Chapter 15 - A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die: Siberian front, July 1919
We would be deceiving both ourselves and the people
if we concealed from the masses the necessity of a desperate, bloody war of extermination,
as the immediate task of the coming revolutionary action.
-
Lenin
Grichin-Almazov's situation was becoming increasingly desperate. His supplies wouldn't last much longer and he was still trapped on the wrong side of the Volga. An escape towards the South had become almost impossible since his exhausted troops would starve long before reaching safety. This left him with two possible routes: He could try to slip through between Kazan and Simbirsk or he could attempt a crossing west of Kazan and then flank around the city in the North.
Trotzky expected Grichin-Almazov to take the longer route. Surely Grichin-Almazov wouldn't try again where he had just been beaten back. Thus Ghai-Khan, Kork and Schors were given orders to converge on Khanzhin's position. Hopefully Grichin-Almazov would walk into the trap. Should he however choose the shorter route, he was bound to stumble into Ghai-Khan's army which most likely would still be in the region upon the Siberians' arrival.
The offensive was opened by Trotzky who swiftly conquered the depot south of Grichin-Almazov's position. Now an escape south had become completely impossible.
1: Ghai-Khan, 628 pw
2: Kork, 202 pw
3: Battle of Sengiley, 1 July 1919
Kork and Schors dutifully converged on Khanzhin who was forced to retreat south - deeper into the pocket. Unfortunately, the Siberians managed to avoid combat.
But somebody was about to throw a wrench into Trotzky's neat little plan: Approximatley 40.000 Green rebels had risen between Samara and Simbirsk during the last days of June 1919. For a year the peasants in region had suffered a miserable life in front territory. Red and White alike had stolen their food, pressed their sons into service, trampled down their crops and occasionally showered their villages with shells. Now the powder keg had finally exploded in a wildfire of peasant rage.[1]
It was unfortunate for the peasant rebels that one of their main columns formed only miles away from Frunze's headquarters. Once his scouts had brought news of the Green gathering, the Red general turned his artillery around and ordered an intensive shelling of the entire area. Many of the naive peasants thought hell had opened and tried to escape; but as soon as the shells stopped to rain, Red infantry moved in to butcher the survivors.
Excerpt from Frunze's wartime diary:
The whole affair was the most one-sided battle of the civil war. In the bigger picture, the battle had an unfortunate side-effect, though: as soon as the gunfire started, Ghai-Khan had aborted his march north and turned south instead in order to assist Frunze's 1st Red Army.[2] His men arrived hardly in time to fire a few shots. However Ghai-Khan decided that they deserved some rest after this proud victory. A day of rest became two, then a week, then two ...[3]
This incomprehensible blunder on Ghai-Khan's part left a hole in the encirclement of the Siberians. And as luck would have it, Grichin-Almazov choose exactly that spot for his next escape attempt.[4] His men gained the Volga bank unopposed. Now they only had to cross it before the pursuing Communists could catch them.
While
Operation Cauldron had suffered this critical setback, Trotzky had already launched the next Soviet offensive:
Operation Red Flood. The objective was to circumvent the Siberian river blockade and reconquer vast stretches of territory before the enemy could recover from the blow Operation Cauldron had dealt.
Therefore two Red armies received orders to strike east. The whole operation hinged on Kolchak's river fleet not having enough gunboats to cover the entire course of the Volga. Zhloba chose a spot just south of Akutin's corps for his crossing. The area had neither roads nor railways and was thus a low priority for the White guboats.
After the Communists had slipped through successfully, they turned back north and administered a throrough beating to Akutin's badly outnumbered force. Almost 3.000 Siberians died on 9 July, while the Red Army lost less than 800 men. Three days later the Red flag was hoisted over Samara - the former capital of the ill-fated Komuch. It was the first major White city to fall into Red hands.
In the meantime, Parsky's small army - actually it contained only a single corps - made use of the Communist controlled railway line between Penza and Pokrovsk to cross the Volga before the Siberians got wind of its presence. On 13 July, the Reds conquered Uralsk that had already been besieged by a small unit of Communist partisans.
The Volga had become obsolete as a defensive position faster than anyone had expected ...
