The personality of this person is strongly connected with the White movement and the island of Crimea - the last stronghold and fragment of the Russian Empire.
Biography and activities of Peter Wrangel
Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, born on August 15, 1878 in the city of Novoaleksandrovsk. Wrangel's ancestors were Swedes. Over several centuries, the Wrangel family has produced many famous military leaders, navigators and polar explorers. Peter's father was an exception, choosing a career as an entrepreneur over a military career. He saw his eldest son the same way.
Peter Wrangel spent his childhood and youth in Rostov-on-Don. There he graduated from a real school. In 1900 - gold medal of the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg. In 1901, mining engineer Wrangel was called up to undergo compulsory one-year military service. He serves as a volunteer in the prestigious Life Guards cavalry regiment. However, Wrangel does not like serving in peacetime. He prefers to become an official of special assignments under the Irkutsk Governor-General and retires with only the rank of cornet. This continues until .
Then Wrangel returns to the army, actively participates in hostilities, and is awarded the Annin weapon for bravery. Wrangel's long letters home from the battlefields, revised by his mother, were published in the Historical Bulletin magazine. In 1907, Wrangel was presented to the emperor and transferred to his native regiment. He continues his education at the Nikolaev General Staff Academy. In 1910 he completed his studies, but did not remain with the General Staff.
In August 1907, Olga Ivanenko, the daughter of a chamberlain and maid of honor of the Empress's court, became Wrangel's wife. By 1914, the family already had three children. Wrangel became the first Knight of St. George in the outbreak of the World War. His wife accompanied Wrangel on the war fronts and worked as a nurse. Wrangel often and for a long time talked with. Baron commands Cossack units. Wrangel did not climb the career ladder quickly, but it was completely deserved.
Unlike many liberal intellectuals and colleagues - and Denikin, Wrangel met with hostility the February Revolution and the decrees of the Provisional Government, which undermined the very foundation of the army. His then insignificant rank and position made him an outsider to the big political game among the highest ranks of the army. Wrangel, as best he could, actively opposed the elected soldiers' committees and fought to maintain discipline. Kerensky made an attempt to involve Wrangel in the defense of Petrograd from the Bolsheviks, but he pointedly resigned.
After the October Revolution, Wrangel reunited with his family who were in Crimea. In February 1918, revolutionary sailors of the Black Sea Fleet arrested the baron, and only the intercession of his wife saved him from imminent execution. German troops occupy Ukraine. Wrangel meets with the Ukrainian Hetman Skoropadsky, his former colleague. In 1919, Commander-in-Chief Denikin appointed Wrangel commander of the so-called. Volunteer Army. However, their personal relationship is hopelessly damaged.
In April 1920, Denikin was deposed and Wrangel was elected as the new commander. Wrangel was in charge of the last piece of Russian land still free from the Bolsheviks for only seven months. The defense of Perekop covered the evacuation of the civilian population. In November 1920, the remnants of the White Army left Russia forever through Kerch, Sevastopol, and Evpatoria. Wrangel died of transient consumption on April 25, 1928 in Brussels. According to one version of modern historians, it was provoked by OGPU agents.
- The legendary white Circassian woman of Wrangel from the pen of Makovsky in the poem “Good!” turned into black - for the sake of sound expressiveness.
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel is a white general, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, and then the Russian Army. Wrangel was born on August 15, 1878 in Novoaleksandrovsk, Kovno province (now Zarasai, Lithuania), and died on April 25, 1928 in Brussels.
Peter Wrangel before the Civil War - briefly
Wrangel came from a family of Baltic Germans who had lived in Estonia since the thirteenth century and were possibly of Low Saxon origin. Other branches of this family settled in the 16th-18th centuries in Sweden, Prussia and Russia, and after 1920 in the USA, France and Belgium. Several representatives of the Wrangel family distinguished themselves in the service of the Swedish, Prussian kings and Russian tsars.
Wrangel first studied at the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, where in 1901 he received an engineering degree. But he abandoned the engineering profession and in 1902 passed the exam at the Nikolaev Cavalry School (St. Petersburg), receiving the rank of cornet. In 1904-1905, Wrangel took part in Russian-Japanese war.
In 1910, Pyotr Nikolaevich graduated from the Nikolaev Guards Academy. In 1914, at the beginning First World War, he was a captain of the Horse Guards and distinguished himself in the very first battles, capturing a German battery near Kaushen with a fierce attack on August 23. On October 12, 1914, Wrangel was promoted to colonel and one of the first officers to receive the Order of St. George, 4th degree.
In October 1915, Pyotr Nikolaevich was sent to the Southwestern Front. He took command of the 1st Nerchinsky Regiment of Transbaikal Cossacks, with whom he participated in Brusilov breakthrough 1916.
Petr Nikolaevich Wrangel
In 1917, Wrangel became commander of the 2nd brigade of the Ussuri Cossack division. In March 1917, he was one of the few military leaders who advocated sending troops to Petrograd to restore the damaged February revolution order. Wrangel rightly believed that Nicholas's abdicationII will not only not improve the situation in the country, but will worsen it.
But Wrangel did not belong to the high army command, and no one listened to him. Provisional Government, who did not like Pyotr Nikolaevich’s mood, achieved his resignation. Wrangel left with his family for Crimea.
Wrangel in the Civil War - briefly
At his dacha in Yalta, Wrangel was soon arrested by the Bolsheviks. Pyotr Nikolaevich owed his life to his wife, who begged the communists to spare him. Having received freedom, Wrangel remained in Crimea until the arrival of German troops, who temporarily stopped the Bolshevik terror. Having learned about the hetman's desire Skoropadsky to restore state power, Pyotr Nikolaevich went to Kyiv to meet with him. Disappointed with the Ukrainian nationalists surrounding Skoropadsky and his dependence on the Germans, Wrangel went to Kuban, where in September 1918 he joined General Denikin. He instructed him to bring to order one Cossack division that was on the verge of mutiny. Wrangel managed not only to calm these Cossacks, but also to create a highly disciplined unit out of them.
Wrangel. The path of the Russian general. Movie one
In the winter of 1918-1919, at the head of the Caucasian Army, he occupied the entire basin of the Kuban and Terek, Rostov-on-Don, and in June 1919 he took Tsaritsyn. Wrangel's quick victories confirmed his talents in waging the Civil War. He tried in every possible way to limit the violence inevitable in its conditions, severely punishing robbers and looters in his units. Despite his harshness, he was highly respected among the soldiers.
In March 1920, the White Army suffered new losses and barely managed to cross from the Kuban to the Crimea. Denikin was now loudly blamed for the defeat, and he was left with no choice but to resign. On April 4, Wrangel participated in Sevastopol in the council of white generals, which handed him the powers of the high command. The white forces received a new name - the “Russian Army”. At its head, Wrangel continued the fight against the Bolsheviks in southern Russia.
Wrangel, tried to find a solution not only to the military, but also to the political problems of Russia. He believed in a republic with a strong executive and a competent ruling class. He created a temporary republican government in Crimea, trying to win over the people of the entire country, disappointed with the Bolshevik regime, to his side. Wrangel's political program included slogans for transferring land to those who cultivate it and providing job guarantees for the poor.
White government of southern Russia, 1920. Peter Wrangel sits in the center
Although the British stopped helping the white movement, Wrangel reorganized his army, which at this moment numbered no more than 25,000 armed soldiers. The Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars entered the war with Pilsudski's Poland, and Pyotr Nikolaevich hoped that this diversion of the Red forces would help him gain a foothold in Crimea and launch a counteroffensive.
On April 13, the first Red attack on the Perekop Isthmus was easily repulsed by the Whites. Wrangel himself organized the attack, managed to reach Melitopol and capture Tavria (the region adjacent to the Crimea from the north).
The defeat of the Whites and the evacuation from Crimea - briefly
In July 1920, Wrangel repelled a new Bolshevik offensive, but in September the end of active hostilities with Poland allowed the Communists to move huge reinforcements to the Crimea. The number of red troops was 100,000 infantry and 33,600 cavalry. The balance of forces became four to one in favor of the Bolsheviks, and Wrangel knew this well. The Whites left Tavria and moved beyond the Perekop Isthmus.
The first offensive of the Red Army was stopped on October 28, but Wrangel understood that it would soon resume with greater force. He began to prepare for the evacuation of troops and civilians who were ready to go to a foreign land. On November 7, 1920, Frunze's red forces broke into Crimea. While the general's troops Alexandra Kutepova somehow restrained the enemy pressure, Wrangel began boarding people on ships in five ports of the Black Sea. In three days, he managed to evacuate 146 thousand people, including 70 thousand soldiers, seated on 126 ships. The French Mediterranean Fleet sent the battleship Waldeck-Rousseau to assist in the evacuation. Refugees went to Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. Among the evacuees there were many public figures, intellectuals, and scientists. Most of the soldiers found temporary refuge in Turkish Gallipoli, and then in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Among those Russian emigrants who chose France, many settled in Boulogne-Billancourt. There they worked on the assembly lines of the Renault plant and lived in barracks previously occupied by the Chinese.
Wrangel himself settled in Belgrade. At first he remained at the head of the emigrated members of the white movement and organized them into Russian All-Military Union (ROVS). In November 1924, Wrangel abandoned the supreme leadership of the EMRO in favor of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich.
Wrangel with his wife Olga, Russian spiritual, civil and military leaders in Yugoslavia, 1927
Death of Wrangel - briefly
In September 1927, Wrangel moved to Brussels, where he worked as an engineer. He died suddenly on April 25, 1928 due to a strange infection with tuberculosis. The family of Pyotr Nikolaevich believed that he was poisoned by the brother of his servant, who was an agent GPU.
At the urgent request of Russian emigrants in Serbia and Vojvodina, Wrangel was reburied in the Russian Church of the Holy Trinity in Belgrade (October 6, 1929). He left memoirs.
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel was married to Olga Mikhailovna Ivanenko (1886, St. Petersburg - 1968 New York). They had four children (Natalia, Elena, Peter Alexey).
People of the older generation well remember the famous Bolshevik hit “White Army, Black Baron,” but not everyone knows that it so darkly referred to Wrangel Pyotr Nikolaevich, whose biography formed the basis of this article. And few people know that he received this nickname during his lifetime not for any dark deeds, but only because of his passion for the black Circassian coat, which he preferred to an ordinary uniform.
Famous graduate of the Mining Institute
Wrangel Pyotr Nikolaevich was born on August 15, 1878 in the city of Novoaleksandrovsk, Kovno province. He inherited his baronial title from his ancestors, whose names appear in chronicles dating back to the 13th century. Representatives of the Wrangel family also occupied a worthy place among statesmen and scientists of subsequent centuries.
In his younger years, Pyotr Nikolaevich hardly thought about a military career; in any case, in 1896 he entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute, after graduating from which he became an engineer. However, belonging to the highest aristocratic circle meant having an officer rank, and in order not to break tradition, he served for two years as a volunteer in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, after which, having successfully passed the exam, he was promoted to cornet.
