Alexander Kolchak is a Russian military and political leader, oceanographer, polar explorer, naval commander, who went down in history as the leader of the White movement during the Civil War in Russia. The Supreme Ruler of Russia and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army.
The life of Admiral Kolchak full of glorious and dramatic moments, however, like Russia itself at the beginning of the 20th century. We will consider all this in this article.
Biography of Kolchak
Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak was born on November 4, 1874 in the village of Aleksandrovskoye (). He grew up in a noble family. Many of Kolchak's ancestors carried out serviceable service and achieved success in the military field.
He began to hatch ideas on how to contribute to the revival of the Russian fleet.
In 1906, Alexander Kolchak headed a commission that investigated the causes of the defeat at Tsushima. In parallel with this, he repeatedly spoke in the State Duma with reports on this topic, and also asked officials to allocate funds from the treasury for the creation of the Russian fleet.
During the biography of 1906-1908. the admiral led the construction of 4 battleships and 2 icebreakers.
At the same time, he continues to engage in scientific activities. In 1909, his scientific work was published, dedicated to the ice cover of the Siberian and Kara seas.
When Russian oceanographers studied his work, they appreciated it very highly. Thanks to the research carried out by Kolchak, scientists managed to reach a new level of studying the ice cover.
World War I
Heinrich of Prussia, who was in charge of the German fleet, developed an operation according to which St. Petersburg was to be defeated within a few days.
He planned to destroy strategically important objects and land soldiers in the occupied territories. Then, according to his calculations, the German infantrymen were to capture.
In his thoughts, he was like the one who in his career was able to carry out many lightning-fast and successful attacks. However, these plans were not destined to come true.
Admiral Kolchak was well aware that the Russian fleet was inferior in strength and power to the German ships. In this regard, he developed the tactics of mine warfare.
He managed to place about 6,000 mines in the water area of the Gulf of Finland, which became a reliable defense for St. Petersburg.
Henry of Prussia did not expect such a development of events. Instead of easily entering the territory of the Russian Empire, he began to lose his ships every day.
For the skillful conduct of the war in 1915, Alexander Kolchak was appointed commander of the Mine Division.
Kolchak on the Chinese-Eastern Railway in the form of the CER, 1917 At the end of the same year, Kolchak decided to transfer Russian troops to the coast of the Gulf of Riga to help the army of the Northern Front. He managed incredibly quickly and accurately to plan the operation, which confused all the cards for the German leadership.
Less than a year later, Kolchak was promoted to vice admiral and appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet.
Admiral Kolchak
During the February Revolution of 1917, Kolchak remained loyal to the emperor, refusing to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks.
There is a known case when, having heard an offer from revolutionary sailors to give up his golden saber, the admiral threw it overboard. To the mutinous sailors, he said his famous phrase: "I did not receive it from you, and I will not give it to you".
Admiral Kolchak Arriving in St. Petersburg, Kolchak accused the Provisional Government of the collapse of the army and navy. As a result, he was sent into political exile in America.
By that time, the famous October Revolution had taken place, after which power was in the hands of the Bolsheviks headed by.
In December 1917, Admiral Kolchak wrote a letter to the British government with a request to accept him into service. As a result, she willingly agreed to accept his offer, since Kolchak's name was known throughout Europe.
Despite the fact that by this time the Russian Empire was led by the Bolsheviks, many volunteer armies remained on its territory, refusing to betray the emperor.
Having united in September 1918, they formed the Directory, claiming the role of the "Provisional All-Russian Government". Kolchak was offered to lead it, to which he agreed.
Admiral Kolchak, his officers and representatives of the allies, 1919 However, he warned that if the working conditions contradicted his views, he would step down. As a result, Admiral Kolchak became the Supreme Ruler.
Kolchak government
First of all, Alexander Kolchak banned all extremist parties. After that, an economic reform was developed, according to which industrial plants were to be created in Siberia.
In 1919, Kolchak's army occupied the entire territory of the Urals, but soon began to yield to the onslaught of the Reds. Military failures were preceded by many different miscalculations:
- Incompetence of Admiral Kolchak in relation to public administration;
- Negligence in the settlement of the agrarian question;
- Partisan and Socialist-Revolutionary resistances;
- Political differences with allies.
A few months later, Alexander Kolchak was forced to leave and transfer his powers to Anton Denikin. He was soon betrayed by the allied Czech Corps and handed over to the Bolsheviks.
Personal life
The wife of Admiral Kolchak was Sofya Omirova. When they began an affair, he had to go on another expedition.
The girl faithfully waited for her fiancé for several years, after which they got married in March 1904.
In this marriage, they had two girls and one boy. Both daughters died at an early age, and son Rostislav lived until 1965. During the Second World War (1939-1945) he fought against the Germans on the side of the French.
In 1919, Sophia, with the support of the British allies, emigrated to, where she lived until the end of her life. She died in 1956 and was buried in the cemetery of Russian Parisians.
In the last years of his life, Admiral Kolchak lived with Anna Timireva, who turned out to be his last love. He met her in 1915 in Helsingfors, where she arrived with her husband.
After divorcing her husband after 3 years, the girl followed Kolchak. As a result, she was arrested and spent the next thirty years in exile and prisons. She was later rehabilitated.
Sofia Omirova (Kolchak's wife) and Anna Timireva Anna Timireva passed away in 1975 in Moscow. Five years before her death, in 1970, she writes lines dedicated to the main love of her life - Alexander Kolchak:
Half a century I can not accept -
Nothing can be helped:
And all you go again
That fateful night.And I am condemned to go
Until the term has passed
And the paths are confused
Well-trodden roads ...But if I'm still alive
Contrary to fate
It's just like your love
And the memory of you.
The death of Admiral Kolchak
After his arrest, Kolchak was subjected to constant interrogation. For this, a special commission of inquiry was created. Some biographers believe that Lenin sought to get rid of the famous admiral as quickly as possible, because he feared that large forces of the white movement might be thrown to his aid.
As a result, 45-year-old Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was sentenced to death, which was carried out on February 7, 1920 c.
The last photograph of Kolchak (taken after January 20, 1920) Naturally, in the Soviet period of Russian history, Kolchak's personality was exposed in a negative light, since he fought on the side of the whites.
However, after the assessment and significance of the personality of Alexander Kolchak were revised. They began to erect monuments and memorial plaques in his honor, as well as shoot biographical films in which he is presented as a real hero and patriot of Russia.
If you liked the biography of Alexander Kolchak, share it on social networks. If you like biographies of great people in general, subscribe to the site. It's always interesting with us!
Did you like the post? Press any button.
Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak. Born on November 4 (November 16), 1874 in St. Petersburg - shot on February 7, 1920 in Irkutsk. Russian military and political leader, oceanographer, polar explorer, naval commander. Admiral (1918). Supreme Ruler of Russia and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army (November 1918 - January 1920).
Father - Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak (1837, Odessa - April 4, 1913, St. Petersburg), a Russian general, a participant in the Crimean War, a major specialist in the field of artillery.
Mother - Olga Ilyinichna Kolchak (nee Posokhova; 1855-1894), from an Odessa merchant family, her father Ilya Mikhailovich was a hereditary honorary citizen and a long-term vowel of the Odessa City Duma.
Admiral Kolchak was baptized on December 15, 1874 at the Trinity Church with. Alexandrovsky St. Petersburg district. The receivers were naval staff captain Alexander Ivanovich Kolchak (his uncle, his father's younger brother) and the widow of the collegiate secretary Daria Filippovna Ivanova.
His family belonged to the serving nobility of the Russian Empire and was quite extensive; in different generations, Kolchaks were often associated with military affairs. According to one of the versions, Kolchak's ancestor was a Turkish military leader, the Bosnian Serb Ilias Kolchak Pasha, who converted to Islam, the commandant of the Khotin fortress on the Dniester, captured by Field Marshal H.A. Minich in 1739.
Before entering school, he received family education under the guidance of his father and mother. Alexander received his religious education from his mother, who took the children to church near the Obukhov plant.
In 1885-1888, Alexander studied at the 6th St. Petersburg classical gymnasium, where he finished three out of eight classes. Representatives of all major classes and estates studied in the same class with Alexander. Alexander studied poorly and when he was transferred to the 3rd grade, having received a two in Russian, a three with a minus in Latin, a three in mathematics, a three with a minus in German and a two in French, he was almost left "for the second year." On repeated oral exams in Russian and French, he corrected his marks to three with a minus and was transferred to the 3rd grade.
In 1888 Alexander entered the Naval School "of his own free will and at the request of his father". There he studied diligently. In 1890 Kolchak went to sea for the first time. On May 12, upon arrival in Kronstadt, Alexander, along with other junior cadets, was assigned to the armored frigate "Prince Pozharsky". This ship also raised the flag of the commander of the training squadron, Rear Admiral F.A.Gerken. The squadron under his command, during a training voyage, entered Bierko, Helsingfors, Revel and returned to Kronstadt on August 6. During the voyage, Kolchak, along with other younger students, was engaged in boats. By the end of the exercise, general rowing and sailing races took place, and then the landing exercise took place.
The English inventor and cannon king W.J. Armstrong suggested that Alexander go to England, study the business at his factories and become an engineer. However, the desire to "swim and serve in the sea" in the desires and dreams of the young Kolchak prevailed.
In 1892 Alexander was promoted to junior non-commissioned officer. With the transfer to the midshipman class, he was promoted to sergeant major as the best in science and behavior, among the few on the course, and was appointed a mentor to the junior company.
In 1894, at the end of the final academic year, the midshipmen went through a difficult month-long voyage on the Skobelev corvette and began passing their final exams. At the exam in maritime affairs, Kolchak was the only one in the class who answered all fifteen questions. As for the rest of the exams, Kolchak also passed all of them with excellent marks, except for the mine case. By order of September 15, 1894, Kolchak, among all the released midshipmen, was promoted to midshipmen.
Leaving the Marine Corps in the 7th naval crew, in March 1895 Kolchak was assigned to navigate the Kronstadt Naval Observatory, and soon he was assigned as a watch officer on the new 1st rank armored cruiser "Rurik", sent from Kronstadt to East. Even then, he became interested in oceanography and hydrology of the Pacific Ocean, he was especially interested in its northern part - the Bering and Okhotsk seas. In the future, he hoped to explore the southern polar seas, thought about a dash to the South Pole and the continuation of Russian research work in those latitudes, suspended after the expedition of F.F. Bellingshausen and M.P. Lazarev.
Independent scientific work and research of sea currents, which the young officer began to do, did not correspond, however, to the situation of the flagship warship, on which the squadron commander, Admiral E.I.
In 1897, Kolchak filed a report with a request to transfer him to the gunboat "Koreets", which was heading at that time to the Commander Islands, where the young officer planned to do research work, but instead was sent as a watch teacher to the sail-screw clipper "Cruiser ", Which was used to train boatswains and non-commissioned officers. The Korean port of Gensan was chosen as the anchorage for the Cruiser, where Kolchak continued his hydrological studies. The ship spent the winter of 1897/98 in Nagasaki.
December 5, 1898 "Cruiser" left Port Arthur at the disposal of the Baltic Fleet, December 6 Kolchak was promoted to lieutenant.
While sailing in the Pacific Ocean, Kolchak learned that the vessel "Bakan" was preparing for the march to Spitsbergen as part of the Russian-Swedish expedition, and the newest powerful icebreaker "Ermak" was preparing to set off on a journey into the depths of the Arctic under the leadership of Vice-Admiral S.O. Makarov ... The young officer was familiar with Makarov's famous lecture "To the North Pole Throughout", delivered by the admiral in 1897 at the Russian Geographical Society. Kolchak strove to get into one of these expeditions. But the icebreaker's team was already completed, and without the approval of the ministry, it was impossible to move from one vessel to another.
In 1899, Kolchak brought together and processed the results of his own observations of the currents of the Japanese and Yellow Seas and published in the Notes on Hydrography, published by the Main Hydrographic Department, his first scientific article - "Observations of surface temperatures and specific gravity of sea water, made on cruisers" Rurik "and" Cruiser "from May 1897 to March 1899".
Kolchak knew that a project of the Russian Polar Expedition was being prepared at the Academy of Sciences with the task of navigating the Northern Sea Route from Kronstadt to Vladivostok, exploring the Arctic Ocean region north of the Novosibirsk Islands and trying to find the legendary Sannikov Land. The famous polar explorer E.V. Toll was appointed to lead the expedition, with whom Kolchak met in September 1899. Toll did not give a definite answer, and Kolchak, meanwhile, was assigned to the battleship "Petropavlovsk" and went on it to the Far East.
The service on the newest battleship captivated the young officer, but he soon saw that here, too, "there is service, but no practice, there is no way to swim and live." Kolchak decided to take part in the Anglo-Boer War that began in the fall of 1899. To this he was pushed not only by a romantic desire to help the Boers, but also by the desire to gain experience in modern warfare, to improve in his profession. But soon, when the ship was in the Greek port of Piraeus, Kolchak was delivered a telegram from the Academy of Sciences from E. V. Toll with an offer to take part in the expedition on the schooner Zarya, the very one he had been so eager to get to while still in St. Petersburg. Toll was interested in the scientific work of the young lieutenant in the magazine "Marine collection". Kolchak announced his consent and was temporarily transferred from military service at the disposal of the Imperial Academy of Sciences.
Alexander Kolchak and the Russian Polar Expedition (1900-1902)
In early January 1900, Kolchak arrived in St. Petersburg. The head of the expedition invited him to lead the hydrological work, as well as to act as an assistant to the magnetologist. On June 8, 1900, the travelers set out. Having passed the Baltic Sea, rounded the Scandinavian Peninsula and loaded with coal in the Catherine harbor (Kola Bay), on August 5, the sailors were already heading towards the Taimyr Peninsula.
On September 22, 1900, the expedition stopped for the winter on the western coast of Taimyr, in the area of Colin Archer Bay.
Lieutenant Kolchak was fully in charge of hydrological research, and was also engaged in hydrochemical research and observations on terrestrial magnetism, topographic work, carried out route surveys and barometric leveling, and during nights with clear skies determined the latitudes and longitudes of various geographical objects. Throughout the expedition, Kolchak compiled a detailed description of the shores and islands of the Arctic Ocean, studied the state and development of sea ice.
Kolchak accompanied Toll on two sled trips to the little-explored eastern part of the Taimyr Peninsula, to the Chelyuskin Peninsula (October 15-19, 1900 and April 6 - May 18, 1901). During the first trip, which took place in 30-degree frosts, Kolchak, who made astronomical refinements of a number of points along the way, managed to make significant adjustments and corrections to the old map made as a result of Nansen's expedition of 1893-1896.
In the spring, in 41 days, Toll and Kolchak covered 500 miles of track, doing route surveys and geological surveys. Due to the shortage of dogs, it was often necessary to harness the dog sleds ourselves.
Kolchak's role in the expedition is best evidenced by the certification that Baron Toll himself gave him in a report to the President of the Academy of Sciences, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. The leader of the expedition noted his energy and dedication to the cause of science and called the young lieutenant "the best officer" of the expedition.
In 1901, Toll immortalized the name of A.V. Kolchak, calling after him one of the islands discovered by the expedition in the Taimyr Bay and a cape in the same area. At the same time, Kolchak himself, during his polar campaigns, named another island and a cape after his bride - Sophia Fedorovna Omirova - who was waiting for him in the capital. Cape Sophia retained its name to our time.
Navigation in 1901 lasted exactly 25 days, during which the yacht covered 1,350 miles. On August 19, Zarya crossed the longitude of Cape Chelyuskin, becoming the 4th vessel after Vega Nordenskjold with her auxiliary ships Lena and Fram Nansen, circling the northern point of Eurasia.
