On June 30, 1919, troops under the command of Lieutenant General Baron Pyotr Wrangel broke into Tsaritsyn. In many respects, the success of the Whites was ensured by tanks: the Wrangelites used them, throwing them at the fortifications of the Reds.
Defense of Tsaritsyn
The long-suffering Volgograd more than once had to turn into a fortress defending against enemy forces. The Battle of Stalingrad will forever remain in history as the greatest example of the military courage of the Soviet people. But almost a quarter of a century before the Battle of Stalingrad, when Volgograd (Stalingrad) was still called Tsaritsyn, the city had to repel white attacks for a long time.
In 1918, Tsaritsyn was never able to take the troops of the Cossack chieftain, General Pyotr Krasnov. Three times the Krasnovites attempted to storm the city and all times their attacks were repelled by the heroic defenders of the city. The Cossacks of Generals Konstantin Mamantov and Alexander Fitzkhelaurov were thrown back across the Don River. Tsaritsyn was defended by artillery batteries, the city was surrounded by barbed wire, behind which were the crews of the red machine gunners. Naturally, the Cossack cavalry could not break through such well-equipped lines.
As you know, the leadership of Tsaritsyn's defense was carried out by Joseph Stalin and Kliment Voroshilov, however, the direct organizer of the construction of defensive structures was Dmitry Karbyshev - the head of the engineering department of the North Caucasus Military District, a military engineer of the highest qualifications, a lieutenant colonel of the Russian imperial army. It was he who in 1918, a year before the capture of Tsaritsyn by the Whites, was responsible for all engineering and fortification work in the North Caucasian Military District.
It was not possible to take Tsaritsyn with the usual forces of cavalry and infantry. A new approach was required to storm the city, reliably defended by fortification lines. And he was found - the white command realized that tanks were needed to storm the city.
But the Whites did not have tanks until General Pyotr Krasnov, who was considered a pro-German military leader closely associated with Kaiser Wilhelm, went into the shadows. The fact is that Germany could no longer supply tanks to Krasnov because of its deteriorating situation, and the British command refused to cooperate with Krasnov. The British have already agreed to cooperate with General Anton Denikin, who led the Whites.
English tank, Russian tankman
Ultimately, General Denikin and his associates managed to persuade the British military command to supply the long-awaited armored vehicles for the needs of the White Army.
In April 1919, British ships arrived at the port of Novorossiysk. They were carrying a difficult, very valuable cargo for the White Army - British-made tanks. These were light tanks Mark-A ("Greyhound"), equipped with Vickers machine guns, and tanks Mark-IV (V), besides machine guns, also armed with two rapid-fire 57-mm cannons. The first tanks could reach speeds of up to 13 km / h, the second - up to 6 km / h. The tank crews consisted of 3-9 people.
But tanks alone were not enough - skilled tankers were also required, which the army subordinate to Denikin did not possess. There were brave infantrymen, excellent cavalrymen, but there were no specialists in the combat use of armored vehicles. Therefore, tank courses were opened in Yekaterinodar, taught by British officers who arrived with the tanks. Over the course of three months, the courses trained about 200 tankers.
Before the capture of Tsaritsyn, the tanks were tested in the Donbas. In the area of Debaltsevo - Yasinovataya, armored vehicles terrified the units of the Red Army, since machine guns could not stop its advance. In June 1919, the tanks were transferred by rail in the direction of Tsaritsyn. In total, they sent 4 tank detachments of 4 tanks each.
When the tanks with crews arrived at Tsaritsyn, General Wrangel included them in the attacking forces. The Black Baron sent two detachments to the south, where the main attack was being prepared by the forces of General Ulagai's group (2nd Kuban, 4th Cavalry Corps, 7th Infantry Division, a tank division, an armored car division, four armored trains).
From the north, the forces of the 1st Kuban corps were supposed to advance, which was tasked with pressing the Reds to the Volga, thereby cutting off their path to the north. The offensive was scheduled for June 29, 1919.
Tank attack
On June 29, 1919, the Wrangelites moved from Sarepta towards the southern fortified area of Tsaritsyn. Ahead of the main forces of the Wrangelites were eight tanks. One of the crews, commanded by Captain Cox, was fully manned by British troops. The other tanks were driven by the Russians.
Following the armored vehicles, armored vehicles, cavalry, and units of the 7th Infantry Division moved. Artillery support for the offensive was provided by an armored train armed with long-range naval guns.
Initially, the defenders of Tsaritsyn hoped that the barbed wire and machine-gun crews of the fortified area would once again stop the advance of the Whites. But they were wrong. The tanks that approached directly to the barbed wire fences stopped, volunteers from the tank crews hooked up the barbed wire with anchors, and the tanks dragged it along.
The machine-gun fire of the Red Army did not cause any harm to the tanks. The tanks were moving into the trenches. Soon the first level of defense was crushed, after which the Red Army men wavered and fled. Within three hours, the 37th division of the Red Army was completely defeated, the remnants of which began to retreat to Tsaritsyn.
