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Chapter Twenty-Four


General Anton Ivanovich Denikin

General Anton Ivanovich Denikin



Kislovodsk, Southern Russia

Whose side is God on? Anton Denikin wondered. I know who the Devil fights for.

General Denikin covered his nose and mouth with a kerchief and forced the nausea rising from his belly to still. It would not do for the commander in chief of all Southern Russia to vomit in front of the soldiers he commanded, the civilians who were counting on him to deliver them from the depredations of the Marxist savages.

The open mass grave reeked of voided bowels and bladders and dead, rotting flesh. The incongruously picturesque countryside, the golden domes of St. Nicholas’s Cathedral, and the inviting wood frame homes of the spa town made the remnants of the Bolshevik’s most recent atrocity all the more horrific in contrast. Men, women, and children were piled unceremoniously together in the wide, shallow hole. Expressions of surprise and terror were etched in rictus upon those faces visible through the mass of carnage.

“They wouldn’t let us even fill it in,” the mayor of Kislovodsk said; his voice quavered and tears slid out of his unblinking eyes. He had the unhealthy, pinched look of someone who had rapidly lost a great deal of weight—and not due to exertion.

It was a look that had never been exactly rare in Russia, but was rapidly becoming the default. The war consumed the means of transportation for vital foodstuffs, interrupted their flow as the Reds and Whites battled for control of the railways. Soldiers and bandits forestalled or destroyed the harvests, and appropriated what was harvested to feed one army or another.

“They will pay for this,” Denikin said. “We will crush the Marxists and execute the men who did this.”

If the mayor heard Denikin’s words, he gave no indication, his empty gaze remaining fixed on one thousand five hundred men, women, and children murdered for being, “enemies of the Revolution.”

“When your cavalry arrived, we thought we were saved, we welcomed Colonel Shkuro as a savior, opened our homes, fed him and his men only the best, then he rode away with his men, and the next day—” The mayor closed his eyes, and sank to the ground, his head falling forward into his hands.

Denikin knelt down and grasped the sobbing man’s shoulder. He prayed silently over the man. He stayed until the mayor’s wife, looking just as thin and harrowed as her husband, came to collect the mayor and take him home. After their departure, Denikin stood and walked back to the cabin where his staff had set up his command post. His chief of staff, General Romanovsky, was waiting for him in the dining room where they laid out the largest maps upon the massive teak table and did their primary planning.

“General, are you well?” Romanovsky asked. Denikin hardened his expression, realizing his grief must have been apparent.

“I am not. Fifteen hundred men, women, and children murdered for giving that fool, Shkuro, food and lodging, damn him.”

“Sir, Colonel Shkuro is one of our best cavalry squadron commanders. His raids have sown chaos in the Bolshevik’s rear,” Romanovsky’s tone was mild, but it was clear to Denikin that he felt his commander was being too sentimental.

“I’m aware that Shkuro has his uses,” Denikin said. “I won’t relieve him just yet, but we are supposed to be fighting the Communists to protect the Russian people, not to expose them to more atrocity and death.”

“Atrocity and death are inevitable until we have conquered the Reds, General.”

Denikin frowned. Shkuro wasn’t here and he had days, perhaps even weeks before he would have a chance to discipline the impetuous cavalryman, so he saw no reason to dwell on the matter. He changed subjects.

“Any news while I was out?”

“Pokrovsky and Wrangel are both still advancing against the enemy’s rear guard, though Wrangel lost his battery of 76mm guns and has requested replacements. We don’t have any in reserve, so if you want to accommodate him, we will have to cross-level from another unit. Their front line is about here, along the River Ouroup.”

“Slower than I would have liked,” Denikin said. “Do they give any explanation for the delays?”

“A combination of stiff resistance and counterattacks from the Reds in some places, and the need to process large numbers of prisoners on the other. The raw number of enemy surrendering has actually imposed a hefty logistical and security burden all along the front.”

Denikin snorted and shook his head.

“What a problem to have, eh?”

“It is, indeed,” Romanovsky said. “Unfortunately, the Reds don’t seem to be running short on manpower despite the surrenders and the casualties we’ve been inflicting on them.”