On September 10, 1901, the second wintering of the expedition began off the western coast of Kotelny Island (Novosibirsk Islands). Kolchak, as during the first wintering on Taimyr, tried not to waste time and at any opportunity with his comrades or independently went to explore Kotelny Island, and in the spring - also Belkovsky.
Desperate to find Sannikov Land, Toll decided to at least conduct a study of the unexplored Bennett Island. On May 23, 1902, he set off with three companions from the wintering site towards the island. After the end of the work, the polar explorers (Toll's group and Byalynitsky-Biruli's group, which left on April 29 for the island of New Siberia) had to pick up the Zarya. On August 8, the remaining members of the expedition, freed from ice captivity, were able to go on the Zarya towards the Bennett Islands and New Siberia, but in two weeks they could not break through the ice and were forced to turn south, to the mainland, because otherwise there was already would not be enough.
On August 25, the Zarya, crippled by ice, barely crawled to the mouth of the Lena and approached the shore in the Tiksi bay - to an eternal stop. All the most valuable collections and equipment were loaded aboard the arriving steamer "Lena", on which the travelers reached Yakutsk. Leaving, Lieutenant Mathisen, to whom Toll handed over the leadership of the expedition during his absence, ordered to prepare reindeer for Toll's group, and if he did not appear before February 1, to go to the island of New Siberia and wait for him there.
In early December 1902, Kolchak and other members of the expedition reached the capital.
For the Russian polar expedition Lieutenant Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree. On February 1, 1906, following the results of the expedition, he was also elected a full member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. Based on the materials of the expedition, Kolchak carried out fundamental research on the ice of the Kara and East Siberian Seas, which represented a new step in the development of polar oceanography. In his monograph "Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas", which occupies more than 170 pages with 11 tables and 24 photographs of different forms of ice, the author, among other things, not only formulated the main directions of the ice movement occurring under the influence of winds and currents in the area of the New Siberian Islands, but also proposed a scheme for the movement of the Arctic pack for the entire polar basin.
Alexander Kolchak and the 1903 Rescue Expedition
Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, F.A.Matisen and A.V. Kolchak, having reported to the Academy of Sciences on the work done, reported on the hiking trip undertaken by E.V. Toll to Bennett Island. Given the absence of any news about the fate of the two groups of researchers who could not be picked up at the end of the expedition (the second was the Byalynitsky-Biruli group), their fate was extremely worried about the Academy of Sciences, the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and the returned expedition members themselves.
A sense of responsibility and comradely duty pushed A.V. Kolchak to swift and decisive action. Ready to take on the personal leadership of the rescue expedition, he laid down his plan on paper and submitted the paper to the chairman of the Russian Polar Expedition Equipment Commission, Academician FB Schmidt.
On December 9, 1902, the Commission adopted the plan of a sledge and boat trip to Bennett proposed by Kolchak.
In the meantime, news arrived about the safe return of Biruli's party to the mainland from New Siberia, but he could not tell anything about Toll's fate either.
On February 9, 1903, Kolchak went to Irkutsk, and by March 8, all the participants in Kolchak's enterprise gathered in Yakutsk. Passing along the Aldan River and its tributary Nere, the travelers reached Verkhoyansk, crossing the Verkhoyansk ridge and passing along the mouth of the Sartanga River. Further, the members of the expedition crossed the Kular ridge and on April 10 were already in the village of Kazachy on Yana. Simultaneously with the advancement of the rescue party to the Novosibirsk Islands, one of the Zarya whaleboats was sent along with equipment and food for the rescuers.
On May 5, 1903, Kolchak set out from the mainland in the direction of the New Siberian Islands, with Bennett Island as his ultimate goal. The total number of the expedition was 17 people, including seven people of the so-called whaleboat team (the head of the expedition, two sailors and four Mezen Pomors). The expedition was accompanied by 10 sledges with food, clothing, ammunition, each of which was dragged by 13 dogs. The whaleboat itself was loaded onto 2 sledges, which were dragged by 30 dogs. The snow and ice became loose, the dogs pulled with difficulty, although the whole expedition walked in straps and harnessed along with the dogs. They walked only at night, when it was freezing, but all the same, the dogs refused to pull for more than six hours, and they could only walk a few miles a day. On May 23, the travelers reached Kotelny Island.
On July 18, when the wind drove the ice away from the coast, seven people continued their journey on a whaleboat across the sea towards Faddeevsky Island. In this passage, the travelers were accompanied by constant solid snow, which turned into streams of water and soaked people more than rain. At Cape Vysoky on the island of New Siberia, according to the agreement, the head of the auxiliary group, Brusnev, was waiting for them. Back in March, he was able to find here the first note by Toll (dated July 11, 1902), where the baron announced that he was sent to Bennett's Island. After resting at Brusnev's for a day, the whaleboat team continued on their way to Bennett's Island.
On the open sea they went either with oars or under sails. The snow fell without ceasing, covering the whaleboat with a moist soft cover, which, melting, soaked people worse than rain and made them freeze more than on a frosty winter day. On August 4, they landed on Bennett's Island and began searching for traces of Toll's group. On the cape of Emma Kolchak found a bottle with a note and a plan of the island, which Toll left here, as agreed before parting for the winter.
The passage through the glacier almost ended tragically for Kolchak: not calculating the jump through the crack, he fell into the icy water and lost consciousness from the temperature shock. This bathing in ice water affected Kolchak's health all his subsequent life.
On the east coast of the island, in Toll's cookery, Toll's last note was found, addressed to the president of the Academy of Sciences and containing a brief account of the work done on the island. The note ended with the words: “We leave for the south today. We have provisions for 14-20 days. Everyone is healthy. October 26, 1902 ".
Kolchak spent three days on the island, having visited all three of its ends. Kolchak called the northeastern end of the island the Cape of Emmeline Toll, the southeastern end of the Chernyshev Peninsula, and Kolchak named the cape on this peninsula in honor of his bride Sofia Fedorovna. The highest mountain was named De Long, the other became known as Toll Mountain. Two glaciers on the tops of these mountains were named after Seeberg.
Having found out about the fate of Toll everything that only seemed possible to find out, on August 7, Kolchak and his people set off on their way back. They took with them documents and a small part of the geological collections abandoned by Baron Toll when he left the island. In early January 1904, Kolchak and his companions reached Verkhoyansk. On January 26, arriving in Yakutsk, Kolchak sent a telegram to the President of the Academy of Sciences, in which he said that Toll's party had left Bennett's Island in the fall of 1902 and disappeared without a trace. This telegram from Kolchak was published by many newspapers.
Kolchak's expedition reached its goal and returned without losses in its composition, which its chief could be proud of. In addition to the search for Toll's group, Kolchak's expedition also solved important research problems. Kolchak discovered and described previously unknown geographic objects, clarified the outlines of the coastline, and made refinements to the characteristics of ice formation.
The famous traveler P.P.Semenov-Tyan-Shansky assessed Kolchak's expedition as "an important geographical feat." In 1906, the Russian Geographical Society awarded Kolchak its highest award - the Constantine Medal. Kolchak was the fourth of the polar travelers to receive this honorary award; before him, only three famous polar explorers were awarded this medal: F. Nansen, N. Nordenskjold and ND Yurgens.
Alexander Kolchak and the Russo-Japanese War
Upon arrival in Yakutsk, Kolchak learned about the attack by the Japanese fleet on the Russian squadron on the roadstead of Port Arthur and about the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. On January 28, 1904, he telegraphed Konstantin Konstantinovich and asked for his transfer from the Academy of Sciences to the Naval Department. Having received permission, Kolchak petitioned to be sent to Port Arthur. Having handed over the files for the expedition, on March 9 he went to the Far East.
Kolchak arrived in Port Arthur on March 18. The next day, the lieutenant met with the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral S.O. Makarov, and asked for an appointment to a combat position. However, Makarov appointed him commander of the watch on the 1st rank cruiser Askold. Two weeks later, Admiral Makarov, whom Kolchak considered his teacher, died on board the battleship Petropavlovsk, which was blown up by a Japanese mine.
Kolchak, who most of all did not like monotonous and routine work, achieved his transfer to the Amur minelayer. The translation took place on April 17. Four days later, he was appointed commander of the destroyer "Angry". The ship belonged to the second detachment of destroyers, inferior to the best ships of the first detachment and therefore engaged in guarding the entrance to the harbor or escorting trawling ships. The assignment to such a job was another disappointment for the young officer rushing into battle. Nevertheless, Kolchak did an excellent job of his duties and was of great benefit to the cause of protecting Port Arthur.
On May 1, for the first time since the beginning of hostilities in the east, Kolchak had a chance to take part in a serious and dangerous mission. On this day, the operation began, developed by the commander of the Amur minelayer, Captain 2nd Rank FN Ivanov. While "Amur" was busy installing a mine can, "Angry" under the command of Kolchak, together with "Fast" walked with trawls in front of "Amur", clearing the way for him. The next day, the Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima were blown up on placed mines, which was the loudest success of the First Pacific Squadron in the entire campaign.
Kolchak's first independent command of a warship lasted until October 18, with an almost month-long break to recover from pneumonia in the hospital. Kolchak on his torpedo boat daily trawled the outer raid, was on duty at the passage to the bay, fired at the enemy, and laid mines. He chose a place to install the can, but on the night of 24 August he was prevented by three Japanese destroyers. The officer showed perseverance - on the night of August 25, the "Angry" again went to sea, and Kolchak set up 16 mines in the place of his choice, 20½ miles (38 km) from the harbor. There is an assumption that it was on these mines that the Japanese cruiser Takasago was blown up and sank. Kolchak was proud of this success, mentioned him in his autobiography in 1918 and during interrogation in Irkutsk in 1920.
From September 19, destroyers and gunboats were transferred to permanent duty near the entrance to the outer roadstead. Mines were placed periodically. However, the service on the destroyer by this time was becoming more monotonous, and Kolchak regretted that he was not in the thick of things, where the fate of Port Arthur was being decided.
On October 18, Kolchak, at his own request, due to his health condition, was transferred to the land front, where by this time the main events of the military campaign had moved. Here he commanded a battery of different-caliber guns at the Armed Sector of the Rocky Mountains artillery position, the general command of which was carried out by Captain 2nd Rank AA Khomenko. Kolchak's battery included two small batteries of 47-mm cannons, a 120-mm gun firing at distant targets, and a battery of two 47-mm and two 37-mm cannons. Later, Kolchak's economy was reinforced with two more old cannons from the light cruiser "Robber".
During the siege of Port Arthur, Lieutenant Kolchak kept records in which he systematized the experience of artillery shooting and collected evidence of the unsuccessful July attempt to break through the ships of the Port Arthur squadron to Vladivostok, showing himself again as a scientist - artilleryman and strategist.
By the time of the capitulation of Port Arthur, Kolchak fell seriously ill: a wound was added to the articular rheumatism. On December 22, he was admitted to the hospital. In April, the hospital was evacuated by the Japanese to Nagasaki, and the sick officers were asked to undergo treatment in Japan or return to Russia. All Russian officers preferred their homeland. On June 4, 1905, Kolchak arrived in St. Petersburg, but after another exacerbation, he again ended up in the hospital.
For "guard service and guarding the passage to Port Arthur, shelling enemy positions", carried out during the command of "Angry", on November 15, 1904, A. V. Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 4th degree with the inscription "For Bravery." On December 12, 1905, "for the difference in cases against the enemy near Port Arthur," the lieutenant was awarded the St. George's weapon with the inscription "For bravery." To the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree, which Kolchak was awarded for the Russian Polar Expedition, in 1906 he was awarded swords. In the same year he was awarded a silver medal in memory of the Russo-Japanese War. Later, in 1914, Kolchak was awarded the badge of the participant in the defense of Port Arthur.
Then he began processing materials from polar expeditions, which turned out to be so rich that a special commission of the Academy of Sciences was created to study them, which worked until 1919. Work on the report on the rescue expedition, led by Kolchak, was completed on November 12, 1905, the report was published in Izvestia of the Russian Geographical Society, and on January 10, 1906, Kolchak, based on this report, made a short report at a meeting of the Russian Geographical Society. Kolchak's article "The Last Expedition to Bennett's Island Equipped by the Academy of Sciences to Search for Baron Toll" was published in Izvestia Akademii Nauk. In 1906, the Main Hydrographic Directorate of the Naval Ministry published three maps, which were prepared by Kolchak.
In 1907, a translation into Russian of M. Knudsen's work "Tables of freezing points of sea water", prepared by Kolchak, was published.
In 1909, Kolchak published his largest study - a monograph summarizing his glaciological research in the Arctic - "Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas", however, did not manage to publish another monograph devoted to the cartographic works of Toll's expedition.
Alexander Kolchak and the St. Petersburg Naval Circle
Like most of the Russian officers, Kolchak grieved the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and the actual death of the fleet. In the capital, on the initiative of young officers, Petersburg naval circle, which was later chaired by A.V. Kolchak. On the initiative of the members of the circle, in April - June 1906, the Naval General Staff was created, which, as stated in the decree, "has the subject of its studies drawing up a plan for a war at sea and measures to organize the combat readiness of the Empire's naval armed forces." Kolchak was one of the authors of the memo on the organization of the MGSH and from May 1, 1906, he took up a responsible post in the new institution - he became the head of the department of Russian statistics.
Soon the "naval qualification" was canceled, which hindered the promotion of young naval officers. Because of this qualification, Kolchak served as a lieutenant for almost 10 years, taking part in two polar expeditions and the defense of Port Arthur during this time. On June 11, 1907, Kolchak was awarded the rank of lieutenant commander, restored in the fleet. In the same year he was awarded "swords" and "bows" to the Order of St. Vladimir, received for the feat of the 1903 rescue expedition.
As a generator of ideas and organizer, Kolchak had a great influence on young officers. In the Naval General Staff, Kolchak headed a commission to study the military reasons that led to the defeat in the battle at Tsushima. The historian Khandorin noted that Kolchak considered it a serious mistake of the Russian command not to take measures to disrupt the radio communications of the Japanese, which played a colossal role in the battle.
Kolchak was an expert of the State Duma Commission on State Defense, made reports in it and in other public meetings. On December 21, 1907, in his circle, transferred to the Naval General Staff, Kolchak made a report prepared on the basis of his theoretical work "What a Fleet Russia Needs". The report was subsequently repeated at the Club of Public Figures in the capital, at the Kronstadt Society of Navy Officers and at the Society of Military Knowledge Zealots. In 1908, Kolchak's work was published in the 6th and 7th issues of the "Marine Collection". The article, which was notable for its realism and adherence to principles, became a theoretical justification of the entire Russian military shipbuilding in the years preceding the outbreak of the First World War. The principles outlined in his lectures were further developed already in Soviet times.
Alexander Kolchak and the Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition
While serving in the Naval General Staff, Kolchak did not cease to be interested in the North, was a member of the commission of the Northern Sea Route and continued scientific research. In 1906, a commission was created, headed by Admiral V.P. Verkhovsky, to study the issue of the Northern Sea Route. The commission instructed Kolchak to draw up a report for the Minister of the Navy on the sailing conditions along the Arctic coast of Russia. The note was prepared by Kolchak in September 1906.
Major General A.I. Vilkitsky, who headed the Main Hydrographic Directorate of the Naval Ministry, cherished the dream of opening the Great Northern Route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. Vilkitsky enlisted the support of the government and decided to organize an expedition. He turned to Kolchak with a proposal to resume research work in the Arctic Ocean, to participate in the preparation of the expedition and be one of its leaders. Kolchak accepted this offer.
