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1st Cavalry Army

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1st Cavalry Army
Active19th November 1919-11th October 1923
CountryRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Russian SFSR (1919–1922)
Soviet Union Soviet Union (1922–1923)
TypeCavalry
PatronJoseph Stalin
Commanders
Notable
commanders		Semyon Budyonny

The 1st Cavalry Army (Russian: Первая конная армия, romanized: Pervaya konnaya armiya) was a prominent Red Army military formation. It was also known as "Budyonny's Cavalry Army" or simply as Konarmia (Кона́рмия, "Horsearmy").

History

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Formation

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On 19th November 1919, by the orders of People’s Commissar of Army and Navy Affairs Leon Trotsky, the 1st Cavalry Army was formed. The Army was created on the basis of Semyon Budyonny’s 1st Cavalry Corps with its three divisions (the 4th, 6th, and 11th) remaining under his command.[1] Essential to the ascent of Budyonny’s unit and command to that of an army was the patronship of Commissar of Nationalities Joseph Stalin. The two met during battles at Tsaritsyn in 1918 along with Commander Kliment Voroshilov, the three of them forming a long-lasting alliance and Stalin using his position as a member of the Red Army Southern Front to advance Budyonny’s career. In December, Stalin brought in Voroshilov and Shchadenko, another Tsaritsyn veteran, to chair the 1st Cavalry Army’s revolutionary military council along with Budyonny.[2]

Southern Front: the destruction of the AFSR (1919-1920)

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It was December 1919, and the 1st Cavalry Army was on the pursuit, chasing down an enemy now reduced to a fighting retreat all the way from Kastornoye south to the Azov Sea.[3] Earlier in 1919, the Armed Forces of South Russia had been making progress on their march north on Moscow however, by October this was no longer the case. The advance, over extended and slowed down by attacks on supply lines by Makhno's Red-aligned anarchist partisans, had stalled and now the Red Army was primed for a counter-offensive.[4] The Cavalry Army, still in its previous form as a cavalry corps, attacked along the eastern flank of the AFSR’s line with the support of the 8th Army in October on a trajectory for Voronezh, the railway junction at Kastornoye, and ultimately Kursk. Opposing them was the depleted 1st Corps made up of cavalry that stood between the 1st Cavalry Corps and the sweeping of the front east. For the first time in massed battle was White cavalry bested by their Red counterparts. The red cavalry took Voronezh on 24th and then, through a blizzard, took Kastornoye on 15th, catching the 1st Corps between the anvil of the infantry on its left and on its right the hammer of the Red cavalry. The AFSR’s 1st Corp had no choice but to retreat in fighting order to Kursk.[5][6]

After taking Kursk on 17th November, the now christened 1st Cavalry Army continued pushing south through Kharkov, taking Taganrog on 6th January and then Rostov two days later. The overwhelming advance into Novocherkassk would have continued if not for the thaw. The melting snow had made the Don marshlands impassable, where it would not freeze again until 15th. Having no bridging equipment, Budyonny’s men would take to burning down Rostov’s hospital in the meantime, presumably with wounded White officers inside.[7] On 17th January Budyonny was ordered by his superior, Caucasian Front Commander-in-chief Vasily Shorin, to lead his men in a head-on attack across the river against the Volunteer Corps in Bataysk. Budyonny had instead suggested taking his 9,000 sabres and 5,000 bayonets further east to cross, flanking and then striking the Volunteers from the rear but Shorin refused. The assault, even with the support of the 8th Army, failed as did the second attempt the next day. When ordered to do so a third time, Budyonny had lost his patience citing the local bogs as unacceptable for an army on horseback. Shorin responded by blaming Budyonny with the 8th Army siding with Shorin, accusing Budyonny’s men of ‘manifesting an extreme lack of combat resilience’. This gave the Whites the time they desperately needed to recuperate.[8] Shorin insisted on more direct attacks on 20th and 21st with the Red Army High Command (Stavka) insisting that this would be a ‘knowingly impossible offensive’ and so intervened on 24th. Budyonny now got his way, crossing further east and seeing success on 28th January where they put White Cavalry to flight and captured a dozen field guns and thirty machine guns. On the next day however Mamontov’s Don Cossacks struck back, besting the Cavalry Army’s 11th Division. This lead to a new series of spats amongst the Red commands with Budyonny blaming, his once superior now turned cavalry rival, Dumenko for charging ahead without the support of the Cavalry Army with the backing of his commissar, Voroshilov.[9]

