Kapel general biography. Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel biography. From Samara to Simbirsk

Are you here: Blood

Family

Father - Oscar Pavlovich Kappel (-) - a descendant of immigrants from Sweden, a hereditary nobleman of the Kovno province. He served in Turkestan: first as a “lower rank”, and then as an officer. For bravery during military operations against the troops of the Bukhara Emirate, he was awarded the Soldier's Cross of St. George, 4th degree. For the courage shown during the capture of the Jizzakh fortress, he was promoted to ensign of the army infantry and awarded the Order of St. Anne, 4th degree, with the inscription “For bravery,” and the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree, with swords and bow. He transferred to serve in the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, captain.
Mother - Elena Petrovna, née Postolskaya (1861-1949), daughter of Lieutenant General Pyotr Ivanovich Postolsky - participant in the Crimean War, hero of the Defense of Sevastopol, holder of the Order of St. George, 4th degree. The mother of Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel survived the civil war and the time of Stalinist repressions, replacing one letter in her surname and becoming E.P. Koppel. Lived in Moscow.
Brother - Boris, sister - Vera.
Wife - Olga Sergeevna, nee Stolman. Born July 24, 1888. Daughter of an actual state councilor, director of a cannon factory. The wedding took place in 1909 secretly (V.O. Kappel stole his beloved from his parents’ house in January 1909 and married her in a rural church), since the bride’s parents were against her marriage to a young officer. V. O. Kappel’s relations with them normalized only after his admission to the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, the end of which allowed him to count on a successful career. During the Civil War, she was taken hostage by the Bolsheviks, but attempts to blackmail the general with her help were unsuccessful. After the Civil War, she remained in Russia, again taking her maiden name Strolman. She died on April 7, 1960.
Children - Tatiana and Kirill.

Education

Completed his primary education in 1894. He graduated from the 2nd Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg (), served as a cadet of private rank at the Nikolaev Cavalry School (graduation in the first category and graduation into the 54th Novomirgorod Dragoon Regiment with promotion to cornets).

From November 9, 1915 to March 14, 1916 - senior adjutant of the headquarters of the 14th Cavalry Division. In November 1915, Vladimir Oskarovich temporarily acted as chief of staff of the division.

Already on October 2, 1917, V. O. Kappel left his service and went on leave to Perm to his family, which was allowed to him due to illness. Vladimir Oskarovich never returned to the front of the World War and did not see the final collapse of the army either...

Participation in the civil war

From Perm to Samara

General Staff Lieutenant General V. O. Kappel. Winter 1919

He refused the position of head of the District Headquarters department offered by the Reds, about which the corresponding personal telegram from V.O. Kappel was received in the office management department of the General Staff.

At the first opportunity - immediately after the occupation of Samara by the rebels who tried to disarm and intern the Bolsheviks by the troops of the Czechoslovak Corps and the beginning of a local uprising - he ended up in the People's Army of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly as an assistant to the head of the Operations Department of the General Staff. Vladimir Oskarovich remained at this post for less than a day... The number of the first volunteer units - a couple of infantry companies, a cavalry squadron and a horse battery with two guns - was insignificant in comparison with the Red forces that were beginning to hang on all sides. Therefore, there were few officers among those willing to command the first Samara volunteers - everyone considered the matter doomed to failure in advance.

Only one Lieutenant Colonel Kappel volunteered:

One of his contemporaries recalled a meeting on June 9 or 10, 1918 of General Staff officers living in Samara, at which the question was raised about who would lead the volunteer units:

There were no people willing to take on the difficult and responsible role. Everyone was silent in embarrassment, with their eyes downcast. Someone timidly suggested casting lots. And then, modest in appearance, almost unknown to anyone, the officer who had recently arrived in Samara stood up and asked to speak: “Since there are no volunteers, then temporarily, until a senior is found, allow me to lead units against the Bolsheviks,” he said calmly and quietly . At this moment, history wrote the name of Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel in its book of the white struggle...

A monarchist by conviction, far from the views of the Socialist Revolutionary leaders of KOMUCH, V. O. Kappel was confident that the main task of the moment was the fight against Bolshevism. For him, it was not so important under what slogans KOMUCH’s work was carried out, the main thing was the opportunity to immediately enter into the fight against Soviet power... Having first destroyed this power, then it would be possible to equip Russia on the basis of the thousand-year experience of its development and existence.

From Samara to Simbirsk

Initially, Vladimir Oskarovich led a detachment of volunteers of 350 people (a combined infantry battalion of Captain Buzkov (2 companies, 90 bayonets), a cavalry squadron (45 sabers) of Staff Captain Stafievsky, the Volga Cavalry Battery of Captain Vyrypaev (with 2 guns and 150 servants), cavalry reconnaissance, demolition team and economic unit), called the 1st volunteer Samara squad and formed on June 9, 1918 in Samara. Staff Captain M. M. Maksimov became the chief of staff of the squad. According to V.E. Shambarov, the core of the emerging People's Army were former Kornilov shock troops who did not make it to the south of Russia and settled on the Volga.

The first battle of the detachment under the command of Vladimir Oskarovich took place near Syzran on June 11, 1918: the operation took place exactly according to the commander’s plan: thanks to the “wide maneuver” - Kappel’s favorite method of conducting combat operations subsequently, the combination of which with the “deep bypass” became his calling card, always leading to resounding victories over the Reds.

Syzran was taken by Kappel with a sudden stunning blow.

Already the first battles conducted by V. O. Kappel showed that the General Staff officer, who spent the entire Great War at the headquarters of first cavalry divisions and then at the headquarters of the Southwestern Front, was able to brilliantly apply the acquired knowledge and experience in practice. The basis of his successful actions was, first of all, an accurate calculation and consideration of the specifics of the Civil War, a balanced assessment of both his own forces and those of the enemy. He scrupulously weighed the degree of acceptable risk directly on the battlefield, and that is why his blows were so crushing

Having taken Syzran on June 11, 1918, on the 12th, Kappel’s volunteer detachment returned to Samara, from where it was transferred along the Volga to Stavropol-Volzhsky with the goal of taking the city, which Vladimir Oskarovich successfully did, clearing the Volga bank opposite the city from the Reds along the way. On July 10, Kappel is already giving a new battle near Syzran, which was reoccupied by the Reds and returning it under the control of KOMUCH. This was followed by the capture of Buguruslan and Buzuluk. And Kappel’s defeat of the Reds after a heavy battle at the Melekes station throws the enemy back to Simbirsk, thereby securing Samara.

The Bolshevik headquarters, by a separate order, appointed monetary bonuses: 50,000 rubles for Kappel’s head, as well as for unit commanders...

Kappel said, reading the order and laughing.

In the summer battles of 1918, Vladimir Oskarovich proved himself not only as a talented military leader, he became a true leader of the Volga region volunteers, becoming close to ordinary volunteers, along with them and other leaders of the detachment, sharing all the dangers and hardships of fighting with them, winning the sincere love of his subordinates :

“...A modest military man, slightly above average height, dressed in a khaki-colored tunic and Uhlan retuses, in officer’s cavalry boots, with a revolver and a saber on his belt, without shoulder straps and only with a white bandage on his sleeve” - this is how Vladimir Oskarovich remained in the memory of his contemporaries.

At that time, every commander, including Kappel, was at the same time an ordinary soldier. On the Volga, Kappel more than once had to lie down in a chain with his volunteers and fire at the Reds. Perhaps this is precisely why he knew so subtly the mood and needs of his soldiers. As was customary, all ranks of the detachment were required to have rifles or carbines. Kappel was the most exemplary in this regard. He did not part with his rifle even when he was the commander-in-chief of the armies.

The detachment ate from the common soldiers' kitchens or canned food. For a long time, none of the officers in the cavalry had officer saddles. Everyone had soldier's saddles, as they were more convenient for packing. The volunteers of the detachment, seeing their boss all the time before their eyes, living the same life with them, became more and more attached to Kappel every day. Experiencing joy and grief together, they fell in love with him and were ready to do anything for him, not sparing their lives.

On July 17, a joint Russian-Czech shock detachment (2 battalions of infantry, a cavalry squadron, a Cossack hundred, 3 batteries) under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Kappel marched to Simbirsk, and, having completed a 150-kilometer forced march, took the city on July 21, 1918. Simbirsk defended itself superior forces of the Reds (about 2,000 people and strong artillery) under the command of the Soviet military leader G.D. Gai, who later became famous, plus the defenders had an advantage in choosing a position for the defense of the city. The Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Front of the Red Army I. I. Vatsetis in his telegram dated July 20, 1918 ordered

The Soviet commander Guy was unable to oppose anything to Kappel’s “crown” sudden flank maneuver, which in the early morning of July 21 knocked down the red defenses of Simbirsk and, cutting the Simbirsk-Inza railway, burst into the city from the rear.

V. O. Kappel’s next success was solemnly announced in order No. 20 for the troops of the People’s Army of KOMUCH dated July 25, 1918, and on August 24, 1918, for the victory at Simbirsk by KOMUCH order No. 254, V. O. Kappel was promoted to colonel.

By the beginning of August 1918, the “territory of the Constituent Assembly” extended from west to east for 750 versts (from Syzran to Zlatoust, from north to south - for 500 versts (from Simbirsk to Volsk). Under its control, except for Samara, Syzran, Simbirsk and Stavropol-Volzhsky there were also Sengilei, Bugulma, Buguruslan, Belebey, Buzuluk, Birsk, Ufa. South of Samara, a detachment of Lieutenant Colonel F. E. Makhin took Khvalynsk and approached Volsk. The Czechs under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Voitsekhovsky occupied Yekaterinburg.