According to the plan developed by the Verkhovsky commission, it was supposed to send three detachments of two ships in each to the complex expedition, to build 16 geophysical stations on the Arctic coast and islands. Kolchak, in collaboration with F.A.Matisen, developed a project for an expedition using icebreaker-type steel vessels. The project was presented to Vilkitsky and received approval. On May 29, 1908, even before the construction of the Vaigach and Taimyr icebreakers was completed, Kolchak was appointed commander of the Vaigach icebreaker. On September 30, he was enlisted in the 2nd Baltic Fleet Crew and left the Naval General Staff.
The ships were considered military, the degree of their reliability and unsinkability was very high for their time. The icebreakers have long served researchers and rescuers and made it possible to make major geographical discoveries, including the discovery of the archipelago of Emperor Nicholas II's Land (now Severnaya Zemlya) and paving the Northern Sea Route. Both in the creation of these icebreakers, built at the Nevsky shipyard in St. Petersburg, and in general in the development of the icebreaker fleet, Kolchak's merits were great. However, in Soviet literature and historiography, they were hushed up.
On October 28, 1909, "Vaigach" and "Taimyr" went to sea with four naval officers and 38-40 crewmen on board. Having passed the Baltic, Northern, Mediterranean, Red Seas and the Indian Ocean, on June 3, 1910, the expedition came to Vladivostok. The ships were repaired here, the head of the expedition, colonel of the corps of naval navigators IS Sergeev, a well-known hydrographer, arrived on the Vaigach.
Kolchak burned with the idea of opening the Northern Sea Route and infected his companions with this idea, the enthusiasm of the expedition members was high.
For navigation in 1910, the Main Hydrographic Directorate set the task of passage to the Bering Strait and survey of this area. Cape Dezhnev was chosen as the main point for filming and astronomical work. The main part of the work of the expedition was planned for the spring of 1911. Part of the work related to the plan of 1910, the expedition completed, all research work on the cape, in which Kolchak also took part, were done.
On August 17, 1910, the ships left the Golden Horn Bay and approached Kamchatka, after which they crossed the Avachinskaya Bay and reached Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Having passed Cape Dezhnev, the expedition entered the Arctic Ocean. After spending a week at the village of Uelen, the expedition moved west. On September 20, the icebreakers set off back to Vladivostok. On the way, in the Natalia Bay, they described the bays of Peter and Paul, adding refinements to the available maps.
On October 20 we returned to Vladivostok. Kolchak, however, was summoned to St. Petersburg to continue serving in the Naval General Staff. And although he was annoyed to refuse further participation in the expedition, which had given so much effort and which had good prospects, Kolchak agreed to the offer to continue working at the General Staff.
Returning to the Naval General Staff as chief of the 1st operational unit (planning fleet operations in the Baltic), in 1911-1912 Kolchak was engaged in bringing the shipbuilding program and preparing the fleet for war. According to the program, one of the authors of which was Kolchak, high-speed, maneuverable, well-armed ships were built in Russia.
At the same time, Kolchak was engaged in teaching in the officer classes, as well as in the courses of the naval department of the Nikolaev Naval Academy. Kolchak wrote theoretical works "On the battle formations of the fleet", "On the battle." In 1912, Kolchak's book "Service of the General Staff" - an overview of the activities of the naval general staffs of the leading world powers, was published with the stamp "not subject to publicity."
On April 15, 1912, Kolchak was appointed commander of the destroyer "Ussuriets" and went to the base of the mine division in Libava.
In May 1913, Kolchak was appointed to command the destroyer "Border Guard", which was used as a messenger ship for Admiral Essen. On June 25, after training demonstration laying mines in the Finnish skerries, Minister IK Grigorovich and his retinue gathered on board the "Border Guard" , Essen. The sovereign was satisfied with the state of the crews and ships, Kolchak and other ship commanders were declared "personal royal favor." The headquarters of the fleet commander began to prepare papers for the production of Kolchak in the next rank.
On December 6, 1913, Kolchak was promoted to captain of the 1st rank for "distinction in service" and after 3 days he was already appointed acting chief of the operational department of the headquarters of the commander of the Baltic Fleet's naval forces.
On July 14, 1914, Kolchak began to fulfill the duties of the flag-captain for the operational part at the Essen headquarters. On this day, he was awarded the French Order of the Legion of Honor - the French president came to Russia on a visit.
As one of the closest aides to the commander of the Baltic Fleet, Kolchak focused on preparatory measures for the rapidly approaching big war. Kolchak's duties included inspecting the detachments of the fleet, naval bases, developing protective measures, mining.
Alexander Kolchak during the First World War
On the evening of July 16, 1914, the headquarters of Admiral Essen received an encrypted message from the General Staff about the mobilization of the Baltic Fleet from midnight on July 17. All night, a group of officers led by Kolchak was busy drawing up instructions for the battle. To protect the capital from the attack of the German fleet, the Mine Division set up minefields in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. The first two months of the war, Kolchak fought as a flag captain, developing operational tasks and plans, while always striving to take part in the battle itself.
In August, the German cruiser Magdeburg, which had run aground, was captured near the island of Odensholm. A German signal book was found among the trophies. From it, Essen's headquarters learned that the Baltic Fleet was opposed by the rather small forces of the German fleet. As a result, the question was raised about the transition of the Baltic Fleet from defensive defenses to active operations.
In early September, the plan for active operations was approved, Kolchak went to defend him at the Headquarters of the Supreme Command, but Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich recognized the active operations of the Baltic Fleet as premature. In the fall of 1914, Essen's headquarters decided to use the weakening of vigilance on the part of the Germans, who were confident in the passive tactics of the Russian naval forces, and "fill up the entire German coast with mines." Kolchak developed an operation for a mine blockade of German naval bases. The first mines were placed in October 1914 near Memel, and on November 4 the German cruiser Friedrich Karl sank near this mine bank. In November, a mine bank was placed near the island of Bornholm.
At the end of December 1914, near the island of Rügen and the Stolpe banks, on the routes by which German ships sailed from Kiel, minefields were set, in which Kolchak took an active part. Subsequently, the small cruisers Augsburg and Gazelle were blown up by mines.
In February 1915, Captain 1st Rank A. V. Kolchak took command of a special-purpose half-division of four Pogranichnik-class destroyers. During the mine-barrage operation in the Danzig Bay, Kolchak had to apply his experience of sailing in the Arctic - there was already a lot of ice in the sea. All the destroyers successfully reached the minefield, but the cover cruiser "Rurik" ran into the stones and got a hole. Kolchak led his ships further without cover. On February 1, 1915, in the most difficult weather conditions, Kolchak delivered up to 200 mines in the bay, brilliantly solving the task of the campaign, and successfully returned his ships to the base.
In August 1915, the German fleet, proceeding to active operations, attempted a breakthrough into the Gulf of Riga. It was the minefields that stopped it: having lost several destroyers on Russian mines and damaged some cruisers, the Germans soon canceled their plans due to the threat of new losses. This then led to the disruption of the offensive of their ground forces on Riga, since it was not supported from the sea by the fleet.
At the beginning of September 1915, due to the injury of Rear Admiral P.L. Trukhachev, the post of Chief of the Mine Division was temporarily vacated, and it was entrusted to Kolchak. Having accepted the division on September 10, Kolchak began to establish contacts with the ground command. With the commander of the 12th Army, General R.D. Radko-Dmitriev, they agreed to jointly prevent the German offensive along the coast. Kolchak's division was to repel the large-scale German offensive that had begun both on water and on land. In the fall, the Germans landed troops on the southern coast of the Gulf of Riga and launched an offensive against the army of Radko-Dmitriev.
Kolchak began to develop an amphibious operation in the German rear. Despite the opposition of the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet, Alexander Vasilyevich managed to insist on his own, although he had to reduce the scale of his operation to a minimum. On October 6, a detachment of 22 officers and 514 lower ranks on two gunboats under the cover of 15 destroyers, the battleship "Slava" and the air transport "Orlitsa" went on a campaign. A. V. Kolchak personally supervised the operation. On October 9, secretly from the Germans, the detachment landed on the shore, removed a guard post near the lighthouse and defeated an infantry company sent by the Germans. Seaplanes and destroyers helped the paratroopers from the sea. As a result of the landing, the enemy observation post was eliminated, prisoners and trophies were captured. The loss ratio was 40 people killed from the German side against 4 wounded from the Russian side. The demonstration carried out by Kolchak became clear evidence of the possibility of similar operations by the forces of larger formations. The Germans were forced to take troops from the front to defend the coastline and anxiously await Russian maneuvers from the side of the Gulf of Riga.
Serious assistance to the army units was rendered by Kolchak's ships in the future, supporting them in a difficult situation with massive shelling of enemy units. On November 2, 1915, Nicholas II, on a report from Radko-Dmitriev, awarded Kolchak with the Order of St. George, 4th degree. This award was presented to Alexander Vasilyevich for commanding the Mine Division.
On December 19, Kolchak, bypassing the post of chief of the primary tactical formation of destroyers, again accepted the Mine Division, and this time as its current commander, on a permanent basis. However, even for a short time at the headquarters, Captain Kolchak managed to do a very important job: he developed a plan for an operation to mine Vindava, which was successfully implemented later. For the Germans, Kolchak's surprise in this area was so unexpected that a cruiser and a number of destroyers of the German fleet were immediately blown up here.
In addition to laying minefields, Kolchak often brought groups of ships out to sea under personal command to hunt for various enemy ships, and a patrol service. One of these exits ended in failure, when the patrol ship Vindava died. However, failures were the exception. The glory that Kolchak earned for himself was well-deserved: by the end of 1915, the losses of the German fleet in terms of warships outnumbered similar Russians by 3.4 times; for merchant ships - 5.2 times.
In the spring campaign of 1916, when the Germans launched an offensive on Riga, the role of the Kolchak cruisers "Slava", "Admiral Makarov" and "Diana" consisted of shelling and obstructing the enemy's advance. To exclude the possibility of advancing along the part of the coast, which was under the control of the Germans, enemy submarines and transports, Kolchak began to mine these parts of the coast with the help of shallow-draft minelayers.
The war allowed Kolchak to show new facets of his talent, after polar voyages, scientific work and staff reform work, Alexander Vasilyevich revealed himself as a naval commander and a miner. With the adoption on 23 August 1915 by Nicholas II of the rank of Supreme Commander in Headquarters, the attitude towards the fleet began to change for the better. Kolchak felt this too. Soon, he began to move and introduce him to the next military rank.
In the rear admiral rank, Kolchak took part in the raids of the light forces of the Baltic Fleet on German communications, in particular in attempts to interrupt the transportation of iron ore from Sweden to Germany. The first transport attack was unsuccessful. The second campaign - May 31, 1916 - was planned to the smallest detail, and the meeting with the German convoy took place in Norrkoping Bay. Finding the caravan, Kolchak attacked it at night, scattered it, and sank the escort ship.
The last task that Kolchak was engaged in in the Baltic Fleet was associated with the development of a large landing operation in the German rear in the Gulf of Riga.
On June 28, 1916, by decree of the emperor, in violation of seniority rights, Kolchak was promoted to vice admiral and appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet, thus becoming the youngest of the commanders of the fleets of the belligerent powers. At the same time, as modern historians note, the command of the warring fleet was entrusted to the admiral, who neither in peacetime nor in wartime commanded a rank I ship, not to mention commanding the "backbone" of the military fleets of that time - a combination of heavy ships. Kolchak was assigned a salary of 22 thousand rubles a year and additional seafood, 2 thousand rubles were allocated for the move to Sevastopol.
Alexander Kolchak - Commander of the Black Sea Fleet
In early September 1916, Alexander Vasilyevich was in Sevastopol, having visited Headquarters on the way and received secret instructions from the Tsar and his chief of staff. Kolchak's meeting with Nicholas II at Headquarters was the third and last. Kolchak spent one day at Headquarters on July 4, 1916. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief told the new commander of the Black Sea Fleet about the situation at the fronts, conveyed the content of military-political agreements with the allies on the imminent entry into the war of Romania. At Headquarters, Kolchak was familiarized with the decree on awarding him with the Order of St. Stanislav, 1st degree.
The arrival of Kolchak became an excuse for the Black Sea Fleet to revive. The first task assigned by Kolchak to the fleet was to cleanse the sea from enemy warships and to stop enemy shipping altogether.
Taking advantage of the experience of his service in the Baltic, Kolchak continued the mining of the Bosphorus, begun by his predecessor, Admiral Eberhard, and also mined the coast of Turkey, which almost deprived the enemy of the opportunity to act actively. But Kolchak had nothing to do with the most tactically successful part of the minefields at the mouth of the Bosphorus, since they were exposed before his entry into the position of the fleet commander.
At the end of July, the operation to mine the Bosphorus began. The submarine "Crab" began the operation, which put 60 minutes in the throat of the strait. Then, by order of Kolchak, the entrance to the strait was mined from coast to coast. Then Kolchak mined the exits from the Bulgarian ports of Varna, Zonguldak, which hit the Turkish economy hard. To support minefields on alert at a distance of 50-100 miles from the Bosphorus, a detachment of ships consisting of a dreadnought, a cruiser and several destroyers was always on duty, and a submarine was constantly on duty near the Bosphorus.
For a long time, enemy ships generally disappeared from the Black Sea. At the end of October 1916, a German submarine B-45 was blown up by mines near Varna, and at the end of November another B-46 near the Bosphorus. By the end of 1916, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet had fulfilled his task, firmly locking the German-Turkish fleet, including the Goeben and Breslau, in the Bosphorus, and easing the tension of the transport service of the Russian fleet.
All-Russian fame came to Kolchak. Central newspapers began to publish articles about him, to place his portraits on their pages. The first article about the commander of the Black Sea Fleet - "New Admiral" - was published on August 13, 1916 by the capital's newspaper "Novoye Vremya". A month later, the same newspaper published the first literary portrait of Kolchak - "With the commander on the high seas." On September 29, a photo of Kolchak was published in the Evening Time newspaper.
At the same time, Kolchak's service in the Black Sea Fleet was marked by a number of failures and losses, which might not have happened. The biggest loss was the sinking on October 7, 1916 of the flagship of the fleet, the battleship Empress Maria. 15 minutes after the first explosion, the boat commander approached the side of the sinking ship. Kolchak's first order was to move Catherine the Great away from the "Maria", after which, despite the continued explosions, the admiral boarded the battleship and personally supervised the flooding of the cellars and the localization of the fire. By these measures, the commander saved the city and the raid. However, attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful.
The Naval Department of the Headquarters and the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet developed a simple and daring plan for the Bosphorus operation. According to this plan of the sailors, which was developed with the direct participation of Kolchak, it was decided to strike an unexpected and swift blow to the center of the entire fortified region - Constantinople. The operation was planned by the sailors for September 1916.
It was supposed to combine the actions of the ground forces on the southern edge of the Romanian front with the actions of the fleet. The English fleet could also take part in the operation, advancing in the Aegean Sea.
Nicholas II fully supported the sailors' plan of operation, but General Alekseev tried to defend his own plan, which required the unrealistic withdrawal of ten infantry divisions from the front. At the same time, the formation and training of the airborne detachment took three to four months, in connection with which the operation was postponed until April-May 1917. Alekseev, hoping for a victorious end to the war as a result of the spring offensive in Galicia, was being prepared, did not object to the preparation of the landing.
From the end of 1916, a comprehensive practical preparation for the Bosphorus operation began: they conducted training in landing troops, firing from ships, reconnaissance campaigns of destroyer detachments to the Bosphorus, comprehensively studied the coast, and carried out aerial photography. A special airborne Black Sea Marine Division was formed, headed by Major General A.A. Svechin and Chief of Staff Colonel A.I. Verkhovsky, which was personally supervised by Kolchak.
