Volunteer ice hike. Ice hike. year and the beginning of the creation of the Volunteer Army

From the memoirs of real participants in the battle for the village of Lezhanka on February 21, 1918

Denikin A.I. Essays on Russian Troubles. Volume 2
CHAPTER XIX. FIRST KUBAN CAMPAIGN.

“In the village of Lezhanka, a Bolshevik detachment with artillery blocked our path.
It was a clear, slightly frosty day.
The officer regiment was in the forefront. Old and young; platoon colonels.
Never before has there been such an army. Ahead - the assistant commander of the regiment, Colonel Timanovsky walked with a wide step, leaning on a stick, with an invariable pipe in his teeth; wounded many times, with severely damaged vertebrae of the spine ... One of the companies is led by Colonel Kutepov, the former commander of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. Dry, strong, with his cap thrown back to the back of his head, tucked up, he gives orders in short, jerky phrases. There are many beardless youth in the ranks - carefree and cheerful. Markov galloped along the column, turned his head towards us, said something that we didn't hear, on the move "blew" one of his officers and flew off to the head convoy.

Silent shot, high, high shrapnel burst. Started.
The officer regiment turned around and went on the offensive: calmly, without stopping, straight at the village. Hid behind the ridge. Alekseev arrives. Go ahead with him. From the ridge opens a vast panorama. The village, spread out wide, is surrounded by lines of trenches. A Bolshevik battery is stationed near the church itself and randomly scatters shells along the road. Rifle and machine-gun fire is increasing. Our chains stopped and lay down: along the front there is a marshy, unfrozen river. Will have to bypass.

To the right, the Kornilov regiment moved around. Following him galloped a group of riders with an unfolded tricolor flag ...

Kornilov!

There is excitement in the ranks. All eyes are turned to where the figure of the commander is visible ...

And along the main road, quite openly, the junkers of Lieutenant Colonel Mionchinsky brought up guns right in chains under the fire of enemy machine guns; soon the fire of the battery caused a noticeable movement in the ranks of the enemy. The advance, however, is delayed ...
The officer regiment could not stand the long languor: one of the companies threw itself into the cold, sticky mud of the river and wade onto the arched bank. There is confusion, and soon the whole field is already strewn with people running in panic, wagons are rushing about, the battery is galloping.
The officer regiment and Kornilovsky, who came to the village from the west through the dam, are being pursued.

We enter the village as if extinct. Corpses are strewn about the streets. Terrible silence. And for a long time her silence is broken by the dry crackle of rifle shots: the Bolsheviks are being "liquidated" ... There are many of them ...
Who are they? Why would they, "mortally tired of the 4-year war", go again into battle and die? The regiment and the battery, who abandoned the Turkish front, the violent village freemen, the human scum of Lezhanka and the surrounding villages, the alien worker element, who, together with the soldiery, had long ago mastered all gatherings, committees, councils and terrorized the entire province; perhaps also peaceful peasants, forcibly taken by the Soviets. None of them understand the meaning of the struggle. And the idea of ​​us as "enemies" is somehow vague, unclear, created by the wildly growing propaganda and causeless fear.

- "Cadets" ... Officers ... want to turn back to the old ...

Member of the Rostov council, p. D. Menshevik Popov, who wandered just in those days along the Vladikavkaz railway. road, parallel to the movement of the army, with these words he painted the mood of the population:

"... In order not to assist Kornilov's troops in one way or another in the fight against the revolutionary armies, the entire adult male population left their villages for more remote villages and railway stations. Roads ... -" Give us weapons so that we can defend ourselves against the Cadets "- such is there was a general cry of all the peasants who came here ... The crowd greedily caught the news from the "front", commented on them in a thousand ways, the word "cadet" passed from mouth to mouth. Everything that did not wear a gray overcoat seemed not their own; who was dressed " purely "who spoke" in an educated way" fell under the suspicion of the crowd "Cadet" is the embodiment of everything evil that can destroy the hopes of the masses for a better life; "Cadet" can prevent the land from being taken into peasant hands and divided it; "Cadet" is an evil spirit that stands in the way of all the aspirations and hopes of the people, and therefore it must be fought against, it must be destroyed" * 161.

This undoubtedly exaggerated definition of the hostile attitude towards the "Cadets", especially in the sense of "generalization" and the activity of its manifestation, however, emphasizes the main feature of the mood of the peasantry - its groundlessness and confusion. It had no "politics", no "Constituent Assembly", no "republic", no "tsar"; even the land question itself here, in the Trans-Don region, and especially in the free Stavropol steppes, was not particularly acute. We, against our will, simply fell into a vicious circle of general social struggle: here, and then everywhere, wherever the Volunteer Army went, the part of the population that was better off, prosperous, interested in restoring order and normal living conditions, secretly or openly sympathized with it; the other, who built her well-being - deserved or undeserved - on timelessness and anarchy, was hostile to her. And there was no way to break out of this circle, to inspire them with the true goals of the army. Deed? But what can a passing army give to the region, forced to fight bloody battles even for the right of its existence. In a word? When the word rests against an impenetrable wall of mistrust, fear or servility.

However, the gathering of Lezhanka (later others) was prudent - he decided to let the "Kornilov army" through. But strangers came - the Red Guards and soldiers' echelons, and the flowering villages and villages were stained with blood and the glow of fires ...
At the house allotted for headquarters, on the square, with two volunteer sentries on the flanks, there was a line of captured officers - artillerymen of the Bolshevik division stationed in Lezhanka.

Here it is a new tragedy of the Russian officers! ..

Volunteer units passed by the prisoners through the square one after another. In the eyes of volunteers contempt and hatred. There are curses and threats. The faces of the prisoners are deathly pale. Only the proximity of headquarters saves them from reprisals.
Pass General Alekseev. He excitedly and indignantly reproaches the captured officers. And a heavy swear word escapes from his lips. Kornilov decides the fate of the prisoners:

Submit to court.

Excuses are common: “I didn’t know about the existence of the Volunteer Army”… “I didn’t shoot”… “They forced me to serve by force, they didn’t let me out”… “They kept the family under supervision”…
The field court considered the charge unproven. In essence, he did not justify, but forgave. This first sentence was accepted in the army calmly, but caused an ambivalent attitude towards him.
The officers entered the ranks of our army."

Suvorin B.A. "FOR THE HOMELAND"

"General Kornilov decided to avoid battle until joining the Kuban group, which we achieved, unfortunately, much later. All clashes with the Bolsheviks until Yekaterinodar itself, despite their enormous numerical superiority and the bulkiness of our convoy, ended in tears for THEM. For the first time they tried to detain us near the border of the Don and the Stavropol province, but the result for them was terrible.Our losses were 1 killed (accidental hit) and 20 wounded, all in the officer company of Kutepov, who was disliked by the chief of staff, General Romanovsky, who was subsequently killed in Constantinople, and did not want to transfer a more responsible position.The Bolsheviks, completely unable to use their artillery, almost without officers, abandoned by their commissars and superiors, lost more than 500 people.

In this village - Lezhanka, for the first time I saw the whole horror of a fratricidal, merciless war. At the beginning of the battle, when for the first time I saw bursts of Bolshevik artillery, when I imagined that there, on the other side of the river, in a cheerful village lit by the sun, with the bell towers of Orthodox churches rising to the sky, some brutal people settled down, dreaming of our extermination , it became somehow terribly in my soul.
For what, I thought? For the fact that we do not follow the corrupt Bolshevik Lenin, the Jew Bronstein, because we want to see our Motherland great and happy again?
These corpses of Russian people, scattered through the streets of a large village, it was all a nightmare. The terrible specter of the civil war, with which I had to face, had a painful effect on me. Then I had to see a lot, a lot of blood, but the human mechanism is so arranged that there is nothing stronger than habit in the world, and even the horrors of the civil war did not impress the accustomed nerves.
The next, this time serious and fierce resistance, the Bolsheviks put up near the Korenevskaya village. Here our little army did not have a rabble in front of it, as in Lezhanka. Here, for the first time, our units suffered serious losses.
The hardest thing for the command was our wounded. They had to be carried along on terrible roads under the most difficult conditions, with almost no organized help.
It was impossible to leave the wounded, it meant dooming them to certain and painful death. So it was with the wounded left during the withdrawal from Novocherkassk and Rostov. where the Bolshevik hospital servants, including nurses, killed all the wounded with extraordinary abuse. The same fate befell the wounded and the sisters of mercy left near Yekaterinodar.
How our wounded and sick suffered, what torments they had to endure in these shaking wagons, without care, without good dressings, without serious medical care.
Once at night on one of the most difficult crossings through terrible mud, almost without a road. along the overflowing streams, I followed the convoy with the wounded. A young cadet was being carried in front. He was not seriously injured, but he had already begun to have blood poisoning. There was nothing to think about the operation. He screamed in pain all night. There was nowhere to escape from his cry, and it seems to me this terrible night, bushes, water all around, hummocks, exhausted from the strength of the horse, and this terrible continuous cry is heard. In the morning he died.
On another occasion, I overtook a wounded man in a wagon: on top of the overcoat that covered him was a revolver, as he explained, in order to shoot the driver if he noticed that he wanted to leave him and shoot himself.
No matter how hard the suffering in any war, in a war against those who have lost all idea of ​​mercy, in a fratricidal massacre, the situation of the wounded was infinitely more difficult.
Those medical personnel who devoted themselves to their care, those women of the sister-of-mercy, who had to helplessly watch the slow painful death of these unfortunate young people, not being able to somehow alleviate their plight, are worthy of admiration.
On this campaign, the Russian woman showed herself at an amazing height, sharing the terrible conditions of this long, unprecedented feat in everything.
As I said above, our army did not suffer a single, even partial, failure until Yekaterinodar itself and on the way back to the Don, but all these victories or successes did not give tangible results.
Having defeated the enemy under one village, the army, tied to its wagon train, without a hint of a base where it could stop and at least rest, could not pursue him and had, most of all without rest, to move further and further forward, where it inevitably had to was to meet new, many times the strongest, masses of the enemy.
The Bolsheviks had endless reserves, but our army could only increase its line of sighted wounded and thereby hinder its advance.
It took extraordinary courage and confidence in the spirit of their fighters to make this incomparable campaign in the middle of the Bolshevik ocean, and the future military historian, when they begin to study this Russian Anabasis, will bow before the determination, talent, resourcefulness of leaders and irresistible spirit more than once. small army, stronger than all the disappointments that inexorable fate prepared for us at every step ... "

“Soon we reached Lezhanka, where we first met the resistance of the Bolsheviks at the beginning of the campaign, the resistance that cost them so dearly.
We stopped at the priest. It has been a passionate week. Mother baked cookies. We dyed eggs and we hoped to have a good Easter in a hospitable house. The Bolsheviks seemed indecisive and seemed to be refusing to pursue.
We lived in peace. Went to church with the lovely Engelhardt sisters. We were looking for vodka and missed the new ideal - Novocherkassk, which seemed to us as beautiful as Yekaterinodar, which had disappeared from our dreams.
From the first Don village, Yegorlytskaya, one of the first to revolt, we were 25 miles away and did not understand why we did not go where rest seemed to be secured. And how we dreamed about the rest.
So, doing nothing, we lived until Passion Saturday and were quite sure that we would meet Easter here. But in the morning, the approaching Bolsheviks opened fire on Lezhanka.
The shells fell quite neatly across the village, targeting the bell tower of the church, around which the headquarters, gene. Denikin, Gen. Alekseev and the rest of the authorities.
There were wounded. A dead horse was lying on the square. I went to the regiment. Resnyansky, who came from a long business trip. His impressions of Russia were the darkest. Russia irrevocably perished. I sadly returned home. At ten sazhens a shell unexpectedly struck and the street was empty.
We had a repressed impression of the unknown. “We had lunch and many settled down to sleep. There were about ten of us in the room. The Bolshevik artillery acted sluggishly. At this time, we were ordered to be ready in an hour, since we were leaving Lezhanka.
There were speculations and speculations. So we won't see Easter!
I went to my horse to get ready to leave. As I passed through the yard, a shell flew low over me and hit somewhere behind us not far away.
"Flight", I thought, then "underflight", and "then ..."
I did not have time to reach the stable, when a terrible crack was heard behind me, and as if in the very house where we lived, I rushed into it.
In an instant it seemed to me that a shell fell into our house, where about ten people were sleeping, and I already imagined a bunch of mutilated bodies.
In a narrow corridor I met a frightened mother, her daughter, somehow sliding along the wall, and the officer's wife, who lived with them, covered in blood. All this screamed and groaned. I rushed to our room. Everyone was on their feet and no one was hurt.
It turned out that the shell hit at the very window of our hostess, knocked out the frame and, fortunately, did not touch anyone. Only shards of glass were cut by the guest of the mother.
After all this, everyone was not up to sleep and we were ordered to hurry. We went to the Don, to Yegorlitskaya.
Farewell Easter cakes, Easter and red eggs!

