"Black Baron" Wrangel. Denikin's successor.
In the previous article (Faces of the Civil War) We discussed how the White movement's leaders, who maintained a "no-predeterminism" stance, had virtually nothing to offer the Russian people. They offered only vague promises to address the accumulated gaps following the victory over the Bolsheviks—while Lenin and his comrades offered everything at once. Only in the final stages of the civil war did P. Wrangel come up with a program that was more or less understandable to the people. He agreed to transfer the landlords' land to the peasants (albeit for a "fair" payment), recognize and legalize the peasants' seizures of landlords' land, develop laws guaranteeing workers' rights and at least some social guarantees, and promised to grant self-government to the national outlying areas. But he again delegated the decision on Russia's state structure to the Constituent Assembly, whose deputies would again have to be elected. And in his "Appeal to the Russian People," he incautiously declared that the people must choose their "master"—and even the "volunteers" began to suspect that Wrangel not only wanted to restore the monarchy, but wanted to become emperor himself. And P. Gorenstein and S. Pokrass wrote a march with a formula that was timeless:
White Army, Black Baron,
They are preparing the royal throne for us again.
They are preparing the royal throne for us again.
Remember?
Let's return to Wrangel's reforms: some believe that if the "Whites" had immediately come up with this or a similar program, the civil war might have taken a different course, but this is unlikely. Now, however, it was too late, and the "Black Baron" was doomed to defeat. In these articles, we will discuss Wrangel's origins and career, his participation in the civil war, his emigration, and his death abroad.
The Wrangel family
The man discussed in this article was a member of the Danish noble family of Tølsburg-Ellistfer, whose origins can be found in documents dating back to the early 13th century. The Wrangel family's motto was the Latin phrase "Frangas, non flectes" – "You can break, but you cannot bend." The first known ancestor of the "Black Baron" was a certain Dominus Tuki Wrang ("Lord Tuki Wrang"), who in 1219 was stationed in the garrison of Reval Fortress among the "men of King Valdemar II of Denmark." "Wrang" was likely a family nickname: it could mean "iron," "steadfast," but also "cruel."
The coat of arms of the Wrangel family, known since 1314, with a motto and images of a crest, eagle wings and two crenellated walls
The children of "Mr. Tuka" were called de Wranghele, and later, in Russia, they became Wrangels. Their estates were Ellistfer and Ludengoff. But in the 16th century, the Wrangel family split into 20 independent lines.
The first to receive the baronial title from Queen Christina of Sweden was Colonel Herman von Wrangel in October 1653. In the mid-18th century, other members of the family became barons of Livonia and Estonia.
As one might guess, the main occupation of the Wrangel family men was military service: they served in the armies of Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Holland, and even Spain. Seven members of the family became field marshals, more than thirty became generals, and another seven became admirals. Some members of the family became bishops, four women became abbesses, and seven became ambassadors to neighboring states.
In Russia there is some German Denis Vladimirovich Vrangelev He appeared in 1629—he is mentioned as the owner of an estate in the Nizhny Novgorod district. And in 1709, 22 officers with the surname Wrangel were killed in the Battle of Poltava. You probably guessed that they served in the Swedish army.
The first Wrangels appeared in the Russian army during the final stages of the Seven Years' War, and they later fought in the Russo-Turkish Wars of the 18th century. The name of one of the family's members can be seen on the 15th wall of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior—he is mentioned among those wounded in the Battle of Borodino. Alexander Yevstafievich Wrangel joined the history as the man to whom the famous Imam Shamil surrendered in the village of Gunib on August 26, 1859.
Adjutant General A. E. Wrangel, engraving from the late 1850s – early 1860s.
An island between the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas bears the name of Admiral Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel.
F. P. Wrangel in a portrait by A. Pershakov, 1892. In 1840-1847 he was the director of the Russian-American Company and opposed the sale of Alaska to the United States.
In the mid-19th century, by decree, the State Council of the Russian Empire recognized the baronial title of the Wrangels, who owned Ellistfer and Ludenhof.
By the beginning of the 2th century, it emerged that the Russian lines of the Wrangel family were the most numerous of all (the Swedish Wrangel families were second, and the Prussian ones third). By this time, 18 Russian Wrangels had risen to the rank of general, and two had become admirals. One Wrangel held the post of minister, another became a member of the State Council, two members of the family each became senators and governors, and one held a professorial chair.
The youth and early military career of Pyotr Wrangel
The future general and Denikin's successor as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia was born in the city of Novo-Aleksandrovsk (now Zarasai, Lithuania) in the Kovno Governorate on August 15 (27), 1878. His maternal father was a descendant of Peter the Great's famous "Blackamoor," Hannibal. Unlike many members of the Wrangel family, he chose civil service and enrolled his son first at the Rostov Real School and then at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, from which he graduated in 1901. Young Pyotr Wrangel was also passionate about music and sometimes conducted the orchestra at social balls.
