Andrei Shkuro before the civil war
Today we will talk about Andrei Grigorievich Shkuro, the son of a colonel in the Kuban Cossack Army, who became one of the prominent commanders of the White Guard Volunteer Army, and then an SS Gruppenführer, and was deservedly executed in Moscow on January 16, 1947.
After the collapse of the USSR, in the turbid wake of Yeltsin's decommunization (which, albeit on a smaller scale, continued even after the resignation of this insignificant political adventurer), attempts were made to whitewash and even glorify a number of highly dubious characters, such as the bloody Admiral Kolchak or the infamous General Vlasov. Some authors began writing about Shkuro in a panegyric tone, even calling him the "father of Russian special forces." But, firstly, we don't need bloody psychopaths who rose to the rank of SS Gruppenführer as the "fathers" of special forces (especially since it's untrue). Secondly, even highly authoritative contemporaries assessed Shkuro's activities with more than a little skepticism. Here's the opinion of the tsarist general and ataman of the Great Don Army, Pyotr Krasnov, a comrade of Shkuro (who was hanged along with him in the courtyard of Lefortovo Prison in January 1947):
Like all partisans in that war, he (Shkuro) was not particularly distinguished. During the war with the Bolsheviks, he distinguished himself by the rapid liberation and equally rapid surrender of Kislovodsk.
General A. Milkovsky writes:
Shkuro - his name, as a person without any moral principles, is well known to everyone.
Colonel M.V. Mezernitsky agrees with him:
Shkuro is a thief, a robber, a coward.
Baron Pyotr Wrangel gives a derogatory characterization of Shkuro and the Cossacks of his "Wolf Hundred":
I knew Colonel Shkuro from his work in the Wooded Carpathians, leading a "partisan detachment." With a few exceptions, it consisted primarily of the worst elements of the officer corps, for some reason burdened by service in their home units. Colonel Shkuro's detachment, led by its commander, operated in the XVIII Corps area, which included my Ussuri Division. It mostly hung around in the rear, drinking and robbing, until finally, at the insistence of Corps Commander Krymov, it was recalled from the corps' sector.
But Wrangel's appeal to Denikin demanding that he deal with the completely insolent Shkuro is simply a "cry from the heart" of a true general who cares about the cause:
The army is falling apart from drunkenness and looting. I cannot hold junior officers accountable when senior commanders set an example and remain unpunished. I request the dismissal of General Shkuro, who has completely corrupted his troops, from his command of the corps.
Wrangel valued Shkuro's "combat merits" during the Civil War so highly that, upon becoming commander of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia (which he renamed the "Russian Army"), he dismissed him from military service with one of his first orders. Incidentally, he called him exclusively "Shkura"—imbuing the word with an exclusively negative connotation—although that was the real surname of this antihero of the Civil War and of the entire Russian Empire. stories (Shkuro became one, according to his own statement, in the autumn of 1914, but most likely in 1919).
And Denikin, according to the testimony of General Mai-Maevsky's adjutant, Pavel Makarov, intended, as soon as he captured Moscow, to immediately put Shkuro on trial "for arbitrary action and the devastation of occupied territories." Shkuro knew of the commander's intentions and told his subordinates:
We'll break through the front, enter Moscow - and then I'll drink for three days, hang whoever I need to and shoot someone in the forehead.
The beginning of the military service of the future SS Gruppenführer
Born in 1887 in Yekaterinodar (present-day Krasnodar), the son of a Cossack colonel, Andrei Shkura was distinguished from childhood by his brash and unruly behavior. At the 3rd Moscow Cadet Corps, he once became the instigator of serious unrest. He recalled it this way:
We broke desks and benches, smashed lamps, trashed the building director's apartment, and the reason for our dissatisfaction was the unsatisfactory quality of the cutlets served.