Kliment Voroshilov, Semyon Budyonny, Mikhail Frunze and Nikolai Bukharin in Novomoskovsk with the 1st Cavalry Army (1921).

Budyonny more and more insisted that the Red cavalry should be amassed under his command, and with his souring relations with Shorin, Sergey Kamenev and the Stavka sided with him, bringing in Mikhail Tukachevsky as the new front commander. At this point operations ceased so that Tukachevsky could prepare for the Front’s next major attack: a strike force made up of the 9th, 10th, and 1st Cavalry Armies would deal a lethal blow to the AFSR at the point of least resistance, the point at which the White Volunteer Corps and Don Army met. They would attack from the River Maynch towards the key junction of Tikhoretskaya splitting and threatening the rear of each enemy army. Here the 1st Cavalry would be key, playing ‘the role of a surgical knife, which was to forever separate the Kuban and Don counterrevolutions from each other’. The IV Don Cavalry Corps, now the last line of defence against the severing of the AFSR, were to counter the Red’s now growing cavalry horde. On 17th February, they attacked ‘[breaking] up the cavalry charge of the Reds and [began] to chase them’ but reinforcing divisions didn’t make it to the battle in time or nether showed up at all and they had to fall back, allowing the 1st Cavalry to advance.[10] Now split from their Cossack allies in the east, the Volunteers had no choice but to retreat to Novorossisk where they would evacuate by boat to the Crimea on 26th March 1920; there the AFSR would be disbanded and its remnants formed into Wrangel’s Russian Army.[11][12]

South-Western Front: the war against Poland (1920)

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The Polish-Soviet War had started earlier in February 1919, at that point not being much more notable than gunfights between irregulars but by May 1920, the situation had changed severely.[13] A Polish offensive stretching eastwards had reached the banks of the Dnieper and taken Kyiv on 7th, sweeping aside Red troops with minimal losses. [14][15] Now with the southern counterrevolution licking its wounds, the west could be reinforced and so to the South-Western Front was sent the 1st Cavalry Army in April 1920. [14] Upon their reaching the south-west Budyonny and Voroshilov would find an old friend: Stalin had been made commissar for the front and so with their arrival the Tsaritsyn triumvirate was back together.[16]

On 27th May the Cavalry Army, now a force of 16,700 sabres with a great many tchankas, attacked the Polish Sixth Army’s 13th Division in the direction of Zhitomir, south-west of Kyiv, in an attempt to outflank the Kyiv line.[17][14][18] No progress was made however with its 4th Division facing defeat at the Battle of Volodarka (29th-31th May) which prompted the 3rd Don Cossack Cavalry Brigade to defect to the Poles; the 6th Division would also lose a battle, south of Volodarka, at Uman on 31st. After these failures however, Budyonny got his breakthrough. On 5th June, the Sixth was pushed aside at Samhorodok with the 1st Cavalry reaching Zhitomir two days later, although momentarily being pushed back to Kozystyn by the Polish Cavalry Division; blinded by the setting sun, the Division’s vastly inferior numbers were obscured to Budyonny’s men.[19][18] With their rear now under threat from the Red cavalry, the Third Army would leave Kiev for the north west on 10th June, heading for Korosten and the Red Army’s Golikov Group.[19] One Polish Officer, Mieczyslaw Lepecki, would describe the scene of their retreat:

