed the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief for several days. By his order, L. Kornilov and his comrades were arrested. After his second resignation, he left for his family in Smolensk and returned to Petrograd only on October 7 to participate in the work of the Pre-Parliament, where he was elected by the Moscow Conference of Public Figures. Then he led military organization, which became known as Alekseevskaya.

M. Alekseev expected to gather at least 30 thousand officers on the Don, who were to form the core of the anti-Bolshevik army. However, by the beginning of the winter of 1917, at least 2,000 people had come to Novocherkassk. Representatives of the Moscow Center also arrived here, famous politicians and public figures P. Milyukov, P. Struve, M. Rodzianko, Prince G. Trubetskoy, M. Fedorov. Unexpected for many was the visit of the former Socialist-Revolutionary B. Savinkov, who, with his characteristic energy, gave himself up to a new idea of ​​​​creating volunteer squads.

On December 6, having passed through the enemy rear within a few weeks after the escape, L. Kornilov appeared in Novocherkassk. However, his arrival was perceived ambiguously. If ordinary volunteers enthusiastically greeted their idol, then from Alekseev Kornilov was given a very cold reception. The hostile personal relationship between the two leaders of the nascent movement had long roots. Kornilov certainly remembered to whom he owed his arrest after the unsuccessful August speech. In view combat general The behavior of the former Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was by no means always impeccable, and sometimes even ambiguous, if not treacherous. Alekseev, on the other hand, was clearly annoyed by the swift career of Kornilov, who came to the fore only during the years of war and revolution. He probably felt some kind of feeling for him, close to jealousy for the incredible popularity and loud fame that made his name a symbol of the White Cause.

The conflict between the two generals posed a serious threat to all anti-Bolshevik forces in southern Russia. To resolve it, shortly after the arrival of Kornilov, a conference of generals and public figures was convened, designed to reconcile both sides and outline the basic principles of the army being created. According to A. Denikin, "her fragile body would not have survived the removal of one of them: in the first case (Alekseev's departure), the army would have split, in the second, it would have collapsed." As a result, at the suggestion of Denikin, a compromise was adopted: military power was to be transferred to General L. Kornilov; civil power and foreign relations - to remain under the jurisdiction of General M. Alekseev; management of the Don region - for the ataman A. Kaledin. Thus, the military-political triumvirate of the White movement was formed.

At Christmas, December 25, 1917 Kornilov took command of the Volunteer Army. This day was subsequently celebrated by Russian fighters against Bolshevism as the birthday of this army. The formation of the armed forces of the whites at first proceeded strictly on a voluntary basis. Each volunteer gave a subscription to serve for four months and promised unquestioning obedience to the orders of commanders. In November-December 1917, none of them received a salary. Only from the beginning of 1918 they began to issue allowance; officers - 150 rubles. per month, soldiers - 50 rubles. Financing new army was extremely uneven. The first contribution to arms, the fight against the Bolsheviks was received in November 1917 and amounted to only 400 rubles. Moscow entrepreneurs donated about 800 thousand rubles. By subscription from the business circles of Rostov and Novocherkassk, they managed to collect another 1 million rubles. Then, by agreement with the Don government, it was decided to divide equally between the Cossack and Volunteer armies about 30 million rubles. - part of the Russian state treasury, kept in local branches of the State Bank. At first, the whites pinned great hopes on their former allies in the world war, but their help at this stage was purely symbolic. So, the French in February 1918 were able to allocate only 300 thousand rubles. From the beginning of 1918, the leaders of the movement decided to issue money on their own, issuing banknotes of their own design, thereby declaring their nationwide claims.

