Chapter 13 - Stalin's stand: Moscow, March - June 1920
For a strategic map please see chapter 11 since the events in chapters 11-13 happened simultaniously.
After the conquest of Kaluga and the Red retreat to Moscow, Shkuro didn't stop his rampage through Central Russia. On the contrary, the White armies intensified their efforts to secure the road to Moscow. In spite of the increasingly worrisome Red troop concentration at Gomel, Wrangel's entire corps was send north to join Shkuro in this effort.
On March 24th, Wrangel's 53.000 men stormed the city of Tula. It wasn't a cheap victory, though. Under the fire of the fearsome Red fortress artillery, 3.700 White soldiers died that day.
1
10 days later, Wrangel's men arrived at Ryazan. The city was defended by a number of fresh recruits and a garrison force.
2 In command was a most beloved foe: Nestor Makhno. He had become almost like a mascot to the White soldiers. Whenever he was found to be in command of Red forces, White victories had followed. Wrangel's men thus charged joyfully into the streets of Ryazan. The ensuing battle was short and ended in the utter destruction of the 5.000 men strong Red garrison. Yet another railway connecting Red forces in Southern Russia with Moscow was interrupted.
On April 11th, it was Shkuro's turn to strike: Podolsk didn't offer much resistance and was quickly taken. The White Army had reached the outskirts of Moscow.
The next month was wasted besieging Kolomna and Bogodorosk.
3 But by mid May 1920, Wrangel's patience had run out. Finally, assaults were ordered and both cities fell. The proletarians on horseback trapped inside Kolomna made a valiant defensive stand; only to pay for their foolish bravery with their lifes.
Both Red and White now prepared for the inevitable Battle of Moscow. In the city, bourgeois and former aristocrats were forced to dig trenches, yet they were hopeful. Red Guards piled up barricades, while they tried to brace themselves for the White onslaught. Housewifes stood in endless cues to obtain supplies, fearful of what was to come. Dzerzhinsky's Chekists were probably busier than anyone else; but some things better remain untold ...
In command of Moscow's defense was Joseph Stalin, born as Iosif Dzhugashvili, a Georgian Communist. White propagandist took it as yet another piece of evidence that the Bolsheviks were a cabal of foreigners trying to take over the rodina.
4 The people's commissar had 49.000 Red soldiers under his command. Would it be enough to stop 122.000 White soldiers who had been assembled outside Moscow?
The Red Army had two major advantages, though: excellent trenches and its artillery. Almost 500 pieces of artillery had been assembled at Moscow. 16 armoured trains were defending key positions. But the White army had a secret weapon as well: British made tanks. All six tank battalions available to the Southern White had been concentrated for the Battle of Moscow.
Wrangel had divided his army into three parts: Shkuro was in command of the 71.000 men composing the Left Wing. Most of the soldiers in his five infantry divisions were veterans but there was also a number of newly recruited White guards with little combat experience.
Wrangel personnally led the Right Wing. It consisted of three infantry divisions, totalling 41.000 men. The Reserve under Ulagai was fairly small: one infantry division and three armoured trains. It would move to Podolsk at the outset of the battle and enter combat from the South if need be.
5
The main attack would come from the East. Shkuro would advance on Moscow from Bogodorosk. In the meantime Wrangel would perform a flanking march and attack Moscow from the West. White propaganda painters already made sketches of both commanders shaking hands in front of the Kremlin.
On June 3rd, only 9 days after Mai-Maeivski's great victory at Kursk and a day before Lieven would lay siege to Petrograd, the Battle of Moscow began. The initial artillery bombardment was short and ferocious. But the White commanders knew that they were outgunned; soon whistles blew, Shkuro's men left their trenches and stormed towards the Communist positions. Red artillery dealt horrific punishment to the mass of approaching White soldiers. Drozdovsky's former division suffered worse than any other and lost almost 50% of its men during this mad assault. Amongst the dead was its commanding officer, general Vitkovsky.
6 If the assault didn't fail completely, it was because tank units managed to breach the Red trenches in several places; under their cover White infantry established footholds in the Red defensive lines. Still at first the Red Army managed to hold on, it was only when Wrangel's and Ulagai's men attacked the city from the West and South that fortune changed. With Southern White troops attacking from three direction, the Red artillery lost its precision. White units closed in and dealt bloody revenge on the Red Army. Soon Communist forces were in full retreat. Several Red regiments were annihilated in this second phase of the battle.