‘The atmosphere was anything but cheerful. Armies usually withdraw along roads, but Budyonny moved in a wide line, across fields and pastures… In every village, we found unmistakable signs that his troops had recently stopped there. Smashed and burned fences, thatch torn off roofs for litter for his horses, looted food and fodder stores and the lament of girls – everything clearly testified to the passage of Budyonny’s “grand” cavalry.’[20]

As June battles raged on, Budyonny, encouraged by Stalin, ignored Red Army Commander-in-Chief Kamenev’s orders to destroy the Third Army on its retreat westward. The Cavalry Army instead retook Zhitomir and captured Berdichev, massacring the garrison of the former and burning down the hospital of the latter with both wounded and nurses still inside.[21] The Polish Army, having now reached the pre-Kyiv offensive line, stopped their retreat to face the enemy, but Budyonny would break through their lines again on 26th June, forcing a further retreat to the River Horyn in central Volhynia. The reinforced Second Army would attack the 1st Cavalry on 2nd July, but the outcome was Budyonny’s capture of Riwne from the 3rd Legion Division. The Reds would be pushed out of Riwne by the Second Army but simply retook it on 11th when the Second had abandoned it in order to regroup.[22]

The 1st Cavalry Army, now having entered Galicia, began to advance on Lviv with the 14th Army on 25th July. Once Budyonny had reached Dubno however, they met resistance from the Polish 18th Infantry Division which, along with the Second and Sixth Armies and the 1st Cavalry Division, forced the Cavalry Army back at Brody (29th July-2nd August).[22] In Budyonny’s failure to break the Polish front, the line now bent and folded around his flanks, threatening the Red cavalry with encirclement. On 3rd August, just as the trap was about to be sprung, the two cavalry divisions that were to cut off the Army were recalled to defend Warsaw against the Red advance, allowing Budyonny’s men to escape.[23] After a pause of action, the Cavalry Army would take Brody on 13th, continuing the thrust to Lviv.[22]

Kamenev, once again, ordered Budyonny to turn north to support Tukhachevsky in the march on Warsaw but, once again, Budyonny ignored him with the support of both Stalin and Yegorov, the front commander. Hopes were high and the idea of an advance through Lviv into Romania, Hungary, and even Italy was tantalising, as was the potential personal glory.[24] Now lacking the support of the defeated 12th Army, the 1st Cavalry Army reached the outskirts of Lviv on 16th August. The city was held by both regular and volunteer troops including the 54th, 238th, 239th, and 240th Volunteer Infantry Regiments as well as the 2nd Cavalry Division. In one battle north of the city on 17th, a volunteer youth battalion and the 1st Battalion of the 54th would fight to the man against the 6th Cavalry Division.[25] With little progress being made and Tukhachevsky’s Western Front now in full retreat, Budyonny gave the order to abandon the siege.[26]

On 25th August, the now worn 1st Cavalry Army went north in an advance towards Lublin.[27] With the Red Army now in flight on both fronts, there was little reason for this besides a petty attempt by Kamenev to make up for his previous lack of stern authority and the Tsaritsyn men now feeling a greater obligation to follow orders. With Polish supremacy in the north, parts of the Fifth Army were now free to join the Third Army in hunting the much maligned 1st Cavalry Army. The Third Army, by chance, trapped the Cavalry Army in front of the walls of Zamosc on its march to Lublin, forcing it into battle with its 2nd Legion and 10th Divisions and the Sixth Army’s 1st Cavalry and 13th Divisions from 29th-30th August.[26][27] Now fully realising its isolation and falling back east towards the Bug River, Budyonny’s men were once again engaged, now at Komarow, by the 10th, 13th, 1st Cavalry, and 2nd Cavalry Divisions. On 31st August, Komarow was the last great cavalry battle of human history ending in the defeat and retreat of the 1st Cavalry Army from Hill 255, aided by the cover of heavy rain.[28][27] With the last major battle fought by the Konarmia finished, battered and beaten, Budyonny’s Red cavalry retreated to the other side of the Bug on 2nd September, violently venting their frustrations on any Polish towns and Jewish shtetls in their path.[28][27]

Its last action in Poland, only by a detachment of the 1st Cavalry, was the partial destruction of the Polish 8th Division at Dytyatyn on 16th September on the South-Western Front before being destroyed itself at Ternopil.[27]

Southern Front: the destruction of Wrangel's Russian Army and beyond (1920-1923)

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1930 stamp commemorating the 1st Cavalry Army, with a map showing their campaigns in the Crimea and Central Asia.