We went out in the evening by a roundabout along some river.
Now I have the cards in front of me and with the help of a notebook I am trying to remember this transition. After all, that was three years ago. Three years of trials, and how much I experienced during this time.
I did not find a detailed map - a ten-fold map that would show me our path; but as I unroll their unruly scrolls, I remember other places, other hopes. All these are pieces of Russia, great, united, that have left us, and in this cursory glance at the cold map, dotted with names, sometimes dear, sometimes associated with difficult memories, longing captures the heart. We were there. There, on Russian soil, we were looking for happiness, both ours and our homeland. These colors of the geographical map are filled with Russian blood, and these people, madly loving and loving their Motherland, are chatted by embittered emigrants who did nothing to save her, except for arrogant narcissism and judging the mistakes of those who worked, who died in these forgotten fields - whose graves we will never find.
Was it really all in vain, but what is needed are smug reasoning and vulgarity of a humanity that feels safe?
* * *
This transition was very easy. Firstly, we went to the Don, and secondly, we hurried to matins.
Darkness set in, a broken moon appeared in the clouds. There were no matches, and we took turns smoking so that we could light a cigarette from the last one. How we cherished this sacred fire.
And in the darkness, mills came out to us, a harbinger of housing. Everyone hurried, the horses sped up. Huts littered.
Feverishly, we began to look for tenants, and everyone was drawn to the church.
It was already brightly lit.
Bright morning was already underway.
Having somehow tied the horse to the wattle fence of the indicated house, loosening its girth, I ran to the church.
She was full of people. It was hot from people and candles. Sweat poured down. But what a pleasure it was to hear our great:
"Christ is Risen."
I looked at the serious, as if frightened, faces of the Cossacks, at my friends, and tears of joy, tears of resurrection, ran from my eyes.
"Christ is Risen," says the priest.
“Truly Risen,” the answer comes to him in a hum, and I hear it now and see these spiritualized simple faces lit by candles and feel that joy, amazing, great, which, like a hurricane, carried me away to happiness.
Yes, Christ has risen and we will rise, we have already risen, and the singing of a great song, as if mournful and at the same time magical in its strength, hope and clarity of salvation, squeezes the heart so joyfully that the candle trembles in the hand and the tears in the eyes reflect countless lights. candles and a terrible feverish joy burns in the heart, in the head.
Gene. Alekseev is christening with a priest, followed by Denikin. No strength to endure. I want to cry, not knowing why, and I go out, past the same bearded Cossacks with a frenziedly inspired face, from the church ... "

KAKURIN I.I. "The first Kuban campaign of General Kornilov"

"On the morning of February 21, the Volunteer Army set out from Yegorlytskaya to the village of Lezhanka, Stavropol province, located 22 versts to the south. An officer regiment with a battery was at the forefront. The enemy, seeing a chain running in the water, opened fire on it. General Markov attacks with one of the companies bridge. The Reds do not withstand the attack and rapidly flee to the village, pursued by our fire. In this battle, our lack of cavalry clearly showed: there was neither good reconnaissance, nor vigorous pursuit of the enemy. We felt this in other battles.
On this day, General Kornilov sent an officer's detachment of officers of the 6th Don Cossack Regiment of 15 checkers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ryasnyansky to the marching ataman Popov with a new proposal to join the Volunteer Army. Lieutenant Colonel Ryasnyansky overtook a detachment of the marching chieftain in the village of Velikoknyazheskaya and handed over the order, but General Popov again categorically refused to leave the Don region.
On February 22, the army rested in the village of Lezhanka, half abandoned by the inhabitants. The killed officers with military honors were buried in the local cemetery. Generals Alekseev and Kornilov escorted them to their eternal resting place.
On February 23, in the morning, the army set out from Lezhanka to the village of Plosskaya in the Kuban region ... "

KAKURIN I.I. "The first Kuban campaign of General Kornilov"
(Return to Lezhanka - approx. I.U.)

On April 17, General Denikin sent the 1st Cavalry Regiment from Plosskaya Yegorlytskaya, which also included the Life Cossacks: the lieutenants S. Krasnov and F. Rykovsky, the cornet N. Lyakhov and the brothers S. and G. Chekunov, the corporal G. Migulin and Cossack Kharlamov. In the afternoon, the army moved from Plosskaya to the village of Lezhanka in the Stavropol province, which is remembered for the battle of February 21. This time the village met us without any resistance and with a population that had not abandoned their homes.
April 18th. The day passed quietly in Lezhanka. The mood of the volunteers was good: they got out of the encirclement, united with the rebels of the Don; the army was replenished with Kuban, and General Pokrovsky formed a cavalry detachment of several hundred. There was a distant rumble of artillery fire - the Don people were fighting with the Reds near the village of Zaplavskaya, located 14 versts from Novocherkassk. In the evening, reinforced guards with machine guns were posted.
On April 19, before dawn, part of the Officers' Regiment was put on carts and left in a northeasterly direction. It was ordered to drive the Reds out of the village of Lopanka, located 15 miles away.
There was an oncoming battle, and with a swift blow the enemy was overturned and the village was occupied. At night, the units returned to Lezhanka.
On April 20, the 2nd and cavalry brigades urgently left to help the Don people in Gulyai-Borisovka to the rear of the Reds, who were advancing on the Don villages of Yegorlytskaya and Mechetinskaya. The 1st brigade and the cavalry detachment of General Pokrovsky remained in Lezhanka, and with them the entire field hospital of the army with 500 wounded and a convoy. After passing 15 miles, the advanced units of the 2nd brigade came into contact with the enemy, and after the first skirmishes with the Reds, the latter stopped their attack on Mechetinskaya and began to hastily retreat to the settlement of Gulyai-Borisovka. Night was already falling, and General Bogaevsky with the brigade stopped the pursuit, stopping to rest in a large farm. After the liberation of Yegorlytskaya, Colonel Glazenap's 1st Cavalry Regiment was ordered to advance towards Mechetinskaya. The enemy, noticing the exit of a large column from Lezhanka, launched an energetic attack on the village from the east and south. They were overwhelming. The 1st brigade took up positions in a sparse chain and, having let the enemy go a thousand paces, with strong fire forced him to lie down. Then the brigade went on the attack, supported by mobile machine-gun batteries on carts, and put him to flight along the entire front. The brigade pursued the Reds for several versts. Night has come.
The units that advanced forward were ordered to retreat to the village and put up a reinforced guard. Losses in the Officers' Regiment were serious, up to 50 people. The commander of the regiment, General Borovsky, was also wounded.
After resting on the farm, the 2nd brigade of General Bogaevsky set out at about 10 pm and, having passed for hours in complete silence, at dawn on April 21 attacked the settlement of Gulyai-Borisovka with the Kornilov regiment, which was marching in the forefront. Apparently, the enemy did not expect our appearance. Indiscriminate shooting began from the outermost huts, which soon ceased. A commotion erupted throughout the area. Chains of Kornilovites led by Colonel Kutepov burst into it. The catching and extermination of the enemy began in the yards. The prisoners were driven to the square on the edge of the settlement. Soon they were recruited by the partisans of General Kazanovich more than 300 people. Here, for the first time from the beginning of the campaign, an order was received from General Bogaevsky, in the case of Holy Saturday, the prisoners were not to be shot. But the harsh reality forced the court-martial to treat some of them more strictly.
On Holy Saturday, General Erdeli's cavalry entered Yegorlytskaya, where they were met by Cossacks with banners and icons. The Volunteer Army united with the rebellious Doners of the southern villages. The army now has a rear, and in the first half of the day to the rear, to the village of Erlytskaya, from Lezhanka, the entire field infirmary and the convoy of the 1st brigade left in a roundabout way. The convoy left Lezhanka under fire from enemy artillery.
The shelling began in the morning and gradually intensified. The deployment of the red infantry was visible. Then the whole mass went on the offensive. The fight was brutal. The brigade of General Markov had difficulty holding back the advance of the superior enemy forces. Repeatedly, the Officer and Kuban rifle regiments, supported by mobile machine-gun batteries on carts, here and there went over to counterattacks, but the Reds, moving back in other places, supported by reserves, continued to advance. A stubborn battle took place on the very outskirts of the village, in the cemetery. The Reds captured a brick factory and threatened to cut off the road to Yegorlytskaya, an engineering company was sent to restore the situation - the last reserve of General Markov, numbering 80 people, and a half-company of 50 people was removed from the neighboring area. With an immediate attack, the Reds were driven out of the brick factory and fled, leaving two machine guns and a lot of ammunition in place. Along the entire front, the offensive of the Reds began to fizzle out. Only in the evening the Reds were finally thrown back from the village to their original position. Posting guards, parts of the brigade settled in houses on the outskirts. In the last battle, parts of the brigade suffered significant losses - up to 80 people, of which 7 killed were lost by the Officers' Regiment; The engineering company lost 8 officers killed and over 20 wounded. Again, a field infirmary with 150 wounded was formed at the brigade. In the evening, at the end of the battle, the army headquarters moved from Lezhanka to Erlytskaya.
22 April. The first day of Holy Pascha passed quietly in the 1st brigade in Lezhanka. On a bright holiday, the volunteers had to bury their comrades-in-arms in the same cemetery where the first four victims of the beginning of the campaign had previously been buried. The cavalry met a bright holiday in Yegorlytskaya. The brigade of General Bogaevsky calmly met the bright day in Gulyai-Borisovka. On the evening of that day, the column of the 1st brigade set off on carts along the road to Yegorlytskaya, crossed the bridge over the Yegorlyk River, the river that the Officer Regiment forded on February 21, but soon turned off the road to the right in the direction of the Farewell railway siding. At dusk, the tail of the regiment was suddenly fired upon by a truck with a machine gun that ran into it, but one artillery shot was enough for the truck to hastily disappear.