“Inundating your enemy with prisoners is certainly a new approach in the annals of tactics. Anything else?” Denikin asked.

Romanovsky’s expression clouded, and he visibly steeled himself to deliver the next bit of news.

“Wrangel has lodged a complaint against Pokrovsky. He claims that Pokrovsky’s division has become distracted with looting and abuses of the local populace. In his words, their behavior both shames our holy cause and endangers our military mission.”

“Abusing” the local population almost certainly meant that Pokrovsky’s men were taking liberties with the local girls in addition to stealing food and valuables. A certain amount of that behavior was tragically inevitable in war. An officer dealt with it by finding the looter, the rapist, and hanging or shooting them to reassert discipline. But if that sort of behavior was so common in Pokrovsky’s division that it had come to another division commander’s attention—that was something else entirely.

“Is it true?” Denikin asked.

“Pokrovsky’s division is advancing at roughly the same rate as Wrangel’s according to both their reports, but have his troops been looting and raping?” Romanovsky paused and removed his spectacles, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Yes, sir, I think it’s true. Our own staff couriers have returned with similar reports and Pokrovsky has been unresponsive when we’ve queried him on the matter.”

Hanging a rapist or five was one thing. If Pokrovsky’s whole command had rotted through with this behavior—could he bring a whole division to heel without shattering cohesion? In the Imperial Army, Denikin’s Iron Division had never seen such indiscipline, and if it had, he would have had the villains shot without delay or fanfare. The Great War had been a brutal, grinding, and bloody business, but at least he hadn’t worried about his army disintegrating out from underneath him if he imposed basic discipline.

It was like trying to win a fencing match with one hand while trying to keep your trousers from falling around your ankles with the other. Denikin found himself constantly beleaguered by herding conscripts, squabbles between his officers, and complaints from the various civilian political leaders that made up the disparate White Movement.

In name, Denikin was Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia. In reality, he was the poor schmuck tasked with unifying the efforts of monarchists who wished to restore the empire, socialists and democrats who wanted some form of representative government in Russia, though they did not agree on exactly what that looked like, and the Cossacks, who, more than anything, wanted to be left alone. The only thing the various factions shared was a hatred of the Bolsheviks, and so they cooperated, to various degrees, in a patchwork army.

The Armed Forces of South Russia drew most of their combat power from the Volunteer Army and the Kuban Cossacks. The Volunteer Army included most of the veteran officers of the Imperial Army who chose to side with the White factions over the Bolsheviks, as well as other volunteers from the Monarchist, anti-Bolshevik Socialist and Democratic camps. The Kuban Cossacks provided a large, well-trained and highly motivated cavalry force indigenous to the region.

With so many officers having joined the Volunteer Army, Denikin was not short on combat-experienced leaders for billets from company to regimental command. He was terribly short on trained enlisted men. The only experienced troop formations were the Kornilov, Markov, and Alekseev infantry regiments and his Cossack cavalry and infantry. His hardened infantry formations were a dwindling resource—indeed they were currently manned at ten percent of their initial strength. The Cossacks were still a tribal people tied strongly to their land. Once the Kuban was free of Bolsheviks, Denikin suspected the magnificent horsemen might not fight with such fervor in parts of Russia that meant little to them and theirs.

The Cossacks of the Don River Basin were allegedly allied with the South Russian Armed Forces as well as their Kuban cousins, but Krasnov had refused to subordinate himself to Denikin, even purely militarily, and so several thousand excellent cavalrymen galloped about the Don carrying out whatever idiocy Krasnov thought up for them, unavailable to the greater mission.

Denikin glared out the window as the weight of the task pressed on him. Of humble origins, son of a soldier and a Polish woman, no one would ever mistake the stocky, unassuming Denikin for an aristocrat, but he’d been a fine division commander in the Great War. He’d risen to his exalted rank without a patron, without family connection or noble blood, purely on merit—a rarity in the Imperial Army! He knew, he knew that he could lead the White movement to victory were it not for all the pestilential self-seekers like Krasnov and divisive political nonsense that beset him at every turn.

