100 years ago, in March 1919, the "Flight to the Volga" began - a strategic offensive operation of Kolchak's army with the aim of defeating the Eastern Front of the Red Army, reaching the Volga, joining with white forces in the South and North of Russia and a subsequent strike on Moscow. The main blows were delivered by the white troops in the central (Western Army) and northern (Siberian Army) directions.
General situation on the Eastern Front
At the beginning of the 1919 campaign, a temporary balance of power was established on the Eastern Front. The White Army had a slight superiority in manpower (by the beginning of May 1919, the Red Army had gained superiority in the number of troops), and among the Reds in firepower. At the same time, the Reds began to catch up with the Whites in organization and combat effectiveness.
In late 1918 - early 1919, the sides exchanged blows. At the end of November 1918, the White troops began the Perm operation and, on December 21, took Kungur, on December 24 - Perm (). The 3rd Red Army suffered a heavy defeat. There was a threat of the loss of Vyatka and the collapse of the entire northern flank of the Eastern Front of the Red Army. Only extraordinary measures made it possible to rectify the situation. In January 1919, the red command organized a counteroffensive to recapture Kungur and Perm. The offensive was led by the troops of the 2nd and 3rd armies, the shock group of the 5th army (auxiliary attack on Krasnoufimsk). However, the mistakes of the command, poor preparation, weakness of forces (there was no superiority over the enemy), weak interaction led to the fact that the task was not completed. The Reds pushed the enemy, but could not break through the front and went over to the defensive.
The defeat in the Perm direction was partially compensated for by the victory of the Reds on the main - the Ufa direction and in the Orenburg direction. On December 31, 1918, the Red Army occupied Ufa, and on January 22, 1919, units of the 1st Red Army united in Orenburg with the Turkestan army advancing from Turkestan. On January 24, 1919, the troops of the 4th Red Army took Uralsk. In February 1919, the 4th Red Army under the command of Frunze wedged deeply between the forces of the Orenburg and Ural Cossacks, advancing on the Lbischensk - Iletsk - Orsk line.
Thus, during the winter campaign of 1918-1919, the Red Army managed to reach the Ural ridge, the last line in front of Siberia, where the main vital centers of the White Army were located. The battles in the Perm and Ufa directions showed a situation of unstable strategic equilibrium on the Eastern Front.
Supreme Commander Kolchak rewards his soldiers
Red Army
On the northern flank of the Eastern Front of the Red Army were located two Soviet armies - 2nd and 3rd, commanded by V. I. Shorin and S. A. Mezheninov, respectively. They numbered about 50 thousand bayonets and sabers, with 140 guns and about 960 machine guns. The 2nd army was covered by the Sarapul army, the Perm-Vyatka army - by the 3rd army. They opposed the Siberian army of the whites. In the center of the front was the 5th Army of J. C. Blumberg (he was soon replaced by M. N. Tukhachevsky). It numbered 10-11 thousand soldiers with 42 guns and 142 machine guns. She was opposed by the Western White Army. On the southern flank were the 1st Army - Commander GD Gai, 4th Army - Commander M. V. Frunze, and the Turkestan Army - Commander V. G. Zinoviev. They numbered 52 thousand bayonets and checkers with 200 guns and 613 machine guns. They were opposed by the Separate Orenburg army of Dutov, which was defeated and retreated to the steppe, and the Separate Ural army. In total, the red armies of the Eastern Front at the beginning of the battle numbered more than 110 thousand people, about 370 guns, more than 1700 machine guns, 5 armored trains.
As a result, by the time Kolchak's army attacked, the red Eastern Front had strong flanks and a weak extended center. On the northern lines of operations, the forces of the Reds and Whites were almost equal. The group of red armies in the south, although it was widely scattered in space, had a serious superiority over the enemy (52 thousand people against 19 thousand). And the weak 5th Red Army with 10 thousand soldiers was against almost 50 thousand enemy groupings.
The Soviet command planned to develop an offensive in the southern direction (with the forces of the 4th, Turkestan and 1st armies) and complete the liberation of the Ural and Orenburg regions from the White Cossacks. Then the 1st Army was to launch an offensive against Chelyabinsk in two columns. The right column moved bypassing the Ural Range from the south, through Orenburg - Orsk - Troitsk, and the left column from Sterlitamak was aimed at Verkhneuralsk, crossing the Ural Mountains, and from there moved to Chelyabinsk. The 5th Army was supposed to overcome the Ural Mountains in its sector, going into the rear of the enemy's Perm grouping, and providing assistance to the right flank of the 2nd Army. The 2nd Army was to cover the left flank of the Permian grouping of whites. The 3rd Army received an auxiliary task of pinning down the Whites from the front.