The remains of the 1st Cavalry Army were sent south to fight Wrangel's White forces in Ukraine and the Crimea. In May 1921 the 1st Cavalry Army was moved to North Caucasus. This movement was the basis of myth about the invincible 1st Cavalry Army, which was cultivated by Soviet propaganda. On 4 May, its field headquarters was used to form the headquarters of the North Caucasus Military District (2nd formation). However, troops remained subordinated to the army staff until its dissolution on 11 October 1923.[29]

Legacy and in media

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The march of the 1st Cavalry Army became popular after the Russian Civil War and was celebrated in a song, We are the Red Cavalry (Russian: Мы красная кавалерия). Other titles of the song were "Мы красные кавалеристы" (We, Red cavalrymen) and "[Марш Буденного]" (Budenny march), and "Марш красных конников" (March of the Red horsemen).

In commemoration, a monument to the 1st Cavalry Army was built in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine.

Notable figures in the 1st Cavalry Army

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References

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Citations

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  1. ^ Smele 2015, p. 414
  2. ^ Brown 1995, pp. 91–92
  3. ^ Beevor 2022, pp. 384, 398
  4. ^ Bullock 2008, p. 75
  5. ^ Bullock 2008, p. 76
  6. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 391
  7. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 424
  8. ^ Bevvor 2022, p. 425
  9. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 426
  10. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 427-429
  11. ^ Bullock 2008, p. 114-116
  12. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 436-437
  13. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 446
  14. ^ a b c Thomas PhD 2014, p. 18
  15. ^ Beevor 2022, pp. 449–450
  16. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 454
  17. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 453
  18. ^ a b Beevor 2022, p. 455
  19. ^ a b Thomas PhD 2014, pp. 18–19
  20. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 456
  21. ^ Beevor 2022, pp. 457–458
  22. ^ a b c Thomas PhD 2014, p. 19
  23. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 469
  24. ^ Beevor 2022, p. 470
  25. ^ Thomas PhD 2014, pp. 20–21
  26. ^ a b Beevor 2022, p. 476
  27. ^ a b c d e Thomas PhD 2014, p. 21
  28. ^ a b Beevor 2022, p. 477
  29. ^ Dvoinykh, Kariaeva, Stegantsev, eds. 1991, p. 284.

Bibliography

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  • Dvoinykh, L.V.; Kariaeva, T.F.; Stegantsev, M.V., eds. (1991). Центральный государственный архив Советской армии [Central State Archive of the Soviet Army] (in Russian). Vol. 1. Minneapolis: Eastview Publications. ISBN 1-879944-02-2. Archived from the original on 2016-11-12. Retrieved 2017-12-28.
  • Smele, Jonathan D. (2015). Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926. United States: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-5281-3.
  • Brown, Stephen (1995). "Communists and the Red Cavalry: The Political Education of the Konarmiia in the Russian Civil War, 1918-20" (PDF). The Slavonic and East European Review. 73 (1) – via JSTOR.
  • Beevor, Antony (2022). Russia: Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921. Great Britain: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-1-4746-1016-2.
  • Bullock, David (2008). Essential Histories 69: The Russian Civil War 1918-22. Great Britain: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84603-271-4.
  • Thomas PhD, Nigel (2014). Men-at-Arms 497: Armies of the Russo-Polish War 1919-21. Great Britain: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-4728-0106-7.
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