Official career and happy marriage
Having resigned, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel went to Irkutsk, where he was offered a very promising position as an official on special assignments under the Governor General. This is how he would have lived, climbing the steps of the career ladder at a set time, if not for the Russo-Japanese War. Not considering himself the right to remain aloof from the events that took place in the Far East, Pyotr Nikolaevich returned to the army and took part in battles, where he was awarded a number of awards for his heroism and promoted to lieutenant. From now on, military service becomes his life's work.
Soon another important event occurs - he marries Olga Mikhailovna Ivanenko, the daughter of one of the dignitaries of the Highest Court. This marriage, the fruit of which was four children, was a true gift from heaven for both, and, having gone through the trials of the most difficult years together, the couple did not part until the death of Pyotr Nikolaevich.
New war and new differences
Returning to the capital, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel continued his education, this time within the walls of the Nikolaev Military Academy, after graduating from which he met the First World War as a squadron commander of the Horse Regiment. The next three years became a period of amazing growth in his officer's career. Having served at the front as a captain, in 1917 he returned with the rank of major general - holder of most of Russia's highest military awards. This is how the Motherland celebrated the battle path of its devoted soldier.
The path to the Volunteer Army
He perceived the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the violence they committed as a crime, and, not wanting to participate in them, he and his wife left for Yalta, where at a dacha they owned he was soon arrested by local security officers. The Red Terror had not yet been unleashed, and people were not shot simply for belonging to the noble class, therefore, not finding a reason for further detention, he was soon released.
When German units entered Crimea, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel received relative freedom of movement, and, taking advantage of it, left for Kyiv, where he hoped to establish cooperation with Hetman Skoropadsky. However, having arrived there and familiarized himself with the situation, he soon became convinced of the weakness and unviability of his pro-German government and, leaving Ukraine, departed for Yekaterinodar, which was occupied at that time by the Volunteer Army.
In August 1918, Lieutenant General Wrangel took command of the 1st Cavalry Division of the Volunteer Army. In battles with the red units, he showed the same extraordinary leadership talent as he once did on the fronts of the First World War, only now his compatriots became his opponents, which could not but affect the general morale of the commander.
Nevertheless, putting above all else the duty of a soldier who has sworn an oath of allegiance to the Tsar and the Fatherland, he devotes himself entirely to the fight, and soon his military labors receive due appreciation - a new promotion in rank, this time he becomes a lieutenant general and a cavalier of new military awards
The tactics he developed have gone down in the history of military art, in which cavalry units are not dispersed along the front line, but gathered into a single fist inflict a crushing blow on the enemy, which in most cases decides the outcome of the entire battle. This is how he managed to win a number of major victories in the North Caucasus and Kuban.
Master of the south of Russia
Despite the success that invariably accompanied his units, Wrangel was forced to resign at the height of the war. The reason for this was his disagreement with the commander of the Southern Front, General A.I. Denikin, only after whose departure he again continued his activities, taking his place.
From now on, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel became the sovereign master of the south of Russia. The White movement, which had previously swept the entire country, was practically suppressed by the beginning of 1920, and the capture of Crimea by units of the Red Army was essentially only a matter of time. Nevertheless, even in such a situation, when the outcome of the war was already a foregone conclusion, for six months he retained in his hands this last stronghold of the former Russia.
Latest efforts
Pyotr Nikolaevich is trying to turn the tide of events by attracting to his side the most diverse segments of the population of the southern regions of the country. For this purpose, he developed an agrarian reform, if adopted, the bulk of agricultural land would become the property of peasants. Changes were also made to labor legislation to provide workers with increased wages. However, time was lost, nothing could be changed.
In the current situation, the only realistically feasible task was to ensure the evacuation of military units, as well as the civilian population who did not want to be under the rule of the Bolsheviks. Wrangel coped with this task brilliantly. Under his leadership, in November 1920, more than 146 thousand refugees were transported from Crimea to Constantinople. Together with them, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel left his homeland forever.
They deserve special attention, because they indicate that, once abroad, Wrangel did not fall out of the sight of the Russian special services; a real hunt was organized for him. The first link in this chain of events was an incident that occurred in the roadstead of Constantinople, where the yacht “Lucullus” was moored, on which Pyotr Nikolaevich lived with his family. One day she was sunk by a ship that came from Batum that crashed into her for no apparent reason. Then, fortunately, the couple were not injured, as they were on the shore.
Having moved to Europe and heading the union he created, which united more than 100 thousand former participants in the White movement, Pyotr Nikolaevich began to pose a real danger to the Bolsheviks, and on April 25, 1927, he was poisoned by a specially sent OGPU agent. Death overtook him in Brussels, where he worked as an engineer at one of the companies. His body was buried there.
How this and a number of other special operations to eliminate Wrangel were developed became known only during the years of perestroika after part of the archives of the special services were declassified. In subsequent years, the descendants of Wrangel Peter Nikolaevich transferred his ashes to Belgrade, where he was reburied in the fence of the Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity.
His children Elena (1909 - 1999), Natalya (1913 - 2013), Alexey (1922 - 2005) and Peter (1911 - 1999), unlike their father, turned out to be long-lived, but none of them returned to Russia. The current generation of Wrangels also has no connection with their historical homeland.
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Lieutenant General,
Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel.
Wrangel Petr Nikolaevich, baron (1878 – 1928). Coming from a noble family of Swedish origin, he studied to become a mining engineer, then entered military service, participated in the Russo-Japanese War, and later, during the First World War, distinguished himself in East Prussia and Galicia. After October revolution Having refused to go into the service of the Ukrainian Hetman Skoropadsky, who is supported by the Germans, he joins the Volunteer Army. IN April 1920 he becomes the successor Denikin , when he, having retreated to Crimea, leaves command of the White army. Taking advantage of the outbreak of war with Poland To regroup his troops, Wrangel goes on the offensive in Ukraine and forms a government that France recognizes. In the fall of the same year, pressed by the Red Army (which had a free hand after the truce with Poland), he retreated to Crimea and in November 1920 organized the evacuation of 140 thousand military and civilians to Constantinople. Having settled with his headquarters and part of the troops, first in Turkey, then in Yugoslavia , he refuses to continue the armed war and moves to Belgium, where he dies in 1928.
Wrangel Pyotr Nikolaevich (August 15, 1878, Novo-Alexandrovsk, now Zarasai Literary SSR, April 25, 1928, Brussels), Russian Lieutenant General. army (1917), one of the leaders of the southern. counter-revolution during the Civil. wars and military interventions in Russia. Graduated from the Mining Institute (1901), Military. General Staff Academy (1910). In 1902, being a volunteer, he was promoted to officer. Russian-Japanese participant and the 1st World War, commanded Cav. body. After Oct. revolution fled to Crimea and in Aug. 1918 entered the Denikin Volunteer Army, was a cavalry comr. divisions, then corps. In the spring of 1919 he became the head of the White Guard. Caucasian Army, Dec. 1919 - Jan. 1920 teams. Volunteer Army. Ambition, careerism, and the desire to take a leading role in the White Guard movement led V. to a conflict with the leader of the South. counter-revolution by A.I. Denikin, who sent him abroad. In April 1920, at the insistence of the Entente, V. was appointed commander-in-chief of the so-called. Russian army in Crimea. Undertook political, economic. and military measures to save the remains of the south. counter-revolution (see Wrangelism). In 1920, the army of V. was defeated by the Soviets. Army, V. himself, along with part of his troops, fled abroad. In 1924, a right-wing monarchy was created in France. Rus. All-Military Union (EMRO), led an active anti-Soviet movement. activity.
Materials from the Soviet Military Encyclopedia in 8 volumes, volume 2 were used.
Captain Wrangel Petr Nikolaevich,
student at the General Staff Academy. 1908
Poisoned with Koch's stick
WRANGEL Petr Nikolaevich (08/15/1878-04/25/1928). Colonel (12/12/1914). Major General (01/13/1917). Lieutenant General (11/22/1918). He graduated from the Mining Institute (1901), the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff (1910) and the course of the Officer Cavalry School (1911). Participant in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905: in the 2nd Verkhneudinsk and 2nd Argun Cossack regiments. Participant of the First World War: squadron commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, 05.1912 - 09.1914; chief of staff of the combined cavalry division, 09-12.1914; in the retinue (adjutant) of Emperor Nicholas II, 12.1914 - 10.1915; commander of the 1st Nerchinsky regiment, 10.1915-12.1916; commander of the 2nd brigade of the Ussuri Cavalry Division, 12.1916-01.1917; commander of the 7th Cavalry Division, 01 - 07.1917; from 07/10/1917 commander of the Consolidated Cavalry Corps, 07 - 09.1917. Relinquished command of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, 09.1917; left for Crimea (outside the army), 10.1917 - 07.1918. In the White movement: from 08/28/1918, brigade commander of the 1st Cavalry Division and from 08/31/1918 - commander of the 1st Cavalry Division; 08-11.1918; commander of the 1st cavalry corps, 11.1918 - 01.1919. By agreement between Generals Denikin and Krasnov, on December 26, 1918, a unified command of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR) was formed, which included both the Volunteer Army and the Don Army under the overall Command of General Denikin. At the same time, General Wrangel was appointed commander of the Volunteer (Caucasian) Army, replacing General Denikin in this post, 05/01/08/1919. Sick of typhus 02-03.1919. Commander of the Caucasian Army of the All-Soviet Union of Socialist Republics, 05/08–12/04/1919. Commander of the Volunteer Army, 12/4/1919-01/02/1920. On behalf of Denikin, he was sent to Kuban to form new divisions, December 22-29, 1919. Left for Constantinople (Türkiye) from Crimea 01/14/1920. In exile (Türkiye) due to disagreements with Denikin 02.28 - 03.20.1920. On 03/23/1920 he took command of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR), replacing Denikin by decision (vote) of the Military Council in Crimea convened to resolve this issue. Commander of the AFSR, 03.23-05.11.1920. On April 28, 1920, he reorganized the former Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR) into the Russian Army. Commander of the Russian Army (Crimea, Novorossiya, Northern Tavria), 04/28 - 11/17/1920. Evacuated from Crimea on November 17, 1920. In exile: from 11.1920 - Türkiye, from 1922 - Yugoslavia and from 09.1927 - Belgium. 09/01/1924 created the Russian All-Military Union - EMRO, which united former Russian military personnel of all branches of the White and Russian armies. Died 04/25/1928 in Brussels (Belgium), buried in Belgrade, Serbia.
According to one version, supported by his daughter (1992), General Wrangel was killed (poisoned with Koch’s wand) by his former orderly - an NKVD agent who visited him 10 days before Wrangel’s death. After this visit, Wrangel suddenly fell ill with a severe and acute form of tuberculosis, which he had never suffered from before (his daughter suggests that the former orderly managed to plant artificial deadly poisonous bacteria in Wrangel’s food, created in special laboratories of the NKVD).
Materials used from the book: Valery Klaving, Civil War in Russia: White Armies. Military-historical library. M., 2003.
Wrangel at the headquarters train, Tsaritsyn 1919.
