Chronology of events

By March 11, 1920, the front line passed only 40-50 kilometers from Novorossiysk. By that time, the Don army had completely lost its combat effectiveness, the defense was held only by Volunteer army, but its remnants could hardly hold back the onslaught of the Red Army. The Cossacks failed to break through to Taman, and as a result, many of them ended up in Novorossiysk with the sole purpose of getting on the ships. Meanwhile, there were not enough steamers. Some of them were late due to stormy weather, some failed to come to the rescue in time due to the quarantine established in foreign ports (all ships arriving from Russia with another batch of refugees were kept in quarantine for a long time due to the terrible typhus epidemic, therefore they did not have time to make the required number of flights).

The command ordered the priority loading of the wounded and sick servicemen, but in reality it was not possible to transport the hospitals, since there was no transport. Moreover, the military who flocked to Novorossiysk began to unauthorizedly occupy the steamers, and the officials were more concerned about the export of property that could be sold at the end of the war.

On March 11, the commander-in-chief of the British troops in the region, General George Milne, and the commander of the Mediterranean fleet, Admiral Seymour, arrived from Constantinople to Novorossiysk. General Denikin was told that the British would only be able to take out 5,000-6,000 people.

At night, British naval vessels opened fire for the first time on the mountains surrounding Novorossiysk. The shelling was provoked by the fact that the Greens broke into the city prison and released several hundred prisoners who fled with them into the mountains.

On March 22, at about 22:00, the Red Army occupied the Abinskaya station and moved further towards Novorossiysk. The roads were clogged with carts abandoned in the impassable mud, cars, lordly carriages and military equipment... Only the railway remained suitable for movement - Denikin's headquarters train passed along it, accompanied by armored trains. Parts of Budyonny moved along the same road, leaving behind heavy weapons and artillery.

It was planned to send the troops to the Crimea. Each hull (in theory) was assigned a steamer. The horses and artillery were left behind.

On March 25, 1920, units of the Red Army, with the help of partisans, pushed the volunteers away from the Tunnelnaya station and went through the pass to the suburban Gaiduk station. All railway tracks at the station were jammed with freight and passenger cars, which forced the White Guards to abandon three armored trains here.

On the night of March 26 in Novorossiysk, they burned down warehouses, oil tanks and detonated shells. The evacuation was carried out under the cover of the second battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers and an Allied squadron under the command of Admiral Seymour, which shelled the mountains, preventing the Reds from approaching the city.

At dawn on March 26, the Italian transport "Baron Beck" entered the Tsemesskaya Bay. People rushed about, not knowing where he would land. Panic reached its climax when the crowd rushed to the gangway of the last ship.

The date of March 27 has forever entered our history under the name "Novorossiysk catastrophe". On this day in 1920, the troops of the Red Army took Novorossiysk, defeating the Armed Forces of southern Russia. Soldiers of the 16th named Kikvidze rifle division in Novorossiysk. 1920 year.

Soldiers of the 16th named Kikvidze rifle division in Novorossiysk. 1920 year.

In the tragic days of March, the generals of the White Army showed neither unity in their actions, nor zeal in the defense of the city, nor justice in the distribution of seats on ships during the evacuation to Crimea. Up to 40 thousand Cossacks and 10 thousand volunteers retreated to Novorossiysk. This army, armed with powerful artillery and armored trains, would be quite enough for a long-term defense of the city surrounded by mountains. There was only one thing - a sensible leadership. This is what Colonel Yatsevich reported to the commander of the Don Army: “The hasty landing was not caused by the real situation at the front, which was obvious to me, as the last one to withdraw. No significant forces were advancing. But the squabble among people who believed in their vocation to lead the "Salvation of Russia" business went to the detriment of the interests of the further struggle. Anyone who could not evacuate had to endure terrible days of captivity. Some were shot, others were tortured in the dungeons of the Cheka, many were put behind barbed wire to die on starvation rations, and the "happiest" were immediately mobilized and sent to the Polish front to defend their homeland, the same united and indivisible, but now not "white", but " red. " Even decades later, it is impossible to unequivocally take sides in this fratricidal Civil War. The Novorossiysk writer Mikhail Glinistov said well about this in one of his works: "You don't need to divide us into red and white - we are just the Russian people." However, the Civil War did not provide for some kind of reconciliation between the belligerents. It was a battle of extermination. In the city, it all began two years before the "Novorossiysk catastrophe". A terrible symbol of this was the bloody massacre of the officers of the Varnavinsky Infantry Regiment, which influenced further tragic events in the Black Sea Fleet. In February 1918, the city council organized a holiday on the occasion of the return of the Varnavin infantry regiment from the Turkish front. It was the only unit that returned to its homeland with its full strength. At first, the soldiers and officers of the regiment agreed to side with the Soviets against the Kuban government, but then they decided to go home. The crew of the revolutionary destroyer "Kerch" intervened in the matter. The sailors arrested the officers of the regiment, and then drowned them at sea near the pier. Because of this, the White Guards, who occupied Novorossiysk in the summer of 1918, subsequently mercilessly exterminated the sailors. A monument to the perished Varnavians was erected on the pier, which did not last long, until the arrival of the Red Army units in March 1920. Novorossiysk and the surrounding area presented a terrible sight in the last days of March. This is how Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Dobrynin, chief of the operational department of the headquarters of the Don Army, describes what he saw in his memoirs: “Everything moved to Novorossiysk. In view of the dirt on the forest road, both troops and carts moved mainly along the railway track, delaying the already weak movement of trains. The entire track, roadside and adjacent forest paths were literally clogged with an endless sea of ​​horsemen, pedestrians, carts on which men, women, children sat, the sick lay, the corpses of the dead and the dead. One could observe heartbreaking scenes, how some woman, exhausted by the severity of the campaigns, with her hands ossified from the cold, held the remains of a creature dear to her, clinging to a frozen corpse, as if waiting for help from him. Little by little, oxen, horses and camels were exhausted and died in the sticky mud of black soil. And people kept going on and on, hoping to find salvation from the horrors of Bolshevism ... ”However, there were horrors of their own both on one side and on the other. “Novorossiysk, - wrote the researcher white movement Nikolai Lvov is a stone pit where the whole past perished ingloriously, all two and a half years of heroic efforts, this is the failure of everything that has been done, for which so many sacrifices have been made, so much inhuman suffering has been endured. " The remnants of the Volunteer Corps, subordinate to General Alexander Kutepov, took possession of most of the ships in the port. Volunteers kept a real line of defense in the port, holding back the elements from human bodies. The city was in agony. Because of the people who filled its streets, it became impassable. Quite a few citizens, even those entitled to boarding, were unable to get to the ships. The situation in the city, despite the presence of a huge number of military units out of control. The evacuation was carried out in an atmosphere of panic, during which, according to various estimates, several hundred people died. This episode is captured in the famous painting “The Flight of the Bourgeoisie from Novorossiysk. 1920 " Ivan Vladimirov, later People's Artist of the RSFSR. At that time, ships of a number of states were in the port. In addition to Russia, Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece and the United States took part in the evacuation. Many of the officers of the Armed Forces in the south of Russia who remained in Novorossiysk decided to commit suicide, preferring death to captivity. Historian Sergei Volkov in his book "The Tragedy of Russian Officers" writes about this: "The moment of our capture by the Bolsheviks defies description, some immediately preferred to commit suicide, I remember the captain of the Drozdovsky regiment, who was standing not far from me with his wife and two children, three and five years. Having crossed and kissed them, he shoots each of them in the ear, baptizes his wife, in tears says goodbye to her; and so; shot, she falls, and the last bullet into herself ... ". This is how old Russia was leaving. A monument dedicated to this event will soon appear in the city.