Kappel's successes frightened the Bolshevik leadership, and the fall of Simbirsk, the homeland of the “leader of the world proletariat,” made a huge negative impression in Moscow. Trotsky demands reinforcements, declares “the revolution is in danger,” and arrives personally on the Volga. All possible Red forces urgently begin to be sent to the Eastern Front. As a result, the following Red forces were deployed against Simbirsk and Samara: the 1st Army of M. N. Tukhachevsky, consisting of 7 thousand bayonets and 30 guns, as well as the Volskaya Division from the 4th Army. In Kazan, under the personal leadership of the commander of the Eastern Front, I. I. Vatsetis, the 5th Soviet Army was concentrated, consisting of 6 thousand soldiers, 30 guns, 2 armored trains, 2 airplanes and 6 armed ships.

The choice of direction for the new strike caused much controversy. The main headquarters in Samara, represented by Colonel S. Chechek, Colonel N.A. Galkin and Colonel P.P. Petrov, insisted on delivering the main blow to Saratov, which was of strategic importance for the People's Army. Colonel V. O. Kappel, A. P Stepanov, V. I. Lebedeev, B. K. Fortunatov defended the need for a strike in the direction of Kazan. As a result, the demonstration planned by the command turned into the capture of the city by units of Kappel and Stepanov.

General Kappel at the staff car. 1918

Having started moving from Simbirsk on steamships on August 1, the flotilla of the People's Army, having previously defeated the Red flotilla that came out to meet them at the mouth of the Kama, on August 5 already created a threat to Kazan, landing troops on the pier and the opposite bank of the Volga. Kappel with three companies headed east, bypassing the city, while the Czechs launched an attack on the city from the pier. On August 6, in the middle of the day, Kappel entered the city from the rear, causing panic in the ranks of the defending Bolsheviks. Nevertheless, the battle dragged on due to the stubborn resistance of the Latvian Riflemen (Soviet 5th Latvian Regiment), who even began to push the Czechs back to the pier. The decisive factor was the transition to the side of the whites by 300 fighters of the Serbian battalion of Major Blagotich, stationed in the Kazan Kremlin, which at the decisive moment launched an unexpected flank attack on the Reds. As a result, the Latvian resistance was broken.

The military court sentenced them, as foreigners who had minded their own business, to death.

Kappel's telegram on the capture of Kazan

After two days of heavy fighting, despite the numerical superiority of the Reds, as well as the presence of serious fortifications on the defending side, on August 7, by noon, Kazan was taken by the joint efforts of the Samara detachment of the People's Army, its battle flotilla and Czechoslovak units. The trophies “could not be counted”; the gold reserves of the Russian Empire were captured (Kappel did everything to remove Russia’s gold reserves from Kazan in time and preserve them for the White movement). The losses of the Samara detachment amounted to 25 people.

As for the Reds defending in Kazan, I. I. Vatsetis, who commanded the Eastern Front instead of the murdered Muravyov, said best about them personally to Lenin: “... for the most part, they turned out to be completely incapable of combat due to their tactical unpreparedness and lack of discipline.” At the same time, the commander of the Red Eastern Front himself miraculously escaped capture.

The significance of the capture of Kazan by the troops of V. O. Kappel:
- the Academy of the General Staff, located in Kazan, headed by General A.I. Andogsky, moved to the anti-Bolshevik camp in its entirety;
- thanks to the success of Kappel’s troops, the uprising at the Izhevsk and Votkinsk factories was possible;
- the Reds left the Kama along the Vyatka River;
- Sovrossiya lost Kama bread;
- huge warehouses with weapons, ammunition, medicines, ammunition, as well as Russia’s gold reserves (650 million gold rubles in coins, 100 million rubles in credit notes, gold bars, platinum and other valuables) were seized.

From Kazan to Ufa

With the capture of Kazan, a reorganization of the People's Army followed: the Volga Front was created under the command of Colonel S. Chechek, which united all Russian and Czechoslovak troops. The front was divided into military groups: Kazan, Simbirsk (under the command of Colonel V.O. Kappel), Syzran, Khvalynsk, Nikolaev, Ufa, a group of the Ural Cossack army and a group of the Orenburg Cossack army. In Kazan, units of the People's Army planned to deploy a corps of two divisions, but there was no time left for this...

Immediately after the capture of Kazan, Kappel began to develop a plan for a further attack on Moscow through Nizhny Novgorod, because there were only about 300 miles left to Zlatoglavaya, and long-term positional defense in the situation that arose immediately after the capture of Kazan was not possible. At a meeting of General Staff officers in Kazan, Vladimir Oskarovich insisted on further movement towards Moscow. Kappel's plan was based on information received about the readiness of the workers of the Nizhny Novgorod Sormovsky plant to oppose Soviet power. Kappel’s attitude and self-confidence is also indicated by the episode that took place on August 5, when V. O. Kappel, in response to A. P. Stepanov’s question “Shall we take Moscow?” answered in the affirmative.

Kappel suggested that Galkin, Lebedev and Fortunatov build on their success - take Nizhny Novgorod right away, and with it the second “golden pocket”, which would certainly deprive the Bolsheviks of the “golden key” in the game with the Kaiser: before the signing of the “Additional Agreements” in Berlin There were only 20 days left. But the headquarters “troika”, as well as the Czechs, citing the lack of reserves for the defense of Samara, Simbirsk and Kazan, categorically opposed the bold plan of the colonel, who argued that in the civil war the one who advances wins (General A.I. was also a supporter of the offensive strategy). Denikin; he believed that in a civil war, the impulse of the attackers is fundamentally important, and strongly fortified and even seemingly impregnable positions do not have such decisive importance as they had in the Great War; due to this belief, Denikin did not pay attention to the creation of an offensive during the March on Moscow of the troops of the South of Russia, defensive fortified lines, to which in case of failure the troops could be able to “catch on”). Instead of an offensive, the Socialist Revolutionaries preferred a limited defense, which became a major strategic mistake of KOMUCH, because despite all the calls, the influx of volunteers into the People’s Army was weak - even teachers and students of the General Staff Academy in Kazan avoided mobilization, continuing to observe “neutrality.”

The majority of the officers who conferred in August 1918 in Kazan decided, as the textbooks taught: “First consolidate what has been won, and then move on” - and V. O. Kappel’s bold plans were not given a chance to be implemented.

Meanwhile, the fears of the General Staff in Samara were soon justified: the Bolshevik command made every effort to return Kazan - the People's Commissar for Military Affairs and Chairman of the Supreme Military Council of the Soviet Republic L. D. arrived in Sviyazhsk, where the remnants of the defeated Red troops who had retreated from Kazan settled. Trotsky, who developed the most energetic activity there and used the most brutal measures to establish discipline in the scattered and demoralized Red troops. Thanks to the strategically important bridge across the Volga remaining in the hands of the Bolsheviks, the 5th Soviet Army quickly received reinforcements and soon Kazan was surrounded by the Reds on three sides.

The Bolshevik leadership transferred 3 destroyers from the Baltic Fleet to the Volga, and the local Red Volga steamships were armed with heavy naval guns. The advantage on the water quickly passed to the Reds. Samara did not provide additional reserves, saying that Kazan must hold on on its own. The forces of the volunteers melted away, and the Reds, on the contrary, increased their pressure, sending their best troops, that is, Latvian regiments, to the Volga.

In the subsequent failures of the People's Army, the main role was played by the complete lack of reserves, not prepared by the Socialist Revolutionary leadership of KOMUCH, despite the time that Kappel's successes on the Volga gave, and the opportunities that the territories under the control of KOMUCH provided in terms of mobilization.

Kappel, instead of marching on Moscow, a week after the capture of Kazan, that is, on August 14, 1918, had to hastily return to Simbirsk, where the position of the People's Army worsened sharply - units of the 1st Red Army were advancing on the city. On August 14-17, a fierce battle took place near Simbirsk, in which Kappel showed himself to be a talented tactician, leading his units into battle directly from steamships. Kappel's military talent collided with the commensurate talent of Tukhachevsky. On the third day of stubborn battle, the latter was forced to retreat and move his headquarters to Inza, 80 versts west of Simbirsk.

Not having had time to complete the operation near Simbirsk and having barely begun to develop a plan for pursuing the retreating troops of the future Marshal of the Soviet Union, Kappel received an order to urgently return to the Kazan area to participate in the battles for Sviyazhsk, where he and his brigade went by ship on August 25. Kappel's brigade at this time consisted of two rifle regiments, a cavalry squadron and three artillery batteries with a total number of about 2,000 people with 10-12 guns.

In the battles for Sviyazhsk, Kappel was initially successful. Parts of his brigade burst into the station, almost capturing the headquarters of the 5th Army and Trotsky’s personal train, but just at that time reinforcements approached the Reds and units of the 5th Army, supported by naval artillery, began to cover the left flank of the brigade. In view of the overwhelming superiority of the enemy, Kappel had to abandon the capture of Sviyazhsk, but the operation carried out caused severe panic among the Bolsheviks and temporarily eased the situation in Kazan. Kappel insisted on a repeated offensive on Sviyazhsk, but, as before near Simbirsk, he was unable to complete what he started - the brigade was urgently called to Simbirsk, the situation of which had sharply worsened.