PAVLOV V.E. "Markovites in battles and campaigns for Russia in the liberation war of 1917-1920" Volume 1, Paris, 1962 (Collection)


FIGHT AT THE VILLAGE OF LEZHANKA

February 21 (March 6). In the morning, the Volunteer Army set out from the village of Yegorlytskaya to the village of Lezhanka, Stavropol province, located 22 versts away. In the forefront, as before, the Officers' Regiment with the battery of Colonel Mionchinsky and the Technical Company. General Markov, overtaking his units, greeted everyone and galloped forward with his orderlies. There is absolutely no snow, but the thick, sticky, black earth mass makes the hike difficult. We made a halt, then another. It was known that Lezhanka was occupied by the Reds, and, in particular, units of the 39th Infantry Division were stationed there. Therefore, the fight is inevitable.
From somewhere along the column of the Officers' Regiment, an order is transmitted:
- Company commanders to the regimental commander!
Everyone watches where the commanders go. Slightly away from the road, everyone sees General Markov and Colonel Timanovskiy. Colonel Plokhinsky, Colonel Lavrentyev, Colonel Kutepov, Captain Dudarev, Colonel Kandyrin are coming towards them, Colonel Mionchinsky and Colonel Gershelman are riding up. What are they talking about? But - "this is the master's business." The meeting is over, and all its participants are sent to their units and give orders.
And finally ... platoons are separated from the vanguard of the 4th company and go to the left of the road, followed by the whole company. From the 1st company, one platoon goes forward along the road, the other to the right - to the topographic ridge along which the road runs. The cavalry trotted to the left, soon disappearing behind a chain of mounds.
When the outposts retreated about a verst, the regiment moved forward in column. General Markov is way ahead. Everything is quiet. What's ahead? Where is the enemy? - Can not see. Only behind the bend in front of the lying area is the top of the bell tower of the village of Lezhanki visible.
Suddenly, a small white cloud from shrapnel bursts appears above the column high in the sky. Another, third ... Finally, they can no longer be counted. And all the "cranes". The regiment begins to turn into battle formation, to the left of its Technical Company. And the shrapnels all continue to "give cranes": a battery shoots from the side of the Bed, and it shoots badly.
The companies quickly reached the ridge, from where the area begins to descend to the Sredny Yegorlyk River, on the opposite bank of which the village is located. Barely noticing the appearance of chains, the Reds opened rifle and machine-gun fire. The distance is too great (about 2 versts), and their shooting is invalid. Without removing their rifles from their belts and without adding a step, the companies move closer. Colonel Timanovsky walks along the road with a pipe in his teeth, leaning on a stick.
The distance is decreasing, and the bullets are more and more often flying past the ears. Ahead, the whole situation is already clearly visible: a strip of reeds, behind them vegetable gardens and on them the trenches of the Reds, behind the vegetable gardens the village. The step involuntarily intensifies, which then turned into a run, in order to quickly reach the reeds and hide from the eyes of the enemy. But - the platoon of Lieutenant Kromm was ordered to stop and the company machine guns to open fire. This platoon concentrates the main force of the enemy's fire, inflicting losses on him.
At this time, over the gardens on the other side of the river, several shrapnels from the battery of Colonel Mionchinsky burst with amazing accuracy, forcing the Reds to weaken their fire. The lead platoons reach the reeds without loss. A downpour of fire knocks down the tops of the reeds over the heads of the officers stopping there.
At the bridge, General Markov, Colonel Timanovskiy. They target the 2nd Company for a lightning attack on the bridge; to the left of the 4th, to the right of the 3rd and 1st companies should support the attack of the 2nd company, by all possible means trying to force the river.
But at this time, the 3rd platoon of the 1st company, staff captain Zgrivets, having reached and disappeared in the reeds, did not stop, but continued to move forward. Parting the reeds with their hands, drowning in the water, the platoon officers, having passed a 2-3-sazhen belt of reeds, found themselves on clean water. There were only 20 steps to the reeds of the opposite bank; water is only waist deep. But the position of the platoon was created tragic: the shallow Yegorlyk had a muddy bottom, the legs went into the mud above the knees. Traffic has slowed down a lot. The Reds, seeing a chain running through the water, opened fire on it. Everyone had one thought: to get to the reeds of the opposite bank as soon as possible. We walked with difficulty; some tried to swim... But here, finally, was the other shore; again hidden from the eyes of the enemy and there is a support - reeds. Forward!
Coming out of the reeds, the platoon attacked the Reds, who were ten paces away. The Reds did not put up any resistance: they were seized by panic, and they rushed to run. The officers with bayonet strikes, shots at close range, strewn the path of their escape to the village with corpses. In front of the platoon and to the left of it, crowds of Reds fled onto the road from the bridge to the village. Here two riders jumped up to them ... in uniform. One of them, who turned out to be an ensign of the Varnavinsky regiment, shouted:
- Comrades! Get ready for Cathedral Hill! Cadets storm the bridge.
A volley - and both fall dead (subsequently, returning again to the Don, the officers saw one in the cemetery of the village among fresh graves with the inscription: "Baron, Ensign Boris Nikolaevich Lisovsky. Killed by Kaledin's gang on February 21, 1918.").
Having run out onto the road, the platoon splits up: two squads pursue the Reds, who are fleeing to the village, the other two turn to the left, towards those fleeing from the river ... The Reds did not expect to meet officers in their rear ...
At that moment, General Markov attacked the bridge. At the moment the officers were on the other side. To the left, the 4th company partly forded the river and overturned the Reds. To the right, the 3rd company, partly wade, partly on boats that were on the river, also crossed to the other side. General Markov ran with the lead platoon along the road to the village behind the fleeing Reds. And suddenly he stopped in bewilderment, seeing the officers of the 1st company in front of him.
- Where did you come from? - he asked. He did not expect such a maneuver of the 3rd platoon of the 1st company.
Here, General Markov gave the order: the 1st company to continue the pursuit of the enemy along the village street leading from the bridge; The 3rd company to bypass the village on the right; 2nd and 4th - on the left. Seeing that the officers were gathering prisoners, he shouted:
- Do not deal with prisoners. Not a minute of delay. Forward!
Meanwhile, the divisions of the 3rd platoon continued their pursuit on the village street. The further they ran forward in a dashing and fast pursuit, the thicker the Reds were in front of them. The latter ran like chickens in front of a car. The officers fired on the run at point-blank range, stabbed...
Here they are on the cathedral hill... A church in the middle of the square and... a four-gun battery with servants fussing around the guns; guns fire. Lieutenant Uspensky is in front, others behind him. They attack the battery. The servants run away, a few people remain, among them three in officer uniforms ... They "surrendered."
The 3rd company bypasses the village on the right. At the windmills, a red battery fires. But she manages to withdraw, leaving only the charging box.
In front of the 2nd company, bypassing on the left, the Reds disappeared into the village. Even more to the left, the cavalry detachment of Colonel Gershelman and the cavalry scouts of the 1st battery, sent there by General Markov, are galloping around the village.
The village has been taken.
***
On the square emptied from the Reds, the head squads of the 3rd platoon of the 1st company stopped, there was no strength to continue the pursuit. Fits the entire 1st company.
General Markov galloped up to the 4th company. Seeing the prisoners, he shouted:
- What the hell did you get them for?
Rides to the 2nd company. All is well, and hurries to the church square. Behind them, there is a quick gunshot.
"Find out what's wrong," he orders the orderly.
The orderly returned with a report: "Shooting on your orders, Your Excellency!"
On the square, captured artillerymen were brought to General Markov, among them the battery commander. The officers see that General Markov is beside himself with anger, and they hear his excited voice:
You are not the captain! Shoot!
But General Kornilov drove up:
- Sergey Leonidovich! An officer cannot be shot without a trial. Bring it to justice! (The next day, there was a trial over the captured officers. Since their crime was obvious, they were not acquitted, but ... they were forgiven and poured into parts of the army). /…/
***
The losses of the Officers' Regiment were expressed in the number of 4 killed (all platoons of Lieutenant Kromm) and several wounded. Insignificant losses, the huge success of the first battle and the enthusiasm of the officers for their commander instilled in everyone confidence in the further successes of the regiment and army.
Little ammunition was used in battle, but a huge amount was obtained. It was very regrettable that mountain-type guns were captured, the shells of which turned out to be unnecessary for the army.
February 22 (March 7). The army rested in the village of Lezhanka, half abandoned by the inhabitants. They fled because they believed the stories of the Reds about the atrocities perpetrated by the "cadets". During the day, a large part of the fugitives returned to their homes, which they found completely intact and not plundered. There was great embarrassment when the volunteers did not demand, but asked and paid for everything. Only people of military age did not return to the village, fearing that they would be mobilized, and those who had tied themselves up in the service of the Reds.
On this day, in the presence of Generals Alekseev, Kornilov, Denikin, Markov and others, there was a funeral service for four murdered officers in the village church.
We escorted them with military honors to their grave in the village cemetery. The last lithium was served, and then General Alekseev spoke with tears in his eyes about our first victims of the campaign, about our doom in the future. General Kornilov carefully examined the closed graves and told us: "Remember, gentlemen, where we buried them: maybe relatives will look for these lonely graves."
February 23 (March 8). In the morning, the Volunteer Army set out from the village of Lezhanki and soon entered the Kuban region. The cavalry detachment of Colonel Glazenap set out a little earlier in a southeast direction to the village of Belaya Glina in order to divert the attention of the Reds from the true direction of the army. The officer regiment with the 1st battery this time was in the rearguard. The weather was wonderful, the road was completely dry; going was easy. Columns of units went in exemplary order.
General Markov galloped along the column of the Officers' Regiment. The companies quickly "took a leg". Passing the 4th company, he suddenly asked loudly:
- The fourth company, what kind of system is this?
Before Captain Dudarev had time to answer, the whole company said:
- Three to the right, Your Excellency!
This cavalry formation was inherited by the entire company from its main component, the Shock Division of the Cavalry Division. In response, a remark was made by General Markov:
- I'll show you! Infantry, and on the right, three ...
And since General Markov galloped on, without "showing" anything, the company went through the entire further campaign in the cavalry formation "to the right in threes."
Having made the twelve-verst march without fatigue, the army stopped in the first Kuban village of Plosskaya, settling there in apartments. Everyone was immediately struck by the sharp contrast to what was in the village of Lezhanka: the village was not abandoned by the inhabitants, and the Cossacks greeted them cordially and cordially, they did not feel fear of the army that had come. Only 12 miles separated two different characters, two psyches - Cossack and peasant. And this despite the fact that the peasants of Stavropol lived no poorer than the Cossacks.
But the officers did not want to think about this, they were busy putting themselves in order in anticipation of a quick and, apparently, plentiful tasty dinner. They saw how efficient Cossack women prepared food. Chickens were particularly affected; officers had to catch them "according to all the rules of military art" and not always successfully; officers were especially helpless in "killing" chickens: Cossacks and Cossacks did this with amazing dexterity and without any "weapon". Curiosities and laughter! The Cossack women resolutely refused to take money for refreshments.
There was a special animation in the Technical Company: Ensign Schmidt, dressed in a Circassian coat, was mistaken by the Cossacks for Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. However, the resemblance is truly striking. He, as well as those who were with him, received especially respectful attention and hospitality. The Cossacks were not dissuaded either now or later.
There was even such a case later: one officer, approaching Ensign Schmidt, said in his ear:
- Your Imperial Highness, I recognized you! To this Schmidt also answered quietly:
- Well, shut up!