On 15 July 1919, Trotzky dispatched two additional armies to make sure that the Red flood wouldn't lose momentum. Ghai-Khan and Frunze would take the same routes as Zhloba and Parsky before them. In the meantime, Zhloba and Parsky were ordered to grab more land. Parsky leisurely marched his men north and occupied Buzuluk on 26 July without meeting any resistance.
Zhloba doubled back by railway to wipe out the survivors of Akutin's corps. He gained another nice little victory. The remaining 5 Siberian regiments were annihilated. Luckily the members of the numerous supply units could be convinced that it would be better for their health to pin a Red star on their hats. The 2nd Battle of Troitsk had barely lasted an hour, yet it was to be an expensive hour for Soviet Russia. Zhloba was hit by a stray bullet and succumbed to his wound two days later.[5]
Chapaev had the body of his dead superior unceremoniously ditched along the road and assumed command. He was more qualified anyhow.[6] Without pause, he rushed his men eastward and fell upon the garrison of Buguruslan like a hungry wolf. Two regiments of conscripts were destroyed but the Siberian artillery as well as an airfield managed to get away.
But it was to get even better. A day later, 2.300 Siberians disbarked from a train in the station of Buguruslan - unaware that the city had already fallen to the Reds. They realized their mistake when they were greeted by machinegun fire but by then it was already too late. They perished to the last man.[7]
In the meantime, Ghai-Khan had managed to cross the Volga in the same spot Zhloba had used before him. He then proceeded towards the site of his comrades death which he reached on 27 July. He was pleasantly surprised to find two White regiments there which he was happy to dispatch to the afterlife.[8] However, Frunze was less lucky. When he reached Saratov, he found the Volga blocked by Siberian gunboats. He had intended to reach Uralsk before the end of the month but now his men were stuck west of the Volga.[9]
Further north, a race had begun: Grichin-Almazov's exhausted men were desperately trying to cross the river while Kork rushed his men east to intercept his foe. The race was decided by a matter of hours. Just before the Siberians got across, the Communists struck.
1: Frunze, 727 pw
2: Timoshenko, 444 pw
3: Grittis, 274 pw
4: Battle of Sviask, 19 July 1919
Exhausted as they were after two months of battles and endless marches, Grichin-Almazov's men still struggled bravely. But in the end they had to flee the battlefield. Now they faced a cruel choice: jump into the water and try to swim across the Volga under Red fire or flee into the woods further west. Grichin-Almazov chose the sane option and led his men into the forrest - back into the Red trap ...[10]
The only good news for the Siberians was that Khanzhin had managed to get across the Volga behind Kork. Now his starving men "only" had to march around Kazan before they could join Janin's army.
Next update: A gruesome retreat and some Anarchist heroics.
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[1] This is a scripted event. The Greens are quite numerous but they lack leadership which greatly reduces their efficiency.
[2] Ghai-Khan marched to the sounds of guns. I should have disabled Frunze's corps command for this turn. My mistake.
[3] That was bad luck. The corps didn't resume its previous movement orders after that short excursion and stayed put. At least Frunze marched to Simbirsk as he was supposed to otherwise the hole in the pocket would have been even bigger.
[4] Or Durk's wit. He is way too familiar with my little tricks and knows that it's sometimes better to avoid the spot where I have conveniantly left an opening.
[5] And another one bites the dust. It wasn't exactly healthy to be a Communist two-star general in this game. Zhloba had even been half decent; he had started with 3-1-0 stats, but had gained some experience since.
[6] Unfortunately, Chapaev was only a one-star and thus incurred a heavy command penalty (35%) when he took charge of this rather big stack.
[7] Durk had made a mistake, apparently he figured that I would rest Zhloba's stack after its long march. He thus tried to establish a new defensive position. He may even have succeeded, had he send Tseretely's seizable stack to Buguruslan instead of occupying the Volga bank further north.
[8] I have no idea where they came from. But I didn't mind - easy targets are always welcome.
[9] Durk had closed one of the two gaps along the Volga. But at this point I had already 3 armies containing a total of 5 corps on the other side. From now on the Volga would be nothing but an annoyance. The blockade could slow my reinforcements down but it was too late to stop the flood.
[10] AGE games and their retreat mechanism. It takes military control and civilization level into account but disregards the relative position to major depots, objective cities and friendly armies. Thus instead of a retreat across the Volga to safety, Grichin-Almazov's stack went back into the pocket.