White military leaders of the Civil War. Heroes of the Civil War

Sleep, fighting eagles,
Sleep with peace of mind!
You deserve it, dear ones,
Glory and eternal peace.

They suffered long and hard
You are for your fatherland,
Have you heard a lot of thunder?
There is a lot of groaning in battle.

Now, having forgotten the past,
Wounds, worries, labors,
You are under a gravestone
The ranks closed tightly.

http://youtu.be/RVvATUP5PwE

Kolchak Alexander Vasilievich

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak (November 4 (16), 1874, St. Petersburg province - February 7, 1920, Irkutsk) - Russian politician, vice admiral of the Russian Imperial Fleet (1916) and admiral of the Siberian Flotilla (1918). Polar explorer and oceanographer, participant in expeditions of 1900-1903 (awarded by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society with the Great Constantine Medal). Participant in the Russian-Japanese, World War I and Civil Wars. Leader and leader of the White movement in Siberia. A number of leaders of the White movement and Entente states recognized him as the Supreme Ruler of Russia (although he had no real power over the entire territory of the country).
The first widely known representative of the Kolchak family was the Turkish military leader of Crimean Tatar origin Ilias Kolchak Pasha, commandant of the Khotyn fortress, captured by Field Marshal H. A. Minikh. After the end of the war, Kolchak Pasha settled in Poland, and in 1794 his descendants moved to Russia.
One of the representatives of this family was Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak (1837-1913), a naval artillery officer, major general in the Admiralty. V.I. Kolchak received his first officer rank after being seriously wounded during the defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War of 1853-1856: he was one of the seven surviving defenders of the Stone Tower on Malakhov Kurgan, whom the French found among the corpses after the assault. After the war, he graduated from the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg and, until his retirement, served as a receptionist for the Maritime Ministry at the Obukhov plant, having a reputation as a straightforward and extremely scrupulous person.
The future admiral received his primary education at home, and then studied at the 6th St. Petersburg Classical Gymnasium.
On August 6, 1894, Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak was assigned to the 1st rank cruiser "Rurik" as an assistant watch commander and on November 15, 1894 he was promoted to the rank of midshipman. On this cruiser he departed for the Far East. At the end of 1896, Kolchak was assigned to the 2nd rank cruiser "Cruiser" as a watch commander. On this ship he went on campaigns in the Pacific Ocean for several years, and in 1899 he returned to Kronstadt. On December 6, 1898, he was promoted to lieutenant. During the campaigns, Kolchak not only fulfilled his official duties, but also actively engaged in self-education. He also became interested in oceanography and hydrology. In 1899, he published the article “Observations on surface temperatures and specific gravities of sea water, made on the cruisers Rurik and Cruiser from May 1897 to March 1898.”