By the beginning of September 1918, the offensive of the People's Army was finally running out of steam: the Northern group stopped its offensive near Sviyazhsk, Khvalynskaya - near Nikolaevsk. By the fall of 1918, the People's Army was in a desperate situation: its few detachments at the front could no longer hold back the Bolshevik forces that were many times superior to them. In this situation, the most combat-ready brigade of V.O. Kappel played the role of a kind of “fire brigade”, being, in essence, the only mobile reserve of the People's Army on a huge section of the front from Kazan to Simbirsk.

Kappel, who personally arrived in Samara in September for help, was told at KOMUCH: all this is nonsense, the main thing is that “we have now achieved the formation of the All-Russian Government and our names have gone down in history.”

On September 5, 1918, the general offensive of the Soviet Eastern Front began. The main battles took place around Kazan, where the Reds created a fourfold superiority over the small forces defending the city, Colonel A.P. Stepanov, consisting of only officers and volunteers. It was not possible to give a serious battle in such conditions, and as a result, under pressure from three sides, Kazan was surrendered.

The fall of Kazan also put Simbirsk at risk. On September 9, the Reds went on the offensive in the Buinsk area and, having repelled all counterattacks, by September 11 they managed to cut the Simbirsk-Kazan railway and the Syzran-Simbirsk highway, pressing the defenders to the Volga.

The disaster in the north led to a sharp deterioration in the situation in the south: despite all attempts to stop the Reds’ advance, Volsk was abandoned on September 12, then Khvalynsk. The units of the 2nd Syzran Rifle Division defending them were drawn towards Syzran.

V.O. Kappel approached Simbirsk from Kazan only on September 12; by that time the city had already been evacuated. His brigade's persistent attempts to retake the city were unsuccessful. Kazan, which was surrendered almost simultaneously with Simbirsk - on the night of September 11, could not resist. Now Kappel had to solve a complex and difficult task of a different kind: to protect the direction to Ufa and Bugulma and at the same time cover the retreat from Kazan of the Northern group of the People's Army of Colonel Stepanov. This task was completely completed by Colonel Kappel, despite the difficult situation: bad weather, loss of spirit, disagreement with the Czechs, poor food supply. Kappel manages to establish defenses on the left bank of the Volga opposite Simbirsk, adding to his detachment all the units that retreated from the city and uniting them into the Consolidated Corps. On September 21, Kappel launched a counterattack with all his might against the Reds who had crossed to the left bank and threw them into the Volga. Until September 27, Kappel's Consolidated Corps managed to hold out on the left bank, thereby providing the opportunity for units of the People's Army retreating from Kazan to connect with it at Nurlat station. After uniting into the Simbirsk group of forces by October 3, the rather battered units under the command of Kappel began to slowly and orderly retreat to Ufa with stubborn battles. The total number of Colonel Kappel's troops by this time was 4,460 bayonets and 711 sabers with 140 machine guns, 24 heavy and 5 light guns.

The Kappelites retreated to Ufa under the pressure of an enemy more than 10 times superior to them! They retreated, and when necessary, they stopped and detained for a week, two, three in one place, holding back the enemy and giving the command the opportunity to withdraw other units from the threat of encirclement and destruction.

Fighting in the Urals and Siberia

Recognized the power of the Supreme Ruler A.V. Kolchak. He advocated strong state power, but at the same time, in order to achieve the main goal - victory over the Bolsheviks - he considered it possible to cooperate with part of the Socialist Revolutionaries. This position of Kappel aroused the rejection of monarchist-minded military men. He was extremely popular among his subordinates, who called themselves Kappelites.

Played a significant role in the defense of Perm from the advancing Red Army troops in winter.

In the spring of 1919, Kappel, on behalf of Kolchak, began forming the strategic reserve of the Headquarters of the Supreme Ruler of Russia - the legendary Volga Corps. The deployment of units took place in the area of Kurgan. The backbone of the corps consisted of the remnants of units of the Kazan and Simbirsk groups of the Volga Front, which had been under the command of Kappel since August 1918. By order of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief N 155 of February 27, 1919, as well as on the basis of the order of the Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Admiral Kolchak, the 1st Volga Army Corps was deployed as part of three rifle divisions: 1st Samara, 3rd Simbirsk and 13th Kazan. Each division was to have three rifle regiments, a ranger battalion, a rifle artillery division, a separate howitzer battery, a separate cavalry division, an engineering division, an artillery park, a field hospital with a dressing detachment and ambulance transport, as well as a division convoy. In addition, the corps included a separate cavalry Volga brigade (consisting of two cavalry regiments of four squadrons and a separate horse battery), a separate field battery of heavy howitzers, a telegraph company, a mobile artillery workshop, as well as the 1st personnel rifle Volga brigade (three personnel rifle regiment, a separate personnel engineering company, a personnel artillery battalion and a personnel squadron).

Banner of the 1st Volga Army Corps of General Kappel, 1919

The banner of the 1st Volga Army Corps is on display at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. It is a silk light green double-sided rectangular panel with a narrow crimson and wide light green border. At the top of the banner is a white-blue-red national flag along the entire length of the banner. On the right side of the banner there is an intertwined monogram “VK” (the letter B is embroidered in silver, K is embroidered in gold). On the left side there is an inscription in three lines “Volzhans of General Kappel”. However, there are ambiguities about the origin of the banner. Most likely, this banner was not the officially approved banner of Kappel’s units, but was made and presented as a gift by residents of the city of Kurgan in the spring of 1919. This is also indirectly evidenced by the inscriptions on the cloth - the fact is that Kappel himself was a resolute opponent of perpetuating his name in the names and symbols of the units subordinate to him (which, however, did not prevent the soldiers from deciphering the letters VK on their shoulder straps not as “Volga Corps” , but as “Vladimir Kappel”). However, the banner was still used in battles, and was captured by units of the Red Army during the defeat of a detachment under the command of Colonel Malitsky in February 1920 near the city of Bratsk, Irkutsk region. Since mid-May 1919, Kappel has been commander of the Volga Group of Forces. On May 22, 1919, for the capture of Syzran, Simbirsk and Kazan in 1918, Kappel was awarded the Order of St. George 4th degree.

General Kappel in the summer of 1919

In the summer-autumn of 1919, at the cost of the death of a significant part of the personnel of the 1st Volga Army Corps, which was underformed but thrown into battle by Headquarters, the Red Army's offensive was temporarily delayed, but then Kappel's units had to retreat again. At the same time, the Kappelites repeatedly counterattacked the enemy, inflicting a number of tactical defeats on the Reds (in particular, in the area of the Ural Mountains and the Belaya River), despite the fact that the most combat-ready formations of the Red Army fought against them. On September 12, 1919, for this operation, Kappel received the rank of lieutenant general and the Order of St. George, 3rd degree, to which he replied that the best reward for him would be reinforcements.

On January 15, Admiral Kolchak was handed over by the Czechs to the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Political Center, which captured Irkutsk. Having learned about this, Kappel summoned the commander of the Czechs and Slovaks in Siberia, Jan Syrovoy, but did not receive an answer from him. During the retreat near Krasnoyarsk in early January 1920, Kappel’s army was surrounded as a result of the mutiny of General Zinevich, who demanded Kappel’s surrender. However, after fierce fighting, the Kappelites were able to bypass the city and escape from the encirclement.

The further route of Kappel's army passed along the bed of the Kan River. This section of the route turned out to be one of the most difficult - in many places the river ice melted due to non-freezing hot springs, which gave rise to numerous polynyas in conditions of almost 35-degree frost. During the transition, Kappel, who led his horse, like all the other horsemen in the army, on the reins, fell into one of these wormwoods, but did not tell anyone about it. Only a day later, in the village of Varga, the general was examined by a doctor. The doctor noted frostbite on the feet of both legs and rising gangrene that began as a result of frostbite. Amputation was necessary, but the doctor did not have the necessary tools or medications to carry out a full-fledged operation, as a result of which the amputation of part of the left foot and fingers of the right was carried out with a simple knife without anesthesia.

Despite the operation, Kappel continued to lead the troops. He also refused the place on the ambulance train offered by the Czechs. In addition to frostbite, the fall into the wormwood caused the general to have a severe cold. However, Kappel rode at the head of his army even when he could only ride a horse while tied to the saddle. One of the participants in the campaign (later called the Great Siberian Ice Campaign) A. A. Fedorovich recalled:

The general’s last words were: “Let the troops know that I was devoted to them, that I loved them and proved this by my death among them.” Colonel V.O. Vyrapaev, who accompanied Kappel on the Ice Campaign, recalled

On January 20 or 21, 1920, feeling that his strength was leaving him, Kappel gave the order to appoint General Wojciechowski as commander-in-chief of the armies of the Eastern Front. Over the next two or three days, the sick general became very weak. He did not regain consciousness throughout the night of January 25th. The next night our stop was at the house of the railway superintendent. General Kappel, without regaining consciousness, was delirious about the armies, worried about the flanks, and, breathing heavily, said after a short pause: “How I got caught! End!" Without waiting for dawn, I left the caretaker’s house to the nearest stationary train, in which the Romanian battery named Marasheti was moving east along with the Czech troops. I found battery doctor K. Danets, who willingly agreed to examine the patient and grabbed the necessary supplies. Quickly examining the sick general, he said: “We have one round in the machine gun against the advancing infantry battalion. What we can do?" And then he quietly added: “He will die in a few hours.” General Kappel had, according to Dr. K. Danets, bilateral lobar pneumonia. One lung was no longer there, and a small part of the other remained. The patient was transferred to the battery-heated infirmary, where he died six hours later without regaining consciousness. It was 11 hours 50 minutes on January 26, 1920, when the echelon of the Romanian battery approached the Utai junction, 17 versts from the Tuluna station in the area of the city of Irkutsk.