7
The Red Army had fought heroically. Inspite of being outnumbered by 2,5 : 1, it had inflicted 21.400 casualties upon the White Army while "only" losing 16.500 men itself. But Stalin's greatest feat may have been that he managed to rally his fleeing soldiers and retreat in good order to Sergiev Posad, north of Moscow. Inside the city only a small garrison remained that was now almost certainly doomed.
8
In terms of casualties, the Battle of Moscow was to remain the bloodiest fight of the Civil War: 37.943 soldiers had died within a single day.
9 For the Southern White, it accounted for one third of their total casualties.
10 But all White leaders agreed that this sacrifice was worth the gain, or as Wrangel put it: "Il faut casser des oeufs pour faire une omelette." (You have to break some eggs, if you want to make an omelet).
Most importantly, the Volunteer Army had gained three important victories within ten days: Mai-Maievski had repulsed the 2nd Shock Army at Kursk and thus stopped the biggest Red counter-offensive of the war, Yudenich had reached Petrograd and Wrangel had won the Battle of Moscow. The Red Army would continue to fight but these ten days in the early summer of 1920 had sealed its defeat.
11
Next update: Red catastrophies - the end of the 2nd Shock Army and the fall of Moscow.
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1 Red position batteries are a pain in the butt. Assaulting cities defended by this heavy artillery inevitably results in high casualty rates regardless of how overwhemlingly the odds are stacked in your favour.
2 Highlandcharge made the mistake of recruiting new units in the countryside rather than under the protection of strong armies in his key cities. As a consequence, he lost a lot of units shortly before they were ready to enter combat. These were easy victories for the Southern White that gradually sapped Red NM.
3 Frankly, I wasted time here due to stupid mistakes. I had send Wrangel to assault Bogodorosk in the late April turn. Yet the assault was aborted because Shkuro in the neighbouring region was in defensive posture. Corps attack before army hqs, but I had forgotten to order Shkuro to attack. The next turn, I decided for some reason to besiege these cities rather than storm them.
4 Historically, a high number of leading Bolsheviks were Jews, Poles, Georgians, Latvians, ... White propaganda ineptly tried to capitalize on this. Especially anti-semitism came to play an increasing role within the White movement. The White advances in 1919 were thus accompanied by a series of pogroms.
5 Marching to the sound of guns. I didn't want my smallest corps in the thick of the battle. Ordering it to Podolsk rather than attack Moscow made sure it would serve as reserve rather than bear the brunt of the first fighting by accident (this happened to Budyenny during the Battle of Kurks, see
chapter 11).
6 That loss really hurt, I was already desperately short on Southern White division commanders. In Vitkovsky I lost one of my best one-star generals (4-3-4 stats don't grow on trees).
7 The battle was fought in two rounds: the first round was a White disaster (368 hits suffered and only 164 inflicted upon the Reds), the second round was sweet revenge (43 hits suffered but 151 inflicted upon the Reds; all 8 elements the Reds lost were destroyed during the second round).
8 In my humble opinion this was a waste. Highlandcharge could have put these men into Stalin's Army. Especially the fortress artillery would have made the Battle of Moscow even more costly for me. There is even a small chance that these units participating in the fight rather than sitting idly inside the city might have been enough to repulse the White attack. If Highlandcharge had additionally brought Samoylo's small corps from Vologda south to bolster Moscow's defense, I am pretty sure, Wrangel and Shkuro would have lost. That is part of the fun with PBEMs, victory or defeat often depend on a few small decisions.
9 Kursk was slightly less bloody with combined casualties of 30.619 men.
10 Up to this point, I had managed to keep Southern White casualties at 42.000 men (which is really nothing for a Short Campaign game) now they were up to 63.000. Note that the Greens have suffered considerably more than me: almost 90.000 men. That is largely Ashtray's doing. He triggered massive Green rebellions in large parts of his territory: between Omsk and Vladivostok 50% of the territory was under Green control. Kazakhstan had become a Green free state and Turkmenistan spotted several Green strongholds as well. But while he had an unfortunate talent for triggering unrest, he was truely masterful at squashing it; hence the crazy high Green casualties.
11 It had also sapped Red NM to a lowly 27 points. Shkuro's rampage did a lot more to reduce Red NM than the Battles of Moscow and Kursk, though. The small battles around Moscow gained me a total of 8 NM. Moreover it triggered the Reds to evacuate their government to Petrograd which cost them another 10 points of NM. In contrast, the Battle of Kursk was only worth +4 NM and at Moscow I was lucky to gain one point.