Peter Wrangel is one of the most controversial figures of the White movement. Until the end of his life, he waged both open and “secret” war against the Bolsheviks, their agents abroad and the false organization “Trust”.
Black Baron
Of all the leaders of the White movement, Baron Wrangel was almost the only one who combined the qualities of a military man and a manager, a general and an official. He came from an old noble family that gave Russia a whole galaxy of talented military men, pioneers and successful businessmen, who was Pyotr Nikolaevich’s father, Nikolai Yegorovich Wrangel. He also predicted a secular career for his eldest son, who, however, did not show much interest in military activities and was safely listed as a guard cornet in the reserve.
Everything changed during the Russian-Japanese War, when the young baron voluntarily took up the sword and never let it go. The bloody Russo-Japanese War brought awards for bravery and “distinction in deeds against the Japanese”, “St. George” for the crazy cavalry charge near Cachen during the First World War, which should have ended in defeat, but ended in complete victory and the capture of the enemy battery. Then the Civil War, the birth of the “black baron” and many years of fruitless labor in exile.
Pyotr Wrangel received the nickname “black baron” due to his constant habit of wearing a black Cossack Circassian coat. It was replicated by the lines of the song “The Red Army is the strongest of all”, became a household word and for a long time represented an allegory of world evil, enemy of the people No. 1, who with his intrigues did not allow the “reborn country” to develop normally, striving to return “monarchical slavery. And he himself favored very few people. It is he who owns the famous phrase: “Even with the devil, but against the Bolsheviks.”
The case of the annulled amnesty and the missing manifesto
Under the command of Pyotr Nikolaevich were the small but still powerful remnants of his army. And he was going to preserve them at all costs, even if he sacrificed his moral principles.
On November 8, 1920, white troops lost the battle for Crimea - numerous Frunze troops broke into the territory of the peninsula. This was followed by a proposal on the radio for voluntary surrender and amnesty: “for all offenses related to the civil struggle,” which at that time was a popular practice of the Soviets, which made it possible to replenish the Red Army with valuable personnel. However, the appeal did not reach the soldiers. Wrangel ordered the closure of all radio stations except one operated by officers. The lack of response was perceived by the Soviet side as an obvious refusal, and the amnesty proposal was canceled.
The manifesto of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, sent to Wrangel twice: by mail and by chance, also disappeared without a trace. The second son of Vladimir Alexandrovich, the third son of Alexander II, declaring himself the guardian of the throne of the absent Emperor Nicholas II (the fate of the imperial family was unknown at that time), offered Wrangel “profitable cooperation.” It consisted in organizing a new open confrontation with the Bolsheviks with the help of the remnants of the White Army. It would seem, what else could a white general who had spent too much time in exile dream of, struggling to find a political force capable of fighting the Bolsheviks.
However, Kirill Vladimirovich’s reputation was very dubious. Not only was his marriage to his Catholic cousin Victoria Melita not recognized by Nicholas II, who seriously intended to deprive the “possible” heir of the rights to the throne, but he was also the first to support the February Revolution of 1917. But the main reason for the refusal, of course, was not an old grudge, but the prince’s short-sightedness. Wrangel understood that the slogans “for the restoration of the empire” would not be supported by the Republicans who fought for Denikin. This means there may not be enough strength. Therefore, citing the failure to receive the manifesto, which disappeared twice without a trace, Pyotr Nikolaevich refused to accept the new guardian of the throne.
However, the story did not end there. Wrangel's White Army was too tasty a morsel to simply give up. On August 31, 1924, the self-appointed “guardian” declared himself Emperor of All Russia, Kirill I. Thus, the army automatically came under his command, since it was formally subordinate to the emperor. But the next day the army was gone - it was disbanded by Wrangel himself, and in its place appeared the Russian All-Military Union, headed by Peter Wrangel. Oddly enough, the EMRO exists to this day, following the same principles of 1924.
Party with a false ally. Operation Trust
Wrangel's formations caused serious concern among the Soviet command. “Special people” began to come for Denikin’s successor. So, in the fall of 1923, Yakov Blumkin, the murderer of the German ambassador Mirbach, knocked on his door.
The security officers pretended to be French cameramen, for whom Wrangel had previously agreed to pose. The box simulating a camera was filled to the brim with weapons; an additional Lewis machine gun was hidden in a tripod case.
But the conspirators immediately made a serious mistake - they knocked on the door, which was completely unacceptable both in Serbia, where the action took place, and in France, where they had long ago switched to doorbells. The guards rightly considered that only people who came from Soviet Russia could knock, and, just in case, they did not open the gate.
A more serious opponent turned out to be the false monarchist organization “Trust”, whose tasks were to penetrate the emigrant elite, find out their plans, create a split among them, and eliminate key representatives of the white movement. Assurances that counter-revolutionary forces were growing stronger in the new Russia, and that a retaliatory strike would soon be struck, “bought” many: Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, on whom Peter Wrangel relied, thirsty for the activities of General Alexander Kutepov, who began to send his people to Petrograd, Socialist Revolutionary Boris Savinkov. Even the famous British intelligence officer Sidney Reilly, the “king of espionage” and the future prototype of James Bond, was unable to figure out the enemy in time and was executed at the Lubyanka.