On December 31, 1916, Kolchak gave the order to form the Black Sea Air Division, the units of which were supposed to be deployed in accordance with the arrival of naval aircraft. On this day, Kolchak, at the head of a detachment of three battleships and two air transports, undertook a campaign to the shores of Turkey, but due to the increased excitement, the bombardment of the enemy's shores from seaplanes had to be postponed.
When assessing the combat work of the Black Sea Fleet during the period of command of A. V. Kolchak, modern historians note that the fleet has achieved great success during this time. Enemy submarines were driven to bases, the enemy suffered very significant losses, and his fleet was deprived of the opportunity to enter the Black Sea, attacks on the Russian coast were suppressed.
Alexander Kolchak and the February Revolution
It is known that in August 1916 Kolchak was visited by MV Chelnokov, a member of the group of conspirators. The Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General M.V. Alekseev, who had been in the Crimea for treatment since the fall of 1916 since the fall of 1916, twice summoned Kolchak and his chief of staff to report on the situation on the Black Sea. In addition to these two official meetings, there were also other private conversations. According to Kolchak, he often had to communicate with Alekseev on state issues. Kolchak was informed about political events in the country from both official and unofficial sources. He did not remain an outside observer, trying with all his might to prevent the growth of revolutionary sentiments and to protect the fleet entrusted to him from impending shocks.
The events of February 1917 in the capital found Vice-Admiral Kolchak in Batum, where he went to a meeting with the commander of the Caucasian Front, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, to discuss the schedule of shipping and the construction of a port in Trebizond. On February 28, the admiral received a telegram from the Naval General Staff about the revolt in Petrograd and the capture of the city by the rebels.
On February 28, Kolchak sailed from Batum and arrived in Sevastopol on March 1. Even from Batum, he ordered to interrupt the telegraph and postal communications of Crimea with the rest of Russia - to prevent panic and the spread of unverified rumors. All incoming telegrams were ordered to be sent to the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet.
In Sevastopol, Kolchak got acquainted with several telegrams addressed to him. MV Rodzianko reported on the uprising in the capital and the transfer of power to the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. Naval Minister IK Grigorovich informed that "the State Duma Committee is gradually restoring order", and talked about the order of Admiral AI Nepenin, announcing the events in Petrograd to the Baltic Fleet. M.V. Alekseev's telegram provided detailed information on the events from 25 to 28 February in the capital. The chief of the naval headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's Headquarters, Admiral A. I. Rusin, informed about the mutiny in Petrograd, the riots in Kronstadt and ordered "to take all measures to maintain peace in the fleet." At a meeting of senior military leaders convened by the admiral, it was decided to inform the ship crews of the uprising in the Russian capital. Kolchak at the same time disavowed his order on the information blockade of Crimea, which no longer made sense due to the acceptance of German telegrams in the fleet with messages about the revolution in Petrograd, and decided to take the initiative into his own hands, informing the fleet about the events through his own orders.
Meanwhile, in Pskov on the evening of March 1, the commander-in-chief of the Northern Front, General Ruzsky, negotiated on behalf of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma with Nicholas II, who had arrived from Headquarters, persuading him to decide on the establishment of a government responsible to the Duma. His position was supported by the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Alekseev. After several hours of difficult negotiations, Nicholas II surrendered and agreed to the formation of a responsible ministry. The next day, however, in a direct conversation between Duma Chairman Rodzianko and General Ruzsky, the question was raised about the abdication of Nicholas II. On the evening of March 2, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet received a telegram from Alekseev, in which, for information, the texts of telegrams from the front commanders to Nicholas II with requests for abdication were given. The informative telegram did not require an answer, but the commanders of the Baltic and Black Sea fleets behaved differently in the same situation: Nepenin sent a telegram to the Tsar on March 2, in which he joined in the requests to abdicate the throne, and Kolchak decided not to participate in the telephone conference that took place on March 2 at all.
As for the political views of Alexander Vasilyevich, then until March 1917 his monarchism was completely indisputable. After the revolution, for obvious reasons, Kolchak did not advertise his views and considered it untimely to advertise his own monarchism.
Despite all the efforts of the commander, it was not possible to completely eliminate disturbances in the fleet. On March 3, midshipman Fock committed suicide on the Catherine the Great against the backdrop of spy mania and demands for the removal of officers with German surnames among the sailors. On March 4, the sailors demanded the arrival of the fleet commander on the ship. Kolchak visited the ship, but only after the report of its commander, and not under pressure from the crew. Outraged by the behavior of the sailors, the admiral spoke to the crew lined up on the deck sharply and impartially. He rejected suspicions of treason among officers with German surnames and refused to write them off ashore.
On March 4, on the orders of Kolchak, the newspaper Krymskiy Vestnik announced the abdication of Nicholas II and the formation of the Provisional Government. The fleet took the news calmly, however, on the same day, rallies began in Sevastopol, and Kolchak, to defuse the situation on March 5, conducted a review of units. After the review, rallies began again. One of them began to demand the admiral's arrival. At first Kolchak did not want to go, but in order not to heat up passions, he agreed. He ordered the crowd to disperse, but the sailors locked the gates and demanded a speech and the sending of a welcoming telegram to the Provisional Government from the Black Sea Fleet. Kolchak made a short speech and promised to send a telegram. After that he was released. In telegrams sent to G. Ye. Lvov, the Provisional Government, A. I. Guchkov, M. V. Rodzianko, on behalf of the Black Sea Fleet and the inhabitants of Sevastopol, Kolchak greeted the government and expressed the hope that it would bring the war to victory.
On March 10, in order to interrupt a series of rallies and demonstrations, Kolchak brought the fleet out to sea, believing that combat work would be the best opposition to the "deepening of the revolution." Another reason for Kolchak's success in preserving the combat effectiveness of the fleet was the ability to compromise in a difficult situation, to show flexibility, strong-willed effort and endurance to cope with his own unbalanced and irascible character.
Kolchak, with preemptive orders, was able to prevent extreme manifestations in the fleet associated with the movement for the cancellation of epaulettes and saluting. The commander did not interfere with the sailor's ideas about renaming warships, which was also reflected in his orders. On his order, the Sevastopol police and the gendarme corps were disbanded, and political prisoners were released from prisons. On March 19, the admiral approved the project, which introduced the new naval organizations - committees - into the legal channel and subordinated to the commander.
After the plans of the masses, under the influence of the revolutionary intoxication, became known to dig up the ashes of the "counter-revolutionary admirals" - participants in the Defense of Sevastopol, who died during the Crimean War and rested in the Vladimir Cathedral of Sevastopol, and in their place to reburial Lieutenant Schmidt and his comrades, who were shot for participating in In the November 1905 Sevastopol uprising, the remains of Schmidt and the sailors who were shot along with him, by order of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral A.V. Kolchak, were quickly transported to Sevastopol, where they were temporarily buried in the Intercession Cathedral. This order of Kolchak made it possible to bring down the intensity of passions.
On April 15, 2017, the admiral arrived in Petrograd at the call of the Minister of War Guchkov. The latter hoped to use Kolchak as the head of a military coup to eliminate the dual power and establish a military dictatorship, and suggested that Alexander Vasilyevich take command of the Baltic Fleet. The supposed appointment of Kolchak to the Baltic was linked to the creation of a separate army "for the defense of Petrograd." Considering that the Germans did not pose any threat to the capital at that time, the goals of creating such an army lay in the plane of Guchkov's attempts to restore order in Petrograd. Kolchak's appointment to the Baltic did not take place.
In Petrograd, the admiral witnessed armed soldiers' demonstrations and believed that they must be suppressed by force. Kolchak considered the refusal of the Provisional Government to Kornilov, the commander of the capital's military district, to suppress an armed demonstration a mistake, along with refusing to do this, if necessary, in the fleet to act similarly.
On April 25, 1917, Kolchak spoke at a meeting of officers with a report "The state of our armed forces and relations with the allies." Kolchak demanded an end to the reforms based on the "conceit of ignorance" and the adoption of the forms of discipline and organization of internal life, already adopted by the Allies. Kolchak's report made a huge impression on the audience and inspired them. The commander left the podium to applause. Kolchak's speech was published by the Moscow City Duma in a circulation of several million copies.
In May, there was a sharp conflict between Kolchak and TsVIK because of the arrest by the latter of the assistant to the chief commander of the port, Major General N.P. Petrov, who was caught by the Council for allegedly embezzling state property and speculating by him. Kolchak did not approve the arrest warrant and expelled the delegation that came to him. Then TsVIK arrested Petrov on his own initiative without the permission of the fleet commander. On May 12, accustomed to the unconditional execution of his orders, Admiral Kolchak sent a telegram to the Provisional Government with a description of the confrontation and a request to replace him with another person. Arriving on May 17 in Sevastopol, for a while, the conflict between TsVIK and Kolchak settled.
After Kerensky's departure, confusion and anarchy in the Black Sea Fleet began to intensify. The distrust of the sailors to the officers and personally to the commander was aggravated by the military failure - on the night of May 13, when an attempt was made to lay mines practically at the mouth of the Bosphorus from self-propelled launches launched from Russian battleships that remained 10 miles (16 km) from the coast, an unauthorized mine detonation occurred, causing chain reaction of explosions of other mines. Two out of four longboats sank, 15 sailors and officers were killed, 29 people were wounded. After this incident, the crews began to refuse to go to sea on risky missions.
In the last weeks of his command of the fleet, Kolchak no longer expected and did not receive any help from the government, trying to solve all problems on his own. However, his attempts to restore discipline met with opposition from the rank and file of the army and navy. On June 3, a meeting in a half-crew demanded the removal from their posts of Kolchak, Chief of Staff MI Smirnov and a number of other officers. On June 4, the commander telegraphed Kerensky that the agitation of the Baltic delegation had become "widespread" and that the local forces were unable to cope with it.
On June 6, Kolchak sent a telegram to the Provisional Government with a message about the riot that had taken place and that in the current situation he could no longer remain in the post of commander. Without waiting for an answer, he transferred the command to Rear Admiral V.K. Lukin, thus committing a disciplinary offense, because he had no right to leave his post without an order from the Provisional Government.
Kolchak's report to the Provisional Government on the Sevastopol events was scheduled for June 13. Until that day, the capital's journalists managed to interview the admiral, in which Alexander Vasilyevich spoke about the reasons that made him leave the Black Sea Fleet. The article dealt with G. E. Lvov's inability to govern the country. The question of dictatorship was also touched upon. In the context of the article, Admiral Kolchak acted as the dictator chosen by the people.
On June 17, Kolchak met with the American admiral J.G. Glennon at the Winter Palace. The head of the American delegation, E. Ruth, was also present at the talks. Kolchak was invited to take part in the Dardanelles operation of the American fleet. In essence, it was about his direct participation in the hostilities of the American fleet. The admiral understood this and agreed. The Russian naval mission consisting of A. V. Kolchak, M. I. Smirnov, D. B. Kolechitsky, V. V. Bezuar, I. E. Vuich, A. M. Mezentsev left the capital on July 27, 1917. Alexander Vasilyevich traveled to the Norwegian city of Bergen under a false name - to hide his tracks from German intelligence. From Bergen the mission proceeded to England.
Kolchak spent two weeks in England: he got acquainted with naval aviation, submarines, anti-submarine warfare tactics, and visited factories. With the British admirals, Alexander Vasilyevich developed good relations, the allies confidentially initiated Kolchak into military plans. In London, Kolchak was introduced to the first Lord of the Admiralty, Admiral John Jellicoe. They discussed mining, talked about naval aviation. Kolchak asked permission to take part in one of her operations. The reconnaissance flight on a twin-engine aircraft made a great impression on the Russian admiral. In England, Alexander Vasilyevich also met several times with the chief of the British Naval General Staff, General Hall.
On August 16, the Russian mission on the cruiser Glonseester left Glasgow for the shores of the United States, where it arrived on August 28, 1917. It turned out that the American fleet had never planned any Dardanelles operation. The main reason for Kolchak's trip to America disappeared, and from that moment on his mission was of a military-diplomatic nature. Kolchak stayed in the United States for about two months. On October 16, Kolchak was received by the American President V. Wilson.
Kolchak, at the request of his fellow allies, worked at the American Naval Academy, where he advised students of the academy on mine work, of which he was a recognized master. At the invitation of the Minister of the Navy, he got acquainted with the American fleet and participated in naval maneuvers on the flagship "Pennsylvania" for more than 10 days.
Kolchak believed that the mission to America had failed. It was decided to return to Russia. In San Francisco, already on the west coast of the United States, Kolchak received a telegram from Russia with a proposal to nominate himself for the Constituent Assembly from the Cadet Party in the Black Sea Fleet District, to which he agreed, but his reply telegram was late. On October 12 (25), Kolchak with officers set off from San Francisco to Vladivostok on the Japanese steamer Cario-Maru.
Two weeks later the steamer arrived at the Japanese port of Yokohama. Here Kolchak learned about the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, about the beginning of negotiations between the government and the German authorities in Brest on a separate peace, which Kolchak could not have imagined more shameful and enslaving.
He decided, as a representative of the former Russian government, which was bound by certain obligations with the Entente, to continue the war. He gave his officers complete freedom to stay abroad or go home, but in the current situation he considered his return to Russia impossible and informed the allied British government about his non-recognition of a separate peace. He also asked to be accepted into the service "as you like and anywhere" to continue the war with Germany. Kolchak explained the choice of England by the best relations that he had with representatives of this country during his trip abroad.
Soon Kolchak was summoned to the British Embassy and informed that Great Britain was willing to accept his offer. On December 30, 1917, Kolchak received a message about his appointment to the Mesopotamian Front. In the first half of January 1918, Kolchak left Japan via Shanghai for Singapore.
In March 1918, having arrived in Singapore, Kolchak received a secret assignment to urgently return to China to work in Manchuria and Siberia. The change in the British decision was due to the persistent petitions of Russian diplomats and other political circles, who saw the admiral as a candidate for the leader of the anti-Bolshevik movement.
With the arrival of Kolchak in China, the period of his wanderings abroad ended. Now the admiral faced a political and military struggle against the Bolshevik regime inside Russia. The place of organization of the forces was supposed to be the Chinese-Eastern Railway (CER). In Beijing, Kolchak met with the head of the CER, General D. L. Horvat, who told Kolchak about the need to register an admiral in the states of the CER to manage the security of the railway and the entire military-strategic side of the matter related to the salvation of the CER as Russian property.
On May 10, 1918, at a meeting of shareholders of the CER, Kolchak was introduced to the board and appointed chief inspector of the security guards of the CER with the simultaneous leadership of all Russian armed forces in its alienation zone.
On June 30, Kolchak, having transferred command to General B.R.Khreschatitsky, left for Japan. The purpose of the trip, in addition to clarifying relations with the Japanese, was the desire to establish contacts with representatives of other countries, to receive support from them in military development. Ambassador V. N. Krupensky organized Kolchak's meeting with the chief of the Japanese General Staff, General Ihara, and his assistant, General G. Tanaka. The meeting was unsuccessful. On September 16, Alexander Vasilyevich left Japan. Realizing that the Japanese would interfere with his work in the Far East, he intended to make his way to the South of Russia.
Alexander Kolchak in the Civil War
Kolchak arrived in Vladivostok on September 19-20, 1918. In Vladivostok, Kolchak studied the situation on the eastern outskirts of the country, learned about a meeting of representatives of various democratic forces held in Ufa and about the formation of a Directory that claimed the role of the "Provisional All-Russian Government" - a united anti-Bolshevik government on the territory from the Volga to Siberia. Upon learning of Kolchak's arrival, many naval officers wanted to meet with him. At a private meeting with them, the admiral said that from the competing governments, he would support the Siberian, since it appeared without external influence and was able to mobilize the population, which meant significant support for the government by citizens.