The father also intended a civilian career for his youngest son, Nikolai, who became an employee of the Hermitage and editor of the magazine “Old Years” (he died in 1915).
After graduating with a degree in mining engineering, Pyotr Wrangel volunteered for the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. A year later, having passed the exam at the Nikolaev Cavalry School with first-class honors, he was promoted to cornet of the guard and enlisted in the reserves. His next career move was as a special assignment official to the Irkutsk Governor-General. Pyotr Wrangel re-entered military service after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War: on February 6, 1904, he became a cornet in the 2nd Verkhneudinsk Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Host, but on February 27 of that year, he was transferred to the 2nd Argun Cossack Regiment.
Ensign P. Wrangel is fourth from the left in the front row among the officers of the Second Agrun Cossack Regiment
During the Russo-Japanese War, he rose to the rank of centurion by December 1904, receiving the Order of St. Anne, 4th Class, with the inscription "for bravery," and the Order of St. Stanislav, 3rd Class, with swords and bow. After the war, he remained in service and on January 6, 1906, became a staff captain in the 55th Finland Dragoon Regiment, but was assigned to the Northern Detachment of Major General I. A. Orlov's Retinue. As part of this unit, he participated in suppressing rebellions in the Baltics, where he drew attention to his brutality—under his orders, 13 people were shot and two hanged in the Valisburg volost.
In March 1907, he was transferred as a lieutenant to the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. Either in August or October 1908, 30-year-old Pyotr Wrangel married his maid of honor, Olga Mikhailovna Ivanenko, who was five years his junior. She bore him four children, his last son, Alexei, born in exile in 1922, at the age of 39.
Olga Mikhailovna Wrangel
Olga outlived her husband by 40 years and died in New York in 1968.
In 1910, Pyotr Wrangel graduated from the Nikolaev Military Academy, and in 1911, he completed the Officer Cavalry School. In 1914, we see Wrangel as a captain and squadron commander in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. A few days after the start of World War I, he turned 36.
Captain Wrangel, 1914
P. Wrangel during World War I
The baron fought quite well. On August 6, near Causeni, at the head of the Guards Horse Regiment, he attacked a German battery, capturing two guns and four ammunition boxes. He was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th Class. During this battle, his horse was killed.
A. Sheloumov. Attack of P. N. Wrangel with a squadron of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment on a German battery on August 6, 1914.
The losses among the officer corps of the imperial army were very high, and the situation could be characterized by the words of Griboyedov's Colonel S. Skalozub:
Vacancies are just open;
Then the elders will be turned off by others,
Others, you see, are killed.
Then the elders will be turned off by others,
Others, you see, are killed.
Already in December 1914, P. Wrangel became a colonel and aide-de-camp of the Retinue.
On February 20 of the following year, he captured a crossing over the Dovinė River (in the south of modern Lithuania), and then drove two German companies from their positions, capturing 12 enemy soldiers and seizing a supply train. In June 1915, he received the St. George's Cross. weapon.
In October of that year, Wrangel became commander of the 1st Nerchinsk Regiment of the Ussuri Cavalry Brigade (later division) under General A. Krymov. Upon transfer, he received the following character reference:
Outstanding bravery. He grasps the situation quickly and perfectly, and is very resourceful in difficult situations.
Jumping ahead a bit, we note that after the end of the civil war, General Yakov Slashchev, who had returned to Soviet Russia, said in a conversation with Dzerzhinsky about the baron, whom he knew well:
A coward by nature, but professionally brave in battle.
At that time, Baron Robert Nikolaus Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg, who later became famous for his ideas of restoring the Mongol empire of Genghis Khan, and the infamous Grigory Semenov, whose gangs during the Civil War, according to the testimony of the American General Graves, served in Wrangel's regiment.
Under the protection of Japanese troops, they roamed the country (Siberia) like wild animals, killing and robbing people.
In 1916, the Nerchinsk Regiment participated in the offensive operation of the Southwestern Front, which went down in history as the Brusilov Offensive, and received a commendation from the Emperor. Then, at the end of 1916, Wrangel was transferred to the Romanian Front, where in mid-January of the following year he became commander of the 2nd Brigade of the Ussuri Cavalry Division and was subsequently promoted to major general. His career in the Imperial Army had reached its pinnacle.
After the February Revolution
The news of Nicholas II's abdication reached Wrangel in Bessarabia. A staunch monarchist, he wrote about the events in Petrograd:
With the fall of the Tsar, the very idea of power fell; all the obligations that bound the Russian people disappeared from their understanding, and power and these obligations could not be replaced by anything corresponding.
