The White Guards were one of the main forces in the Russian Civil War. A little about the White movement knows, perhaps, every citizen of our country. We will tell you about some of the facts that still remain unknown to the general public.
Literacy is not taught
If you look at the films of Russian cinema, you get the impression that the White Guards are all "white bones", nobles and aristocrats, not like the workers and peasants of the Red Army. However, such a picture is highly embellished. The overwhelming majority of the officers of the White movement came from the commoners - an unprivileged class, whose representatives did not belong either to the nobles, or to the clergy, or to the merchants, or to the peasantry.
According to historians, referring to the documents of the General Staff Academy, not all White Guard officers were taught to read and write, many demonstrated rather mediocre knowledge of history and geography, as well as "lack of clarity of thinking." Of course, in the ranks of the whites there were educated and highly educated officers, but their belonging to the representatives of blue blood is a myth that does not reflect reality.
There were few ideological ones
Many White Guard officers were not ideological, so they often surrendered to the Red Army. So, during the evacuation of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia to the Crimea in March 1920, about 10 thousand officers of the army of General Anton Denikin and almost the same number of Kolchak men were captured.
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At the same time, most of the prisoners were subsequently accepted into the Red Army, which was in dire need of qualified personnel. In connection with the large number of former White officers who wanted to become Red Army soldiers, the Bolsheviks introduced a quota - the share of ex-White Guards in the command staff of the workers 'and peasants' army should not exceed 25 percent. The superfluous were sent to the rear or to lecture at military schools.
White Guard "Judas"
The history of the White movement has its main traitor - the French general Maurice Jeanin. During the retreat of the army of Admiral Alexander Kolchak to the east in December 1919, Janin promised the Supreme Ruler of Russia that he would take him to safety.
Instead, a train with the admiral on January 15, 1920 arrived in Irkutsk, where Kolchak was detained by the Czechs. They gave him to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and through them the admiral fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks. In February he was shot. "General without honor" - this is the nickname Janin received for his betrayal.
Tragedy of the Northwest Army
The Northwestern Army under the command of General Nikolai Yudenich in the fall of 1919 fought stubborn battles in the Petrograd direction in order to capture the capital. Unable to achieve their goals, the whites began to retreat to Estonia in November. There, soldiers and officers were disarmed and sent to concentration camps.
The writer Alexander Kuprin, who was in the dying army, recalled that the servicemen spent several days on bare ground in the severe frost, there was not enough warm clothes and medicines. The roof overhead in the barracks and cattle pens did not help much: there were no beds or blankets there either.
In the concentration camps, where the White Guards were kept, a typhus epidemic began. According to historians, more than four thousand people died from the disease. Journalist Stefan Ratsevich later recalled how trucks with "naked skeletons" barely covered with torn tarpaulins were rushing to the cemeteries.
Boundless Annenkov
Not all members of the White movement were distinguished by aristocracy, but there were real butchers among the White Guards. The most famous of them was General Boris Annenkov - the commander of the Separate Semirechensk Army.
Among his "merits" is the brutal suppression of the Bolshevik uprising in Pavlorad and Slavogorsk districts. Once, having captured the participants of one of the peasant congresses, Annenkov personally hacked to death 87 people. Many people who were not involved in the uprising were tortured, Annenkov's Cossacks destroyed entire villages. So, in Kolpakovka 733 people were killed, in Podgorny - 200.
At the same time, there were many mercenaries in the detachment of the "chief butcher": Chinese, Uighurs and even Afghans. After the defeat of the White movement, Annenkov fled to China, but in 1926 he was extradited to the USSR. The court sentenced him to capital punishment - execution.
Nothing is sacred
It is generally accepted that only the Bolsheviks were engaged in the expropriation (confiscation) of church values. In fact, the White Guards also had a hand in this. A well-known raid of 7-8 thousand sabers under the command of General Konstantin Mamontov on the rear of the Reds in the Voronezh region in August 1919.
In addition to destroying enemy soldiers and their provisions, the White Guards walked well through the local churches. The newspaper "Priazovskiy Kray" wrote, among other things, that the Mamontovites were bringing icons in gold frames, church vessels and other valuables as trophies. There was so much loot that Denikin created a special commission to keep track of trophies. There were 250 icons, the rest of the church property fit into six large boxes.
Ivan Proshkin