Upon arrival in Kronstadt, Kolchak went to see Vice Admiral S.O. Makarov, who was preparing to sail on the icebreaker Ermak to the Arctic Ocean. Kolchak asked to be accepted into the expedition, but was refused “due to official circumstances.” After this, for some time being part of the personnel of the ship "Prince Pozharsky", Kolchak in September 1899 transferred to the squadron battleship "Petropavlovsk" and went to the Far East on it. However, while staying in the Greek port of Piraeus, he received an invitation from the Academy of Sciences from Baron E.V. Toll to take part in the mentioned expedition. From Greece through Odessa in January 1900, Kolchak arrived in St. Petersburg. The head of the expedition invited Alexander Vasilievich to lead the hydrological work, and in addition to be the second magnetologist. Throughout the winter and spring of 1900, Kolchak prepared for the expedition.
On July 21, 1901, the expedition on the schooner “Zarya” moved across the Baltic, North and Norwegian seas to the shores of the Taimyr Peninsula, where they would spend their first winter. In October 1900, Kolchak took part in Toll’s trip to the Gafner fjord, and in April-May 1901 the two of them traveled around Taimyr. Throughout the expedition, the future admiral conducted active scientific work. In 1901, E.V. Toll immortalized the name of A.V. Kolchak, naming the island and cape discovered by the expedition after him.
In the spring of 1902, Toll decided to head on foot north of the New Siberian Islands together with magnetologist F. G. Seberg and two mushers. The remaining members of the expedition, due to a lack of food supplies, had to go from Bennett Island to the south, to the mainland, and then return to St. Petersburg. Kolchak and his companions went to the mouth of the Lena and arrived in the capital through Yakutsk and Irkutsk.
Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Alexander Vasilyevich reported to the Academy about the work done, and also reported on the enterprise of Baron Toll, from whom no news had been received either by that time or later. In January 1903, it was decided to organize an expedition, the purpose of which was to clarify the fate of Toll’s expedition. The expedition took place from May 5 to December 7, 1903. It consisted of 17 people on 12 sledges pulled by 160 dogs. The journey to Bennett Island took three months and was extremely difficult. On August 4, 1903, having reached Bennett Island, the expedition discovered traces of Toll and his companions: expedition documents, collections, geodetic instruments and a diary were found. It turned out that Toll arrived on the island in the summer of 1902, and headed south, having a supply of provisions for only 2-3 weeks. It became clear that Toll's expedition was lost.
Sofya Fedorovna Kolchak (1876 - 1956) - wife of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. Sofya Fedorovna was born in 1876 in Kamenets-Podolsk, Podolsk province of the Russian Empire (now the Khmelnitsky region of Ukraine). By agreement with Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak, they were supposed to get married after his first expedition. In honor of Sophia (then bride) a small island in the Litke archipelago and a cape on Bennett Island were named. The wait lasted for several years. They got married on March 5, 1904 in the church of the Znamensky Monastery in Irkutsk.
Sofya Fedorovna gave birth to three children from Kolchak. The first girl (c. 1905) did not live even a month. The second was son Rostislav (03/09/1910 - 06/28/1965). The last daughter, Margarita (1912-1914), caught a cold while fleeing from the Germans from Libau and died.
During the Civil War, Sofya Fedorovna waited for her husband to the last in Sevastopol. From there she managed to emigrate in 1919: her British allies, who respected her husband, provided her with money and took her on Her Majesty’s ship from Sevastopol to Constanta. Then she moved to Bucharest and went to Paris. Rostislav was brought there too.
Despite the difficult financial situation, Sofya Fedorovna managed to give her son a good education. Rostislav Aleksandrovich Kolchak graduated from the Higher School of Diplomatic and Commercial Sciences in Paris and served in an Algerian bank. He married Ekaterina Razvozova, the daughter of Admiral A.V. Razvozov, who was killed by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd.
Sofya Fedorovna survived the German occupation of Paris, the captivity of her son, an officer in the French army. Sofya Fedorovna died in the Lynjumo hospital in Italy in 1956. She was buried in the main cemetery of the Russian diaspora - Saint-Genevieve des Bois.
In December 1903, 29-year-old Lieutenant Kolchak, exhausted from the polar expedition, set off on his way back to St. Petersburg, where he was going to marry his bride Sofia Omirova. Not far from Irkutsk, he was caught by the news of the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. He summoned his father and bride by telegram to Siberia and immediately after the wedding he left for Port Arthur.
Commander of the Pacific Squadron, Admiral S.O. Makarov invited him to serve on the battleship Petropavlovsk, which was the flagship of the squadron from January to April 1904. Kolchak refused and asked to be assigned to the fast cruiser Askold, which soon saved his life. A few days later, the Petropavlovsk hit a mine and quickly sank, taking to the bottom more than 600 sailors and officers, including Makarov himself and the famous battle painter V.V. Vereshchagin. Soon after this, Kolchak achieved a transfer to the destroyer "Angry", and by the end of the siege of Port Arthur he had to command a battery on the land front, since severe rheumatism - a consequence of two polar expeditions - forced him to abandon the warship. This was followed by injury, the surrender of Port Arthur and Japanese captivity, in which Kolchak spent 4 months. Upon his return, he was awarded the St. George weapon - the golden saber “For Bravery.”

Freed from captivity, Kolchak received the rank of captain of the second rank. The main task of the group of naval officers and admirals, which included Kolchak, was to develop plans for the further development of the Russian navy.
First of all, the Naval General Staff was created, which took over the direct combat training of the fleet. Then a shipbuilding program was drawn up. To obtain additional funding, officers and admirals actively lobbied their program in the Duma. The construction of new ships progressed slowly - 6 (out of 8) battleships, about 10 cruisers and several dozen destroyers and submarines entered service only in 1915-1916, at the height of the First World War, and some of the ships laid down at that time were already being completed in the 1930s.
Taking into account the significant numerical superiority of the potential enemy, the Naval General Staff developed a new plan for the defense of St. Petersburg and the Gulf of Finland - in the event of a threat of attack, all ships of the Baltic Fleet, upon an agreed signal, were to go to sea and place 8 lines of minefields at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland, covered by coastal batteries.
Captain Kolchak took part in the design of special icebreaking ships "Taimyr" and "Vaigach", launched in 1909. In the spring of 1910, these ships arrived in Vladivostok, then went on a cartographic expedition to the Bering Strait and Cape Dezhnev, returning back to the autumn Vladivostok. Kolchak commanded the icebreaker Vaygach on this expedition. In 1909, Kolchak published a monograph summarizing his glaciological research in the Arctic - “Ice of the Kara and Siberian Seas” (Notes of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Ser. 8. Physics and Mathematics Department. St. Petersburg, 1909. Vol. 26, No. 1.).
In 1912, Kolchak transferred to serve in the Baltic Fleet as a flag captain for the operational part of the fleet headquarters.
To protect the capital from a possible attack by the German fleet, the Mine Division, on the personal order of Essen, set up minefields in the waters of the Gulf of Finland on the night of July 18, 1914, without waiting for permission from the Minister of the Navy and Nicholas II.
In the fall of 1914, with the personal participation of Kolchak, an operation to blockade German naval bases with mines was developed. In 1914-1915 destroyers and cruisers, including those under the command of Kolchak, laid mines at Kiel, Danzig (Gdansk), Pillau (modern Baltiysk), Vindava and even at the island of Bornholm. As a result, 4 German cruisers were blown up in these minefields (2 of them sank - Friedrich Karl and Bremen (according to other sources, the E-9 submarine was sunk), 8 destroyers and 11 transports.
At the same time, an attempt to intercept a German convoy transporting ore from Sweden, in which Kolchak was directly involved, ended in failure.

