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Anton Ivanovich Denikin is a famous Russian general who served during both the Weltkrieg and the Russian Civil War and is considered one of the most influential figures of the Russian White movement. Denikin, who participated as a member of Lavr Kornilov's Volunteer Army in the famous Kuban Ice March of mid-1918, is responsible for driving the Bolsheviks out of the Northern Caucasus and establishing firm White Russian control over Southern Russia, which would be crucial for the White victory in the civil war a few years later.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Anton Ivanovich Denikin was born on 4 December 1872 in a suburb of Wloclawek, Warsaw Governorate, Russian Empire. His father, a former serf, had served in the army for over 35 years, fighting during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Crimean War and the various Polish uprisings. His mother, of Polish origins, descended from a family of impoverished local landowners. Ironically, Denikin's humble origins made him more proletarian than most of the Bolshevik leaders he would fight over 40 years later during the Russian Civil War.
The Denikins lived very close to poverty, with the retired major's small pension as their only source of income, and their finances worsened after Ivan's death in 1885. Anton Denikin at this time began tutoring younger schoolmates to financially support the family; He was fluent in both Russian and Polish and showed great interest in mathematics. His father's Russian patriotism and devotion to the Russian Orthodox religion eventually led Anton Denikin to the Russian army.
Early Military Career[]
In 1890 he enrolled at the Kiev Junker School, a military college from which he graduated in 1892. The twenty-year-old Denikin joined an artillery brigade in Congress Poland, in which he served for three years. In the summer of 1895, after several years of preparation, he went to St. Petersburg, where he passed the competitive examination to the Nikolayev Academy of the General Staff and soon after began his studies there.He would graduate in 1899.
However, to Denikin's misfortune, the Academy decided to introduce a new system of calculating grades and as a result he was not offered a staff appointment after the final exams. He protested the decision to the highest court, which however tried to hush up the case, and Denikin was asked to withdraw the complaint and instead write a petition for mercy - which he declined. Therefore, in the end, the complaint was rejected, and Denikin was not assigned to the General Staff "for his character".
In 1900, Denikin returned to rural Poland, serving in his old artillery brigade. In 1902 however, another letter from the General Staff Academy reached him, finally giving him the permission to enlist as an officer at the General Staff headquarters. Denikin returned to St. Petersburg in summer and was appointed as a military officer at 2nd Infantry Division in Brest-Litovsk. Occasionally, he was assigned to guard the "Tenth Pavilion" of the Warsaw fortress, where particularly dangerous "political criminals", including future Polish national hero Józef Piłsudski were held.
Denikin first saw active service during the 1904/05 Russo-Japanese War. In the same year, he won promotion to the rank of colonel. Denikin was stationed in Harbin, Manchuria, where he was responsibe for rooting out Chinese outlaw bands and organizing plans of battle against Japanese forces. He received his first combat experience during the Battle of Qinghechen in late 1904. One of the hills of the battle area went down in military history as "Denikinskaya", for the Japanese attack he repulsed with bayonets at that location. In mid-1905, Denikin was highly praised by the high command "for distinguished service in actions against the Japanese. He was promoted to colonel and awarded the Orders of Saint Stanislaus. With the end of the war in late 1905, Denikin returned to St. Petersburg.
After the war, he traveled around Europe to visit various countries, among them the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland and the French Republic. He would serve in Kazan for some time and assumed the post of chief of staff of the 57th Infantry Reserve Brigade in Saratov in 1907. In 1910 he became commander of the 17th infantry regiment. A few weeks before the outbreak of the First World War, Denikin reached the rank of major-general. During this period, he wrote a lot for the army magazine "Razvedchik", including denouncing the commander of his brigade and criticizing the management methods of the chief of the Kazan Military District; He deeply opposed bureaucracy, suppression of initiative, rudeness and arbitrariness towards soldiers.
Weltkrieg[]
When the Weltkrieg began in mid-1914, Denikin was stationed in Kiev; On the eve of the outbreak of the war, he had been promoted to the rank of Major General and was confirmed as quartermaster general of the 8th Army, which was under the command of General Aleksei Brusilov. Denikin actively fought on the Russian Western Front against the Austro-Hungarians and was present when Brusilov's forces captured Lemberg in September 1914. He was appointed as the commander of the 4th Rifle Brigade shortly after, leading his men successfully into the Battle of Grodek in late 1914, for which he was awarded the highest Russian military decoration, the Order of St. George.
After heavy combat in the Carpathian Mountains, for which Denikin got awarded the Order of St. George multiple times once again, the Russians had to retreat, however, as the Germans now went into the offensive and supported the Austrians in Poland and Galicia. In September 1915, when the army was still in retreat, Denikin unexpectedly ordered his division to go on the offensive in a sudden move. As a result of the offensive, the division took the city of Lutsk, and 158 officers and 9,773 soldiers were captured. Following that, Denikin was promoted to Lieutenant General. Nonetheless, by 1916, most of the Russian army had rereated back to the pre-war positions.
