Don Army

The Don Army (Russian: Донская армия, Donskaya Armiya) was the military of the short lived Don Republic and a part of the White movement in the Russian Civil War. It operated from 1918 to 1920, in the Don region and centered in the town of Novocherkassk.

History

On 23 April, K. S. Poliakov's Zaplavskaia army merged with Field Ataman Popov's forces after their return from the Steppe March. Popov assumed command, with K. S. Poliakov as Chief-of-Staff, and organized the Southern, Northern and Trans-Don army groups under Denisov, I. A. Poliakov, and Semiletov respectively. On 6 May, the Southern army group was able to capture Novocherkassk, with the aid of Mikhail Drozdovsky's men. In April 1918, before the liberation of Novocherkassk from Don Soviet Republic control, a Don Provisional Government was formed under G. P. Ianov. On 11 May, the "krug for the Salvation of the Don" opened, which organized the anti-Bolshevik war. On 16 May, Pyotr Krasnov was elected Ataman. The Don Republic ordered the mobilization of Cossacks for six years. By June, with Denisov as his second in command, Krasnov has able to double the size of the Cossack army to 40,000. According to Peter Kenez, "The Germans supplied an enormous amount of war material during the summer of 1918. The Germans covered the voisko from the west and the Volunteer Army from the south, and so Krasnov was able to concentrate movements in eastern and northern directions. By the end of August, with the exception of five stanitsy, the entire voisko was liberated."¹

Much of the Upper Don region, in 1918, had defected to the Bolsheviks, but as a result of the Red Terror, in 1919, rose up in arms against them, in what was known as the The main leaders were Pavel Nazarovich Kudinov and Kharlampii Yermakov. They joined forces with the Don Army centered in , which was commanded by . These events form an important part of 's epic, . Indeed, for a long time, Kudinov and Yermakov, who appear in the novel, were considered as fictional by the general public.