Asiatic Cavalry Division
| Asiatic Cavalry Division | |
|---|---|
 Flag | |
| Active | 28 May 1919 – August 1921 |
| Country | White Russia (until 29 September 1920) Bogd Khanate of Mongolia (after 29 September 1920) |
| Size | 8,000 (May 1919) 900 (October 1920) |
The Asiatic Cavalry Division (Russian: Азиатская конная дивизия, romanized: Aziatskaya konnaya diviziya) was a White Army cavalry division during the Russian Civil War.[1] The division was composed of Russians, Buryats, Tatars, Bashkirs, Mongols of different tribes, Chinese, Manchu, Polish exiles and many others.[1][2]
Formation[edit]
The division was formed in Transbaikal by Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg on 28 May 1919.[3] It consisted of the remnants from the White Army's disbanded Native Horse Corps.[3] It was 8,000-man strong.[3]
History[edit]
Since 18 March 1920, it was directly subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief of all the Russian Eastern Regions' armed forces, Ataman Semenov, and from 21 May 1920, in the Far Eastern Army.[3]
After Kolchak's defeat at the hands of the Red Army and Japan's subsequent decision to withdraw its expeditionary troops from Transbaikal, Semyonov, unable to withstand the pressure of Bolshevik forces, planned a retreat to Manchuria.[3][4]
Ungern, however, saw it as an opportunity to implement his monarchist plan. On 7 August 1920, he broke his allegiance to Semyonov and transformed his Asiatic Cavalry Division into a guerrilla detachment.[5][page needed] Later that same month, the unit crossed the Mongolia–Russia border due to the Red Army's and the Far Eastern Republic's People's Revolutionary Army's attacks.[3] This move to Mongolia was unauthorized by Semenov.[4] In Mongolia, the detachment united with other White Army forces, e.g. the units of Colonels N. N. Kazagrandi and A. P. Kaigorodov, in order to combat the Chinese and Red forces.[3] On September 29, the division was excluded from Semenov's Far Eastern Army.[4] During the evacuation of the Far Eastern Army from Transbaikal to Primorye along the CER, the division went a different route.
On 2 October 1920 the division, totalling 900 men,[6] with its four regiments and artillery,[7] entered Mongolia when Bogd Khan agreed to von Ungern-Sternberg's offer to liberate Mongolia from the Chinese occupiers.[8][9] The division's fighting core were eight Transbaikal Cossack squadrons.[7][9] The division freed the Mongolian capital Urga from the Chinese and tried twice to break through in Transbaikal, but suffered heavy losses.[3] In June 1921, the division consisted of 3,500 men, but lost up to 66% of them in the battle of Troitskosavsky.[3] In the final clash, von Ungern's forces numbered about 1,000 soldiers.[10] During the retreat, outraged by their commander's cruel treatment, the officers expelled Ungern, and the division, in 2 brigades under the command of Esaul Makeev and then Colonel Ostrovsky (under the actual leadership of Colonel M.G. Tornovsky), moved to Manchuria where in August 1921 the division was disarmed.
References[edit]
Citations[edit]
- ^ a b Weirather 2015, p. 101.
- ^ Kuzmin 2011, pp. 94–96.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Smele 2015, p. 149.
- ^ a b c Sablin 2016.
- ^ Kuzmin 2011.
- ^ P. Atwood 2004, p. 573.
- ^ a b Wieczynski 1985, p. 168.
- ^ Pratt Atwood 2004, p. 270.
- ^ a b Guber 1973, p. 283.
- ^ Patrikeeff 2002, p. 145.
Sources[edit]
- Kuzmin, Sergei L. (2011). Kuzmin, Sergei L. (ed.). The History of Baron Ungern. An Experience of Reconstruction (in Russian). Moscow: KMK Sci. Press. ISBN 978-5-87317-692-2.
- Wieczynski, Joseph L. (1985). "Transbaikal Cossack Host". The Modern encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet history. Vol. 39. Academic International Press.
- P. Atwood, Christopher (2004). "Ungern-Sternberg, Baron Roman Fedorovich von". Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol empire. United States of America: Facts on File. pp. 572–573. ISBN 9780816046713.
- Pratt Atwood, Christopher (2004). "Jibzundamba Khutugtu, Eight". Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol empire. United States of America: Facts on File. pp. 269–271. ISBN 9780816046713.
- Guber, A. A. (1973). "The Mongolian People's Revolution of 1921". History of the Mongolian People's Republic. Moscow, USSR: "Nauka" Publishing House.
- Patrikeeff, Felix (2002). Russian politics in exile : the Northeast Asian balance of power, 1924-1931. Great Britain. ISBN 0-333-73018-6.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Weirather, Larry (2015). Fred Barton and the Warlords' Horses of China: How an American Cowboy Brought the Old West to the Far East. McFarland. ISBN 9780786499137.
- Smele, Jonathan D. (2015). Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781442252813.
- Sablin, Ivan (2016). Governing Post-Imperial Siberia and Mongolia, 1911-1924: Buddhism, Socialism and Nationalism in State and Autonomy Building. Routledge. ISBN 9781317358930.