Ekaterinoslav March

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Ekaterinoslav March
Part of Ukrainian War of Independence and the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War
Date November 27, 1918 - January 2, 1919 Location Ekaterinoslav, Taurida Result The transfer of volunteers from Ekaterinoslav to Crimea
Belligerents
Volunteer Army (AFSR)	Ukrainian People's Army (UNA) Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (RIAU)
Commanders and leaders
Ignatius Mikhailovich Vasilchenko	Unknown
Strength
850 bayonets, 170 sabers, 4 armored cars	Unknown

The Ekaterinoslav March (November 27, 1918 - January 2, 1919) was a campaign to transfer the 8th Corps of the Ukrainian People's Army of the Ukrainian State from Ekaterinoslav (now Dnipro, also Katerynoslav) to Crimea, in order to join the Volunteer Army of Anton Denikin.

History[]

Beginnings[]

In the days of Pavlo Skoropadskyi's fall from power, the 8th Hetman Corps resolved to join the Volunteer Army. On November 23, 1918, armed clashes between the corps and Petliura's troops took place, as a result of which Ekaterinoslav remained in the hands of volunteers. However, the situation around the city continued to remain unsafe for the troops defending it. The corps leadership decided to flee south to the Crimea in order to join with the rest of Denikin's army. On the night of November 27–28, 1918, a detachment ventured south from Ekaterinoslav, led by General Hnat M. Vasylchenko, and his chief of staff, Colonel I.G. Konovalov. Petliura’s forces, in turn, occupied the city. On December 22, 1918, UNA troops dissolved the Ekaterinoslav Soviets, then on December 26 they disarmed the Bolshevik military revolutionary headquarters and attacked the local Bolshevik detachments.^[1]

The Ukrainian People's Republic subsequently proposed an alliance with the Makhnovists, which was rejected due to the "bourgeois nationalist" character of the Directorate.^[2]

The volunteer detachment, when leaving Ekaterinoslav, held over a thousand people in its ranks. It was based on the 43rd and 44th Infantry Regiments (300-400 people), the Ekaterinoslav volunteer squad (about 250 people), as well as the 7th Cavalry Novorossiysk Regiment (about 150-170 sabers). In addition, the detachment included an armored section of 4 vehicles, artillery, a radio station, an engineering platoon and an infirmary. Most of the participants in the campaign were officers.

The march[]

For 34 days, the detachment fought over about 500 kilometres. Due to the impossibility of moving through the impassable autumn mud, as well as due to the lack of fuel, part of the armored vehicles was blown up at the very beginning of the campaign. Due to the impossibility of moving directly to Rostov-on-Don to the locations of the main forces of the Volunteer Army, due to the deployment on the route of the Makhnovist and Petliura troops, the detachment decided to move along the right bank of the Dnieper in the direction of Perekop. Breaking through the encirclement, the detachment fought a battle with the Petliurists on November 29 near the German colony of Noienburg (Malyshivka), followed by bloody battles with the Makhnovists on December 10 in the Marinka and Novovorontsovka raions, and on December 11 near Dudchyne. On December 13, near Beryslav, a large battle took place with the formations of Nikifor Grigoriev over control of the Dnieper crossing. One of the leaders of the Ekaterinoslav campaign, General P. G. Kyslyi, was wounded in the battle.

On December 27, 1918, under the disguise of a commuter train,^[3] Makhno's Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine launched an attack on Ekaterinoslav, capturing it from the Petliurist forces, who retook the city only a few days later.^[4]

Results[]

In the last days of December 1918, the Ekaterinoslav detachment, led by General H. M. Vasylchenko, having lost some of its personnel during the fighting, arrived in Perekop. In early January 1919, the Ekaterinoslav volunteers were sent to Dzhankoi, and then on to Simferopol.

On the basis of the detachment from Ekaterinoslav, the command of the Volunteer Army formed the 4th Infantry Division of General Korvin-Krukovsky, the 34th Artillery Brigade and the Novorossiysk Cavalry Regiment. The headquarters of General Vasylchenko became part of the headquarters of the Crimean-Azov army of General Aleksandr. A. Borovsky. On June 6, 1920, a special insignia was established for the participants of the campaign. The Ekaterinoslav campaign by its nature has much in common with the Drozdov campaign in the spring of 1918 and the Starobilsk campaign of the same time.

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Omelyanovich-Pavlenko, M. (2007). Спогади командарма (1917-1920) (in Ukrainian). Kyiv: Tempora.
• Gureev, A. (1964). Екатеринославский поход (in Russian). Sentry.
• К 80-летию Екатеринославского похода (in Russian). 12. Dvoryanskiy Vestnik. 1998. p. 2.
• Volkov, Sergey Vladimirovich (2004). Энциклопедия Гражданской войны (in Russian). Moscow.