How many campaigns were made by the white army. The first Kuban ("ice") campaign of the volunteer army. Movement to Yekaterinodar
There were just over four thousand of them. But all of them are ideological, responsible people, for whom the concept of "Fatherland" was not just a pretentious figure of speech. By the way, by the time they left Rostov, there were sixteen thousand officers in the city who did not want to take part in the resistance of the Reds, who were waiting for "whose will take." After the Bolshevik army entered there under the command of Sievers, some of them were demonstratively shot. Just because the officers .... Yes, and the Rostov man in the street, who did not want to sacrifice even a handful of his personal reserves for the sake of providing for the Volunteer Army, was later forced to give the Red "liberators of the working people" everything they demanded for their own needs.
Went out to wake up
In contrast to the rest, those who came out on a frosty February night into the cold southern steppes clearly knew what kind of destruction was taking possession of the country. And they had a clear plan, having united with the units of the separatist Kuban Regional Council that had ignominiously fled from Yekaterinodar, in fact re-subordinating them and the region to the interests of a united and indivisible Russia, to recapture the city, making it the center of anti-Bolshevik resistance.
Interestingly, almost simultaneously with this, similar movements began other serious formations of anti-Bolshevik resistance. So, in order to save the personnel, at the initial stage, infected with Cossack separatism, the Don Cossack army - the Don Army, partially demoralized after the suicide of Ataman Kaledin, set out on the Steppe campaign from Novocherkassk. At the same time, from the Romanian front in early March, they began to break through the chaos civil war the territory of historical Russia to the Don Russian volunteers under the command of Mikhail Gordeevich Drozdovsky, along the legendary Yassy - Don route. Subsequently, it was the "blackbirds" that would beat off Rostov from the Reds.
General Mikhail Alekseev. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
In the meantime, it was in the upcoming campaign that the backbone of the Volunteer Army was formed, its units, which subsequently went through the entire civil war. So, at that time it consisted of an officer's regiment under the command of the valiant General Sergei Leonidovich Markov, his fighters, recognizable a mile away by their black uniforms and white caps, so they will later be called “Markovites”. And also the Kornilov shock regiment, made up of veteran patriots of the First World (Great) War and the soldiers of the sovereign Tekin (Turkmen) convoy - the same black uniforms, but also the symbol of the Christian army on the banner, cockades and stripes - the head of Adam in the form of a skull and bones, as well as red crowns of caps, after the death of the commander, they will also be called by his name - "Kornilovites". Plus the Partisan regiment of the Don Cossacks of General Bogaevsky, the Junker battalion, consisting mainly of hot, but very young junkers and students, the Czechoslovak engineering battalion and three cavalry divisions: officer, Don and partisan. And also ten guns. And that's all. At the same time, the volunteers at that time were opposed by the hastily mobilized, but rather large and, unlike them, the well-armed Red Army. In each battle, the "whites" had to come into contact with enemy units five and six times opposing them in number. But they responded with courage, determination and loyalty to their cause - in all eighty days, the volunteers retreated only once, but more on that later.
"As long as there is life, as long as there is strength, not everything is lost, they will see a" light "flickering faintly, they will hear a voice calling to fight - those who have not yet woken up, - wrote the participant of the" Ice Campaign ", later Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Army of the South Russia, General Anton Ivanovich Denikin. "This was the whole deep meaning of the First Kuban campaign. You should not approach with cold argumentation of politics and strategy the phenomenon in which everything is in the field of spirit and feat. Volunteers walked along the free steppes of the Don and Kuban. army - small in number, ragged, hunted, surrounded - as a symbol of persecuted Russia and Russian statehood. In the whole vast expanse of the country there was only one place where the tricolor national flag was openly fluttering - this was the headquarters of Kornilov. "
General Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseev, who stood at the origins of the movement, spoke no less definitely and tragically about the mission of the volunteers:
"We are leaving for the steppe, we can return only if there is God's mercy. But we need to light a torch so that there is at least one bright point among the darkness that engulfed Russia ..."
When snow and ice are no better than buckshot
Yes, it was here Alekseev himself, who stood at the source of the conspiracy against the holy emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov. Did he understand then that he was going out and leading people into a desperate rush for historical Russia, ascends to Ice Golgotha to atone for his own sin? Judging by his memoirs, we can conclude that this once favorite of the royal couple nevertheless realized all the criminality of that fatal participation in the removal of the sovereign.
"The leading figures of the army are aware that in the normal course of events Russia should approach the restoration of the monarchy, of course, with the amendments that are necessary to facilitate the gigantic work of government for one person," wrote Alekseev. "As the long experience of past events has shown, no other form government cannot ensure the integrity, unity, greatness of the state and unite into one whole the various peoples inhabiting its territory. ”So think almost all the officer elements that make up the Volunteer Army, jealously ensuring that the leaders do not deviate in their activities from this basic principle ".
But Pandora's box was already open, blood was pouring like a river, and a small handful of brave men fought in spite of the weather and heavy enemy fire - out of eighty days of the campaign, forty were fierce clashes with the "Reds".
“The army marched through continuous expanses of water and liquid mud ... - Denikin recalled. - People walked slowly, shuddering from the cold and dragging their feet heavily in their swollen boots filled with water. By noon, thick flakes of sticky snow began to blow, and the wind blew ...”
