- Volunteer Army
:"For the British Volunteer Army, see
Volunteer Army (British) . For voluntary military service, seevolunteer military .The Volunteer Army ("Добровольческая армия" in Russian, or Dobrovolcheskaya armiya) was an anti-Bolshevik army in South
Russia during theRussian Civil War of 1918-1920.The Volunteer Army began forming in November-December 1917 by
General Mikhail Alekseev inNovocherkassk and GeneralLavr Kornilov and his supporters. Initially, the Volunteer Army included volunteering officers,cadet s, students andCossacks . OnDecember 27 ,1917 (January 9 ,1918 ), the creation of the Volunteer Army was officially announced. Alekseev became its overall leader, Kornilov - itsCommander-in-chief , GeneralAlexander Lukomsky - its Chief of Staff, GeneralAnton Denikin – commander of the 1st Division and GeneralSergey Markov – commander of 1st Officersregiment . They also created the so called Special Council at theheadquarters , which included also included prominent civilian politicians such asPeter Struve ,Pavel Milyukov ,Mikhail Rodzianko ,Sergey Sazonov andBoris Savinkov .In early January 1918, the Volunteer Army numbered approximately 4,000 men and fought against the
Red Army together with the units of General Aleksei Kaledin. In late February, the Volunteer Army had to retreat fromRostov-on-Don due to the onset of the Red Army and left forKuban in order to unite with the Kuban Cossack formations, a manoeuvre known as theIce March . However, most of the Kuban Cossacks did not give their support to the Volunteer Army. Only a small unit (3,000 men) under the command of GeneralViktor Pokrovsky joined the Volunteer Army onMarch 26 , 1918, increasing its number to 6,000 people. The Volunteer Army's attempt to captureYekaterinodar betweenApril 9 andApril 13 was afiasco , costingKornilov his life. General Denikin took the command over the remnants of the Volunteer Army and left for the remotestanitsa s beyond the Don region. In June 1918, 3,000 men ofColonel Mikhail Drozdovsky joined the Volunteer Army. OnJune 23 , the Volunteer Army (8,000-9,000 men) began its so called Second Kuban Campaign with the support fromPyotr Krasnov . By September 1918, the Volunteer Army had already had 30,000-35,000 men thanks tomobilization of the Kuban Cossacks and "counterrevolutionary elements", gathered in theNorth Caucasus . Thus, the Volunteer Army took the name of the Caucasus Volunteer Army.In the Autumn of 1918, the governments of
Great Britain ,France and theUSA increased their material and technical assistance to the Volunteer Army. With the support from Entente, the forces of the South Russian Whites were combined into the so calledArmed Forces of South Russia ("Вооружённые силы Юга России", or Vooruzhenniye sily Yuga Rossii) under the command of Denikin. In the late 1918 - early 1919, Denikin managed to inflict a defeat on the 11thSoviet Army and capture the North Caucasus region. In January 1919, the Caucasus Volunteer Army was divided into the Caucasus Army and the Volunteer Army, which would later be joined by theDon Army , created from the remnants of Krasnov's Cossack army. After capturingDonbass ,Tsaritsyn andKharkov in June 1919, Denikin began to advance towardsMoscow onJune 20 (July 3 ). According to his plan, the main blow to Moscow was to be inflicted by the Volunteer Army (40,000 men) under the command of GeneralVladimir May-Mayevsky .The
White Army was accused by the Soviets of cruelty in its conquered territories, usually against the workers, for which theSoviet historiography would dub this regime "Denikinschina". Some of the units and formations of the Volunteer Army possessed good military skills and fighting strength due to a large number of officers in its ranks, who hated and despised theSoviets . However, the Volunteer Army's fighting efficiency started to decrease in the summer of 1919 in light of significant losses andconscription of mobilized peasants and even Red Army soldiers in captivity.During the counter-offensive of the Red Army (since October 1919), the Volunteer Army sustained a decisive defeat and rolled back to the South. In the early 1920, it retreated to the areas beyond the Don region and was reduced to a
Corps of 5,000 men under the command of GeneralAlexander Kutepov .On
March 26 andMarch 27 , 1920, the remnants of the Volunteer Army were evacuated fromNovorossiysk to theCrimea , where they merged with the army ofPyotr Wrangel .ee also
*
White movement
*West Russian Volunteer Army
*Russian Civil War
*Russian Liberation Movement
*Russian Liberation Army
*Russian Corps
*Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War External links
* [http://www.antibr.ru/albom/aa_0428.html Anti-Bolshevik Russia in pictures]
* [http://www.dk1868.ru/ Volunteer Corpus]
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