Thousands of officers, soldiers, Cossacks of the White Army and civilians were killed. In total, they managed to take out about 33 thousand people.

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Chronology of events

By March 11, 1920, the front line passed only 40-50 kilometers from Novorossiysk. The Don and Kuban armies, by that time completely disorganized, were retreating in great disarray. The defense was held only by the remnants of the Volunteer Army, by that time reduced to the Volunteer Corps, but they barely held back the onslaught of the Red Army. The Cossacks failed to break through to Taman, and as a result, many of them ended up in Novorossiysk with the sole purpose of getting on the ships. In total, the grouping of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia in the Novorossiysk region on the eve of the evacuation consisted of 25,200 bayonets and 26,700 sabers. Meanwhile, there were not enough steamers. Some of them were late due to stormy weather, some were unable to come to the rescue in time due to the quarantine established in foreign ports (all ships arriving from Russia with another batch of refugees were kept in quarantine for a long time due to the terrible typhus epidemic, therefore they did not have time to make the required number of flights).

The command ordered the priority loading of the wounded and sick servicemen, but in reality it was not possible to transport the hospitals, since there was no transport. Moreover, the military who flocked to Novorossiysk began to unauthorizedly occupy the steamers, and the officials were more concerned about the export of property that could be sold at the end of the war.

On the night of March 26, in Novorossiysk, they burned down warehouses, oil tanks and detonated shells. The evacuation was carried out under the cover of the second battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers and an Allied squadron under the command of Admiral Seymour, which shelled the mountains, preventing the Reds from approaching the city.

Evacuation officials

• The last commandant of Novorossiysk (from February to March 1920) was Major General Korvin-Krukovsky, Alexey Vladimirovich.
• The commission for organizing the evacuation was headed by General Kutepov.
• At the last moment (after March 20), the head of the communications service, Major General M.M. Ermakov, was engaged in the issues of evacuating troops to the Crimea.
• The head of the Black Sea province and the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the South Russian government was N. S. Karinsky.

Evacuation vessels

Russia

Italy

Great Britain

• battleship "Emperor of India"
• Hannover (captured from the Germans after World War I).
• merchant steamer Bremerhaven (captured from the Germans after the First World War).
• cruiser "Calypso" (HMS Calypso (D61))
• air transport "Pegasus" (HMS Pegasus (1917))
• 5 destroyers

France

• dreadnought
• armored cruiser "Waldeck Russo"
• destroyer???
• gunboat???

Greece

• destroyer "Ierax"

USA

• destroyer???
• cruiser "Galveston" (USS Galveston (CL-19))

Massacre of prisoners

Covering the evacuation of the Volunteer Corps, the 3rd Kalmyk Don Regiment, consisting of the Salsk Cossacks-Kalmyks, was left on the shore and, together with their families, who were traveling in the regiment's wagon train, was captured by the Reds. The captured Kalmyks were "passed" through the formation, chopping every second with sabers. Many of the remaining officers in Novorossiysk The armed forces Southern Russia committed suicide, not wanting to be captured, and many of those who were still captured were executed. Here are typical memories of those events:

The moment we were captured by the Bolsheviks defies description; some immediately preferred to commit suicide. I remember the captain of the Drozdovsky regiment, who was standing not far from me with his wife and two children, three and five years old. Having crossed and kissed them, he shoots each of them in the ear, baptizes his wife, in tears says goodbye to her; and now, shot, she falls, and the last bullet into herself….

The road went past the infirmary. The wounded officers, on crutches, begged us to take them with us, not to leave them red. We walked in silence, looking down and looking away. We were very ashamed, but we ourselves were not sure whether we would be able to board the steamers.

NOVOROSSIYSK DISASTER (Death of the Don Army)

Andrey Vadimovich Venkov, Moscow

Photos of the evacuation of the Don Army from Novorossiysk from the personal collection of Alexei Ivanov (Great Britain).