“It rained all night before, and it didn’t stop in the morning,” wrote another participant in the campaign. “The army marched through continuous expanses of water and liquid mud — on roads and without roads — swam and disappeared in the thick fog that drifted over the ground. Cold water soaked through the entire dress, flowed in sharp, piercing streams behind the collar. People walked slowly, shuddering from the cold and dragging their feet heavily in their swollen, water-filled boots. By noon, thick flakes of sticky snow fell, and a wind blew. It covers the eyes, nose, ears, catches the breath, and pricks the face, as if with sharp needles ... Meanwhile, the weather changed again: frost suddenly burst out, the wind intensified, a snowstorm began. People and horses were quickly overgrown with ice crust; everything seemed to be frozen to the bone; warped, as if a wooden garment had fettered the body; it is difficult to turn the head, it is difficult to raise the leg in the stirrup. "
There is a legend that the name "Ice Campaign" also appeared by chance. After the capture of the village of Novo-Dmitrievskaya, the young sister of mercy of the no less young Junker battalion, chilled to the bones during the march, but managed to warm up during the battle, said to General Markov: "It was a real ice campaign!"
"Yep, you're right!" - the general answered the girl.
When there is no death
Why did they win? Why did they never flinch under the onslaught of the elements and the armed enemy? Why were there no desertions, surrender?
“The paucity and impossibility of retreat, which would be tantamount to death, developed their own tactics among the volunteers,” wrote Alexander Trushnovich from Kornilov in exile. , undeniable in maneuver warfare, the truth entered the flesh and blood of the White Army volunteers. They always attacked. In addition, their tactics always included striking the enemy's flanks. The battle began with a frontal attack of one or two infantry units. The infantry advanced in a rare chain, from time to time. It was impossible to cover the entire front of the enemy, because then the intervals between the fighters would reach fifty, or even a hundred steps. In one or two places a "fist" gathered to ram the front. Volunteer artillery beat only on important targets, spending several shells to support the infantry in exceptional cases uchayah. When the infantry rose to knock out the enemy, then there could be no stopping. No matter how numerically superior the enemy was, he never withstood the onslaught of the pioneers. "
Yes, later they were called that way by their comrades-in-arms in the White movement - "pioneers". For which these several thousand brave and desperate enjoyed well-deserved honor and respect among Russian patriots. Their courage was legendary, their fearlessness was true. Moreover, both ordinary soldiers and their commanders were distinguished by courage. Here is what the emigrant magazine Vestnik Povopokhodnika wrote about the battle near the village of Medvedovskaya:
“At about 4 o'clock in the morning, Markov's units began to cross the railroad track. Markov, seizing the railway gatehouse at the crossing, placing infantry units, sending scouts to the village to attack the enemy, hastily began ferrying the wounded, convoy and artillery. to the crossing, where the headquarters was already located together with generals Alekseev and Denikin. There were a few meters before the crossing - and then Markov, showering the armored train with merciless words, remaining true to himself: "Stop! Such a bastard! Bastard! You will crush your own!" When he really stopped, Markov jumped back (according to other sources, he immediately threw a grenade), and immediately two three-inch cannons fired point-blank grenades at the cylinders and wheels of the locomotive. burned. "
And such a brave act of the general came in handy, the armored trains of the Reds inflicted serious damage on the Whites, who desperately lacked artillery. Therefore, each incapacitation of such a monster was worth a lot.
Those who fought through the cold Kuban steppes did not manage to take Yekaterinodar. More precisely, it almost failed, individual units of the whites were even able to gain a foothold in the center of the city, but without receiving reinforcements, they retreated. The fatal turning point in the offensive was the death of the commander of the Volunteer Army, General Lavr Georgievich Kornilov. By the way, another participant in the conspiracy against the sovereign ... After which the more cautious Denikin who replaced him decides to retreat from the city. And this decision had its own reasons, during the battles for Yekaterinodar with a 26,000-strong Red army under the command of Avtonomov and Sorokin, the volunteers lost four hundred killed, which was a serious loss for their small army, whose number had grown to five thousand people.
The retreating managed to get out of all the Bolshevik traps, not to be lured into a tactical encirclement, by May 13, the Volunteer Army reached the Mechetinskaya - Yegorlykskaya - Gulyai-Borisovk region, where it gained a foothold. The ice hike was over. But the end of the civil war and the victory of the anti-Russian forces in it was still far away.
Interestingly, the beginning of the first organized performance of the "whites" coincided with the week of the publican and the Pharisee, preparing the Orthodox for Great Lent, and ended after Fomin Sunday or Antipascha. It is unlikely that such a providential coincidence can, in principle, be considered a coincidence. It was during this campaign that the sacrificial Christian symbolism of the White movement was formed. Firstly, the very symbol of the Ice March is a sword in the crown of thorns of the Savior on the St. George's ribbon. Secondly, the uniforms of the "colored" regiments of volunteers were dominated by colors: black - a symbol of mourning and repentance, red - martyrdom and self-sacrifice, and white - the Resurrection and the Lord. And also the symbol of the Orthodox army, which was practically absent in the imperial army, which over the years of atheism in our fatherland has become associated exclusively with pirates from translated English-language novels. But no, "Adam's Head" - a skull with crossed bones, according to legend was also on the tunic of Alexander Peresvet, who went out to battle with the Horde batyr-occultist Chelubey, and on the banner of Ataman Baklanov, who conquered the Caucasus. And on the uniforms of "white" volunteers, as a symbol of immortality, liberation from death through the Atonement of the Savior.
You can talk a lot about why the White movement lost. Was his original sacrifice a prepared atonement for betraying the king? But it is on the Defender of the Fatherland Day that I want to understand one thing - by the Providence of God, our people have been given a festive date, which, in principle, should not be abandoned. It just needs to be rethought. Since, unlike the drunken and sniffing red sailors sniffing with cocaine, who scrambled only from one kind of Germans, on the other end of the Russian land, their compatriots showed a feat of courage and self-sacrifice. And, consequently, this holiday still has a correct historical basis. Therefore, all true defenders of the Fatherland of all times - with a holiday!