"Combat work is his calling"
Wrangel Peter Nikolaevich (1878 - 1928, Brussels) - military leader, one of the leaders of the counter-revolution. Came from hereditary nobles of St. Petersburg, lips. Wrangel's father was the director of an insurance company in Rostov-on-Don. Here Wrangel spent his childhood and youth. He studied first at home, then at the Rostov real school, and completed his secondary education in St. Petersburg, where he entered the Mining Institute, which he graduated in 1901. He volunteered for military service in 1902, passed the exam for the officer rank and, Having retired to the reserve, he went to Irkutsk as an official for special assignments under the Governor General. In Siberia, Wrangel was caught up in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904 - 1905, to which he volunteered. His colleague General P.N. Shatilov recalled this period of Wrangel’s life: “He instinctively felt that struggle was his element, and combat work was his calling.” After the end of the war, Wrangel studied at the Nikolaev General Staff Academy, graduating in 1910. In 1911 he took a course at the Officer Cavalry School and the following year became commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. With the outbreak of the First World War on August 6. 1914, near the village of Kaushen, he attacked a German battery on horseback and captured it, for which he was awarded the Order of St. George 4th degree. He commanded a regiment, brigade, division and was promoted to major general. He was appointed to command the 3rd Cavalry Corps, but, as his “track record” states, “due to the Bolshevik coup, he refused to serve the enemies of the Motherland and did not take command of the corps.” Wrangel went to the Crimea, then to the Don, where he joined the Volunteer Army. Wrangel became commander of the Caucasian Volunteer Army, but when at the end of the year the Whites began to suffer defeats, relations between Wrangel and A.I. Denikin, who had different understandings of priority military tasks. In 1920, Wrangel became commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces in southern Russia and made an unsuccessful attempt to create a state in Crimea ( Government of the South of Russia), in which reforms would be carried out that would make it possible to fight the Bolsheviks as an example of a better social order. As a result of the agrarian reform, peasants received the right of personal ownership of the land they used, and could also purchase part of the landowner's land for ransom (a fifth of the annual harvest for 25 years). Considering that the land was already in fact owned by the peasants, and payments were burdensome, the law caused discontent among the peasants. The “local government reform” also failed. The most difficult economic situation in Crimea, forced requisitions from the population, lack of support from peasants, Cossacks, workers, etc. led Wrangel, regardless of his personal aspirations, to collapse. After 8 months, the Crimean state ceased to exist. After the Red Army broke through Perekop in 1920, Wrangel, along with the remnants of the army, fled from Crimea to Turkey. In 1921 - 1927, Wrangel, while remaining commander-in-chief, lived in the town of Sremski Karlovci in Serbia, where he wrote notes about the civil war in southern Russia (Memoirs of General Baron P.N. Wrangel. M., 1992.). A convinced monarchist, Wrangel represented the right wing of the Russian emigration, was the creator of the “Russian All-Military Union,” the purpose of which was to preserve officer cadres for future struggle.
Book materials used: Shikman A.P. Figures of Russian history. Biographical reference book. Moscow, 1997
General P.N. Wrangel, Chairman of the Civil Government of Crimea A.V. Krivoshein and General P.N. Shatilov. 1920
White Guard
Wrangel Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich (1878-1928) - Lieutenant General of the General Staff. He graduated from the Rostov Real School and the Mining Institute of Empress Catherine II in St. Petersburg. He entered service on September 1, 1891 as a private in the Life Guards Horse Regiment. In 1902, he passed the test to become a guard cornet at the Nikolaev Cavalry School and, by order of October 12, was promoted to cornet and enlisted in the reserve. During the Russo-Japanese War, at his own request, he was assigned to the 2nd Verkhneudinsky Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. In December 1904, he was promoted to centurion - “for distinction in cases against the Japanese” and awarded the Order of St. Anne, 4th degree with the inscription “For bravery” and St. Stanislav with swords and a bow. On January 6, 1906, he was transferred to the 55th Finnish Dragoon Regiment and promoted to headquarters captain. March 26, 1907 - transferred to the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment as a lieutenant. In 1910 he completed a course at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, but remained “of his own free will” to serve in the ranks of his Life Guards Cavalry Regiment 1). In 1913 . - captain and squadron commander. Cavalier of St. George - for the capture of a German battery on horseback, according to the order of the 1st Army of August 30, 1914. In September 1914, appointed assistant regiment commander. Awarded the Arms of St. George. December 12, 1914. Promoted to colonel. From October 1915, he was appointed commander of the 1st Nerchinsky Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army, and on December 16, 1916, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the Ussuri Cavalry Division. On January 13, 1917, he was promoted “for military distinction” to the rank of general. majors and temporarily took command of the Ussuri Cavalry Division. On July 9, 1917, he was appointed commander of the 7th Cavalry Division, and the next day, July 10, as commander of the consolidated cavalry corps. For covering the infantry withdrawal to the line of the Zbruch River, during the Tarnopol breakthrough of the Germans in July 1917, by resolution of the Duma of the units of the consolidated corps, he was awarded the soldier's St. George Cross, 4th degree. On September 9, 1917, he was appointed commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, but did not take command.
He arrived in the Volunteer Army on August 25, 1918. On August 28 he was appointed brigade commander in the 1st Cavalry Division, on August 31 - temporary commander, and on October 31 - chief. On November 15, 1918, he was appointed commander of the 1st Cavalry Corps and on November 22 of the same year he was promoted to lieutenant general “for military distinction.” On December 26, 1918, at the Torgovaya station, a meeting took place between General Denikin and the Don Ataman, General Krasnov, at which it was recognized that it was necessary to introduce a unified command and subordinate the Don Army to General Denikin. By virtue of this decision, on December 26, 1918 (January 8, 1919), General Denikin became the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia (VSYUR). Thus, the post of Commander of the Volunteer Army became vacant. Already on December 27, 1918, General Wrangel was appointed to the post of Commander of the Volunteer Army. On January 10, 1919, in connection with the division of the Volunteer Army into the Crimean-Azov Army under General Borovsky and the Caucasian Army, General Wrangel was appointed commander of the Caucasian Volunteer Army. On the same day, January 10, 1919, General Wrangel issued an order to the Caucasian Volunteer Army, in which he noted the valor of the 1st Cavalry Corps and other troops, thanks to which Kuban and the Stavropol province were liberated, and set the task of liberating the Terek. At the end of January 1919, General Wrangel fell ill with typhus in severe form. At this time and... D. army commander, his chief of staff, General Yuzefovich, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, carried out the transfer of the main units of the Caucasian Volunteer Army to the Donbass. At the end of March, having recovered from his illness, General Wrangel arrived in Yekaterinodar and discovered that the main volunteer regiments had been consolidated into the corps of General May-Maevsky and were fighting heavy battles in the coal basin. In this regard, on April 4, 1919, he submitted a secret report to General Denikin with a proposal to consider “our main and only operational direction to be the direction to Tsaritsyn, which makes it possible to establish direct contact with the army of Admiral Kolchak.” General Denikin did not agree with this proposal of General Wrangel, because he considered the shortest line to Moscow through Kharkov - Orel - Tula as the main direction for the offensive. It was from this time that serious disagreements began between General Wrangel and General Denikin, which later turned into a painful conflict. On April 24, 1919, in a letter from the Chief of Staff of the AFSR, General Romanovsky, General Wrangel was asked to take command of the new Kuban Army, rename the Caucasian Volunteer Army simply to the Volunteer Army, and appoint General May-Maevsky as commander. Initially, General Wrangel refused this proposal, but when the 10th Red Army began its offensive from the Grand Ducal to Torgovaya, threatening the rear of the Volunteer Army, General Wrangel agreed to the persistent request of Generals Denikin and Romanovsky to take command of a group of troops composed mainly of cavalry corps , to repel the offensive of the 10th Red Army under the command of Egorov. On May 2, 1920, a fierce battle began near Velikoknyazheskaya, during which General Wrangel personally led his troops into an attack, inflicted a decisive defeat on the 10th Red Army and forced it to hastily retreat to Tsaritsyn.
After the battle of Velikoknyazheskaya, General Wrangel remained commander of the Caucasian Army, which now included mainly Kuban units. On May 8, 1920, the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, General Denikin, ordered General Wrangel to capture Tsaritsyn. On June 18, General Wrangel captured Tsaritsyn, and on June 20, Commander-in-Chief General Denikin arrived in Tsaritsyn, who then gave the order with his famous “Moscow Directive.” According to this directive, General Wrangel was asked to go to the Saratov-Balashov front and then attack Moscow through Nizhny Novgorod and Vladimir. At the same time, General Mai-Maevsky was ordered to attack Moscow in the direction of Kursk - Orel - Tula. General Wrangel considered the “Moscow Directive” a “death sentence for the armies of Southern Russia.” There was no maneuver in it and the dispersion of forces was allowed. At this time (that is, at the end of June 1919, when the armies of Admiral Kolchak were retreating), General Wrangel proposed to General Denikin “to concentrate a large cavalry mass in 3-4 corps in the Kharkov region” and act with this cavalry mass in the direction shortest to Moscow together with Volunteer Corps of General Kutepov. However, all these proposals were ignored, and only when the complete insolvency of General Mai-Maevsky and the catastrophic situation at the front of the Volunteer Army was revealed, General Wrangel was appointed commander of the Volunteer Army and commander-in-chief of the Kharkov region on November 26, 1919. Due to the deep breakthrough of Budyonny’s cavalry and the lack of a sufficient number of combat-ready cavalry in the Volunteer Army, General Wrangel, in a report dated December 11, 1919, proposed to withdraw the right group of the army to the line of the Mius River - Novocherkassk, and the left group to the Crimea. General Denikin did not agree with this, since he believed that the Volunteer Army should under no circumstances be separated from the Don Army. On the same day, December 11, a meeting was held in Rostov between the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR with the commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin, and with the commander of the Volunteer Army, General Wrangel. At this meeting, the Commander-in-Chief announced his decision to consolidate the Volunteer Army into a separate Volunteer Corps and operationally subordinate it to the commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin. General Wrangel was entrusted with the formation of new Cossack corps in the Kuban and Terek. On December 21, 1919, General Wrangel gave a farewell order to the Volunteer Army and left for Yekaterinodar, where he discovered that the same task of mobilizing the Cossacks had been entrusted to the Commander-in-Chief, General Shkuro. On December 26, 1920, General Wrangel arrived in Bataysk, where the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief was located, and received orders to go to Novorossiysk and organize its defense. However, soon an order came to appoint General Lukomsky as Governor-General of the Novorossiysk Region. Finding himself out of work, General Wrangel settled in Crimea, where he had a dacha. On January 14, 1920, he unexpectedly received from General Schilling, who had left Odessa and arrived in Sevastopol, an offer to accept the post of his military assistant. Negotiations on this issue with the Commander-in-Chief's headquarters dragged on. Many public figures, as well as General Lukomsky and the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Nenyukov and his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Bubnov, proposed appointing General Wrangel to replace General Schilling, who had been compromised by the Odessa evacuation. Having received no answer, General Wrangel resigned on January 27, 1920. On February 8, 1920, General Denikin gave an order to the General Staff “to dismiss from service” both Generals Wrangel and Shatilov, as well as General Lukomsky, Admiral Nenyukov and Admiral Bubnov. At the end of February 1920, General Wrangel left Crimea and arrived in Constantinople. On March 18, 1920, General Wrangel and other prominent generals of the White armies of Southern Russia received a telegram from General Denikin inviting them to arrive on the evening of March 21 in Sevastopol for a meeting of the Military Council chaired by cavalry general Dragomirov to elect a successor to the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR.