Researchers of the history of the White movement in the South of Russia have put forward many versions to date explaining its defeat in the fight against the Red Army. Was this a mistake or a whole chain of mistakes of one of the leaders of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, or was it a tragic and fatal coincidence of circumstances, many tactical mistakes and differences of opinion among the participants in the anti-Bolshevik resistance? Historians are engaged in the analysis of the situation that developed at that time ... What happened in Novorossiysk in March 1920, when the white units, leaving the city in a hurry, left thousands of their comrades-in-arms, including the Cossacks, on the shore, to be devoured by the red, is undoubtedly a disaster, a national tragedy. How did it become possible that even recent allies who left the same Imperial army, having the same concepts of Honor and Dignity, mired in political squabbles and strife, allowed the loss of the combat capability of the units entrusted to them, and the units themselves indulged in panic and “selfish” interests - their own salvation and evacuation? Why did the command allow the disorganization of its troops, why weren't the proper measures taken to ensure the defense of Novorossiysk and the safe evacuation of all comers? Many of these questions remain open. The article by A.V. VENKOVA is an attempt to reconstruct the course of those events. With this publication we open the cycle historical research dedicated to the Novorossiysk disaster. Almanac edition

The winter campaign of 1919-1920 was lost by the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. After an unsuccessful campaign against Moscow, the volunteer army was reduced to a corps and was reassigned to the commander of the Don army V.I. Sidorin. The Donets, drained of blood in the war of annihilation, suffered terrible losses in February 1920 during a mediocre march to Torgovaya, the best Don cavalry froze to death in the snow-covered steppe. The Kubans did not accept the coup that Wrangel and Pokrovsky had perpetrated in Yekaterinodar, and they threw the white front in regiments. As a result, in the last major battle on the Don land - near the village of Yegorlykskaya - the Whites were defeated and began to retreat to the Kuban and the Black Sea.

“On February 19, the Horse Group crossed the Kuga-Eya River,” recalled General Golubintsev. - From here begins our slow, but non-stop departure to the Kuban along a large, washed out by melting snow, muddy and viscous road to Yekaterinodar ... The thaw that began around February 20 turned the black earth soil into a dirty, sucking swamp. "

Artilleryman S. Mamontov, who was watching the retreating units of the 3rd Don Corps, recalled: “... On the side of the road, they dragged themselves without a formation, when in single file, when in small groups, donets without rifles and a peak. Lances and rifles lay there, thrown along the road. The Donets threw down their weapons so that they would not be sent into battle. "

February 19 (March 3) M.N. Tukhachevsky, commander of the troops of the Caucasian Front of the Reds, gave the order: “The enemy, shot down along the entire front and losing prisoners, retreats beyond the river Eya. I order the armies of the front, rapidly continuing the offensive, to bring down the enemy from the line of this river ... ". All four armies, fighting against the Donets and the "volunteers", had to fight in one direction: the 8th at Kushchevskaya - Timoshevskaya; 9th - on Staroleushkovskaya - Medvedovskaya; 10th - on Tikhoretskaya - Yekaterinodar; The 1st Cavalry was to, ahead of the 9th Army, strike through Staroleushkovskaya to cut off the retreat to Timoshevskaya for the "volunteers".

The Donets in this whole operation had to retreat by dirt roads through the mud between two railway branches. Moreover, “the Kuban people shamelessly robbed the Don refugees”, robbed the Don warehouses at the stations, and the Don people were forced to call an armored train from the front to protect them. As if in revenge, the best Don division, the 1st Don, chased the Kuban rebels - "green" all February near Yekaterinodar, and on February 20 (March 4) in the village of Slavyanskaya surrounded the demonstrating Cossacks of the 3rd and 4th Taman regiments, whipped every 10th and shot every 50th (36 flogged, 6 shot).

The appeal of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, General Denikin, on February 21 (March 5) - "the cry of a sick, tortured soul" - led to the fact that the army's spirit dropped to the limit. Contemporaries believed that the white cavalry was stronger than that of the Reds, but it could not be forced to go into battle.

The Don brigade of Morozov retained its combat capability in the troops of General Y. Slashchev, who defended the Crimea. On February 24-28 (March 8-12), the "second general battle of the Crimean campaign" took place here, and the Don people in the battles at Perekop proved to be excellent, chopping and chasing the red units.

The successful battles of General Slashchev on the approaches to the Crimea and on the isthmuses themselves gave the White command the idea to leave the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and the Kuban and take refuge with the most combat-ready units on the peninsula, expecting new uprisings against the Bolsheviks. The hopes for these uprisings were held by the entire white movement.

On the Don and Kuban, everything was much worse.

At Zlodeyskaya, the Milyutinsky regiment was overtaken and defeated by the Budennovists. The machine-gun command of the regiment with 6 machine guns, led by a full George Knight Ya. Lagutin switched to the red ones.

On February 22 (March 6), retreating through the impassable mud behind the Chelbas River, the 9th Don Division (the 10th, not trusting the Kuban, was transferred to Tikhoretskaya) was attacked under the Pavlovsk cavalry corps of the Redneck. I had to abandon the carts and artillery. According to I.I. Dedova, 3 regiments surrendered. The refugees, having chopped off the lines, mingled with the troops.

Having suffered several severe defeats in a row, Don Cossacks General Pavlov's groups were ready to mutiny. General Dyakov wrote: “The mood of the Cossacks upon their return was simply dangerous to the general. Pavlov was openly hostile. At the military council of senior commanders, which was later called the "riot of the Don generals," the latter suggested (advised) General Pavlov, in view of the situation that had arisen, to lay down his command.

General Pavlov conceded, and the command was taken over by the gene popular among the rank-and-file Cossacks. Sektev. In the form of repression, the latter was displaced by the headquarters and replaced by a gene. I. Popov ".

According to Rakovsky, the Don generals were unhappy that Pavlov “1) froze the cavalry, 2) the indiscriminate battle at Torgovaya, 3) spending the night in the open steppe after this battle, 4) his incomprehensible behavior both on February 12 and during the battles 13 -17 February, and. Having gathered for a meeting and discussed Pavlov's behavior, they decided to immediately remove him and remove him from command of the equestrian group and put General Sekretev in his place. Com. Donarmiya on February 25 agreed with this change. "

The angry Cossacks remembered Mamontov, under whom they allegedly did not know defeat. There were rumors that Mamontov was poisoned. The propaganda department of the ARSUR sent agents to the troops to clarify that Mamontov had died of typhus. The Cossacks did not believe. “When the 4th Don Corps, having learned about the death of the gene. Mamontov, was ready to go to Yekaterinodar to find the culprits of his death, to calm down the Cossacks and put the remains of the corps in order, general. I. D. Popov was appointed its commander. " On February 27 (March 11), General I.D. Popov took command.

On February 25 (March 9), when the troops retreated beyond Chelbas, Denikin's order on the upcoming evacuation of Novorossiysk became known ...

The Donets began to retreat beyond the Beysug River. Communication between the corps was unreliable. The commander of the Don Army, General V.I. Sidorin flew around the hulls in an airplane with the pilot Strelnikov. While crossing Beysug near the village of Plastunovskaya, Sidorin personally took part in the battle, rushed with General Kalinovsky between units, but only the Nazarovsky regiment of Colonel Laschenov went into battle. Sidorin, surrounded by an escort, watched the attack from the hill ...