On the night of February 22-23 (from 9th to 10th according to the old style) in 1918, the famous "Ice" (First Kuban) campaign of the Volunteer Army began.
The volunteer army, formed on the initiative of General M.V. Alekseev under the command of first L.G. Kornilov (and after his death - A.I.Denikin), with fierce battles retreated from Rostov-on-Don to Yekaterinodar. This hardest, at the limit of strength, campaign became - contrary to the expectations of the triumphant Bolsheviks - the birth and baptism of fire of the White movement.
In fact, at first it was not an army, but a large officer partisan detachment: officers, cadets, cadets, students, soldiers, fighters of the former shock battalions - everyone who, since November 1917, wanted and was able to get to Novocherkassk. Maria Bochkareva herself arrived - a pretty and pretty girl, whose name was the female shock battalion. First of all, children-cadets and boys-cadets with their officers rose to the defense of Russia. In all cities, where there were military schools and cadet corps, the Bolsheviks were given worthy resistance. The Red Guards caught cadets in cities and at railway stations, in carriages, on steamers, beat them, maimed them, threw them out of the windows on the way of trains. Many cadets and officers did not have the best fate either. The way to the Don was difficult, many came completely exhausted, hungry, tattered, who had already drank Soviet prisons and bullying, but did not lose heart. They walked alone and in groups, breaking through the Bolshevik cordons ... Here everyone was mixed - both monarchists and republicans, and yesterday's revolutionary students, who, seeing "the work of their own hands," literally in one day became ardent counter-revolutionaries. A small shot of the Georgievsky regiment, the Kornilovsky shock regiment, the cadets of the Mikhailovsky and Konstantinovsky artillery schools arrived from Kiev, generals Denikin, Markov, Kornilov, Lukomsky, Romanovsky and many others arrived one by one. What did the Volunteer Army give them all? A rifle and five rounds - that was the answer at the volunteer registration bureau. In the first month, the volunteers received only a meager ration, starting from the second, a small salary was paid.
The issue of money was very difficult to solve. Apparently, gentlemen entrepreneurs of those distant years were not much different from the present ... Monetary Moscow gave about 800 thousand rubles and expressed "warm" sympathy, as well as a promise to give "everything" to save the Motherland.
If the cartridges still somehow got out, then the artillery of the army was formed in the most original ways. So, one gun was bought from the Cossacks traveling from the front to their native lands, and the other was simply ... stolen, having drunk pretty Cossack servants.
The army grew, despite the disbelief in the success of many officers who remained on the sidelines, on the angry hiss from around the corner: "... we decided to play soldiers!" On December 26, 1917, General Alekseev's organization was officially renamed the Volunteer Army, the distinguishing mark of which was a white-blue-red corner worn on the left sleeve of an overcoat and tunic with the top down. The army commander is General Lavr Kornilov, the son of a Cossack, his deputy is General Anton Denikin, the son of a serf who became an officer. General Alekseev himself is the son of a super-urgent soldier.
The uprising in Rostov, the first battles with the Bolshevik Red Guard ... Not a day passed that the killed volunteers were not buried in Novocherkassk. General Alekseev, standing at the open grave, said: "I see a monument that Russia will erect to these children, and this monument should depict an eagle's nest and the eagles killed in it ..."
The army headquarters moved to Rostov, and the Bolsheviks were already pressing from all sides. It was impossible to stay on the Don.
 A.I. Denikin |
The night of February 9-10, 1918 - the beginning of the 1st Kuban campaign of the Volunteer Army, the beginning of an organized struggle against the oppressors of the Fatherland. Volunteers leave Rostov on a frosty and snowy night ... The lines of General Alekseev, written by a loved one, served as an answer to the agonizing question of where we were going and what lay ahead: “... We are leaving for the steppe. We can return only if there is God's mercy. But you need to light a light so that there is at least one point of light among the darkness that engulfed Russia ... ”.
So, almost "for the blue bird" was the four thousandth Volunteer Army, and this is the whole point of its first campaign, where everything was contrary to the prepared fate and common sense. Let me see this still dimly flickering candle of the sacred struggle of all Russia! There has never been such an army in the history of mankind. With rifles on their belts, with pitiful belongings in their duffel bags, two former commanders-in-chief of the Imperial Army, former commanders of the fronts, ranks of high headquarters, corps commanders, colonels and officers, cadets and cadets, women shock girls and Rostov schoolgirls walked in a column through the deep snow.
History has preserved for us the first composition of this small army: 36 generals, 242 staff officers (190 of them are colonels), 2078 chief officers (captains - 215, staff captains - 251, lieutenants - 394, second lieutenants - 535, warrant officers - 668), 1067 privates (including cadets and cadets of the senior classes - 437), volunteers - 630 (364 non-commissioned officers and 235 soldiers, including 66 Czechs). The medical staff consisted of 148 people - 24 doctors and 122 nurses. A wagon train with refugees followed with the army.
A short stop in the village of Olginskaya. General Kornilov reorganizes the army and promotes cadets to warrant officers, and senior cadets to field cadets. Army composition:
- Consolidated Officer Regiment;
- Kornilov shock regiment;
- Partisan regiment;
- Special Junker Battalion;
- Czechoslovak Engineering Battalion;
- Technical company;
- Two cavalry divisions;
- Artillery battalion (eight guns);
- General Kornilov's convoy
There are very few cartridges, a meager treasury, catastrophically few shells, the enemy is outnumbered everywhere, but go ahead!