When Pyotr Eduardovich was asked why he gave such a strange answer, he explained that if he tried to dissuade the officer that he was not the Grand Duke, the officer would still not believe him, and the order of the "Grand Duke" to be silent would really force him not to spread this crazy rumor.
Despite the benevolent attitude of the Cossacks of the village towards the volunteers and despite the fact that they undeniably shared the goals and tasks of the Volunteer Army (General Kornilov spoke with the Cossacks in almost every village), nevertheless they did not heed the call to join the fight against the Bolsheviks. The volunteers did not expect this.
On February 24 (March 9), the army moved further to the west, having an Officer Regiment in the rearguard. Having made a two-hour halt in the Novo-Ivanovsky farm, she moved to the village of Nezamaevskaya for the night. Here she found a different attitude of the Cossacks both to the Bolsheviks and to themselves: anticipating or understanding what the Bolsheviks could give them, the Cossacks took up arms and gave the army reinforcements - hundreds of foot and horsemen.
February 25 (March 10). In the morning the army is on the march again. The Czechoslovak battalion, which was marching in the rearguard, had to repulse the attack and inflict heavy losses on the Red cavalry detachment. For this deed, General Kornilov gave the battalion a reward of 5,000 rubles.
Having traveled only 15 versts, the army stopped in the village of Veselaya and settled into apartments, which greatly surprised everyone. They began to speculate about the reasons for this. The fact that the army was already close to the Vladikavkaz railway made it possible to assume that it might cross this road, and even with a very likely battle, and that all this could happen at night. And indeed, at about 21 o'clock the army moved on, having in the forefront an Officer Regiment, a Technical Company, a Junker Battalion and 1 Battery, under the general command of General Markov. The direction of movement was taken as before to the west, to the station of Sosyka, but, having traveled about ten versts, at the farmstead of the Persistent Vanguard, turned sharply to the south.
In the darkness, the Officers' Regiment went down a small country road, went down the gat, crossed the bridge over the Tikhonkaya River ... But the guns got stuck on the gat. Colonel Mionchinsky mobilized all the forces of the battery: bushes, reeds, straw ... everything falls on the path. The Technical Company came to her aid: fascines were being knitted, a bridge was being fastened... Axes were clattering. Among the muffled noise of working people, the distinct sharp voice of General Markov is heard. Finally, the guns safely crossed the bridge, but again got stuck on the second half of the gati. An officer troop ran up. Soon the guns were on solid ground, and the vanguard moved on.
“We won’t get lost with him and we’ll go everywhere,” they said about General Markov.
Somewhere to the right there were 2-3 explosions.
February 26 (March 11). Before dawn, the avant-garde entered the village of Novo-Leushkovskaya and, without stopping there, continued on their way, but in a westerly direction. Another 5-6 versts, and he went to the railroad, letting the army pass by him. General Markov was in charge of the crossing. General Kornilov was also there.
However, the passage by the army of the railway did not go smoothly: from the north, from the side of the Sosyk station, an armored train of the Reds approached and began shelling the crossing. It turned out that the railway track was blown up too close, but the 1st battery soon drove it away, driving a mile ahead. When the last units had passed, the Officers' Regiment with a battery set off after them.
Night has come.
***
It was already well after midnight, and the Officers' Regiment with the battery was still on the march. The road was good, but a cold wind was blowing. Fatigue made itself felt. I remember a soldier's song:
"It's good to serve in the infantry;
However, it was very squeaky…”
The short breaks didn't help much. Overcame sleep. Suddenly a long stop: there is a delay ahead when crossing a swampy beam. Many fell asleep. Even the sharp call of General Markov did not immediately wake everyone up. Some lingered, putting their tattered shoes in order; he was given a short order:
- In the first battle, get solid boots!
There are no laggards; column is going well. The trouble is, if "the itch is to go before the wind" on a big matter: General Markov will not say anything here, but it is not easy to catch up with his own. General Markov cannot travel quietly: he must be everywhere. And he does not leave the convoy unattended. He knows all the cart riders.
- What's wrong with you? - he addresses one staff officer.
- Ill, Your Excellency!
- Call the doctor and tell him to report to me about the state of health of this officer! - After the doctor's report, General Markov ordered to tell the "sick" that "the army does not need such patients."
Finally, here is the village of Staro-Leushkovskaya, but the rearguard must wait until the whole army is drawn into it. Annoyingly tired thirty-verst transition during the day to be in the steppe in the cold and hungry. But - "as required, then required."
February 27 (March 12). Only in the morning the officer regiment and the battery were drawn into the village and stopped in the area indicated to them. Of course, some platoons had to immediately go to the outposts and give up hope for rest and food.
Colonel Birkin with his detachment was sent to the outpost near the mill and unexpectedly found an outpost of Kornilovites in 10 people. The Kornilovites were in an excited state ... It turned out that at night a column of Reds, walking to the village, ran into them, and they silently dealt with it: about a hundred dead were lying on the road, and there were 5-6 captured carts with weapons. But they did not dare to be replaced, since they did not receive any notification of this, and Colonel Birkin returned to the village with his detachment. He did not have to rest again: the army was already on the march.
After passing another 20 versts, the army came to the village of Irklievskaya, and only here it was announced that they would spend the night and even added - calm. The need for rest was enormous: after all, the army traveled up to 50 miles in a day and a half.
February 28 (March 13). A possible day in the village was announced, and, indeed, the army stood not only all day, but one more night. Volunteers thoroughly rested.
Of course, among the officers there were conversations on the topics put forward by the campaign. First of all, about the painless transition of the Vladikavkaz railway. Everyone has the same explanation: the army is led by General Kornilov. Then - where is the army going? Here is disagreement. Some are convinced, as they were convinced before crossing the railway: it goes to the Tikhoretskaya station and only changed the direction of the blow to it; others assert that it is now marching on Yekaterinodar and that for this it is absolutely not necessary to first smash the Tikhoretskaya group of Reds. In one officer platoon, there was a very heated argument on this issue, and peace was restored by the platoon commander, Staff Captain Zgrivets, with his usual trick: "Listen! Clean your rifles, and let's go where General Kornilov orders."
March 1 (14). In the morning, the army moved along the road to the village of Berezanskaya, having the Kornilov shock regiment with a battery in the forefront. This time the officer regiment marched for some reason at the head of the main forces, which seemed to everyone new for the campaign.
Ahead, a battle began and, judging by the shooting, a serious one. The column stopped.
At this time, General Kornilov, who was at the head of the column, turned to General Markov and said:
Help the Kornilovites! If we do not bring down the enemy before the evening, we will be surrounded.
General Kornilov's anxiety was understandable: he did not think that the Reds would put up stubborn resistance to the army at such a distance from the railway; did not allow the thought that the Kuban Cossacks would be on the side of the Reds, as happened now. It turned out that the enemy was not only defending the village with large forces, but was also sitting in the trenches.
General Markov went ahead. Behind him is an officer regiment with a battery. Soon the regiment turned off the road and reorganized into battle formation. Having reached the Kornilov line, both regiments went on the offensive. On the flank is an equestrian division.
The Reds met the regiments with the most severe rifle and machine-gun fire. But the chains, without stopping, calmly, with rifles on their belts, went forward; only occasionally did someone fire a shot or two at an important target on the move. The Reds could not withstand such a confident offensive and, first alone, and then with their entire mass, got up and rushed to run, throwing machine guns and rifles.
Having passed the trenches of the Reds on a gentle ridge, the volunteers saw the village at 3-4 hundred steps, where the Reds dived, hiding in buildings, gardens, in vegetable gardens and in the reeds of the river crossing the village. The cavalry division bypassed the village and pursued the Reds already behind it. In the village they caught those who had taken refuge; others paid with their lives, and on the stanitsa square, old Cossacks taught their youth for helping the Reds.
The officer regiment did not linger in the village and, following the cavalry division, moved to the village of Zhuravskaya, which they occupied, having done up to 30 miles in a day.
The losses of the regiment in battle were negligible.
March 2 (15). The entire army moved to the village of Zhuravskaya, having allocated the Kornilov regiment and the cavalry division of Colonel Gershelman to occupy the Vyseki station, on the Tikhoretskaya - Yekaterinodar railway. The station was taken. The cavalry division that remained on it did not blow up the railway track in the direction of Tikhoretskaya, stood carelessly and was knocked out with losses by an unexpected attack by the Reds with an armored train.
The Partisan Regiment sent to restore the situation met stubborn resistance and could not take the station by night attack. The position of the army, which now had a strong group of Reds on its flank based on Tikhoretskaya, was difficult. To defeat the Reds in the first place in Vyselki became the first and urgent task.
March 3 (16). Before dawn, a detachment of General Markov came to the aid of the partisans: an officer regiment, a technical company and the 1st battery; a battalion of Kornilovites was also attached to him.
Under the cover of morning fog, the detachment approached the station for 2-3 versts and began to turn around. Shots were heard ahead. Before reaching the ridge, the officer companies met the retreating partisans, let them through and accelerated the movement to the ridge. Having barely climbed it, they came face to face with the advancing thick chains of the Reds. From a distance of 50 steps, the officers rushed with hostility. In places there was a short hand-to-hand fight; the red ones were overturned. The distance increased rapidly: the officer chains, continuing the offensive, pursued the Reds with fire, but, met by the fire of many machine guns from the buildings of the village, lay down. Meanwhile, the Reds, with the help of reserves, went on the offensive again.
General Markov was in the chain of the regiment. At that moment, a handsome Cossack, tall, with a red hood of the 17th Baklanovsky Regiment, galloped up to him.
- Very glad to see you, captain Vlasov! - General Markov spoke loudly, - they approached us just in time: sailors are advancing on our left flank ... No matter how it came to the bayonets! Attack them quickly!
- Yes, Your Excellency! - answered Yesaul Vlasov, gracefully saluting, jumped into the saddle and, turning his horse sharply, rushed in a quarry to his hundred, who were standing in a place sheltered from bullets. A few minutes later, a lava of Cossacks in 40 checkers with a boom rushed to the attack. The firing crackled and ... subsided.
- Forward, run! - and with a shout of "Hurray" the chain of the Officers' Regiment rushed to the attack. Now again the chains were about a hundred paces from the Reds. The attack of Yesaul Vlasov did its job: his hundred chopped up the leading part of the Reds - the sailors and their neighbors. The battery put out the machine-gun fire from the mill; she forced the red armored train to take cover behind the buildings of the village, and then hastily leave towards the Tikhoretskaya station. The Reds fled through the village to the east, but there they came under fire from an officer company that had bypassed the station from the north. General Kornilov was in chains at the decisive moment of the attack on the station.
The station was taken and the enemy defeated, but parts of the Volunteer Army suffered heavy losses. It was the first serious and brutal battle. On the side of the Reds, in addition to the sailors (there were up to 150 of them, almost all of them died), Cossacks and units of the 39th Infantry Division participated, which explained their stubbornness. General Markov was beside himself. He was not approached with questions about random prisoners, and to the priest, who asked for pardon for the "lost", he answered:
- Go, father! There is nothing for you to do here.
Yesaul Vlasov also died in a horse attack. At the time of the fight with the sailors, a horse was killed under him. Yesaul fell, but, jumping up, he cut off the head of the shooting sailor and immediately died under the bullets of another.
- Esaul! Esaul! - shouted his Cossacks. Having cut down the sailors, they could no longer pursue the Reds: they crowded around the body of their commander and sobbed. At night, the body of Yesaul Vlasov and other dead were interred in the cemetery of the village of Vyselki.