Baron Wrangel (center) at Zeon Castle with friends.
Standing from left to right: second from left - Nikolai Mikhailovich Kotlyarevsky, secretary of General Wrangel; Natalya Nikolaevna Ilyina, Sergey Aleksandrovich Sokolov-Krechetov,Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin
.
On the morning of March 22, 1920, General Wrangel arrived in Sevastopol on the English battleship Emperor of India. At the Military Council, which met on March 22, General Wrangel was unanimously elected as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. On the same day, General Denikin gave the order for his appointment. Having taken command, General Wrangel first of all began to restore discipline and strengthen the morale of the troops. By April 28, 1920, he reorganized them into the Russian Army. The government of the South of Russia, created by him, issued a declaration on the national question and proposed to determine the form of government in Russia by “free will” within the framework of a broad federation. Along with this, the government began to implement a number of reforms; in particular, the “law on land”, “law on volost zemstvos”, etc. were adopted. Having received de facto recognition from France, General Wrangel began organizing the 3rd Russian Army (the Russian army in Crimea was divided into two armies) in Poland . Having carried out a number of successful operations in Northern Tavria, General Wrangel faced a significant increase in the forces of the Red Army in the summer and autumn, especially after the Riga Truce with Poland. The unsuccessful outcome of General Ulagai's landing on the Kuban in August 1920 and the Trans-Dnieper operation in September significantly reduced the strength of General Wrangel's Russian Army, and at the end of October 1920 it was forced to retreat to the Crimea. The evacuation of the army and everyone from Crimea in November 1920 was skillfully carried out by the headquarters of General Wrangel, and above all by the new commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Kedrov.
In Constantinople, finding himself without funds, General Wrangel sought to prevent the dispersal of the army, which was in camps in Gallipoli and on the island of Lemnos. He managed to organize the relocation of military units to Bulgaria and the Kingdom of SHS, where they were accepted for residence. General Wrangel himself with his headquarters moved from Constantinople to the Kingdom of the SHS, to Sremski Karlovitsy, in 1922. In an effort to preserve the cadres of the Russian army abroad in the new, emigrant, conditions, General Wrangel gave September 1, 1924 (confirmed December 1 of the same year ) order to create the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), initially consisting of 4 departments: 1st department - France and Belgium, 2nd department - Germany, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania; 3rd department - Bulgaria and Türkiye; 4th Division - Kingdom of the CXC, Greece and Romania. In September 1927, General Wrangel moved with his family from the Kingdom of the CXC to Belgium - to Brussels, where he soon unexpectedly became seriously ill and died on April 25, 1928. He was buried in Belgrade in the Russian Church of the Holy Trinity.
General Wrangel's pen belongs to: Notes: In 2 hours// [Sat.] White Case: Chronicle of the White Struggle. Materials collected and developed by Baron P. N. Wrangel, Duke G. N. Leuchtenberg and His Serene Highness Prince A. P. Lieven. Ed. A. A. von Lampe. Book V, VI. Berlin: Bronze Horseman, 1928.
The second (reprint) edition was published in one volume: Memoirs: At 2 hours. Frankfurt am Main: Posev, 1969.
1) See: Order No. 17 of 1911 on the General Staff // List of the General Staff. 1912. P. 757.
Prayer service in units of the Russian army.
Ahead is Wrangel P.N. followed by Bogaevsky, Crimea, 1920.
P.N. Wrangel during the creation of the EMRO(a). Paris, 1927.
White hero
Wrangel Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich (1887-1928) - Lieutenant General of the General Staff. He graduated from the Rostov Real School and the Mining Institute of Empress Catherine II in St. Petersburg. He entered service on September 1, 1891 as a private in the Life Guards Horse Regiment. During the Russo-Japanese War in December 1904, he was promoted to centurion - “for distinction in cases against the Japanese” and awarded the Order of St. Anne, 4th degree with the inscription “For Bravery” and St. Stanislav with swords and a bow. In 1913 - captain and squadron commander. During the First World War - Knight of St. George - according to the order of the 1st Army of August 30, 1914 - for the capture of a German battery on horseback. In September 1914 he was appointed assistant regiment commander. Awarded the Arms of St. George. On December 12, 1914 he was promoted to colonel. From October 1915, he was appointed commander of the 1st Nerchinsky Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army, and on December 16, 1916 - commander of the 2nd Brigade of the Ussuri Cavalry Division. On January 13, 1917, he was promoted to major general “for military distinction” and temporarily took command of the Ussuri Cavalry Division. July 9, 1917 appointed commander of the 7th Cavalry Division, and the next day, July 10, commander of the consolidated cavalry corps. For covering the retreat of the infantry to the line of the Zbruch River, during the Tarnopol breakthrough of the Germans in July 1917, by a resolution of the Duma of the units of the consolidated corps, he was awarded the soldier's St. George Cross, 4th degree. On September 9, 1917, he was appointed commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, but did not take command.
He arrived in the Volunteer Army on August 25, 1918, and in the same year, he was promoted to lieutenant general - “for military distinction.” On December 26, 1918, at the Torgovaya station, a meeting took place between General Denikin and the Don Ataman, General Krasnov, at which it was recognized that it was necessary to introduce a unified command and subordinate the Don Army to General Denikin. By virtue of this decision, on December 26, 1918 (January 8, 1919), General Denikin became the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia (VSYUR). Thus, the post of Commander of the Volunteer Army became vacant. Already on December 27, 1918, General Wrangel was appointed to the post of Commander of the Volunteer Army. On January 10, 1919, in connection with the division of the Volunteer Army into the Crimean-Azov Army under General Borovsky and the Caucasian Army, General Wrangel was appointed commander of the Caucasian Volunteer Army. On the same day, January 10, 1919, General Wrangel issued an order to the Caucasian Volunteer Army, in which he noted the valor of the 1st Cavalry Corps and other troops, thanks to which Kuban and the Stavropol province were liberated, and set the task of liberating the Terek. At the end of January 1919, General Wrangel fell ill with typhus in severe form. At this time and... D. Army Commander, Chief of Staff General Yuzefovich, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, carried out the transfer of the main units of the Caucasian Volunteer Army to the Donbass. At the end of March, having recovered from his illness, General Wrangel arrived in Yekaterinodar and discovered that the main volunteer regiments had been consolidated into the corps of General May-Maevsky and were fighting heavy battles in the coal basin. In this regard, on April 4, 1919, he submitted a secret report to General Denikin with a proposal to consider “our main and only operational direction to be the direction to Tsaritsyn, which makes it possible to establish direct contact with the army of General Kolchak.” General Denikin did not agree with this proposal of General Wrangel, because he considered the shortest line to Moscow through Kharkov-Orel-Tula as the main direction for the offensive. It was from this time that serious disagreements began between General Wrangel and General Denikin, which later turned into a painful conflict. On April 24, 1919, in a letter from the Chief of Staff of the AFSR, General Romanovsky, General Wrangel was asked to take command of the new Kuban Army, rename the Caucasian Volunteer Army simply to the Volunteer Army, and appoint General May-Maevsky as commander. Initially, General Wrangel refused this proposal, but when the 10th Red Army began its offensive from the Grand Ducal to Torgovaya, threatening the rear of the Volunteer Army, General Wrangel agreed to the persistent request of Generals Denikin and Romanovsky to take command of a group of troops composed mainly of cavalry corps , to repel the offensive of the 10th Red Army under the command of Egorov. On May 2, 1920, a fierce battle began near Velikoknyazheskaya, during which General Wrangel personally led his troops into an attack, inflicted a decisive defeat on the 10th Red Army and forced it to hastily retreat to Tsaritsyn. After the battle of Velikoknyazheskaya, General Wrangel remained commander of the Caucasian Army, which now included mainly Kuban units. On May 8, 1920, the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, General Denikin, ordered General Wrangel to capture Tsaritsyn. On June 18, General Wrangel captured Tsaritsyn, and on June 20, Commander-in-Chief General Denikin arrived in Tsaritsyn, who then gave the order with his famous “Moscow Directive.” According to this directive, General Wrangel was asked to go to the Saratov-Balashov front and then attack Moscow through Nizhny Novgorod and Vladimir. At the same time, General Mai-Maevsky was ordered to attack Moscow in the direction of Kursk-Orel-Tula. General Wrangel considered the “Moscow Directive” “a death sentence for the armies of Southern Russia.” There was no maneuver in it and the dispersion of forces was allowed. At this time (that is, at the end of June 1919, when the armies of Admiral Kolchak were retreating), General Wrangel suggested to General Denikin “to concentrate a large cavalry mass of 3-4 corps in the Kharkov region” and act jointly with this cavalry mass in the direction shortest to Moscow with the Volunteer Corps of General Kutepov. However, all these proposals were ignored, and only when the complete insolvency of General Mai-Maevsky and the catastrophic situation at the front of the Volunteer Army was revealed, General Wrangel was appointed commander of the Volunteer Army and commander-in-chief of the Kharkov region on November 26, 1919. Due to the deep breakthrough of Budyonny’s cavalry and the lack of a sufficient number of combat-ready cavalry in the Volunteer Army, General Wrangel, in a report dated December 11, 1919, proposed to withdraw the right group of the army to the line of the Mius River - Novocherkassk, and the left group to the Crimea. General Denikin did not agree with this) because he believed that the Volunteer Army should under no circumstances be separated from the Don Army. On the same day, December 11, a meeting was held in Rostov between the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR with the commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin, and with the commander of the Volunteer Army, General Wrangel. At this meeting. The Commander-in-Chief announced his decision to consolidate the Volunteer Army into a separate Volunteer Corps and operationally subordinate it to the commander of the Don Army, General Sidorin. General Wrangel was entrusted with the formation of new Cossack corps in the Kuban and Terek. On December 21, 1919, General Wrangel gave a farewell order to the Volunteer Army and left for Yekaterinodar, where he discovered that the same task of mobilizing the Cossacks had been entrusted to the Commander-in-Chief, General Shkuro. On December 26, 1920, General Wrangel arrived in Bataysk, where the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief was located, and received orders to go to Novorossiysk and organize its defense. However, soon an order came to appoint General Lukomsky as governor-general of the Novorossiysk region. Finding himself out of work, General Wrangel settled in Crimea, where he had a dacha. On January 14, 1920, he unexpectedly received from General Schilling, who had left Odessa and arrived in Sevastopol, an offer to accept the post of his military assistant. Negotiations on this issue with the Commander-in-Chief's headquarters dragged on. Many public figures, as well as General Lukomsky and the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral Nenyukov and his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Bubnov, proposed appointing General Wrangel to replace General Schilling, who had been compromised by the Odessa evacuation. Having received no answer, General Wrangel resigned on January 27, 1920. On February 8, 1920, General Denikin gave an order to the General Staff “to dismiss from service” both Generals Wrangel and Shatilov, as well as General Lukomsky, Admiral Nenyukov and Admiral Bubnov. At the end of February 1920, General Wrangel left Crimea and arrived in Constantinople. On March 18, 1920, General Wrangel and other prominent generals of the White armies of Southern Russia received a telegram from General Denikin inviting them to arrive on the evening of March 21 in Sevastopol for a meeting of the Military Council chaired by cavalry general Dragomirov to elect a successor to the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR.
