Troubles. 1919 year. At the beginning of May 1919, on the Southern Front from Manych to the Sea of Azov, there was a turning point in favor of the Whites. The White Guards won important victories in the Donetsk sector and the Manych battle. In the camp of the Red Army, signs of decay were noted. A difficult situation was in the rear of the Reds - the uprising of Ataman Grigoriev began. The Vyoshensky uprising of the Don Cossacks continued.
Battle on Manych
Heavy battles were fought in the Manych sector of the Southern Front. After the defeat of the 11th Red Army in the North Caucasus, two of its divisions, which were reorganized into a Separate Army (Stavropol group), withdrew to the Salsk steppes, settling in the area between the Don and Volunteer armies. White attacked the opponent several times, but without much success. The Reds were based in the large village of Remontnoye, which more than once passed from hand to hand. In February 1919, the red command carried out a new reorganization of the troops: from the remnants of the 11th and 12th armies, which were defeated in the North Caucasus, a new 11th army was formed in the Astrakhan region.
Meanwhile, the 10th Army, located in the Tsaritsyn direction and significantly reinforced, launched an offensive on Tikhoretskaya in March. Mamontov's Cossacks, who had previously held on, wavered. Yegorov's army established contact with the Separate Army. Also, the 10th Army included the Caspian-Steppe Group of Rednecks. After that, the Red Army dealt a powerful combined blow to the Mamontov group. The Stavropol group advanced on the Grand Duke, bypassing Mamontov's Cossacks from the flank and rear. From the front, at Kotelnikovo, the troops of the 10th Army, including the 4th Cavalry Division of Budyonny, attacked. The eastern front of the Cossacks collapsed. The White Cossacks fled to the steppe or beyond the Manych and even beyond the Don. The combined units of the grand-ducal group of General Kutepov also did not withstand the blow. The Reds took the Grand Duke, forced the Manych.
By early April, the Red Army occupied the Trade, Ataman, advanced units went to Mechetinskaya. As a result, the White Army was left with a narrow strip of 100 km, which connected the Don with the Kuban, the only railway (Vladikavkaz) passed along it. The white command had to transfer everything that was in the rear here. Moreover, in order to stabilize the front, it was necessary to redeploy units from the western sector, where fierce battles were fought in the Donbas.
The choice of the VSYUR strategy
During this period, a dispute arose in the leadership of the White Army over the issue of future offensive operations. The Caucasian Volunteer Army was temporarily commanded by the chief of staff, General Yuzefovich. He replaced the sick Wrangel. Both Yuzefovich and Wrangel sharply disagreed with Denikin's rate. Yuzefovich and Wrangel believed that the main blow should be delivered to Tsaritsyn in order to establish contact with Kolchak's troops. To do this, it was necessary to sacrifice the Donbass, which, as they thought, could not be held anyway, to pull the troops on the western flank to the line of the Mius River - Gundorovskaya station, covering the Novocherkassk - Tsaritsyn railway. Leave only the Don army on the right bank of the Don, and transfer the Caucasian Volunteer Army to the eastern flank, advancing on Tsaritsyn and hiding behind the Don. That is, it was proposed to concentrate all the efforts of Denikin's army, its selected units on the eastern sector of the front, in order to break through to Kolchak.
Denikin's headquarters was against this idea. First, this plan led to the loss of the Donetsk coal basin, which Moscow considered the most important for the cause of the revolution in Russia, the right-bank part of the Don region with Rostov and Novocherkassk. That is, the possibility of an offensive by the whites in the Kharkov direction, and further into Novorossiya and Little Russia, was lost.
Secondly, such a turn inflicted a powerful moral blow on the Don army, the White Cossacks had just begun to recover, supported by the neighborhood of volunteers. Militarily, the Don army simply would not have held the new sector of the front. The departure of the volunteers to the east liberated the forces of the 13th, 14th and parts of the 8th red armies, which received the opportunity to deliver powerful blows to the flank and rear of the Don and destroy them. There is no doubt that the Don Cossacks and Kuban would immediately accuse the white command of treason.
