Troubles. 1919 year. Simultaneously with the Zlatoust operation of the 5th army, the 2nd and 3rd armies were attacking, striking in the general direction of Yekaterinburg. Two red armies had to solve a difficult task: to defeat the Siberian army, to liberate Perm and Yekaterinburg.
The defeat of the Siberian army. Perm operation
The Perm operation began on June 20, 1919, after the liberation of the Izhevsk-Votkinsk region. The 2nd Army under the command of Shorin struck at Kungur, Krasnoufimsk, and then at Yekaterinburg. Mezheninov's 3rd army attacked Perm from the west and north-west, then to Yekaterinburg. On June 21, 1919, units of the 2nd Army, with the support of the Volga Flotilla, crossed the Kama River near Osa and moved to Kungur. At the end of June, the troops of the 2nd Army reached the Iren River. Attempts by the White Guards to stay on the east bank were unsuccessful. On June 29, units of the 21st and 28th rifle divisions crossed the river and broke enemy resistance on the approaches to Kunguru. The night attack by units of the 21st division ended in victory. On July 1, the Reds took Kungur. The Red Army received a foothold for the further liberation of the mining-and-works Urals and established control over the Perm-Kungur railway.
To the north, the troops of the 3rd Army were successfully advancing. By June 30, units of the 29th Infantry Division reached the Kama River in the Perm region. To the south the regiments of the 30th rifle division successfully crossed the river with the help of the vessels of the Volga flotilla. A stubborn battle broke out on Kama. The Kolchakites were well entrenched on the eastern bank of the river. They were supported by the armed ships of the white Kama flotilla under the command of Admiral Smirnov. The Kama flotilla consisted of 4 divisions and was armed with about 50 armed ships, barges and boats. She received the task, together with the ground forces, to delay the advance of the Red Army on the Kama line. The flotilla consisted of the armed ships "Kent" and "Suffolk", manned by British crews. The Western interventionists attached particular importance to the Perm region, since they planned to connect the Northern and Eastern fronts of the Whites in this direction. In addition, in the Perm region, the Kolchakites were actively spreading rumors that British troops with the latest weapons were coming to their aid. To "confirm" these rumors, some of Kolchak's units were dressed in British uniforms and had English insignia. They were sent to the front line. However, this did not help. The Red Army continued their offensive.
To speed up the capture of Perm and create a threat to encircle enemy troops, the command of the 29th rifle division sent the 256th regiment to bypass the city from the north. Soviet troops crossed the Kama and Chusovaya and went to the rear of the Kolchakites, defeating the enemy near the Levshino station. This hastened the defeat of the enemy. On July 1, 1919, units of the 29th division, together with the 30th division, advancing from the south, liberated Perm. During the retreat, the White Guards burned a large number of steamers and barges with supplies of food, kerosene and oil near Perm. Red Army prisoners were killed. The red units entered the blazing city, shrouded in huge clouds of smoke. Burning kerosene and oil spilled over the river.
The Whites partially destroyed their military flotilla so that it would not fall to the Reds. Civilian ships were also destroyed. The guns from the "Kent" and "Suffolk" were transported by rail, the ships were sunk. The Reds managed to capture only four ships intact - "Brave", "Boyky", "Proud" and "Terrible", from which Kolchak's men still managed to remove weapons, armor and some of the equipment. In addition, the Reds captured several armored boats. Some of the ships were taken to Chusovaya, where they were later also burned. The White Guards released about 200 thousand poods of kerosene from the Nobel coastal reservoirs and set it on fire. It was a sea of fire. The Kolchakites were able to take away by rail to Tobol only part of the weapons, equipment and three armored boats.
A few days later, a special representative of the Council of People's Commissars and Glavoda (Main Directorate of Water Transport), V. M. Zaitsev, arrived at the site of the death of the Kama flotilla. In his report to Glavod, he wrote: “R. Kama … Already not far from its mouth we met the skeletons of (dead) ships … as I moved through the liberated region I had to be horrified … they went everywhere and everywhere we came across the skeletons of burned-out ships, both steam and non-steam … ". It was even worse in Perm: “Everywhere, as far as the field of view was enough, the skeletons of burning out and floating ships could be seen. A terrible fiery bacchanalia hovered, apparently, here widely. " And further: “When we reached the mouth of the river. Chusovoy, then there was something incredibly awful. Around in heaps, downed steamers, now on the right and now on the left, stuck out their smut, as it were, crying for help, and disfigured hulls beyond recognition. There were several such heaps of 5-9 steamers; after that loners went, and so on until the pier of Levshino. The entire fairway r. Chusovoy was some kind of museum of old, broken, distorted iron products. " In total, up to 200 military and civilian ships were destroyed. In parallel, the Kolchakites burned and destroyed all the coastal structures - docks, warehouses, employee houses, etc.
