Troubles. 1919 year. 100 years ago, in October 1919, Kolchak's armies suffered a heavy defeat in the second battle on Tobol. After the loss of Petropavlovsk and Ishim, the White Guards retreated to Omsk.
General situation on the Eastern Front
The September offensive of Kolchak's armies in Siberia did not improve their position. The Kolchakites won only space. However, they suffered such losses that they could no longer compensate them in a short time. The 3rd White Army lost a quarter of its strength in the first two weeks of the offensive alone. The ranks of the most combat-ready divisions, which took the brunt of the fighting, like the 4th Ufa and Izhevsk divisions, lost almost half of their strength. The bloodless Kolchak units barely reached the Tobol line. Ivanov-Rinov's Siberian Cossack Corps showed itself much worse than hoped. The Cossacks were headstrong, preferring to act in their own interests, and not in general. All reserves were completely depleted. At the end of September 1919, the last reserve was sent to the front - only 1.5 thousand people. An attempt to send the Czechoslovakians to the front failed due to their complete decomposition and unwillingness to fight. The situation in the rear was awful. Kolchak's government controlled only the cities and the Siberian Railway (the Czechs kept the railway). The village was ruled by rebels and partisans.
It was not possible to deliver a decisive blow to the Red Army and gain time. The 3rd and 5th red armies were entrenched on the Tobol line and very quickly recovered from the first unsuccessful attack on Petropavlovsk. The red command, party and Soviet organizations carried out new mobilizations in the Ural cities. Military commissariats sent thousands of new reinforcements to the division. Chelyabinsk province alone provided 24 thousand people for the 5th army in two weeks of September. The 3rd Army received 20,000 men in mid-October. Also, the mobilization of peasants and workers was carried out in the front-line areas. In the rear of the Red Eastern Front, new regiments, brigades and divisions were formed. Front armies received one rifle and one cavalry division, 7 fortress regiments.
By mid-October 1919, the strength of the Red Eastern Front was doubled. The Red Army received the missing weapons and uniforms. True, there was a shortage of ammunition. The Soviet units rested, recovered and were ready for new battles. The size of the 5th Army increased to 37 thousand bayonets and sabers, with 135 guns, 575 and machine guns, 2 armored trains ("Red Sibiryak" and "Avenger"), 4 armored vehicles and 8 airplanes. Tukhachevsky's army occupied a front 200 km from Lake Kara-Kamysh to Belozerskaya (40 km north of Kurgan). Operating to the north, the 3rd Army numbered 31.5 thousand bayonets and sabers, 103 guns, 575 machine guns, an armored train, 3 armored vehicles and 11 aircraft. The army of Matiyasevich occupied the front from Belozerskaya to Bachalin with a length of about 240 km. The Reds had an advantage in manpower, weapons and reserves. The reserve regiments of the two armies, the fortress areas of Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk and Troitsk, numbered 12 thousand people.
The 5th red army was opposed by the 3rd white army, the Steppe group and the remnants of the Orenburg army - a total of about 32 thousand bayonets and sabers, 150 guns, 370 machine guns, 2 armored trains ("Bully" and "Tagil"). These troops were consolidated into the "Moscow Army Group" under the command of General Sakharov (in the hope of the capture of Moscow by Denikin's army). The 2nd and 1st white armies acted against the 3rd red army, a total of about 29 thousand bayonets and sabers. In the front-line reserve, the Kolchak command had only about 3-4 thousand people. The Kolchakites had an advantage only in cavalry.
Thus, the 3rd and 5th armies were very quickly restored to full combat capability. Taking advantage of the fact that the Kurgan with the crossings across Tobol and the railway line remained in the hands of the Reds, marching reinforcements were continuously going to the front, new units were pulled up. The Red Army had an advantage in the number and quality of troops, and their morale was high. Whites were demoralized despite their last success at Tobol. They had to fight on two fronts: against the Red Army and the rebels. Added to all this was the insufficient supply of the army with uniforms and ammunition. The uniforms received in August - September 1919 from abroad were used, or they were plundered in the rear, and a new one has not yet arrived. Therefore, it turned out that the Kolchak people had weapons and ammunition in October, but felt a great need for greatcoats and shoes. Meanwhile, a period of cold rains began, winter was approaching. This further undermined the spirit of the Kolchakites.
The white command no longer had reserves, the latter were absorbed by the offensive. True, the whites here and there tried to form various volunteer formations, "squads", to restore the volunteer principle. However, the number of such detachments, such as their combat effectiveness, was negligible. So the "squads" of the Old Believers did not make it to the front - some of them fled along the road, while the other white command did not dare to send them to the front line, leaving them in the rear. Often these were the machinations of individual adventurers who, in the time of troubles, "caught fish", that is, "mastered" money and property.
Even before the start of a new offensive of the Red Army in the Omsk direction, the whites lost their base in southern Siberia. Most of Dutov's Orenburg army in September 1919 was defeated by the troops of the Red Turkestan Front under the command of Frunze near Aktobe. The White Cossacks capitulated, others either scattered or withdrew with the ataman Dutov to the Kokchetav-Akmolinsk region, then to Semirechye.
In the same period, England and France, realizing the futility of the Kolchak regime, refused to support Omsk. They saw that the Kolchak government had exhausted itself. Britain and France are stepping up aid to Poland, seeing in it a full-fledged force opposing Soviet Russia. The United States and Japan continued to provide assistance to Kolchak to maintain positions in Siberia and the Far East. So in October, 50 thousand rifles were sent from the Far East to Kolchak's headquarters. Also, negotiations were underway for the supply of tanks. In addition, negotiations with the Japanese were held in Omsk. The Kolchakites hoped that Japanese divisions would be sent to the front. The Japanese promised to strengthen their military contingent in Russia.
