Battle for Armavir
100 years ago, in November 1918, the Second Kuban campaign ended. After a row of bloody battles, Denikinians occupied the Kuban region, the Black Sea region and most of the Stavropol province. The main forces of the Reds in the North Caucasus were defeated in the battles of Armavir and the Stavropol battle. However, the battle for the North Caucasus was not over and lasted until February 1919.
General situation
After the capture of Yekaterinodar, the commander of the Volunteer Army, General Denikin, was preparing to continue the campaign, the white army already numbered 35-40 thousand bayonets and sabers, 86 guns, 256 machine guns, 5 armored trains, 8 armored vehicles and two aviation detachment with 7 aircraft. The volunteer army began to replenish its units that had thinned out in battles (during the campaign, some units changed their composition three times) by mobilization, they also began to widely use another source of human resources - prisoners of the Red Army. All officers under the age of forty were subject to conscription. This changed the composition of the Volunteer Army, the solidity of the former volunteerism is a thing of the past.
The scale of the struggle increased significantly. Formerly a narrow and short front of volunteers stretched out. As a result, the front of the Volunteer Army in August 1918 of the year stretched from the lower reaches of the Kuban to Stavropol at a distance of about 400 miles. This led to a revision of the management system. General Denikin was not able to personally lead his entire army, as he had done before. “It opened up,” he said, “a broader strategic work for the commanders, and at the same time my sphere of direct influence on the troops was narrowed. I used to lead an army. Now I commanded her. ”
Denikin's army had to fight against several large groups of Reds, numbering a total of 70-80 thousand people. The Reds' misfortune was the partisanship they had preserved and the increasing confusion in the top leadership of the Reds Army in the North Caucasus. So, commenting on the struggle of whites against the red forces of the North Caucasus, General Ya. A. Slashchov wrote in his memoirs: “We have to be amazed at the desire for an incredible dispersion of forces and vastness, almost impossible tasks, which Denikin was striving for. All the time, the Dobromrmii case hung in the balance - there was not a single well-thought-out and properly carried out operation - everyone was striving for ambitious projects and building all hopes for success, on complete military illiteracy of the red bosses, and on mutual internal strife of council councils, Sovdeps and the command staff . It would only be necessary for the red to make peace with each other and carry out the correct policy, and in the red troops appear at the head of their talented and military-educated person, so that all plans of the white bet would collapse like a house of cards, and the restoration of Russia through Dobroarmiya would have an immediate failure. ” Thus, having superiority in strength, the Reds, due to unsatisfactory command, allowed the White to beat themselves in pieces.
Thus, by mid-August, White managed to occupy the western part of the Kuban region, Novorossiysk, and establish itself on the Black Sea coast. This task was fulfilled by the division of General Pokrovsky and the detachment of Colonel Kolosovsky. The Taman Reds group, blocking their path, showed greater stamina. She fought southward along the Black Sea coast to Tuapse, from where she turned east to join the army of Sorokin.
Stavropol. Armavir operation
The main theater of military operations was now transferred to the eastern part of the Kuban region against the Red forces of Sorokin. The struggle for Stavropol began. More 21 July guerrillas Shkuro took Stavropol. The movement to Stavropol in early August was not part of the intentions of the volunteer command. However, Denikin decided to send part of his army to support Shkuro. The situation here was extremely difficult. According to Denikin himself, “some villages met volunteers as deliverers, others as enemies ...”. G. K. Ordzhonikidze, commenting on the success of whites, drew attention to the fact that the population of Stavropol, “highly prosperous”, he also noted the fact that Stavropol peasants were set up “somehow indifferently to one or another power, if only to stop the war. " As a result, the people usually acted as a neutral observer of the Civil War that was going on before his eyes, and the attempt to conduct mobilization into the Red Army by the local Soviet authorities was not crowned with success. Moreover, mobilization led to a deterioration of the position of the Bolsheviks in the province. By that time, quite a lot of officers had settled in the Stavropol Territory, by all means avoiding participation in the war. The latter, falling under the category of mobilized, joined the detachments, which consisted of two parts - untrained young peasants and experienced officers. The result was not the Red Army detachments, but some gangs who did not obey any orders, arrested and killed the Communists, representatives of the Soviet government, and acted on their own.
