Chapter 39 Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen After Kaledin's suicide, the town of Novocherkassk passed power to General Nazarov, commander of the march of the Don Army.On January 29, the representatives of the Don Cossack Army Conference elected him as the commander of the Don Cossack Army.Only a very small number of delegates came to the meeting, and most of the delegates present were representatives of some market towns in the lower Don River in the southern districts.This meeting was called the "Little" Cossack Army Conference.After getting the support of the meeting, Nazarov announced the recruitment of Cossacks from the age of eighteen to fifty. Although he threatened to send armed troops to the market towns to forcibly recruit them, the Cossacks were still reluctant to take up guns.

On the day of the opening of the "Little" Don Cossack Army Conference, the 6th Don Cossack Regiment of General Krasnoshkov under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Tachin returned to Novocherkassk from the Romanian front in march .This regiment fought and walked from Yekaterinoslav, breaking through the heavy encirclement of the Red Guards.Despite heavy losses at Pyatkhatka, Mereva, Matveyev Kurgan, and many other places, the regiment returned to Novocherkassk almost intact with all its officers. A grand welcome was held for the regiment.After the prayer ceremony in the church square, Nazarov thanked the Cossacks for their strict discipline and neat military appearance with weapons for returning to defend the Don River.

Soon the regiment was transferred to the front line near the Surin station, but two days later, Novocherkassk received ominous news that the regiment, influenced by Bolshevik propaganda, voluntarily withdrew its position and refused to defend the military government. . The council of the "little" Cossacks sat listlessly.Everyone had a presentiment that the struggle against the Bolsheviks was doomed.During meetings, Nazarov—a tough, quick-tempered general—sat with his head in his hands, his palms on his forehead, as if he were agonizing over something. The last bit of hope also vanished.Cannons are already rumbling near the town of Tikhoretsk.Word came that the Red Army commander at Tsaritsyn, Ensign Avtonomov, was advancing on Rostov from there.

Lenin ordered the southern front to capture Rostov on February 23. On the morning of February 22, Captain Chernov's White Guard detachment entered Rostov. He was returning from the advance of Sievers and the Cossacks of Gnilovsk from behind him. .The encirclement of the Red Army only left a small gap. Kornilov felt that the situation in Rostov was not good, so he ordered to withdraw to the town of Oliginsk that day. Workers shot at the train station and officer patrols in Temelnik all day long.At dusk, a long and dense procession came out of Rostov, crossed the Don like a fat black snake, and crawled towards Aksay in a meandering way.Some small troops walked forward with difficulty on the soft and wet snow.Many of the ranks wore schoolboy coats with shiny buttons, some were schoolboys in grass-green coats, but the vast majority were officers in infantry officers' coats.The platoon leaders are all colonels and captains.There were cadets and officers in the ranks, ranging from warrant officer to colonel.Crowds of refugees—old, well-to-do people in new-style overcoats and overshoes—walked behind the countless carts of the convoy.The women moved slowly around the cart, wearing high heels, struggling in the knee-deep snow.

Captain Yevgeny Listnitsky was walking in a company of the Kornilov regiment.Walking beside him were Captain Starobelsky, an officer of the well-groomed combat unit, Lieutenant Bochagov and Lieutenant-Colonel Lovechov of the Suvorov-Fanagorsky Grenadier Regiment— — an old combat unit officer who has lost all his teeth, he looks like an old wild fox, with red hair all over his body. It was getting darker.The severe cold hit.A cold, salty, damp wind blows from the mouth of the Don.Listnitsky, habitually and not at all chaotic, stepped on the trampled snow, watching the faces of the men who were chasing him.Captain Nezhintsev, the head of the Kornilov regiment, and Colonel Kutepov, the former head of the Preobrazhensky regiment of the Janissaries, walked by the side of the road. Kutepov was wearing a military coat and a cap Wear it askew on the back of your flat head.

"Master Commander!" Lieutenant Colonel Lovechev skillfully switched his rifle with both hands, and called out to Nezhintsev. Kutepov lost his broad forehead, bulllike black eyes set wide apart, and his face with a scissor-cut beard; Nezhintsev glanced over his shoulder and called to him. people. "Please order the first company to move quickly! You know it's not surprising that if you walk this way, you will freeze to death. Our feet are soaked, and we are marching this way..." "That's unreasonable!" shouted Starobelsky, loud and quarreling. Nezhintsev did not answer, but walked over.He was arguing with Kutepov about something.After a while General Alexeyev's carriage drove up ahead of them.The coachman was driving two well-fed, gray horses with their tails tied up; the hoofs of the horses splashed clouds of snow in all directions.Alekseev had a white beard and two white eyebrows that turned up, his face was flushed by the wind, his cap was crooked to his ear, and he sat leaning on the back of the carriage. Standing, flinching, holding the collar with his left hand.