Memory

Funeral

Transfer of the ashes of Lieutenant General Kappel from the New Cathedral to the convent in Chita. February 1920

After the general's death, it was decided not to bury his body at the site of his death in order to avoid desecration by the Bolsheviks. The retreating troops carried the general's coffin body with them for almost a month until they reached Chita, where Kappel was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (a little later his ashes were transferred to the cemetery of the Chita Convent). However, already in the fall of 1920, when units of the Red Army approached Chita, the surviving Kappelites transported the coffin with the general’s body to Harbin (northern China) and buried him at the altar of the Iveron Church. A monument was erected at the grave, destroyed by the Chinese communists in 1955 (other sources cite 1956). According to a number of data, there is reason to believe that the destruction of Kappel’s grave was sanctioned by secret directives of the KGB. According to the recollections of Colonel Vyrapaev, thanks to the foresight of the local police officer who led the funeral in Chita, Kappel was buried in permafrost, and when the coffin was opened during transportation to Harbin, the body did not change. At the funeral, the poet Alexander Kotomkin-Savinsky read the poem "

TO THE DEATH OF KAPPEL

Hush!.. Bow your knees in prayer:

Before us are the ashes of our dear hero.

With a silent smile on dead lips

It is full of otherworldly holy dreams...

You died... No, I believe with the faith of a poet -

You are alive!.. Let the frozen lips fall silent

And they won’t answer us with a smile of hello,

And let the mighty chest remain motionless,

But beauty lives on from glorious deeds,

An immortal symbol for us - your life path

For the Motherland! To battle! - you won’t answer the call,

You can’t call volunteer eagles...

But the Ural Mountains will echo,

The Volga will respond... The Taiga will hum...

And the people will compose a song about Kappel,

And Kappel’s name and feat without measure

Among the glorious heroes will never die...

Kneel before the Creed

And stand up for the Fatherland, dear people! .

Kappel in films

“Psychic attack”, still from the film “Chapaev”

General Kappel's troops are depicted in the film "Chapaev" in the "psychic attack" episode. However, in the film, the whites are dressed in black and white uniforms, which were worn by the “Markovites” (units that were the first in the Volunteer Army to receive the personal patronage of the General Staff of Lieutenant General S. L. Markov), who were part of not the Kolchak army, but the Armed Forces of the South Russia. In addition, the Kappelites in “Chapaev” go into battle under the banner of the Kornilovites. And finally, not a single documentary evidence of direct clashes between Chapaev and Kappel’s units has survived. Apparently, the figure of Kappel was chosen by the directors of the film “Chapaev” to create the image of a certain “ideal enemy.”

The new film “Admiral”, which tells about the fate of the Supreme Ruler of Russia A.V. Kolchak, examines in detail the figure of V.O. Kappel in Russian history and the civil war itself. The “Kappel attack” is also present in the film, famous from the film “Chapaev”, but acquired a new, tragic sound when frozen and hungry troops, left without ammunition, at the command of the general, run out of the trenches and go at the Red Army machine guns at bayonet point. He played Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel himself.

The truth about the "psychic attacks" of the White Guards

Publication of a significantly expanded and revised edition dedicated to General V.O. Kappel (Kappel and the Kappelites / ed. and compiled by R.G. Gagkuev. M., 2007), in the series “White Warriors” is caused by a number of reasons.

The main one is that at the beginning of this year the military leader’s ashes returned to his homeland and on September 1 a monument was erected at his grave in the Donskoy Monastery. Finally, the first edition of the book, which appeared in 2003, has long been sold out. Since that time, historians specializing in the study of the Civil War in Russia have been able to learn a lot of new things about the general. This information is supplemented by previously unpublished documents.
Against the general cruel background of the fratricidal Civil War, Kappel was distinguished by the fact that he tried unnecessarily not to shed the blood of his compatriots. Now, on the days of the 90th anniversary of the creation of the Volunteer Army, I would like to talk about the military path of the general and his subordinates.
Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel was born on March 16, 1883 in the family of a native of Sweden, a retired officer and a hereditary nobleman. After graduating from the Second Cadet Corps, Kappel entered the Nikolaev Cavalry School, which he graduated with excellence in 1906. He was promoted to cornet, then to lieutenant. As of 1908, as reported in the documents, Lieutenant Kappel “has very good morals, an excellent family man. We are loved by our comrades... He is developed and very capable... He has a great ability to instill in people a spirit of energy and a desire for service... he endures all the difficulties of camp life with courage. I am not subject to gambling, drinking alcohol or carousing.”
Then there was the General Staff Academy, from which Kappel graduated first class. After the outbreak of World War I, he took part in battles, and from mid-1916 he was on the Southwestern Front. By October 1917, he was a lieutenant colonel, awarded many military orders.

At first, Kappel served at the headquarters of the Volga Military District, but after the start of armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks, he joined the counter-revolutionary officers.

Although he was aware of the shortcomings of the old system, unlike many other leaders of the White movement, in his views he was a monarchist and was not ashamed of it.
On the night of June 8, 1918, Soviet power in Samara was overthrown. The Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) announced the creation of new government bodies. Kappel's fighters fought against the 1st Army under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky, participated in the capture of Kazan.
However, fate soon changed for them. The Reds occupied Simbirsk, then Ufa. Fierce battles followed with the 25th Division under the command of V.I. Chapaev, which found their artistic reflection in the famous film “Chapaev” (a separate article is dedicated to him in the book). Author of the article - E.V. Volkov rightly notes that in the film, the directors and actors, despite the influence of the era, tried to avoid an unambiguously negative interpretation of the image of the Kappelites. According to the filmmakers, the famous “psychic attack,” memorable to viewers, “was intended to demonstrate the “clash of two wills,” two forces in the Civil War.” In reality, “such attacks took place as follows,” writes Volkov, “the battalions, advancing, marched at full speed, without stopping. But not in columns, as in the film, but in a chain.

Along the way, those who were out of action were immediately replaced by other soldiers from the reserve battalion, who followed behind along with the orderlies... the enemy had the impression of the invulnerability of the approaching whites, which brought confusion and panic into his ranks.”

By the way, in the real battle, when the Kappelites used a kind of “psychic attack” against the Chapaevites, the division commander himself did not participate, as he was wounded.
After the Kolchakites left Omsk and Novo-Nikolaevsk, Kappel was appointed commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front. A.V. Kolchak accepted his plan to withdraw armies beyond the Yenisei. The exodus has begun. Most of the book is dedicated to the people who fought and died next to the general.
Near Krasnoyarsk, the remnants of the army were surrounded due to the defection of one of the brigades to the Red side. Many were captured or surrendered voluntarily. Among those who stayed with the general and believed him, there were many civilians who also had a difficult path ahead of them. Frost, skirmishes with the enemy, fear of death, the unknown and a huge number of typhoid patients. F. Puchkov, whose memoirs were published in a book, wrote about this: “We had to put the sick three or four on one sleigh, tie them up and entrust them to the will of God and the supervision of one of the comrades.”
Other evidence of those days has also been preserved: “With the fall of Omsk, a tragedy began along the entire great Siberian railway route, which in its horrors stands out even on the general bloody front of the Russian revolution. Trains with refugees and ambulance trains stretched out in a long ribbon between Omsk and Novo-Nikolaevsk, from which the Czechs forcibly took away locomotives and drove them to their sites. The carriages stood silently on the rails - sarcophagi with a terrible cargo perishing from hunger and cold. The main, if not the only, culprit of this indescribable horror were the Czechs.” The famous poet of the Russian Abroad, Arseny Nesmelov, described the tragedy of the whites in Siberia in verse:
Echelons, echelons, echelons, -
You can't go far on the rails!..
Red carriages froze
Along the entire Siberian route...
They catch up, overtake, press on,
Our enemies do not give us rest,
And a silver-gray blizzard
Falls asleep in the middle of the taiga... In Nizhneudinsk train A.V. Kolchak was detained by the Czechs, who handed the admiral over to the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee.

Kappel decides to organize a campaign against Irkutsk and free the former Supreme Ruler of Russia.