In August, 1918 was white in a semicircle around Stavropol in the transition from the north, east and south. In the Kuban line, the Kuban garrisons were a weak cordon. White had to repel the offensive of the Bolsheviks from the south of Nevinnomysskaya and from the east of Grateful. The first attack of the Reds was repelled, and the second almost led to the fall of Stavropol, the Bolsheviks even managed to reach the outskirts of the city and the station Pelagiade, threatening to cut off the messages of the Stavropol whites with Yekaterinodar. Denikin had to urgently transfer the division of General Borovsky to the Stavropol area. The Reds were already completing the encirclement of the city when the echelons of the 2 Division reached Palagiada Station, ten kilometers north of Stavropol. Not reaching the station, the trains stopped, and the Kornilovsky and Guerrilla regiments, quickly unloaded from the cars, immediately turned into chains and attacked the Reds advancing on the city on the flank and rear. An unexpected blow disorganized the Reds and they ran. In the following days, the Borovsky division expanded the bridgehead around Stavropol. The red ones were pushed aside by the mountain of Nedremanna. They were not succeeded in knocking them off this mountain, and the battles for Nedremannaya became protracted.
In the first half of September, the 2-division of Borovskiy and the 2-division of the Kuban Division of S.G. Ulagai were engaged in continuous battles with units of the Reds. Borovsky managed to clear the Bolsheviks a vast area of versts a hundred miles along the radius of Stavropol. Borovsky got the opportunity to concentrate his main forces towards the upper Kuban.
In connection with the successful exit of Borovsky to the Kuban and a significant reduction in the front of the Drozdovsky division, Denikin ordered Drozdovsky to go over the Kuban and take Armavir. September 8 The 3-division of Drozdovsky launched an offensive and, after stubborn fighting of the 19, captured Armavir. In the same period, to assist the Armavir operation, Denikin ordered Borovskiy to strike in the rear of the Armavir Red group, seize Nevinnomysskaya, thereby cutting off the only railway line of communications of the Red Army of Sorokin. September 15 white attacked Nevinnomysskaya and after a hard fight took it. The capture of Nevinnomysskaya meant that the Reds, sandwiched between Laba and Kuban, were deprived of the possibility of retreat through Nevinnomysskaya and Stavropol to Tsaritsyn. Borovsky, fearing for his right flank, left the Plastun brigade in the Nevinnomyssk brigade, and he transferred the main forces to the Temnolessky farm. Taking advantage of this, Sorokin concentrated considerable forces of the cavalry against Nevinnomyssk under the command of D.P. Zhloba. Having crossed the Kuban north of Nevinnomysskaya, on the night of September 17, the Reds dispersed the rasters and seized the village, restoring their communication with Vladikavkaz and Minvodi. Denikin ordered Borovsky to attack Nevinnomysskaya again. White, regrouping and pulling up reinforcements, on September 20 went to the counterattack and beat the Nevinnomyssk 21. After that, the Reds tried to repel the village a week, but without success.
Thus, the resistance of the red was almost broken. The bulk of the North Caucasian Red Army was, according to Denikin, in the position of an “almost strategic encirclement”. The loss of Armavir and Nevinnomysskaya convinced Sorokin of the inability to stay in the south of the Kuban region and in the Stavropol region. He was about to retreat east when the sudden appearance of Matveyev’s Taman army changed the situation in favor of the Reds and even allowed them to launch a counterattack.
The commander of the 2 Infantry Division, Major General Alexander Alexandrovich Borovsky
Counter Reds. Fights for Armavir
The Taman army, having shown great stamina and courage, having fought 500 kilometers, managed to get out of a hostile environment, and joined up with the main forces of the Red Army of the North Caucasus under the command of Sorokin (The heroic campaign of the Taman army). The Tamans managed to bring in the half-decomposed red troops, energy and the ability for new battles. As a result, the Taman campaign objectively helped consolidate the red forces in the North Caucasus and allowed for a time to stabilize the situation on the front of the struggle against Denikin.