By February 1918, the number of all formations of the Volunteer Army reached 3-4 thousand people. It was headed by L. Kornilov, the post of chief of staff was taken by A. Lukomsky. The core of the army was the 1st Volunteer Division (commander A. Denikin, chief of staff S. Markov) and the Kornilov shock, Georgievsky, Rostov volunteer and 1st officer regiments. By the time they set out on their first military campaign against the Reds, some changes had taken place in the leadership of the army. After Lukovsky's departure for the Kuban, the post of chief of staff of the army was taken by I. Romanovsky. Denikin became an assistant (deputy) commander of the army. S. Markov led the vanguard of the army - the 1st officer regiment.

The goals of the Volunteer Army were set out in two documents: the declaration of December 27, 1917, and in the so-called January (1918) "Kornilov's program". The first of them spoke about the need to create a base in the south of Russia to fight the "German-Bolshevik invasion." It was seen by the whites as a continuation of the Great War. After the victory over the Bolsheviks, it was supposed to hold new free elections v constituent Assembly which should finally decide the fate of the country. The second document was more lengthy. It contained the main provisions of the White movement. In particular, the equality of all citizens before the law, freedom of speech and the press, the restoration of private property were proclaimed, the right of workers to unionize and strike and to retain all the political and economic gains of the revolution was declared; on the introduction of universal primary education and the separation of church and state. The solution of the agrarian question remained with the Constituent Assembly, and before the issuance of the relevant laws by it, "all sorts of anarchist actions of citizens" were recognized as "inadmissible." The January program demanded the full fulfillment of all obligations assumed by Russia under international treaties and bringing the war to an end in "close unity with our allies." Wide local autonomy was recognized for the peoples that were part of Russia, "on the condition, however, that state unity be preserved."

Thus, both documents were the ideological basis of the White Cause, they expressed two main principles of the emerging movement: the preservation of unity Russian state and "non-predecision" of his further political fate. The anti-Bolshevik platform was supposed to have, as it seemed to its authors, a national liberation character and the ability to rally various forces in the struggle - from extreme right-wing monarchists to moderate socialists. This created real conditions for a broad unification of all opponents. communist regime. But this was also the biggest drawback of the Whites - the internal amorphousness and weakness of their organization and the constant threat of a split.

Meanwhile, the situation in southern Russia continued to change. At the beginning of 1918, the Bolsheviks launched an offensive against Rostov and Novocherkassk. The Cossacks refused to fight against the Reds. The workers of Donbass openly opposed the volunteers and declared their support Soviet power. On January 15, the last joint meeting of the "triumvirate" took place in Rostov. Kaledin was in a depressed state of mind, extremely pessimistic about the prospects for further struggle on the Don. Alekseev, trying to dispel the gloomy mood of the chieftain, announced the plans of the Volunteer Army, if necessary, to leave the Volga and gather there with new forces, but this only aggravated the plight of the Cossack general. revolution volunteer army kolchak wrangel

On January 28, 1918, Kornilov, finally convinced of the impossibility of his formations staying on the Don, where they were threatened with death without the help of the Cossacks, decided to leave the region, about which he informed A. Kaledin by telegraph. The next day, Kaledin gathered his government and, after reading a telegram from the leadership of the Volunteer Army, said that only 147 bayonets were found at the front to protect the Don region. Then announcing the resignation of the military ataman, he went up to his office and shot himself.

Elected as the new ataman, Major General A. Nazarov took drastic measures, introduced a general mobilization of the Cossacks, but could not delay the advance of the Red troops of V. Antonov-Ovseenko to Rostov, where the workers had already raised an uprising. Under such conditions, on the night of February 9-10, 1918, the volunteers hurriedly left the city and went beyond the Don, into the steppe. Thus began the 1st Kuban or "ice" campaign, later sung by its participants as the heroic epic of the White Cause.

On February 12, in the village of Olginskaya, Kornilov convened a military council, at which, after long discussions, a decision was made to advance to the Kuban, to its capital Yekaterinodar, which had not yet been captured by the Bolsheviks. There, in a rich Cossack region, it was supposed to create a new center of struggle against the Soviet regime and strengthen the army.