It is worth noting that the rear of the Red Eastern Front at this time was fragile. The policy of "war communism", in particular, the food requisitioning was heavily accepted by the peasantry of the Volga region. In the immediate rear of the Red Army, a wave of peasant uprisings swept through the Simbirsk and Kazan provinces. In addition, part of the forces of the Eastern Front were transferred to the Southern, which weakened the position of the Red armies before the offensive of Kolchak's troops.
Reorganization of the Russian army
In December 1918, a radical reorganization of the military command was carried out. Admiral Kolchak completed the work begun by General Boldyrev to reorganize the management of the white armed forces of the East of Russia. On December 18, 1918, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief ordered to abolish the corps areas of the Siberian Army and create instead of them military districts: West Siberian with headquarters in Omsk (it included Tobolsk, Tomsk and Altai provinces, Akmola and Semipalatinsk regions); The Central Siberian District with headquarters in Irkutsk (it included the Yenisei and Irkutsk provinces, the Yakutsk region); The Far Eastern District with its headquarters in Khabarovsk (it included the Amur, Primorsk and Trans-Baikal regions, the northern part of Sakhalin Island. In January 1919, the names of the military districts were changed to Omsk, Irkutsk and Priamursk, respectively. circle of the Orenburg Cossack army Orenburg military district with headquarters in Orenburg (this district included the Orenburg province).
Also, for operational management, the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Kolchak, was formed. Major General DA Lebedev was the chief of staff of the Supreme Command Headquarters, and B. Bogoslovsky was the chief of staff of the Eastern Front. On December 24, 1918, the troops of the Eastern Front were divided into the Siberian, Western and Orenburg separate armies; the Ural separate army was also under the operational subordination of the Headquarters. The Siberian and People's armies were abolished. The new Siberian army under the command of General R. Gaida was formed on the basis of the Yekaterinburg group of forces (it included the 1st Central Siberian corps, the 3rd Steppe Siberian corps, the Votkinsk division and the Krasnoufim brigade). By the beginning of the Spring Offensive of 1919, the Siberian army numbered about 50 thousand bayonets and sabers, 75 - 80 guns and 450 machine guns.
At the headquarters of the Siberian Army on the eve of the general offensive. In the first row from left to right: commander R. Gaida, A. V. Kolchak, chief of staff B. P. Bogoslovsky. February 1919
The Western army under the command of the commander of the 3rd Ural corps, General MV Khanzhin, was created on the basis of the 3rd Ural corps of the Samara and Kama groups of forces (later - the 8th Ufa and 9th Volga corps). Then the composition of the Western Army was replenished at the expense of the 2nd Ufa and 6th Ural corps. By the beginning of the spring of 1919, the Western Army consisted of more than 38, 5 thousand bayonets and sabers, about 100 guns, 570 machine guns. Also, the Western Army was subordinated to the Southern Army Group under the command of General P. Belov (finally formed by March 24, 1919), as part of the 4th Army Corps and the Sterlitamak Consolidated Corps. The southern army group consisted of about 13 thousand bayonets and sabers with 15 guns and 143 machine guns.
On the basis of the troops of the Southwestern Front, the Orenburg Separate Army was formed under the command of General A. I. Dutov. The Orenburg army consisted of the 1st and 2nd Orenburg Cossack corps, the 4th Orenburg army, the Consolidated Sterlitamak and Bashkir (4 infantry regiments) corps and the 1st Orenburg Plastun Cossack division. The number of the Orenburg army reached 14 thousand people. A separate Ural army under the command of General N. A. Savelyev (from April V. S. Tolstov) was formed from the Ural Cossack army and other military units created within the Ural region. It consisted of: 1st Ural Cossack Corps, 2nd Iletsk Cossack Corps, 3rd Ural-Astrakhan Cossack Corps. The size of the army at different times ranged from 15 to 25 thousand people. In addition, the 2nd Steppe Siberian separate corps under the command of General V. V. Brzhezovsky operated in the Semirechye direction.
In total, the white armed forces of the East of Russia by the spring of 1919 numbered about 400 thousand people. At the front itself there were about 130-140 thousand bayonets and sabers.
Private of the Siberian Army. Exhibit of the Omsk State Museum of History and Local Lore. Source:
White command strategy
The fall of Kazan, the collapse of the People's Army, defeats in the Samara-Ufa direction, and the withdrawal of the Czechoslovak troops from the front did not lead to the abandonment of the Siberian government of Kolchak from an offensive strategy. At the same time, the Kolchak government inherited the strategy of the Directory - the main blow in the Perm-Vyatka direction with the aim of joining the Whites and the Entente troops with the Northern Front. Further, it was possible to develop a movement towards Petrograd from Vologda. They also planned to develop the offensive along the Sarapul - Kazan, Ufa - Samara line, then the Moscow direction loomed. If the operation was successful and the whites reached the Volga, the offensive was to continue and develop into a campaign against Moscow from the north, east and south. This made it possible to occupy the more populated and industrially developed provinces, to join forces with Denikin's army. As a result, Moscow, after the defeat of the Eastern Front of the Reds and the exit to the Volga, was planned to be occupied in July 1919.