***
Already at full dusk, the Officer Regiment, the Technical Company and the 1st Battery settled down for the night in the village of Vyselki station and the nearby village of Suvorovskaya. General Markov ordered to rest "as it should be" and, in addition, to sew white bandages on everyone's headgear, so that in battle it would be easier to distinguish one from the red. Those parts of the detachment that stopped in the village of Suvorovskaya were ordered not to pay for food, as a repression for the participation of the Cossacks of this village on the side of the Reds.
The partisan regiment and the battalion of the Kornilovites with the capture of the station left to join the main forces of the army in the village of Zhuravskaya.
Everyone knew about the Yekaterinodar volunteer units. A few days ago, these units were defeated here and retreated to Yekaterinodar. But the fact of the existence of a volunteer detachment in Yekaterinodar was now indisputable, and the path to Yekaterinodar did not seem difficult: the Reds would be compressed from two sides and would not prevent the army from joining the Kuban detachment.

PAVLOV V.E. "Markovites in battles and campaigns for Russia in the liberation war of 1917-1920" Volume 1. Paris, 1962 (Collection)
Markovites in the First Campaign of the Volunteer Army.
(Return to Lezhanka. Note - I.U.)

FIGHTING AT THE VILLAGE OF LEZHANKA

April 19 (May 2). Before dawn, part of the regiment was put on carts and left in a northeasterly direction. It was ordered to drive the Reds out of the village of Lopanka, located 15 miles away. There was an oncoming battle, and with a swift blow the enemy was overturned and the village was occupied. At night, the units returned to Lezhanka.
April 20 (May 3). The 2nd and Horse Brigades urgently went to the aid of the Don people, who were forced to leave the villages of Yegorlytskaya and Mechetinskaya. The 1st brigade and the Cavalry detachment of General Pokrovsky remained in Lezhanka, and with them the entire field hospital of the army with 1,500 wounded and a convoy.
Soon the Reds attacked the village from the east and south. They were overwhelming. General Markov gave the order to prevent the enemy from breaking into the village and destroying it. The entire brigade took up positions in a sparse chain. Issued 30 rounds per person. In addition, General Markov ordered to keep part of the machine guns in the regiments on carts, to make mobile machine-gun batteries out of them, ready to move forward, if possible, to the flanks of enemy chains, to hit them with flank fire, which would make it easier for the infantry to go on the counteroffensive. This was the first case in the army of the organization of such batteries.
The enemy was approaching. He was about a mile away from the village when he opened fire on the move. Several of his guns fired at the chains of the 1st brigade. These are machine guns, having jumped out ahead of their chains, they were filled with fire. He was answered with rare rifle and cannon fire.
But now the enemy had to go through the last some 1000 steps, as the strong fire of the defenders forced him to lie down. Another moment, and machine-gun batteries flew forward, opening fire from a distance of 500-600 paces, sprinkling it with fire on the flanks. The enemy is in confusion, and the loud "hurrah" of the brigade that has gone on the attack puts him to flight along the entire front. Only part of its forces the brigade pursued the Reds for several miles.
With the cessation of the pursuit, the enemy stopped and began to put himself in order. His batteries fired at the advanced parts of the regiment. The 4th company stopped 2-3 versts from the village on a line of large stacks of straw and sheds with agricultural machines. Shrapnel burst over her, inflicting casualties on her. A few seriously wounded were carried into the sheds, where the bullets were not so dangerous. Unfortunately, one shell hit the barn and ignited the hay in it. The fire spread so quickly that they did not manage to carry out all the wounded from the barn. Three of them died in the flames.
Night has come. The units that advanced forward were ordered to retreat to the village and put up a strong guard.
Losses in the Officers' Regiment were serious: up to 50 people. The commander of the regiment, General Borovsky, was also wounded in the head. By order of General Markov, the regiment was received by Colonel Doroshevich.
April 21 (May 4). Passionate Saturday. A joyful message came: the 2nd Infantry and Horse Brigades defeated the Reds near the village of Gulyai-Borisovka and forced them to hastily move away from the village of Yegorlytskaya and clear the village of Mechetinskaya. So, the Volunteer Army united with the rebellious Doners of the southern villages, who entered into submission to General Denikin. Now the territory of the army was no longer limited to the territory of one village or village. The army now has a rear, and in the first half of the day the entire camp infirmary left for the rear, to the village of Yegorlytskaya. Together with the infirmary, the convoy of the entire 1st brigade was also sent. The convoy left the village under fire from enemy artillery.
The shelling began in the morning and gradually intensified. At the same time, the deployment of the red infantry was visible on a much larger front than on previous days, and covering the village from the northeast and southwest. Then the whole mass went on the offensive. Captured prisoners in the skirmishes of the advanced units stated that at the meeting last night it was decided to take Lezhanka at all costs in order to celebrate the holidays in it.
The fight was brutal. Machine guns on carts and the 1st battery repeatedly jumped forward, shooting the Reds almost point-blank. Repeatedly, the Officer and Kuban regiments here and there launched counterattacks, but the Reds, moving back in other places, supported by reserves, continued to advance. A stubborn battle took place on the very outskirts of the village, in the cemetery. The Reds seized a brick factory and threatened to cut off the road to the village of Yegorlytskaya. To restore the situation, the Engineering Company was sent - the last reserve of General Markov. 80 people who supported part of the Officers' Regiment could not break the enemy's resistance of 500 people and lay down. I had to remove a half-company of 50 people from the neighboring site. With an immediate attack, the Reds were driven out of the brick factory and fled, leaving 2 machine guns and a lot of ammunition in place.
Along the entire front, the offensive of the Reds began to fizzle out. General Markov ordered the Engineering Company "to go to the village of Lopanka on an Easter visit", but the general situation in front of the village forced him to cancel the order. Only in the evening the Reds were finally driven back from the village.
This time the Reds did not linger in sight of the village, but withdrew to those villages from which they had come. Posting guards, parts of the brigade settled in houses on the outskirts. The dream of many to visit the church at the Holy Matins did not come true. Nothing was prepared for the Easter table, since in the morning the household officials, together with the convoy, left for the village of Yegorlytskaya. They broke the fast only with what the inhabitants treated.
In the last battle, parts of the brigade suffered significant losses - up to 80 people, of which 7 were killed, lost the Officers' Regiment; The engineering company alone lost 8 officers and over 20 wounded. Again, a field infirmary was formed at the brigade with no less than 160 wounded.
The commander of the Officers' Regiment, Colonel Doroshevich, was also wounded. General Markov appointed Colonel Khovansky to command the regiment.
In the evening, at the end of the battle, the army headquarters left Lezhanka for the village of Yegorlytskaya.
April 22 (May 5). 1st day of Holy Easter. Before dawn, parts of the brigade prepared for a possible offensive by the Reds, but the latter did not appear: they decided to celebrate. So the Russian people, who fought yesterday, were resting today and celebrating Holy Pascha at a distance of fifteen to twenty versts from each other.
The inhabitants had a sad holiday: they were afraid of the departure of volunteers and the arrival of the Reds. It was also sad for the volunteers: on the Bright Resurrection of Christ, they had to bury their comrades-in-arms. They were buried in the same cemetery where the first four victims of the beginning of the campaign were buried earlier.
General Markov walked around his units and congratulated them on the Holiday. They shouted "hurrah" to him. He also visited the wounded, who forgot their pains for a while, seeing their beloved boss. He joked about the 4 wounded of the 4th company:
- What are you doing with your legs and arms? (two were wounded in the legs and two in the arms). And I don't expose myself to bullets at all.
General Markov caused a smile even among the seriously wounded. One officer was shot through the stomach and began to vomit blood. The general came up.
- Well? Injured? The wounded man smiled and nodded his head.
- I can see in your eyes that you will recover!
This smile of a mortally wounded man, this incident was remembered. The wounded actually recovered.
It was difficult to find a name for General Markov that would evaluate him in his entirety. He and the "Comforter Angel", as in the described case, he and the "Guardian Angel", as they called him in the army train, of which he was a thunderstorm, he is both the "God of War", and the "Sword of General Kornilov".
On the evening of that day, the brigade lined up on the northern square of the village, and it was announced to it that it was leaving the village. The cart column set off along the road to the village of Yegorlytskaya, crossed the bridge over the Yegorlyk River, the river that the Officers' Regiment once forded, but soon turned off the road to the right. At dusk, the tail of the regiment was suddenly fired upon by a truck with a machine gun that ran into it. But one artillery shot was enough for the truck to hastily disappear.
April 23 (May 6). 2nd day of Holy Easter. At dawn, the brigade approached the Farewell junction on the Torgovaya-Bataysk railway. The exiled demolition men to the Tselina station blew up the track there, and at that time the brigade thoroughly destroyed it at the siding. Having completed this task, she moved to the village of Yegorlytskaya, where she arrived still before dark, having covered up to 50 miles in a day.
The meeting and reception by the villagers of the volunteers who came to their homes were sincerely joyful, with wide hospitality. Now their attitude towards volunteers was not at all indifferent, as it was two months ago. They confessed their error. And this happened exactly two months later, as General Kornilov had told them then. The old Cossack proudly declared that his two sons, who had previously served in the Imperial Guard, were now "beating the Bolsheviks." All this made the volunteers happy and strengthened the Easter mood.
April 24 (May 7). 3rd day of Holy Easter. During the night, all the ranks of the brigade slept peacefully and woke up in a cheerful and joyful state. Wasting no time, they dispersed around the village to meet and partake of Christ with their acquaintances and friends. Everyone hurried to the field infirmary to visit and congratulate the wounded comrades-in-arms. "Christ is Risen! - Truly Risen!" - was distributed around the station.
In the afternoon, rumors spread about the performance. Annoying! But the cheerful mood remained. At the evening roll call and prayer, it was announced: early in the morning the brigade would set out on carts. Do not take any things with you, but stock up on ammo. So, again on a hike, but, as if, for a short time. Where and for what purpose? The answer to these questions, General Markov would give a short and definite: "This does not concern you!"
Only 7 officers of the Engineering Company, led by Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandrov, were informed about the upcoming task of the campaign, whom the general called to him and said to them:
- Engineers! You are entrusted with a serious task, on which the success of our raid on the triangle of stations depends: Krylovskaya - Sosyka-Eiskaya and Sosyka-Vladikavkazskaya. You have to get behind the Reds and near the Khutorskaya junction on the railway to Yeysk, thoroughly undermine the railway bed and cut the telephone and telegraph wires. It is necessary that everything that is at these three stations should fall into our hands. On the night of April 27 (May 10), you must carry out this order, and in the morning I will take over the Reds. Three guides and a hundred Circassians are given to help you. Detailed orders were given to Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandrov.
At night, the detachment set off.
April 25 (May 8). At 6 o'clock in the morning, the 1st Infantry and Cavalry Brigades set out in a south-westerly direction. A whole day of shaking on carts and arrival at the village of Nezamaevskaya. The transition is about 65 versts. Overnight.
The Cossacks asked General Markov to leave a detachment to protect their village, to which he suggested that they organize themselves for protection, or even better, join the brigade. They hesitated.
April 26 (May 9). In the morning, General Markov toured the units and announced the task given to the army:
- We're going to stock up on combat provisions. The 2nd brigade will advance on the Krylovskaya station. 1st in the center, at Sosyka-Vladikavkazskaya and Sosyka-Eyskaya stations; Horse - to the left, at the station Leushkovskaya. The goal is to capture everything that the Reds have at these 4 stations. Combat provisions are necessary due to the massive influx of Kuban Cossacks into the ranks of the army.
From the village of Nezamaevskaya, the 1st and Horse Brigades went in different directions. Having traveled about 30 versts, the 1st brigade stopped, a few versts short of the Sosyka-Vladikavkazskaya station. The patrols from the Circassian cavalry division attached to the brigade reported that the station was engaged in large enemy forces with an armored train.
According to the disposition of the army headquarters, the attack of the three brigades should begin simultaneously with the dawn of the next day.
With the onset of night, the 1st brigade began to deploy in battle formation: the Officers' Regiment - to attack the Sosyka-Vladikavkazskaya station, the Kuban - to the left of it; with the occupation of this station, the brigade should, going forward with the left shoulder, advance on the Sosyka-Eyskaya station.
***
During April 25 and 26 (May 8 and 9), Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandrov's detachment approached the Vladikavkaz railway north of the Sosyk station very carefully by hidden routes. On the night of the 27th (May 10), he crossed the road and approached his destination. Leaving the Circassians and guides about 300 paces from the railway, the officers crawled up to the canvas and set to work. After a short time - the team: "Crawl away." The canvas has two left. Next command: "Set fire." There were strong explosions. And at that moment, just a few steps from the explosion site, the officers saw the silhouette of a stopped armored train. Another moment, and a machine-gun burst rushed over them: apparently, the Reds noticed the fleeing ones. At dawn, the detachment took the direction of the roar of the beginning of the battle and safely joined the brigade.
April 27 (May 10). Shortly before dawn, the 1st company was ordered to make a demonstration of the offensive. The company shot down the outpost of the Reds, but, approaching the railway at 200 paces, was met with grapeshot and machine-gun fire from an armored train. She lay down and at that moment was attacked by the red infantry from the flanks. In a fierce battle, the company's resistance was broken, and it began to retreat. The Reds pursuing her were stopped by machine-gun fire from battery and company machine guns. Shooting flared up along the entire front.
As soon as it began to get light, the Officers' Regiment went on the offensive. In front of the railway, unable to overcome the enemy’s strongest fire, he lay down, but a few minutes later, when the 1st battery drove off the armored train, and the Kuban people were already rushing to the left, he shot down the Reds, occupied the station and, not lingering on it , led the offensive along the railway in a northerly direction. The Reds retreated, no longer offering resistance, and soon completely dispersed.
General Markov with the Circassian division, ignoring the fleeing Reds, galloped to the Sosyka-Eyskaya station. At both stations, several echelons with "combat provisions" were captured, which were immediately reloaded onto the carts on which the brigade was traveling, while the Officers' Regiment continued to move north. The armored train of the Reds managed to slip through the Krylovskaya station before it was occupied by the 2nd brigade.
There was a moment of alarm: a large column of infantry and cavalry approached the Sosyk station from the east. It turned out that these were the Cossacks of the village of Nezamaevskaya, who were going to join the brigade. There were over 500 of them. General Denikin, who arrived at the station, appointed them all to be replenished in the 1st brigade, and they were immediately given weapons.
Meanwhile, the Officers' Regiment occupied the village of Pavlovskaya, joyfully greeted by the inhabitants. General Markov asked them to immediately go home, as the village would not be held, which caused the inhabitants to exclaim: "What will happen to us now?" The prisoners captured here, including several dozen people, General Markov ordered to be released.
By evening, the Kuban regiment also came to the village of Pavlovskaya, and at night the whole brigade moved further north.
April 28 (May 11) she came to the village of Novo-Mikhailovskaya, 6-7 versts west of the Krylovskaya station, occupied with a fierce battle by the 2nd brigade, but still fighting north of it. A few hours later, the entire 1st brigade set out for the station, but did not linger on it, but proceeded east through the village of Ekaterinovka to the village of Novo-Pashkovskaya, where it camped for the night. The 2nd Brigade followed suit.
April 29 (May 12). The brigade moved to the village of Gulyai-Borisovka and on April 30 returned to Yegorlytskaya.
Tired units returned from the "raid on Sosyka", but cheerful. A great success was won and trophies were obtained, the "combat provisions" needed for the army. The 2nd brigade even captured two guns. For the first time, the Volunteer Army conducted an offensive on a front of 30 versts.
The losses in the Officers' Regiment were large: about 100 people, of which 27 people were killed and 44 wounded, more than half of its composition, in the 1st company alone. The commander of the regiment, Colonel Khovansky, the third commander since April 20 (May 3), was also wounded.
On April 27 (May 10), Colonel Timanovsky took command of the regiment. General Markov parted ways with his inseparable assistant, remaining, however, his closest superior.
April 30 (May 13) - the date of the end of the Kornilov, Ice, 1st Kuban campaign of the Volunteer Army.

