Great Siberian Ice March

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This article is about the White Army's retreat across Lake Baikal. For the 1918 retreat towards the Kuban, see Ice March.
Great Siberian Ice March
Part of the
Central Siberia
Result Red Army victory. Retreat of the White Army to Chita with heavy losses.
Failure of the Red Army to encircle General Kappel’s Army.
Belligerents Russian SFSR
Russian State
Commanders and leaders Sergey Kamenev
Vladimir Olderogge
Genrich Eiche Alexander Kolchak Executed
Vladimir Kappel †
Sergey Voytsekhovsky

The Great Siberian Ice March (

Admiral Kolchak's Siberian Army from Omsk to Chita, in the course of the Russian Civil War
between 14 November 1919 and March 1920.

General

Left SR troops in Irkutsk
on 14 January, who executed him on 7 February 1920.

Order of the Great Siberian Ice March

Prelude

In the summer of 1919, the Red Army had

Ishim rivers to temporarily halt the Red Army, which was faced by an advance on Moscow from the south by Anton Denikin's White Army. By the autumn, Denikin had been defeated and the Red Army was able to direct reinforcements back to the Eastern Front. The Reds broke through on the Tobol River in mid-October and by November the White forces were falling back towards Omsk in a disorganised mass. Omsk
was conquered by the Reds on 14 November 1919.

The retreat from Omsk to Lake Baikal

The retreat began after the heavy defeats of the White Army in the Omsk operation and in the

Novonikolaevsk Operation in November–December 1919. The army, led by General Kappel, retreated along the Trans-Siberian Railway, using the available trains to transport the wounded. They were followed on their heels by the 5th Red Army under the command of Genrich Eiche
.

The White retreat was complicated by numerous insurgencies in the cities where they had to pass and attacks by partisan detachments, and was further aggravated by the fierce Siberian frost. After the series of defeats, the White troops were in a demoralized state, centralized supply was paralyzed, replenishment not received, and the discipline dropped dramatically.

In these circumstances, the appointment as commander of the Army of

Peter Efimovich Schetinkin
.

The pursuing Red 5th Army took Tomsk on 20 December 1919 and Krasnoyarsk on 7 January 1920.

The march across Lake Baikal

Kappel's 2nd Army came to a halt on the shore of

Transbaikalia
.

The bloodiest campaign battles occurred at the villages of

Birulka, and Gruznovskaya, as well as the city of Barguzin.[2]

As the Arctic winds blew unobstructed across the lake, many in the army and their families froze to death. Their bodies remained frozen on the lake in a kind of tableau throughout the winter of 1919–20. With the advent of spring, the frozen corpses and all their possessions disappeared in 5,000 feet of water. Kappel himself suffered frostbite and pneumonia in temperatures of -40 °C (-40 °F), and died on 26 January.[3]

End of the March

The survivors of the March found a safe haven in Chita, the capital of Eastern Okraina, a territory under control of Kolchak's successor Grigory Mikhaylovich Semyonov, who was supported by a significant Japanese military presence.

The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party issued an order not to advance beyond Irkutsk to avoid a military conflict with Japan, at a moment when the main threat for the young Soviet State was in Europe (Poland).

Notes

  1. ISBN 978-0-19-061349-5
    .
  2. ^ Ледяной поход 3-го Барнаульского стрелкового полка (Северный путь) (in Russian). Тернистый путь. Однодневная газета. 1 февраля 1921 г. Издание Владивостокского объединенного комитета по устройству недели каппелевцев. Retrieved 2009-11-08.
  3. ISBN 9781933648156
    . Retrieved 18 April 2010.
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