 S.L. Markov |
Heavy fighting and continuous march. Everything is taken in battle - shells, cartridges, food ... The direction of the campaign is determined - to take the capital of the Kuban Yekaterinodar. From the village of Olginskaya to Yegorlytskaya, 88 versts, they walked in six days, and then - the Stavropol province, seized by Bolshevism.
On March 15, the army approached the village of Novodmitrievskaya. It was here that the second name of the campaign was born - Ice, and the most vivid memories of each pioneer are associated with this battle. It rained all night the night before and the next morning. People were soaked to the skin and kneaded deep mud ... By noon the wind blew and it started snowing. Ahead is a river, and beyond it is a village. The officer regiment of General Markov began a long crossing on the croup of horses. And the weather is changing again - the wind is stronger, frost and blizzard hit. Everything quickly overgrown with an ice crust, clothes, which had become a shell, fettered any movement ... The fallen people could no longer get up ...
Markov found himself with his regiment alone in front of the village. The rest of the units were just being ferried. The question stood squarely - to freeze in the field or to take the village and save the army. Markov rushed to the attack. The frozen officers, clutching rifles in their numb hands, falling into a mess of mud and snow, rose again to meet the murderous fire of the Reds. The village was taken.
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In one of the battles, the Officer Company heard a woman's voice: “Girls! Bring the machine gun here! " The company laughed involuntarily, but with a short laugh, realizing the seriousness of this peculiar order. Yes, these were shock women of the women's battalions, others in the rank of ensigns with crosses on their chests. They continued to serve Russia and without hesitation left with the army on the 1st Kuban campaign.
The army receives the first reinforcements from the Kuban (including Kiev cadets), its number increases to six thousand people. On March 27 we approached Yekaterinodar.
March 31, 7.30 a.m. One of the red artillery shells flew into the headquarters room, where General Kornilov was sitting at the table ... The news of his death spread very quickly. General Denikin takes over the army. On the same day, in the evening, the volunteers leave. Maneuvering brilliantly, Denikin leads the army out of the most difficult situations... On April 25, a detachment of the Kievite officer, Colonel Mikhail Drozdovsky, who fought 1200 miles from the distant Romanian front, joins.
On April 30, 1918, having overcome 1050 versts with battles, the army returned to the Don and settled down to rest in the villages of Mechetinskaya and Yegorlytskaya. Of the 80 days of the campaign, 44 were in battles, up to 400 people were lost killed, 1,500 wounded were taken out, left with four thousand, and returned with five thousand.
By order of General Denikin, a special sign was installed for all participants in the campaign: a crown of thorns with a sword on the St. George ribbon and with a rosette of national colors on it. Now at the disposal of the Russian General Military Union (formed by General Wrangel in 1924) there is a unique list of participants in the campaign, awarded with this badge.
The fates of the participants in the campaign developed in different ways. Most died in the further struggle, someone experienced the full brunt of emigrant life, someone died in the army of General Franco, already fighting against the Spanish communists. Many became young and renowned military leaders - generals Turkul, Manstein (from Kiev), Kharzhevsky, Kutepov. The pioneers have always remained a kind of "cementing" composition of all white parts. Until their death, their motto was: “Everything for Russia! Nothing for yourself! "
On February 9 (22), 1918, the famous "Ice Campaign" (1st Kuban) of the newly formed Volunteer White Army under the command of General L. G. Kornilov began. On the night of February 9-10, 3,683 people, led by Kornilov, left Rostov-on-Don for the Zadonsk steppes.
By the beginning of February 1918, the Red units surrounded Rostov from all sides. The last barrier of Captain Chernov, pressed by the troops of Sievers, retreated into the city. A narrow corridor remained, and Kornilov ordered the army to march.
The detachment from Rostov included:
- 242 staff officers (190 - colonels)
- 2078 chief officers (captains - 215, staff captains - 251, lieutenants - 394, second lieutenants - 535, warrant officers - 668)
- 1067 privates (including cadets and cadets (a graduate of the cadet corps) of the senior classes - 437)
- volunteers - 630 (364 non-commissioned officers and 235 soldiers, including 66 Czechs)
- medical staff: 148 people - 24 doctors and 122 nurses.
A significant train of civilians who fled from the Bolsheviks also retreated with the detachment.
2 Stanitsa Olginskaya
Leading the army out of the ring that surrounded Rostov, Kornilov stopped it in the village of Olginskaya. There gathered together the forces that had dissipated after the fall of the Don. A detachment of Markov approached, cut off from the army and making its way past Bataysk, occupied by the Reds. Several Cossack detachments joined. The officers who fled from Rostov and Novocherkassk after the start of the terror were catching up. Lagging groups and wounded were pulled up. A total of 4 thousand fighters gathered. Here Kornilov reorganized, bringing together small detachments. The first, who laid the foundation for the legendary volunteer divisions, were: Officer regiment of the general. Markov; Colonel Nezhentsev's Kornilov shock regiment; Partisan regiment (from foot donors) gene. Bogaevsky; Junker battalion, gen. Borovsky, brought together from the Junkers and Students' regiments; Czechoslovak Engineering Battalion; three cavalry divisions (one from Chernetsov's former partisans, another from the rest of the Don detachments, and the third from an officer). A huge train of refugees was ordered to leave the army.