But Wrangel immediately suspected something was wrong, doubting the very possibility of the existence of counter-revolutionary forces in the Russia of that time, during the rampant Red Terror. For final verification, the black baron sent his man, the brave monarchist and best friend of General Vasily Shulgin, “to the homeland,” who sought to find his missing son. "Trust" promised to provide assistance. Shulgin traveled through NEP Russia for three months, describing everything he saw. His impressions are presented in the book “Three Capitals”, which was published in huge quantities. In it, he talked about the number of people dissatisfied with the Soviet regime. Allegedly, prominent Soviet figures constantly came to him and talked about how nice it would be to “bring everything back.”
Trump card of the “black baron”
But Wrangel’s people monitored his movements in the USSR and found out that all of his interesting fellow travelers and representatives of the Soviet intelligentsia were career security officers. However, the baron was in no hurry to share his discoveries. Only after the cessation of funding by Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, who preferred to invest money in Kutepov’s senseless terrorist attacks, and the subsequent refusal of the English government to help, did Peter Wrangel decide to openly speak out.
On October 8, 1927, the magazine “Illustrated Russia,” popular abroad, published an article by journalist Burtsev about Shulgin’s journey, under the telling title “In the Networks of the GPU.” Burtsev wrote:
“The provocateurs knew that V.V. Shulgin would write memoirs about his trip to Russia, and they expressed concern to him that he, not well acquainted with the conditions of Russian life, might make some hints in the book that would help the GPU decipher his trip. Therefore, they asked that he give them the opportunity to view the manuscript of his book before printing his memoirs. V.V. Shulgin, of course, agreed to this and, thus, his memoirs were edited in Moscow at the GPU before printing.”
Almost a month later, the same publication published an interview with the black baron, where he recalled the “merits” of Nikolai Nikolayevich and Alexander Kutepov, who by their actions deprived the white movement of its last chance of existence: “The methods of the GPU, unprecedented in their monstrosity, put many to sleep. Is it because the incapable commander lost the battle, throwing his units on the offensive, without carrying out proper reconnaissance, without providing this offensive with the proper forces and means, should we conclude that the eternal principle “only the offensive ensures victory” is incorrect? Work in Russia is necessary and possible. The world is beginning to understand that Bolshevism is not only a Russian, but a global evil, and that the fight against this evil is a common cause. Healthy forces are maturing and strengthening within Russia. Despite all the trials I have experienced, I look confidently into the future.”
The last phrases referred to the British and actually meant: “I know what needs to be done, I have connections and people in Russia, I just need funds.”
Sudden death
Instead of the British, the Germans responded to the message. At the beginning of March 1928, an official representative of the German government arrived to visit Pyotr Wrangel. Pyotr Nikolaevich resorted to bluff - he frightened the Germans with the spread of the red infection and the interest of the British in Wrangel's organization.
However, Pyotr Nikolaevich never received an answer. On March 18, his temperature suddenly rose. The infection was identified by the attending physicians as “intestinal flu.” But the fever did not go away for about a month, which is very unusual for influenza diseases. Soon it turned into intensive tuberculosis. The general’s mother later recalled that it was “thirty-eight days of continuous martyrdom, he rushed about, gave orders, tried to get up, made orders down to the smallest detail.” Subsequently, as a result of an autopsy, an enormous number of Koch bacilli were discovered in the lungs. On April 25, 1928, the black baron, the last hope of the white movement, died in terrible agony, at the age of 49.
Of course, such an unexpected death, which came for the general in the midst of his counter-revolutionary activities, could not but cause rumors and rumors about the elimination of Wrangel by OGPU agents. The Paris newspaper “Echo de Paris” was the first to announce this the next day after his death: “very persistent rumors are circulating that General Wrangel was poisoned, that he allegedly “only recently told one of his friends that he should take extreme measures.” precautions regarding his diet, as he fears poisoning.”
This point of view was also supported by members of the Wrangel family. According to their version, the “poisoner” was an unknown guest who was staying in the Wrangel house on the eve of his illness. Allegedly, this was the brother of the messenger Yakov Yudikhin, who was attached to the general. The sudden relative, whose presence the soldier had not previously mentioned, was a sailor on a Soviet merchant ship stationed in Antwerp.
The reasons for such a sudden death of the “black baron,” as the communists called him, or the “white knight” (in the memories of his white comrades) remain a mystery.
Two riddles. Or, to put it mildly, two dark spots. Death and nickname.
Why was it that a 49-year-old athletic man, who had almost never been ill, could not cope with the onslaught of illness, despite the consultation of the best doctors?
Moreover, from the very beginning, relatives and friends did not believe the talk about an ordinary cold. All the symptoms, the entire course of the illness was terrible, desperate, exalted. In 38 frantic days, the general, as they say, burned out.
But I am interested not only in the clinical side of the story, but also in the slightly mystical one. Where did the famous nickname of Pyotr Nikolaevich come from - “the black baron” - known to everyone in Russia:
White Guard, Black Baron
Are they preparing the royal throne for us again?