On the morning of March 22, 1920, General Wrangel arrived in Sevastopol on the English battleship Emperor of India. At the Military Council, which met on March 22, General Wrangel was unanimously elected as the new Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia. On the same day, General Denikin gave the order for his appointment. Having taken command, General Wrangel first of all began to restore discipline and strengthen the morale of the troops. By April 28, 1920, he reorganized them into the Russian Army. The government of the South of Russia, created by him, issued a declaration on the national question and proposed to determine the form of government in Russia by “free will” within the framework of a broad federation. Along with this, the government began to implement a number of reforms; in particular, the “law on land”, “law on volost zemstvos”, etc. were adopted. Having received de facto recognition from France, General Wrangel began organizing the 3rd Russian Army (the Russian army in Crimea was divided into two armies) in Poland. Having carried out a number of successful operations in Northern Tavria, General Wrangel faced a significant increase in the forces of the Red Army in the summer and autumn, especially after the Riga Truce with Poland. The unsuccessful outcome of General Ulagai's landing on the Kuban in August 1920 and the Trans-Dnieper operation in September significantly reduced the strength of General Wrangel's Russian Army, and at the end of October 1920 it was forced to retreat to the Crimea. The evacuation of the army and everyone from Crimea in November 1920 was skillfully carried out by the headquarters of General Wrangel, and, above all, by the new commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Kedrov.
In Constantinople, finding himself without funds, General Wrangel sought to prevent the dispersal of the army, which was in camps in Gallipoli and on the island of Lemnos. He managed to organize the transfer of military units to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, where they were accepted for residence. General Wrangel himself and his headquarters moved from Constantinople to Yugoslavia, to Sremski Karlovitsy, in 1922. In an effort to preserve the cadres of the Russian army abroad in the new, emigrant, conditions, General Wrangel gave September 1, 1924 (confirmed December 1 of the same year) order to create the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), initially consisting of 4 departments: 1st department - France and Belgium, 2nd department - Germany, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania; 3rd department - Bulgaria and Türkiye; 4th Division - Yugoslavia, Greece and Romania. In September 1927, General Wrangel moved with his family from Yugoslavia to Belgium - to Brussels, where he soon unexpectedly became seriously ill and died on April 25, 1928. He was buried in Belgrade in the Russian Church of the Holy Trinity.
General Wrangel's books belong to Peru: "The Caucasian Army" (1928), "The Last Commander-in-Chief" (1928).
Biographical information is reprinted from the magazine "Russian World" (educational almanac), No. 2, 2000.
Wrangel and Gen. Magene (France) in Crimea.
P.N. Wrangel at the portrait of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. Paris, 1927.
Member of the White movement
Wrangel Peter Nikolaevich (15.8.1878, Novo-Alexandrovsk, Kovno province - 22.4.1928, Brussels, Belgium), baron, lieutenant general (22.11.1918). He received his education at the Mining Institute, after which in 1901 he volunteered in the Life Guards Horse Regiment. Passed the officer exams to become a guard officer at the Nikolaev Cavalry. College (1902), graduated from the Nikolaev Military Academy (1910). Participant in the Russian-Japanese War of 1904-05, during which he commanded a hundred of the 2nd Argun Kaz. Regiment of Transbaikal Kaz. divisions. In Jan. 1906 transferred to the 55th Finnish Dragoon Regiment. In Aug. 1906 returned to the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. From 22.5.1912 temporarily commander, then commander of His Majesty's squadron, at the head of which he entered the world war. From September 12, 1914 he was chief of staff of the Consolidated Cossack Division, and from September 23. assistant commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment for combat units. For the battles in 1914, one of the first Russians. officers was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree (10/13/1914), and on 4/13/1915 he was awarded the St. George's Arms. From October 8, 1915, commander of the 1st Nerchinsky Regiment of the Transbaikal Kazakh. troops. From 12/24/1916 commander of the 2nd, 19/1/1917 - 1st brigade of the Ussuri Cavalry Division. 23 Jan V. was appointed temporary commander of the Ussuri Cavalry Division, and from July 9 - commander of the 7th Cavalry. division, from July 10 - consolidated cavalry. body. On July 24, by resolution of the Corps Duma, he was awarded the soldier's St. George's Cross of the 4th degree for distinction in covering the infantry's retreat to the Sbruga line on July 10-20. 9 Sep. V. was appointed commander of the III Cavalry Corps, but because former commander gen. P.V. Krasnov was not removed and did not take command. After the October Revolution, V. went to the Don, where Gen. joined the ataman. A.M. Kaledin, whom he helped in the formation of the Don Army. After Kaledin’s suicide, V. joined the Volunteer Army on August 28, 1918. From 31 Aug. Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, from November 15. - 1 cavalry corps, from December 27. - Volunteer Army. 10.1.1919 V. was appointed commander of the Caucasian Volunteer Army. Since November 26, 1919, commander of the Volunteer Army and commander-in-chief of the Kharkov region. 20 Dec due to the disbandment of the army, he was placed at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR. 8.2.1920 due to disagreements with the gene. A.I. Denikin dismissed.
After the resignation of Denikin, by decision of the majority of the senior command staff of the AFSR. On March 22, 1920, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the All-Soviet Union of Socialist Republics on May 2 - Russian Army. Concentrating it in the Crimea, he launched an offensive to the north, but failed on November 14. was forced to evacuate with the army to Turkey. In 1924 he created the EMRO, which united white military emigration.
Material used from the book: Zalessky K.A. Who was who in the First World War. Biographical encyclopedic dictionary. M., 2003
P.N. Wrangel. 1920
Baltic German
Baron P.N. Wrangel came from an old Baltic German family, known since the 13th century. Representatives of this family served the masters of the Livonian Order, then the kings of Sweden and Prussia, and when the Eastern Baltic region became part of the Russian state - the Russian emperors.
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel was born on August 28, 1878 in the town of Novo-Alexandrovsk, in Lithuania. But soon the family moved to Rostov-on-Don, where the father of the future leader of the white movement, Nikolai Georgievich Wrangel, became director of an insurance company.
Peter Wrangel, after completing his studies at a real school in Rostov, went to the capital, where he successfully graduated from the Mining Institute. But he never became an engineer. While serving his military service, as a Russian citizen should, he served in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, known for its distinction in many battles. In 1902, he passed the exams for the officer rank and went into the reserve, but was not in the civil service for long. When the Russo-Japanese War began, Wrangel joined the Transbaikal Cossack Army. He showed courage in battles, earned an order and early promotion in rank. From that time on, the choice was irrevocably made in favor of a military career. In 1909, Wrangel graduated from the General Staff Academy, then the Officer Cavalry School.
In the very first battles of the First World War, Wrangel, who commanded a squadron of guards cavalry, gained fame as a hero. On August 6, 1914, in a battle with the Germans near the town of Kaushen, it was his squadron that with a bold attack took the German position, for which there was a stubborn bloody battle. Wrangel was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. In December of the same 1914, he was promoted to colonel; in October 1915, he was entrusted with command of the 1st Nerchinsk Cossack Regiment of the Ussuri Division. In this post, he again managed to distinguish himself, especially in the battle in the Wooded Carpathians on August 22, 1916. Then, already on the eve of the revolution, Wrangel commanded the 1st Cavalry Brigade and for some time the entire Ussuri Division.
Wrangel, a supporter of the monarchy, perceived the February Revolution without optimism. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1917, he again distinguished himself on the battlefields of the First World War and was awarded the Soldier's Cross of St. George, 4th degree.
According to Baron Wrangel, revolutionary events contributed to the country's slide into anarchy and disaster. It was no coincidence that he found himself among the supporters and active participants in the Kornilov uprising. General Krymov, who shot himself because of unfair accusations from Kerensky, was his immediate superior. But, despite the failure and arrest of Kornilov, Wrangel did not suffer for his support.
After the October Revolution, Pyotr Nikolaevich resigned and came to Crimea, where his wife’s estate was located. When Soviet power was established in Crimea, he was arrested based on false libel, but was soon released. Then Crimea was captured by the Germans.
In 1918, Wrangel, after visiting Ukraine, went to Kuban, to Yekaterinodar, and from that moment linked his fate with the Volunteer Army. On behalf of Denikin, he commanded first the 1st Cavalry Division, then the Cavalry Corps. A supporter of order and discipline, Wrangel tried to stop robberies and even executed several looters. But then he resigned himself to the inevitable and only tried to somehow streamline the division of the spoils.
Wrangel's actions at Armavir and Stavropol were marked by successes, followed by his appointment to the post of commander of the 1st Cavalry Corps and promotion to lieutenant general.
At the end of 1918, the Volunteer and Don armies formed the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, being united under the leadership of Denikin. Command of the Volunteer Army was transferred to Wrangel, and when at the beginning of 1919 the Volunteer Army was divided into two parts, Wrangel headed the Caucasian Volunteer.
It was during this period that disagreements began between Denikin and Wrangel regarding further actions. Contrary to the opinion of the Commander-in-Chief, who considered the Ukrainian direction to be the leading direction, Wrangel argued that it was necessary to move the main forces to the Volga region to join with Kolchak.
However, then a new responsible assignment followed - Wrangel was asked to command the entire white cavalry in the Manych direction. Thanks to the resourcefulness of Wrangel, who managed to find a way to cross the artillery to the other side of the Manych River (which had not been possible before), the Whites achieved success in this area. In early May, in three-day battles in the area of the Manych River, the Reds suffered a crushing defeat and began to retreat north. After this, Wrangel was given another task - the Caucasian Army was to take Tsaritsyn. And the order was successfully carried out - the city was taken by storm in mid-June 1919.
But the disagreements between Wrangel and Denikin regarding further actions were not resolved, since Wrangel considered the offensive planned by the Commander-in-Chief to be doomed to failure. o By order of Denikin, Wrangel's army headed north, towards Saratov, in order to then advance to Nizhny Novgorod, and from there to Moscow. But no reinforcements arrived, and the Reds put up fierce resistance. Among the population of the Volga region, the Caucasian Army did not meet with the expected support. All these circumstances led to further failures.
The Whites began to retreat and retreated to the Tsaritsyn positions. True, the Reds’ attack on Tsaritsyn was repulsed twice, and then Wrangel, having received reinforcements, even pushed the Reds back from the city. But overall the situation was unfavorable. I had to go on the defensive.
During the decisive battles that determined the fate of the white movement in the south of Russia, Wrangel was in the Kuban, where he was supposed to pacify the separatist uprisings of part of the local leadership.