Kornilov suggested leaving for the Salsk steppes, where the winter quarters had large supplies of food, fodder, and a lot of horses. Alekseev objected sharply. The army would find itself in a blockade, sandwiched between the Don and the railway lines, deprived of reinforcements and supplies, and could be strangled in the ring. It was proposed to go to the Kuban, where Yekaterinodar was still fighting, where there was hope for the Kuban Cossacks. At the military council, Alekseev was joined by Denikin and Romanovsky.
Kornilov decided to go east. We moved slowly, sending reconnaissance and organizing a wagon train. The Reds groped for the army, began to disturb it with small swoops. Additional information gathered by intelligence about the wintering area turned out to be depressing.
3 Fight near the village of Lezhanki
In the last Don village, Yegorlykskaya, the Kornilovites were greeted warmly, with pancakes and refreshments. Then the Stavropol Territory began, where another meeting awaited. On a clear, frosty day, artillery hit the column. Trenches stretched along the river near the village of Lezhanki. Bolshevik Derbent regiment, cannon division, Red Guard. Kornilov was attacked on the move, throwing the Officer's regiment in the forehead, and the Kornilov and Partisan regiments from the flanks. The cadets rolled out the artillery for direct fire. Markov, without even waiting for flank attacks, rushed ford through the cold mud of the river. And the enemy fled, leaving the cannons behind. The Whites lost 3 people killed, the Reds - over 500. Half of them were in battle, half of the Kornilovites after the battle were fished out in the village and shot.
4 Battle for Korenovskaya station
Kornilov's troops entered the Kuban. Detachment after detachment began to be thrown across the Kornilovites. But the Reds could not withstand the decisive onslaught and did not consider it necessary to fight to the death. And for the Volunteer Army, every battle was a matter of life. And they won. Already somewhere close, according to calculations, the line of defense of Pokrovsky was supposed to pass. The resistance of the Reds suddenly increased sharply. Vyselki station changed hands several times. They took her only by bringing all the forces into battle. And they learned the unpleasant news. First, not long ago there was a battle between Pokrovsky and the Bolsheviks. The Whites were defeated and retreated to Yekaterinodar. And secondly, at the next station, Korenovskaya, there was Sorokin's 14,000-strong army with armored trains and a lot of artillery.
The battle began on March 4. The cadets and students of Borovsky went head-on. The Officer's and Kornilovsky regiments struck from the side. They were greeted with a flurry of fire and stopped. Kornilov threw in the last reserve — the partisans and the Czechoslovakians. Cartridges and shells were running out. Red cavalry appeared in the rear. The wounded, the transporters built fortifications from carts, took up defenses. Kornilov personally stopped the retreating chains, and he himself, with a platoon of loyal Tekins and two guns, galloped around the village and opened fire on the rear. A general attack began, and the Reds fled.
But after a hard victory, another blow awaited. Korenovskaya learned that Yekaterinodar, so close, had already fallen. On the night of March 1, the volunteers of Pokrovsky, the Cossack faction of the Rada, the government and many refugees left the city, leaving for the Circassian auls. Here Pokrovsky took up the reorganization of units, numbering about 3 thousand fighters with artillery. Learning about the battles on March 2-4, Pokrovsky went on the offensive, captured the crossing of the Kuban near Yekaterinodar and for two days fought with the Reds, avoiding serious clashes. Kornilov, having learned about the fall of Yekaterinodar, just at that time turned the other way. The army is extremely tired. Lost up to 400 people killed and wounded. The collapse of a close target caused severe moral damage. We decided to go to the mountain villages. Relax, understand the situation. Sorokin immediately moved the army into pursuit, pressing the volunteers to the Kuban. And ahead, in the village of Ust-Labinskaya, fresh forces of the Reds were waiting. While Bogaevsky and the partisan regiment could barely hold on to Sorokin's advancing troops, the Kornilovites and the cadets broke through the defenses, captured the bridge across the Kuban, and the army jumped out of the ring of fire.
But I was not waiting for a rest on the left bank. Pleased in a continuous Bolshevik area. We walked with incessant battles. On March 10, crossing the Belaya River, the army was ambushed, locked in a narrow valley. Thousands of Reds, occupying the surrounding heights, poured artillery and machine-gun fire. They attacked in thick chains. But after holding out for the whole day, at dusk, the whites rose in a desperate attack. The ring was broken, and the army, accompanied by indiscriminate artillery fire, went to the Caucasian foothills.
And the Kuban people, after a useless sortie to Yekaterinodar, found themselves in a critical situation. As soon as they began to retreat into the mountains, the Reds blocked their path. March 11 was squeezed near Kaluzhskaya. It was impossible to escape from the ring. And suddenly a patrol of the Kornilovites appeared. The joy of the Kuban people was so great that in the morning they rushed at the Reds and drove them away.
5 The battle at the village of Novo-Dmitrovskaya
On March 14, Pokrovsky arrived in the village of Shendzhi to Kornilov. He tried to express the opinion of the Kuban government about the independence of its units under operational subordination to Kornilov, but he cut off unequivocally: “One army and one commander. I do not admit any other situation ”. The government and Pokrovsky had nowhere to go - their army wanted to go with Kornilov. The forces united, and on March 15, the Volunteer Army, which the Bolsheviks had already written off from the accounts, went on the offensive.