The author of the poems, Pavel Grigoriev, commentators write, picked up a phrase that was already circulating among the people in 1920: the epithet “black” is associated with Wrangel’s military uniform - a black Circassian with gazyrs, supposedly the general’s permanent clothing since 1918.
Well, firstly, he also wore an openly white Circassian coat, and, secondly, I want to offer another version of the nickname.
Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel (as well as his brother Nikolai Nikolaevich, the most famous art critic of the early twentieth century) was related to Pushkin: they had a common ancestor, a common “African root” - the godson of the Russian Tsar, pupil and associate of Peter the Great, Abram Petrovich Hannibal. Of the ten children of the Tsar's Arab, son Osip became Pushkin's grandfather, and daughter Sofia became Baron Wrangel's great-great-grandmother. There are many memories left about the young years of the art critic brother (Nikolai, Koki): the artist Alexander Benois called him “African”. The future general was a match for him.
Black hair, dark skin, pride and arrogance of nature, some capriciousness of character - all this worked for the appearance of the nickname
Black hair, dark skin, against the background of which the light whites of the eyes looked especially bright, pride and arrogance of nature, some capriciousness of character, awareness of the 800-year history of the Wrangel family - all this, I suppose, worked for the appearance of nicknames, which they like to hand out in schools .
The black Circassian coat, it seems to me, only completed the already finished image. But this image began to work for the general’s fate.
By the mid-1920s, Wrangel (the highest, generally recognized authority and hero who saved the White Army from destruction in the Crimea) managed to escape from the secret Bolshevik guardianship of emigrant organizations. He managed for some time to conduct secret anti-Bolshevik work together with a narrow circle of like-minded people, and this work was in no way subject to KGB influence. Soviet intelligence received information about it very late. The Black Baron knew how to be impenetrable.
Why did General Wrangel need his own secret organization and why did he hide it from most of his comrades in the White Idea?
The issue was delicate. Wrangel's position by 1925-1926 was very uncertain. As the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army and Chairman of the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), he was formally subordinate to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, but in fact during these years he was removed from the leadership of the ROVS and from receiving real information about the work that the emigration carried out against the USSR. This work was carried out by the entourage of the Grand Duke - first of all, General Kutepov, who had a complex, hostile, almost black relationship with Wrangel. After the failure of the Trust (the provocative GPU organization), General Kutepov (who actively believed in the Trust) lost a significant part of his former popularity in military émigré circles.
At first, Wrangel did not try to carry out any independent work, considering this, given the formal subordination to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, unethical, but he repeatedly introduced Kutepov to documents proving that he was completely under the control of the Bolsheviks, but Kutepov refused to admit the obvious and continued his work . Wrangel had to create his own independent organization to fight Bolshevism.
Did it make sense for Soviet agents to destroy Wrangel, who had retired from business and settled in Brussels? There was, because the question was acute: who next, after Kutepov, who had lost popularity, would lead the Russian military forces Abroad? In the event of the death of the elderly and sick Nikolai Nikolayevich, Wrangel could quite realistically take anti-Bolshevik work into his own hands, and then all his secret work could gain unwanted relevance.
It would be better for the Bolsheviks to protect Wrangel and provoke further conflicts within the triangle: Wrangel - Kutepov - Grand Duke
And vice versa: if Wrangel had remained on the sidelines, on the outskirts of political activity, he would have been harmless to Moscow. It would be better to protect Wrangel and provoke further conflicts within the triangle: Wrangel - Kutepov - Grand Duke.
The immediate cause of Wrangel's death was intense tuberculosis in the apex of the left lung. At first it was a minor flu. Wrangel, who was rarely ill, was already on the mend, when suddenly a new, terrible illness developed. And it began immediately after the departure of the strange visitor.
The story of this mysterious visitor is still not entirely clear. Wrangel had an orderly, messenger Yakov Yudikhin, who never, in all his years of faithful service, mentioned a single word about any of his brothers. And suddenly, in mid-March 1928, this supposed brother appeared, calling himself a sailor from a Soviet ship moored in Antwerp. He supposedly came to Brussels for a day to visit his brother. May I spend the night? Allowed. The brother stayed for one day, spent time somewhere other than with Yudikhin, and quickly left. And the next day Wrangel fell mortally ill.
The disease was very difficult - with high fever. Only a week and a half later, after a consultation of eminent doctors (Aleksinsky, Weinert, Belgian specialists), tuberculosis bacilli were discovered in huge quantities. It is very likely that it was the sailor who added something to the owner’s food that played a decisive role in the development of the entire tuberculosis process.
The general’s mother wrote after his death: “Thirty-eight days of continuous martyrdom! The 40-degree temperature consumed his strength.”
Wrangel excitedly confessed to the attending physician: “My brain is tormenting me... I cannot rest from obsessive, bright thoughts... My brain is working feverishly against my wishes... and I write orders all the time.”
Nervous attacks began. They couldn't save him.
Isn't this whole situation strange? A Soviet sailor who went abroad from city to city in 1928 to see his brother, and not just a simple one, but serving as a messenger for the fierce enemy of the Soviet regime - and all this so easily, without fear of being suspected by his ship's political commander...
Suspicions of poisoning were written in one of the Parisian newspapers the very next day, but the general’s family did not say a word about the details, for some reason maintaining a black silence.