23 September 1918 of the year The North Caucasian Red Army launched an offensive on a broad front: the Taman group from Kurgan to Armavir (from the west), the Nevinnomysskaya group to Nevinnomysskaya and Belomechetinskaya (to the south and southeast). On the night of September 26, the Drozdovites left Armavir, moving to the right bank of the Kuban, to Prnochopskaya. Denikin threw his only reserve - the Markovsky regiment - to help Drozdovsky. September 25 The 2 and 3 battalions of Markovites moved from Ekaterinodar to the Kavkazskaya station and further to Armavir. Arriving in the morning of 26 for Armavir, the commander of the Markovites, Colonel N.S. Timanovsky, discovered that the city had already been taken in red. September 26 Timanovsky immediately attacked Armavir with the support of two armored trains, but did not receive help from the 3 division. Drozdovsky’s troops had just left the city and needed to be restored. After an unsuccessful battle, Markovites, having suffered great losses, retreated from the city.
Denikin ordered a repeat of the September 27 attack. At night, Drozdovskiy transferred his division to the left bank of the Kuban near Prochnopok and linked up with Timanovsky. During the new assault, the volunteers managed to take the Salomas plant, but then the Red counterattacked. The plant passed several times from hand to hand and as a result remained for red. The Plastunsky battalion attacked the Tuapse railway station several times, but also without success. By the evening the battle subsided. Both sides suffered heavy losses. September 28 was calm on the front, on this day the replenishment to 500 people arrived at Markovtsy.
September 29 Denikin arrived at the location of parts of Drozdovsky. He considered the further attack on Armavir to be useless until the Mikhailovsky Reds group was defeated, since the Bolsheviks received help from Staro-Mikhailovskaya when trying to storm the city. At a meeting with the commanders, Denikin agreed with this opinion. A weak barrier of Colonel Timanovsky was left at the Armavir direction, and Drozdovsky with the main forces should have had a quick and sudden blow from the east to the flank and rear of the Mikhailovsky Group and together with the wrangle's cavalry. In the battles of October 1, White was defeated and retreated. Drozdovsky returned to Armavir.
In early October, the Drozdovsky 3 Division was redeployed to Stavropol, and on the positions near Armavir, the 1 Division of Kazanovich changed it. By mid-October, his troops received reinforcements, in particular, the newly formed Combined Guards Regiment arrived in the number of 1000 fighters. In the morning of October 15, the whites went to the third assault on Armavir. The main strike was delivered on both sides of the railway by the Markov regiment. To the right of the Markovites, at some distance, were the Consolidated Guards and Labinsky Cossack regiments. The attack on the red line began with the support of the armored train "United Russia". On the left flank of the railway Markovtsy occupied a cemetery and a brick factory, and went to Vladikavkaz railway station. On the right flank, the Reds were knocked out of the first line of trenches a kilometer from the city and continued the offensive, but were stopped by the fire of the Red Proletariat armored train. After that, the red infantry went to the counter. Markovtsy managed to stop the advance of the Reds, but Taman cavalry regiments bypassed the Combined Guards Infantry and Labinsky Cossack regiments and they were forced to retreat. Markovtsy also had to start a retreat under heavy enemy fire. Thus, the assault failed again and White suffered heavy losses. The Combined Guards Regiment, attacked by the red cavalry from the right flank and rear, was completely crushed, lost half of the personnel and was sent to be re-formed in Ekaterinodar. Markovtsy lost more than 200 people.
The first heavy armored train in the United Russia Volunteer Army. Created 1 July 1918 of the year at the station Tikhoretskaya of the captured armored areas as "Battery ranged".
After a new unsuccessful assault there was a lull. Whites took the initial positions and settled positions and shelters. The 1 Division of Kazanovich was reinforced by the Kuban Rifle Regiment. The commander of the Markov regiment, Colonel Timanovsky, was promoted to major general and appointed commander of the brigade of the 1 division. October 26 white, with the support of artillery and armored trains, went to the fourth storming of the city. The Reds showed strong resistance and counterattacked, the battle continued all day. White could take the city. This time they were able to cut off the Reds' reinforcements from Armavir, preventing them from coming to the aid of the city’s defenders. The 1 th Kuban Rifle Regiment, located to the right of the Tuapse railway, with the support of the Horse Brigade, stopped the Reds units that came to the aid of Armavir, and forced them to retreat. Then Kazanovich developed an advance on the south along the Vladikavkaz railway between the Kuban and Urup. For two weeks, Wrangel tried to force the Urup to strike the flank and rear of the units operating against General Kazanovich and to throw them away for the Kuban. However, the Reds held strong positions and rejected the enemy.