Some of the sunken ships were later raised, but the work proceeded slowly, there was a lack of workers and equipment. Some of the ships sunk in Kama were raised already during the Great Patriotic War, metal was required at the factories. In addition, shipping developed and the channel was cleaned.
During the retreat, the Kolchakites could not destroy all the reserves. The Red Army men seized large food supplies in Perm and its environs - more than 1 million poods of salt, flour, meat, etc. 25 steam locomotives and more than 1,000 wagons were seized. About 1 million poods of steel and hundreds of gun barrels were seized at the Motovilikha factories. With the occupation of Perm and the area adjacent to the city, the Red Army finally buried the plans of the Entente and the Kolchak government to unite the Eastern and Northern fronts. After that, the position of the invaders in the North of Russia became hopeless. British Minister of War Churchill in July 1919, after the defeat of the northern flank of the Kolchak front, declared in parliament that the British had no choice but to withdraw their troops from Arkhangelsk. This was the collapse of the plans of the masters of the West in the north and east of Russia.
Under the blows of the Red Army, the white Siberian army quickly lost its combat capability and decayed. The retreat led to a complete fall of discipline, a significant part of the wounded were cross-arms who did not want to fight. Desertion became widespread. The soldiers fled from the trenches even before the start of the battle. Whole parts of the Kolchakites surrendered. So, on June 30, in the sector of the 29th division in the Perm region, two regiments of the Siberian army surrendered - the 63rd Dobriansky and 64th Solikamsky regiments. About a thousand people with all weapons and carts went over to the side of the Reds. On July 7, on the Sylva River (35 km southeast of Perm), three regiments of the 1st Siberian Division surrendered in the amount of 1.5 thousand people with 2 guns. This division was previously considered one of the most persistent in Kolchak's army. Officers who did not want to surrender along with the soldiers, including three regimental commanders, were shot by the soldiers themselves. It is worth noting that at this time the former Kolchakites who surrendered and went over to the side of the Red Army became one of the resources for replenishing parts of the Soviet armies.
Yekaterinburg operation
The defeat suffered by the Kolchak army in the Kungur and Perm regions forced the Siberian army to a hasty retreat to the east. In places it turned into a flight. The Kolchak front was falling apart. The Red Army continued its offensive. On July 5, 1919, the Yekaterinburg operation began. The 3rd Red Army at that time was located at the turn of the Kama and Sylva rivers, the 2nd Army was located in the watershed of the river. Sylva and Ufa. The frontal movement of the 2nd Army, which was somewhat ahead of the units of the 3rd Army, was for some time suspended by strong resistance from the Siberian Shock Corps.
To speed up the movement, the command of the 3rd Red Army formed an operational cavalry group of thousands of sabers from cavalry units under the command of Tomina. The operational cavalry group was supposed to intercept the communication between Nizhny Tagil and Yekaterinburg, dismembering the enemy's battle formations. On July 14, the Soviet cavalry, concentrated on the right wing of the 3rd Army, 100 km east of Kungur, was introduced into the gap between the white units, created during the complete defeat of the enemy's 7th Infantry Division. Within 3 days, the red cavalry covered about 150 km and reached the railway line. The Reds liberated the Verkhne-Tagil, Nevyansk, Visimo-Shaitansky and other factories of the Northern Urals. Having intercepted a section of the railway from Nevyanskoye to Shaitanka station, Tomin's horsemen cut off General Pepelyaev's northern grouping from the rest of the Siberian army.