Thirdly, a new catastrophe of the Don army, inevitable in such a situation, led to a critical situation for the volunteers themselves. The main forces of the Southern Front of the Reds (8th, 9th, 13th and 14th armies) received an excellent opportunity on the shoulders of demoralized and broken donors to cross the Don, attack the rear and communications of the Volunteer Army in Yekaterinodar and Novorossiysk. Also, the Reds had every opportunity to immediately strengthen the Tsaritsyn direction, to transfer troops to the Volga. In addition, the offensive of the volunteers to Tsaritsyn and further to the north, given that their rear communications were greatly stretched and under enemy attack, and the path to the Volga went through a deserted and low-water steppe, which made it impossible to organize replenishment and supply on the spot. So it was a recipe for disaster.
Thus, Denikin's headquarters, in agreement with the command of the Don army, planned to hold the Donetsk basin and the northern part of the Don region in order to maintain the morale of the Don people, to have a strategic foothold for an offensive by the shortest routes to Moscow and economic considerations (Donbass coal). The volunteers were supposed to attack four Soviet armies on the Southern Front, and at the same time defeat the 10th Army in the Tsaritsyn direction. Thus, shackle the forces of the Red Army and provide assistance to Kolchak's army in the East of Russia.
May-Mayevsky's group in April 1919 continued to conduct heavy battles in the Donetsk direction. The situation was so critical that the corps commander and Wrangel proposed to withdraw the troops to Taganrog in order to preserve the backbone of the best forces of the Volunteer Army. Wrangel again raised the issue of withdrawing the troops of the Caucasian Volunteer Army. However, the rate of Denikin stood his ground - to keep the front at any cost. As a result, the troops of May-Mayevsky withstood a 6-month struggle in the Donetsk basin.
Manych operation of Denikin's army
The situation in the Manych direction was still dangerous. The Reds were already on the Bataysk - Torgovaya railway line, and their reconnaissance was in the transition from Rostov-on-Don. Therefore, Denikin's headquarters began to hastily transfer additional forces to this sector. On April 18 - 20, 1919, the Whites held a concentration of troops in three groups: General Pokrovsky - in the Bataysk area, General Kutepov - west of Torgovaya and General Ulagai - south of Divnoe, in the Stavropol direction. Wrangel was appointed commander of the group. The White Army received the task of crushing the enemy and throwing him back behind Manych and Sal. The Ulagaya group was to develop an offensive in the direction of Stavropol - Tsaritsyn tract.
On April 21, 1919, the Whites went on the offensive and by the 25th had thrown back the 10th Red Army beyond Manych. In the center, Shatilov's division crossed the river and defeated the Reds, taking a large number of prisoners. The Kubans of Ulagai also crossed the Manych and defeated the enemy at Kormovoy and Priyutny. At the mouth of the river, the Whites were unable to force the Manych. A screen was set up here under the command of General Patrikeev. General Kutepov, who commanded here earlier, assumed command of the May-Mayevsky corps, which in turn led the Volunteer Army. After that, most of the cavalry (5 divisions) was concentrated in the area of the mouth of the Yegorlyk River in order to strike at the Grand Duke.
At the same time, Denikin's army was reorganized. The Caucasian Volunteer Army was divided into two armies: the Caucasian, advancing on the Tsaritsyno direction, it was led by Wrangel and the Volunteer Army proper under the command of May-Mayevsky. The main shock unit of the Volunteer Army was the 1st Army Corps under the command of General Kutepov, which consisted of selected "registered" or "colored" regiments - Kornilovsky, Markovsky, Drozdovsky and Alekseevsky. Sidorin's Don army was also reorganized. The remnants of the three armies of the Don troops were brought together in corps, corps in a division, and a division in brigades. Thus, the three main groupings of the AFYUR were transformed into three armies - Volunteer, Don and Caucasian. In addition, a small group of troops was in the Crimea - the Crimean-Azov army of Borovsky (from May 1919 - the 3rd army corps).