Small yellow puddles oozed out in some places on the road trampled by a large group of people.It was hard to walk—the feet were slipping, and the snow soaked the boots.Listnitsky walked, listening to the conversation ahead.An officer in a leather jacket and an ordinary Cossack leather hat said in a medium voice: "Did you see that, Lieutenant? Rotenko, chairman of the State Duma, old man, is walking too." "Russia is heading towards Er'e..." A man coughed and spit hoarsely, trying to ridicule him, and said: "Er'e...there is only one difference. There is a stone road-here is full of snow, and it is wet snow, plus the weather is freezing to death."

"Gentlemen, do you know where to camp?" "In Yekaterinodar." "We also had a march like this in Prussia..." "And what will the Cubans do to us? ... What? ... Of course, that's another story there." "Do you still have a cigarette?" Lieutenant Golovachev asked Listnitsky.He took off his coarse fingerless gloves, took a cigarette, thanked him, blew his nose like a soldier, and wiped his fingers on the skirt of his military coat. "Lieutenant, are you learning the civilian way of life?" Lieutenant Colonel Lovechov asked with a slight smile.

"It's got to be learned. Why... or else you'll have a dozen handkerchiefs, won't you?" Lovechov did not answer.His brown-red beard mixed with silver threads was hung with light green ice glaze.He sniffled his nose occasionally, and the cold wind blowing into his overcoat made him frown. "The best of Russia," thought Listnitsky, looking with agonized pity at the ranks and at the front of the column that was winding its way along the road.Several horsemen ran past, and among them Kornilov was riding a huge Don horse.His light green leather jacket and white leather hat with slanted pockets sewn on the sides dangled for a long time above the heads of the queue.All the officer brigades shouted "Ula" in dull voices and sent him away.

"It's all right, it's just the family..." Loveichov grunted like an old man, and gave Listnitsky a sideways look, as if seeking sympathy. "My family is still in Smolensk..." he went on. "Wife and a daughter, a grown girl already. She'll be seventeen by Christmas . . . Look, Captain, huh?" "yes……" "You have a family too? Are you from Novocherkassk?" "No, I'm from the Don. I have only one old father." "I don't know what to do with them...it must be difficult for them without me," Lovechov went on.