In the fall of 1919, there was a turning point in favor of the Reds. The Whites suffered defeats and retreated. Wrangel again expressed objections to Denikin’s proposal to retreat to the Don. He believed that military operations should be moved to the west, closer to the Poles. But Denikin did not agree, he believed that this would be regarded as a betrayal towards the Cossacks.
The conflict between Wrangel and Denikin reached such intensity that many believed that Wrangel was going to carry out a coup.
The disagreements were aggravated by the difference in political orientation of the white generals: Wrangel was supported by zealous supporters of the monarchy, while Denikin took a more liberal position and could find a compromise with the Republicans.
In conditions of military defeats and intrigues, on January 27, 1920, Wrangel submitted his resignation. In February, Denikin ordered the dismissal of Wrangel from service, then, at the request of the Commander-in-Chief, Wrangel left Russia and went to Constantinople, where his family had been sent shortly before.
But soon Wrangel received an invitation to take part in the Military Council, which was to elect a new Commander-in-Chief. He returned to Crimea and was elected Commander-in-Chief.
When Wrangel took command of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia, the situation seemed hopeless. The British even advocated that the Whites surrender to the Bolsheviks, provided that the latter guaranteed amnesty to their defeated opponents.
I had to reorient myself towards France and, abandoning plans for a campaign against Moscow, try to gain a foothold at least in Crimea. The remaining troops there were reorganized and became known as the Russian Army. Those generals who had previously participated in political intrigues were sent abroad by the new Commander-in-Chief. In Crimea, in white-controlled territory, Wrangel tried to establish order as much as possible, increase discipline, and put a stop to hooliganism and outrages.
Meanwhile, the situation had changed. The main forces of the Red Army were distracted by the war with Poland. Therefore, Wrangel even managed to go on the offensive in the summer of 1920. He captured Northern Taurida, sent troops to the Don and Kuban, tried to achieve coordination with the Poles and launch an offensive along the Dnieper.
But the successes achieved were fragile. The Whites were defeated on the Don, and then they had to withdraw troops from the Kuban. And when the Poles concluded a truce with the Soviet government, their last hopes collapsed. The Reds sent forces against Wrangel that were four times the size of his army. Within a few days, the White Guards were driven out of Tavria, and in November 1920 they were forced to leave Crimea. Together with P.N. Wrangel left 145 thousand people from Russia, and he was responsible for their placement in foreign countries. Peaceful refugees were placed in Balkan Orthodox countries, from where they gradually moved to other European states. The army was in Gallipoli and suffered many hardships. For a long time, Wrangel still hoped to continue the fight against Soviet power, but to no avail. Remaining | warriors gradually began to be stationed in the Slavic countries - Serbia and Bulgaria. Wrangel himself settled in Belgrade. On his initiative, the Russian All-Military Union (EMRO) was created in September 1924. But soon Wrangel transferred the leadership of this organization to the former Commander-in-Chief of the Russian troops, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, a representative of the Romanov dynasty. Pyotr Nikolaevich himself moved to Belgium, where he wrote his memoirs. His health deteriorated due to illnesses and injuries. On April 12, 1928, Wrangel died. He was subsequently reburied in an Orthodox church in Belgrade.
Materials used from the book: I.O. Surmin "The Most Famous Heroes of Russia" - M.: Veche, 2003.
Kuban residents at the funeral of P. N. Wrangel.
The first grave of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army
General Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel
at the Uccle-Calevoet cemetery in Brussels.
Belgrade. Church of the Holy Trinity,
where is the second and last grave of P.N. Wrangel
Wrangel with his wife.
Descendant of the Danish Wrangels
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel 1878-1928. General Wrangel was a distant descendant of the Danish Wrangels, in the 17th - 18th centuries. moved to different European countries and Russia. In the Wrangel family there were 7 field marshals, more than 30 generals, 7 admirals, including in Russia 18 generals and two admirals bore this surname at different times. Islands in the Arctic and Pacific oceans are named after the famous Russian navigator Admiral F. Wrangel.
A representative of the Russified Wrangel family, Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel, was born in the city of Novo-Alexandrovsk (Zarasai), in Lithuania. By inheritance, he had the title of Russian baron, but had no estates or fortunes. Peter received his secondary education at a real school, and in 1896 he entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute. Upon graduation, he was called up for active military service and volunteered in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment; After graduating from the regimental school, he passed the exam for the rank of cornet. Then he retired to the reserve, but in 1904 the Russian-Japanese War began, and 25-year-old Wrangel again put on officer's shoulder straps, going to the Far East. Acting as part of the 2nd Argun Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army, he showed courage and bravery, earning his first orders, at the end of 1904 he already commanded a hundred, and in September 1905 he became a captain ahead of schedule.
In 1906, Wrangel had a difficult mission - as part of the detachment of General A. Orlov, to pacify riots and stop the pogroms in Siberia that accompanied the revolution of 1905 - 1907. Then he served in the Finnish Regiment, again in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, in 1907 he became a lieutenant and entered the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, from which he graduated among the best - seventh on the list. The future Red Marshal B. Shaposhnikov studied on the same course with him. While studying at the academy, Pyotr Nikolaevich married a wealthy noblewoman O.M. Ivanenko, who was in the empress’s retinue.
Wrangel met the war of 1914 with the rank of guard captain and spent more than a year in the ranks of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, which was part of the troops of the 1st Army of the North-Western Front. In one of the very first battles, on August 6 near Kraupishten, the captain distinguished himself by rushing with his squadron to a German battery and capturing it (the previous squadron that attacked the battery died). Wrangel's award was the Order of St. George, 4th degree. Subsequently, recalling this battle, Pyotr Nikolaevich explained his fearlessness by the knowledge that he wears the shoulder straps of an officer and is obliged to set an example of heroism to his subordinates.
After the unsuccessful East Prussian operation, the front troops began to retreat, military operations proceeded sluggishly, nevertheless, Wrangel continued to receive awards, became an aide-de-camp, colonel, and holder of the St. George's Arms. His personal courage was undeniable, but it must be admitted that these awards were partly facilitated by the nobility of the Wrangel family and the influence of his wife, the empress's maid of honor. In October 1915, Pyotr Nikolaevich was sent to the Southwestern Front, where he took command of the 1st Nerchinsky Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. The commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, when transferring Wrangel, gave him the following description: “Outstanding courage. Understands the situation perfectly and quickly, very resourceful in difficult situations.”
With his Cossack regiment, Wrangel fought against the Austrians in Galicia, took part in the famous “Brusilovsky breakthrough” of 1916, and then in defensive positional battles. He continued to place military valor, military discipline, honor and the intelligence of the commander at the forefront. If an officer gave an order, Wrangel said, and it was not carried out, “he is no longer an officer, he does not have officer’s shoulder straps.” New steps in Pyotr Nikolaevich's military career were the rank of major general and his appointment as commander of the 2nd brigade of the Ussuri Cavalry Division, then as head of this division.
He associated Russia's failures in the First World War with the weakness and moral degradation of the top leadership led by Nicholas II Romanov. “I know them all well,” Wrangel said about the Romanovs. “They cannot rule because they don’t want to... They have lost their taste for power.” After the February Revolution of 1917, he swore allegiance to the Provisional Government and soon became commander of the corps. Among the troops, broken by the fruitless war, the Baron General continued to be respected; evidence of this was the decision of the St. George Duma, elected from the rank and file, to award him the soldier's St. George Cross (this was in June 1917).
But the collapse of the army, unbearable for Wrangel, was in full swing. Shortly before the October events, Pyotr Nikolaevich, under the pretext of illness, asked for leave and went to Crimea, where he spent about a year, distancing himself from everything. In the summer of 1918, he shook off his torpor and decided to take action. In August, Wrangel arrived in Kyiv to visit General Skoropadsky, but soon became disillusioned with the former commander of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment: the general, who became hetman, did not want to think about the revival of Russia and focused on “Ukrainian sovereignty.” In September, Pyotr Nikolaevich appeared in Yekaterinodar, at the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, to join the fighting ranks of the White movement.
Kindly received by A. Denikin, Wrangel received a cavalry brigade into his command and became a participant in the second Kuban campaign of the Volunteer Army. He quickly proved himself to be an excellent cavalry commander, able to correctly assess the situation, make decisions on the spot, and act boldly and decisively. Recognizing his qualities as a commander, Denikin assigned him the 1st Cavalry Division, two months later promoted him to commander of the 1st Cavalry Corps, and promoted him to lieutenant general in December. Tall, lean, in an invariable Circassian coat and a crooked hat, Wrangel made an impression with his gallant Horse Guards bearing, impressed the troops with his demeanor, energy and self-confidence, and bright, emotional speeches. His written orders were distinguished by the clarity of their demands combined with the pathos of patriotic appeals.
With the creation of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia on January 8, 1919, Denikin, who headed them, entrusted Wrangel with the post of commander of the Volunteer Army, which formed the backbone of Denikin’s troops. Having completed the conquest of the North Caucasus by spring, the Volunteer Army launched active operations in Ukraine, Crimea and on the Manych River. During the period of success, the first signs of weakening military discipline and the development of the disease of looting began to appear, which many generals justified by the weakness of the supply of troops. Unlike them, Wrangel did not put up with robberies and repeatedly carried out public executions of looters.
Meanwhile, the offensive front of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia was expanding, and on May 22, Wrangel received under his command the newly formed Caucasian Army, intended for operations in the Lower Volga. Already on May 24, his troops crossed the Sal River and, having advanced with battles to Tsaritsyn, on June 30 captured the city, which in 1918 General Krasnov unsuccessfully besieged for four months. Continuing to move north along the Volga, Wrangel took Kamyshin and created a threat to Saratov. The Reds, having brought up large forces, including Budyonny's cavalry corps, were able to stop the Caucasian army. Giving up his last reserves to the Volunteer Army, which was rushing towards Tula and Moscow, Wrangel by the beginning of September was forced to retreat to Tsaritsyn. In October, he again went on the offensive, but worse was ahead: the Volunteer Army, unable to withstand the counterattacks of the Red Southern Front, rolled back, and a general retreat began. Trying to save the situation, Denikin replaced the demoralized commander of the Volunteer Army, General Mai-Maevsky, with Wrangel on December 5, but it was too late. At the beginning of January 1920, the remnants of the Volunteer Army were consolidated into a corps under the command of Kutepov, and Wrangel was instructed to go to Kuban to form new cavalry regiments there.
Failures strained relations between Denikin and Wrangel. Back in the summer of 1919, Pyotr Nikolayevich criticized the commander-in-chief’s decision to attack Moscow and openly reproached him for his reluctance to go east, to unite with Kolchak. (It is curious that Kolchak, in turn, was reproached in Siberia for the fact that the unification of the white forces of the South and East did not take place.) Wrangel, while in the Kuban, continued to criticize Denikin, finding flaws in his strategy, methods of military leadership, and civil policy . Anton Ivanovich, who had long endured such criticism, which in his opinion was unfair and opportunistic, finally sharply condemned it, and at his request, Wrangel was forced to leave the army and went to Constantinople.