But soon Kolchak was shot. Feeling responsible for his subordinates, Kappel began crossing the Kan River. The ice that bound the rivers was fragile and during the transition Kappel fell into the wormwood. Despite his illness and fever, he continued to walk with everyone. When the whites reached housing, the doctor amputated the general’s frostbitten heels and part of his toes. He continued his hike, wanting to ride. All persuasion turned out to be in vain. The general refused to change into a sleigh or board one of the Czech ambulance trains, remaining in the ranks. The Kappelites believed in their commander, who remained with them until the last moment of his life. The general carried his loyalty to his comrades to the end. It is no coincidence that people who knew him once wrote: “loyal to his friends to the last... an excellent officer.”
On January 26, 1920, Kappel died and was buried in Chita. Then, in the fall of 1920, his ashes were transported from Transbaikalia to Harbin. At their own expense, in 1929, the soldiers erected a modest monument on the grave of their commander, which was a granite block with a stone cross, at the base of which was a crown of thorns. Soviet soldiers, entering Harbin in 1945, did not touch the monument to the white general, but in 1955 it was destroyed.
In 2007, thanks to the philanthropic activities of the head of the “White Warriors” project A.N. Alekaev’s ashes of the general returned to Russia, and soon a tombstone appeared on the grave, which was almost identical to the one that stood in Harbin. And now, finally, Kappel’s military path has found its detailed presentation on the pages of the collection, which, in addition to rich factual material, is also distinguished by scientific objectivity and maximum balance in assessments, which, unfortunately, is rarely found in books dedicated to the Civil War - our national tragedy .

Lieutenant General V.O. Kappel, Knight of St. George, commander-in-chief of the white armies of the Eastern Front, died heroically during the Siberian Ice Campaign while crossing Baikal. Until the last hour, he shared with his soldiers the hardships and deprivations of wartime, and the soldiers did not leave their commander, it was not for nothing that even after his death they proudly called themselves Kappel’s men.
The Ice March is 3000 miles from Omsk to Transbaikalia, the end of 1919, winter, a convoy of tired, hungry, ragged, freezing and sick people stretched out in a chain, steadily moving forward following the commander, whom they wholeheartedly trust.
Dressed unsuitably for winter, refusing the slightest comfort, Kappel is always at the forefront of the army. During a difficult transition into a snowstorm far from his home, he fell waist-deep into a deep snowdrift and got his frozen feet wet. They were immediately covered in an ice crust. The general walked 70 miles to the nearest village on lifeless, stiff legs, with chills, losing consciousness. On the third day, he was brought unconscious to the taiga village of Barga, where the doctor, using a simple knife without anesthesia, amputated the frostbitten tissue on both legs. However, even after the operation, Vladimir Oskarovich did not agree to leave the saddle, despite the fact that his soldiers found a sleigh for the sick general. In the evenings, the commander-in-chief was taken out of the saddle and carried to the bed, from where he continued to control the army; he could no longer walk.
About a week passed after the amputation, but the general’s condition kept deteriorating - the fever increased, his consciousness became clouded, the cough, which the doctors did not pay attention to, did not stop, pneumonia developed, and Kappel was put in a sleigh. On January 21, 1920, Vladimir Oskarovich transferred command of the armies of the Eastern Front to General Voitsekhovsky. Kappel’s physical strength quickly deserts him; at dawn on January 25, he dies in a field hospital without ever regaining consciousness. Shortly before his death, Kappel presented Wojciechowski with a wedding ring and the St. George's Cross with a request to give them to his wife. Vladimir Oskarovich had no other valuables.
Coffin with the body of V.O. Kappel, despite the difficulties of wartime, was brought to Chita. In the fall of 1922, Kappel's remains were transported to Harbin by White Guard troops who had left Russia and were reburied near the northern wall of the St. Iveron Church. A granite monument was erected over the grave with the inscription “Lieutenant General Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel of the General Staff.” The monument was destroyed in the 50s by order of the Soviet authorities.
There were many legends surrounding Kappel's grave in Harbin. They said that the remains were secretly transported to an Orthodox cemetery outside the city, and that, allegedly, a certain Chinese, whom the authorities instructed to desecrate the grave, dug it up and, having discovered the incorruptible relics, put a cross from the monument on the lid of the coffin and abandoned the grave ground and reported on the completion of the task. In addition to the legends, there were also contradictory information from those citizens of the USSR who worked in Soviet institutions in Harbin in the 50s and were involved in the destruction of the monument.
A long and painstaking work began to organize the exhumation and reburial of the remains, in which many representatives of secular and spiritual organizations in Russia and China took part.

Vladimir Oskarovich (1883-1920), lieutenant general (1919). In 1918 he commanded a group of White Guard troops, Komuch, in 1919 - a corps, an army, and from December - Kolchak's Eastern Front.

Kappel Vladimir Oskarovich(03/16/1883-01/25/1920) Lieutenant Colonel (1917). Colonel (08.1918). Major General (11/17/1918). Lieutenant General (1919). He graduated from the 2nd Cadet Corps, the Nikolaev Cavalry School (1906) and the Nikolaev General Staff Academy (1913). WWI veteran: Chief of Staff, 347th Infantry Regiment; officer at the headquarters of the 1st Army, which was transferred to Samara and after the revolution transformed into the Volga Military District, 1917 - 05.1918.

From a small detachment of volunteers he created one of the most reliable military units of Admiral Kolchak’s army - the legendary Volga (“Kappel”) Corps. In December 1919, having taken command of the dying Eastern Front, he saved the army from encirclement near Krasnoyarsk and led it to Lake Baikal, albeit at the cost of his own life.

General Kappel V.O. near the staff car, 1918

Completed his primary education in 1894. He graduated from the 2nd Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg (1901), served as a cadet of private rank at the Nikolaev Cavalry School (graduation in 1903 in the first category and graduation into the 54th Novomirgorod Dragoon Regiment with promotion to cornets). In 1913 he graduated from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff. The Academy received high praise for the report “Car Service in the Army. The main reasons for the organization of automobile troops."

At the start of the war, Vladimir Oskarovich was in the active army. Was assigned to the headquarters of the 5th Army Corps
cross of the Order of St. George (commander - cavalry general A.I. Litvinov), where from July 23, 1914 to February 3, 1915 he served as chief officer for assignments. In September 1914, V. O. Kappel was among the first officers since the beginning of the war to be awarded the Order of St. George.

Then the headquarters captain Kappel was sent directly to the front as senior adjutant of the headquarters of the 5th Don Cossack Division (from February 9, 1915). Promoted to captain. In October-November 1915, he served as senior adjutant of the headquarters of the 1st Cavalry Corps (commander - Cavalry General V.A. Oranovsky), operating as part of the 1st Army of the Western Front.

From November 9, 1915 to March 14, 1916 - senior adjutant of the headquarters of the 14th Cavalry Division. In November 1915, Vladimir Oskarovich temporarily acted as chief of staff of the division.

The February Revolution had a very serious impact on Kappel’s morale; on August 2, 1917, on the eve of the Kornilov speech, Vladimir Oskarovich became the head of the Intelligence Department of the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the Southwestern Front. A statement from soldiers stationed at the headquarters of the South-Western Front in Berdichev states that Lieutenant Colonel V. O. Kappel, along with his immediate superiors - Front Commander-in-Chief General A. I. Denikin, Chief of Staff General S. L. Markov and Quartermaster General M.I. Orlov, was among the adherents of the old, monarchical system, undoubtedly participants in the counter-revolutionary conspiracy who should have been immediately removed from their positions.

In 1918 he lived with his family in Perm. In the spring of 1918, he served for a short time at the headquarters of the Volga Military District in Samara, subordinate to the Soviet authorities. However, he did not take any part in the formation of the emerging Red Army, nor, moreover, in hostilities on the side of the Reds. He refused the position of head of the District Headquarters department offered by the Reds. At the first opportunity - immediately after the occupation of Samara by those who rebelled against those trying to disarm them and the internment of the Bolsheviks by the troops of the Czechoslovak Corps and the beginning of a local uprising - ended up in the People's Army of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly as an assistant to the head of the Operations Department of the General Staff. Vladimir Oskarovich remained at this post for less than a day... The number of the first volunteer units - a couple of infantry companies, a cavalry squadron and a horse battery with two guns - was insignificant in comparison with the Red forces that were beginning to hang on all sides. Therefore, there were few officers among those willing to command the first Samara volunteers - everyone considered the matter doomed to failure in advance. Only one Lieutenant Colonel Kappel volunteered:

" Agree. I'll try to fight. I am a monarchist by conviction, but I will stand under any banner, just to fight the Bolsheviks. I give the officer’s word to remain loyal to KOMUCH.”

And Kappel “led”, so successfully that already in June - August his name began to thunder throughout the Volga, Ural and Siberia. Kappel won not by numbers, but by skill, in Suvorov style, as his first brilliant operation in Syzran had already shown. A monarchist by conviction, far from the views of the Socialist Revolutionary leaders of KOMUCH, V. O. Kappel was confident that the main task of the moment was the fight against Bolshevism. For him, it was not so important under what slogans KOMUCH’s work was carried out, the main thing was the opportunity to immediately enter into the fight against Soviet power... Having first destroyed this power, then it would be possible to equip Russia on the basis of the thousand-year experience of its development and existence.

Major General Kappel V.O., summer 1919

The first battle of the detachment under the command Vladimir Oskarovich occurred near Syzran on June 11, 1918: the operation took place exactly according to the commander’s plan: thanks to the “broad maneuver” - Kappel’s favorite method of conducting combat operations later, the combination of which with the “deep bypass” became his calling card, which always led to resounding victories over the Reds. Syzran was taken by Kappel with a sudden stunning blow.

Having taken Syzran on June 11, 1918, on the 12th Kappel’s volunteer detachment returned to Samara, from where it was transferred along the Volga to Stavropol with the goal of taking the city, which Vladimir Oskarovich successfully did, simultaneously clearing the Volga bank opposite the city from the Reds. The main battles take place during the capture of the village of Novodevichye. They are described in detail in the memoirs of V.O Vyrypaev

Western Army Headquarters. Commander General Khanzhin sits in the center,
sitting on the far left is General V.O. Kappel.