The first military campaign of the whites lasted three months. During this time, the volunteers traveled about a thousand miles, half the way passed in continuous battles and fierce clashes. More than four hundred people died in them, over one and a half thousand soldiers and officers received various injuries. Among the dead were the commander of the Kornilov regiment, Colonel M. Nezhentsev, and the leader and one of the founders of the movement, General L. Kornilov. He was killed on the morning of March 31, 1918 during the siege of Ekaterinodar, occupied by the Reds. For fear of enemy revenge, the body of the general was secretly buried in the German colony of Gnachbau, and the grave was razed to the ground. The next day, the Bolsheviks, who occupied the village, discovered the remains of the general and brutally abused his corpse. A year later, A. Denikin, speaking in Yekaterinodar, said in his memorial speech: “A Russian grenade, directed by the hand of a Russian person, struck down a great Russian patriot. His corpse was burned, and the ashes were scattered to the wind. A. Denikin became the new commander of the Volunteer Army.

Anton Ivanovich Denikin (1872-1947) was the son of an officer, a native of serfs. He graduated from the Kiev Infantry cadet school and the Nikolaev General Staff Academy (1899). Participant Russo-Japanese War, for military merit was promoted to colonel. During the First World War - the head of the 4th "iron" rifle division, commander of the 8th Army Corps. In 1917 - Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander and Commander-in-Chief of the Southwestern Front. For supporting General Kornilov during his August speech, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Bykhov prison, from where, together with his associates, he fled to the Don and took part in the organization of the Volunteer Army, which he headed after the death of General Kornilov. From December 26, 1918, he was commander-in-chief of the armed forces of southern Russia, which, under his leadership, achieved their most notable victories in the summer of 1919 and survived the acute bitterness of major military failures in the winter of 1920. On March 22, 1920, in Feodosia, he handed over command to General Wrangel and went abroad, where he moved away from active political activity, preferring her enthusiastic work on "Essays on the Russian Troubles", which became one of the fundamental works on the history of the civil war in Russia. Until the end of his life, he remained a patriot of the Motherland, urging former comrades-in-arms to refuse to cooperate with the Nazis and sincerely wishing the victory of the Red Army in the war against Hitler.

Denikin decided to lift the siege of Ekaterinodar, withdraw his troops and return to the Don, where in April mass actions of the Cossacks, dissatisfied with communist policies, began against the Bolsheviks. On April 30, 1918, Denikin's troops completed their combat path at the villages of Mechetinskaya and Yegorlykskaya, southeast of Rostov.

The 1st Kuban campaign was of great importance in the initial hundred days of the White movement. The total number of volunteers who set out from the Don in February 1918 did not exceed 3.5 thousand people. In the convoy, along with the military, there were about a thousand civilians. The Volunteer Army, which was returning at the end of April, consisted of 5,000 people who had valuable combat experience and firmly believed in the rightness of their cause. Although the main goal was not achieved (the whites did not take Ekaterinodar), the consequences of the campaign for the entire movement were significant. Organizationally and ideologically, the core took shape and rallied anti-bolshevik forces in the south of the country - the Volunteer Army. In the course of the battles, a new flexible tactic of conducting a civil war was developed: frontal attacks in the forehead with thick chains with minimal artillery support, combined with unexpected guerrilla sorties and swift maneuvers. Among the volunteers, their leaders emerged, distinguished by courage and courage - colonels Nezhentsev, Kutepov, generals Markov, Bogaevsky, Kazanovich.

At the same time, the disgusting features of the terrible fratricide - incredible cruelty and ruthlessness, executions of prisoners and hostages, violence against the civilian population, rejection of any form of dissent, characteristic of both opposing sides, stood out quite clearly. So, admonishing his soldiers before the battle, Kornilov said: “Do not take prisoner. The more terror, the more victories." A prime example desperate tactics of the Whites was the battle on March 15 near the village of Novo-Dimitreevskaya, when General Markov at night, in a snowy cold, passing through a river covered with a thin layer of ice, led the 1st officer regiment in a bayonet attack and, breaking into the village, entered, leaving no one alive, in hand-to-hand combat with the red units that did not expect a night assault.