He was particularly shocked by the notorious "Order No. 1," issued by the Petrograd Soviet on March 1 (14), 1917, which he attempted to ignore. Nevertheless, his service continued, and in July 1917, he became commander of the 7th Cavalry Division, and then of the Combined Cavalry Corps. He even received the St. George's Cross, 4th Class, with a laurel branch for the successful retreat of infantry units to the Sbruch River, which took place from July 10 to 20, 1917. But the army was rapidly deteriorating and disintegrating before our eyes, and Wrangel's "old-regime" leadership methods irritated his superiors in Petrograd. All this led to his resignation, after which Wrangel and his family moved to Yalta, where he was arrested in late 1917 but soon released. After this, he went to Kyiv, where he failed to find common ground with Hetman Skoropadsky. Finally, in August 1918, he found himself in Yekaterinodar (present-day Krasnodar), where he began his service in Denikin's Volunteer Army.
White Guard General Pyotr Wrangel
Wrangel's first assignment in Denikin's army was as commander of the First Cavalry Division, which included Kuban and Terek Cossacks. From this time on, he invariably appeared in public wearing a black Cossack Circassian coat with gazyrs, earning him the nickname "Black Baron." He took part in the Second Kuban Campaign, soon rising to corps commander and the rank of lieutenant general. Wrangel sought not to disperse his forces across the entire front, but rather to consolidate them into a single "fist," throwing his cavalry into breakthroughs. It was the actions of his cavalrymen that largely determined the White Guards' success in the battles in the Kuban and the North Caucasus.
In May 1919, he found himself at the head of the Kuban Army, which pushed the 10th Red Army back to Tsaritsyn, and then, at the end of June 1919, managed to capture this strategically important city.
Wrangel in Tsaritsyn
And this wasn't the only White success. V. Mai-Maevsky's army captured the Donbass, Kharkov, and Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk). Lieutenant General V. Sidorin, with his troops and the rebels from the Upper Don stanitsas who had joined them, occupied the Don Cossack Host region and part of the Voronezh Governorate. Inspired by this success, Denikin decided to lead his troops toward Moscow, while Wrangel, with a more realistic assessment of the situation, proposed going on the defensive on the Kharkov sector of the front and advancing troops toward Saratov and then on to Moscow—anticipating the possibility of assisting Kolchak and perhaps even joining forces with him. However, the bloody admiral's army had already suffered defeat, lost Ufa, and was retreating beyond the Urals. Another option was to launch an offensive from Kharkov, going on the defensive on the Tsaritsyn sector. In early July 1919, Denikin issued an order known as the "Moscow Directive," which called for an offensive in all directions: three White armies were to advance along a 1000-kilometer front. Wrangel later called this "Moscow Directive." "a death sentence for the troops of Southern Russia"He wrote:
All principles of strategy were forgotten. The choice of a single main operational direction, the concentration of the bulk of forces on that direction, and maneuver—all of this was absent. Each corps was simply assigned a route to Moscow.
On September 20, 1919, Denikin’s troops captured Kursk, on October 13 – Orel, and on September 28, Yudenich began his offensive on Petrograd – and by the 20th of the same month he had come close to the city.
But in the autumn of 1919, the White Guard's march on Moscow ended in disaster, and Wrangel, due to disagreements with Denikin, was removed from command on December 20, 1919. Yudenich suffered defeat and retreated to Estonia by the end of the year. Infighting among the Whites continued, and Denikin, who clung to power to the bitter end, dismissed Wrangel and Generals Lukomsky and Shatilov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, from the army in early February 1920. fleet Vice-Admiral Nenyukov and the Chief of Staff of the Fleet, Rear Admiral Bubnov. This caused outrage among the troops, and Captain Nikolai Orlov even staged a mutiny in Crimea, demanding Denikin's resignation and the appointment of Wrangel as commander-in-chief. Denikin's government was accused of "embezzlement and inefficiency"However, Wrangel did not support this rebellion and even left for Constantinople for a while.
Denikin's reputation was finally ruined by the catastrophic and inept evacuations of White Guard units and White civilian supporters from Odessa (February 2-8, 1920) and Novorossiysk (March 1920). This will be discussed further in articles devoted to A. Denikin.
English Tanks, abandoned by the White Guards in Novorossiysk. Incidentally, in November 1920, 12 more tanks would become trophies to the Red Army in Crimea – 5 in Feodosia and 7 in Sevastopol.
In Novorossiysk alone, approximately 22 White Guards were captured. Just recently, on January 4, Kolchak ceded the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia to Denikin. And already on April 4, the disgraced Denikin resigned and left Russia that same day on a British destroyer.
Denikin in a photograph taken on the day of his resignation – April 4, 1920.
And on April 4, Wrangel arrived in Sevastopol on the battleship Emperor of India.
In the following articles, we will continue our story and talk about the desperate attempts at reform undertaken by Baron Wrangel, about the agony of the White Guard Crimea and the declared “model” evacuation of November 1920, about Wrangel’s life in exile.
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