Soon, from an ordinary lieutenant colonel, Vladimir Oskarovich became one of the most famous white generals on the Eastern Front. Kappel also enjoyed great respect from his enemies - the Bolshevik newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda in 1918 called him “little Napoleon.” The Bolshevik headquarters, by a separate order, appointed cash bonuses: 50,000 rubles for Kappel’s head, as well as for unit commanders

With the capture of Simbirsk, the operations of the People's Army develop in two directions: from Syzran to Volsk and Penza, from Simbirsk to Inza and Alatyr, and along both banks of the Volga to the mouth of the Kama. By the beginning of August 1918, the “territory of the Constituent Assembly” extended from west to east for 750 versts (from Syzran to Zlatoust, from north to south - 500 versts (from Simbirsk to Volsk). Under its control, except for Samara, Syzran, Simbirsk and Stavropol-Volzhsky there were also Sengilei, Bugulma, Buguruslan, Belebey, Buzuluk, Birsk, Ufa. To the south of Samara, a detachment of Lieutenant Colonel F. E. Makhin took Khvalynsk and approached Volsk. The Czechs under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Voitsekhovsky occupied Yekaterinburg.

From Simbirsk to Kazan Having started moving from Simbirsk on steamships on August 1, the flotilla of the People's Army, having previously defeated the Red flotilla that came out to meet them at the mouth of the Kama, on August 5 already created a threat to Kazan, landing troops on the pier and the opposite bank of the Volga. Kappel with three companies headed east, bypassing the city, while the Czechs launched an attack on the city from the pier. On August 6, in the middle of the day, Kappel entered the city from the rear, causing panic in the ranks of the defending Bolsheviks. Nevertheless, the battle dragged on due to the stubborn resistance of the Latvian Riflemen (Soviet 5th Latvian Regiment), who even began to push the Czechs back to the pier. The decisive factor was the transition to the side of the whites by 300 fighters of the Serbian battalion of Major Blagotich, stationed in the Kazan Kremlin, who at the decisive moment launched an unexpected flank attack on the Reds. As a result, the Latvian resistance was broken.

Kappel's telegram on the capture of Kazan

Great Siberian Ice March. From November 1919 - Lieutenant General. In mid-November 1919 Kappel was appointed commander of the 3rd Army, composed mainly of captured Red Army soldiers who had not received sufficient training. They, for the most part, go over to the Red side at the first opportunity. During the collapse of the power of the Kolchak government - commander-in-chief of the white troops in Siberia (from December 12, 1919, after the abandonment of Novonikolaevsk by the white troops). With continuous battles, Kappel's troops retreated along the railway, experiencing enormous hardships in 50-degree frost conditions, having completed an unprecedented 3000-verst journey from Omsk to Transbaikalia.

On January 15, Admiral Kolchak was handed over by the Czechs to the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Political Center, which captured Irkutsk. Having learned about this, Kappel challenged the commander of the Czechs and Slovaks in Siberia, Jan Syrov, to a duel, but did not receive an answer from him. During the retreat near Krasnoyarsk in early January 1920, Kappel’s army was surrounded as a result of the mutiny of General Zinevich, who demanded Kappel’s surrender. However, after fierce fighting, the Kappelites were able to bypass the city and escape from the encirclement.

General Kappel during the Great Siberian Ice Campaign. Probably the last photograph of Kappel

Kappelites after the Great Siberian Ice Campaign. In the center in the second row is Kappel’s successor, General Voitsekhovsky Sergei Nikolaevich.

Despite the surgery, Kappel continued to lead the troops. He also refused the place on the ambulance train offered by the Czechs. In addition to frostbite, the fall into the wormwood caused the general to have a severe cold. However, Kappel rode at the head of his army even when he could only ride a horse while tied to the saddle. One of the participants in the campaign recalled: “The general, clenching his teeth in pain, pale, thin, scary, was carried into the yard in his arms and put in the saddle. He started his horse and rode out into the street - parts of his army were there - and, overcoming the excruciating pain, dispelling the fog that had clouded his brain, Kappel straightened up in the saddle and put his hand to his hat. He saluted those he led who did not lay down their arms in the fight. For the night, he was carefully removed from the saddle and carried into the hut in his arms.”

On January 21, 1920, Kappel, feeling his inability to continue commanding the army due to a severe deterioration in his health, transferred command of the troops to General S. N. Voitsekhovsky, who took office only after his death. Kappel gave him his wedding ring with a request to give it to his wife, and one of his St. George crosses.

Voitsekhovsky Sergey Nikolaevich

On January 26, 1920, at the Utai junction, near the Tulun station near the city of Nizhneudinsk, Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel died of double pneumonia. The general’s last words were: “Let the troops know that I was devoted to them, that I loved them and proved this by my death among them.” General Kappel is one of the most persistent, strong-willed and talented generals of the White Armies of Siberia in particular and the Civil War in Russia in general.

After the general's death, it was decided not to bury his body at the site of his death in order to avoid desecration by the Bolsheviks. The retreating troops carried the general's coffin body with them for almost a month until they reached Chita, where Kappel was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. However, already in the fall of 1920, when units of the Red Army approached Chita, the surviving Kappelites transported the coffin with the general’s body to Harbin and buried him at the altar of the Iveron Church. A monument was erected at the grave, destroyed by the Chinese Communists in 1955. According to a number of data, there is reason to believe that the destruction of Kappel’s grave was sanctioned by secret directives of the KGB. According to the recollections of Colonel Vyrapaev, thanks to the foresight of the local police officer who led the funeral in Chita, Kappel was buried in permafrost, and when the coffin was opened during transportation to Harbin, the body did not change.

General Kappel V.O. in the coffin immediately after death.

Guard at the coffin with the body of Lieutenant General V.O. Kappel before burial in Chita.

Transfer of the ashes of Lieutenant General Kappel from the New Cathedral to the convent in Chita. February 1920

TO THE DEATH OF KAPPEL

Hush!.. Bow your knees in prayer:

Before us are the ashes of our dear hero.

With a silent smile on dead lips

It is full of otherworldly holy dreams...

You died... No, I believe with the faith of a poet -

You are alive!.. Let the frozen lips fall silent

And they won’t answer us with a smile of hello,

And let the mighty chest remain motionless,

But beauty lives on from glorious deeds,

An immortal symbol for us - your life path

For the Motherland! To battle! - you won’t answer the call,

You can’t call volunteer eagles...

But the Ural Mountains will echo,

The Volga will respond... The Taiga will hum...

And the people will compose a song about Kappel,

And Kappel’s name and feat without measure

Among the glorious heroes will never die...

Kneel before the Creed

And stand up for the Fatherland, dear people!

Alexander Kotomkin-Savinsky.

Grave at the Donskoy Monastery cemetery

Vladimir Oskarovich

Battles and victories

An outstanding Russian commander, participant in the First World War and the Civil War. He became famous in 1918, when, at the head of the People's Army, Komucha, in a series of daring battles, managed to recapture Kazan from the Reds. Legendary personality in the White movement.

But having started as a hero, he ended as a martyr...

His father was a participant in the campaigns in Turkestan under the leadership of General Chernyaev, and his mother, Elena Petrovna, came from the family of General P.I. Postolsky - hero of the defense of Sevastopol. V.O. himself Kappel continued the family tradition. In 1903, he graduated from the Nikolaev Cavalry School and was sent to serve in the 54th Novomirgorod Dragoon Regiment.

As fellow soldier Colonel Sverchkov recalled about him:
Of the majority of the officers of the regiment, he stood out for his comprehensive education, culture and erudition; I think that there is not a single book left in our extensive library that he would leave unread... Vladimir Oskarovich was loved by everyone, starting from the private of the 1st squadron, in which he and served with me, up to and including regiment commander.

Kappel V.O.

upon graduation from school

At the beginning of 1906, Kappel was promoted to lieutenant. During the years of the first Russian revolution, he participated in the defeat of terrorist groups in the Perm province. Then he continued to serve in the regiment. In 1913, he graduated from the elite Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff with the first category, and for his success in the study of military sciences he was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 3rd class.

The First World War V.O. Kappel began as a chief officer for assignments at the headquarters of the 5th Army Corps, where he served until February 1915. During this time, he became a participant in the victorious Battle of Galicia (during which the Austrians suffered a major defeat) and defensive battles near Warsaw (where German troops have already been stopped). Then, as a senior adjutant, he served in the headquarters of a number of Cossack and cavalry divisions and corps, and at one time temporarily filled the post of chief of staff of the 14th Cavalry Division. In March 1916, Captain V.O. Kappel was seconded to the Office of the Quartermaster General of the Southwestern Front headquarters, where he participated in the detailed development of the plan for a large-scale offensive, which went down in history as the Brusilov breakthrough. In August 1916, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and took the position of assistant chief of the operations department.