On October 30, the Reds launched a counterattack on the entire front between Urup and Kuban and drove the cavalry units of General Wrangel outside the Urup, and the division of General Kazanovich under Armavir. October 31 - November 1 had heavy battles, whites were driven back to Armavir itself. The situation was critical. Reds had an advantage in manpower and ammunition. And the main forces of Denikin were engaged in battles at Stavropol. On the left flank of the army, units of the 2 th cavalry division of General Ulagai and what was left of the 2 th and 3 th divisions during the battles of Stavropol, barely restrained the onslaught of the numerically superior enemy. Part of the 1 division, having failed in the area of Konokovo - Malamino and suffering heavy losses, went to Armavir. It seemed that whites were about to suffer a crushing defeat.
However, October 31 Pokrovsky after a stubborn battle captured the station Nevinnomysskaya. The Reds pulled back to Nevinnomyssky reserves from Armavir and Urup, and on November 1 attacked Pokrovsky, but he resisted. Wrangel took advantage of this and on November 2 launched an offensive in the area of the Urupskaya station. Throughout the day, there was a stubborn fight with heavy losses on both sides. The breakthrough of the Reds was stopped, and on the night of November 3, the departure of the Reds to the right bank of the Urup was revealed. Wrangel 3 November struck unexpected blow to the rear of the Reds. It was a complete rout. Attacked from the front, flank and rear, the Reds turned to stampede. White pursued them. As a result, the Armavir Red Group (1-I Revolutionary Kuban Division) was utterly defeated. White captured more than 3 000 people, captured a large number of machine guns. The defeated red troops, having crossed the Kuban, partly fled along the railway line directly to Stavropol, partly moved through the village of Ubezhenskaya downstream of the Kuban to Armavir, leaving, thus, in the rear of the 1 division. In Armavir, whites had a small garrison. By order of Kazanovich, Wrangel singled out Colonel Toporkov’s brigade to prosecute the enemy column threatening Armavir. In the 5 - 8 battles of November, the Reds were finally defeated.
Thus, the Armavir operation ended in victory for the whites. They managed to take the city, and the defeat of the Armavir Red Group allowed them to concentrate forces to storm the Stavropol and complete the Stavropol battle. In many ways, the success of whites was due to internal differences in the camp of the Reds.
Commander of the 1 Infantry Division Boris Ilyich Kazanovich
Commander of the 1 Cavalry Division of the Volunteer Army Peter N. Wrangel
To be continued ...
General situation
After the capture of Yekaterinodar, the commander of the Volunteer Army, General Denikin, was preparing to continue the campaign, the white army already numbered 35-40 thousand bayonets and sabers, 86 guns, 256 machine guns, 5 armored trains, 8 armored vehicles and two aviation detachment with 7 aircraft. The volunteer army began to replenish its units that had thinned out in battles (during the campaign, some units changed their composition three times) by mobilization, they also began to widely use another source of human resources - prisoners of the Red Army. All officers under the age of forty were subject to conscription. This changed the composition of the Volunteer Army, the solidity of the former volunteerism is a thing of the past.
The scale of the struggle increased significantly. Formerly a narrow and short front of volunteers stretched out. As a result, the front of the Volunteer Army in August 1918 of the year stretched from the lower reaches of the Kuban to Stavropol at a distance of about 400 miles. This led to a revision of the management system. General Denikin was not able to personally lead his entire army, as he had done before. “It opened up,” he said, “a broader strategic work for the commanders, and at the same time my sphere of direct influence on the troops was narrowed. I used to lead an army. Now I commanded her. ”
Denikin's army had to fight against several large groups of Reds, numbering a total of 70-80 thousand people. The Reds' misfortune was the partisanship they had preserved and the increasing confusion in the top leadership of the Reds Army in the North Caucasus. So, commenting on the struggle of whites against the red forces of the North Caucasus, General Ya. A. Slashchov wrote in his memoirs: “We have to be amazed at the desire for an incredible dispersion of forces and vastness, almost impossible tasks, which Denikin was striving for. All the time, the Dobromrmii case hung in the balance - there was not a single well-thought-out and properly carried out operation - everyone was striving for ambitious projects and building all hopes for success, on complete military illiteracy of the red bosses, and on mutual internal strife of council councils, Sovdeps and the command staff . It would only be necessary for the red to make peace with each other and carry out the correct policy, and in the red troops appear at the head of their talented and military-educated person, so that all plans of the white bet would collapse like a house of cards, and the restoration of Russia through Dobroarmiya would have an immediate failure. ” Thus, having superiority in strength, the Reds, due to unsatisfactory command, allowed the White to beat themselves in pieces.