The first Kuban (“Ice”) campaign (February 9/22 - April 30 / May 13, 1918) - the first campaign of the Volunteer Army to the Kuban - its movement with battles from Rostov-on-Don to Yekaterinodar and back to the Don (to the village of Yegorlytskaya and Mechetinskaya) during the Civil War.

This campaign was the first army maneuver of the Volunteer Army under the command of Generals L. G. Kornilov, M. V. Alekseev, and after the death of the first - A. I. Denikin.

The main goal of the campaign was to unite the Volunteer Army with the Kuban White detachments, which, as it turned out after the start of the campaign, left Ekaterinodar.

History of events

The events of February - October 1917 led to the actual collapse of the country and the beginning of a civil war. Under these conditions, part of the demobilized, according to the articles of the Brest peace treaty signed by the Bolsheviks on behalf of Russia, the army decided to unite to restore order (however, it soon became clear that many people understand very different things by this word). The unification took place on the basis of the “Alekseevskaya organization”, which began on the day General Alekseev arrived in Novocherkassk - November 2 (15), 1917. The situation on the Don during this period was tense. Ataman Kaledin, with whom General Alekseev discussed his plans for his organization, after listening to the request “to give shelter to the Russian officers”, answered in principle with his consent, however, given the local mood, he recommended Alekseev not to stay in Novocherkassk for more than a week ...

At a specially convened meeting of Moscow delegates and generals on December 18 (31), 1917, which decided on the management of the “Alekseevskaya organization” (in essence, the question of the distribution of roles in management between Generals Alekseev and Kornilov, who arrived on the Don on December 6 (19), 1917), it was decided that all military power passed to General Kornilov.

On December 24, 1917 (January 6, 1918), the duty to urgently complete the formation of units and bring them to combat readiness was assigned to the General Staff of Lieutenant General S. L. Markov.

At Christmas, a “secret” order was announced on the entry of General Kornilov into command of the Army, which from that day became officially known as the Volunteer Army.

The Red Army is advancing from the north on Novocherkassk and on Rostov from the south and west. The Red troops are squeezing these cities in a ring, and the Volunteer Army is rushing about in the ring, desperately resisting and suffering terrible losses. in comparison with the advancing hordes of the Bolsheviks, the volunteers are insignificant, they barely number 2000 bayonets, and the Cossack partisan detachments of Yesaul Chernetsov, military foreman Semiletov and centurion Grekov - hardly 400 people. Strength is not enough. The command of the Volunteer Army is shifting exhausted, small units from one front to another, trying to linger here and there.

After the refusal of the Don Cossacks to support the Volunteer Army and the start of the offensive of the Soviet troops in the Caucasus, General L. G. Kornilov, the commander-in-chief of the army, decided to leave the Don.

In Rostov there were shells, cartridges, uniforms, medical depots and medical personnel - everything that the small army guarding the approaches to the city so badly needed. Up to 16,000 (!) Officers who did not want to participate in its defense were on vacation in the city. Generals Kornilov and Alekseev did not resort at this stage to either requisitions or mobilization. The Bolsheviks of Sievers, having occupied the city after their departure, "took everything they needed and intimidated the population by shooting several officers."

By the beginning of February, the army, which was in the process of being formed, included:
- Kornilov shock regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Nezhentsev)
- The St. George Regiment - from a small officer cadre who arrived from Kiev. (Colonel Kiriyenko).
- 1st, 2nd, 3rd officer battalions - from the officers gathered in Novocherkassk and Rostov. (Colonel Kutepov, lieutenant colonels Borisov and Lavrentyev, later colonel Simanovsky).
- The cadet battalion - mainly from the cadets of the capital's schools and cadets. (Staff Captain Parfenov)
- Rostov Volunteer Regiment - from the student youth of Rostov. (Major General Borovsky).
- Two cavalry divisions. (Colonels Gerschelman and Glazenap).
- Two artillery batteries - mainly from cadets of artillery schools and officers. (Lieutenant colonels Mionchinsky and Erogin).
- A number of small units, such as a “naval company” (captain of the 2nd rank Potemkin), an engineering company, a Czechoslovak engineering battalion, a death division of the Caucasian division (Colonel Shiryaev) and several partisan detachments, called by the names of their chiefs. All these regiments, battalions, divisions were essentially only personnel, and the total combat strength of the entire army hardly exceeded 3-4 thousand people, at times, during the period of heavy Rostov battles, falling to completely insignificant proportions. The army did not receive a secure base. It was necessary to form and fight at the same time, incurring heavy losses and sometimes destroying a unit that had just been put together with great effort. (A.I. Denikin, “Essays on Russian Troubles”)

Under the pressure of the superior forces of the red commander R.F. Sievers, who managed to organize a performance against the volunteers, the garrison of Stavropol with the 39th division that joined it, who approached with battles on February 9 (22) directly to Rostov, it was decided to withdraw from the city beyond the Don - in stanitsa Olginskaya. The question of the further direction was not yet finally resolved: to the Kuban or to the Don winter quarters.

The meaning of the campaign that began under such difficult circumstances, its participant and one of the commanders of the army - General Denikin - subsequently expressed as follows:
As long as there is life, as long as there is strength, not all is lost. They will see a “light”, flickering weakly, they will hear a voice calling for a fight - those who have not yet woken up ... This was the whole deep meaning of the First Kuban campaign. You should not approach with cold argumentation of politics and strategy to the phenomenon in which everything is in the realm of the spirit and the feat being done. On the free steppes of the Don and Kuban, the Volunteer Army walked - small in number, ragged, hunted, surrounded - as a symbol of persecuted Russia and Russian statehood. Throughout the vast expanse of the country, there was only one place where the tricolor national flag was openly fluttering - this was Kornilov's headquarters.(A.I. Denikin, “Essays on Russian Troubles”)

Squad Composition

The detachment, which spoke on the night of 9 to 10 (from 22 to 23) February 1918 from Rostov-on-Don, included:

• 242 staff officers (190 - colonels)
• 2078 chief officers (captains - 215, staff captains - 251, lieutenants - 394, second lieutenants - 535, ensigns - 668)
• 1067 privates (including junkers and senior cadets - 437)
• volunteers - 630 (364 non-commissioned officers and 235 soldiers, including 66 Czechs)
• Medical staff: 148 people - 24 doctors and 122 nurses)

A significant convoy of civilians who fled from the Bolsheviks also retreated with the detachment.

This march, associated with huge losses, was the birth of the White resistance in the South of Russia.

Despite the difficulties and losses, a five thousandth real army, hardened in battles, emerged from the crucible of the Ice Campaign. Only such a number of soldiers of the Russian Imperial Army, after the October events, firmly decided that they would fight. With the detachment-army followed a wagon train with women and children. The participants of the campaign received the honorary title "Pioneer".

2350 the ranks of the command staff by their origin, according to the calculations of the Soviet historian Kavtaradze, were divided as follows:

• hereditary nobles - 21%;
• people from families of low-ranking officers - 39%;
• from the philistines, Cossacks, peasants - 40%.

hike

Generals M. V. Alekseev and L. G. Kornilov decided to retreat south, in the direction of Yekaterinodar, hoping to raise the anti-Soviet sentiments of the Kuban Cossacks and the peoples of the North Caucasus and make the area of ​​the Kuban army the base for further military operations. Their entire army, in terms of the number of fighters, was equal to a regiment of three battalions. It was called the army, firstly, because a force of the size of the army fought against it, and secondly, because it was the heir to the old former Russian army, “its cathedral representative”.

On February 9 (22), 1918, the Volunteer Army crossed to the left bank of the Don and stopped in the village of Olginskaya. Here it was reorganized into three infantry regiments (Consolidated Officer, Kornilov shock and Partisan); it also included a cadet battalion, one artillery (10 guns) and two cavalry divisions. On February 25, the volunteers moved to Yekaterinodar, bypassing the Kuban steppe. The troops passed through the villages of Khomutovskaya, Kagalnitskaya, and Yegorlykskaya, entered the Stavropol province (Lezhanka) and re-entered the Kuban region, crossed the Rostov-Tikhoretskaya railway line, went down to the village of Ust-Labinskaya, where they crossed the Kuban.