According to historian Viktor Bortnevsky (“The Mystery of the Death of General Wrangel,” St. Petersburg, 1996), not only Soviet intelligence was interested in the death, but also the general’s enemies in exile—supporters of the Kutepov line. In the Russian diaspora they have always glossed over the struggle that was actually waged between different flanks - literary, political, religious, military. This is easy to understand: in the face of a single Soviet enemy, the diaspora wanted to portray its own unity. And going into the details and circumstances of Wrangel’s life in recent years, we would have to talk about the role and position of his opponent General Kutepov - the hero of the White movement, the hero of Gallipoli, thanks to whom the Russian army retained its core. After his abduction by the Bolsheviks in 1930, Kutepov was further exalted: a martyr. And any criticism of him became impossible. For the same reason, V. Bortnevsky believed, suspicions about the death of General Wrangel were shelved.
“When Khrushchev learned that the German government was sending an ambassador named Ungern to the country of the Soviets, the answer was short: “No way!” We only had one Ungern – that’s enough.” This reaction of the Secretary General can be understood if we recall the Civil War, in which a distant relative of the failed ambassador distinguished himself. Lieutenant General Roman Fedorovich Ungern von Sternberg accepted Buddhism and earned the Mongols the title of God of War, Mahakala, reborn in a human body.”
“When Khrushchev learned that the German government was sending an ambassador named Ungern to the country of the Soviets, the answer was short: “No way!” We only had one Ungern – that’s enough.” This reaction of the Secretary General can be understood if we recall the Civil War, in which a distant relative of the failed ambassador distinguished himself. Lieutenant General Roman Fedorovich Ungern von Sternberg accepted Buddhism and earned the Mongols the title of God of War, Mahakala, reborn in a human body.”
A hundred years ago, Russian, Chinese, English, American and German merchants began vigorous activity in Urga. Previously, the so-called tea route from China to Russia passed through the valley where the capital of Mongolia lies. The city was a huge warehouse that stored goods from all over Asia. However, only a select few had access to abundance. The beginning of the last century was marked in Mongolia by famine, widespread poverty, and epidemics. The country's small peoples were on the verge of extinction. At that time there was a legend that liberation would come from the north, during the reign of the eighth Bogdokhan.
In October 1920, Baron Ungern's Asian Division left Russia to liberate Mongolia from the Chinese. The backbone of the white army consisted of Buryat and Mongol horsemen. They had to drive out an enemy force five times greater from Urga. After two unsuccessful attacks, the baron decided to carry out psychological treatment. At night, on the slopes of the sacred mountain Bogdo-Ul, he ordered fires to be lit. The Chinese were convinced of the divine origin of the lights. Panic began in the ranks of the invaders.
The Buddhist Ungern intimidated the enemy so much that in broad daylight he could ride around the city on his beloved mare Masha completely unguarded. The last straw that finally undermined the morale of the Chinese was the operation to free the eighth Bogdogegen and his wife. The Chinese kept them in the Green Palace as hostages.
Next to the summer buildings of the complex is the Winter Palace. It was built by Russian craftsmen. This, of course, is not the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, but by Mongolian standards of that time it was a palace. It was here that the divine spouses languished. At about 10 a.m., mounted messengers in brocade clothes rode out of the gates of Bogdogegen's residence. Behind them came a procession of lamas, followed by a carriage with a living Buddha. Lasting the procession was Baron Ungern, dressed in a Mongolian-style overcoat of his own design.
After the liberation of Bogdokhan, it was not difficult to recapture Urga from the Chinese. Ungern was given the title of God of War, Khan-Chian-Chun, available only to the descendants of Genghis Khan by blood. The baron was called "The one who revived the state, the great commander of the battalion." Very soon the lieutenant general turned from a liberator into an absolute dictator. Mass repressions began. A wave of Jewish pogroms and executions of Chinese traders swept across Urga. The corpses of the “Judemasons” were devoured by packs of hungry dogs. Hundreds of mutilated bodies lay on the streets. The surrounding villages that resisted the baron were completely cut out. Suspicious people were flogged until the meat fell off. Communist sympathizers and Jews were burned in hay. Reprisals were even carried out against officers of the Asian Division. In winter, alcoholics and looters were thrown into shallow but turbulent rivers. We checked that the water in them is cold even in summer.
The duties of executioners were usually performed by the Mongols. Backpack masters taught them to scalp, hang, and hammer hot ramrods into their ears. Bogdogegen perceived the pogroms with Buddhist meekness. For him, Ungern was the reincarnation of Genghis Khan. This was indicated by the unprecedented cruelty of dictators. In his youth, Genghis Khan, like Ungern, was red-haired, as if both were noted by the formidable Mahakala. In accordance with the canon, this deity was depicted with fiery hair, standing in an ocean of blood. Mahakal's hands squeezed the insides of the enemies of Buddhism. He fed their hearts and kidneys to wolves, his favorite animals. Such was the nature of Ungern von Sternberg himself. The infernal baron loved to prance alone through the hills, where skulls, skeletons, and rotting remains of bodies were scattered everywhere. They say that the baron fed the meat of captured enemies to a she-wolf, who, without fear of people, entered his camp.
