The 12th Army was a

field army A field army (or numbered army or simply army) is a military formation in many armed forces, composed of two or more corps and may be subordinate to an army group. Likewise, air armies are equivalent formation within some air forces, and with ...

of the Red Army formed multiple times during the Russian Civil War and World War II.

Civil War & Polish-Soviet War

The 12th Army ( Russian Civil War 1st Formation) of the Soviet Red Army was first formed from Soviet forces in the north-eastern Caucasus in 1918. The 12th Army ( Russian Civil War 2nd Formation) was formed from the 1st and 3rd Ukrainian Red Armies in central Ukraine in the summer of 1919. In July 1920

Simon Aralov Semyon Ivanovich Aralov (russian: Семён Иванович Аралов; 18 December 1880 – 22 May 1969) was a Russian revolutionary, military commander and Soviet statesman who served as the first head of the Soviet Red Army Intelligence Dir ...

was chief of intelligence with this unit. it was disbanded in 1920.

Second World War

The 12th Army (1st Formation) (RKKA) of the Soviet Red Army was formed from the Southern (Cavalry-Mechanised) Army Group of the Kiev Special Military District during 1939-40.http://victory.mil.ru/rkka/units/03/26.html 12th Army (Russian) It was then involved in the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. It entered the Second World War as part of the Soviet Southwestern Front, comprising the *

13th Rifle Corps The 13th Rifle Corps () was a rifle corps of the Red Army, first formed in 1922. On October 12, 1922, the Corps began forming in the Turkestan Front. Alexander Todorsky became the corps commander. The corps participated in the suppression of the B ...

(including the 44th, 58th, and

192nd Rifle Division Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music ...

s) *

17th Rifle Corps The 17th Rifle Corps was a corps of the Red Army and later the Soviet Army, formed three times. It was first formed in 1922 in the Soviet Far East before relocating to Ukraine two years later. It fought in the Soviet invasion of Poland and was des ...

( 60th Mountain, 69th Mountain, and

164th Rifle Division The 164th Battalion (Halton and Dufferin), CEF, was a unit in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. Based in Orangeville, Ontario, the unit began recruiting in late 1915 in Halton and Dufferin Counties. Prior to saili ...

s), *

16th Mechanised Corps 16 (sixteen) is the natural number following 15 and preceding 17. 16 is a composite number, and a square number, being 42 = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being , , and . In English speech, ...

(

15th 15 (fifteen) is the natural number following 14 (number), 14 and preceding 16 (number), 16. Mathematics 15 is: * A composite number, and the sixth semiprime; its proper divisors being , and . * A deficient number, a smooth number, a lucky ...

, 39th Tank Divisions,

240th Mechanised Division 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

) * 10th, 11th and 12th Fortified Regions, and artillery, engineering and other units. It participated in the frontier battle to the west of

Stanislau Ivano-Frankivsk ( uk, Іва́но-Франкі́вськ, translit=Iváno-Frankívśk ), formerly Stanyslaviv ( pl, Stanisławów ; german: Stanislau), is a city located in Western Ukraine. It is the administrative centre of Ivano-Frankivsk Obl ...

. In the second half of July as part of the Soviet Southern Front it conducted defensive fights in the direction of Uman. During the Battle of Uman, the Twelfth Army was caught in a huge encirclement south of

Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

along with the 6th Army. Thus the army's headquarters was disbanded on 10 August 1941, after the battle. The 12th Army was reformed in August 1941 as part of the Soviet Southern Front on the basis of 17th Rifle Corps. On 1 September 1941 its structure included 270th and

274th Rifle Division The 274th Rifle Division () was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II, formed twice. The division was first formed in the summer of 1941 and was destroyed in Ukraine during the fall of that year, Reformed in the ...

s, the

11th Tank Division The 11th Tank Division was a Soviet tank division initially formed in 1940 at Tiraspol and destroyed in 1941; it was then formed as a tank corps in May 1942. This unit was subsequently reorganized as the second formation of the 11th Tank Division ...

, 268th and 374th Corps Artillery Regiments, 64th and 181st Fighter Aviation Regiments, and a number of separate formations. The Army defended the left bank of the Dnepr around Zaporozhye, from the end of September to the beginning of December, 1941. It participated in the Donbass defensive, Rostov defensive and offensive, in January, 1942 in the Barvenkovo–Lozovaya Offensive operations, in the subsequent conducted defensive fights in Donbass and on Northern Caucasus (part of the Battle of the Caucasus). In the middle of April 1942 the 261st Rifle Division under Colonel A.M. Ilyin, the 4th Rifle Division (Colonel I.P. Rosly), the 74th Rifle Division under General F.E.Sheverdin, the 176th Rifle Division (General Vladimir Martsinkevich) and 54th Tank Brigade under Colonel K.S. Minarov were assigned to the Army. It was later in 1942 reorganised as a defensive zone HQ, but then reformed again by conversion of the previous

5th Tank Army 5th Tank Army is the name of several Soviet units during World War II (not to be confused with the 5th Guards Tank Army). Its first formation occurred on 5 June, 1942, commanded by Major-General Alexander Lizyukov, serving under the Bryansk Front ...

in mid April 1943.Glantz, 2005, p.231, Poirier and Conner, p.38 It joined the Southwestern Front. Its structure included the 172nd, 203rd, 244th, 333rd and 350th Rifle Divisions and other formations. In April - July the Army was in Front reserve, and then participated in the Donbass and Zaporozhye offensive operations. In November the army HQ was disbanded, with its forces transferred to other armies.

Commanders

First formation

*Komandarm Ivan Tyulenev (September 1939) *Komkor

Filipp Parusinov Fillip Alekseevich Parusinov (November 27, 1893 – October 25, 1973) was a Soviet army group commander. He fought in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I before going over to the Bolsheviks in the subsequent civil war. He was promoted to P ...

(October 1939 – 10 March 1941) *Major General Pavel Ponedelin (11 March – 10 August 1941) POW

Second formation

*Major General Ivan Galanin (25 August 1941 – 16 October 1941) *Major General

Konstantin Koroteyev Konstantin Apollonovich Koroteyev (russian: Константи́н Аполло́нович Короте́ев; –4 January 1953) was a Soviet Army colonel general and a Hero of the Soviet Union. He became colonel-general in 1944 and was award ...

(17 October 1941 – 5 April 1942) *Major General Andrei Grechko (5 April – 3 September 1942) *Colonel Aleksandr Sokolski (4–13 September 1942) *Lieutenant General Nikolai Kirichenko (13–20 September 1942)

Third formation

*Lieutenant-General Ivan Shlemin (20 April - 19 May 1943) *Major-General

Alexei Danilov Alexey, Alexei, Alexie, Aleksei, or Aleksey (russian: Алексе́й ; bg, Алексей ) is a Russian and Bulgarian male first name deriving from the Greek ''Aléxios'' (), meaning "Defender", and thus of the same origin as the Latin Ale ...

(20 May - 30 October 1943).

References

*Grechko A., " fight for Caucasus ", 2nd edition, Moscow, 1973 *Grechko A., " years of war ", Moscow, 1976 *Arshanyan, " Operations of 12th army in an initial stage of war ", Military-Historical Journal, 1973, No. 6 *http://samsv.narod.ru/Arm/a12/arm.html {{Armies of the Soviet Army 012 Military units and formations established in 1919 Military units and formations disestablished in 1943 1939 establishments in the Soviet Union