The troops were constantly in combat contact with the outnumbered red units, the number of which was constantly growing, while the pioneers were becoming smaller every day. However, victories invariably remained with them.

The small number and the impossibility of a retreat, which would be tantamount to death, developed their own tactics among the volunteers. It was based on the belief that with the numerical superiority of the enemy and the scarcity of our own ammunition, it was necessary to advance and only advance. This truth, undeniable in a mobile war, entered the flesh and blood of the volunteers of the White Army. They always came. In addition, their tactics always included a blow to the flanks of the enemy. The battle began with a frontal attack by one or two infantry units. The infantry advanced in a sparse chain, lying down from time to time to give the machine guns an opportunity to work. It was impossible to cover the entire front of the enemy, because then the intervals between the fighters would reach fifty, or even a hundred steps. In one or two places, a "fist" was going to ram the front. Volunteer artillery hit only important targets, spending a few shells in exceptional cases to support infantry. When the infantry rose to dislodge the enemy, there could no longer be a stop. No matter how numerically superior the enemy was, he never withstood the onslaught of the pioneers.

The road from the village of Elizavetinskaya to Yekaterinodar - the path of the offensive of the Partisan Regiment of General Kazanovich on March 27.

Retreat of Dobrarmia from Ekaterinodar

The Reds occupied Ekaterinodar, left without a fight the day before by the Detachment of the Kuban Rada the day before it was promoted to general by V. L. Pokrovsky on March 1 (14), 1918, which greatly complicated the position of the White Army. The Volunteers faced a new task - to take the city. On March 3 (17), near Novodmitrievskaya, the army joined forces with the military formations of the Kuban regional government; as a result, the size of the army increased to 6,000 bayonets and sabers, of which three brigades were formed; the number of guns increased to 20. Having crossed the Kuban River near the village of Elizavetinskaya, the troops launched an assault on Yekaterinodar, which was defended by the twenty-thousand-strong South-Eastern Army of the Reds under the command of Avtonomov and Sorokin.

On March 27-31 (April 9-13), 1918, the Volunteer Army made an unsuccessful attempt to take the capital of the Kuban - Ekaterinodar, during which General Kornilov was killed by a random grenade on March 31 (April 13), and the command of the army units in the most difficult conditions of complete encirclement repeatedly General Denikin accepted the superior forces of the enemy, who succeeds in the conditions of incessant fighting on all sides, retreating through Medvedovskaya, Dyadkovskaya, to withdraw the army from flank attacks and safely get out of the encirclement beyond the Don, largely due to the energetic actions of the one who distinguished himself in battle on the night of 2 ( 15) on April 3 (16), 1918, at the crossing of the Tsaritsyn-Tikhoretskaya railway by the commander of the Officer Regiment of the General Staff, Lieutenant General S. L. Markov.

Losses during the failed assault amounted to about four hundred killed and one and a half thousand wounded. During the shelling, General Kornilov was killed. Denikin, who replaced him, decided to withdraw the army from the Kuban capital. Departing through Medvedovskaya, Dyadkovskaya, he managed to withdraw the army from flank attacks. Having passed Beisugskaya and turning east, the troops crossed the Tsaritsyn-Tikhoretskaya railway and by April 29 (May 12) reached the south of the Don region in the Mechetinskaya - Yegorlytskaya - Gulyai-Borisovka area. The next day, the campaign, which soon became the legend of the White movement, was over.

Results

The “Ice Campaign” - along with the other two white “first campaigns” that took place simultaneously with it - the Campaign of the Drozdovites of Yassy - Don and the Steppe Campaign of the Don Cossacks, created a combat image, a military tradition and an internal soldering of volunteers. All three campaigns showed the participants of the White movement that it is possible to fight and win with an inequality of forces, in a difficult, sometimes seemingly hopeless, situation. The campaigns raised the mood of the Cossack lands and attracted more and more recruits to the ranks of the White Resistance.

It cannot be unequivocally stated that the campaign was a failure (militarily - a defeat), as some historians do. One thing is certain: it was this campaign that made it possible, in the conditions of the most difficult battles and hardships, to form the backbone of the future Armed Forces of the South of Russia - the White Army.

In addition, as a result of this maneuver, it was possible to return to the lands of the Don Cossacks, who had already, in many ways, changed, by that time, their initial views regarding non-resistance to Bolshevism.

In exile, the participants of the campaign founded the Union of Participants of the 1st Kuban (Ice) General Kornilov Campaign, which became part of the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS).

The revolutionary events that took place in Russia from February to October 1917 actually destroyed the huge empire and led to the outbreak of the Civil War. Seeing such a difficult situation in the country, the remnants of the tsarist army decided to join their efforts to restore reliable power, in order to carry out military operations not only against the Bolsheviks, but also to defend the Motherland from the encroachments of an external aggressor.

Formation of the Volunteer Army

The merger of the units took place on the basis of the so-called Alekseevskaya organization, the beginning of which falls on the day of the general's arrival. It was in his honor that this coalition was named. This event took place in Novocherkassk on November 2 (15), 1917.

A month and a half later, in December of the same year, a special meeting was held. Its participants were Moscow deputies, headed by the generals. In essence, the question of the distribution of roles in command and control between Kornilov and Alekseev was discussed. As a result, it was decided to transfer full military power to the first of the generals. The formation of units and bringing them to full combat readiness was entrusted to the General Staff, headed by Lieutenant General S. L. Markov.

On the Christmas holidays, the troops announced an order to take command of the army of General Kornilov. From that moment on, it officially became known as the Volunteer.

The situation on the Don

It is no secret that the newly created army of General Kornilov was in dire need of the support of the Don Cossacks. But she never received it. In addition, the Bolsheviks began to tighten the ring around the cities of Rostov and Novocherkassk, while the Volunteer Army rushed around inside it, desperately resisting and suffering huge losses. Having lost support from the Don Cossacks, the commander-in-chief of the troops, General Kornilov, on February 9 (22) decided to leave the Don and go to the village of Olginskaya. Thus began the Ice Campaign of 1918.

In abandoned Rostov, there was a lot of uniforms, ammunition and shells, as well as medical depots and personnel - everything that the small army guarding the approaches to the city so needed. It is worth noting that at that time neither Alekseev nor Kornilov had yet resorted to forced mobilization and confiscation of property.

Stanitsa Olginskaya

The ice campaign of the Volunteer Army began with its reorganization. Arriving at the village of Olginskaya, the troops were divided into 3 infantry regiments: Partisan, Kornilov shock and Consolidated officers. After a few left the village and moved towards Yekaterinodar. This was the first Kuban Ice campaign, which passed through Khomutovskaya, Kagalnitskaya and Yegorlykskaya villages. For a short time, the army entered the territory of the Stavropol province, and then re-entered the Kuban region. For all the time of their journey, the volunteers constantly had armed skirmishes with units of the Red Army. Gradually, the ranks of the Kornilovites thinned out, and every day they became less and less.

unexpected news

On March 1 (14), Yekaterinodar was occupied by the Red Army. The day before, Colonel V. L. Pokrovsky and his troops left the city, which greatly complicated the already rather difficult situation of the volunteers. Rumors that the Reds had occupied Yekaterinodar reached Kornilov a day later, when the troops were at the Vyselki station, but they were not given much importance. After 2 days, in the village of Korenovskaya, which was occupied by volunteers as a result of a stubborn battle, they found one of the numbers of the Soviet newspaper. It was reported that the Bolsheviks really occupied Yekaterinodar.

The news received completely devalued the Kuban Ice Campaign, for which hundreds of human lives were wasted. General Kornilov decided not to lead his army to Yekaterinodar, but to turn south and cross the Kuban. He planned to rest his troops in the Circassian villages and Cossack mountain villages and wait a little. Denikin called this decision of Kornilov a “fatal mistake” and, together with Romanovsky, tried to dissuade the army commander from this undertaking. But the general was unmoved.

Union of troops

On the night of March 5-6, the Ice campaign of Kornilov's army continued in a southerly direction. After 2 days, the volunteers crossed the Laba and went to Maykop, but it turned out that in this area every farm had to be taken with a fight. Therefore, the general turned sharply to the west and, crossing the Belaya River, rushed to the Circassian villages. Here he hoped not only to rest his army, but also to unite with the Kuban troops of Pokrovsky.

But since the colonel did not have fresh data on the movement of the Volunteer Army, he stopped making attempts to break through to Maikop. Pokrovsky decided to turn to and connect with Kornilov's troops, who had already managed to leave from there. As a result of this confusion, two armies - the Kuban and the Volunteer - tried to discover each other at random. And finally, on March 11, they succeeded.

Stanitsa Novodmitrievskaya: Ice hike

It was March 1918. Exhausted by daily many-kilometer marches and weakened in battles, the army had to go through the viscous black soil, as the weather suddenly deteriorated, it began to rain. It was replaced by frosts, so the soldier's greatcoats swollen from the rain began to literally freeze. In addition, it became sharply cold and a lot of snow fell in the mountains. The temperature dropped to -20 ⁰С. As participants and eyewitnesses of those events later said, the wounded, who were transported on carts, had to be chipped away with bayonets by the evening from the thick ice crust formed around them.

It must be said that, on top of everything, in mid-March there was also a fierce clash, which went down in history as a battle near the village of Novodmitrievskaya, where the fighters of the Composite Officer Regiment especially distinguished themselves. Later, under the name "Ice Campaign" became the battle, as well as the previous and subsequent transitions along the steppe covered with crust.

Signing an agreement

After the battle near the village of Novodmitrievskaya, the Kuban military formation offered to include him in the Volunteer Army as an independent fighting force. In exchange for this, they promised to assist in the replenishment and supply of troops. General Kornilov immediately agreed to such conditions. The ice campaign continued, and the size of the army increased to 6 thousand people.

Volunteers decided to go again to the capital of the Kuban - Ekaterinodar. While the staff officers were developing a plan of operation, the troops were re-forming and resting, while repulsing numerous attacks by the Bolsheviks.

Yekaterinodar

The ice campaign of Kornilov's army was nearing completion. March 27 (April 9) volunteers crossed the river. Kuban and began to storm Yekaterinodar. The city was defended by a 20,000-strong army of the Reds, commanded by Sorokin and Avtonom. The attempt to capture Yekaterinodar failed, moreover, 4 days later, as a result of another battle, General Kornilov was killed by a random projectile. His duties were taken over by Denikin.

It must be said that the Volunteer Army fought in conditions of complete encirclement with the forces of the Red Army several times superior. The losses of the now Denikinites amounted to about 4 hundred killed and 1.5 thousand wounded. But, despite this, the general still managed to withdraw the army from the encirclement beyond

On April 29 (May 12), Denikin with the remnants of his army went south of the Don region to the Gulyai-Borisovka - Mechetinskaya - Yegorlytskaya region, and the next day Kornilov's Ice Campaign, which later became a legend of the White Guard movement, was completed.

Siberian crossing

In the winter of 1920, under the onslaught of the enemy, the retreat of the Eastern Front, which he commanded, began. It should be noted that this operation, like the campaign of Kornilov's army, took place in the most difficult climatic and weather conditions. The horse-and-foot crossing with a length of about 2 thousand km passed along the route from Novonikolaevsk and Barnaul to Chita. Among the soldiers of the White Army, he received the name "Siberian Ice Campaign".