The Bolsheviks, in turn, also did not differ in mercy. They shot the captured Don ataman General A. Nazarov and the Cossacks - members of the military circle. Former tsarist general P. Rannenkampf, who lived in Taganrog since 1917, rejected Antonov-Ovseenko's proposal to join the Red Army and was executed (chopped with swords).

The violence of some only multiplied the violence of others, gave rise to extreme forms of atrocities. The civil war passed through families and generations, crippled human destinies, splitting the people. In addition, since the spring of 1918, external forces began to become more and more actively involved in the national tragedy of Russia, using internal upheavals in the country for their own purposes.

VOLUNTEER ARMY, main military force White movement in the south of Russia in 1918-1920.

It arose on December 27, 1917 (January 9, 1918) from the Alekseevskaya organization - a military detachment formed on November 2 (15), 1917 on the Don by General M.V. Alekseev to fight the Bolsheviks. Its creation pursued both a military-strategic and political goal: on the one hand, the Volunteer Army, in alliance with the Cossacks, was supposed to prevent the establishment of Soviet power in southern Russia, on the other hand, to ensure free elections to the Constituent Assembly, which was to determine the future state structure of the country . It was recruited on a voluntary basis from officers, cadets, students, high school students who fled to the Don. The supreme leader is Alekseev, the commander is General L.G. Kornilov. Center of deployment - Novocherkassk. Initially, there were about two thousand people, by the end of January 1918 it had grown to three and a half thousand. It consisted of the Kornilov shock regiment (commanded by lieutenant colonel M.O. Nezhentsev), officer, cadet and St. George battalions, four artillery batteries, an officer squadron, an engineering company and a company of guards officers. Later, the Rostov Volunteer Regiment (Major General A.A. Borovsky), a naval company, a Czechoslovak battalion and a death division of the Caucasian division were formed. It was planned to increase the size of the army to ten thousand bayonets and sabers, and only then begin major military operations. But the successful offensive of the Red troops in January-February 1918 forced the command to suspend the formation of the army and send several units to defend Taganrog, Bataysk and Novocherkassk. However, a few detachments of volunteers, not having received serious support from the local Cossacks, could not stop the onslaught of the enemy and were forced to leave the Don region. At the end of February 1918, the Volunteer Army moved to Yekaterinodar to make the Kuban its main base (the First Kuban Campaign). On February 25, it was reorganized into three infantry regiments - Consolidated Officer (General S.L. Markov), Kornilov shock (M.O. Nezhentsev) and Partizansky (General A.P. Bogaevsky), on March 17, after connecting with units of the Kuban regional government - into three brigades: 1st (Markov), 2nd (Bogaevsky) and Horse (General I.G. Erdeli). On April 10–13, the Volunteer Army, which had increased to six thousand people, made several unsuccessful attempts to take Ekaterinodar. After the death of Kornilov on April 13, General A.I. Denikin, who replaced him as commander, led the thinned detachments to the south of the Don region in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe villages of Mechetinskaya and Egorlykskaya.

In May-June 1918, the position of the Volunteer Army was strengthened due to the liquidation of Soviet power on the Don and the emergence of a new ally - the Don army, ataman P.N. Krasnov, who transferred to it a significant part of the weapons and ammunition he received from the Germans. The number of the Volunteer Army increased to eleven thousand people due to the influx of Kuban Cossacks and the addition of a three thousandth detachment of Colonel M.G. Drozdovsky to it. In June, it was reorganized into five infantry and eight cavalry regiments, which made up the 1st (Markov), 2nd (Borovsky), 3rd (M.G. Drozdovsky) infantry divisions, 1st cavalry division (Erdeli) and the 1st Kuban Cossack Division (General V.L. Pokrovsky); in July, the 2nd Kuban Cossack Division (General S.G. Ulagai) and the Kuban Cossack Brigade (General A.G. Shkuro) were also formed.