His psychopathic traits only worsened over time, and in the Tsarist army he was known for constantly ignoring or outright disobeying orders from his superiors, which is precisely why he "went partisan" during the war—otherwise, he might have ended up in court martial. In the White Guard Armed Forces of Southern Russia, Shkuro's behavior was no better. For example, in 1919 in Kharkov, desiring the rank of lieutenant general, he presented himself to Mai-Maevsky and demanded a promotion, threatening to turn the corps back to Yekaterinodar and hang "whoever he needed"—referring to the commander and his staff. And when Denikin once told Shkuro about the need to restore order among his subordinates, he, whipping his boots, declared:
If you want, tomorrow there will be no Lenin, no Denikin, no Trotsky. Only Batko Makhno and Batko Shkuro.
But let's return to pre-revolutionary Russia.
Thanks to his father's intercession, Andrei Shkura was not expelled from the cadet corps after the pogrom over cutlets. He then enrolled in the Nikolaev Cavalry School, and upon graduating in May 1907, he was assigned to the 1st Uman Cossack Regiment of the Kuban Cossack Host, then stationed in the Kars fortress. He took part in General Baratov's detachment's campaign in Persia, where Russian soldiers fought against pro-Ottoman bands. Andrei Shkura possessed no shortage of courage, and for this campaign he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav, 3rd degree. In 1908, Andrei Shkura was transferred to the 1st Yekaterinodar Cossack Regiment of Koshevoy Ataman Zakhar Chepega.
Tatyana Shkuro
In the same year of 1908, he married Tatyana Sergeevna Potapova, the daughter of the director of public schools in the Stavropol province, whom he had known since childhood.
Shkuro and his wife in Kharkov, 1919.
Although not an aristocrat, Tatyana Shkuro had a keen taste for the "high life," which she finally was able to afford during the Civil War thanks to the "trophies" her husband collected. General Staff Colonel B. Shteifon writes about the methods of collecting these "trophies":
Countless numbers of those shot and hanged fell to Generals Pokrovsky and Shkuro. Both of them, drunkards and robbers by nature, brought terror to the populations of the conquered areas.
However, Shkuro managed to collect his "trophies" with impunity even in White Guard-controlled territory. Here's just one episode, recounted in Alexander Trushnovich's book, "Memoirs of a Kornilovite":
Shkuro was undoubtedly a great cavalry commander, but he was also a bit of a bandit. One day, accompanied by three or four of his officers, he entered the ballroom of a large hotel in Rostov, where dancing was in full swing, and asked all the guests to donate jewelry or cash to support his "wolves." Faced with the gleaming eyes beneath his shaggy wolf fur and remembering the "wolves'" notoriety for brutal robberies and lack of mercy, no one objected. And he ended up with a very successful haul.
As a result, in Yekaterinodar, Tatyana Shkuro lived in a large mansion with Empire-style furniture. She was served by footmen wearing cotton gloves, and her manager was a true aristocrat, Countess Vorontsova-Dashkova, who was responsible for the table setting, the kitchen, and the serving of expensive vintage wines to match each course. The infamous ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya, who proudly called herself "the mistress of the House of Romanov," recalled that during Denikin's army's retreat to Novorossiysk, Tatyana Shkuro traveled with her on the same train, but in a separate "luxurious salon car," which "was brightly lit, and one could see the table richly laden with appetizers."
Shkuro himself, by the way, also traveled during the Civil War on a special train with comfortable carriages, accompanied by available girls and musicians from two orchestras – a symphony and a brass band.
Tatyana Shkuro died in Paris in 1933. Andrei Shkuro outlived her by 14 years and completely ruined himself by collaborating with the German Nazis. And, as we recall, he was hanged in the courtyard of Lefortovo Prison on January 16, 1947. Fortunately, the couple had no children.
Continuation of Andrei Shkuro's military career
Let's return again to pre-revolutionary Russia.
In 1910, Andrei Shkura found himself in Chita, where he guarded gold mines and gold caravans, as well as combated smugglers. He then left the army for a time, but returned to service shortly before the outbreak of World War I, becoming a cornet in the 3rd Khoper Cossack Regiment. In the autumn of 1914, near Warsaw, a patrol of 17 Cossacks he led unexpectedly attacked an enemy hussar squadron, capturing two officers and forty-eight cavalrymen. It was then that Andrei Shkura changed his surname to Shkuro, and the Emperor himself allegedly became his "godfather." According to Andrei Grigorievich himself, Nicholas II, when approving the list of those nominated for the honorary St. George's Cross, weapons "His Majesty commanded" that the offensive surname be changed. However, some researchers claim that the surname Shkuro was first recorded in documents only in 1919.
