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The 11th Army was a field army of the
Red Army during the
Russian Civil War, which fought on the Caspian-Caucasian Front. It took a prominent part in the sovietization of the three republics of the southern Caucasus in 1920–21, when
Azerbaijan,
Armenia, and
Georgia were brought within the orbit of Soviet Russia.
Russian Civil War
Since the Russian Republic's
Caucasus Front (April 1917 - March 1918) dissolved, it did not have a true successor organization.
The Army of the North Caucasus, which was renamed 11th Army on October 3, 1918,
constituted the main army of the
Russian Republic in the area during the
Russian Civil War. During the
Russian Civil War the 11th Army fought against the
White troops of General
Anton Denikin's
Volunteer Army in the western part of the
North Caucasus. It was the main strength of the
Caspian-Caucasian Army Group. In January 1919, the front of 200 miles held by the Red troops along the Caucasus foothills and South Russian steppes was cut into two by the White forces in the
Northern Caucasus Operation (1918–1919)
The Northern Caucasus Operation was fought between the White and Red Armies during the Russian Civil War between December 1918 and March 1919. The White Army captured the entire Northern Caucasus. The Red Army withdrew to Astrahan and the Volga ...
, which resulted in the panic flight of the 11th Red Army.
According to
Peter Kenez
Peter Kenez (born as Péter Kenéz in 1937) is a historian specializing in Russian and Eastern European history and politics.
Life
Peter Kenez was born and grew up in Pesterzsébet, Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary . His father was arrested in March ...
, "The raging
typhus epidemics greatly contributed to the misery of the soldiers; during the winter of 1918-1919 fifty thousand men became ill. The sick, the hungry, and the demoralized gave themselves up by the tens of thousands. The Whites captured large stores of weapons and the Eleventh army ceased to exist."
On 27 April 1920 the 11th Army took
Baku
Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...
and
Azerbaijan Democratic Republic collapsed. The Bolsheviks then
established the
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
Azerbaijan ( az, Азәрбајҹан, Azərbaycan, italics=no), officially the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR; az, Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы, Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist R ...
, as a Soviet republic in May 1920. This was the first country in the
South Caucasus that the Bolsheviks seized control of. Taking advantage of its quarrels with neighboring Armenia, the 11th Army had little difficulty in initially sovietizing Azerbaijan. Although it soon was embroiled in a fierce anti-Soviet insurgency, the army remained poised to advance into the two remaining republics, Armenian and Georgia.
For the time being, however, the authorities in Moscow ordered the army to stand down while negotiations between Russia and Armenia were being carried out. In that brief span the Red Army did aid Armenian communists fighting against the Armenian government in the
Ijevan region of Armenia.
In September-November 1920
Armenia and in February-March 1921,
Georgia were invaded and brought under Bolshevik control.
Having conquered the whole of Transcaucasia, the 11th Army was dissolved on May 29, 1921 and replaced by the
Independent Caucasus Army.
Commanders
The commanders of the Army of the North Caucasus were :
*
Alexei Ivanovich Avtonomov (25 January - 28 May 1918)
* Karl Kalnin (28 May - 2 August 1918),
*
Ivan Sorokin (3 August - 3 October 1918)
The head of the 11th Army's Revolutionary Military Council was
Sergo Ordzhonikidze
Sergo Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze,, ; russian: Серго Константинович Орджоникидзе, Sergo Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze) born Grigol Konstantines dze Orjonikidze, russian: Григорий Константино ...
.
The military leaders of the 11th Army were
*
Ivan Sorokin (3 - 27 October 1918)
*
Ivan Fedko (17 - 30 November 1918)
* Vladimir Kruse (30 November 1918 - 3 January 1919)
*
Mikhail Levandovsky (3 January - 13 February 1919)
* N.A. Żdanow (20 March - 3 June 1919)
* A. Smirnow (3 - 10 June 1919)
* V.P. Raspopov (14 August — 26 September 1919),
* J.P. Butyagin (26 September — 19 December 1919),
*
Matvei Vasilenko
Matvei Ivanovich Vasilenko (russian: Матвей Иванович Василенко; – 1 July 1937) was a Soviet Union, Soviet komkor (corps commander).
He fought in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I before going over to the Bolshe ...
(19 December 1919 — 29 March 1920),
*
Mikhail Levandovsky (29 March — 12 July 1920),
*
Matvei Vasilenko
Matvei Ivanovich Vasilenko (russian: Матвей Иванович Василенко; – 1 July 1937) was a Soviet Union, Soviet komkor (corps commander).
He fought in the Imperial Russian Army during World War I before going over to the Bolshe ...
(26 July — 12 September 1920),
*
Anatoly Gekker
Anatoly Ilyich Gekker (russian: Анатолий Ильич Геккер; – 1 July 1937) was a Soviet military commander (Komkor) involved in the Russian Civil War.
Gekker was born into a family of a military doctor in Tiflis (Tbilisi), Georgia ...
(19 September 1920 — 29 May 1921).
Military decisions were supervised by the Army's ''Council of War''. Its members were in 1921:
Sergey Kirov,
Valerian Kuybyshev, J.P. Butyagin,
K.A. Mekhonoshin, Sokolov, J.I. Vesnik, Lukin, B.D. Mikhailov, Kvirkeliya, S.S. Eliava and P.I. Kushner.
By 1921, the 11th Red Army is characterized by the modern French historian
Marie Broxup
Marie Bennigsen-Broxup (1944 – 7 December 2012) was an expert on the Caucasus and Central Asia, with particular emphasis on Muslim communities within these regions. She pioneered an area studies focus on the former Soviet south, founding new res ...
as "a purely Russian army led by Russian commanders and Russian political cadres."
[Broxup, Marie. "The Last Ghazawat: The 1920-1921 Uprising," cited in John B. Dunlop (1998), ''Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 40, .] In May 1921 the army lost its name and was integrated into the
Caucasian Front, later part of the
North Caucasus Military District.
References
{{Soviet Armies of the Russian Civil War
Soviet field armies in the Russian Civil War
Military units and formations established in 1918
Military units and formations disestablished in 1921