The Nazarovites, of course, were overturned. The Reds were chasing.

An eyewitness conveys the following scene: Sidorin and Kalinovsky jumped on their horses, Sidorin was still waiting for something in thought. Podesaul Zolotarev turned to him:

- Your Excellency, it's time to go, or we will be hacked to death.

- Really? Well, let's go ...

Sidorin, overshadowed by the St. George's badge of the convoy, galloped off ...

Colonel Kislov noted that the Cossacks had lost their fighting spirit, that they were against the evacuation to the Crimea, they wanted to go to Persia or beyond the Caucasian ridge. General Kelchevsky, the former chief of staff of the Don army, appointed by Denikin as the war minister of the new government of the South of Russia, but remained with the Don, demanded to retreat with the "volunteers" to Novorossiysk. The corps commanders considered it necessary, first of all, to give the troops a rest. General Starikov said: "There is no other way out, we must take the Cossacks to the Kuban, give them a rest, they will come to their senses and again follow me into battle."

Sidorin believed that the Soviets were going through the same crisis as the Whites, the Red Army was melting, an insurrectionary movement was growing in its rear, the same Makhnovists ... He proposed to attack, support the Kuban in the battles for Tikhoretskaya, to achieve the rise of the entire Kuban Cossacks. There was the same mud under the red ones. In advancing, they stretched out their forces. In the end, they were recently beaten near Bataysk and on Manych.

Sidorin insisted, and the Don people decided to meet the Reds at the village Korenovskaya (Tikhoretskaya had just surrendered). The army headquarters, however, was transferred to Yekaterinodar.

February 28 (March 12) Sidorin arrived at Denikin's headquarters. Denikin on that day ordered the troops to withdraw beyond the Kuban and defend Yekaterinodar and Novorossiysk. Denikin believed that the Kuban people “would soon come to their senses, feeling the full weight of the power of the communists. An uprising in the Kuban is inevitable; defending the Kuban River, we will wait for him and by common forces will chase the enemy. "

Sidorin, nevertheless, handed over to the troops to prepare for battle, before reaching the Kuban.

The most efficient unit remained the grouped cavalry. Golubintsev recalled that on February 28 (March 12) the equestrian group departed to Korenovskaya. “A message was received here that the Commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin, is arriving in an airplane tomorrow, that is, on the 29th, to manage the operations in the village of Korenovskaya. This message did not add much enthusiasm, because Sidorin was not at all popular with either the command staff or the Cossacks, and about his military and combat qualities and, especially, political tendencies, as well as the methods of conducting operations, the opinion was far from his benefit ".

Arriving at Korenovskaya, Sidorin received a report that the enemy had disappeared. General Guselshchikov reported: "Budyonny went around the right flank."

A review was held near the village of Korenovskaya, after which Sidorin delivered “a rather empty and cliche speech about the need to win and fight. The Cossacks listened and were silent, wrapping themselves in tattered greatcoats and shifting from foot to foot in leaky wet boots and footwear. " Sidorin did not receive a "cheerful response" from the officers either.

Instead of the expected battle, according to Golubintsev's recollections, the troops in the rear heard gunfire and began a hasty withdrawal and fighting for crossings across the numerous flooded rivers.

Golubintsev, in his memoirs, described the path of the equestrian group from Korenovskaya to Yekaterinodar. He lay across Plastunovskaya, Dinskaya. At the Kachati River, covering the crossing, the 29th Cavalry Regiment went into a cavalry attack. “The sad figure of General Sidorin, wrapped in a cloak, was drawn on the mound. With a convoy of cadets, the gene went passively and helplessly. Sidorin from mound to mound, sadly listening to the firefight. "

O. Rotova recalled that the 25th Kochetovsky foot regiment was also dissatisfied with the command: “Where was our notorious commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin? Where were our Don "ministers" who talked a lot, but did nothing? In the regiment, both the officers and the Cossacks said that they were very capable and active in meanness, dumping generals Krasnov, Denisov and Polyakov, and turned out to be not only worthless, but malicious destroyers to another ”.

All the time, while the Donets retreated to the Kuban and beyond the Kuban, significant changes took place at the top.

Denikin all the time tried to persuade the Cossack "chosen ones", the delegates of the Krugs and the Rada, to continue the joint struggle, but he received a blow from the other side. On February 28 (March 12), the commander of the Volunteer Corps, General Kutepov, sent him

a kind of telegraphic ultimatum, in which he demanded that a number of measures be taken "in order to evacuate the fighters for the idea of ​​the Volunteer Army," namely, from the moment the "volunteers" approached the village of Crimean transfer into the hands of the corps commander, that is, Kutepov, all power in the rear with dictatorial powers in the determination of the order of landing of units on transports and the provision of the exclusive control of the line of railways, all floating equipment and the fleet. In clause 5, Kutepov pointed out that the offices of the Headquarters and the Government should be loaded not earlier than the last “volunteer” unit loaded onto transports.

Offended Denikin replied, among other things, that "the volunteers should believe that the Commander-in-Chief will be the last to leave, if he does not die earlier." “This is the end,” said Denikin. "The moods that made such an appeal of the Volunteers to their Commander-in-Chief psychologically possible predetermined the course of events: on that day I decided to leave my post irrevocably."

Further more. On March 1 (14), the Don Army Circle and the Kuban Rada, at their meeting, decided to unite the Don and Kuban armies and offered general command to General Kelchevsky, chief of staff of the Don army. Kelchevsky replied: “This is a riot. I won't go for it. "

On March 2 (15), Kutepov, without the permission of the headquarters of the Don Army, withdrew the Volunteer Corps from Timashevskaya. Sidorin ordered Kutepov to counterattack and restore the situation. Kutepov did not fulfill the order ... The relationship between the "volunteers" and the Cossacks rolled downhill.

On March 3 (16), the Supreme Circle of Don Kuban and Terek terminated the alliance agreement with Denikin and decided to withdraw the Cossack troops from Denikin's subordination in operational terms. Denikin, who had left for Novorossiysk, in turn withdrew the Kutepov Volunteer Corps from Sidorin's command. "Volunteers" moved to Novorossiysk. General Kutepov was appointed commandant of the city. A. Gordeev believed that by this decision "all Cossack units were cut off from the opportunity to use naval means."