After that, the cavalry group of Tomina received an order to strike at the flank and rear of the Kolchak group, which was retreating from the mining region of the Urals. The Red cavalry launched an offensive against the Yegorshino station, an important railway junction. On July 19, the equestrian group captured the station. The successful raid of the red cavalry on the rear of the enemy increased the chaos in the enemy's ranks. Upon learning of the approach of the Reds, the White Guards fled without a fight or surrendered in large groups. Only at the Yegorshino station on July 19, the Kolchakites were able to give battle, but after a few hours they were defeated. After Yegorshin, Tomin's group freed Irbit, Kamyshlov, Dolmatov, and then Kurgan. The successful breakthrough of the red cavalry, along with the offensive of the 2nd Army, led to disorganization of control and communication between the defeated units of the White Army, the collapse of the Kolchak front and the flight of the remnants of the Kolchak troops to Tobol.
While the cavalry group Tomina began its victorious march, the troops of the 2nd Red Army were developing an offensive on Yekaterinburg. The White Guards put up strong resistance on the railway line from the Mikhailovsky to the Utkinsky plant. Fierce battles took place here for several days. The outcome of the battle was decided by the roundabout maneuver of the brigade of the 28th Infantry Division. The Red Army men, along mountain paths, went into the rear of the enemy and captured the Mramorskaya station, intercepting the railway between Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk. There was a threat of encirclement of Kolchak's troops, which were fighting at the front. White was forced to retreat immediately. Late in the evening of July 14, units of the 28th division entered Yekaterinburg.
The retreating White Guards could not hold out south and southeast of Yekaterinburg. In the area of the village of Kazhakul, the whites tried to stop the further advance of the 5th rifle division. Then the best in the division, the 43rd regiment, under the command of V. I. Chuikov (the future hero of the harrow of Stalingrad, Marshal of the USSR and twice Hero of the Soviet Union) was thrown into battle. Chuikov pinned down the enemy from the front and with horse reconnaissance bypassed the whites from the south, struck them from the rear. The Kolchakites were defeated and fled. The Red Army took 1,100 prisoners and captured 12 machine guns. The defeated white troops fled further east. The 43rd Regiment was awarded the revolutionary Red Banner.
The defeat of the southern wing of the Kolchak front
Along with the decisive offensive of the Red Army on the northern flank and the center of the Eastern Front, the Red Command was preparing a strike on the southern flank against the Ural White Cossacks and the Southern Army. In the Orenburg and Ural regions, the whites still had a numerical superiority over the red armies. The 4th Red Army in the Ural Region numbered 13 thousand fighters, against it there were 21 thousand enemy bayonets and sabers (of which 15 thousand sabers). The 1st Red Army (including the Orenburg group) consisted of about 11 thousand bayonets and sabers, the whites had about the same forces against it.
The Whites were still at Orenburg and besieged Uralsk. For two and a half months, the red garrison repulsed enemy attacks. White undertook three general assaults of the city, but did not achieve victory. On June 26, the White Cossacks captured Nikolaevsk, 65 km from the Volga. This caused great concern in Moscow, where they feared that the Kolchakites would join with Denikin's army, which was leading an offensive in the Volga direction. The commander of the Southern Group of Forces, Frunze, was instructed to organize the rout of the Ural-Orenburg White Cossacks. A plan for the Ural operation was developed. On July 3, 1919, this plan was communicated to the command of the 1st and 4th armies. It provided for the liberation of Uralsk from the blockade, the exit of Soviet troops to the Uralsk-Urbakh railway line, the liberation of the right bank of the Ural River along the entire middle course. The garrison of Orenburg was supposed to strike at Iletsk and Aktyubinsk, clearing the way to Turkestan. The main blow to Uralsk was delivered by the group under the command of Chapaev - the 25th division and the Special brigade.
On July 5, 1919, the troops of the Southern Group launched an offensive. The well-armed, well-equipped and highly motivated 25th rifle division of Chapaev, transferred from near Ufa, defeated units of the Ural army. On July 11, units of the 25th division broke the ring of the blockade of Uralsk. The 192nd, 194th and 196th rifle regiments withstood a long siege and happily greeted the Chapaevites. After the liberation of Uralsk from the siege, the 4th Army developed an offensive in three directions: to Lbischensk, to Slomikhinskaya and to Lower Kazanka. The Ural army retreated along the entire front. On August 9, the Chapayevites took Lbischensk. The White Cossacks went down the river. Ural. Thus, the Red Army liberated Uralsk and most of the Ural region. There were no more hopes for the connection of the Whites on the Eastern Front with Denikin's army.