This most difficult transition began on November 14, 1919, when the White Army left Omsk. Troops led by V. O. Kappel retreated along the Trans-Siberian Railway, transporting the wounded in echelons. Literally on their heels, the Red Army was chasing them. In addition, the situation was further complicated by numerous riots that broke out in the rear, as well as attacks from various bandit and partisan detachments. To top it all, the transition was also aggravated by severe Siberian frosts.

At that time, the Czechoslovak Corps controlled the railway, so the troops of General Kappel were forced to leave the cars and transfer to the sleigh. After that, the White Army began to be a gigantic sledge train.

When the White Guards approached Krasnoyarsk, a garrison rebelled in the city under the leadership of General Bronislav Zinevich, who made peace with the Bolsheviks. He persuaded Kappel to do the same, but was refused. In early January 1920, several skirmishes took place, after which more than 12 thousand White Guards bypassed Krasnoyarsk, crossed the Yenisei River and went further east. Approximately the same number of soldiers chose to surrender to the city garrison.

Leaving Krasnoyarsk, the army divided into columns. The first was commanded by K. Sakharov, whose troops marched along the railway and the Siberian tract. The second column continued its Ice Campaign led by Kappel. She moved first along the Yenisei, and then along. This transition turned out to be the most difficult and dangerous. The point is that R. Kan was covered with a layer of snow, and under it the water of non-freezing springs flowed. And this is in 35-degree frost! The military had to move in the dark and constantly fall into polynyas, completely invisible under a layer of snow. Many of them, having frozen, remained lying, and the rest of the army moved on.

During this transition, it turned out that General Kappel froze his legs, falling into the wormwood. He underwent surgery to amputate limbs. In addition, from hypothermia, he fell ill with pneumonia. In mid-January 1920, the Whites captured Kansk. On the twenty-first day of the same month, the Czechs handed over the Supreme Ruler of Russia, Kolchak, to the Bolsheviks. After 2 days, already dying, he gathered the council of the army headquarters. It was decided to take Irkutsk by storm and free Kolchak. On January 26, Kappel died, and General Voitsekhovsky led the Ice Campaign.

Since the advance of the White Army to Irkutsk was somewhat delayed due to constant fighting, Lenin took advantage of this, who issued an order to shoot Kolchak. It was carried out on February 7th. Upon learning of this, General Voitsekhovsky abandoned the now meaningless assault on Irkutsk. After that, his troops crossed Baikal and at st. Mysovaya loaded all the wounded, sick and women with children into trains. The rest continued their Great Siberian Ice Campaign to Chita, which is about 6 hundred kilometers. They entered the city in early March 1920.

When the transition was completed, General Voitsekhovsky established a new order - "For the Great Siberian Campaign". They were awarded to all the officers and soldiers who participated in it. It is worth noting that members of the Kalinov Most musical group vividly recalled this historical event a few years ago. "The Ice Campaign" was the name of their album, which was entirely dedicated to the retreat of Kolchak's army in Siberia.

The first Kuban campaign of the Volunteer Army, which also went down in history under the name "Ice", took place from February 22, 1918, when the army fought back from Rostov-on-Don, to May 13, 1918 - by this time, volunteer units returned to Don region. The campaign was caused by the active offensive of the Red Guard troops, accompanied by the unwillingness of the Don Cossacks to fight against the Bolsheviks, which led to the capture of Rostov by Soviet troops on February 23 and Novocherkassk on February 25. Under these conditions, in an effort to preserve the army, Generals L. G. Kornilov and M. V. Alekseev decided to withdraw south, in the direction of the capital of the Kuban Cossack Army - Yekaterinodar, considering the region as a possible base for the deployment of the army. The number of units that went on the campaign was about 4 thousand people, not counting a significant number of civilians who fled from the Bolsheviks. However, the plans of the volunteers were thwarted by the news of the Red Guards entering Yekaterinodar on March 14, and the abandonment of the city by detachments of the Kuban regional government under the command of Colonel Pokrovsky. General L. G. Kornilov announced the advance of the army further beyond the Kuban, where he planned "in the mountain villages and Circassian villages" to give the soldiers rest and "wait for more favorable circumstances." In Trans-Kuban, the army found itself in almost complete Bolshevik encirclement and fought uninterrupted battles. Nevertheless, she managed to connect with the Kuban units, as a result of which the size of the army increased to 6 thousand people. Constant combat clashes with opponents were complicated by dramatically changing weather conditions: the rain was replaced by frost with a piercing wind and a snow blizzard, as a result of which the clothes were covered with an ice crust. According to one version, for this reason the campaign was dubbed "Ice".

Together, on April 9-13, an attempt was made to storm Yekaterinodar. The superior enemy forces under the command of A. I. Avtonomov and I. L. Sorokin repelled the attacks of the Volunteer Army, which suffered a heavy loss under the walls of the city: on April 13, General Kornilov was killed by a random grenade. General A.I. Denikin took command of the army. He managed to withdraw the army from the encirclement and fight his way to the Don, where by that time an anti-Soviet uprising of the Don Cossacks had begun.

During the 80-day campaign - in difficult weather conditions, surrounded by Soviet detachments - the Volunteer Army covered about 1 thousand 200 km with continuous battles, while not only maintaining its integrity, but even increasing its numbers due to the annexation of the troops of the Kuban regional government.

The section presents the memoirs of both the participants of the campaign and contemporaries of the events under consideration; historical studies that reflect the events of the initial period of the Civil War in southern Russia and, in particular, the First Kuban campaign; essays on the leaders of the Volunteer Army (generals L. G. Kornilov and M. V. Alekseev); materials of the Union of Participants of the First Kuban Campaign; as well as maps and plans of the Don Cossack Region, photographs and a video lecture.

So after all, whose victory was the Ice Campaign of the White Army? Of course, the epic of the Ice Campaign became a legend of the White Movement, of course, it was a feat on the part of the Kornilovites, who went practically into the unknown. The glory of this campaign undoubtedly belongs to Kornilov and his fighting associates. But no less glorious were the two defenses of Sevastopol in 1854-1855 and 1941-1942. But both "Sevastopol sufferings" ended in the same way - the fall of the city. Undoubtedly, the defense of the Brest Fortress and the Battle of Smolensk are the heroic pages of our history - but our ancestors lost both battles in the end. So who emerged victorious from the events of February - April 1918?

At first glance, it seems that luck accompanied the red. Ekaterinodar - the ultimate goal of his campaign - the Volunteer Army did not take, the city remained in the hands of the Bolsheviks. The Kuban Cossacks did not become its reliable rear for solving national problems. In addition, the army lost its adored commander-in-chief, Lavr Kornilov, whose death crippled many white volunteers morally.

L.G. Kornilov

But this is only at first glance. It is no coincidence that Anton Ivanovich Denikin, who took command from the hands of the late Kornilov, pointed out in "Essays on the Russian Troubles" that the Ice Campaign cannot be approached with the yardstick of conventional strategy or even politics. Let's take a closer look at these events.

First of all, the main goal of the campaign, if you look, was not Yekaterinodar at all. Initially, white volunteers were going to the Don, it was the Don region that became a kind of White Guard "mecca". Junkers, cadets and officers who did not accept the October coup rushed to the Don. There was an island of firm state power on the Don, headed by the conservative ataman A.M. Kaledin, the former chief of staff of Emperor Nicholas II, General M.V., also went to the Don. Alekseev. Bykhov's prisoners also made their way to the Don - Kornilov, Denikin, Romanovsky, Markov and others, the future leaders of the White Movement in the South of Russia. In December 1917 - January 1918, the Volunteer Army created by Alekseev and Kornilov successfully resisted the onslaught of the Red Guards.

Lavr Kornilov and Mitrofan Nezhentsev in the hostel of white volunteers in Novocherkassk

What changed then? What has changed is that the Don Cossacks, tired of the First World War, did not rise up in defense of their age-old rights and traditional foundations, which Kaledin and Kornilov counted on. The Reds, on the other hand, quickly realized the danger posed to them by the White Army that was being formed on the Don - and hastened to crush it in the bud. Rostov and Novocherkassk were attacked by the many times superior forces of the Red Guards, which the Volunteer Army had no way to resist alone. It became clear that without the help of the Don Cossacks, the Alekseevs and Kornilovites alone would not be able to hold the front. “A handful of our people, not supported at all by the Cossacks,” Alekseev wrote bitterly to his wife, “abandoned by everyone, deprived of artillery shells, exhausted by long battles, exhausted their strength and ability to fight to the end. If today or tomorrow the Cossack conscience does not speak, then we will be crushed by the number of even an insignificant moral enemy. We will need to leave the Don in an extremely difficult situation." "Speaking of the departure of the Volunteer Army, - explained the same Alekseev to the Don ataman Kaledin, - I had in mind the extreme case when further struggle would be pointless and would only lead to the complete destruction of the weak side which we will be in this case."

M.V. Alekseev

A.M. Kaledin

The departure of the Volunteer Army from the Don was actually a retreat. The withdrawal of the army from positions in order to save the troops from the inevitable defeat. This was the main motive for Alekseev and Kornilov when they made the appropriate decision. But - and this is the main strategic paradox of the Ice Campaign - Kornilov's army, retreating, ... advanced. Enemies were all around - everywhere in Russia the Red Guard detachments and simply bandit gangs of deserter soldiers were in charge (and it was not so easy to distinguish one from the other). The Volunteer Army retreated from the Don, which failed to become a reliable rear base for it - and at the same time advanced on the Kuban, where it hoped to find such a base. Kuban was not the ultimate goal - it was just one of the possible options. As alternatives, a withdrawal to the Volga region, to Astrakhan (the idea of ​​Kornilov) or to the Salsky steppes, to the area of ​​winter quarters (the idea of ​​the Don marching ataman P.Kh. Popov) was considered. The main goal of both Alekseev and Kornilov was to preserve the army for subsequent battles with the Bolsheviks, not for a moment forgetting that the army was created not for narrowly territorial, but for nationwide tasks, and that this army is, in fact, the legal successor of the imperial Russia, which continued the war against the bloc of the Central Powers.

And from this point of view, the Ice Campaign of the Volunteer Army turned out to be unexpectedly successful. Yes, Yekaterinodar was not taken, yes, the army lost its commander-in-chief - but at the same time, while the Kornilovites were fighting their way to the Kuban, the Reds were in charge of the Don - and in less than two months they managed to turn the local population against themselves so much that the Don flared up with uprisings . If you believe Sholokhov (and he is from those places and a direct participant in the events, and - which is extremely important for the issue of interest to us - a Bolshevik), often the same people who back in February welcomed Soviet power and actively contributed to its establishment took part in the anti-Bolshevik Cossack uprisings (I want to address those who are interested in the brilliant novel "Quiet Flows the Don"). The Volunteer Army failed to take the Kuban capital and secure a base in the North Caucasus - but the army was replenished with volunteers from among the Kuban Cossacks and Caucasian Muslim mountaineers, which dramatically increased its maneuverability. An army, mostly on foot, stretched out from Rostov and Novocherkassk - now the new commander Denikin had cavalry divisions at his disposal. According to Denikin (see "Essays on the Russian Troubles"), the Volunteer Army returned to the Don, having grown in numbers - and this despite the fact that during the First Kuban Campaign it had to continuously fight and suffer losses. And on the Don, a detachment of Drozdovsky of almost three thousand people from three types of weapons with their armored cars and an airplane, who had arrived in a distant world, ignited by Alekseev, was already waiting for them.

White Volunteer Army

The main thing is undoubted: contrary to the assertions of Lenin, who already in February 1918 announced his victory in the Civil War, the Volunteer Army survived. And so, victory is on her side.