Second battle on Tobol
Although the position of the Kolchak armies was deplorable, the Kolchak command still hoped to continue the offensive. However, the Reds were ahead of the enemy. The 5th Army delivered the main blow in the Petropavlovsk direction. For this purpose, a strike group of three divisions was formed on the right flank. In the south, this offensive was supported by a strike by the 35th Infantry Division on the Zverinogolovsky tract. On the left flank of the army, the 27th Division was attacking. That is, it was envisaged to take the main forces of the enemy in ticks to destroy them. To demoralize the enemy's rear and develop the offensive, it was planned to enter a cavalry division (more than 2, 5 thousand sabers) into the breakthrough. A few days later, the 3rd Army was supposed to start moving in the Ishim direction.
At dawn on October 14, 1919, units of the 5th Army began to cross the river. Tobol. At first, the Kolchakites put up stubborn resistance. In some places, the White Guards even repulsed the first attacks and threw Soviet troops back to the right bank of the Tobol. The Whites put up especially fierce resistance on the railway line and to the north of it. Two armored trains and most of the artillery were located here. However, already on the first day of the offensive, Tukhachevsky's army crossed the river and occupied a significant bridgehead. The white command tried to stop the enemy offensive, threw the best units into battle. The counterstrike was inflicted by the Izhevsk division, which was considered the best in Kolchak's army, it was supported by the 11th Ural division, and most of the army artillery. But the counterattack was repulsed, the Izhevsk division was even surrounded and only at the cost of heavy losses broke through to the east. On October 18, the whites organized another counterattack, but it was repulsed.
Thus, the 5th Army again successfully crossed the river. Tobol, striking with his right flank to cover the messages of the white troops from the south. The white command tried in vain to halt the enveloping advance of the 5th Army's right flank (35th and 5th Infantry Divisions), trying to regroup towards its left flank and line up the front to the south. However, this regrouping was late, and the White Guards were forced to hastily retreat beyond the river. Ishim.
On October 19 - 20, 1919, the 3rd Red Army launched an offensive. Its right-flank 30th division advanced on Ishim and helped the 5th Army to break the resistance of the northern flank of the 3rd White Army. The White Front was broken through, and the Kolchakites were retreating everywhere. In places, the retreat turned into a flight, the Soviet divisions quickly moved east. Whole enemy units surrendered or went over to the side of the Reds. So a regiment of Carpathian Rusyns went over to the side of the Reds. Kolchak's army was falling apart. The mobilized soldiers fled to their homes, surrendered, and went over to the side of the Reds. Some of the troops were killed by typhus. The Cossacks, without engaging in battle, dispersed to the villages. In two weeks of the offensive, the Red Army advanced 250 km. On October 22, the Reds took Tobolsk.
Liberation of Petropavlovsk
The commander-in-chief of the white army, General Dieterichs, seeing no opportunity to save the capital, on October 24 ordered the evacuation of Omsk. On November 4, he was dismissed, and General Sakharov was appointed in his place. After being defeated between Tobol and Ishim, the white command withdrew the remnants of the troops beyond the river. Ishim, hoping to create a new defensive line here and try to stop the enemy offensive. The regiments of the 1st Army were sent to the rear, to the Novonikolaevsk-Tomsk region, for restoration and replenishment.
At the end of October 1919, the advance units of the Soviet armies entered the Ishim River. It was necessary on the move, until the enemy came to his senses, to cross the river and liberate the cities of Petropavlovsk and Ishim. Three regiments of the 35th Infantry Division were the first to reach Petropavlovsk. On the evening of October 29, the Reds approached the bridge across the Ishim. Whites set fire to the bridge, but the Red Army were able to extinguish it. They quickly crossed the river and threw back the enemy screen to the city. On the morning of October 30, all three Soviet regiments were in Petropavlovsk. But the Kolchak people held onto a part of the city. Pulling up the troops, the White Guards launched a counterattack. Kolchakites organized 14 attacks, but were repelled. The next day, White again tried to knock the enemy out of the city, but without success. On November 1, when new Soviet units arrived to help, the Reds resumed their offensive and completely liberated Petropavlovsk. Significant trophies were captured in the city.
On November 4, units of the 5th Army liberated Ishim. After the fall of Petropavlovsk and Ishim, the Kolchakites began a hasty retreat to Omsk. Part of Kolchak's troops on the southern flank, led by Dutov, went south, to the Kokchetav region. The Tobolsk-Peter and Paul Battle was the last stage of the organized and serious resistance of the Kolchak army. The White Guards were defeated and suffered heavy losses. Only the 3rd White Army lost from 14 to 31 October about 13 thousand killed, wounded and captured, thousands of soldiers and Cossacks fled to their homes.
The successful offensive of the Red armies of the Eastern Front was of great importance for the overall strategic situation. It began at a decisive moment in the battle on the Southern Front, when Denikin's army was on the outskirts of Tula. Successes in the east of the country allowed the Soviet high command to withdraw part of the forces from the Eastern Front in November and send them south to finally defeat the White armies in southern Russia.
Soviet troops continued their offensive without a pause. In the main direction, along the Petropavlovsk-Omsk railway, three divisions of the 5th Army were moving. For the pursuit of Dutov's group on the southern flank, a special group of troops was allocated as part of the 54th rifle division and the cavalry division. She launched an attack on Kokchetav. The 30th Infantry Division of the 3rd Army was advancing along the line of the Ishim - Omsk railway. In the valley of the Irtysh River upstream to Omsk, the 51st Division was advancing. The 5th and 29th rifle divisions were withdrawn to the front reserve.