Having gathered the remnants of the Armed Forces of the South in Crimea in March 1920, Denikin, not finding the strength to take further active action, decided to resign and asked the Military Council to find a replacement for him. The Military Council, which met in Sevastopol, initially tried to dissuade Denikin, and when he announced the irrevocability of his decision, he voted to appoint Wrangel as the new commander-in-chief. Arriving in Sevastopol at the beginning of April, he promised nothing other than “to lead the Army out of its difficult situation with honor,” and even made the members of the Military Council sign a subscription that they would not demand an offensive from him. At the same time, Wrangel was not going to capitulate without a fight.
With a titanic effort, he set about putting the army in order and reorganizing it. The new commander-in-chief dismissed from its ranks generals Pokrovsky and Shkuro, whose troops were distinguished by indiscipline and robberies. Having come out with the slogan “Help me, Russian people, save my homeland,” Wrangel renamed the Armed Forces of the South into the Russian Army. The government of the South of Russia led by him developed an agrarian reform program acceptable to the peasants, but the peasantry, exhausted by the war, for the most part was in no hurry to follow the Russian army. Realizing that they needed success to encourage the troops, Wrangel in June launched a bold offensive operation in Northern Tavria and captured it, taking advantage of the diversion of the main forces of the Red Army to the war with Poland. In August, General Ulagai’s amphibious assault was sent to Kuban, but, not meeting the support of the Cossacks there, he returned to Crimea. In September - October, Wrangel tried to take active steps to capture Donbass and break through to Right Bank Ukraine. By this time, the Russian army already numbered up to 60 thousand people, compared to 25 thousand in June.
The truce between Soviet Russia and Poland changed the situation. At the end of October, five red armies of the Southern Front (commander M. Frunze), including two cavalry armies (the total number of front troops was over 130 thousand people), attacked Wrangel’s Russian army. In a week they liberated Northern Tavria, and then, breaking through the Perekop fortifications, moved to the Crimea. To Wrangel’s credit, he skillfully managed the withdrawal of his troops and managed to prepare for evacuation in advance. Several tens of thousands of Russian army soldiers and refugees on Russian and French ships left Crimea and found refuge in Turkey.
Not wanting to leave the Russian army in trouble, Wrangel spent about a year with it in Turkey, maintaining order in the troops and fighting hunger. His subordinates gradually dispersed, about seven thousand deserted and went to Russia. At the end of 1921, the remnants of the army were transferred to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, where many soldiers and officers subsequently settled; others were drawn further by fate.
To replace the collapsed Russian Army, Wrangel founded the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) in Paris with departments in countries where former officers and participants of the White movement were located. The EMRO was distinguished by an uncompromising attitude towards Soviet Russia, developed plans for the mobilization of its members at the right time, conducted intelligence work, and had a combat department (headed by Kutepov) that prepared armed actions in the USSR.
Wrangel did not stop fighting the Bolsheviks until his death, which befell him at the age of 49, in 1928 (according to one unproven version, he was poisoned). From Brussels, where he died, his body was transported to Yugoslavia and solemnly buried in one of the Orthodox cathedrals. A procession with wreaths stretched across the whole of Belgrade. After Wrangel's death, two volumes of his Notes were published in Berlin.
Book materials used: Kovalevsky N.F. History of Russian Goverment. Biographies of famous military figures of the 18th - early 20th centuries. M. 1997
Photo materials from Wrangel’s page were prepared by Igor Marchenko.
Literature:
Entente and Wrangel: Sat. Art. Vol. 1M.; Pg.: Gosizdat, 1923. - 260 p.
Vashchenko P.F., Runov V.A. The revolution is defended: [To the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Wrangel’s troops] // Military. thought. - 1990. -No. 19-- P. 46-51.
Wrangel Petr Nikolaevich // Military Encyclopedia: In 8 volumes. T. 2.- M.: Voenizdat, 1994. -P. 295 - 296.
Wrangel P.N. Memoirs of General Baron P.N. Wrangel. 4.1-2.-M.: TERRA, 1992.
Karpenko V.V., Karpenko S.V. Wrangel in Crimea: East. novel. - M.: Spas, 1995. - 621 pp. - (Spas. History).
Karpenko S.V. The collapse of the last white dictator. - M.: Znanie, 1990. -64 p.- (New in life, science, technology. Series "History"; No. 7).
Lampe A.A., background. General Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel // New Sentinel, St. Petersburg. -No. 1.-S. 43-74.
Marchuk P. Way of the Cross of the White Army of the Black Baron: [P.N. Wrangel] // Motherland. - 1994. - No. 11. - P.24 - 33.
Alexander Kuprin. About Wrangel. Once again about Wrangel and, of course, not the last. 1921
Letter from S. Petlyura to the Chairman of the Council of People's Ministers of the UPR regarding negotiations with General Wrangel. October 9, 1920.
Slashchov-Krymsky Yakov Alexandrovich. Crimea, 1920. (there you can find a lot of interesting things about Wrangel).
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel |
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Nickname: |
Black Baron |
Place of Birth: |
Russian Empire, Kovno Governorate, Novoaleksandrovsk |
A place of death: |
Belgium, Brussels |
Affiliation: |
Russian empire |
Type of army: |
Cavalry |
Years of service: |
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General Staff Lieutenant General (1918) |
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Commanded: |
Cavalry Division; cavalry corps; Caucasian Volunteer Army; Volunteer Army; V.S.Y.R.; Russian Army |
Battles/wars: |
Russo-Japanese War World War I Civil War |
Autograph: |
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Origin
Participation in the Civil War
Wrangel's policy in Crimea
Leader of the White Movement
Fall of White Crimea
Sevastopol evacuation
Emigration
Baron Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel(August 15 (27), 1878, Novoaleksandrovsk, Kovno province, Russian Empire - April 25, 1928, Brussels, Belgium) - Russian military leader, participant in the Russo-Japanese and First World Wars, one of the main leaders (1918?1920) of the White movement in the years Civil War. Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in Crimea and Poland (1920). General Staff Lieutenant General (1918). Knight of St. George.
He received the nickname “Black Baron” for his traditional (since September 1918) everyday uniform - a black Cossack Circassian coat with gazyrs.
Origin
Came from home Tolsburg-Ellistfer the Wrangel family is an old noble family that traces its ancestry back to the beginning of the 13th century. The motto of the Wrangel family was: “Frangas, non flectes” (You will break, but you will not bend). A native of the St. Petersburg intelligentsia.
The name of one of Pyotr Nikolaevich’s ancestors is listed among the wounded on the fifteenth wall of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, where the names of Russian officers killed and wounded during the Patriotic War of 1812 are inscribed. A distant relative of Peter Wrangel - Baron A.E. Wrangel - captured Shamil. The name of an even more distant relative of Pyotr Nikolaevich - the famous Russian navigator and polar explorer Admiral Baron F. P. Wrangel - is named after Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean, as well as other geographical objects in the Arctic and Pacific Oceans.
Father - Baron Nikolai Egorovich Wrangel (1847-1923) - art scientist, writer and famous collector of antiques. Mother - Maria Dmitrievna Dementieva-Maikova (1856-1944) - lived throughout the Civil War in Petrograd under her last name. After Pyotr Nikolaevich became Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, friends helped her move to a refugee hostel, where she registered as “the widow of Veronelli,” but continued to go to work at the Soviet museum under her real name. At the end of October 1920, with the help of the Savinkovites, her friends arranged her escape to Finland.
Second cousins of Peter Wrangel's grandfather, Yegor Ermolaevich (1803-1868), were Professor Yegor Vasilyevich and Admiral Vasily Vasilyevich.
Studies
He graduated from the Rostov Real School (1896) and the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg (1901). He was an engineer by training.
He entered the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment as a volunteer in 1901, and in 1902, after passing the exam at the Nikolaev Cavalry School, he was promoted to cornet of the guard and enlisted in the reserve. After this, he left the ranks of the army and went to Irkutsk as an official of special assignments under the governor general.
Participation in the Russo-Japanese War
After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, he again entered military service, this time for good. The baron volunteered to join the active army and was assigned to the 2nd Verkhneudinsk Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. In December 1904, he was promoted to the rank of centurion - with the wording in the order “for distinction in cases against the Japanese” and awarded the Order of St. Anne of the 4th degree with the inscription on bladed weapons “For bravery” and St. Stanislaus with swords and a bow. On January 6, 1906, he was assigned to the 55th Finnish Dragoon Regiment and promoted to the rank of captain. On March 26, 1907, he was again appointed to the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment with the rank of lieutenant.
Participation in the First World War
He graduated from the Nicholas Imperial Academy of the General Staff in 1910, and from the Officer Cavalry School course in 1911. He met the First World War as a squadron commander with the rank of captain. On October 13, 1914, one of the first Russian officers was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. In December 1914 he received the rank of colonel. In June 1915 he was awarded the Golden Arms of St. George.
In October 1915, he was transferred to the Southwestern Front and on October 8, 1915, he was appointed commander of the 1st Nerchinsky Regiment of the Transbaikal Cossack Army. Upon transfer, he was given the following description by his former commander: “Outstanding courage. He understands the situation perfectly and quickly, and is very resourceful in difficult situations.” Commanding this regiment, Baron Wrangel fought against the Austrians in Galicia, participated in the famous Lutsk breakthrough of 1916, and then in defensive positional battles. He placed military valor, military discipline, honor and the intelligence of the commander at the forefront. If an officer gives an order, Wrangel said, and it is not carried out, “he is no longer an officer, he does not have officer’s shoulder straps.” New steps in the military career of Pyotr Nikolaevich were the rank of major general, “for military distinction,” in January 1917 and his appointment as commander of the 2nd brigade of the Ussuri Cavalry Division, then in July 1917 - commander of the 7th cavalry division, and after - Commander of the Combined Cavalry Corps.
For the successful operation on the Zbruch River in the summer of 1917, General Wrangel was awarded the soldier's St. George Cross, IV degree.
Participation in the Civil War
From the end of 1917 he lived at a dacha in Yalta, where he was soon arrested by the Bolsheviks. After a short imprisonment, the general, upon release, hid in Crimea until the German army entered it, after which he left for Kyiv, where he decided to cooperate with the hetman government of P. P. Skoropadsky. Convinced of the weakness of the new Ukrainian government, which rested solely on German bayonets, the baron leaves Ukraine and arrives in Yekaterinodar, occupied by the Volunteer Army, where he takes command of the 1st Cavalry Division. From this moment on, Baron Wrangel’s service in the White Army begins.
In August 1918 he entered the Volunteer Army, having by this time the rank of major general and being a Knight of St. George. During the 2nd Kuban campaign he commanded the 1st Cavalry Division, and then the 1st Cavalry Corps. In November 1918 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.
Pyotr Nikolaevich was opposed to the conduct of battles along the entire front by mounted units. General Wrangel sought to gather the cavalry into a fist and throw it into the breakthrough. It was the brilliant attacks of Wrangel’s cavalry that determined the final result of the battles in the Kuban and North Caucasus.