Don commander Sidorin, chieftain A.P. Bogaevsky and the Don generals were against the break with Denikin. On March 4 (17), at a meeting in the village of Georgio-Afipskaya, Sidorin said: "I have a sense of duty, I will hold out to the last." Under pressure from the generals, the Don delegation of the Supreme Circle called for the renewal of the alliance with Denikin. Sidorin gave the order: “The Volunteer Corps has withdrawn from the Don Army, which, after retreating beyond the Kuban, is ordered to defend the Kuban line from the mouth of the Laba to Fedorovka, inclusive. The decision to break with Denikin is annulled. "

Having crossed the Kuban, the Donets found themselves in very unfavorable conditions: "the low and swampy bank of the Kuban River and the numerous rivers flowing from the mountains with swampy banks made it difficult to move." The foothills were full of Green troops. Donets tried to negotiate with them. So, the Consolidated Partisan Division, marching in the vanguard, tried to negotiate with them - not to touch each other.

Having crossed to the left bank of the Kuban, the Donets moved part of their forces up the river in order to get in touch with the Kuban corps.

Nevertheless, the command realized that the Kuban line could not be held, that a retreat was inevitable. 5 (18) March Sidorin flew to Novorossiysk to Denikin and discussed the ways of retreat.

Sidorin proposed to withdraw the Don army to Gelendzhik and Tuapse. Denikin persuaded to lead the donors to Taman Peninsula, covered by "volunteers", "where a light defense is possible and enough funds to wait for the time, where there is a large number of naval assets and the possibility of transferring units to the Crimea.

But Sidorin objected that a large number of refugees would move to Taman along with the Cossacks, which would completely change the situation. "

Denikin insisted. On March 6 (19), at the Georgio-Afipskaya meeting of the Don commanders, the decision of the Commander-in-Chief to lead the troops to Taman was approved.

General Kelchevsky left for Denikin and reported on the decision, but asked that the 1st Don Division, located in the Crimean area, be among the first to be evacuated from Novorossiysk.

This decision was not destined to come true.

On March 6 (19), the Reds began crossing the Kuban at Ust-Labinskaya and Varenikovskaya, bypassing the Don army from both flanks, and then crossing the river in Yekaterinodar itself. General Konovalov with the 2nd Don and 3rd Kuban corps defended unsuccessfully, and the Reds cut the bottom into two parts. "Such tirelessness, energy and high activity of the Bolsheviks were completely unexpected for everyone," wrote journalist Rakovsky.

The 4th Don corps (about 17-18 thousand horsemen), cut off from the Don army (the corps kept in touch with the 1st, 2nd and 4th Kuban corps), concentrated on March 6 (19) near the village of Takhtamukai. Communication with the Don Army and the High Command was interrupted, but a message was received that “the Don Army, by order of the Army Circle, broke off all communications with the Volunteer Army. and the chiefs of brigades and divisions are encouraged to act at their own discretion independently.

Here, on the way, a meeting of senior leaders took place, at which they decided, without separating, to act together and retreat to Georgia, where they expected to rest and recover in order to continue the struggle again. " The temporary command of the 4th Don Corps was assumed by the chief of the 10th Don Division, General Nikolaev.

The main forces of the Don army - 1, 2 and 3 Don corps did not have time to the Taman Peninsula. The Reds blocked their way.

On March 7 (20), Denikin gave his last directive: "The volunteer corps now with part of its forces, bypassing the roundabout route, occupy the Taman Peninsula and protect the northern road from Temryuk from the Reds." That is, the Donets were still supposed to retreat to Taman, and the "volunteers" were supposed to cover their flanking march. But, contrary to Denikin's order, part of the "volunteers" who had previously covered the lower reaches of the Kuban, under pressure from the Reds went to Novorossiysk.

The 1st Don Division, stationed in the Crimean region, could restore the situation with a blow to Varenikovskaya (only 30 km from the Crimean), but did not receive such an order. 7 (20) March threw the 1st Don Division and left without warning it to Novorossiysk volunteer cavalry Barbovich. Chesnokov's brigade (Klyastitsky and Mariupol hussars and Chuguevsky uhlan regiments), formed on the Don, joined Barbovich. An eyewitness left a colorful description of this 3,000th mass of cavalry: “A surprisingly beautiful sight was presented by the long chains of horsemen of various regiments with their colorful weathercocks on the peaks stretching along the canvas railroad».

The Don command later considered this decision of Kutepov fatal for the Don army. "The movement of the Don corps was not only late in time, but in general it was impracticable: it was impossible to demand from the Don corps frustrated by the withdrawal to perform a kind of" chasse croise "with the Volunteer Corps, moreover, by means of a flank march in relation to the advancing enemy," I wrote. .Oprit.

On March 9 (22), three Don corps occupied Ilskaya and Abinskaya and pressed against Crimean, which was packed with "volunteers" going to Tunnelnaya. The 1st Don Division, contrary to logic, received an order to go to Taman on March 9 (22).

The receding Donets were "covered" by the "greens" who persuaded the Cossacks to go over to them. In Smolensk, the 4th and 5th Cavalry Brigades of the 2nd Don Corps, which was now headed by General A.M. Sutulov. But when the army passed, the brigades nevertheless moved after it, leaving the "green" 500 men with weapons. In Kholmsk, the Cherkassk regiment went to the "greens".

On March 10 (23), the vanguard of the 1st Don Division (Ataman Regiment, 6th Hundred Life Cossacks and a squadron of the Life Guards Horse Grenadier Regiment) occupied Anapa, but further to Taman the way was closed.

On March 11 (24), Anapa was attacked by the Reds (78 and 79 rifle regiments and the 16th Cavalry Division), and the 1st Don Division, having lost 44 Cossacks, withdrew to Tunnel. The Reds boastfully declared that they had destroyed the entire Ataman regiment.

General Dragomirov suggested that the battle-worthy cavalry that had been knocked together into a fist and thrown into a raid along the red rear, so that it, passing the Kuban and Don, came to the Crimean peninsula from the north, from the direction of Perekop. All these plans remained unfulfilled.