Ataman Dutov, commander of the Orenburg army, proposed to deliver the main blow on the southern flank in order to connect and create a common front with Denikin's army in southern Russia. However, the concentration in the Orenburg area of the main strike group of Kolchak's army was difficult due to the lack of direct communication - by rail to Orenburg from Omsk it was possible to get only through Samara. In addition, there was a political factor - Denikin had not yet recognized the all-Russian power of Kolchak. Therefore, it was decided that the armies of Denikin and Kolchak would fight separately. Kolchak said: "Whoever gets to Moscow first will be the master of the situation."
In turn, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (ARSUR) Denikin made plans for the campaign for 1919, exaggerating the importance of the help of the allies in the South of Russia. It was planned that the divisions of the Entente would help the whites to clear Russia of the Bolsheviks. In reality, the masters of the West were not going to get involved in a massacre on the territory of Russia, preferring to act with the hands of whites and nationalists. Denikin, hoping for the help of the Entente, planned to end hostilities in the North Caucasus, prevent the Reds from occupying Ukraine, and then also go to Moscow, with a simultaneous attack on Petrograd and an offensive along the right bank of the Volga. That is, the former, instead of concentrating the main forces in one direction, scattered them over a huge space.
Thus, the strategy of the Siberian government had shaky foundations. First, the White command was unable to organize the interaction of the main forces of the White Army - the troops of Kolchak and Denikin to strike the enemy. Kolchak's army repeated the strategic mistake of the People's Army and the Czechoslovakians - significant forces were again concentrated on the Perm-Vyatka direction, although it had already become clear that the Northern Front was weak and passive, of secondary importance. At the same time, the Czechoslovakians, the most powerful part of the anti-Bolshevik front in eastern Russia, left the front.
Secondly, Kolchak's army had a rather weak material base, manpower. The bulk of the population, social groups did not support the Kolchak government and its goals. As a result, it led to massive resistance in the rear, powerful uprisings, which became one of the main prerequisites for the future defeat of Kolchak's Russian army. True, at the very beginning, suppressing the democratic counterrevolution of the "constituent members" (the left wing of the Februaryist revolutionaries), the military were able to temporarily restore order in the rear, carry out mobilization, which, on the basis of strong officers, created a strong foundation for Kolchak's Russian army.
In such a situation, the Siberian white command could only count on temporary success in one of the operational areas. But this success was bought at the cost of a complete strategic depletion of forces - troops, material and human resources, reserves. For the further development of offensive operations in such a vast area, it was necessary to successfully carry out a series of mobilizations (mainly of peasants) both in the rear and in the occupied territories. However, the policy of the Siberian government ruled out the possibility that the peasantry would support the whites. Moreover, each new violent mobilization further incited the peasantry against the Kolchak government, and worsened the fighting efficiency of the Russian army itself (sabotage, mass desertion, going over to the side of the Reds, etc.).
That is, the Russian army of Kolchak could deliver one powerful, but limited in time and space blow. It was logical to strike the main blow south of Ufa in order to unite with Denikin's forces. However, here, apparently, the interests of the white command were ignored by the British. The formation of a single strong white army and the possible merger of the white governments of the South of Russia and Siberia contradicted the interests of the masters of the West, London. The British fettered the political will and operational thinking of Kolchak, pushed the whites towards Vyatka and Vologda. As a result, White decided to deliver two strong blows to both Vyatka and the Middle Volga, although they did not have enough strength and resources for this. Subsequent events fully revealed the shortcomings of the white command's strategic plan.
Three white armies took part in the strategic offensive: 1) Gaida's Siberian army was already concentrated on the Vyatka-Vologda direction, between Glazov and Perm; 2) Western army of the general. Khanzhina was deployed on the Birsk-Ufa front; 3) The Orenburg army was supposed to strike along the Orsk - Orenburg line. The White army at the front numbered about 113 thousand people with 200 guns. In three shock groups in the Vyatka, Sarapul and Ufa directions there were more than 90 thousand bayonets and sabers. The strategic reserve of Kolchak's Headquarters included the 1st Volga Army Corps of Kappel (3 rifle divisions and a cavalry brigade) in the Chelyabinsk - Kurgan - Kostanai region and three infantry divisions, which were formed in the Omsk region.
Thus, Kolchak's army inflicted two strong blows in the northern and central directions. A successful offensive in the center made it possible to cut the communications of the strong southern army group of the Red Eastern Front and push back the three Red armies to the south. Thus, the white command could free and receive help from the Orenburg and Ural Cossacks, and ensure the Turkestan direction.