Thus, by mid-August, White managed to occupy the western part of the Kuban region, Novorossiysk, and establish itself on the Black Sea coast. This task was fulfilled by the division of General Pokrovsky and the detachment of Colonel Kolosovsky. The Taman Reds group, blocking their path, showed greater stamina. She fought southward along the Black Sea coast to Tuapse, from where she turned east to join the army of Sorokin.
Stavropol. Armavir operation
The main theater of military operations was now transferred to the eastern part of the Kuban region against the Red forces of Sorokin. The struggle for Stavropol began. More 21 July guerrillas Shkuro took Stavropol. The movement to Stavropol in early August was not part of the intentions of the volunteer command. However, Denikin decided to send part of his army to support Shkuro. The situation here was extremely difficult. According to Denikin himself, “some villages met volunteers as deliverers, others as enemies ...”. G. K. Ordzhonikidze, commenting on the success of whites, drew attention to the fact that the population of Stavropol, “highly prosperous”, he also noted the fact that Stavropol peasants were set up “somehow indifferently to one or another power, if only to stop the war. " As a result, the people usually acted as a neutral observer of the Civil War that was going on before his eyes, and the attempt to conduct mobilization into the Red Army by the local Soviet authorities was not crowned with success. Moreover, mobilization led to a deterioration of the position of the Bolsheviks in the province. By that time, quite a lot of officers had settled in the Stavropol Territory, by all means avoiding participation in the war. The latter, falling under the category of mobilized, joined the detachments, which consisted of two parts - untrained young peasants and experienced officers. The result was not the Red Army detachments, but some gangs who did not obey any orders, arrested and killed the Communists, representatives of the Soviet government, and acted on their own.
In August, 1918 was white in a semicircle around Stavropol in the transition from the north, east and south. In the Kuban line, the Kuban garrisons were a weak cordon. White had to repel the offensive of the Bolsheviks from the south of Nevinnomysskaya and from the east of Grateful. The first attack of the Reds was repelled, and the second almost led to the fall of Stavropol, the Bolsheviks even managed to reach the outskirts of the city and the station Pelagiade, threatening to cut off the messages of the Stavropol whites with Yekaterinodar. Denikin had to urgently transfer the division of General Borovsky to the Stavropol area. The Reds were already completing the encirclement of the city when the echelons of the 2 Division reached Palagiada Station, ten kilometers north of Stavropol. Not reaching the station, the trains stopped, and the Kornilovsky and Guerrilla regiments, quickly unloaded from the cars, immediately turned into chains and attacked the Reds advancing on the city on the flank and rear. An unexpected blow disorganized the Reds and they ran. In the following days, the Borovsky division expanded the bridgehead around Stavropol. The red ones were pushed aside by the mountain of Nedremanna. They were not succeeded in knocking them off this mountain, and the battles for Nedremannaya became protracted.
In the first half of September, the 2-division of Borovskiy and the 2-division of the Kuban Division of S.G. Ulagai were engaged in continuous battles with units of the Reds. Borovsky managed to clear the Bolsheviks a vast area of versts a hundred miles along the radius of Stavropol. Borovsky got the opportunity to concentrate his main forces towards the upper Kuban.
In connection with the successful exit of Borovsky to the Kuban and a significant reduction in the front of the Drozdovsky division, Denikin ordered Drozdovsky to go over the Kuban and take Armavir. September 8 The 3-division of Drozdovsky launched an offensive and, after stubborn fighting of the 19, captured Armavir. In the same period, to assist the Armavir operation, Denikin ordered Borovskiy to strike in the rear of the Armavir Red group, seize Nevinnomysskaya, thereby cutting off the only railway line of communications of the Red Army of Sorokin. September 15 white attacked Nevinnomysskaya and after a hard fight took it. The capture of Nevinnomysskaya meant that the Reds, sandwiched between Laba and Kuban, were deprived of the possibility of retreat through Nevinnomysskaya and Stavropol to Tsaritsyn. Borovsky, fearing for his right flank, left the Plastun brigade in the Nevinnomyssk brigade, and he transferred the main forces to the Temnolessky farm. Taking advantage of this, Sorokin concentrated considerable forces of the cavalry against Nevinnomyssk under the command of D.P. Zhloba. Having crossed the Kuban north of Nevinnomysskaya, on the night of September 17, the Reds dispersed the rasters and seized the village, restoring their communication with Vladikavkaz and Minvodi. Denikin ordered Borovsky to attack Nevinnomysskaya again. White, regrouping and pulling up reinforcements, on September 20 went to the counterattack and beat the Nevinnomyssk 21. After that, the Reds tried to repel the village a week, but without success.