It was in this position that Kappel met the February Revolution. Being a career officer (and by conviction a monarchist), he took these events very hard. But, like many other military men, Vladimir Oskarovich was guided by the principle that the army should be outside politics, and therefore swore allegiance to the new government: in the hour of the most difficult war, everything must be done to repel the external enemy. Unfortunately, the Provisional Government not only did not make the necessary efforts to maintain the combat effectiveness of the armed forces, but also contributed to their disintegration. It is not surprising that demands for order and legality, which at that time were called “counter-revolutionary,” began to grow among officers. One of the prominent figures of the officer “opposition” was L.G. Kornilov, who, during his unsuccessful speech at the end of August, sought to restore order in the capital by force. It is unlikely that Kappel was actively involved in the preparation of this speech, but, undoubtedly, he fully sympathized with the aspirations of Russian patriots. It is interesting that, according to the statement of the soldiers of the 3rd ordinary squadron (located at the headquarters of the Southwestern Front), Kappel, among others (Denikin, Markov, etc.), was called an adherent of the “old, monarchical system, an undoubted participant in the counter-revolutionary conspiracy.”

One way or another, Vladimir Oskarovich was not arrested, and moreover, he began to act as head of the operational department of the quartermaster general's department of the front headquarters. However, during the period of virtually complete collapse of the army, the front-line authorities could not conduct any real combat work.

By birth he is a cavalryman. The man is active, lively, loves a combat situation, and a horse. Staff work is not his thing... He, Kappel, was not at all characterized by adventurism.
General S.A. Shchepikhin about Kappel

At the beginning of October 1917, Kappel took a vacation and (officially due to illness) went to visit his relatives in Perm. Already at home, he experienced the October Revolution, the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the demobilization of the Russian army, the conclusion of the shameful Brest Peace by the Bolsheviks, the first steps in the construction of “war communism.” For Kappel, the collapse of the country and the turmoil that began were primarily a personal tragedy.

The very harsh policies of the Bolsheviks alienated many segments of the population from them. If in the south, thanks to the efforts of Kornilov and Alekseev, the Volunteer Army was formed, then various secret officer organizations operated throughout the country. They existed in the Volga region, where in the spring of 1918 the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SRs), which received a majority when elected to the Constituent Assembly, also carried out active underground work.

At the same time, the Bolsheviks also formed their own armed forces. In particular, at the headquarters of the Volga Military District (Samara), it was planned to create an army that was intended to fight the Germans if they suddenly began to advance inland. Many career officers agreed to cooperate, believing that they would defend the country. For some, this was a way of survival in the current conditions, others were afraid for their own family, which was being held hostage, and those who were members of secret military organizations believed, not without reason, that in this way they would gain control over the Bolshevik military by car. It is not known what considerations guided Kappel when he joined the Red Army. However, it is very interesting to note that he refused the position of head of the district headquarters department offered to him.

At the end of May 1918, the uprising of the Czechoslovak corps broke out, when most of the territory of Russia came under its control - from Penza to Vladivostok. Various underground organizations quickly became active. On June 8, Czechoslovak forces took Samara, where the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (consisting of Socialist Revolutionaries) seized power. At the same time, the formation of the People's Army began, which at first consisted of volunteers. Kappel was among them.

A few days later he volunteered to command the 1st Samara Volunteer Squad, declaring:
I am a monarchist by conviction, but I will stand under any banner, just to fight the Bolsheviks. I give the officer’s word to remain loyal to Komuch.

In total, the squad initially consisted of 350 volunteers, welded together by the idea of confronting the Bolshevik regime.

The experience of serving at the division-corps level in cavalry units was more useful than ever for the young lieutenant colonel in the conditions of the civil war. He quickly managed to understand its features: the importance of maneuverability, speed, constant activity, exhausting the enemy. Kappel put into practice such Suvorov principles as “eye, speed and pressure.” At the same time, he was constantly among ordinary soldiers, on the front line.

As Colonel V.O., who served with him, recalled. Vyrypaev:
The volunteers of the detachment, seeing their boss all the time before their eyes, living the same life with them, became more and more attached to Kappel every day. Experiencing joy and sorrow together, they fell in love with him and were ready to do anything for him, not sparing their lives.

Moreover, Kappel showed a deep understanding of the psychology of the civil war: “A civil war is not like a war with an external enemy... This war must be waged especially carefully, because one wrong step, if not destroying, will greatly damage the cause... In the Civil War the one on whose side the sympathies of the population will win... And besides, since we honestly love our Motherland, we need to forget about which of us was and who was before the revolution.” It is not surprising that Kappel usually disarmed ordinary Red Army soldiers who were captured and sent them home.

The results of such management were felt very quickly. Already on June 11, Syzran was captured during a daring attack: the population greeted Kappel’s troops with jubilation. Then his detachment was moved up the Volga, where he cleared a number of villages opposite Stavropol from the enemy. Afterwards, the lieutenant colonel again found himself near Syzran, where he defeated the red Penza infantry division and captured Buguruslan and Buzuluk. In mid-July, together with attached Czechoslovak units, Kappel launched an attack on Simbirsk (Lenin’s hometown). It was defended by a detachment of the famous civil war hero G.D. Guy: under his command there were about 2000 people and strong artillery. Kappel resorted to a military trick: the Czechoslovak forces, moving along the Volga on steamships, distracted the enemy's attention, while the lieutenant colonel himself made a sharp attack on July 21 and captured the city from the rear. The population greeted the troops with flowers. A few days later, his squad was deployed into a division (about 3,000 thousand people).

Kappel's fame quickly spread throughout the Volga region. One Bolshevik newspaper even called him “little Napoleon,” and the enemy offered a reward of 50 thousand rubles for his capture. The striking victories of the Kappelites against the background of the general rise of the anti-Bolshevik movement forced the Red command to pay increased attention to events in the East: Tukhachevsky’s army was hastily formed in the Simbirsk and Samara region, and the 5th Army was strengthened near Kazan under the direct leadership of the commander of the Eastern Front, Vatsetis.

In August 1918, the White Main Headquarters in Samara planned to actively advance in a southwestern direction: to capture Saratov and join forces with the rebels of the Urals. Kappel insisted that it was necessary to move to the northwest, occupy large industrial centers, and then go to Moscow. The military leadership in Samara agreed only to hold a demonstration against Kazan. However, the task was exceeded: on the morning of August 6, Kappel burst into the city from the rear, which caused a commotion in the enemy camp. By the evening of the next day, Kazan was taken. Neither numerical superiority nor the strong artillery available helped the Red Army, whose units for the most part simply fled (the exception was the 5th Latvian Regiment, which took up a stubborn defense). Kappel’s losses amounted to 25 people, but in his hands remained a huge amount of military property and most of the gold reserves of the Russian Empire (650 million gold rubles), which was hastily taken out and became the financial basis for the activities of the entire White Army. Moreover, the Academy of the General Staff located here went over to the side of the People's Army in full force, and the Kazan victory contributed to the success of the Izhevsk-Votkinsk workers' uprising against Soviet power. Kazan became the westernmost point that the white troops of the eastern front managed to reach.

In the future, Kappel planned to develop an attack on Nizhny Novgorod, and from there on Moscow. He rightly believed that it was necessary to take advantage of the weakness of the Red Army: a constant offensive to inflict more and more damage on it, seizing new territories and contributing to a widespread popular uprising. But his opinion was not heard either by the military leaders in Samara, or by the Czechoslovaks, or by many other colleagues who insisted on the need, first of all, to consolidate the successes.

Meanwhile, the pressure of the Reds was increasingly intensified and the white front began to burst at the seams. The weak government of Komuch could neither establish order in the rear nor organize effective mobilization. Therefore, Kappel’s troops (as the most combat-ready) began to be used as a “fire brigade” in threatened areas. Already in mid-August they were transferred to Simbirsk in order to stop the advance of Tukhachevsky’s army. As a result, the Reds were still pushed back, but not defeated. At the end of the month, Kappel was again near Kazan, where he pinned down the enemy. However, by that time the forces of the People's Army were almost completely exhausted. The realization came that the city would soon fall. At this time, by the way, he was awarded the rank of colonel.

In mid-September, Kappel's men were transferred to Simbirsk, which, however, could not be returned. Kappel actively covered the retreat of all white forces, subjugating the units departing from the city. A Consolidated Corps was formed, which soon received the name Simbirsk Group. It was reinforced by individual units and now numbered more than 5,000 people with 29 guns. These units were very tired and exhausted by constant battles and transitions, suffering from colossal supply problems; There were also signs of decomposition (and even the unauthorized departure of individual units), but against the general background of a demoralized People's Army, Kappel's troops were among the most stable. Continuing their retreat, they endured a number of serious rearguard battles. So, in November, together with the 1st Czechoslovak division, they launched a short counteroffensive and defeated the enemy’s Bugulma group.

In the order for the troops, Kappel wrote:
Despite a number of difficult conditions under which you had to conduct combat operations, despite the superiority of enemy forces, you, valiant troops, with your decisive and bold pressure broke the resistance of a daring and insolent enemy, and he fled in panic, abandoning weapons and carts.

In November, Kappel was promoted to the rank of major general. The rest of 1918 for its considerably thinned units passed in difficult transitions and skirmishes. Only at the beginning of January 1919 were the Kappelites transferred to the reserve.

At this time, a very interesting episode occurred, characterizing Kappel not only as a military man, but also as a politician. During a stop at the Ural plant, Asha-Balashovskaya counterintelligence reported that the workers were hostile to the passing White Guard troops. Then General Kappel personally came to the plant without security, speaking at a meeting of workers. As V.O. recalled Vyrypaev: “In brief words, Kappel outlined what Bolshevism is and what it will bring with it, ending his speech with the words:

— I want Russia to prosper along with other advanced countries. I want all the factories and factories to work, and the workers to have a completely decent existence.