Behind the sadistic routine, the owner of Urga did not forget the main goal of his whole life. The general dreamed of creating an order of armed Buddhists. At first, the bloody baron planned to go to Tibet to see the Dalai Lama, the high priest. There, on the peaks, the White Guard was going to find “people who have not yet forgotten their Aryan ancestors.” “In Tibet we will speak Sanskrit and live according to the principles of the Vedas,” the baron dreamed. “I will open a school where I will teach power, which is needed even more than wisdom.” With the blessing of the Dalai Lama, Ungern wanted to create a superpower by uniting Mongolia, Russia and China. After this, together with Buddha (he was expected any day), Roman Fedorovich intended to go on a military campaign of the yellow race. The goal is to spread Buddhism in Europe, that citadel of perversion and evil. According to Ungern, only Central Asian nomads, primarily the Mongols, could bring the rotten West back to life.
In addition to waging a total war, the general was going to create a special zone located between the shrines of Tibet and the rest of the world. Mongolia was assigned a special role in this zone: it would serve as a barrier on the path of “the enraged hordes of rabid humanity, the Gogs and Magogs of Bolshevism.” In addition, in Mongolia it was supposed to find the entrance to a secret country where the laws of time did not apply. Urga was to become the capital of the new world.
Evidence of the last meeting of the living Buddha with the Khan of War has reached us... Bogdogegen took his place - a huge throne with a gilded back, littered with yellow silk pillows. His face was motionless, his half-blind eyes were hidden by dark glasses. Ungern bowed: “I’m going to Transbaikalia to kill the Reds. Your country is free. Soon the empire of Genghis Khan will be reborn.”
Bogdokhan invited the baron into his office. There he opened the safe and took out a carved casket. It contained a ruby ring, which Genghis Khan wore on his right hand, never taking it off. The monarch always kept the most expensive things with him. The gifts of the “Great White Khans” were kept in the palace. This is what our emperors were called in Mongolia. Later, expensive gifts began to come from Soviet Russia. “You will not die. You will be reincarnated in the most perfect form of existence. Remember this, living god of war, Khan of Mongolia, who owes you.” These were the last words that Bogdogegen said to the baron. The ringing of the general's spurs could be heard in the corridors. The Asian prince left the palace without looking back once. On his right hand the ring of Genghis Khan glowed.
When the news of Ungern's death reached Mongolia, the living Buddha ordered prayer services to be held in all temples. The spiritual leader continued to remain on the throne even after the arrival of the Reds. Comrades Sukhbaatar and Choibolsan came with them to Urga. New times were coming for nomadic peoples. The young leaders of Mongolia even composed a song about this: “We are going to the holy war of Shambhala, and may we be reincarnated in the sacred country...”
In July 1921, Sukhbaatar, on the square that bears his name, proclaimed the complete and final independence of the country. Urga was renamed Ulaanbaatar Khoto - the city of Red Bogaty. The Mongol monarch could not bear the change. In one of the Western brochures we read that he “often took a drink of the bottle and was interested in the charms of not only his wife. At the age of 55, the monarch became blind from syphilis and died.” This is an unheard of lie. Any Mongolian will tell you that Bogdo Khan died in 1924 from esophageal cancer. In the same year, the country received a new name: the Mongolian People's Republic.
As for the main character of our story, it seems that Bogdokhan’s prediction came true. Ungern was embodied "in a more perfect form of being." 15 years after the death of Roman Fedorovich, Europe fell ill with the brown plague. The Nazis were led by a man who in many ways resembled the mad baron. He called Ungern an ideal Aryan, who, with a sword in his hand, returned to his historical ancestral home, where the swastika sign appeared 3,000 years ago. Already in a new guise, the formidable Mahakala tried once again to defeat the forces behind the red pentagram. However, this attempt was also unsuccessful.
"White army, black baron
they are preparing the royal throne for us again.
But from the taiga to the British seas, the Red Army is strongest..."
Today, the attitude towards the White Army and the question of restoring the monarchy in Russia is no longer as clear as in those days when former factory workers in the Red Army budenovkas kicked up dust on the provincial pavements with a marching march, singing at the top of their lungs about the duty of “uncontrollably going to the last mortal fight." So isn't it time to remember the Black Baron? Moreover, there is a reason - on April 25, exactly 75 years have passed since the day when the great-grandson of Abram Petrovich Hannibal, the first Russian officer awarded the Order of St. in 1914, was poisoned by security officers in Brussels. George for outstanding personal courage, Lieutenant General of the Volunteer Army Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel. The same Black Baron, about whom the Bolsheviks spoke with seething horror of hatred, and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the South of Russia, Anton Denikin, with undisguised black envy.His father, Baron Nikolai Egorovich, was a doctor of philosophy, his mother Maria Dmitrievna, nee Maykova, sang well and wrote poetry. The artistic temperament and love for art was inherited by their eldest son Nikolai, the future star of St. Petersburg bohemia Koka Wrangel, who became not only a passionate organizer of exhibitions of Russian fine art, but also an outstanding critic and art historian. He has written many works on the history of art; As an employee of the Hermitage, he lectured and worked in the Society for the Protection and Preservation of Historical and Antique Monuments. A wit and a mocker, the author of epigrams and anecdotes, Nikolai Wrangel completely wilted with the outbreak of the First World War. In June 1915 he died of jaundice.