Shkuro later wrote about this award:
For this deed I received the coveted “cranberry” – the Saint Anne of the 4th degree for a saber with a red lanyard.
In December, Shkuro was wounded in the leg and spent two months recovering in the hospital. Upon returning to duty, he received another wound to the stomach, but the bullet lost its force when it struck the hilt of the dagger his father had given him. Shkuro himself wrote:
If it weren't for my father's dagger, I would certainly have been mortally wounded.
Shkuro's "Wolf Hundred"
In 1915, Shkuro, now a captain, approached his command with a proposal to "deploy him with a party of Cossacks to harass the enemy's rear and communications." Some claim that his superiors were overjoyed by this initiative from the unruly Kuban native, as they were constantly faced with the dilemma of rewarding him for bravery or demoting him and court-martial him for disobeying orders. This unit was officially named the "Kuban Cavalry Detachment for Special Purposes," but Shkuro preferred to call it the "Wolf Hundred"—and he wasn't being original: this was an old name for Cossack units operating behind enemy lines. In the regular Russian army, the first "wolf hundreds" (formed from Transbaikal Cossacks) appeared during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, when Andrei Shkura was still studying at the cavalry school. So he has no right to be called the “father of Russian special forces.”
Shkuro ordered a grinning wolf's mouth to be painted on the banner of his detachment, and the Cossacks of this unit began to decorate their uniforms with wolf fur or even tails, and even imitated a wolf's howl.
Cossacks of Shkuro's "Wolf Hundred"
One often reads about the numerous exploits of Shkuro's "Wolf Hundred," which supposedly struck terror into the hearts of German soldiers. However, we remember the testimonies of Krasnov and Wrangel, who were more than skeptical of Shkuro's achievements. Many other White Guards, too, viewed Shkuro and his subordinates with disgust, and even the Cossacks of the "Wolf Hundred" said that their commander would certainly be hanged one day. Which is precisely what happened in January 1947.
After the February Revolution, Shkuro was transferred to the Caucasian Front. Here, he again commanded a separate "partisan" detachment of three mounted companies, equipped with two cannons and six machine guns. For a time, his chief of staff was the famous Yakov Slashchev, who from that time on began wearing a uniform without shoulder straps, declaring:
The Volunteer Army lives by robbery; we should not disgrace our old epaulettes with robbery and violence.
However, very soon Slashchev moved to Sergei Ulagay.
In October 1917, Shkuro was elected to the Kuban Regional Council (as a delegate representing frontline soldiers) and declared in Yekaterinodar that his "regiments stand and will fight for a constitutional monarchy." This provoked the sharp displeasure of all the other deputies, as by that time, the ideas of monarchism had been completely discredited by the inept reign of Nicholas II.
During this time, Shkuro fell ill with typhus and returned to the front only in December, shortly before the Erzincan Armistice with Turkey. His unit was disbanded, and he himself went to the North Caucasus and was wounded: a "native" shot at him from the roof of a house. After recovering, in May 1918, he again attempted to assemble a unit in Kislovodsk, but was arrested and sent to Vladikavkaz, where the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Terek People's Republic, Samuil Buachidze, released him "on his word of honor" not to oppose the new authorities. Shkuro immediately broke his word and fled to Kuban at the head of a small detachment of 80 men. Wrangel describes his arrival in Yekaterinodar as follows:
Colonel Shkuro behaved particularly unacceptably. He brought a division of his partisans, nicknamed the "Wolf Division," to Yekaterinodar. Wearing wolf-skin hats with wolf-tails on their cloaks, Colonel Shkuro's partisans looked less like a military unit and more like Stenka Razin's typical freebooters. One night after a drinking binge, Shkuro and his "wolves" would race through the city streets, singing, whooping, and firing gunshots.
In the next article, we will continue our story and talk about Shkuro's participation in the civil war.
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