Transcaucasian Front or Transcaucasus Front (russian: Закавказский Фронт) was a front of the Soviet Red Army—a military formation comparable to an

army group An army group is a military organization consisting of several field armies, which is self-sufficient for indefinite periods. It is usually responsible for a particular geographic area. An army group is the largest field organization handled ...

, not a geographic military front—during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The Transcaucasus Front describes two distinct organizations during the war.

First creation

The first version was created on 23 August 1941 from the Transcaucasus Military District, which was originally formed in 1922. The boundary of the Front extended along the Soviet border with Turkey and along the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

coast from

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), second largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's ...

Tuapse Tuapse (russian: Туапсе́; ady, Тӏуапсэ ) is a town in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, situated on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, south of Gelendzhik and north of Sochi. Population: Tuapse is a sea port and the northern center of ...

.
It was commanded by Lieutenant-General Dmitry Kozlov from August 1941 to December 1941. On 22 June 1941, when the German invasion started, the Transcaucasus Military District included the

3rd Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * H ...

, 24th, and 40th Rifle Corps, the 28th Mechanised Corps, two cavalry divisions (the 17th Mountain and the 24th) and three separate rifle divisions (the 63rd, 76th, and 77th). Also part of the District were three fortified regions and District troops, which included artillery and NKVD frontier units. The initial Front organization incorporated the four Soviet armies stationed in the district in June 1941: * the 45th and 46th on the border with

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

and * the 44th and 47th on the border with

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. On 25 August 1941 troops from the Front entered Iran according to the Soviet-Iran Treaty of Friendship of 21 February 1921, which eliminated the direct threat to the

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 an ...

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presen ...

Order of Battle, Invasion of Iran, 1941

Soviet OOB for 25 August 1941: 44th Army (Major General

Alexander Khadeyev Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

) *20th Mountain Rifle Division * 77th Mountain Rifle Division *17th Cavalry Division *24th Tank Regiment

47th Army The 47th Army (russian: 47-я армия) of the Soviet Union's Red Army was an army-level command active from 1941 to 1946. History The 47th Army was formed in late July 1941 in the Transcaucasian Military District as part of the Soviet Union's ...

(Major General Vasily Novikov) * 63rd Mountain Rifle Division * 76th Mountain Rifle Division * 236th Rifle Division * 6th Tank Division *54th Tank Division *13th Motorcycle Regiment 53rd Army (Major General Sergei Trofimenko) (invaded Iran from Turkmenistan, Central Asian Military District, on 27 August) *58th Rifle Corps *

83rd Mountain Rifle Division 83rd may refer to: *83rd Academy Awards, a ceremony that honored the best films of 2010 in the United States and took place on February 27, 2011 *83rd Grey Cup, the 1995 Canadian Football League championship game *83rd meridian east, a line of lon ...

* 4th Cavalry Corps As part of the Central Asian Military District (not the TCF), 53rd Army was described by the

Combat composition of the Soviet Army ''Boevoi sostav Sovetskoi armii'' ("Combat composition of the Soviet army") is an official Second World War Soviet Army order of battle published in five parts from 1963 through 1990 by the Voroshilov Academy of the General Staff and Voenizdat. E ...

as including 58th Rifle Corps (68th and

s, 389th Rifle Division), 4th Cavalry Corps (

18th 18 (eighteen) is the natural number following 17 and preceding 19. In mathematics * Eighteen is a composite number, its divisors being 1, 2, 3, 6 and 9. Three of these divisors (3, 6 and 9) add up to 18, hence 18 is a semiperfect numb ...

, 20th, 39th Cavalry Divisions), 44th Cavalry Division, and 72nd Independent Mountain Rifle Regiment (огсп) on 1 October 1941. On 1 November 1941 the front was listed in the

as including the 44th (five divisions), 45th (four divisions and 55th Fortified Region), 46th Army (9, 20th Mountain Rifle Division; 224, 388, 390th Rifle Divisions, 51st Fortified Region), and 47th Armies (five divisions), and forces of frontal subordination including the 61, 151, 223, 396th Rifle Divisions, and forces in Iran consisting of the 402nd Rifle Division, the 1st Mountain Cavalry Division, and the 23rd Cavalry Division. In November 1941, the 51st Army joined the front after being evacuated from the Crimea. The Transcaucasus Front was renamed the Caucasian Front on 30 December 1941.

Second creation

The second version of this front was again created from the Transcaucasus Military District on 15 May 1942, and continued in existence until its reorganization as the Tbilisi Military District on 25 August 1945 after the end of the war. It was commanded by General Ivan V. Tyulenev (May 1942 - August 1945), and included the 4th and 58th Armies at various periods.

References

{{Fronts of the Red Army in World War II Soviet fronts History of the Caucasus under the Soviet Union