Peter Wrangel, it seems, was the complete opposite of his brother in character and inherited the traits of another ancestor - Admiral Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel, a Russian navigator. Fate had a different path in store for Koki's younger brother from the very beginning. After graduating from the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and the Academy of the General Staff, 26-year-old Peter almost immediately found himself in the Russo-Japanese War. But military glory came to him a little later - during the First World War.
On the morning of August 6, 1914, Captain Wrangel received an order from his hopelessly incompetent superiors to attack the village of Kaushen with his squadron, where, according to all the rules of German military science, the enemy had dug in, having managed to take aim at all possible approaches to the outpost from convenient positions. As an experienced military man, the baron could not help but understand that the task assigned to the cavalry was hardly up to the task, and no one promised him the required artillery support. Having muttered far from salon words, discarding all military theories, his honor stood up in his stirrups and shouted “Attack!” galloped forward. At the very enemy trenches, the dead horse collapsed under him. Then the baron jumped to his feet and, with a saber in his hand, again rushed forward towards the furiously firing German battery. The remnants of his squadron in enemy positions went into hand-to-hand combat. The strategically important point of Kaushen was taken, and Wrangel became the first of the St. George cavaliers among Russian officers. The command, in reports to Headquarters, characterized him as follows: “Captain Baron Wrangel has excellent military training. Energetic, dashing, demanding and very conscientious. He is involved in the details of the life of the squadron, a good comrade and a good rider. A little too hot, but of excellent morality. In the full sense of the word. outstanding squadron commander."
The February Revolution did not weaken one iota his loyalty to the oath and his courageous, uncompromising character. There is a known case when on a train he stood up for a nurse who was being pestered by a tipsy Finnish dragoon with a red bow on his overcoat. Wrangel, not at all embarrassed by the drunken revelry of a whole crowd of “lower ranks,” grabbed the insolent man by the collar and threw him out of the carriage with a blow of his knee. The soldiers buzzed indignantly, but did not dare to deal with the officer.
Just before the October revolution, the Third Cavalry Corps was sent to Petrograd in case of a possible Bolshevik uprising. Wrangel commanded them. However, Commander-in-Chief Kerensky, taking into account the baron’s monarchical predilections, did not dare to entrust his unit with service in the immediate vicinity of the capital. The corps was disbanded.
If Kerensky had not been afraid of “political complications” for himself in the fall of 1917, history could have turned out differently. But after his decision to drive the Bolsheviks out of St. Petersburg and the dictatorship of the proletariat from Russia, there was no one left. Outraged to the core, Wrangel, who had no doubt that the further collapse of the country could be resisted only with a strong and unyielding will, acted exactly like Achilles, who retired to his tent out of resentment. He submitted a report of his dismissal and left for Yalta, where his wife and children were waiting for him. The glory of the brilliant officer was known to the Reds, and he was offered the position of commander of the Crimean troops. General Wrangel refused. The consequences were not long in coming. In the dead of night, revolutionary sailors broke into his house and forced him into a car at Mauser point. Wrangel’s wife, maid of honor of the imperial court Olga Mikhailovna, who spared no effort in the medical units after the start of the war, insisted that she be arrested along with her husband. They were driven among a raging crowd through bloody puddles; the corpses of those who dared to resist the revolutionary looting were strewn on the road. The revolutionary tribunal worked around the clock: interrogations during the day, executions at night. It was the turn of the Wrangel couple. But when they were taken from the floating prison to the chairman of the Soviet Inquisition, Comrade Vakula, he could not decide to immediately give the order to shoot the couple, since he had just read a book about the feat of the Decembrists. When the Germans entered Crimea, Wrangel left prison himself. “I was deeply worried, seeing how the enemy rules in Russia and humiliates my Motherland, but I was glad to be freed from the oppression of these headless idiots,” he later wrote. After leaving Yalta, he joined Denikin’s army and created a powerful cavalry in it, which skillfully carried out flank attacks and often brought success to all battles. In the summer of 1919, General Wrangel's Caucasian Volunteer Army not only broke through the defenses of Tsaritsyn, but also took 40 thousand prisoners, 70 guns and even two armored trains - "Lenin" and "Trotsky". Leon Trotsky remembered this for a long time. In a report at a meeting of the Moscow Council of Deputies, he will say: “Poland and Wrangel are two enemy wings, everything should be concentrated against Wrangel’s cavalry... You must select the best workers from all your councils and send them to the Black Sea coast, to Kuban and Don, so that this rear is strengthened through propaganda work, and where necessary, through an iron hand. It is necessary to strengthen the south, where Wrangel is trying to penetrate.”