Starobelsky interrupted him angrily, saying: "Everyone has their families left behind, Lieutenant Colonel, I don't understand what you're moaning about? You're such inexplicable eccentrics! You haven't quite left Rostov yet..." "Starobelsky! Pyotr Petrovich! Did you fight at Taganrog?" someone shouted from behind, across the row. Starobelsky turned his angry face away and smiled darkly. "Ah... Vladimir Georgiyevich, why did you end up in our platoon? Transferred? Did you get into trouble with someone? Ahh... oh, that's understandable ... Did you ask about the Battle of Taganrog? Yes, he participated ... What's the matter? Quite right ... he died." Listnitsky listened absently to their conversation, recalling his father and Aksinya when he left Yagodnoe.Suddenly a heart-piercing melancholy surged into his heart, making him breathless.He walked listlessly, looking at the bayonet-loaded rifle dangling in front of him, and at his head in a leather cap, cap and long-eared hood, shaking in rhythm with his steps, he thought to himself: "At this moment, these five thousand exiles are all full of hatred and boundless anger like me. These bastards drove us out of Russia-and want to destroy us here. Let's go Look! . . . Kornilov will lead us to Moscow!" Then he recalled the pomp and circumstance of Kornilov's visit to Moscow, and turned with joy to the memory of that day. Not far behind, probably at the tail of the company, walked an artillery battery.The horses were snorting, the cannon carts were rumbling, and the smell of horse sweat could even be smelled from there.As soon as Lisztnitsky caught this familiar, tempting smell, he turned his head; the driver in front, a young warrant officer, glanced at him and smiled as if he knew someone he knew. By March 11, Kornilov's volunteers had all assembled in the Oliginsk town area.Kornilov did not launch an offensive for a long time. He was waiting for the arrival of General Popov, commander of the Don March. After he led his troops to withdraw from Novocherkassk, he moved to the steppe on the other side of the Don. There are about sixteen hundred guns, five cannons, and forty machine guns in one detachment. On the morning of the 13th, General Popov, accompanied by his chief of staff, Colonel Sidolin, and surrounded by several Cossack officers, came to the town of Oliginsk. He reined in the horse on the playground next to the house where Kornilov lived: he leaned on the pommel and with difficulty put one leg out of the saddle.The squire who came hastily—a young Cossack with black hair, a swarthy face, and sharp eyes like a lapwing—held him up.Popov threw him the reins and walked majestically up the steps.Sidolin and several officers also got off their horses and followed them.Several squires led the horses through the barn door into the yard.While an elderly, lame footman was still hanging the material bags for the horse, the footman with black forehead and eyes like lapwings had already struck up a conversation with the house owner's maid.He said something to her; and the maid—a rosy-cheeked girl with a frivolous kerchief and goloshes on her bare legs—slipped past him laughing. After that, he ran towards the shed by stepping on the puddles. The handsome, elderly Popov came into the house, handed his overcoat to the nimble squire in the antechamber, and blowing his nose noisily for a long while with his riding whip on the hanger.The squire led him into the hall with Sidolin, who was arranging his hair as he walked. The generals invited to the meeting have arrived.Kornilov sat at the table with his elbows propped on the open map; on his right sat the gray-haired, bony, straight-backed, freshly shaven Alexeyev .Denikin, with bright, piercing eyes, was talking to Romanovsky.Lukomsky, who looked a lot like Denikin from a distance, was stroking his beard and slowly pacing back and forth in the room.Markov stood in front of a window looking onto the courtyard, watching the Cossack squires tend to the horses and joke with the young maid. After greeting each other, the people attending the meeting sat down at the table.Alekseev asked a few nonsensical questions about the road and the retreat from Novocherkassk.Kutepov came in.With him came several other officers of the combat unit whom Kornilov had invited. Kornilov looked at Popov, who sat calmly and confidently at the table, and asked: "General, please tell me, the number of people in your department?" "More than 1,500 guns, an artillery company, and forty machine guns, all with machine gunners." "You already know about the forced retreat of the Volunteers from Rostov. We had a meeting yesterday. It was decided to advance to the Kuban with the goal of Ekaterinodar. Some Volunteer units are operating in the vicinity of this city. Our marching route is..." Kornilov pointed on the map with the unsharpened end of a pencil, and then hurriedly said, "We will absorb some Cossacks in the Kuban area on the way, and destroy those Trying to block our advance, the few, loose, and incapable Red Guards." He closed Popov's eyes and narrowed his eyes, and concluded: "We recommend that Your Excellency unite your troops with the Volunteer Army. , Coordinated march on Yekaterinodar. Dispersion of forces - not good for us." "I'm stuck!" Popov declared emphatically. Alexeyev leaned slightly towards him. "Excuse me, why is this?" "Because I can't leave the Don River area and go to some Kuban. We can rely on the danger of the Don River to the north, station troops in the winter area, and wait and see the development of the situation. Since the Don River is about to thaw, it is impossible for the enemy to carry out any active military operations. ,—not only can artillery not cross the Don River, even cavalry cannot cross the river. And in the wintering area, we not only have sufficient food and fodder, but also can launch guerrilla warfare in any direction at any time.” Popov confidently cited many reasons and rejected Kornilov's suggestion.He took a breath, and when Kornilov was about to interrupt, he shook his head stubbornly and said: "Please let me finish my sentence... Besides this, there is another particularly important factor that our command cannot but take into consideration: this is the mood of our Cossacks." He stretched out his fat white hand, the gold on the index finger The ring tightened into his