Combat operations of the 11th Army of the Red Army on the right bank of the Volga river (Chernoyarsk direction) in September – October 1919

10.54398/1818510Х_2023_3_62

Annotation

The relevance of the article lies in the fact that it explores one of the little-studied episodes of the Civil War in the Lower Volga region. The purpose of the study was, within the framework of the battle of the red and white troops for Tsaritsyn in the autumn of 1919, to consider the hostilities of the 11th Army of the Turkestan Front (from 14.10.1919 South-Eastern Front) Red Army south of Tsaritsyn in the Chernoyarsk direction from September to the end of October 1919.In particular, the author focuses on the offensive of the Red Army Tsaritsyn group, the battles at the Black Yar, and the hostilities near Tsaritsyn in October 1919. The main sources to trace the specific actions of the 11th Army of the Red Army are the documents of the State Archive of the Saratov Region Modern History (GANISO) discovered by the author and not previously introduced into scientific circulation, as well as a number of published documents that gave a general idea of the situation developed at the front near Tsaritsyn in the autumn of 1919. Principles and methods of scientific knowledge, both general scientific and special historical were used as the methodological basis of the study. As a result of the research, the reasons that made the command of the 11th army issue an order of August 24 on the early offensive of the Tsaritsyn group were defined.The problems that caused the inconsistency of actions of the command of the 11th Army and the Tsaritsyn groupcommand were revealed. It has been established that the main reasons for the unsuccessful offensive of the11th Army Tsaritsyno strike group were the delay in reaching the battlefield of the group’s units from the left bank of the Volga River and the haste of the front command, which accelerated the offensive without sufficient grounds.The further forced transition to defense was a natural consequence of the unsuccessful offensive undertaken in early September. Only at the end of October 1919, the 11th Army, already as part of the South-Eastern Front, launched an offensive in the Chernoyarsk directionagain.

Keywords

• Turkestan Front
• Southeastern Front
• Tsaritsynsk Strike Group
• 11th Army of the Red Army
• Chernyy Yar
• N. G. Babiev
• Yu. P. Butyagin
• P. N. Vrangely
• F. F. Novitskiy
• V. P. Raspopov
• V. Z. Savelyev
• A. S. Smirnov
• M. V. Frunze
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