On June 23, 1918, the Volunteer Army began the Second Kuban Campaign (June-September), during which it defeated the troops of the Kuban-Black Sea Soviet republic and taking Yekaterinodar (August 15-16), Novorossiysk (August 26) and Maikop (September 20), established control over the main part of the Kuban and the north of the Black Sea province. By the end of September, it already numbered 35-40 thousand bayonets and sabers. After the death of Alekseev on October 8, 1918, the post of commander-in-chief passed to A.I. Denikin. On October 28, the volunteers took control of Armavir and ousted the Bolsheviks from the left bank of the Kuban; in mid-November, they took Stavropol and inflicted a heavy defeat on the 11th Red Army, led by I.F. Fedko. Since the end of November, they began to receive large deliveries of weapons from the Entente through Novorossiysk. Due to the increase in the number of Volunteer Army was reorganized into three army corps (1st General A.P. Kutepov, 2nd Borovsky, 3rd General V.N. Lyakhov) and one cavalry corps (General P.N. Wrangel ). At the end of December, she repelled the offensive of the 11th Red Army in the Yekaterinodar-Novorossiysk and Rostov-Tikhoretsk directions, and in early January 1919, inflicting a strong counterattack on her, cut her into two parts and threw her back to Astrakhan and beyond Manych. By February, the entire North Caucasus was occupied by volunteers. This made it possible to transfer the grouping of General V.Z. Mai-Maevsky, formed from selected regiments, to the Donbass to help the Don Army retreating under the onslaught of the Bolsheviks, and the 2nd Army Corps to the Crimea to support the Crimean regional government.

On January 8, 1919, the Volunteer Army became part of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia; Wrangel was appointed its commander. On January 23, it was renamed the Caucasian Volunteer Army. In March, it included the 1st and 2nd Kuban cavalry corps. Deployed in April in the Donbass and Manych, the army went on the offensive in the Voronezh and Tsaritsyno directions and forced the Reds to leave the Don region, Donbass, Kharkov and Belgorod. On May 21, the units operating in the Tsaritsyno direction were separated into a separate Caucasian army, and the name of the Volunteer Army was returned to the left-flank (Voronezh) group; May-Maevsky became its commander. It included the 1st (Kutepov) and 2nd (General M.N. Promtov) army, 5th cavalry (General Ya.D. Yuzefovich), 3rd Kuban cavalry (Shkuro) corps.

In the offensive of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia against Moscow, which began on July 3, 1919, the Volunteer Army was assigned the role of the main striking force- she was supposed to take over Kursk, Orel and Tula and capture the Soviet capital; by this time, more than 50 thousand bayonets and sabers were in its ranks. In July-October 1919, volunteers occupied Central Ukraine (Kiev fell on August 31), Kursk and Voronezh provinces and repelled the August counteroffensive of the Bolsheviks. The peak of their success was the capture of Orel on October 13. However, due to heavy losses and forced mobilization, the combat effectiveness of the army in the autumn of 1919 decreased significantly.

During the offensive of the red units in October-December 1919, the main forces of the volunteers were defeated. On November 27, Denikin deposed Mai-Maevsky; On December 5, Wrangel again led the Volunteer Army. At the end of December, the troops of the Soviet Southern Front cut it into two parts; the first had to retreat beyond the Don, the second - to Northern Tavria. On January 3, 1920, it actually ceased to exist: the southeastern grouping (10 thousand) was reduced to a separate Volunteer Corps under the command of Kutepov, and from the southwestern (32 thousand) the army of General N.N. Schilling was formed. In February-March 1920, after the crushing defeat of the Whites in the Odessa region and in the North Caucasus, the remnants of volunteer formations were evacuated to the Crimea, where they became part of the Russian Army, organized by Wrangel in May 1920 from the surviving units of the Armed Forces of southern Russia.

Ivan Krivushin