It had rained all night before. The army marched through continuous expanses of water and liquid mud. The people were soaked through and through. On the outskirts of the village of Novo-Dmitrovskaya there was a river without bridges, the banks of which were covered with ice. Markov found a ford. He ordered to collect all the horses, to cross on horseback in two. Enemy artillery began to hit the ford. By evening, the weather changed dramatically: suddenly frost struck, the wind intensified, a snowstorm began, horses and people were covered with an ice crust. The village, crammed with red shelves, was agreed to be taken by storm from several sides. But Pokrovsky and the Kubans considered it impossible to advance in such terrible weather. The cannons were stuck in the mud. The volunteer army was stuck on the crossing for a long time. And the vanguard, the Officer Regiment, was alone at the village. Markov decided to attack. The regiment rushed with bayonets. They overturned the line of defense and drove through the village, where the main red forces, who did not expect such a blow, were warming themselves home. Kornilov drove up with the headquarters. When they entered the village administration, the Bolshevik command jumped out through the windows and other doors.
For two days in a row, the Reds counterattacked, even broke into the outskirts, but each time they were beaten off with great damage. On March 17, the Kuban team moved up. Kornilov mixed their military units with his own, combining them into three brigades - Markov, Bogaevsky and Erdeli.
6 Assault of Yekaterinodar
To storm Yekaterinodar, ammunition was needed. Erdeli's cavalry went to take the Kuban crossings, Bogaevsky fought to clear the surrounding villages, and Markov 24 mata attacked the Georgie-Afipskaya station with a 5,000-strong garrison and warehouses. The sudden attack did not work. The Reds stopped the volunteers with fire. Bogayevsky's brigade had to be transferred here as well. The fight was fierce. General Romanovsky was wounded, the Kornilovsky regiment went into bayonets three times. But they took the station, and most importantly, precious trophies - 700 shells and cartridges.
Two bridges across the Kuban, a wooden one and a railway one, were naturally heavily guarded and could be blown up. Therefore, Erdeli, on the orders of Kornilov, with a swift throw took the only ferry crossing at the village of Elizavetinskaya. The troops came out to storm not from the south, where they were expected, but from the west. Having crossed on a ferry with a carrying capacity of 50 people, the army cut off its path to retreat. Kornilov left behind the Kuban to cover the crossing and the convoy of the brigade of the most combat general - Markov.
The battle began on March 27. The Reds launched an attack on the crossing from Yekaterinodar. The Kornilov and Partisan regiments overturned them. Kornilov ordered the immediate storming of the city, not yet pulling up all his forces. Wanting to get rid of the Reds at once, the Volunteer Army began to surround Yekaterinodar from all sides. The Bolsheviks had nowhere to retreat. The surrounding villages began to rebel against them, sending detachments of Cossacks to Kornilov.
On the 28th, the battle immediately took on a fierce character. If the whites were forced to save every shell, the fire of the red guns reached 500-600 rounds per hour. Attacks and counterattacks alternated. Nevertheless, the White Guards stubbornly advanced, clearing the outskirts, and caught on to the outskirts - at a high price, having lost about 1000 people. The battle continued at night. But the front did not advance, leading only to new losses.
On the 29th, Markov's brigade pulled up, and Kornilov threw all his forces into the assault. Markov, personally leading the attack, occupied the heavily fortified artillery barracks. Upon learning of this, Nezhentsev raised the thinning Kornilov regiment - and was killed by a bullet in the head. Colonel Indeykin replaced him - and fell wounded. The attack drowned. The wounded Kazanovich, who came up with a reserve battalion, straightened the situation, broke through the Bolshevik defenses and burst into Yekaterinodar. But no one supported Casanovich. Kutepov, who had accepted the Kornilovites, could no longer rouse the executed troops to attack. Markov received no report from Casanovich. And he with only 250 fighters walked the streets to the city center. Captured carts with bread, cartridges and shells. And only towards morning, making sure that no help was foreseen, he turned to his own.
On the 30th, the fighting continued, although the troops were already exhausted. Exhausted and knocked out, they could not move a single step. A council of war was held in the middle of the day. The picture was disastrous. The commanding staff was knocked out. Huge losses: only wounded - over one and a half thousand. There were 300 bayonets in the Partisan regiment, and even fewer in the Kornilovsky regiment. No ammunition. The limit of human strength has come. Kornilov, after listening to everyone, said that there was no other way out than the capture of the city. The Bolsheviks will not allow retreat. Without ammunition, it would only be a slow agony. He decided to give the troops a day of rest, regroup the forces, and on April 1, go into the last desperate attack.
The assault was not destined to begin. On March 31, at eight o'clock in the morning, the shell hit the house where the headquarters was located. Kornilov was killed. His death dealt the final blow to the army. There was only one thing left - to retreat. Alekseev issued an order appointing Denikin commander of the army.
7 Battle at the Medvedovskaya station
Denikin decided to withdraw the army from the blow. From the south there was the Kuban River, from the east - Yekaterinodar, and from the west - floodplains and swamps. There was a way to the north. After sunset, the troops secretly withdrew from their positions. They left in order, with a wagon train and artillery. From Elizavetinskaya they could not take out 64 wounded, there were not enough carts. Already at dawn, the column was found. From passing villages they met with rifle and artillery fire. The armored train began to fire at the rearguard. The Reds were knocked out by the attack. The numerous infantry trying to approach was driven off by cannon shots. After a 50-kilometer march, the army stopped at the German colony of Gnachbau. Ahead lay the Black Sea Railway, occupied by the Reds. Large pursuing forces appeared behind, began to surround the village, a dozen guns fired. Bogayevsky's brigade, advancing into the field, repulsed the attacks. Denikin ordered to reduce the wagon train, leaving one wagon for 6 people. Leave only 4 guns - they still had only 30 shells. The rest was ruined.