However, the main ally of the Bolsheviks was not the responsiveness of the south to the agitation, but the ambitions of the commander of the Volunteer Army, General Denikin. In contrast, Baron Wrangel considered the campaign against Moscow a mistake and a death sentence for the White Army - and he turned out to be right. After the failure of this operation, Denikin emigrated to England, and Wrangel was unanimously elected to the post of supreme commander of the armed forces of the South of Russia at the military council on April 3, 1920. The decision to take the reins of the defeated army was not easy for him, but the baron could not refuse either: “I shared the joy of victories with the army and now I have no right to refuse to drink the bitter cup.” His correspondence with the resigned Denikin is interesting: “Poisoned by the poison of ambition, having tasted power, surrounded by dishonest flatterers, you were no longer thinking about saving the Fatherland, but only about preserving your power. But Russian society began to see the light. The names of the bosses were called louder and louder, whose name, amid the general decline of morals, remained untarnished, the army and society saw in me a person capable of giving what everyone longed for.” With iron determination, Wrangel began to restore discipline in the demoralized units, regardless of persons and titles, and sharply reduced the staffs, which had become extremely swollen under Denikin. “An army raised on arbitrariness, robbery and drunkenness, led by commanders who corrupt the troops by their example—Russia does not need such an army.” And the White Army started up like a bored horse under the blow of spurs. The raid in Northern Tavria, when the corps of the Red commander Dmitry Zhloba was completely defeated, frightened the Bolsheviks to such an extent that they made peace with Poland, giving it western Ukraine and Belarus in order to turn with all their might to Wrangel. The white units, which did not have time to recover, were unable to hold the front and retreated to the Crimea...
The impregnable Turkish Wall on Perekop, bristling with cannons, existed only in the wild imagination of the chroniclers of the Red Army. This outpost changed hands several times during the civil war, and Wrangel had neither human and material resources nor time to strengthen it. Denikin wrote that “there was very little housing in the Crimean isthmuses, and the frost was severe, up to 22 degrees... the Black Sea Fleet had long been unfavorable: nowhere in the army did such discord exist, nowhere did timelessness leave such deep traces as in marine environment, the certifications were negative, there was no choice." In these circumstances, there was little left for Wrangel: by declaring martial law on the peninsula, raising the Russian squadron from the moral ruins, he managed to organize the evacuation of all those whom the Reds would not have spared. “Volunteers must know that the commander-in-chief will be the last to leave if he does not die first,” he said. And when the red infantry passed through the rotten Sivash, and Budyonny’s corps broke through Perekop, thanks to the iron discipline introduced by Wrangel, everything was ready. On November 16, 1920, a farewell salute in honor of the glorious St. Andrew's flag thundered in the Feodosia Bay. On the embankment of Kerch, the Cossack esauls said goodbye to their war horses in tears. Kneeling down, Baron Wrangel kissed the ground from which the revolution separated him. And together with him, a sad caravan of 26 ships took 145 thousand refugees to a foreign land, who owed their salvation to his strong will and organizational talent.
Today, the attitude towards the White Army and the question of restoring the monarchy in Russia is no longer as clear as in those days when former factory workers in the Red Army budenovkas kicked up dust on the provincial pavements with a marching march, singing at the top of their lungs about the duty of “uncontrollably going to the last mortal fight." So isn't it time to remember the Black Baron? Moreover, there is a reason - on April 25, exactly 75 years have passed since the day when the great-grandson of Abram Petrovich Hannibal, the first Russian officer awarded the Order of St. in 1914, was poisoned by security officers in Brussels. George for outstanding personal courage, Lieutenant General of the Volunteer Army Pyotr Nikolaevich Wrangel. The same Black Baron, about whom the Bolsheviks spoke with seething horror of hatred, and the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the South of Russia, Anton Denikin, with undisguised black envy.
His father, Baron Nikolai Egorovich, was a doctor of philosophy, his mother Maria Dmitrievna, nee Maykova, sang well and wrote poetry. The artistic temperament and love for art was inherited by their eldest son Nikolai, the future star of St. Petersburg bohemia Koka Wrangel, who became not only a passionate organizer of exhibitions of Russian fine art, but also an outstanding critic and art historian. He has written many works on the history of art; As an employee of the Hermitage, he lectured and worked in the Society for the Protection and Preservation of Historical and Antique Monuments. A wit and a mocker, the author of epigrams and anecdotes, Nikolai Wrangel completely wilted with the outbreak of the First World War. In June 1915 he died of jaundice.
Peter Wrangel, it seems, was the complete opposite of his brother in character and inherited the traits of another ancestor - Admiral Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel, a Russian navigator. Fate had a different path in store for Koki's younger brother from the very beginning. After graduating from the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and the Academy of the General Staff, 26-year-old Peter almost immediately found himself in the Russo-Japanese War. But military glory came to him a little later - during the First World War.
On the morning of August 6, 1914, Captain Wrangel received an order from his hopelessly incompetent superiors to attack the village of Kaushen with his squadron, where, according to all the rules of German military science, the enemy had dug in, having managed to take aim at all possible approaches to the outpost from convenient positions. As an experienced military man, the baron could not help but understand that the task assigned to the cavalry was hardly up to the task, and no one promised him the required artillery support. Having muttered far from salon words, discarding all military theories, his honor stood up in his stirrups and shouted “Attack!” galloped forward. At the very enemy trenches, the dead horse collapsed under him. Then the baron jumped to his feet and, with a saber in his hand, again rushed forward towards the furiously firing German battery. The remnants of his squadron in enemy positions went into hand-to-hand combat. The strategically important point of Kaushen was taken, and Wrangel became the first of the St. George cavaliers among Russian officers. The command, in reports to Headquarters, characterized him as follows: “Captain Baron Wrangel has excellent military training. Energetic, dashing, demanding and very conscientious. He is involved in the details of the life of the squadron, a good comrade and a good rider. A little too hot, but of excellent morality. In the full sense of the word. outstanding squadron commander."