In January 1919, for some time he commanded the Volunteer Army, and from January 1919 - the Caucasian Volunteer Army. He was in strained relations with the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, General A.I. Denikin, as he demanded a speedy offensive in the Tsaritsyn direction to join the army of Admiral A.V. Kolchak (Denikin insisted on a speedy attack on Moscow). The baron's major military victory was the capture of Tsaritsyn on June 30, 1919, which had previously been unsuccessfully stormed three times by the troops of Ataman P.N. Krasnov during 1918. It was in Tsaritsyn that Denikin, who soon arrived there, signed his famous “Moscow Directive,” which, according to Wrangel, “was a death sentence for the troops of the South of Russia.” In November 1919, he was appointed commander of the Volunteer Army operating in the Moscow direction. On December 20, 1919, due to disagreements and conflict with the commander-in-chief of V.S.Yu.R., he was removed from command of the troops, and on February 8, 1920, he was dismissed and left for Constantinople.
On March 20, the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR, General Denikin, decided to resign from his post. On March 21, a military council was convened in Sevastopol under the chairmanship of General Dragomirov, at which Wrangel was elected commander-in-chief. According to the recollections of P. S. Makhrov, at the council, the first to name Wrangel was the chief of staff of the fleet, captain 1st rank Ryabinin. On March 22, Wrangel arrived in Sevastopol on the English ship Emperor of India and took command.
Wrangel's policy in Crimea
For six months of 1920, P. N. Wrangel, Ruler of the South of Russia and Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, tried to take into account the mistakes of his predecessors, boldly made previously unthinkable compromises, tried to win over various segments of the population to his side, but by the time he came to power The white struggle was actually already lost both in the international and domestic aspects.
He advocated a federal structure for the future Russia. He was inclined to recognize the political independence of Ukraine (in particular, according to a special decree adopted in the fall of 1920, the Ukrainian language was recognized as a national language on a par with Russian). However, all these actions were aimed only at concluding a military alliance with the army of the UPR Directory, headed by Symon Petlyura, who by that time had almost lost control over the territory of Ukraine.
Recognized the independence of the mountain federation of the North Caucasus. He tried to establish contacts with the leaders of the rebel formations of Ukraine, including Makhno, but was unsuccessful, and Wrangel’s parliamentarians were shot by the Makhnovists. However, the commanders of smaller “green” formations willingly entered into an alliance with the baron.
With the support of the head of the Government of the South of Russia, the prominent economist and reformer A.V. Krivoshein, developed a number of legislative acts on agrarian reform, among which the main one is the “Land Law”, adopted by the government on May 25, 1920.
The basis of his land policy was the provision that most of the land belonged to peasants. He recognized the legal seizure of landowners' lands by peasants in the first years after the revolution (although for a certain monetary or in-kind contribution to the state). He carried out a number of administrative reforms in Crimea, as well as a reform of local self-government (“Law on volost zemstvos and rural communities”). He sought to win over the Cossacks by promulgating a number of decrees on regional autonomy of Cossack lands. He patronized workers by adopting a number of provisions on labor legislation. Despite all the progressive measures, the whites in the person of the commander-in-chief did not gain the trust of the population, and the material and human resources of Crimea were depleted. In addition, Great Britain actually refused further support for the whites, proposing to turn “to the Soviet government, with a view to achieving an amnesty,” and saying that the British government would refuse any support and assistance if the white leadership again refused negotiations It is clear that the very proposal for negotiations with the Bolsheviks was absolutely unacceptable and even offensive to the White command, therefore the actions of Britain, regarded as blackmail, did not affect the decision to continue the fight to the end.
Leader of the White Movement
When taking office as Commander-in-Chief V.S.Yu.R. Wrangel saw his main task not as fighting the Reds, but as the task of “ lead the army out of a difficult situation with honor" At this moment, few of the white military leaders could imagine the very possibility of active military action, and the combat effectiveness of the troops after a streak of disasters was called into question. The British ultimatum on " ending the unequal struggle" This message from the British became the first international document received by Wrangel as the leader of the White movement. General Baron Wrangel would write later in his memoirs:
In this regard, it is not surprising that General Baron Wrangel, upon assuming the post of Commander-in-Chief of V.S.Yu.R., realizing the full extent of the vulnerability of Crimea, immediately took a number of preparatory measures in case of evacuation of the army - in order to avoid a repetition of the disasters of the Novorossiysk and Odessa evacuations . The baron also understood perfectly well that the economic resources of Crimea were insignificant and incomparable with the resources of the Kuban, Don, and Siberia, which served as bases for the emergence of the White movement, and the region’s isolation could lead to famine.
A few days after Baron Wrangel took office, he received information about the Reds preparing a new assault on the Crimea, for which the Bolshevik command gathered a significant amount of artillery, aviation, 4 rifle and cavalry divisions here. Among these forces were also selected Bolshevik troops - the Latvian Division, the 3rd Infantry Division, which consisted of internationalists - Latvians, Hungarians, etc.
On April 13, 1920, the Latvians attacked and overthrew the advanced units of General Ya. A. Slashchev on Perekop and had already begun to move south from Perekop to the Crimea. Slashchev counterattacked and drove the enemy back, but the Latvians, receiving reinforcements after reinforcements from the rear, managed to cling to the Turkish Wall. The approaching Volunteer Corps decided the outcome of the battle, as a result of which the Reds were driven out of Perekop and were soon partially cut down and partially driven away by the cavalry of General Morozov near Tyup-Dzhankoy.
On April 14, General Baron Wrangel launched a Red counterattack, having previously grouped the Kornilovites, Markovites and Slashchevites and reinforced them with a detachment of cavalry and armored cars. The Reds were crushed, but the approaching 8th Red Cavalry Division, knocked out the day before by the Wrangel troops from Chongar, as a result of their attack restored the situation, and the Red infantry again launched an attack on Perekop - however, this time the Red assault was no longer successful, and their advance was stopped at approaches to Perekop. In an effort to consolidate success, General Wrangel decided to inflict flank attacks on the Bolsheviks, landing two troops (the Alekseevites on ships were sent to the Kirillovka area, and the Drozdovskaya division was sent to the village of Khorly, 20 km west of Perekop). Both landings were noticed by Red aviation even before the landing, so 800 Alekseevites, after a difficult unequal battle with the entire 46th Estonian Red Division that had arrived, broke through to Genichesk with heavy losses and were evacuated under the cover of naval artillery. The Drozdovites, despite the fact that their landing also did not come as a surprise to the enemy, were able to carry out the initial plan of the operation (Landing Operation Perekop - Khorly): they landed in the rear of the Reds, in Khorly, from where they walked behind enemy lines more than 60 miles with battles to Perekop, diverting the forces of the pressing Bolsheviks from him. For Khorly, the commander of the First (of the two Drozdovsky) regiments, Colonel A.V. Turkul, was promoted to major general by the Commander-in-Chief. As a result, the assault on Perekop by the Reds was generally thwarted, and the Bolshevik command was forced to postpone the next attempt to storm Perekop to May in order to transfer even larger forces here and then act for sure. In the meantime, the Red command decided to lock V.S.Yu.R. in the Crimea, for which they began to actively construct barriers and concentrated large forces of artillery (including heavy) and armored vehicles.
V. E. Shambarov writes on the pages of his research about how the first battles under the command of General Wrangel affected the morale of the army:
General Wrangel quickly and decisively reorganized the army and renamed it on April 28, 1920 “Russian”. Cavalry regiments are replenished with horses. He is trying to strengthen discipline with harsh measures. Equipment is also starting to arrive. The coal delivered on April 12 allows the White Guard ships, which had previously been standing without fuel, to come to life. And Wrangel, in his orders for the army, already speaks of a way out of the difficult situation “ not only with honor, but also with victory».
The offensive of the “Russian Army” in Northern Tavria
Having defeated several red divisions that tried to counterattack to prevent the white advance, the “Russian Army” managed to escape from Crimea and occupy the fertile territories of Novorossiya, vital for replenishing the Army’s food supplies.
In September 1920, the Wrangelites were defeated by the Reds near Kakhovka. On the night of November 8, the Red Army launched a general offensive, the goal of which was to capture Perekop and Chongar and break through to Crimea. The offensive involved units of the 1st and 2nd Cavalry armies, as well as the 51st division of Blucher and the army of N. Makhno.
Fall of White Crimea
In November 1920, General A.P. Kutepov, who commanded the defense of Crimea, was unable to hold back the offensive, and units of the Red Army under the overall command of M.V. Frunze broke into the territory of Crimea.
The remnants of the white units (approximately 100 thousand people) were evacuated in an organized manner to Constantinople with the support of the Entente.
Sevastopol evacuation
Having accepted the Volunteer Army in a situation where the entire White Cause had already been lost by his predecessors, General Baron Wrangel, nevertheless, did everything possible to save the situation, and in the end was forced to remove the remnants of the Army and the civilian population who did not want to remain under the power of the Bolsheviks. And he did it flawlessly: the evacuation of the Russian Army from Crimea, much more difficult than the Novorossiysk evacuation, went almost perfectly - order reigned in all ports and everyone could board a ship and, although going into complete uncertainty, save themselves from Red violence . Pyotr Nikolayevich personally went out on a destroyer of the Russian Fleet, but before leaving the shores of Russia himself, he traveled to all Russian ports and made sure that the ships carrying refugees were ready to set off on the open sea.
Emigration
Since November 1920 - in exile. After arriving in Constantinople, Wrangel lived on the yacht Lucullus. On October 15, 1921, near the Galata embankment, the yacht was rammed by the Italian steamer Adria, coming from the Soviet Batum, and it sank instantly. Wrangel and his family members were not on board at that moment. Most of the crew members managed to escape; the ship's watch commander, midshipman P.P. Sapunov, who refused to leave the yacht, the ship's cook Krasa, and sailor Efim Arshinov died. The strange circumstances of the death of the Lucullus aroused suspicion among many contemporaries of a deliberate ramming of the yacht, which is confirmed by modern researchers of the Soviet special services. The Red Army Intelligence Service agent Olga Golubovskaya, known in the Russian emigration of the early 1920s as the poetess Elena Ferrari, took part in the Luculla ram.
In 1922, he moved with his headquarters from Constantinople to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, to Sremski Karlovtsi.
In 1924, Wrangel created the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), which united most of the participants in the White movement in exile. In November 1924, Wrangel recognized the supreme leadership of the EMRO as Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (formerly the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army in the First World War).
In September 1927, Wrangel moved with his family to Brussels. He worked as an engineer in one of the Brussels companies.
He died suddenly in Brussels after an unexpected illness in 1928. According to his family, he was poisoned by his servant's brother, who was a Bolshevik agent.
He was buried in Brussels. Subsequently, Wrangel's ashes were transferred to Belgrade, where they were solemnly reburied on October 6, 1929 in the Russian Church of the Holy Trinity.
Awards
- Order of St. Anne, 4th class “For bravery” (07/04/1904)
- Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd class with swords and bow (6.01.1906)
- Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree (05/09/1906)
- Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd class (12/6/1912)
- Order of St. George, 4th degree. (13.10.1914)
- Order of St. Vladimir, 4th class with swords and bow (24.10.1914)
- Golden weapon “For bravery” (06/10/1915)
- Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd class with swords (12/8/1915)
- Soldier's Cross of St. George 4th degree (07/24/1917)
- Order of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, 2nd degree