Kolchak rode through Siberia as a private person in civilian clothes. On October 13, 1918, in his movement to the Don, he arrived in Omsk, planning to spend here only a few days. First of all, Alexander Vasilyevich established contact with representatives of the Volunteer Army. In Omsk, a meeting took place between Kolchak and the commander-in-chief of the troops of the Directory, General V.G. Boldyrev. After this meeting, Kolchak sent a letter to General Alekseev about his desire to serve under his command.
By the time of his arrival in Omsk, Kolchak had established himself in the idea that the only way to defeat Bolshevism could only be a military dictatorship. At the same time, on the instructions of the underground anti-Bolshevik organization National Center, a prominent Siberian cadet, formerly a deputy of the IV State Duma, V.N. Pepelyaev, left Moscow for Siberia and Manchuria. From the National Center, he had a special task and significant powers - in favor of establishing a one-man dictatorship. With the death of Alekseev, the admiral's candidacy for dictatorship became indisputable.
On November 5, 1918, Kolchak was appointed military and naval minister of the Provisional All-Russian Government. On November 7, Alexander Vasilyevich began to fulfill his new duties, starting with his first orders the formation of the central bodies of the War Ministry and the General Staff. The next day, Kolchak went to the front for a personal acquaintance with the situation of the army and its command personnel.
Admiral Kolchak - Supreme Ruler of Russia
After a series of military defeats and the loss of Izhevsk (November 7), the authority of the Directory in the eyes of the army fell. The Provisional All-Russian Government did not have real power, and with the failures at the front, the mood of the officers became more and more conservative. The Social Democratic Directory found itself isolated from the military, the only real anti-Bolshevik force. A government crisis has ripened due to dissatisfaction with the military environment.
Kolchak's arrival in Omsk coincided with a conflict between the Directory and the Council of Ministers. Kolchak, a hardliner, was drawn into this struggle on the side of the Council of Ministers.
The military formed the striking force of the conspiracy against the Directory. On November 18, Cossack officers arrested the Social Revolutionaries, representatives of the left wing of the Provisional All-Russian Government. The Socialist Revolutionary battalion of the Directory was disarmed.
After the arrest of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Council of Ministers recognized the Directory as non-existent, announced that it had assumed the fullness of the supreme power and declared the need for "the complete concentration of military and civilian power in the hands of one person with an authoritative name in the military and public circles" who would lead on the principles of one-man command. It was decided "to transfer temporarily the exercise of supreme power to one person, relying on the assistance of the Council of Ministers, giving such a person the name of the Supreme Ruler." The "Provision on the temporary structure of state power in Russia" (the so-called "Constitution of November 18") was developed and adopted, which established, in particular, the procedure for the relationship between the Supreme Ruler and the Council of Ministers. The candidates for the "dictators" were considered the commander-in-chief of the troops of the Directory, General V. G. Boldyrev, the head of the CER, General D. L. Horvat, and the military and naval minister, Vice-Admiral A. V. Kolchak. The Council of Ministers elected Kolchak by voting.
Kolchak was promoted to full admiral, he was transferred to the exercise of supreme state power and was awarded the title of Supreme Ruler. All the armed forces of the state were subordinate to him. The supreme ruler could take any measures, including emergency, to provide for the armed forces, as well as to establish civil order and legality.
Kolchak announced his consent to the election and, by the first order of the army, announced the acceptance of the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief of all land and sea forces. The Entente countries supported Kolchak. The supreme ruler proclaimed the first, the most important task to strengthen and increase the combat capability of the army, the second - "victory over Bolshevism", the third task, the solution of which was recognized as possible only on condition of victory, proclaimed "the revival and resurrection of the dying state."
The activities of the new government were declared aimed at ensuring that "the temporary supreme power of the Supreme Ruler and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief could transfer the fate of the state into the hands of the people, leaving them to arrange state administration at their own will."
After his coming to the supreme power, Kolchak canceled the order that Jews, as potential spies, should be evicted from the 100-verst frontal zone.
The most important ideological constant of Kolchak's rule was the formula-slogan "restoration of legality." On November 28, at a meeting with representatives of the press, Kolchak said: "Order and law in my eyes are constant companions, inextricably linked with each other." It was planned to ensure “legality” by restoring the succession of Russian power - as it was stated, the new Russian government (the Kolchak government) acted “taking over the power of the former Provisional Government, which was formed in March 1917, and making it its task to strengthen its authority as a single power successor to the historical power of the Russian State ”.
Kolchak's coming to power, the concentration in his hands of military, political and economic power made it possible for the whites to recover from the defeats they suffered in the Volga region in the fall of 1918. Thus, as a result of the events of November 18, 1918, the anti-Bolshevik movement was transformed into the White movement.
Kolchak hoped that under the banner of the fight against the Reds, he would be able to unite the most diverse political forces and create a new state power. At first, the situation on the fronts favored these plans. In December 1918, the Siberian army occupied Perm, which was of great strategic importance and significant reserves of military equipment.
Kolchak organized an investigation into the massacre of the Bolsheviks against the family of Emperor Nicholas II, entrusted this to the investigator N.A. army from Yekaterinburg in July 1919 did not have time to find.
Gold reserves of Russia
With most of Russia's gold reserves at his disposal, Kolchak did not allow his government to spend gold, even to stabilize the financial system and fight inflation (which was promoted by the unrestrained emission of “Kerenoks” and tsarist rubles by the Bolsheviks). Kolchak spent 68 million rubles on the purchase of weapons and uniforms for his army. Loans were received from foreign banks on the security of 128 million rubles: the proceeds from the placement were returned to Russia. On October 31, 1919, the gold reserve was loaded into 40 wagons under heavy guard, and the accompanying personnel were in 12 more wagons.
The Trans-Siberian Railway stretching from Novonikolaevsk to Irkutsk was controlled by the Czechs, whose main task was their own evacuation from Russia. Only on December 27, 1919, a staff train and a train with gold arrived at the Nizhneudinsk station, where representatives of the Entente forced Admiral Kolchak to sign an order abdicating the rights of the Supreme Ruler of Russia and transferring the echelon with gold reserves under the control of the Czechoslovak Corps. On January 15, 1920, the Czech command gave Kolchak to the Socialist-Revolutionary Political Center, which a few days later handed over the admiral to the Bolsheviks. On February 7, the Czechoslovakians gave the Bolsheviks 409 million rubles in gold in exchange for guarantees of the unhindered evacuation of the corps from Russia. In June 1921, the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR compiled a certificate from which it follows that during the reign of Admiral Kolchak, Russia's gold reserves decreased by 235.6 million rubles, or by 182 tons. Another 35 million rubles from the gold reserve disappeared after its transfer to the Bolsheviks, during transportation from Irkutsk to Kazan.
Spring offensive of Kolchak's army (1919)
On December 20, the 7th Ural division of General V.V. Golitsyn and the 2nd Czechoslovak division broke into Kungur from different sides, knocking out the 30th division of V.K.Blyukher from there. Having suffered significant losses, the Soviet troops retreated to Perm, which was girded with several rows of trenches and barbed wire, which the red command hoped to hold. Kolchak's troops, cutting off the railway, did not allow units of Blucher's division to strengthen the garrison of the city, which fell on December 24. More than 30 thousand Red Army men, 120 guns, over 1000 machine guns, 9 armored trains, 180 train sets, a river flotilla and the entire wagon train of the defeated Red 3rd Army, which lost half of its strength as a result of the December battles, were taken prisoner. In some directions, the Reds surrendered in whole regiments, for example, the 4th Kama regiment. Success was achieved by the white units without the help of the Czechs who had left the front.
The announcement of the capture of Perm provoked an enthusiastic reaction in Omsk. The Council of Ministers decided to award Kolchak, who was and was acting all the time of the operation in a combat situation, with the Order of St. George of the 3rd degree for his great contribution to the preparation of the operation. In connection with the capture of Perm, the Prime Minister of France sent his personal congratulations to the Supreme Ruler.
At the beginning of 1919, Kolchak reorganized the troops. The former Yekaterinburg Group of Forces was transformed into the Siberian Army, led by General Gaida. The Western Army was commanded by General M.V. Khanzhin, who was operatively subordinate to the Southern Army Group of General P.A.Belov, adjacent to its left flank.
The Eastern Front of the Red Army had strong flanks and a weak center, which made it possible for the Eastern Front of the Russian Army to strike at the center of Soviet Russia. According to the strategic plan of the Headquarters of Kolchak, in the first phase of the operation, an offensive was to take place in the Perm-Vyatka and Samara-Saratov directions. If successful, the offensive was to continue with two main strikes in both directions and develop into an offensive against Moscow from the north, south and east. The general offensive was planned by the Headquarters for April 1919.
In early March, anticipating the advance of the Red Army, Kolchak's armies struck a joint between the left flank of the 5th and the right of the 2nd Soviet armies, which largely determined the success of further actions of the whites. Going on the offensive, the troops of the Russian army began to quickly approach the Volga. The right-flank Siberian army launched an offensive in the Vyatka direction and joined up with the troops of the Arkhangelsk government. Parts of the Western army of General Khanzhin in March took Birsk, Ufa, Sterlitamak, in April - Menzelinsk, Belebey, Buguruslan, Bugulma, Naberezhnye Chelny. The Siberian army in April took the Votkinsk plant, Sarapul, and the Izhevsk plant.
At the end of April, Kolchak's armies reached the approaches to Kazan, Samara, Simbirsk, occupying significant territories with important industrial and agricultural resources. The population of these areas exceeded 5 million people. The occupation of these areas opened a direct road to Moscow for Kolchak's armies.
"Flight to the Volga", as the spring offensive of 1919 came to be called, made a strong impression on contemporaries. In the bourgeois and social circles of Russia, there was an upsurge associated with the hope of an early victory over the Bolsheviks. Kolchak was congratulated on the success of the offensive, in particular, by French Prime Minister J. Clemenceau, British War Minister and French Foreign Minister S. Pichon. The Bolsheviks also reacted to the successes of the White movement in the East of Russia. declared Kolchak the main enemy of the Soviet Republic and called on "to exert all forces in the fight against him." In the summer of 1919, the Soviet government appointed a bonus of $ 7 million for the head of Kolchak.
Kolchak's authority increased significantly. Help from the allies began to arrive. On May 30, 1919, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia, the General, recognized the power of Admiral Kolchak as the Supreme Ruler of the Russian state and submitted to him as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. A unified armed forces were created around Kolchak and the Russian state was formed, although it consisted of three scattered parts.
The retreat of Kolchak's army (1919)
By the beginning of May, the general offensive of Kolchak's armies had failed. By mid-1919, the size of the Red Army reached 1.5 million. The Bolsheviks restored their numerical superiority on the Eastern Front, concentrating a 33,000-strong group on the main axis. "Everyone at Kolchak!" - read the slogan of the Bolshevik government these days. On April 7, 1919, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) declared the Eastern Front the main one. received at his disposal four armies, whose total strength was 80 thousand people and twice the number of soldiers of the Western army of General Khanzhin.
However, the offensive of the Reds, which began on April 28, 1919, ran into stubborn resistance from the Whites. The menacing situation in which the Whites found themselves intensified the uprising of the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian kuren, which was joined by four more regiments and a jaeger battalion, which became the main factor that determined the breakthrough of the front by the Reds. Many white commanders subsequently spoke out in the vein that it was these events that became the primary cause of the defeat of the Western and other armies of the Eastern Front. The Western army had to withdraw. In other directions, White continued their offensive.
On June 9, the red units took Ufa. After retreating from the Volga region, Kolchak lost his strategic initiative. The fighting efficiency of the army has decreased.
In June, Kolchak rejected KG Mannerheim's proposal to move the 100-thousandth Finnish army to Petrograd in exchange for recognizing Finland's independence, stating that "he will never give up the idea of a great indivisible Russia" for any momentary benefits.
On June 20, personnel changes were made. Kolchak secured the post of supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the Russian state, Dieterichs took the post of commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front, freed by Kolchak. General K. V. Sakharov became the commander of the Western Army instead of Khanzhin.
In July, the adventurous plan of Lebedev and Sakharov failed to lure the 5th Red Army to Chelyabinsk, and then encircle it and defeat it. The Western and Siberian armies were retreating in the Trans-Urals.
Kolchak made efforts to strengthen the centralization of power: by his decree of August 7, the Council of the Supreme Ruler, which consisted of close ministers, was given additional powers to organize defense. The bureaucratic apparatus was drastically reduced. Kolchak intensified propaganda among the troops, addressed with appeals to the peasants and soldiers. His order of July 28 obliged officers to explain to the soldiers the goals of the war: the unity and integrity of Russia, the solution of urgent issues for the people through the National Constituent Assembly, the protection of the Orthodox faith and national shrines. Liberal newspapers came out with calls to strengthen the defense of the state. White airplanes began dropping proclamations on the Bolshevik positions. To compromise the Bolsheviks, fake decrees of the Soviet government and issues of the newspaper Pravda were printed. Courses for military informants were opened, which trained professional agitators in the army.
The main task of the White Eastern Front was to assist Denikin's forces in their offensive against Moscow, to divert Bolshevik units onto themselves. The Whites won their last offensive battle on the Eastern Front - the September Tobolsk operation. Supreme Commander-in-Chief Admiral Kolchak personally planned the landing operations of the last offensive of his three armies and the actions of the Ob-Irtysh flotilla, hoping to swim to Tyumen. The Reds were thrown 100 km away from the Tobol River. The September victories after long setbacks were seen as a turning point in the civil war. Kolchak decided to take a step that he did not want to take during the period of retreat, so that it could not be interpreted as a manifestation of the weakness of the authorities - the transformation of the State Economic Conference into a body elected by the population.
After the September battles in Tobol, there was a certain lull. In mid-October, the Reds launched an offensive with fresh forces. White surrendered his strong points. The retreat of the white units began. The Reds were unable to break through the front, but captured bridgeheads on the left bank of the Tobol. Realizing that further struggle for positions near Tobol would lead to the final exhaustion of troops, the commander of the Eastern Front, General Dieterichs, decided to start a strategic retreat with the concession to the enemy of a significant territory of White Siberia, including, possibly, Omsk itself, and then striking the enemy from the depths of his positions ... However, this plan did not take into account that the surrender of the capital would set in motion all forces hostile to Kolchak in the rear of the army.
Dieterichs was summoned to Kolchak, while General K. V. Sakharov, with feigned indignation, supported the Supreme Ruler and defended the Omsk defense plan. Dieterichs was recalled to the rear to form volunteer units, and Sakharov was appointed in his place. After leaving Petropavlovsk, Omsk came under attack from two sides: along the converging lines of the railway from Petropavlovsk and Ishim. At the same time, Sakharov was unable to organize either a defensive line, or the defense of Omsk, or an organized retreat. As a result, the whites were late with the evacuation of the capital, carried out only on November 10. The Supreme Ruler himself decided to retreat with the army, betting that his presence in the ranks of the active forces would help to raise their spirits.
With the abandonment of Omsk, the armies of the Eastern Front began their "The Great Siberian Ice Campaign"... The command of the Eastern Front planned to delay the advance of the Reds on the line of the Ob River. The army was supposed to be replenished at the expense of rear connections, and the front was to be restored on the Tomsk - Novonikolaevsk - Barnaul - Biysk line. However, by this time the troops controlled only large settlements, in many of which revolts were raised. Despite stubborn rearguard battles, it was not possible to organize the defense, and on December 11 Barnaul was abandoned, on December 13 - Biysk, on December 14 - Novonikolaevsk.