With their swift onslaught, conducting aimed fire and supported by artillery fire, the tanks broke through the defensive ring. The Bolsheviks, throwing down their weapons, fled in panic, saving their lives from tanks, which seemed invulnerable to them. The Whites got rich booty, thrown hastily and in disarray by the fleeing Red Army, - recalled a participant in the events second lieutenant Alexander Trembovelsky, who was in one of the tanks.
Tsaritsyn's defenders threw their last hope against the Wrangel tanks - four armored trains. However, the tanks, coming close to the armored trains, no longer risked anything - the shells fired from the guns of the armored trains flew over the tanks without causing them harm. Three armored trains retreated, but one nevertheless entered into battle with tanks. Then one of the tanks tore the rails and with two shots knocked out the locomotive of the armored train, after which the infantry arrived in time as a result of a short-term battle captivated the surviving defenders of the armored train.
Taking the city. Tsaritsyn in the hands of whites
Despite the obvious triumph of tanks during the assault on Tsaritsyn, only one tank remained in service by the end of the battle. Seven tanks had to be hidden in a ravine from the artillery fire of the city's defenders, as they ran out of fuel and ammunition. The Red Volga military flotilla conducted continuous fire, not allowing the convoys with fuel and ammunition to approach the tanks.
But the city still had to be left red. On June 30, 1919, the Wrangelites entered Tsaritsyn. The only remaining tank Mark-I appeared on the streets of the city. On July 3, 1919, General Pyotr Wrangel held a military parade in Tsaritsyn, dedicated to the capture of the city. Seventeen tankers were awarded with St. George's crosses and medals.
Tsaritsyn was under the control of the whites, but not for long. Already on August 18, a month and a half after the capture of the city, the Red Army, with the support of the Volga-Caspian military flotilla, again launched an offensive. On August 22, the Reds took Kamyshin, on September 1 - Dubovka, on September 3 - Kachalino.
In early September, units and formations of the 10th Army of the Red Army reached Tsaritsyn himself and already on the 5th began the assault on the city. But the lack of manpower and resources did not allow the capture of Tsaritsyn in September. Moreover, on September 5, the forces of the white tank division defeated the landing of the sailors of the Volga-Caspian Flotilla under the command of Ivan Kozhanov and the 28th division of the Red Army.
In November 1919, the South-Eastern Front again launched an offensive against the White positions. Boris Dumenko's cavalrymen managed to defeat the 6-thousandth corps of General Toporkov, which made it possible to begin preparations for a new assault on Tsaritsyn.
On December 28, 1919, the 50th Taman Division of Epifan Kovtyukh, which was part of the 11th Army, arrived to the aid of the 10th Army. The 37th division of Pavel Dybenko, following along the right bank of the Volga, was also moving towards Tsaritsyn. On the night of 2 to 3 January 1920, units of the 10th and 11th armies of the Red Army broke into Tsaritsyn. The Whites tried to resist, but in the end they could not defend the city they had captured six months earlier.
By two o'clock in the morning on January 3, 1920, Tsaritsyn was finally taken under control by the Red Army. The Caucasian army was forced to retreat from the city. British military aid did not help the whites gain a foothold on the Volga and keep Tsaritsyn under control.
How did the red army learn to fight tanks
At first, British tanks really brought real terror to the Red Army. But then the daze from the first meeting with the armored "monsters" began to pass. By November 1919, the Red Army had already mastered the methods of fighting tanks. So, in the north of Tsaritsyn, the artillerymen of the Red Army organized an ambush, hiding a gun behind the market counters. Then a group of Red Army men moved forward, imitating an attack.
A tank drove out to meet the soldiers of the Red Army, which drove through the market. Unaware of the ambush, the tank drove 20 meters from the counter, behind which the gun was hidden, and at that moment a blank flew into the side of the tank, then the second. The first shot crushed the door of the armored vehicle, and the second smashed its insides. Then the Red Army men dealt with the second tank in the same way.
By December 1919, almost all the tanks of the Caucasian army were surrounded in the northern region of Tsaritsyn. The tankers fled, and the cars were abandoned, since there were no specialists in the Red Army divisions who were familiar with driving and maintaining tanks.
During the first battle on June 29, 1919, the Red Army artillery did not have armor-piercing shells at its disposal. High-explosive fragmentation grenades could also inflict damage to tanks only at a very small distance, and the artillerymen, who had never fought against tanks before, did not have the courage to let armored vehicles get closer and hit them closely.
Thus, for the first time a tank attack was undertaken in our country during the Civil War. Great Britain continued to supply white tanks, however, given their low maneuverability, very often combat vehicles ended up in the hands of the Reds. And by the end of the Civil War, the Red Army was already using the tanks captured during the hostilities against the whites with might and main. The true heyday of tank forces began after the end of the Civil War, and it was Soviet tanks and Soviet tankmen who had a chance to cover themselves with glory on numerous battlefields of the twentieth century.