Thus, the resistance of the red was almost broken. The bulk of the North Caucasian Red Army was, according to Denikin, in the position of an “almost strategic encirclement”. The loss of Armavir and Nevinnomysskaya convinced Sorokin of the inability to stay in the south of the Kuban region and in the Stavropol region. He was about to retreat east when the sudden appearance of Matveyev’s Taman army changed the situation in favor of the Reds and even allowed them to launch a counterattack.
The commander of the 2 Infantry Division, Major General Alexander Alexandrovich Borovsky
Counter Reds. Fights for Armavir
The Taman army, having shown great stamina and courage, having fought 500 kilometers, managed to get out of a hostile environment, and joined up with the main forces of the Red Army of the North Caucasus under the command of Sorokin (The heroic campaign of the Taman army). The Tamans managed to bring in the half-decomposed red troops, energy and the ability for new battles. As a result, the Taman campaign objectively helped consolidate the red forces in the North Caucasus and allowed for a time to stabilize the situation on the front of the struggle against Denikin.
23 September 1918 of the year The North Caucasian Red Army launched an offensive on a broad front: the Taman group from Kurgan to Armavir (from the west), the Nevinnomysskaya group to Nevinnomysskaya and Belomechetinskaya (to the south and southeast). On the night of September 26, the Drozdovites left Armavir, moving to the right bank of the Kuban, to Prnochopskaya. Denikin threw his only reserve - the Markovsky regiment - to help Drozdovsky. September 25 The 2 and 3 battalions of Markovites moved from Ekaterinodar to the Kavkazskaya station and further to Armavir. Arriving in the morning of 26 for Armavir, the commander of the Markovites, Colonel N.S. Timanovsky, discovered that the city had already been taken in red. September 26 Timanovsky immediately attacked Armavir with the support of two armored trains, but did not receive help from the 3 division. Drozdovsky’s troops had just left the city and needed to be restored. After an unsuccessful battle, Markovites, having suffered great losses, retreated from the city.
Denikin ordered a repeat of the September 27 attack. At night, Drozdovskiy transferred his division to the left bank of the Kuban near Prochnopok and linked up with Timanovsky. During the new assault, the volunteers managed to take the Salomas plant, but then the Red counterattacked. The plant passed several times from hand to hand and as a result remained for red. The Plastunsky battalion attacked the Tuapse railway station several times, but also without success. By the evening the battle subsided. Both sides suffered heavy losses. September 28 was calm on the front, on this day the replenishment to 500 people arrived at Markovtsy.
September 29 Denikin arrived at the location of parts of Drozdovsky. He considered the further attack on Armavir to be useless until the Mikhailovsky Reds group was defeated, since the Bolsheviks received help from Staro-Mikhailovskaya when trying to storm the city. At a meeting with the commanders, Denikin agreed with this opinion. A weak barrier of Colonel Timanovsky was left at the Armavir direction, and Drozdovsky with the main forces should have had a quick and sudden blow from the east to the flank and rear of the Mikhailovsky Group and together with the wrangle's cavalry. In the battles of October 1, White was defeated and retreated. Drozdovsky returned to Armavir.
In early October, the Drozdovsky 3 Division was redeployed to Stavropol, and on the positions near Armavir, the 1 Division of Kazanovich changed it. By mid-October, his troops received reinforcements, in particular, the newly formed Combined Guards Regiment arrived in the number of 1000 fighters. In the morning of October 15, the whites went to the third assault on Armavir. The main strike was delivered on both sides of the railway by the Markov regiment. To the right of the Markovites, at some distance, were the Consolidated Guards and Labinsky Cossack regiments. The attack on the red line began with the support of the armored train "United Russia". On the left flank of the railway Markovtsy occupied a cemetery and a brick factory, and went to Vladikavkaz railway station. On the right flank, the Reds were knocked out of the first line of trenches a kilometer from the city and continued the offensive, but were stopped by the fire of the Red Proletariat armored train. After that, the red infantry went to the counter. Markovtsy managed to stop the advance of the Reds, but Taman cavalry regiments bypassed the Combined Guards Infantry and Labinsky Cossack regiments and they were forced to retreat. Markovtsy also had to start a retreat under heavy enemy fire. Thus, the assault failed again and White suffered heavy losses. The Combined Guards Regiment, attacked by the red cavalry from the right flank and rear, was completely crushed, lost half of the personnel and was sent to be re-formed in Ekaterinodar. Markovtsy lost more than 200 people.