In November 1919, the conflict between the government of the Russian state and the command of the Russian army, on the one hand, and the Czechoslovak political and military leadership, on the other, turned into a clash. On November 13, the leaders of the Czechoslovakians in Russia published a political memorandum in Siberian newspapers filled with complaints and attacks against the Russian authorities. Enraged by the actions of Czechoslovak politicians, Kolchak on November 25 demanded that the Council of Ministers stop relations with the Czechoslovak leadership.
The Trans-Siberian Railway at that time was controlled by the Czechoslovak Corps, which received an order not to let Russian military echelons east of Taiga station pass until all the Czechoslovakians with the "acquired property" had passed. The actions of the allies turned the military failures of the White Eastern Front into a catastrophe for the entire White movement in the East of Russia: the army was cut off from the rear, deprived of the opportunity to receive ammunition in time and evacuate the wounded.
December 11 Kolchak for the criminal abandonment of Omsk dismissed and put under investigation General K. V. Sakharov. General V.O. Kappel was appointed the new Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Front, who planned to restore the front along the Yenisei and establish contact with the Trans-Baikal troops of Ataman G.M.Semenov. The admiral hastened to the new capital - Irkutsk, since the city's garrison was weak, and the partisan detachment N. Kalandarishvili was approaching it.
General Zhanin, hoping to get his hands on the gold reserves of Russia, ordered not to let Kolchak's letter train go beyond Nizhneudinsk. On December 25, the echelons of the Supreme Ruler of Russia were stopped by the Czechoslovakians on their way to the Nizhneudinsk station. The Czech officer said that by order of the headquarters of the allied forces, Kolchak's trains were delayed "until further orders" and made an attempt to disarm the convoy of the Supreme Ruler. The Czechoslovakians seized and hijacked two steam locomotives by force, pulling the "golden train" and the train of the Supreme Ruler. The Russian echelons were cordoned off by Czech troops, and communication with the outside world could now be carried out only through them. Under the guise of guarding against attack, the Czechoslovakians actually took the Supreme Ruler of Russia under arrest. "Nizhneudinskoe sitting" lasted about two weeks.
On December 21, an uprising broke out in Cheremkhov. Three days later, the uprising, which was prepared by the Bolshevik underground committees of the RCP (b) and the Political Center of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, began in the suburb of Irkutsk, Glazkov, and by the evening of December 27 - in Irkutsk itself. Kolchak made an attempt to recapture the city with the help of the troops of Ataman Semyonov, but they did not manage to break into the city.
On January 3, 1920, in Nizhneudinsk, Kolchak received from the Council of Ministers a telegram signed by A.A. Cherven-Vodali, Khanzhin and Larionov demanding that he renounce power and transfer it to A.I. Denikin, as the new Supreme Ruler. The telegram of the Council of Ministers contained a forgery: allegedly the need to transfer power to Denikin had already been telegraphed by S.D. the political arena or from life not to lose "the achieved unification of all forces fighting against the Bolsheviks under one rule." The forgery was made so that Kolchak would not resist. Kolchak replied with a telegram to the Council of Ministers that he agreed to transfer power to Denikin, but only upon arrival in Verkhneudinsk, simultaneously issuing his last decree on January 4 - on a foregone conclusion of the transfer of power.
Kolchak and his assistants considered options for further action. A plan was put forward to leave for Mongolia, to the border with which an old road 250 miles long led from Nizhneudinsk. Of course, the admiral had to be pursued. But he had a convoy of more than 500 soldiers, with whom there was no need to fear pursuit. Kolchak caught fire with this plan, reminiscent of the campaigns of his youth. The admiral hoped for the loyalty of his soldiers and officers. Gathering the convoy, he said that he was not going to Irkutsk, but was temporarily staying in Nizhneudinsk, offered to stay with him to all those who are ready to share his fate and believe in him, giving the rest freedom of action. By morning, out of 500 people, only ten remained with him. In one night, realizing that he was betrayed and there was no salvation, Kolchak turned gray.
Shooting of Admiral Kolchak
Kolchak had little faith in his allies, feeling from their behavior that he would be betrayed by them, but after long hesitation, he nevertheless decided to rely on them. He occupied a compartment in a second class passenger carriage decorated with the flags of Great Britain, the USA, France, Japan and Czechoslovakia. General Janin received written instructions from the high commissioners to ensure, if possible, Kolchak's safe passage wherever he wanted. The phrase "if it turns out to be possible" was included in the instructions at the insistence of Janin.
Following Kolchak's carriage was a "golden echelon" transferred to Czech security.
On January 10, the train left Nizhneudinsk and on January 15 arrived in Irkutsk. Upon arrival, Kolchak's car was surrounded by a tight ring of guards. The admiral learned that all the allied missions had left the city the day before. With the onset of dusk, the Czechoslovakians announced to Alexander Vasilyevich that they were handing him over to the local authorities. The arrest of the admiral and his transfer to the Socialist-Revolutionary Menshevik Political Center were coordinated by the Czechs with representatives of the allies, became a measure "necessary for the safety of the Czech army", were made to ensure the free movement of their echelons to the East.
Despite earlier assurances and guarantees of security and protection, Janin and the Czechoslovakians betrayed the admiral. At about 9 pm "Polittsentr" announced the arrest to Kolchak and Pepeliaev, after which they were placed in the building of the provincial prison. Kolchak, being a man of his word, wondered for a long time how General Janin (who later received the nickname "general without honor" for breaking the officer's word) could betray him. The transfer act was drawn up at 21:55. The commander of the Japanese troops of Irkutsk, Colonel Fukuda, having learned about the arrival of the Supreme Ruler in the city, turned to Yan Syrovy with a request to transfer Alexander Vasilyevich under the protection of the Japanese battalion, to which he received an answer that Kolchak had already been handed over to the rebels.
The tragic denouement was accelerated by Kolchak's telegraphic order to Vladivostok, which became known to the Czechoslovak command, to check all valuables and property exported by Czech legionaries.
On January 21, interrogations of Kolchak by the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry began, which were of special importance for the admiral. During interrogations, the admiral behaved calmly and with great dignity, thus evoking involuntary respect from the investigators, telling in detail about his life and willingly answering questions. At the same time, Kolchak tried not to name names, and, without dumping responsibility for certain events on others, took it upon himself. Realizing that these interrogations are a kind of "memoirs" and his last word for posterity, Kolchak was frank and open, he tried to leave for history both his own biographical data and information about important historical events in which he happened to be. Kolchak described the Arctic epic in detail, without dropping a word either about the hardships of the journey, or about the island named after him. Having seized power in Irkutsk, the Bolsheviks replaced the chairman of the investigative commission with their protege Samuil Chudnovsky, who, from the first day in this position, began to infringe on and injure the person being interrogated.
Loyal to Kolchak, General Kappel, at the head of the remnants of the Eastern Front units that still retained their combat effectiveness, rushed to his rescue - despite the fierce cold and deep snows. As a result, while crossing the river Kan Kappel, he fell through the ice with his horse, froze his legs, and already on January 26, died of pneumonia.
Nevertheless, the White troops under the command of General Voitsekhovsky continued to move forward. There were only 4-5 thousand fighters left. Voitsekhovsky planned to take Irkutsk by storm and save the Supreme Ruler and all the officers languishing in the city's prisons. Sick, frostbitten, on January 30 they went to the railway line and at the Zima station defeated the Soviet troops sent against them. After a short rest, on February 3, the Kappelevites moved to Irkutsk. They took Cheremkhovo on the move, 140 km from Irkutsk, dispersed the miners' squads and shot the local revolutionary committee. General Voitsekhovsky could count on no more than 5 thousand soldiers, who were stretched along the road so that they would have taken at least a day to get ready to the battlefield when implementing his plan to rescue Kolchak. The army had four operational and seven dismantled guns with a limited amount of ammunition. Most divisions had no more than two or three machine guns with a small amount of ammunition.
In response to the ultimatum of the commander of Soviet troops Zverev about surrender, Voitsekhovsky sent a red counter ultimatum demanding the release of Admiral Kolchak and the persons arrested with him, the provision of fodder and payment of an indemnity in the amount of 200 million rubles, promising to bypass Irkutsk in this case. The Bolsheviks did not fulfill the requirements of the Whites, and Voitsekhovsky went on the attack: the Kappelites broke through to Innokentievskaya, 7 km from Irkutsk. The Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee declared the city a state of siege, and the approaches to it were turned into continuous lines of defense. The battle for Irkutsk began - according to a number of estimates, it had no equal for the entire Civil War in terms of the fierceness and fury of attacks. No prisoners were taken. The Kappelevites took Innokentyevskaya and were able to break through the lines of the city defense of the Reds.
An assault on the city was scheduled for 12 noon. At this point, the Czechoslovakians intervened and entered into an agreement with the Reds to ensure their own unhindered evacuation. Signed by the head of the 2nd Czechoslovak division, Kreichy, the White was sent a demand not to occupy the Glazkov suburb under the threat of the Czechs taking the side of the Reds. Wojciechowski would no longer have enough strength to fight a fresh, well-armed Czech army. At the same time, news came about the death of Admiral Kolchak. In the circumstances, General Voitsekhovsky ordered to cancel the offensive. The Kappelevites began to withdraw to Transbaikalia with battles.
On the night of February 6-7, 1920, Admiral Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Government Viktor Pepelyaev were shot without trial - by decree No. 27 of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee, signed by Alexander Shiryamov (chairman), as well as Snoskarev, Levenson (committee members) and the department manager of the Oborin committee.
According to a number of modern historians, the elimination of the leader of the White Guard movement in Siberia and the Far East of Russia, Admiral Kolchak, was carried out on the direct orders of Lenin.
The text of the resolution on their execution was first published in an article by the former chairman of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee Shiryamov.
According to the widespread version, the execution took place on the banks of the Ushakovka River near the Znamensky Women's Monastery. Chudnovsky supervised the execution. The bodies of the dead were thrown into the hole. Participants in the execution noted that the admiral met death with soldier's courage, maintaining his dignity in the face of death.
On February 7, the day of the execution of the Supreme Ruler, during negotiations with representatives of the 5th Army of the Reds, the Czechs signed an agreement with the Bolsheviks to leave the admiral "at the disposal of the Soviet government under the protection of Soviet troops."
Kolchak's symbolic grave is located at the place of his "resting place in the waters of the Angara" not far from the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery, where the cross is installed.
An attempt at legal rehabilitation of Kolchak
In the early 1990s, Academician D.S.Likhachev, Vice-Admiral V.N.Shcherbakov declared the need to assess the legality of the verdict passed to the admiral by the Bolshevik Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee. In the late 1990s, Yuri I. Skuratov, who was the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation at that time, and A. V. Kvashnin, Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, spoke out for the rehabilitation of Kolchak.
In 1998, S. Zuev, head of the Public Foundation for the creation of a temple-museum in memory of the victims of political repression, sent a statement to the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office for Kolchak's rehabilitation, which went to trial. On January 26, 1999, the military court of the Trans-Baikal Military District (ZabVO) declared Kolchak not subject to rehabilitation, since, from the point of view of military lawyers, despite his broad powers, the admiral did not stop the terror carried out by his counterintelligence against the civilian population.
The admiral's defenders disagreed with these arguments. Hieromonk Nikon (Belavenets), head of the organization For Faith and Fatherland, appealed to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (VS) with a request to file a protest against the refusal to rehabilitate Kolchak. The protest was forwarded to the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court, which, having considered the case in September 2001, decided not to appeal the decision of the Military Court of the ZabVO. The members of the Military Collegium decided that the admiral's merits in the pre-revolutionary period could not serve as a basis for his rehabilitation: the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee sentenced the admiral to death for organizing military actions against Soviet Russia and mass repressions against the civilian population and the Red Army, and, therefore, he was right ...
The admiral's defenders decided to appeal to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (CC), which in 2000 ruled that the ZabVO court had no right to consider the case "without notifying the convicted person or his defenders about the time and place of the court session." Since the ZabVO court in 1999 considered the case for the rehabilitation of Kolchak in the absence of defenders, then, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court, the case should be considered again, this time with the direct participation of the defense. In 2004, the Constitutional Court noted that the case for the rehabilitation of Kolchak had not been closed, as the Supreme Court had previously decided. The members of the Constitutional Court saw that the court of first instance, where the question of the admiral's rehabilitation was first raised, violated the legal procedure.
In March 2019, the FSB removed the secrecy label from Kolchak's criminal case. At the same time, access to the materials remains limited, since Kolchak was not rehabilitated.
Admiral Kolchak
Personal life of Alexander Kolchak:
Wife - Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak (nee Omirova), was born in 1876 in the Kamyanets-Podolsk Podolsk province (now the Khmelnitsky region of Ukraine). Her father was Fyodor Vasilyevich Omirov, a real privy councilor. Mother Daria Fedorovna, nee Kamenskaya, was the daughter of Major General, Director of the Forestry Institute F.A.Kamensky, sister of the sculptor F.F. Kamensky. A hereditary noblewoman, Sofya Fedorovna was brought up at the Smolny Institute and was educated (she knew seven languages, she knew French and German perfectly), beautiful, strong-willed and independent in character, which in many ways later affected her relationship with her husband.
By agreement with Kolchak, they were to get married after his first expedition. In honor of Sophia (at that time, the bride), a small island in the Litke archipelago and a cape on Bennett Island were named. The wait stretched over several years.
Three children were born in the marriage. The first girl was born in January 1908 and did not live a year. Son Rostislav was born on March 9, 1910. Daughter Margarita (1912-1914) caught a cold while fleeing the Germans from Libava and died.
Sofya Fedorovna lived in Gatchina, then in Libau. After the shelling of Libava by the Germans at the beginning of the war (August 2, 1914), she fled, leaving everything but a few suitcases (Kolchak's state apartment was then plundered, and his property was destroyed). From Helsingfors she moved to her husband in Sevastopol, where during the Civil War she waited for her husband to the last. In 1919, she managed to emigrate from there: the British allies provided her with money and provided the opportunity to travel by ship from Sevastopol to Constanta.
Then she moved to Bucharest, and then left for Paris. She died in the Longjumeau hospital in Paris in 1956 and was buried in the main cemetery of the Russian diaspora - Sainte-Genevieve de Bois. The last request of Admiral Kolchak before the execution was: "I ask you to inform my wife, who lives in Paris, that I am blessing my son." “I'll let you know,” replied the Cheka officer SG Chudnovsky, who was in charge of the execution.
His son Rostislav left Russia with his mother in 1919 and went first to Romania and then to France, where he graduated from the Higher School of Diplomatic and Commercial Sciences and in 1931 entered the service of the Bank of Algeria. The wife of Rostislav Kolchak was Ekaterina Razvozova, daughter of Admiral A. V. Razvozov. In 1939, Rostislav Aleksandrovich was mobilized into the French army, fought on the Belgian border and in 1940 was captured by the Germans, after the war he returned to Paris. In poor health, he died on June 28, 1965 and was buried next to his mother in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, where his wife was later buried. Their son Alexander Rostislavovich (1933-2019) lived in Paris.
Sofya Fedorovna - wife of Alexander Kolchak
February 7, 2010 marks the 90th anniversary of the day when Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, a Russian admiral, one of the organizers of the white movement in Russia during the Civil War, was shot by the verdict of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee.
Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak was born on November 4, 1874 in the village of Aleksandrovskoye, Petersburg district of the Petersburg province, in the family of Major General, military engineer Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak.