The February Revolution did not weaken one iota his loyalty to the oath and his courageous, uncompromising character. There is a known case when on a train he stood up for a nurse who was being pestered by a tipsy Finnish dragoon with a red bow on his overcoat. Wrangel, not at all embarrassed by the drunken revelry of a whole crowd of “lower ranks,” grabbed the insolent man by the collar and threw him out of the carriage with a blow of his knee. The soldiers buzzed indignantly, but did not dare to deal with the officer.
Just before the October revolution, the Third Cavalry Corps was sent to Petrograd in case of a possible Bolshevik uprising. Wrangel commanded them. However, Commander-in-Chief Kerensky, taking into account the baron’s monarchical predilections, did not dare to entrust his unit with service in the immediate vicinity of the capital. The corps was disbanded.
If Kerensky had not been afraid of “political complications” for himself in the fall of 1917, history could have turned out differently. But after his decision to drive the Bolsheviks out of St. Petersburg and the dictatorship of the proletariat from Russia, there was no one left. Outraged to the core, Wrangel, who had no doubt that the further collapse of the country could be resisted only with a strong and unyielding will, acted exactly like Achilles, who retired to his tent out of resentment. He submitted a report of his dismissal and left for Yalta, where his wife and children were waiting for him. The glory of the brilliant officer was known to the Reds, and he was offered the position of commander of the Crimean troops. General Wrangel refused. The consequences were not long in coming. In the dead of night, revolutionary sailors broke into his house and forced him into a car at Mauser point. Wrangel’s wife, maid of honor of the imperial court Olga Mikhailovna, who spared no effort in the medical units after the start of the war, insisted that she be arrested along with her husband. They were driven among a raging crowd through bloody puddles; the corpses of those who dared to resist the revolutionary looting were strewn on the road. The revolutionary tribunal worked around the clock: interrogations during the day, executions at night. It was the turn of the Wrangel couple. But when they were taken from the floating prison to the chairman of the Soviet Inquisition, Comrade Vakula, he could not decide to immediately give the order to shoot the couple, since he had just read a book about the feat of the Decembrists. When the Germans entered Crimea, Wrangel left prison himself. “I was deeply worried, seeing how the enemy rules in Russia and humiliates my Motherland, but I was glad to be freed from the oppression of these headless idiots,” he later wrote. After leaving Yalta, he joined Denikin’s army and created a powerful cavalry in it, which skillfully carried out flank attacks and often brought success to all battles. In the summer of 1919, General Wrangel's Caucasian Volunteer Army not only broke through the defenses of Tsaritsyn, but also took 40 thousand prisoners, 70 guns and even two armored trains - "Lenin" and "Trotsky". Leon Trotsky remembered this for a long time. In a report at a meeting of the Moscow Council of Deputies, he will say: “Poland and Wrangel are two enemy wings, everything should be concentrated against Wrangel’s cavalry. You must select the best workers from all your councils and send them to the Black Sea coast, to the Kuban and Don, so that this rear is strengthened through propaganda work, and where necessary, through an iron fist. It is necessary to strengthen the south, where Wrangel is trying to penetrate.”
However, the main ally of the Bolsheviks was not the responsiveness of the south to the agitation, but the ambitions of the commander of the Volunteer Army, General Denikin. In contrast, Baron Wrangel considered the campaign against Moscow a mistake and a death sentence for the White Army - and he turned out to be right. After the failure of this operation, Denikin emigrated to England, and Wrangel was unanimously elected to the post of supreme commander of the armed forces of the South of Russia at the military council on April 3, 1920. The decision to take the reins of the defeated army was not easy for him, but the baron could not refuse either: “I shared the joy of victories with the army and now I have no right to refuse to drink the bitter cup.” His correspondence with the resigned Denikin is interesting: “Poisoned by the poison of ambition, having tasted power, surrounded by dishonest flatterers, you were no longer thinking about saving the Fatherland, but only about preserving your power. But Russian society began to see the light. The names of the bosses were called louder and louder, whose name, amid the general decline of morals, remained untarnished, the army and society saw in me a person capable of giving what everyone longed for.” With iron determination, Wrangel began to restore discipline in the demoralized units, regardless of persons and titles, and sharply reduced the staffs, which had become extremely swollen under Denikin. “An army raised on arbitrariness, robbery and drunkenness, led by commanders who corrupt the troops by their example—Russia does not need such an army.” And the White Army started up like a bored horse under the blow of spurs. The raid in Northern Tavria, when the corps of the Red commander Dmitry Zhloba was completely defeated, frightened the Bolsheviks to such an extent that they made peace with Poland, giving it western Ukraine and Belarus in order to turn with all their might to Wrangel. The white units, which did not have time to recover, were unable to hold the front and retreated to the Crimea.