From May 1 to May 5 (May 14 - 18), 1919, Wrangel's equestrian group was preparing to attack the Grand Duke. At the same time, on the right wing of Ulagaya's army, advancing on the Tsaritsyn tract and going to the rear of the Grand Duke, passed more than 100 miles north of Manych and reached the village of Torgovoe on the Sal River. In the battles near Priyutny, Remontny, the Kubans defeated the Steppe Group of the 10th Army. The rifle division was defeated, a large number of Red Army men were taken prisoner, the trophies of the whites were carts and 30 guns. Commander Yegorov, worried about the exit of the white cavalry to their communications, sent Dumenko's Horse Group from the Grand Ducal area across the line. On May 4, near Grabievskaya, Dumenko's cavalry was defeated in a tough battle.
The success of the Ulagaya's raid predetermined the outcome of the offensive on the Grand Duke. On May 5, Manych was forced by an equestrian group under the command of Wrangel. In a three-day stubborn battle near Velikoknyazheskaya, the central group of Yegorov's 10th army was defeated. The Whites took the Grand Duke. The frustrated 10th Red Army, having lost several thousand people, 55 guns in the battles on April 22 - May 8, only by prisoners, retreated towards Tsaritsyn. The retreat of the red army was covered by Budyonny's cavalry division. The troops of the Caucasian army of Wrangel continued their offensive.
In early May 1919, the White Guards also won a victory in the Donetsk direction. The troops of May-Mayevsky launched a counteroffensive, occupied the region of Yuzovka and Mariupol, captured a large number of prisoners, and rich trophies.
A radical turning point in favor of the White Army
Thus, at the beginning of May 1919, on the Southern Front from the Donets to the Sea of Azov, there was a turning point in favor of the Whites. In the camp of the Red Army, signs of decay were noted. Unsuccessful offensive operations, bloody protracted battles drove out a significant part of the combat-ready Red units. The remaining units, especially those made up of the "Ukrainian" insurgent units, decayed and pulled the rest of the troops with them. Desertion has become a mass phenomenon.
In the rear of the Red Army, the situation was also difficult. The Upper Don uprising continued, drawing off the forces of the Reds on the insurgent Cossacks. On April 24, the ataman Grigoriev raised an uprising against the Bolsheviks, under whose command there was a whole bandit army. He had massive support from the local population. The rebels captured Elisavetgrad, Znamenka, Alexandria, and approached Yekaterinoslav. To fight it, it was necessary to send the reserves of the Southern Front of the Reds, weakening the Donetsk direction. At the same time, the tension between the Bolsheviks and the chieftain Makhno was growing, which was reflected in the position of the Reds in the Azov region. All Little Russia was still swarming with various atamans and dads, who recognized the Soviet power very formally (while the Reds had power), who continued to "walk" in the rear.
At the same time, a new wave of peasant war began in Little Russia, now against the Bolsheviks. The peasants of Little Russia had already been plundered by the Austro-German invaders, the regimes of the Directory and Petliura. A significant part of the past harvest and livestock were requisitioned and taken to Germany and Austria-Hungary. And after the Red Army occupied Ukraine, the peasants were in for a new misfortune - food appropriation and collectivization. Lands of landowners and prosperous peasants (kulaks) passed into the hands of the state, they tried to organize state farms. At the same time, the peasants already felt the will, had experienced leaders and weapons. And there was a sea of weapons in Little Russia and Novorossia - from the Russian front of the First World War, both from the Austro-German, and from the fronts of "independent" Ukraine. They have already divided the land of large farms, livestock and implements. Now they were trying to take it away from them. Therefore, in the spring in Little Russia, the peasant war flared up with renewed vigor. Detachments of the most diverse elders and chieftains, of all political shades - for Soviet power, but without the Bolsheviks, nationalists, anarchists, Socialist-Revolutionaries and just bandits walked around the region.