If he declared his intent to restore the monarchy, the republicans and socialists might splinter away from his cause. If he declared for democracy, the monarchists, who now saw any electoral process as an invitation to anarchy, might likewise leave. The peasants who provided the bulk of his rank and file pleaded for land reform, but the very reform that would win them over might alienate the kulaks who provided his food and the nobles who still made up many of his best field commanders.

Daily he walked the tightrope, ensuring his words and actions led no one to believe he had any defined aim beyond defeating the Communists. Thus no faction left the coalition—but the problems were never resolved, the arguments and resentments festered. Denikin himself was so busy ensuring he maintained the good graces of each faction that he was never allowed to concentrate fully on winning the war.

“General?” Romanovsky asked, piercing Denikin’s frustrated reverie.

“We will think on the issues in Pokrovsky’s division. Naturally, we should not countenance such atrocious behavior, but neither can we risk mutiny and the disintegration of the army by ill-considered action.”

Raised voices from the hallway interrupted their discussion. Romanovsky left to see what the bustle was about. He returned a moment later with a Cossack in a filthy uniform. The Cossack grinned from ear to ear, but Romanovsky looked grim.

“Sir, it appears that Shkuro has taken Stavropol,” Romanovsky said.

“What?” Denikin shot up from his chair, glaring between the two men.

“Yes, your excellency,” the Cossack said. “It was a grand feat—the colonel told the Bolsheviks that we would shell them to dust with our heavy artillery if they didn’t leave the city.”

“Colonel Shkuro has no heavy artillery,” Romanovsky said, his voice flat.

“No, but we’ll be long gone by the time the Communists figure that out.” The Cossack grinned. Denikin’s heart sank as he considered the hundreds of dead innocents rotting less than half a mile from where he stood.

“Get me a courier, we need to tell Wrangel to alter his axis of advance, he needs to reach Stavropol before the Communists can retake the city. And you, private, get cleaned up, have a bath and some wine. In the morning you will return to Colonel Shkuro and tell him to hold until relieved.”

“I thank your excellency!” the Cossack said, revealing yellowed, crooked teeth with his grin.

The Cossack departed. Romanovsky turned on his commander with a tight expression.

“General, taking and holding Stavropol strains our lines of supply at this phase of the operationthere is too much rail line between here and there for us to patrol effectively. Wrangel will be at the end of a very thin thread.”

Denikin met his chief of staff’s eyes levelly.

“Wrangel is one of our best field commanders, he can handle it.”

Romanovsky opened his mouth, apparently willing to argue the issue further, but Denikin cut him off with a glare and a slashing motion of his hand.

“General, we are supposed to be the guardians of the Russian people, and now one of ours has put innocent lives in peril, essentially on a lark. We will not abandon those souls. My decision is made.”

Romanovsky shut his mouth on his protest, his expression closed up into an unreadable mask of discipline.

“Yes, sir.”


West Bank of the Ouroup River, South Russia

Two weeks of bloody fighting finally yielded results. The Reds counterattacked across the River Ouroup at the junction of Wrangel’s 1st Cavalry and Pokrovsky’s division. Their attempt to force a wedge between the two units failed and cost them much or their ammunition and arms in the process, leaving insufficient defenders against Wrangel’s counterattack.

Wrangel’s cavalrymen forded the Ouroup River as the artillery and machine gunners provided a base of fire against the thin line of Red infantry holding the north bank. Withering under intense fire, staring at the mass of fearsome horsemen splashing across the river toward them, the Red infantry broke. Wrangel led his men in headlong pursuit for several miles, right to the outskirts of the village of Ouspeskaia. To the dismay of his Cossacks, Wrangel halted the charge of his cavalry short of the village.

“No, lads,” he shouted over their jeering objections. “Clearing towns is the infantry’s work. Colonel Dara, take one half the brigade and seal off all western approaches to the town; send the other half to close of the eastern approaches. Engage targets of opportunity with machine guns and our new cannons. I will bring up our infantry to clear the village.”