“On March 11, the Volunteer Corps, two Donskys and the Kuban division that joined them ... concentrated in the Crimean region, heading with their entire mass to Novorossiysk. The catastrophe was becoming inevitable and inevitable, ”summed up Denikin.

"Volunteers" (Kornilovites and Alekseevites) occupied the front from Tunnelnaya to Abrau-Dyurso. The Donets unfolded along the railway. The headquarters of the Don army still stuck out in the Crimean one.

The pier of the cement plant in Novorossiysk

On the night of 11-12 (24-25) March in Novorossiysk, at the pier near the cement plant, Denikin's train, guarded by an English guard, stopped. On March 12 (25), next to Denikin's train, the Donskoy Ataman train stopped, guarded by cadets and an ataman escort. At 9 am Sidorin arrived in an armored train.

Barricades were erected near the ships, guarded by "volunteer" guards with machine guns. The mood of the "volunteers" was obvious: "The Russian units were better preserved than the Cossacks ... Cossacks, in most cases, lost their formations, discipline and held meetings. They clearly expressed hostility to the main command, and it is quite understandable that the command did not want to bring the infection into Crimea. "

To guide the evacuation of Denikin, a special commission was created, headed by the "venerable general" Vyazmitinov. Sidorin also appointed an evacuation commission consisting of the Don artillery inspector General Maydel, two generals I.T. and K.T. Kalinovskikh and Colonel of the General Staff Dobrynin. But the "volunteer" guards were obeyed only by General Kutepov ...

Denikin himself, on whom the assassination attempt was being prepared, was guarded by the British. But Sidorin acted according to the chain of command.

Eyewitnesses have preserved the content of the negotiations between Denikin and the Don command on March 12 (25).

Denikin: The situation, as you know, is serious. The enemy is already approaching Abrau-Dyurso. Our rearguards offer little resistance. There are few ships in the roadstead. True, the British promised that four ships were about to arrive. But we must count on the worst and keep in mind that we can only withdraw all those who are combat-ready and those who face the imminent reprisals of the Bolsheviks. Tell me how many officers you have to take out.

Sidorin: About five thousand.

Denikin: Well, we will cope with this, but all the units of the Don army, of course, will be difficult to load, especially if the transports do not arrive in time.

Sidorin: But why are the steamers engaged in volunteers? On my way to you, I personally saw the volunteer guards at the steamers.

Denikin: Rest assured, the steamers will be distributed fairly - evenly.

Arriving in Novorossiysk, the headquarters of the Don Army first of all reported to Sidorin that all the ships were already occupied by "volunteers." Sidorin with the ranks of his staff went to General Romanovsky. He confirmed: "Yes, but there will be more ships."

Then at breakfast at Bogaevsky's, where Denikin and Romanovsky were present. Sidorin again (rather rudely) spoke about transport and loading. Annoyed Denikin left breakfast to his train.

All this time the volunteers were loading artillery and property onto the British battleship "Hanover", and their wounded on the steamer "Vladimir".

The 1st Don Division at that time was fighting at the Small Tunnel, repulsing the cavalry of the 8th Red Army.

At 6 o'clock in the evening, at a meeting with Denikin, the last to be announced was the list of ships that would fit. 4 were intended for "volunteers", 4 - for the Don, 1 - for the Kubans. Another 5 thousand people could be loaded onto British warships. The rest had to go to Gelendzhik.

From the evening of March 12 (25), Novorossiysk began to fill up with Don units. By the morning of the 13th (26) it was packed with Donets and Kalmyks. But the Don evacuation commission was able to "intercept" only one steamer "Russia" for 4 thousand people.

The Reds were restrained by the Kornilovites, the Alekseevites and the Don Consolidated Partisan Division. The 1st Don Division came to Novorossiysk.

Denikin gave the order to send General Karpov (cadets, riflemen and machine gunners) to the rearguard of the Don training brigade, but Sidorin left the "partisans" in the rearguard.

In the morning, General Kutepov came to Denikin and reported that at night it was necessary to leave the city, since according to rumors, the red cavalry was going to Gelendzhik. Then the Donets visited Denikin again. Denikin replied to the Don delegation: “Gentlemen, wasn’t there

it would be fair if the ships were first of all provided to those who did not want to fight, and the volunteers would cover their embarkation on ships. Nevertheless, I am doing my best to take out the donuts ”.

The battle was fought at Borisovka, six kilometers northeast of Novorossiysk. White armored trains and the English dreadnought "Emperor of India" with artillery held back the advance of the Reds.

Up to 100 thousand troops have accumulated in Novorossiysk. The British landed a landing - the Scots with machine guns. There were also tanks here. But all this mass of troops, pressed three times by the weakest enemy (the 8th Army was advancing on Novorossiysk, the 9th was behind at Yekaterinodar, Budyonny's cavalry turned to Maikop), did not think about defense.

The best units remained in the rearguard — the Kornilovites, the Alekseevites, the "partisans", and the regular cavalry. But as the Mariupol hussar L. Shishkov recalled, “the occupation of the position was only indicated by weak units, not united by a single command; there were no sufficient forces at the disposal of General Barbovich, the chief of defense of the northern sector of Novorossiysk, - everything that got into the battle line in the morning tried to load itself in addition to the permission of the authorities. " The head of the Consolidated Partisan Division, Colonel Yasevich, without receiving directives and guidance, sent Captain Korev to the Kornilovsk division. He returned and reported that the Kornilov division "had already left for Novorossiysk, and at this moment the last outposts were being removed."

So, the Kornilovites and the Alekseevites came to Novorossiysk and at 6 pm they began loading.

The 1st Don Division was waiting for loading nearby, but the promised steamer did not fit. Of the entire division, 3,500 people were later loaded onto the schooner "Danube" and sent 450 officers and Cossacks of the Life Guards Cossack Regiment and 312 of the Life Guards Atamansky.

Enraged, Sidorin went with General Dyakov to Denikin, who had General Holman. The following scene played out:

Sidorin: I demand from you a direct and honest answer, will Dyakov's division be transported?

Denikin: I cannot guarantee you anything. Your units are unwilling to fight to buy time. Under such conditions, nothing can be promised.