flesh; looking around at those present, he continued in a slightly raised voice: "If we move to the Kuban, the army is in danger of disintegrating. The Cossacks may not want to go. Don't forget, I will The constant and strongest component is the Cossacks, and they are not very strong in spirit, as in ... Let's just say Your Excellency's subordinates. They won't go - there is no way. I can't risk losing the whole army ,” Popov said firmly, not allowing Kornilov to speak again. "Forgive me for stating our decision to your Excellency, and I venture to assure you that we cannot change it. Of course, it is not to our advantage to divide our forces, but judging the situation, this is the only way out. In summary , in my humble opinion, it would be better for the Volunteers not to go to the Kuban—the mood of the Kuban Cossacks worries me—but to cross the river with the Don Army and march into the steppes on the other side of the Don. There the Volunteers can rest and regroup, Before spring comes, use the volunteer army from Russia to supplement new forces..." "No!" Kornilov exclaimed. Yesterday he was leaning towards the idea of ​​driving to the steppes across the Don, and he stubbornly refuted Alekseev's objections. "It's pointless to go to the wintering regions. We have six thousand people..." "If it is a matter of provisions, I can assure you, my lord, that there is nothing better than going to the wintering country. At the same time, you can get some horses from the private stud farm there, so that the army can have a part of the cavalry. .You have new possibilities for success in future field campaigns. You need cavalry, and the Volunteer Army has very limited cavalry." Kornilov was particularly courteous to Alekseev that day, and glanced at him.Apparently Kornilov was hesitating in choosing the direction of his advance, hoping to gain the support of other authorities.Everyone listened carefully to Alekseev's opinion.The old general was used to explaining problems simply, thoroughly and clearly. He explained the advantages of marching to Yekaterinodar in a few concise words. "Our advance in this direction can easily break through the Bolshevik encirclement and join forces operating in the Yekaterinodar region," he concluded. "What if it doesn't work out, Mikhail Vasilyevich?" Rukomsky asked cautiously. Alexeyev smacked his lips and traced the map with his hand. "Even if we fail miserably, then we can still march into the Caucasus Mountains and tear down the army there." Romanowski supported his opinion.Markov said a few passionate words.Alekseev's weighty arguments seemed irrefutable, but Rukomsky stepped in and changed the tide of the debate. "I agree with General Popov's proposal," he declared, deliberately weighing his words. "The advance into the Kuban will be difficult; that's something we can't predict here. First we have to cross the railway line twice..." The eyes of all the people attending the meeting were focused on the direction his finger was pointing on the map.Rukomsky went on firmly: "The Bolsheviks will not stop us the way they should—they will send armored vehicles. We have such a large train and so many wounded; we cannot throw them away. All this will add a great deal to the army. Great difficulties hinder the rapid advance of the army. And I don’t understand, what is the basis for thinking that the Kuban Cossacks are friendly to us? Taking the Don Cossacks as an example, they also seem to be inclined to the Bolshevik regime. We should be very careful Treat rumors of this kind with a reasonable degree of skepticism. The Kubans are all suffering from the same Bolshevik trachoma, which the old Russian army infected them ... They may well be hostile to us. Finally I must say it again, I stand for - to go east, into the steppes, to recharge your batteries there, to threaten the Bolsheviks." Kornilov, with the support of most of his generals, decided to march westward, marching west of Velikoknyazhesk, replenishing the non-combatants with horses on the way, and turning from there into the Kuban region .After announcing the adjournment, he spoke to Popov a few words, said good-bye coldly, and went back to his room.Alexeyev followed suit. Colonel Sidolin, Chief of Staff of the Don Army, clanging his horse's needle, came up to the steps, and shouted joyfully to his entourage in a sonorous voice: "Prepare the horse!" A young Cossack lieutenant with a light beard, holding a saber in his hand, stepped through the puddles and walked to the steps.He stopped at the bottom of the steps and asked in a low voice: "Well, sir Colonel?" "Very well!" replied Sidolin in an excited whisper. "We refuse to march on the Kuban. We will return to the station soon. Are you all ready, Izvalin?" "Well, the horses are being brought." Several squires mounted the horses and led the horses.The Cossack with the black forehead and the eyes of a lapwing glanced at his companion from time to time. "Well, is she pretty?" He asked with a chuckle.The older Cossack smiled reservedly. "Like a horse's itch." "What if she wants to call you?" "Forget it, fool! You know it's the day of Lent." Grigory Melekhov's former colleague Izvalin jumped on his own horse with a white forehead , with white nostrils, commanded the attendants: "You go to the street first." Popov and Sidolin said good-bye to some general and went down the steps.A squire pulled the horse and helped the general put one foot in the stirrup.Popov shook his humble Cossack-style whip and urged the horse to a trot. Several Cossack squires, Sidolin and several officers stood on the stirrups, leaned forward slightly, and galloped behind him. After two days of marching, the volunteers came to the town of Mechetinsk, and Kornilov received some supplementary reports about the situation in the wintering area, and these reports were the opposite of what Popov boasted, which was disappointing.Kornilov called together the commanders of the combat units and announced the decision to march on the Kuban.He also sent envoys to Popov to reiterate the joint proposal.The envoy officers overtook the detachment near Staro Ivanovsk.In the reply letter brought back by the special envoy, Popov was still polite, but coldly rejected the joint proposal. The letter stated that his decision cannot be changed, and he will remain in the Sarsk region for the time being.