Northern Caucasus Operation (1918–1919)

Northern Caucasus Operation (1918–1919)
Northern Caucasus
Result	White Army victory Red Army retreats from the Caucasus, but holds Astrahan.

Belligerents Red Army Caspian-Caucasian Front Armed Forces of South RussiaCommanders and leaders Mikhail Svechnikov
Mikhail Levandovsky Pyotr Wrangel
Andrei Shkuro
Viktor Pokrovsky
Anton DenikinStrength unknown unknownCasualties and losses 25,000 killed^[1] unknown

The Northern Caucasus Operation was fought between the White and Red Armies during the

.

Prelude

In summer and autumn 1918, the Red Army had been defeated in the

of the North Caucasus, shot several of its members and fled, but was arrested and shot without trial by a regiment commander of the Taman army.

After the loss of Stavropol on November 15, 1918, the forces of the Taman Army and the former Sorokin's army were consolidated into the 11th Red Army, which held the Zavetnoye-Petrovskoye-Remontnoye-Priyutnoye-Dry Buivola-Oak-Kursavka-Vorovskolesskaya-Kislovodsk-Nalchik front line, which roughly ran north–south. It was joined by the weak 12th Red Army which held the front line from Grozny over Kizlyar to the Terechnoye station, which ran west–east. On December 8, 1918, both of these armies became part of a separate Caspian-Caucasian Front under command of Mikhail Svechnikov. The Front headquarters were located in Astrakhan, which wasn't ideal, as there were 400 km of desert between the front and the headquarters.

The campaign

On December 19, 1918, the Caspian-Caucasian Front received orders from Moscow to attack. The 11th Army was to launch an offensive against the Armavir -Tikhoretsk line held by the White troops of Denikin, while the 12th Army was to attack the Makhachkala - Derbent line with the support of the Astrakhan-Caspian Military Flotilla.

On 2 January 1919, V. Kruze's Eleventh Army attacked

The 12th Army was also forced to conduct defensive battles in the districts of Kizlyar and west of Guryev. The defeat of the 11th Army made the 12th Army retreated towards the region of Astrakhan.
The Red Army, already badly organized and poorly disciplined, had also been decimated by a typhus epidemic.^[1] General Avtonomov was one of its victims. General Wrangel was also infected, but survived. ^[1]

On February 4, 1919, the Stavropol Front was created to defend Astrakhan. In February 1919, the troops of the Front managed to secure Astrakhan and the mouth of the Volga and to prevent the union of Denikin's troops with the Ural white Cossacks. In March, the Caucasian-Caspian Front of the Red Army was disbanded, and the 11th and 12th Armies were consolidated into one, the 11th Army (second formation).

References