Sidorin: However, you have found ships for the Volunteer Corps. The volunteers are ready to sail, and my army is abandoned. This is treachery and meanness! You have always deceived me and betrayed the donors.

Holman: Calm down, General. Is it possible to talk like that with the Commander-in-Chief? Calm down, I'll talk to Admiral Seymour, and I'm sure he will do everything to take your division out.

Sidorin (to Dyakov): You have heard that I cannot get anything from this general! Get on your horses and make your way to Gelendzhik ...

At 7 pm the regular cavalry withdrew from their positions and, leaving patrols, went to Novorossiysk, where they arrived at 10 pm.

Until 17 o'clock, the artillery of the Consolidated Partisan Division fired directly under the walls of the city. Then the "partisans" went to Novorossiysk, but could not submerge.

At dusk, the headquarters of the Volunteer Corps and the Don Army boarded the steamer Tsarevich Georgy. “A nightmare reigned on the shore and in the city, crammed with crowds of people and a mass of horses abandoned to their fate, which we will not describe, because it is well known enough,” wrote I. Opritz.

On the morning of March 14 (27), the headquarters were in Feodosia. On March 15 (28), here, at the Astoria Hotel, at a meeting, it was calculated that 35 thousand "volunteers" were taken out (recall that there were 10 thousand of them at the front) with all machine guns and several guns, "all volunteer rear agencies with personnel and property ". Dontsov was taken out 10 thousand without horses.

The Reds broke into Novorossiysk on March 14 (27). The first to go over to the side of the Soviets were the Kubans. Commander I. Uborevich reported: “The city was captured by a dashing raid cavalry division Ekimova. At about 9 o'clock, five divisions of the 8th and 9th armies entered the city ... The chief of the cavalry division, Yekimov, was awarded his Order of the Red Banner for his personal feat. "

In Novorossiysk, the Reds took 22 thousand prisoners.

The Donets considered Denikin to be the culprit of the surrender of such a number of troops and the culprit of the entire Novorossiysk catastrophe. They wrote that the transfer of the evacuation into the hands of Kutepov expressed in advance "the decision to export the Volunteer Corps at the expense of the Don Army and the doom of the latter to accelerated and complete decomposition."

If the Donets agreed to "to some extent" justify the position of Kutepov - he cared exclusively about his corps, "then the position of the Commander-in-Chief does not have such an excuse."

“General Denikin puts the blame for the non-removal of the Don corps on the Commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin, who had lost all command authority and for a long time doubted the desire of the ordinary Cossacks to go to the Crimea,” wrote Oprits. - However, after General Sidorin's report on March 5 on the result of the meeting of the Don chiefs who decided to go to the Crimea, even though through Taman, there could be no room for such a doubt.

The loss of command authority by General Sidorin was revealed many days before March 12, and nothing prevented General Denikin from asking Donskoy Ataman to promptly replace General Sidorin with another donor (Generals Guselshchikov, Abramov, Sekretev). "

The "volunteers" blamed the Cossacks for everything. S. Mamontov wrote: “Both the Don people and the Kuban people said that they did not want to go to Crimea. Actually, they themselves did not know what they wanted ... The Cossacks were ordered by General Denikin to withdraw to Taman, from where they, along with horses and property, could easily be transported to Kerch. The Cossacks did not go to Taman, but went partly to Georgia, and partly to Novorossiysk, where they disorganized transport and filled the embankments. There they suddenly wanted to go to Crimea. "

Mutual accusations are as if the case needed to be resolved in one day.

Having 100 thousand soldiers and occupying excellent positions near Novorossiysk, the white command could hold out for at least another week and for several flights (from Novorossiysk to Evpatoria the steamers took 6 hours) to transport everyone from Novorossiysk to Crimea.

According to the head of the rearguard, who is also the head of the Consolidated Partisan Division, “the hasty final loading on March 13 was not caused by the real situation at the front, which was obvious to me, as the last one to withdraw. No significant forces were advancing ... If there was even a weak attempt to control by General Kutepov or Barbovich, it would have cost nothing to hold Novorossiysk for another two or three days, indicating only the line of rearguard battles and areas for those units that still did not have vehicles ... Unfortunately, neither General Kutepov nor General Barbovich not only did not seek contact with their units, but even turned their backs on me, since neither one nor the other answered who was on my right and left and what plan of action they had outlined ... Meanwhile if it were not for this deception, that is, if I knew that there were no ships for the division, I would have stayed with the division in Kirillovka and, of course, would have lasted the whole day of March 14, if I had armored trains with me. "

The Consolidated Partisan Division fought its last battle at Kabardinka, after the Novorossiysk disaster. The remains of it were picked up by English and French ships.

But the high command was not in the mood for defense ...

And most importantly, the resources of the Crimea and the prospects of struggle, as the "volunteers" saw them, are not taken into account.

It was planned to leave the Cossacks on their home territory... The Reds could not shoot such a number of prisoners or even put them in camps. Moreover, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, at the request of the Congress of Labor Cossacks, announced an amnesty to all labor Cossacks in the white camp who got there after mobilization.

The white command firmly knew that the amnesty announced by the state was one thing, and the personal scores that must inevitably appear in the villages between the defeated and newly-emerged victors was another. The Cossacks left on the coast, amnestied by the Bolsheviks, were bound to revolt. It was then that the surviving "volunteers" should have appeared from the Crimea.

But this idea was not properly worked out. Donskoy officer I. Savchenko recalled: "The volunteer army ... did not even have time to leave the secret safehouse where we, the prisoners, could appear to receive directives and instructions."

The fate of the units abandoned in Novorossiysk was sad. This is what one of the officers of the Consolidated Partisan Division wrote in his diary: “We learned that everyone who could not dive went to Gelendzhik, but near Kabardinka the greens cut the road in a place where there was no way to turn around. Six times ours went on the attack, but to no avail. One hundred with a machine gun held a 20,000 army. Some rushed into the sea on horseback. They were picked up by French military ships. The Reds walked behind. The rest scattered, in all directions, over the mountains, in order to either get to the green or die of starvation. "

The same fate befell the remnants of the Life Guards of the Ataman Regiment, which moved from Novorossiysk to Tuapse, but on the way near Kabardinka were crushed by the retreating Circassians and lost 300 Cossacks and 18 officers. Podesaul Shirokov shot himself. Senior officer of the regiment esaul L.V. Vasiliev rushed into the sea right on horseback, followed by the captain Ivanov, drove up Bozhkov. Sotnik Shchepelev agreed to surrender the survivors. The captives were captives Rudakov, Klevtsov (having lost their pince-nez) and P. Losev.