In 1984, Alexander Kolchak graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps and was promoted to warrant officer. From 1894 to 1900 he served on warships in the Baltic, then in the Pacific Ocean, at the same time he independently studied hydrology and oceanography. Then he began to publish in the scientific press. In 1900, he was seconded to the Academy of Sciences, and he became a member of the Russian polar expedition of Baron Eduard Toll. One of the islands in the Kara Sea was named after Kolchak (now called Rastorguev Island).
In 1903, Kolchak led the search for Toll, who did not return from Bennett Island - on dogs, then on a whaleboat made a risky transition from Tiksi Bay to Bennett Island, found traces of Toll's stay and scientific materials, but was convinced of his death. Later, following the results of the expedition, he published a number of special works, the main one of which was "The Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas".
With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, despite chronic pneumonia and articular rheumatism, which were the result of polar expeditions, Kolchak achieved a return to the Naval Department and sent to Port Arthur and was appointed to command the destroyer. Under the leadership of Kolchak, minefields were placed at the entrance to Port Arthur Bay. Also, Alexander Kolchak commanded the coastal artillery battery, where he was wounded during the battle.
After the surrender of the fortress, he was taken prisoner, but in April 1905 he returned via America to St. Petersburg. Upon his return, Kolchak was awarded the St. George's arms, the orders of St. Anne of the 4th degree and St. Stanislav of the 2nd degree with swords.
In 1905-1906, Kolchak put in order the materials of the Russian Polar Expedition - the work was so informative that it was published until the end of the 1920s.
In 1906, Kolchak was elected a full member of the Russian Geographical Society and awarded the large gold Constantine medal for "an outstanding geographical feat associated with labor and danger."
Kolchak became one of the founders and chairman of the semi-official Naval officers' circle in St. Petersburg, which set itself the task of rebuilding and reorganizing the Russian fleet on a scientific basis. With the formation of the Naval General Staff in 1906, Kolchak became one of its first employees, was engaged in the development of operational and strategic plans in the main, Baltic theater of proposed military operations, was engaged in the development of reorganization of the navy, acted in the State Duma as an expert on naval questions. In 1908 he transferred to the Naval Academy.
In 1907-1910, Kolchak was preparing the Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition, one of the tasks of which was to study the Northern Sea Route. In 1909-1910, the expedition, in which Kolchak commanded the icebreaking transport Vaigach, made the transition from the Baltic Sea through the Indian Ocean to Vladivostok, and then towards Cape Dezhnev. This voyage was Kolchak's last expedition to the Arctic seas. Since 1910, Kolchak headed the Baltic operational department of the Naval General Staff and was also involved in the development of the shipbuilding program for Russia, combining this with teaching at the Naval Academy.
Since 1912, Kolchak was in the active fleet, commanded a destroyer in the Baltic, and in December 1913 he was promoted to captain of the 1st rank, appointed flag captain of the operational unit of the headquarters of the fleet commander. During the First World War, Kolchak directed the mining of the entrance to the Gulf of Finland and the Danzig Bay, the landing of amphibious assault forces on the Riga coast in the German rear and other military operations. From September 1915, he commanded the Mine Division and directed the defense of the Gulf of Riga. In the same year, Kolchak was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree. In April 1916, Kolchak was promoted to rear admiral, in June he was appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet and at the same time promoted to vice admiral - "for distinction in service."
After the February Revolution, Kolchak himself informed the sailors about the course of events in Petrograd. On March 5, 1917, he ordered a parade and prayer service on the occasion of the victory and brought the fleet out to sea to demonstrate combat readiness to the enemy. However, under the influence of the agitation of the envoys of the "Kronstadt Republic" and the general development of events in the country, the delegate meeting of Sevastopol sailors, soldiers and workers on June 6 decided to disarm the officers and remove Kolchak from office. Kolchak demonstratively threw his dagger into the sea, announced his resignation, and on June 8 left for Petrograd. In Petrograd, at a meeting of the Provisional Government, Kolchak made a speech about the reasons for the collapse of the army and navy. Even then, he began to be viewed by the liberal-conservative circles of society as a possible candidate for dictatorship.
In August, Kolchak left at the head of a Russian naval mission, stopping in England and the United States, where he stayed until mid-October, sharing his combat experience with the Americans and learning about their military-technical training. In November, he arrived in Yokohama (Japan), where he learned about the intention of the Bolsheviks to conclude peace with Germany. In December, he asked to be accepted into the British military service. At the beginning of 1918, Kolchak went to the Mesopotamian front, but on the way he was returned from Singapore and went to Beijing, where he was elected to the board of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). In April-September 1918, he tried to form a united armed forces on the Chinese Eastern Railway to fight the "German-Bolsheviks", but ran into the resistance of the Japanese and their protege, Ataman Georgy Semyonov.
Having resigned from his duties as a member of the board of the CER, Kolchak decided to make his way to the south and join the Volunteer Army. In mid-October he arrived in Omsk and on November 4 was appointed Minister of War and Naval Minister of the Government of the Directory. On November 18, as a result of a military coup, the Directory, which was a bloc of Right SRs and Left Cadets, was abolished, and power passed into the hands of the Council of Ministers. At the next meeting of this Council, Kolchak was elected the Supreme Ruler of Russia with the promotion of full admirals.
Kolchak's power was recognized by the leaders of the main formations of whites in other regions of Russia, including Anton Denikin. In the hands of Kolchak was the gold reserve of Russia, he received military and technical assistance from the United States and the Entente countries. By the spring of 1919, he managed to create an army with a total strength of up to 400 thousand people.
The successes of Kolchak's armies fell on March-April 1919, when they occupied the Urals. However, after this defeat began. Kolchak was not prepared for the role of dictator in the conditions of the civil war: he was poorly versed in political issues, in the problems of state administration and was dependent on the conscientiousness of his advisers. In November 1919, under the onslaught of the Red Army, Kolchak left Omsk, and in December his train was blocked in Nizhneudinsk by the Czechoslovakians.
On January 4, 1920, Kolchak transferred power to Denikin, and the command of the armed forces in the East to Ataman Semenov. Kolchak was guaranteed security by the allied command, but at the request of the insurgent workers of Irkutsk on January 15, the Czechoslovakians handed Kolchak over to the Socialist-Revolutionary Menshevik Political Center, which was formed in Irkutsk, which undertook to hand him over and transfer the gold reserve to the Soviet command.
On February 7, 1920, Kolchak was shot by the verdict of the Revolutionary Committee. The remnants of Kolchak's troops left for Transbaikalia.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
November 16, 2012 10:44 amGood afternoon, Gossips! Several years ago, or rather after watching the film "Admiral" I was very interested in Kolchak's personality. Of course, everything in the film is too "correct and beautiful", that is why it is a film. In fact, there is a lot of different and conflicting information about this person, as is the case with many famous historical characters. Personally, I decided for myself that for me he is the personification of a real man, an officer and a patriot of Russia. Today marks the 138th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak - Russian politician, Vice Admiral of the Russian Imperial Fleet (1916) and Admiral of the Siberian Flotilla (1918). Polar explorer and oceanographer, participant of expeditions in 1900-1903 (awarded the Great Constantine Medal by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, 1906). Member of the Russian-Japanese, World War I and Civil War. The leader of the White movement both on a national scale and directly in the East of Russia. The supreme ruler of Russia (1918-1920), Alexander Vasilyevich was born (4) on November 16, 1874 in St. Petersburg. His father, an officer of the Naval Artillery, instilled in his son from an early age a love and interest in naval affairs and scientific pursuits. In 1888, Alexander entered the Naval Cadet Corps, which he graduated in the fall of 1894 with the rank of midshipman. He sailed to the Far East, Baltic, Mediterranean seas, participated in the scientific North Polar expedition. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, he commanded a destroyer, then a coastal battery in Port Arthur. Until 1914 he served in the Naval General Staff. During the First World War, he was the chief of the operations department of the Baltic Fleet, then the commander of a mine division. Since July 1916 - Commander of the Black Sea Fleet. After the February Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, Kolchak accused the provisional government of the collapse of the army and navy. In August, he left at the head of a Russian naval mission for the UK and the United States, where he stayed until mid-October. In mid-October 1918, he arrived in Omsk, where he was soon appointed Minister of War and Naval Minister of the Government of the Directory (a bloc of Right SRs and Left Cadets). On November 18, as a result of a military coup, power passed into the hands of the Council of Ministers, and Kolchak was elected the Supreme Ruler of Russia with the promotion of full admirals. In the hands of Kolchak was the gold reserve of Russia, he received military-technical assistance from the United States and the Entente countries. By the spring of 1919, he managed to create an army with a total strength of up to 400 thousand people. The highest successes of Kolchak's armies fell on March-April 1919, when they occupied the Urals. However, after this defeat began. In November 1919, under the onslaught of the Red Army, Kolchak left Omsk. In December, Kolchak's train was blocked in Nizhneudinsk by Czechoslovakians. On January 14, 1920, in exchange for free travel, the Czechs extradite the admiral. On January 22, the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry began interrogations, which continued until February 6, when the remnants of Kolchak's army came close to Irkutsk. The Revolutionary Committee issued a resolution on the execution of Kolchak without trial. On February 7, 1920, Kolchak, together with Prime Minister V.N. Pepelyaev was shot. Their bodies were thrown into a hole in the Angara. Until now, the burial site has not been found. Kolchak's symbolic grave (cenotaph) is located at the place of his "resting place in the waters of the Angara" not far from the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery, where the cross is installed. Few facts about personal life. Kolchak was married to Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak who bore him three children. Two of whom died in infancy and the only son, Rostislav, remained. Sofia Fedorovna Kolchak and her son were rescued by the British and sent to France. But of course the more famous woman in Kolchak's life is Timireva Anna Vasilievna. Kolchak and Timireva met at the house of Lieutenant Podgursky in Helsingfors. Both were not free, each had a family, both had sons. The entourage knew about the sympathies of the admiral and Timireva, but no one dared to speak about it aloud. Anna's husband was silent, and Kolchak's wife did not say anything either. Maybe they thought that soon everything would change, that time would help. After all, the lovers for a long time - for months, and once a whole year - did not see each other. Alexander Vasilievich carried her glove with him everywhere, and in his cabin there was a photo of Anna Vasilievna in a Russian costume. "... I spend hours looking at your photo, which stands in front of me. It has your sweet smile, with which I have associated ideas about the morning dawn, about happiness and joy of life. Maybe that's why, my guardian angel, deeds are going well, "the admiral wrote to Anna Vasilievna. She confessed her love to him first. "I told him I love him." And he, for a long time and, as it seemed to him, hopelessly in love, replied: "I did not tell you that I love you." - "No, I say it: I always want to see you, I always think about you, it is such a joy for me to see you." "I love you more than I love you" ... In 1918 Timireva announced to her husband her intention to "always be near Alexander Vasilyevich" and was soon officially divorced. By this time, Kolchak's wife Sofya had already been living in exile for several years. After that, Anna Vasilievna considered herself Kolchak's common-law wife. Together they stayed for less than two years - until January 1920. When the admiral was arrested, she went to jail after him. Anna Timireva, a twenty-six-year-old young woman who, having arrested herself, demanded that the governors of the prison give Aleksandr Kolchak the necessary things and medicines, since he was ill. They did not stop writing letters ... Almost until the very end, Kolchak and Timireva addressed each other with "you" and by name and patronymic: "Anna Vasilievna", "Alexander Vasilievich". In Anna's letters, only once breaks out: "Sasha". A few hours before the execution, Kolchak wrote her a note, which never reached the addressee: "My dear dove, I received your note, thank you for your affection and care for me ... Don't worry about me. I feel better, mine. colds pass. I think that transfer to another cell is impossible. I think only about you and your fate ... I don’t worry about myself - everything is known in advance. Every step I take is watched, and it is very difficult for me to write ... Write to me. scraps are the only joy I can have, I pray for you and bow to your sacrifice. My dear, my beloved, do not worry about me and save yourself ... Goodbye, I kiss your hands. "After Kolchak's death, Anna Vasilievna lived for another 55 years. She spent the first forty years of this period in prisons and camps, of which she rarely Until the last years of her life Anna Vasilievna wrote poems, among which there is this: Half a century I can not accept, Nothing can be helped, And you all leave again On that fateful night. And the paths of the Well-trodden paths are confused. But if I am still alive, In spite of fate, It is only like your love And the memory of you. 
An interesting fact is that Anna Vasilievna worked as an etiquette consultant on the filming of Sergei Bondarchuk's film War and Peace, which was released in 1966.
|
|
I have read several books by Sergei Smirnov. They all made an indelible impression on me. But the most powerful, truly explosive effect on me was a book called “Admiral Kolchak. The unknown about the known. " For it was a very serious historical analysis, a colossal scientific work, a biography of a very controversial and controversial figure in our history. After all, Admiral Kolchak is still perceived by many as a sinister villain, an English spy, a thief and a squander of the Empire's gold reserves, and a bloody Siberian dictator. Is that so?
For example, I still, from my school days, remember a stinging poem about Kolchak:
English uniform,
French shoulder strap,
Japanese tobacco,
The ruler of Omsk.
A few years ago, the meager knowledge of Russians about Admiral Kolchak slightly decorated the epaulette with gold and the crunch of a French roll of the film "Admiral"... So that various harmful film critics, experts in naval affairs and meticulous historians do not talk about him, but I personally liked this picture. Awe of banners, foggy Petersburg and sunny Sevastopol; a saber, spectacularly and theatrically thrown overboard by Kolchak-Khabensky; the handsome Kappel-Bezrukov and the beautiful Liza Boyarskaya - all this was to my liking. Just a beautiful oil painting. This is not a documentary, is it !? Is that so? You can't scold the artists for seeing the Admiral THAT. I propose to regard this film as fiction! Popularization of our history. Surely after watching it, someone became interested in the personality of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. And through the film, sooner or later, it will be published on the book of Sergei Smirnov, as well as on other publications.
From this book I learned a lot about the Russian admiral.
1) About Kolchak's scientific polar activity
Due to the fact that I served in the Hydrography of the Northern Navy of the USSR, and even on ships that bore the names of famous naval scientists, at one time I was interested in polar research.
At the very least he knew something about Kolchak. It turned out that really and bad and poor... Now the gap for this polar explorer has been eliminated.
Alexander Kolchak took an active part in Russian polar expedition led by Baron Eduard Toll on the schooner Zarya. This famous hydrographic vessel studied the sea currents in the Kara and East Siberian Seas, searched for the legendary Sannikov Land, explored the famous and discovered new islands in the Arctic Ocean.
|
|
One of the islands discovered by the expedition in the Taimyr Bay deserves the name of Kolchak.
Who among you will be able to recognize in this polar explorer in the furs of the future "Aglitsky spyen" and "plunderer of the gold reserve"?
The photo shows Lieutenant Kolchak during his first wintering at the Taimyr Peninsula. Together with Baron Eduard Toll, he often had to harness the dog sleds and help his sled dogs. The polar explorers of the schooner "Zarya" made many-day hiking trips on ice and snow, and spent the night in tents in the strong polar frosts.
In the next photo, the third from the left, next to the dog - he is also the future dictator and Supreme Ruler of Russia Alexander Kolchak.
Once, during one of his many trips, he, together with Baron Toll, walked 500 miles in dog sleds for 40 days. In the icy cold and in the harsh conditions of the Taimyr winter. Who of us today, even with satellite phones and navigators, wearing modern super-warm clothes and nano-thermal underwear, is capable of such a thing !? And the polar explorers of the schooner "Zarya" had such wintering two. Two winters (!) in an extreme environment with rapidly melting supplies of food and coal.