On April 2, just before sunset, the vanguard of the Volunteer Army marched north. They noticed him, began to fire with hurricane fire. But as soon as it got dark, the column turned sharply to the east. We went to the railway near the Medvedovskaya station. Markov with his scouts seized the crossing, on behalf of the arrested watchman spoke on the phone with the red station authorities and assured that everything was in order. At the station there was an armored train, 2 echelons of infantry. And by their side, at the crossing - the entire white headquarters. At about 4 o'clock in the morning, parts of Markov began to cross the railroad track. Markov placed infantry units along the railway track, sent a detachment of scouts in the direction of the village to attack the enemy, and began organizing a ferry across railroad wounded, convoy and artillery. At this time, a red armored train moved from the station towards the gatehouse. General Markov rushed towards the train, shouting that they were "ours." The stunned driver braked, and Markov immediately threw a grenade into the locomotive's cabin. Next, two three-inch cannons fired point-blank at the cylinders and wheels of the locomotive. A heated battle ensued with the team of the armored train, which, as a result, was killed, and the armored train itself was burned.
Borovsky, supported by the Kuban Rifle Regiment, attacked the station in the meantime and took it after hand-to-hand combat. A second armored train pushed in from the south. White artillery met him with accurate fire, and he retreated, continuing to fire at the utmost distance and without causing harm.
8 End of the hike
The army escaped from the ring. By April 29, the Whites reached the south of the Don region in the Mechetinskaya - Egorlytskaya - Gulyai-Borisovka area. The campaign was over, it lasted 80 days, 44 of them with battles. The army covered over 1,100 kilometers.
On the night of February 22-23, 1918 (from 9 to 10 according to the old style), the Ice (1st Kuban) campaign of the Volunteer Army of General Kornilov began.
Not receiving support from the Don Cossacks, the newly formed Volunteer Army, under the threat of encirclement and destruction by the Reds in Rostov, moved to Yekaterinodar to join the Kuban Cossacks.
In fact, the forces of the volunteers were insignificant, there was not enough weapons and ammunition. However, the campaign to the Kuban and back to the Don created the possibility of forming a powerful Volunteer Army and the emergence of the White movement in southern Russia.
The Volunteers included many regular officers of the Russian army (some colonels were 190 people), an officer regiment of General Markov, a naval company, a cadet battalion, and a battalion of volunteers from among the Rostov youth students.
The march lasted 80 days, 44 of which were battles with superior forces of the Reds. in all these battles "there was no case when the number of the Bolshevik forces did not exceed six to ten times the number of volunteers" (Trushnovich A. R. Memoirs of a Kornilovite: 1914-1934 / Compiled by Ya. A. Trushnovich. - Moscow-Frankfurt: Posev , 2004).
By the way, the Novocherkassk chieftain, general from the cavalry Kaledin (hero of the Brusilov breakthrough), who seemed to agree to support the Volunteers, but himself recommended General Alekseev not to stay in Novocherkassk for more than a week, having learned about the decision of the Volunteers to leave the lands of the Don Army, on January 29, 1918 convened a meeting Don government, where he announced that only 147 bayonets were found at the front to protect the Don region from the Bolsheviks. He also said that in such conditions, he resigns from the powers of the military chieftain.
On the same day, General Kaledin, the Knight of St. George, committed suicide with a shot in the heart. In his dying letter to General Alekseev, he explained his death by "the refusal of the Cossacks to follow their chieftain."
During the storming of Yekaterinodar on March 31 (April 13 according to the new style), infantry general Lavr Georgievich Kornilov was killed by a stray shell that hit his headquarters.
The assault was unsuccessful (the city was defended by the 20,000-strong South-Eastern army of the Reds under the command of Avtonomov and Sorokin.) And, having lost the commander, the Volunteers retreated. General Kornilov and the commander of the Kornilovsky regiment of the General Staff, who was killed the day before, Colonel M. O. Nezhentsev, were secretly buried, but local residents noticed that "the cadets are burying cash and jewelry."
On the morning of April 3, in the vicinity of Yekaterinodar, occupied during the assault by the positions of the Volunteers, the Bolsheviks appeared, first of all rushing to look for these same cash desks and jewelry, allegedly buried by the cadets. During the search, the Bolsheviks discovered fresh graves, after which, by order of the Soviet commander I. Sorokin, they dug up both corpses. Nezhentsev was buried again, and the body of General Kornilov, having ripped off his clothes, began to be dragged around the city, hung on a tree, chopped with sabers and stabbed with bayonets, and then burned and trampled the ashes with boots.
For the sake of fairness, I will say that even in Soviet historiography, the treatment of the body of a killed general by the Bolsheviks is called the word mockery, and the Soviet commander I. Sorokin, who allowed the desecration and burning of the body, is mentioned with explicit condemnation.
After 4 months, the army of General Denikin took Yekaterinodar during the 2nd Kuban campaign, on August 6, 1918, a solemn reburial of the body of General Kornilov was scheduled in the tomb of the Cathedral. However, during the excavations, only a coffin with the body of Colonel Nezhentsev was found, and in the excavated grave of L. G. Kornilov only a piece of a pine coffin lay. The investigation carried out shocked the family of Lavr Georgievich. The grief of Taisia Vladimirovna, the general's widow, who came to her husband's funeral hoping to see him even dead, was very difficult. She barely outlived her husband and soon died on September 20, 1918 - six months after him. She was buried next to the farm where General Kornilov died. At this place, the Volunteers erected two modest wooden crosses for him and his wife.
In 1919, on the farm where the Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army died, the Museum of General Kornilov was created, and a symbolic grave of Lavr Georgievich was erected nearby on the banks of the Kuban. Nearby was the grave of Taisiya Vladimirovna - his wife.