“Sir, remember you are a division, not company, commander when we begin the clearance of this village,” Obolensky said as they trotted back to join the infantry battalions.

Wrangel merely sniffed.

He surveyed his infantry with some dissatisfaction. He had an undermanned battalion from the Volunteer Army—this was ridiculously rank-heavy, with majors and even colonels in command of the companies and every platoon and squad led by no less than a captain. He had the cadres for a Cossack infantry division as well, which amounted to only another two companies of infantryman.

Fortunately, what they lacked in number, they possessed in skill and motivation. The veterans and Cossacks marched straight into the attack on the village. Battle-hardened officers blooded at Galicia or in the Italian Alps ensured their men fanned out in an orderly formation, but not too orderly, optimizing their own angles of fire while presenting the enemy with more difficult targets.

A hodgepodge collection of machine guns including Madsens, Chauchats and Lewis Guns kept the buildings on the edge of the village under steady bursts of fire as the riflemen closed. Enemy fire began to slacken as his men advanced. Wrangel could feel it in the air—the point of decision was near.

A gray-haired major, moving with a celerity belying his years, sprinted to within ten meters of a small house whose windows were sparkling with enemy muzzle flashes. He slid into a small depression; enemy fire kicked up geysers of dirt all around him. The major paid no heed and tossed a hand grenade in a beautiful arc right through the window of that house. It detonated in a muted orange-gray flash.

The destruction of their central machine gun nest eviscerated the volume of fire the Reds were able to pour forth from the village. The Volunteer and Cossack infantrymen charged, only a handful falling from enemy fire.

“Come, Vladimir,” Wrangel said to Obolensky. “The enemy will break soon and we must be there to cut off their retreat.”

They galloped off to rejoin the Cossack cavalry waiting on the flanks of the battle. Mere minutes after they rejoined the horsemen, the Red infantry began to flee the village.

“Hurrah, men! Take them!”

The Cossacks cheered as Wrangel spurred his horse, leading a galloping mass of Cossacks into the flank of the fleeing Red infantry. With a vicious downward sweep of his saber, Wrangel himself felled a Communist officer, a deep gash severing the flesh and bone of his left shoulder. Hundreds more of the Reds died under lance, saber, and shot before the rest flung their weapons to the ground and held up their hands. Completing their charge through the Red lines, Wrangel signaled for his formation to wheel about, circling the surrendering Reds.

Infantry surged forward to take the prisoners’ weapons and corral them. Wrangel raised his saber and galloped across his lines, eliciting a cheer from his men, the elation of victory chorusing from their ragged throats. The standard bearer raised high the guidon of the 1st Cavalry from a roof in the village and waved it back and forth. Wrangel favored his men with a rare smile as he galloped back and forth, accepting their adulation and shouting his pride in them.

Now he had formed a real fighting division.


That evening, Wrangel sat on the porch of the largest hut in Ouspeskaia as the sun sank low on the horizon. Its owner, a gray-bearded old man, had offered him lodging with an almost embarrassing air of servility—Wrangel was used to deference as both an aristocrat and a general officer, but the people of this hamlet were overjoyed to see Wrangel nearing the point of absurdity. It had taken him several minutes just to convince the man’s stooped wife that he needed no service, no food at the moment, merely a few minutes of quiet to think.

He stared at the broad horizon, lost in thought as his men saw to their horses, saddles, and weapons, and counted the captured rifles, machine guns, and artillery pieces this defeated regiment of Reds had gifted to their captors. Wrangel’s joy at his division’s successful attack had worn off and now he considered his situation soberly once again. His division had performed well—absolutely. He had replenished his artillery, thankfully, and had several caissons of ammunition for each caliber of piece they’d taken. The fact that the Reds had allowed this much artillery to fall into his hands confirmed the chaos and disorder he’d sensed in their ranks. His cavalry brigades were likewise healthy, but he still sorely lacked infantry.

Yes, he commanded a cavalry division, and mounted warfare was his stock in trade, but even a man as saddle-worn as Pyotr Wrangel knew that a divisional element needed its own infantry. Infantrymen were necessary to root out enemies in urban areas, swamps, rocky hills, and thick woods, or to hold key pieces of terrain around which the mounted warriors could pivot. As surely and unerringly as the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Heaven, the trinity of war on the ground remained Infantry, Cavalry, and Field Artillery. All responsible officers understood this.