From the second half of July, the 1st Red Army stepped up its actions. On August 1, the Reds liberated the Iletsk town and began preparations for an offensive against the southern army of the whites.
Reorganization of Kolchak's army. Decay of white troops
After the defeat of the Siberian army, Kolchak finally removed Gaida from the command. The Siberian army was led by Mikhail Dieterikhs. During the First World War, he was the chief of staff of the 3rd Army, since 1916 he commanded the expeditionary brigade on the Thessaloniki front. After the February Revolution, he headed the headquarters of the Special Petrograd Army, was the quartermaster general of the Headquarters. Trying to stop the collapse of his army on July 21, Kolchak reorganized his troops. The formally formed Eastern Front consisted of four armies. The Siberian army was divided into the 1st army under the command of Pepelyaev (in the Tyumen direction) and the 2nd army of Lokhvitsky (in the Kurgan direction). Pepeliaev during the war years headed the cavalry reconnaissance regiment, in the Siberian army he was the commander of the 1st Central Siberian corps. Lokhvitsky was an experienced commander who, during the World War II, commanded a Russian expeditionary brigade, then a division in France. In Kolchak's army, he headed the 3rd Ural Mountain Corps.
However, this reorganization did not help much. Kolchak's army was decaying, which intensified from defeat to defeat. When failures rained down, all the weaknesses of Kolchak's Russian army immediately surfaced: the low level of command, personnel shortage, the absence of a social base (the mobilized peasants and workers now masses went over to the side of the Reds), the absence of strong, welded units (the Kappelevites and Izhevskites were exceptions). Red propaganda has become a powerful information weapon destroying the ranks of whites. She acted weakly while the White Army was triumphantly rushing towards the Volga. And when there were continuous defeats, the whites began to defect in whole units, surrender, and even go over to the side of the Red Army with weapons in their hands, killing or surrendering their commanders.
The mobilized men from the Volga region and the Urals saw that the whites were losing, that their army was moving farther and farther to the east. They did not want to go to Siberia. Therefore, they deserted or surrendered in order to return to their native places. And the peasants from Siberia saw that in the conditions of the collapse of the Kolchak front, it would be easier for them to return home in the ranks of the Red Army. Suitable reinforcements reported news of mass uprisings and red partisans in the rear of Kolchak's army, and which also intensified as the white armies were defeated. As a result, the scale of the surrender and transition of the soldiers of Kolchak's army took on a massive scale. In the south, there was no such massive surrender, which was due to the presence of a strong volunteer nucleus, powerful White Cossack units of the Don and Kuban. In the east, the armies were recruited from mobilized peasants and workers who did not support Kolchak's power, and at the first opportunity tried to flee or surrender. As a result, the white armies quickly melted away, the decomposition of troops led to greater losses than direct hostilities. The Red Army received another significant source of manpower replenishment. Deserters and prisoners were transferred to reliable units, and strong commanders were appointed.
The white command could not stop this process. The shortage of personnel in the period of defeats only intensified. Most of the junior commanders were warrant officers from the gymnasiums and cadets, who took a 6-week course. They had no authority whatsoever among the soldiers. The middle command was also weak. Most of the officers who did not accept Soviet power fled to the south, a minority moved to the east. There were few regular officers, and many of the available ones died. The rest were storekeepers, production officers of various eastern governments (directories, regional governments, etc.), their fighting qualities were low. Even commanders with combat experience, front-line soldiers in a critical situation, during the outbreak of unrest in the troops, preferred to flee, abandoning their units, fearing that they would be killed or taken prisoner to the Reds.
The high command was unsatisfactory. Kolchak himself was only a banner; he did not understand the issues of military operations on land. The best commanders of the White Army were on the Southern Front. On the Eastern Front, there was a jumble of mediocrity, adventurers, and really talent. If Kappel, Pepeliaev and Voitsekhovsky were skillful military leaders, then Gaida, Lebedev (head of Kolchak's headquarters) and Golitsyn ruined the army with their actions. There was a shortage of skilled, experienced commanders of armies, corps and divisions. Adventurism, partisanism, and "democracy" flourished, with orders being criticized, corrected at will, or ignored altogether. There were plans for the defeat of the Reds, spectacular on paper, but impossible in reality.