At the end of that expedition, its leader, Baron Eduard Toll, along with a small group of comrades, disappeared and died.
Later, Kolchak developed a rescue operation to find Toll's group and led it himself. For seven months Alexander Vasilyevich was looking for his friend, he examined all the islands of the Novosibirsk group, but he never found anyone ...
There were so many scientific materials collected by Kolchak during the polar expeditions, they were so extensive and rich that a special commission of the Academy of Sciences was created to study them. And in 1909, Alexander Vasilyevich published his largest scientific work - a monograph "Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas" .
Kolchak also managed to take part in Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition, which was organized for the development and development of the Northern Sea Route. It consisted of two new icebreaking ships - "Vaygach" and "Taimyr"... The icebreaker "Vaygach" was commanded by Lieutenant Kolchak.
|
|
Subsequently, that expedition made the most recent significant geographical discovery on the globe - it found and mapped archipelago Severnaya Zemlya.
|
|
Also "Vaygach" and "Taimyr" discovered numerous capes, bays, bays and seas of the Russian Arctic.
So, thanks to the efforts, energy and personal courage of the hydrographer, geographer, cartographer, sailor and polar explorer Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, we are actively using Northern Sea Route. This is the way in which the northern delivery is carried out annually and thanks to which the Russian North: Yamal, Taimyr, and other Polar and Subpolar regions safely survive the long polar winter.
Today in Yamal the newest port of Sabetta, and new routes for sea gas carriers are being laid to it along the Northern Sea Route - all this became possible due to the fact that a hundred years ago Lieutenant Kolchak made depth measurements, studied currents, density and salinity of water, observed ice and mapped the island and the coast.
2) Kolchak's participation in the Russo-Japanese War
In my school years, this was not mentioned at all. I remember about the atrocities of the Kolchakites in Siberia. I also remember a poem about an English uniform and Japanese tobacco. But I first learned about his exploits in Port Arthur from the book by Sergei Smirnov.
|
|
As soon as Kolchak found out about the beginning of the Russian-Japanese war, he contacted St. Petersburg by telegraph and asked for his transfer from the Academy of Sciences, to which he was "assigned", to the Naval War Department. Arrived in Port Arthur and met with the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov. And he appointed him chief of watch on the 1st rank cruiser "Askold". And two weeks later, Admiral Makarov, whom Kolchak considered his teacher, died on board the flagship battleship "Petropavlovsk". The ship was blown up by a Japanese mine.
After the death of Admiral Makarov, the mine war became a matter of honor and life for Lieutenant Kolchak. A few days later he was appointed commander of the Angry destroyer. Commanding this destroyer, he performed two heroic deeds that went down in the history of the war with Japan.
|
|
First, together with the Amur minelayer and the Skorim destroyer, he took part in setting up a minefield. And the next day after that, the Japanese battleships "Hatsuse" and "Yashima" were killed on the placed mines.
And this was the loudest success of the First Pacific Squadron in the entire military campaign.
|
|
And your MAIN Kolchak accomplished a military feat in the Russo-Japanese War when, commanding the destroyer "Angry", he placed 16 mines in a place he had chosen in advance. And on the night of December 13, 1904, these mines blew up and sank the Japanese armored cruiser Takasago.
This success was the second most important for Russian sailors after the sinking of the battleships Hatsuse and Yasima. Alexander Vasilyevich was very proud of this success.
|
|
The Japanese war ended in captivity for Kolchak. Wounded and sick, he ended up in a hospital in the city of Nagasaki. Sick officers were asked to either undergo treatment in Japan or return to Russia. All Russian officers preferred their homeland.
|
|
3) Rebuilding the navy after the Japanese disaster
The Russian fleet suffered a crushing defeat. He needed to be revived. Moreover, at a completely new, more modern technical level. The restoration of the military fleet was taken up by Alexander Kolchak. In this work, he turned out to be one of the key figures. He was involved in planning and organizing the reconstruction of the sea power of the Russian Empire. He took an active part in the work of the Naval General Staff. He gave lectures at the Naval Nikolaev Academy, and these lectures were a tremendous success. He was vied with each other to speak at officers' meetings of naval units and formations. And after the publication of his article "What kind of fleet do we need?" Kolchak was invited to read the report at a meeting of the State Duma.
The effect of this speech was absolutely amazing - Lieutenant Kolchak became a permanent member of the Duma Defense Commission. Think about it - a naval officer with a modest rank of lieutenant began to take part in increasing the defense capability of the Russian State! Moreover, not being a Duma deputy!
Thanks to his efforts, the Sevastopol-class battleships, Izmail-class battlecruisers, qualitatively new submarines and legendary Novik-class destroyers that had no analogues in the whole world were laid down on the Russian stocks.
|
|
Naval historian Vladimir Gennadievich Khandorin states: “ all battleships, half of the cruisers and a third of the destroyers of the Soviet Navy, which entered the Great Patriotic War in 1941, were built according to this program. "
Once again I draw your attention - all battleships, half of the cruisers and a third of the destroyers that met the Nazis were built thanks to the vigorous activity of Kolchak. As for the unique and legendary destroyers of the Novik series, they successfully served in the Soviet Navy until the mid-1950s. And this is also thanks to Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak.
|
|
4) About Kolchak's participation in the First World War in the Baltic
Here in my knowledge was not just a gap, but MISS! And Sergei Smirnov's book covered this failure with facts, figures and arguments. I can assume that if you ask (for example) ten thousand people, it is unlikely that at least one of them will clearly tell about the military exploits of Kolchak in the First World War. Unless you accidentally come across a school history teacher, college teacher, or some polymath who is passionate about the nautical theme.
I personally had a shock after reading the information about Kolchak's "arbitrariness" in the unauthorized installation of minefields in the Gulf of Finland on the last peaceful night on the eve of the Great War. Moreover, after all, I had already read about this from the writer Valentin Pikul, but somehow it did not linger in my memory. I'll tell you about this heroic self-will in a little more detail.
At the end of July 1914, Russia could still avoid a terrible, protracted, ruinous and bloody war. And if Emperor Nicholas II had shown his statesmanship, then the subsequent catastrophe with our country would not have happened.
The naval officer, captain 1st rank Kolchak understood the inevitability of the impending invasion, and being in Revel, on the night of July 30, still BEFORE the official declaration of war, sent a telegram to the Commander of the Baltic Sea Naval Forces, Admiral Nikolai von Essen. And in that telegram, almost in the form of an ultimatum, he demanded permission to mine the Gulf of Finland. The wise von Essen understood that if he began to coordinate all this with the General Staff and the indecisive Emperor, the time would be lost. And Nikolai Ottovich "gave the go-ahead." Kolchak's mine division went into the night. On the last peaceful night. And arranged unexpected surprises for the Germans.
It's a strange thing - everyone who proclaims their state the Reich, for some reason, necessarily rely on blitz krieg. So on August 1, 1914the striking power of the German fleet under the combat escort of destroyers rushed into the throat of the Gulf of Finland. In order to instantly break through the Russian defense forces and drop their anchors at the berths of Kronstadt and at the mouth of the Neva. And suddenly, unexpectedly, where they had not expected in any way, five pennants from the destroyers of the German fleet were blown up by mines. Where did they come from, these mines !? - the Germans did not understand. A day ago, their intelligence was sure that the Gulf of Finland was clean ...
|
|
In complete confusion, the blitz-krieg fans turned to their bases. And not from the magnitude of the losses - they were not catastrophic. Of the five destroyers, only two were permanently out of order. But the German sailors were shocked. As it turned out later, the entire Gulf of Finland was blocked off. eight lines of minefields.
In general, the military wisdom, perseverance, will and "arbitrariness" of the captain of the first rank Kolchak arranged very big problems for Germany in the Baltic. And for several years ahead. Mine banks securely locked the sea gates to the capital of the Russian Empire until the very end of the war.
|
|
And that was only the beginning of the mine war. Kolchak's destroyers presented the enemy with many unpleasant surprises. One of them - the most famous case - occurred in the water area of Memel. Today this Lithuanian city is called Klaipeda. And then there was a large German naval base. On November 17, 1914, at the exit from its base, the armored cruiser Friedrich Karl ran into a mine bank.
A very beautiful ship, isn't it? But this handsome man went to the bottom, and he left very beautifully. I repeat once again - I was blown up by Russian mines CLOSE to my base, 30 miles away. By the way, at the beginning of the film "Admiral" is shown the death of this very cruiser - "Friedrich Karl".
And that's not all - the Germans began to explode on mine banks installed near Danzig. And this is East Prussia, deep rear! Then there were explosions near the island of Bornholm - and this, by the way, is not far from the Danish straits! And, finally, the most unpleasant surprises for the German imperial fleet arose in the waters of Kiel - the main and most western base of the German fleet in the Baltic!
|
|
The losses of Germany in the Baltic were enormous - 6 cruisers, 8 destroyers and 23 sea transport vessels. All this demonstrated to the German Command that its fleet was incapable of ensuring the security not only of the coast of Lithuania and East Prussia, but also of the Reich itself. Kolchak's biographers claim that the commander of the German Baltic Fleet, Prince Heinrich of Prussia, ordered the prohibition of ships to go to sea until a means is found to combat Russian mines.
|
|
Kolchak's mine division openly and with impunity "plundered" in the Baltic, especially along its southern and southeastern coasts. Mine banks, as if by themselves, appeared in the most unexpected places. For example, near Vindava (this is the current city of Ventspils in Latvia) on Russian mines a German cruiser and several destroyers were blown up. In fact, it was Kolchak's destroyers who were the first to use the tactics that, years later, the submariners of the Third Reich would call the "wolf pack." Wolf packs of our destroyers terrorized the communications and coastal bases of the German fleet throughout the war.
|
|
In general, at the end of 1915, the losses of the German fleet in warships exceeded the losses of the Russians. 3.5 times, and in transport ships - 5 times. And the contribution of Kolchak's Mine Division to this defeat is more than high. For example, great success happened on May 31st, 1916. Three Kolchak destroyers - "Novik", "Oleg" and "Rurik" - carried out a brilliant operation: within 30 minutes they sunk a whole caravan of dry cargo ships coming from Sweden. To the bottom, along with the Swedish iron ore, not only transport ships went, but also every single combat escort ships.
|
|
In the minds of a great number of our fellow citizens, there is a stamp about sloppiness and moral decay of Baltic sailors during the First World War. Say, they did not want to fight, but walked around St. Petersburg with a cigarette in their teeth, with a red bow on a pea jacket, shook the pavements with wide flares, robbed wine cellars and squeezed cooks in the doorways. Yes, it was ... but later - in 1917. And before the February Revolution, most of the Balts fought. And they fought very well! The figures given in the book by Sergei Smirnov on the ratio of naval losses speak for themselves.
|
|
5) About Kolchak's service in the Black Sea Fleet and plans to take Constantinople
In June 1916, Alexander Kolchak was promoted to vice admiral and appointed Commander of the Black Sea Fleet, becoming the youngest of the warring powers' fleet commanders. During a personal audience with the Tsar, the secret meaning of his transfer to the south was revealed. At Headquarters, it was decided to implement a plan, an old dream of the Russian tsars - as old as the "Tale of Bygone Years." In St. Petersburg, they wanted to repeat what happened with Prophetic Oleg, who nailed the shield to the gates of Constantinople, and to fix what the “white general” Mikhail Skobelev could not do - namely, to seize Istanbul-Constantinople and the Black Sea straits. Kolchak immediately left for Sevastopol and began to develop an operation plan.
An interesting fact is that when the German cruiser exited "Breslau" from the Turkish Bosphorus strait Kolchak personally met him on the battleship "Empress Mary" and the first salvo inflicted such damage on him that he hastily returned to the strait, covered by a smoke screen.
Battle cruiser "Goeben", who was supposed to change the "Breslau" in the water area, then did not dare to leave the Bosphorus at all. The appearance of Russian dreadnoughts near the Turkish straits radically changed the military situation - the same "Goeben" until the end of 1917 never went to the Black Sea at all.
|
|
But the cruiser "Breslau" that escaped from Kolchak did not left his fate - he was blown up by a Russian mine. She and several dozen other deadly "gifts" were installed in the Turkish straits by our underwater minelayer "Crab" - please note the world's first UNDERWATER minelayer!
|
|
Kolchak on the Black Sea applied his proven Baltic tactics - mining of enemy bases and its coasts... And this tactic again brought great success. The Bulgarian ports of Varna and Zonguldak were tightly blocked by minefields - the Germans lost 6 submarines on them. For a long time, enemy ships generally disappeared from the Black Sea.
By December 1916, Kolchak's plan for the "Bosphorus operation" to capture Istanbul was ready, and it was submitted to the Headquarters. This daring plan envisaged a massive offensive by the Caucasian army along the Asian coast of Turkey towards the straits.
|
|
And as soon as the forces of the German-Turkish troops were diverted to the breakthrough of the Caucasian army, the Black Sea Fleet would have entered into action - it would have made a lightning landing in the rear of the defending enemy, and would have captured both the Bosphorus and all of Istanbul, and then Strait of the Dardanelles. Thus, the old Slavic dream would come true - the liberation of ancient Constantinople from the Ottomans.
The headquarters approved this plan. Active preparations began for its implementation. Seaplanes even began to arrive in the Crimea to form the Black Sea Air Division. She was supposed to support the landing on Istanbul from the air. The pilots were engaged in reconnaissance work and carried out aerial photography of the Turkish coast and fortifications. The fleet conducted firing practice. The Sevastopol Bialystok Infantry Regiment began training in loading and disembarking from ships on the coast, and was already so trained in these exercises that it seems to have reached the skills of modern marines.
|
|
But the plans to seize Istanbul and return the name Constantinople to it failed to materialize. One of the most important reasons is the outright sabotage and court intrigues of the commander of the Caucasian army - the very army that was supposed to attack Istanbul by land. Ironically, it was commanded by Kolchak's longtime ill-wisher, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. He did everything he could to boycott the Kolchak operation and ultimately thwarted it. And then the February Revolution broke out, and Emperor Nicholas abdicated. Confusion and vacillation began in the country and in the navy.
A few years later, a colleague, flag officer and friend of Kolchak, Rear Admiral Mikhail Ivanovich Smirnov, being in exile, will write in his memoirs: "If the revolution had not happened, Kolchak would have hoisted the Russian flag on the Bosphorus."
|
|
6) About the award dagger thrown overboard
Monarchist Alexander Kolchak was devoted to the throne and fatherland. The news of the Tsar's abdication made him extremely sad. He believed that the Fatherland was heading for ruin. Vice-Admiral Kolchak did not accept the February revolution. Running a little ahead of myself, I will inform you that a few years later, already being the Supreme Ruler of Russia, he will forbid celebrating and celebrating the anniversary of the February revolution - because it led to a catastrophe - the October coup, civil war, the collapse of the Russian Empire, devastation and suffering, death and emigration of millions of our compatriots.
The most striking illustration of Kolchak's attitude to everything that happened in the summer of 1917 is the famous scene of the award dagger being thrown overboard the battleship "George the Victorious". Filmmakers from the movie "Admiral" used for the beauty of the picture some kind of decorative broadsword with an elegantly twisted guard. The omniscient Wikipedia calls this honorary St. George weapon for some reason a golden saber. The general public is convinced that it was a checker, although it should be noted that it did not work out with checkers in the fleet at all - they were not there when they were born. And Kolchak threw out the award for Port Arthur - St. George's dagger "For Bravery." I threw it out with words that later went around all the newspapers, became very famous and went down in history. He told the revolutionary sailors: “The Japanese, our enemies - and they left me a weapon. You will not get it either! "