“General Wrangel.” Obolensky approached with a young captain on his heels. “A messenger from General Denikin.”

The young captain snapped to attention and saluted crisply. Wrangel returned the salute.

“What word from the supreme commander, Captain?”

“Sir, General Denikin commands that the 1st Cavalry Division alter its axis of advance.” The captain held out an envelope for Wrangel. “Your new objective is Stavropol.”

Wrangel maintained a neutral expression, even as his heart thudded painfully in his chest. Stavropol was no mere hamlet, and it was at the end of a very long line of supply. How in the hell did Anton Ivanovich expect him to take a city in his division’s current state?

There was no use arguing these points with a messenger.

“Captain, you’ve had a long trip, get some food, get cleaned up as best you can and get some rest. I will summon you after I’ve read the orders,” Wrangel said. “Vladimir, see that he’s set up.”

Wrangel retreated into the straw-floored hut and lit an oil lamp to read Denikin’s missive. As he read of the massacre at Kislovodsk resulting from Shkuro’s actions, and his similar ploy at Stavropol, Wrangel let out an uncharacteristically vehement stream of profanity. Obolensky caught the tail end of his outburst as he entered the hut.

“What is wrong, sir?”

“Vladimir Platonovich, that fool, Shkuro, is what’s wrong.” Wrangel handed over the letter. “I told Denikin that he wasn’t to be trusted with independent command.”

Obolensky read the letter quickly, then looked up.

“General, how are we to take and hold Stavropol without so much as a full regiment of infantry?”

Wrangel glared out the window. He understood Denikin’s impulse; he shared it. They were guardians of the Russian people, and the Communists had proven willing to slaughter anyone who showed even the slightest allegiance to the White Movement.

The humanitarian impulse didn’t change the fact that this was militarily foolish. A refusal of the order, or perhaps a request for clarification and confirmation began to draft itself in his mind. He quickly discarded it. Sentimental or not, even foolish or not, Denikin was the Supreme Commander. Denikin was also tetchy about his more aristocratic subordinates, and sensitive to anything that might vaguely resemble insubordination from those born of higher social station.

There already existed enough tension and acrimony between the leaders of the White Movement, and while Wrangel privately thought Denikin was not the optimal choice for supreme command, he also had to admit there were far worse candidates. He wouldn’t throw his men’s lives away just to avoid an argument, but perhaps there was a way—Wrangel’s glare landed on a corral of Red prisoners, huddled together against the chill of the late autumn night.

The NCOs and officers were separated from the rank and file, of course, and there were disproportionately fewer leaders than troops among those who had surrendered.

Perhaps . . . 

“Follow me, Vladimir Platonovich, we have an unpleasant task ahead.”

The officer commanding the guard on the prisoners was, to Wrangel’s surprise, the same young man to whom he’d given his revolver. They exchanged salutes as Wrangel approached.

“Gavrikov, is it not?” Wrangel said.

“You honor me, your excellency,” Gavrikov said. “Do you need your pistol back?”

The young lieutenant made to retrieve the weapon from its holster.

“No, I do not need my revolver back,” Wrangel said. “And sadly, I do not honor you tonight. There’s butcher’s work needs doing, Gavrikov. It will be neither glorious nor honorable, but it is necessary. Find me twelve of your coldest men.”


The rifles fired, their actions clicked and clacked, they fired again, click-clack-click, again, and yet again. The Bolshevik leaders fell to the ground, most dead near instantly, but some still screaming their pain to the cold, unfeeling stars, only to be finished off by a single round from Wrangel’s old revolver in the hands of a grim-faced Gavrikov. Wrangel marked that the young man appeared to take no pleasure in the killing, but did not flinch from his duty.

Wrangel maintained a stern mien as he oversaw the summary execution of more than three hundred men. Whatever gnawing his conscience intended for his soul, it was private, and the soldiers he’d ordered to commit the deed with their own hands deserved to see their commander resolute, assured of the necessity and justice of their acts.