During the Brusilov Offensive, Denikin managed to capture Lutsk for a second time, for which he was granted yet another Order of St. George, with the inscription: "For the double liberation of Lutsk". After the end of the offensive, which only proved to be of limited success, Denikin was sent to the Southeastern Front, where he supported Romanian troops against the advancing Central Powers. The badly equipped Romanians however would soon suffer defeat, however, and Denikin complained about the low experience of the troops he had to command.
February Revolution and Kornilov Coup[]
When the February Revolution plunged Russia into chaos, Denikin was still stationed at the Romanian front in Moldova. He met the abdication of the Romanov's with great enthusiasm. Denikin's personal political views were very close to those of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets), who would later wield huge influence in his army command during the Russian Civil War.
In March 1917 he was summoned to Petrograd by Alexander Guchkov, the Minister of War of the new Provisional Government, from whom he received an offer to become Chief of Staff under the newly appointed Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, General Mikhail Alekseyev. Denikin accepted the offer. Alekseyev however would be replaced by General Brusilov and Denikin resigned from his post. He would then once again serve as a commander on the Austrain Front. At a meeting of the Stavka in July 1917, he critizised Alexander Kerensky's demobilization efforts and advocated for the abolition of committees and the withdrawal of politics from the army. In mid-1917, he would be an important commander during the disastrous Kerensky Offensive.
In late summer, Denikin met General Lavr Kornilov in Mogilev while travelling down to the front. The two discussed Russian politics and when Kornilov mentioned his intention to potentially depose the weak Kerensky government, Denikin expressed his support for Kornilov's plans. This would later backfire. A coup attempt was planned by Kornilov in early September, however, the plot failed when he attempted to launch it too early - what followed was the infamous Kornilov affair. Denikin, known as an outspoken supporter of Kornilov due to a compromising telegram, was arrested by the government and interned at Berdychiv Prison - together with Kornilov himself and many other supporters of the coup. They would later be transferred to Bykhov Prison.
October Revolution and Establishment of the Volunteer Army[]
During the chaos of the October Revolution, Denikin and Kornilov were freed from prison, when the guards learned that Bolshevik trains from Petrograd were approaching Bykhov from the north. After the liberation, in order to be unrecognized, they shaved off their beards and traveled to Novercherkassk in the Northern Caucasus under false names. There, they would form the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army with other Tsarist officers: On 27 December 1917, the creation of the Volunteer Army was officially announced, with General Alekseyev becoming its overall leader, Kornilov as its Commander-in-chief, General Alexander Lukomsky as its Chief of Staff, General Anton Denikin commander of the 1st Division, and General Sergey Markov as commander of 1st Officers regiment. They also created a so-called "Special Council", which included prominent civilian politicians, among them for example Boris Savinkov.
Recruiting a proper fighting force was quite a hard task for the so-called "Volunteer Army", which was not even a true "Army" at its formation, as it consisted mainly of military officers, but lacked common soldiers. Denikin managed to recruit a few thousand fighters, most of whom were pretty young and referred to the 46-year-old Denikin as "Grandpa Anton." Weapons and proper material, the funds for which were chronically lacking, were often traded from Cossacks in exchange for alcohol or stolen from decaying warehouses.
In January 1918, the volunteer units entered the first battles on the Novocherkassk front with detachments under the command of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, sent by the Sovnarkom to drive the anti-Bolshevik forces out of Southern Russia. Denikin's men suffered heavy losses, but achieved tactical success and held off the Soviet offensive. Later that month, the Volunteer Army's headquarters were relocated to the recently freed Rostov-on-Don. However, shortly after, better-organised and stronger Communist forces began an advance from the north, capturing Taganrog on the Sea of Azov in February. Kornilov, now in command of some 4,000 men at Rostov, judged it pointless to attempt a defense of the city in the face of superior forces. Instead, the Volunteers made ready to re-locate to the south, deep into the Kuban, in the hope of attracting more support, though the whole area was in deep winter - Thus, the famous Kuban Ice March began.
Kuban Ice March[]
Denikin would be appointed Deputy Commander of the Volunteer Army at the start of the Ice March, only second to Kornilov himself. On 23 February, as the Red Army entered Rostov, Kornilov began the march south across the frozen steppelands. The soldiers, carrying one rifle each, and hauling some field artillery, were accompanied by long trail of civilians, the middle-classes of Rostov, fearful of Bolshevik reprisals. The march continued day and night, sometimes in a long single-file through the deep snow, avoiding the railways and hostile population centres. Those who could not endure the ordeal, the sick and the wounded, were simply left behind, many shooting themselves rather than risk falling captive to the enemy.
After several weeks of wandering, and several skirmishes with pursuing enemy forces, Kornilov decided to mount an attack on Ekaterinodar, the capital of the recently established North Caucasian Soviet Republic. The attack, which began on 10 April, was met with heavy resistance from forces more than twice the size of the Volunteers. A nighttime raid by General Boris Kazanovich however unexpectedly advanced to the centre of the city, with troops under Colonel Nezhentsev of the Kornilov regiment following soon. As Yekaterinodar was captured, most Bolsheviks would retreat to Novorossiysk and Rostov; Denikin would be appointed General-Governor of Yekaterinodar.
WORK IN PROGRESS. THE REST OF DENIKIN'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE CIVIL WAR IS TBA ONCE THE RUSSIA REWORK IS REVEALED