“The blasphemous abuse of the Reds, the fishing out of our crowd of Kalmyks and those suspected of being officers, and their executions on the spot made a very heavy impression,” recalled P. Losev, who later ended up in the Red Army and deserted to the Poles.

Ordinary atamans were enrolled in the Red Army. The 1st hundred of the regiment in full strength became the 3rd hundred of one of the red divisions, the Cossacks of the other five hundred were assigned to the infantry companies.

The Don Plastun brigade was thrown at the pier in Novorossiysk. The head of the brigade, Colonel A.S. Kostryukov, shot himself in front of the line.

General Guselshchikov, having abandoned the rest of his corps, came to the pier with the Gundorov regiment. From the steamer "Nikolay" a certain staff officer announced: "Direction to your regiment in marching order on Tuapse." After long bickering, General Guselshchikov declared that “if the regiment is not loaded, the steamer will not leave the pier, but will be sunk together with the headquarters. The officer agreed. The gangplank was immediately lowered, and the regiment, abandoning the saddled horses on the bank, began to load onto the steamer. "

The loading ended at dawn. The steamer was leaving under the fire of the Bolsheviks. “A lot of people rushed to swim behind the steamer, but those killed by the Bolsheviks were drowning before our eyes,” an eyewitness recalled.

Many of the Cossacks abandoned on the shore, without postponing things on the back burner, began to ask for the Red Army, parts of which entered Novorossiysk. They immediately entered into negotiations on this matter with the 21st Rifle Division of the Red Cossacks of the 7th Don Regiment of the Young Army. 13 junior officers and 170 Cossacks of this regiment were enlisted in the Red Army and brought together into two squadrons led by their own officers.

The 4th Don Corps all this time was retreating through the village of Bakinskaya to Saratovskaya. Moreover, the donors of the 79th and 80th cavalry regiments were in their repertoire. "The Cossacks of these regiments saw silver money in canvas bags, they say that they" robbed "the carts of the Kuban Treasury stuck in a jam on the bridge so that it" did not get to the red. "

In the village of Saratov, the corps merged with the Kuban army.

General Shkuro suggested retreating to the "Maikop region, rich in bread," but a meeting of senior chiefs decided to go to the coast, on Tuapse.

Having made a difficult trip along the highway and having lost many horses, the Kuban and Don people went to Tuapse, where all dismounted and sick people were loaded onto the steamer "Tiger" and on March 19 (April 1) were sent to the Crimea.

In total, 57 thousand Don and Kuban Cossacks gathered in Tuapse. Most of the Cossacks here were Kubans. “… We kind of disappeared into the sea of ​​the Kuban people,” Golubintsev recalled 5. The Reds did not push here, and the Cossacks on the coast received almost a month's respite. In fact, for another month after the abandonment of Novorossiysk, more than 50 thousand combat-ready Cossacks held their defenses near the city, but were never transferred to the Crimea.

After the Novorossiysk catastrophe, the fate of the Don army was sealed.

On March 22 (April 4), General Denikin resigned his post. “The self-abolition of the Commander-in-Chief and his staff at the decisive moment of the Novorossiysk epic, in the conditions of the subsequent catastrophe, could not but lower the authority of General Denikin, already undermined by the winter failures of the South ... Among the Kuban and Don people, he fell irrevocably,” wrote IN. Oprits. General Wrangel, who took command, found that “the troops had gotten out of the hands of the commanders for months of indiscriminate retreat. Drunkenness, arbitrariness, robbery and even murder have become commonplace in most parts of the camp.

The collapse has also reached the top of the army. "

General Slashchev confirmed: "It was not an army, but a gang."

The Cossacks, left without horses, were gloomy. “If we are assigned to the infantry, we will go to the Reds,” they said. The troops were poor. “There is nothing to change underwear… it costs 10 thousand pairs to buy. We don't have that kind of money, ”one of the officers wrote in his diary. He later noted that there were cases of beating the Cossacks by officers.

One of his first orders "an infinite number of military units"Wrangel brought together in three corps: Kutepov's corps from the Volunteer Corps, Slashchev's corps from the" volunteer "units that had previously withdrawn to Crimea from the territory of Ukraine, and" the Don units were supposed to make up the Don Corps. "

On March 24 (April 6), 1920, the Separate Don Corps was formed from the units of the Don Army taken to the Crimea. Sidorin remained the corps commander, Kelchevsky was the chief of staff.

However, soon the Volunteer Command, in order to unconditionally subordinate the Cossacks to itself, provoked a conflict and brought the leadership of the Don corps to justice ...

Gene. Golubintsev. Russian Vendee. An outline of the civil war on the Don. 1917-1920. Munich. 1959, p. 154.

Mamontov S. Trekking and Horses // Don. 1994. No. 1. P.95.

Directives of the command of the fronts of the Red Army. T.2.M. 1972.S. 497.

Gorodovikov O.I. Memories. M. 1957.S. 100.

Oprits I.N. Life Guards Cossack E.V. regiment during the revolution and civil war. 1917-1920. Paris. 1939.S. 284.

Dedov I.I. In saber hikes. Rostov-on-Don. 1989.S. 155.

Oprits I.N. Decree. op. P.277.

Cit. by: Buguraev M. Regarding the raid, gene. Pavlova // Darling land. No. 36, 1961, p. 8.

Padalkin A. Supplement to the work of E. Kovaleva // Dear Land. 1960. No. 31. С.11.

Its the same. in memory of General Ivan Danilovich Popov // Dear Land. 1971. No. 95. P.43.

Gene. Golubintsev Decree. op. S. 154-155.

In the same place. P.155.

In the same place. P.157.

Rotova O. Memories // Don army in the fight against the Bolsheviks. M. 2004.S. 85.

A.A. Gordeev History of the Cossacks. Part 4. Moscow, 1993. P.331.

In the same place.

In the same place. P.329.

In the same place. P. 331.

Padalkin A. Novorossiysk - April 1920 // Native land. 1972. No. 98. S. 19.

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