When Soviet power was finally established in the Kuban in 1920, the Bolsheviks, entering Yekaterinodar, immediately destroyed the museum and the graves, and the Kornilovs' graves were ravaged. This is how the communists fought with the dead, and for their idol - a half-rotten mummy, they still stand like a mountain.
And a small digression. After the publication of such posts, there are few-hearted citizens - my former blog friends, who secretly delete my magazine from their friends. On the sly - since they have nothing to argue. Apparently, it is believed that if such events in our history are hushed up, then the past, as it were, will change and become better. You are wrong. citizens ...
Generals Markov, Denikin, Alekseev.
General Kornilov with the headquarters.
Photo of the mutilated body of L. G. Kornilov with a dedication "In memory of American comrade Axel Gan", presented to him by the commander of the Red Caucasian Army Chistov on April 23, 1918
Rewards for the Ice Campaign. On the left - for the participants in the battles, on the right - for those who did not directly participate in the battles.
ICE (FIRST CUBAN) HIKE, march of the White Volunteer Army to the Kuban in February-May 1918.
The Volunteer Army, created at the end of 1917 on the Don to fight the Bolsheviks, found itself in a difficult situation in January 1918 due to the successful offensive of the Reds on the main centers of its deployment, Novocherkassk and Rostov-on-Don, and the lack of broad support among the Don Cossacks. Under these conditions, the leaders of the Volunteer Army, Generals M.V. Alekseev and L.G. Kornilov, decided to withdraw it to the south, to Yekaterinodar (present-day Krasnodar), hoping to raise an anti-Bolshevik uprising of the Kuban Cossacks and North Caucasian peoples and make the Kuban a base for further military operations. Initially, it was planned to deliver the army to Yekaterinodar by rail, after having knocked out the Reds from the Tikhoretskaya station. To this end, all the forces of the Volunteer Army at the end of January 1918 were concentrated in Rostov-on-Don. However, after the capture of Bataysk by the Bolsheviks on February 14, the railway communication with the Kuban was interrupted. By mid-February, there was a threat of encirclement of Rostov by the Reds from the south and west, and the command of the Volunteer Army decided to act immediately.
By the beginning of the campaign, the Volunteer Army numbered 3423 people (36 generals, 2320 officers, 437 cadets, 630 privates); the medical service consisted of 24 doctors and 122 nurses; they were also joined by 118 civilian refugees (including a number of State Duma deputies and its chairman M.V. Rodzianko). The campaign began on February 22, 1918, when the Volunteer Army crossed to the left bank of the Don and stopped in the village of Olginskaya. Here it was reorganized into three infantry regiments (Consolidated Officer, Kornilov Shock, and Partisan); it also consisted of a cadet battalion, one artillery (10 guns) and two cavalry divisions. On February 25, the volunteers moved to Yekaterinodar, bypassing the Kuban steppe: first, they headed to the southeast, through the Don villages of Khomutovskaya, Kagalnitskaya, Mechetinskaya and Yegorlykskaya; reaching the Stavropol province (the village of Lezhanka), they turned to the south-west, to the Kuban region; passing the villages of Plotskaya, Ivanovskaya and Veselaya, crossed the Rostov-Tikhoretskaya railway line at the Novo-Leushkovskaya station; passing Iraklievskaya, Berezanskaya, Zhuravskaya, Vyselki and Korenovskaya, descended south to Ust-Labinskaya and reached the Kuban River. All the way, they had to engage in fierce battles with outnumbered Red detachments and endure numerous hardships. The hike took place in difficult weather conditions (frequent temperature drops, night frosts, strong winds) - hence its name "Ice".
The occupation of Yekaterinodar by the Bolsheviks on March 14, 1918 significantly complicated the situation of the Volunteer Army; she was faced with a new task - to try to take the city by storm. To mislead the enemy, the command decided to bypass Yekaterinodar from the south. Having passed the Adyghe auls and the village of Kaluzhskaya, the volunteers reached the village of Novodmitrievskaya on March 17, where they united with the military formations of the Kuban regional government that had fled from Yekaterinodar; as a result, the size of the Volunteer Army increased to 6,000 bayonets and sabers, of which three brigades were formed; the number of guns has doubled.
On April 9, 1918, the volunteers, unexpectedly for the Bolsheviks, crossed the Kuban River near the village of Elizavetinskaya, a few kilometers west of Yekaterinodar. Without making the necessary reconnaissance, Kornilov began an assault on the city, which was defended by the twenty-thousandth South-Eastern army of the Reds. All desperate white attacks were repulsed. Their losses amounted to about four hundred killed and one and a half thousand wounded. On April 13 (according to the present), Kornilov was killed during an artillery bombardment. General Denikin, who replaced him as commander, made the only possible decision to retreat. Having moved the army north through the villages of Medvedovskaya, Dyadkovskaya and Beketovskaya, he managed to withdraw it from the direct attacks of the enemy. Having passed the village of Beysugskaya, the volunteers turned east, reached Ilyinskaya, crossed the Tsaritsyn-Tikhoretskaya railway and by May 12 went to the south of the Don region in the area of the villages Mechetinskaya, Yegorlykskaya and Gulyai-Borisovka, where their journey ended.
The ice march, which lasted eighty days (during which 1,400 kilometers were covered), did not achieve either its political or strategic goals: it did not provoke a mass anti-Bolshevik movement of the Cossacks; volunteers were unable to turn the Kuban into their base. At the same time, despite the losses, they managed to maintain the Volunteer Army as a combat-ready force and as the organizing center of the White movement in southern Russia.
Ivan Krivushin