When the last Bolshevik NCO was dead, he summoned the rank and file prisoners to witness the massed bodies of their leaders. They shuffled in, bayonets at their backs, machine guns positioned obliquely to mow them down without hitting the other guards if they became unruly. He mounted his new horse, the beautiful black mare, and cantered back and forth in front of the bedraggled prisoners. Their expressions were mostly exhausted and terrified, and he saw very little defiance.

As he had surmised when they surrendered—these were not Communist true believers.

These he could use.

“You have all committed treason against Mother Russia,” Wrangel shouted at the top of his lungs. “You have sided with Godless Bolshevik scum against all that is good and decent on this Earth. By rights, you should share the same fate as your leaders.”

Wrangel let the sentence linger in the chill autumn air for several seconds. Realization that they might not be lined up and shot like their officers and NCOs began to dawn on many of their faces.

Wrangel continued, “Fortunately for you, I love God and our Lord Jesus Christ nearly as much as I love the Rodina. It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that I extend you an echo of the gift He gave us all with His holy sacrifice upon the Cross. I offer you the chance to repent and redeem yourselves.”

Hope bloomed in a thousand pairs of eyes, the chance of survival dangling like an oasis before them. Wrangel had set the hook, time to draw in the line.

“You were led astray by lying dogs such as these.” Wrangel waved a hand at the massed bodies lying in the center of the hamlet. “But by divine providence you have been placed in my hand to spare or to slay. Rather than end your lives in your current miserable state, I bestow upon you an honor I expect you to spend the rest of your life earning—you will serve under my command.”

Shock, relief, and confusion rippled audibly through the assembled prisoners. Wrangel brought his horse to a halt in the middle of their ragged formation. A deep, hoarse voice from the back of the formation called—

“The Bolshevik drafted most of us anyhow, your lordship. Give me a rifle and I’ll gladly shoot some of the bastards for you!”

There was a ripple of humor and general agreement throughout the prisoners. Wrangel did not smile.

“I’m glad to hear that, soldier, because there is no cheap grace. Christ’s forgiveness is unearned, given upon the moment of your repentance. My forgiveness you will earn in blood, sweat, and agony. Your officers will drive you, forge you into true soldiers, not the glorified bandits the Bolshevik rabble intended.”

The mass of them listened intently to his every word; he need only reel them in over the point of no return.

“Together, we will stop the Reds’ predation upon our people. We will establish a sane and just rule for all Russia. You will follow me into death, and fire, and victory, for the Glory of God, and the Rodina!”

The cheer started as a ragged, quiet, thing, but it gained in momentum like a tidal wave cresting, the dull roar becoming a cacophony of assent.

“Excellent,” Wrangel said as soon as the cheer had died down. “In a few minutes, your new chain of command will come to organize you into squads and platoons and rearm you. Stay where you are until then.”

Obolensky and his senior officers were waiting on the porch of the hut in which Wrangel had taken residence. Wrangel dismounted and allowed one of his orderlies to lead his horse to the impromptu stable they’d established at one of the barns. Both his aide and his brigade commanders regarded him with incredulous expressions.

“General, how do you intend to maintain control of the Reds once you’ve rearmed them?” Dara asked in a low voice. “We haven’t the manpower to watch them all.”

“We watch them the same way we watch our lads, with officers and NCOs,” Wrangel said.

“Our lads are not Communists, sir,” Dara insisted.

“Neither were these a few weeks ago. We’ve given them an honorable option to avoid their leaders’ fate and they’ve taken it. Besides, Ivan Sergeivich, if their loyalty to Marxist ideas was more than theoretical, we would never have captured so many of them.”

Dara looked ready to chew railroad spikes and spit out nails, and even Obolensky appeared worried, with furrowed brows over dark eyes.

“Gentlemen, we exist in a state where no safe, sensible options exist. We need more infantrymen; I have found them. Divvy them up among the Volunteers and the Cossacks, try to keep the well-acquainted away from one another, but make it fast. We march tomorrow at first light.”




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