The workers were delighted with his words and covered his speech with loud “hurrahs”. Then they carried Kappel out of the mine in their arms and escorted him to the headquarters... The next morning, I arrived at the headquarters on my business, and saw in the corridor a delegation from the workers who said: “This is so general!”

It should be noted that while heavy fighting was taking place at the front, no less brutal battles, albeit for power, took place in the rear. Until the end of September, Komuch and the Siberian government fought for the creation of a unified system of power. The inefficiency, inexperience and outright weakness of both governments were evident to many. The establishment of a single Directory, which continued to be dominated by the Socialist-Revolutionaries associated with Kerenskyism, did not help either. Representatives of business circles and the army increasingly insistently demanded the arrival of a “harsh hand.” These aspirations were also supported by V.O. Kappel. Such a hand was found in the person of Admiral Kolchak, who during the coup on November 18 became the Supreme Ruler.

The majority of the officers, like Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel himself, believed that now was not the time to engage in internal strife. There is one goal - to defeat the Bolsheviks, and all efforts should be directed towards this. In this regard, the late Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel strictly adhered to this principle until the end of his life and stood out among other senior leaders for his sacrifice in the name of the common good. He himself was completely far from all leftist groups. Possessing a strong will and straightforward character, he was at the same time surprisingly tactful and knew how to win over people of different directions and views.
Captain V.A. Zinoviev

Under the new ruler, the attitude towards the former People's Army in the highest circles was biased: the “Siberians” did not like the “Samarans”, calling all the officers who fought for Komuch Socialist Revolutionaries and Socialists. This bias was sometimes transferred to Kappel, who with his success and independence irritated many chiefs of staff. A personal meeting with Kolchak, which took place in January 1919, changed the situation. Kappel's troops began to reorganize into the 1st Volga Corps, which became a strategic reserve.

Kappel V.O. Winter, 1919

It is worth noting that the staffing of the new building by Headquarters was left virtually to chance. With the preparation and beginning of a major spring offensive, reinforcements were received mainly by the active armies, and, accordingly, there was no systematic recruitment of the reserve. Moreover, former captured Red Army soldiers were often sent to Kappel as privates, whose moral fortitude was rightly questioned. The most important thing was the following: the replenishment of individual forcibly mobilized or former prisoners eroded the original composition of volunteers (who fought for the idea), reducing the overall quality of the troops. But Kappel did not have the proper time to prepare them.

The White offensive that had begun fizzled out by mid-April, and at the end of the month the Reds (under the command of Frunze) launched a counteroffensive, thereby putting General Khanzhin’s Western Army in a difficult position. It was to strengthen it that the 1st Volga Corps was deployed in early May. However, due to haste, mistakes by higher command and the difficult situation at the front, he was brought into battle in units that came under attack by the Reds, suffering heavy losses (some units even went over to the enemy’s side). By soon Kappel gathered his units together, but they could no longer advance. The retreat continued.

The Volga Corps showed particular heroism in early June on the Belaya River, where it repelled the enemy three times. Contrary to popular belief, Kappel’s opponent here was not Chapaev, but the neighboring 24th Division. Despite heavy continuous fighting, the Whites not only defended themselves, but also launched successful counterattacks, capturing prisoners and machine guns. At the same time, Vladimir Oskarovich himself directly participated in the battles, thereby strengthening the spirit of his soldiers.

Colonel Vyrypaev testified:
The question involuntarily arose: what force, like hypnosis, did Kappel exert on the soldiers? After all, in such a large area, the arriving reserves, the remnants of the Urzhum regiment, could not do anything normally. The units stationed in this sector had continuous combat for four days and during this time there was almost no sleep. Then after the battle I talked a lot with officers and soldiers on this topic. From their answers one could conclude that the vast majority blindly believed that in a difficult moment for them Kappel would appear himself, and if so, then there should be victory. – With Kappel there’s no fear in dying! - they said.

But, despite individual successes, the White troops retreated under general enemy pressure. Attempts to carry out a counteroffensive at the end of July near Chelyabinsk did not bring the desired results. The White's eastern front was on the verge of destruction. In November, Kappel was appointed commander of the 3rd Army, and in December he became Commander-in-Chief, but the front was already practically crumbling: in addition to the onslaught from the west, the white troops had to contend with numerous red partisan detachments in the rear, the arbitrariness of the Czechs, as well as a sharp decline in discipline. However, the spirit of many volunteers was not broken, and they continued to fight. In emigrant literature, this difficult period of movement to the east in harsh winter conditions became known as the “Siberian Ice March.”

The new commander-in-chief wanted to withdraw troops to Krasnoyarsk and beyond the river. Yenisei, however, at the beginning of January 1920, it turned out that the garrison of this city had gone over to the enemy’s side, and therefore they had to look for a workaround through the fast mountain river Kan. Due to the steep banks, most of the river had to be crossed along its bed. The main problem was that the river was not completely frozen, and therefore dry places under the snow had to be found by touch. As General F.A. recalled. Puchkov: “The transition of the Ufa group from the village of Podporozhnoe to the village of Barga took from 36 to 48 hours. It was most difficult for the 4th Division and General Kappel’s convoy, who were building a road through the virgin lands. A difficult task in itself became impossible where the leading riders entered a strip of unfrozen water... We laid a well-marked, well-trodden and now safe road along the river. The units of the 3rd Army that followed us spent only 12-14 hours on the entire journey.”

And General Kappel, as always, walked ahead. He moved on foot, not wanting to mount a horse because of the frost. So he accidentally drowned in the snow and scooped up ice water into his boots. As a result, Vladimir Oskarovich received frostbite, and soon pneumonia began to develop. Only in the village of Bargi was the commander-in-chief examined by a doctor who made a difficult decision: amputation of his feet. For some time, the commander-in-chief could move around while sitting on a horse, encouraging the troops with his own appearance. During the offensive, Kansk was taken on January 15, and Nizhneudinsk on the 22nd.

However, the general's condition worsened.

When asked to go to the hospital with the Czechoslovak train, which was heading further east by rail, the commander-in-chief responded with a categorical refusal:
Hundreds of fighters die every day, and if I am destined to die, I will die among them.

Soon it happened - V.O. Kappel died on January 26. His last words were addressed to the volunteers: “Tell them that I am with them. May they never forget Russia!”

Kappel was buried in Chita. Already in the fall of 1920, his grave was moved to Harbin, where in 1929 a monument was erected with money from the local community. Subsequently, the burial place was desecrated twice: first in August 1945 with the arrival of Soviet troops, and then in the early 1950s by order of the Soviet consulate. It was only in 2007 that the remains of one of the most valiant white generals - who began as a hero and ended as a martyr - were reburied in the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow.

That is not a falcon in heaven,

That is our Kappel General

Dispersed the Reds in Samara

And Volzhan gathered to himself.
From the song of the Volga Riflemen
Gay Volzhan, Gay dashingly,

March to the Motherland forward,

March to the Motherland forward,

March to the Motherland forward,
From Kappel's marching songs and ditties

Pakhalyuk K., head of the Internet project “Heroes of the First World War”, member of the Russian Association of Historians of the First World War

Literature

Gagkuev R.G. General Kappel. Kappel and the Kappelites. M., 2010

Vyrypaev V.O. Kappelites. Kappel and the Kappelites. M., 2010

Internet

Golenishchev-Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich

(1745-1813).
1. A GREAT Russian commander, he was an example for his soldiers. Appreciated every soldier. “M.I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov is not only the liberator of the Fatherland, he is the only one who outplayed the hitherto invincible French emperor, turning the “great army” into a crowd of ragamuffins, saving, thanks to his military genius, the lives of many Russian soldiers.”
2. Mikhail Illarionovich, being a highly educated man who knew several foreign languages, dexterous, sophisticated, who knew how to animate society with the gift of words and an entertaining story, also served Russia as an excellent diplomat - ambassador to Turkey.
3. M.I. Kutuzov is the first to become a full holder of the highest military order of St. St. George the Victorious four degrees.
The life of Mikhail Illarionovich is an example of service to the fatherland, attitude towards soldiers, spiritual strength for Russian military leaders of our time and, of course, for the younger generation - future military men.

Petrov Ivan Efimovich

Defense of Odessa, Defense of Sevastopol, Liberation of Slovakia

Antonov Alexey Inokentevich

Chief strategist of the USSR in 1943-45, practically unknown to society
"Kutuzov" World War II

Humble and committed. Victorious. Author of all operations since the spring of 1943 and the victory itself. Others gained fame - Stalin and the front commanders.

Dokhturov Dmitry Sergeevich

Defense of Smolensk.
Command of the left flank on the Borodino field after Bagration was wounded.
Battle of Tarutino.

Skopin-Shuisky Mikhail Vasilievich

During his short military career, he knew practically no failures, both in battles with the troops of I. Boltnikov, and with the Polish-Liovian and “Tushino” troops. The ability to build a combat-ready army practically from scratch, train, use Swedish mercenaries in place and at the time, select successful Russian command cadres for the liberation and defense of the vast territory of the Russian northwestern region and the liberation of central Russia, persistent and systematic offensive, skillful tactics in fight against the magnificent Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, undoubted personal courage - these are the qualities that, despite the little-known nature of his deeds, give him the right to be called the Great Commander of Russia.

Rokossovsky Konstantin Konstantinovich

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