The first heavy armored train in the United Russia Volunteer Army. Created 1 July 1918 of the year at the station Tikhoretskaya of the captured armored areas as "Battery ranged".
After a new unsuccessful assault there was a lull. Whites took the initial positions and settled positions and shelters. The 1 Division of Kazanovich was reinforced by the Kuban Rifle Regiment. The commander of the Markov regiment, Colonel Timanovsky, was promoted to major general and appointed commander of the brigade of the 1 division. October 26 white, with the support of artillery and armored trains, went to the fourth storming of the city. The Reds showed strong resistance and counterattacked, the battle continued all day. White could take the city. This time they were able to cut off the Reds' reinforcements from Armavir, preventing them from coming to the aid of the city’s defenders. The 1 th Kuban Rifle Regiment, located to the right of the Tuapse railway, with the support of the Horse Brigade, stopped the Reds units that came to the aid of Armavir, and forced them to retreat. Then Kazanovich developed an advance on the south along the Vladikavkaz railway between the Kuban and Urup. For two weeks, Wrangel tried to force the Urup to strike the flank and rear of the units operating against General Kazanovich and to throw them away for the Kuban. However, the Reds held strong positions and rejected the enemy.
On October 30, the Reds launched a counterattack on the entire front between Urup and Kuban and drove the cavalry units of General Wrangel outside the Urup, and the division of General Kazanovich under Armavir. October 31 - November 1 had heavy battles, whites were driven back to Armavir itself. The situation was critical. Reds had an advantage in manpower and ammunition. And the main forces of Denikin were engaged in battles at Stavropol. On the left flank of the army, units of the 2 th cavalry division of General Ulagai and what was left of the 2 th and 3 th divisions during the battles of Stavropol, barely restrained the onslaught of the numerically superior enemy. Part of the 1 division, having failed in the area of Konokovo - Malamino and suffering heavy losses, went to Armavir. It seemed that whites were about to suffer a crushing defeat.
However, October 31 Pokrovsky after a stubborn battle captured the station Nevinnomysskaya. The Reds pulled back to Nevinnomyssky reserves from Armavir and Urup, and on November 1 attacked Pokrovsky, but he resisted. Wrangel took advantage of this and on November 2 launched an offensive in the area of the Urupskaya station. Throughout the day, there was a stubborn fight with heavy losses on both sides. The breakthrough of the Reds was stopped, and on the night of November 3, the departure of the Reds to the right bank of the Urup was revealed. Wrangel 3 November struck unexpected blow to the rear of the Reds. It was a complete rout. Attacked from the front, flank and rear, the Reds turned to stampede. White pursued them. As a result, the Armavir Red Group (1-I Revolutionary Kuban Division) was utterly defeated. White captured more than 3 000 people, captured a large number of machine guns. The defeated red troops, having crossed the Kuban, partly fled along the railway line directly to Stavropol, partly moved through the village of Ubezhenskaya downstream of the Kuban to Armavir, leaving, thus, in the rear of the 1 division. In Armavir, whites had a small garrison. By order of Kazanovich, Wrangel singled out Colonel Toporkov’s brigade to prosecute the enemy column threatening Armavir. In the 5 - 8 battles of November, the Reds were finally defeated.
Thus, the Armavir operation ended in victory for the whites. They managed to take the city, and the defeat of the Armavir Red Group allowed them to concentrate forces to storm the Stavropol and complete the Stavropol battle. In many ways, the success of whites was due to internal differences in the camp of the Reds.
Commander of the 1 Infantry Division Boris Ilyich Kazanovich
Commander of the 1 Cavalry Division of the Volunteer Army Peter N. Wrangel
To be continued ...
Information