In July 1916, by order of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, Alexander Vasilyevich was promoted to vice admiral and appointed commander of the Black Sea Fleet.
After the February Revolution of 1917, Kolchak was the first in the Black Sea Fleet to swear allegiance to the Provisional Government. In the spring of 1917, Headquarters began preparing an amphibious operation to capture Constantinople, but due to the disintegration of the army and navy, this idea had to be abandoned.
In June 1917, the Sevastopol Council decided to disarm officers suspected of counter-revolution, including taking away Kolchak’s St. George’s weapon - the golden saber awarded to him for Port Arthur. The admiral chose to throw the blade overboard. Three weeks later, divers lifted it from the bottom and handed it to Kolchak, engraving on the blade the inscription: “To the Knight of Honor Admiral Kolchak from the Union of Army and Navy Officers.” At this time, Kolchak, along with the General Staff infantry general L.G. Kornilov, was considered as a potential candidate for military dictator. It was for this reason that in August A.F. Kerensky summoned the admiral to Petrograd, where he forced him to resign, after which, at the invitation of the command of the American fleet, he went to the United States to advise American specialists on the experience of Russian sailors using mine weapons in the Baltic and Black Seas in the First World War.
In San Francisco, Kolchak was offered to stay in the United States, promising him a chair in mine engineering at the best naval college and a rich life in a cottage on the ocean. Kolchak refused and went back to Russia.
Arriving in Japan, Kolchak learned about the October Revolution, the liquidation of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the negotiations begun by the Bolsheviks with the Germans. After this, the admiral left for Tokyo. There he handed the British ambassador a request for admission into the English army “at least as privates.” The ambassador, after consultations with London, handed Kolchak a direction to the Mesopotamian front. On the way there, in Singapore, he was overtaken by a telegram from the Russian envoy to China, Kudashev, inviting him to Manchuria to form Russian military units. Kolchak went to Beijing, after which he began organizing Russian armed forces to protect the Chinese Eastern Railway.
However, due to disagreements with Ataman Semyonov and the manager of the CER, General Horvat, Admiral Kolchak left Manchuria and went to Russia, intending to join General Denikin’s Volunteer Army. He left behind a wife and son in Sevastopol.
On October 13, 1918, he arrived in Omsk, where at that time a political crisis erupted. On November 4, 1918, Kolchak, as a popular figure among officers, was invited to the post of Minister of War and Navy in the Council of Ministers of the so-called “Directory” - the united anti-Bolshevik government located in Omsk, where the majority were Socialist Revolutionaries. On the night of November 18, 1918, a coup took place in Omsk - Cossack officers arrested four Socialist Revolutionary leaders of the Directory, led by its chairman N.D. Avksentiev. In the current situation, the Council of Ministers - the executive body of the Directory - announced the assumption of full supreme power and then decided to hand it over to one person, giving him the title of Supreme Ruler of the Russian State. Kolchak was elected to this post by secret ballot of members of the Council of Ministers. The admiral announced his consent to the election and with his first order to the army announced that he would assume the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
Addressing the population, Kolchak declared: “Having accepted the cross of this government in the extremely difficult conditions of the civil war and the complete breakdown of state life, I declare that I will not follow either the path of reaction or the disastrous path of party membership.” Next, the Supreme Ruler proclaimed the goals and objectives of the new government. The first, most pressing task was to strengthen and increase the combat capability of the army. The second, inextricably linked with the first, is “victory over Bolshevism.” The third task, the solution of which was recognized as possible only under the condition of victory, was proclaimed “the revival and resurrection of a dying state.” All the activities of the new government were declared aimed at ensuring that “the temporary supreme power of the Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief could transfer the fate of the state into the hands of the people, allowing them to organize public administration according to their will.”
Kolchak hoped that under the banner of the fight against the Reds he would be able to unite the most diverse political forces and create a new state power. At first, the situation at the fronts was favorable to these plans. In December 1918, the Siberian Army occupied Perm, which had important strategic importance and significant reserves of military equipment.
In March 1919, Kolchak’s troops launched an attack on Samara and Kazan, in April they occupied the entire Urals and approached the Volga. However, due to Kolchak’s incompetence in organizing and managing the ground army (as well as his assistants), the militarily favorable situation soon gave way to a catastrophic one. The dispersion and stretching of forces, the lack of logistics support and the general lack of coordination of actions led to the fact that the Red Army was able to first stop Kolchak’s troops and then launch a counteroffensive. The result was a more than six-month retreat of Kolchak’s armies to the east, which ended with the fall of the Omsk regime.
It must be said that Kolchak himself was well aware of the fact of a desperate personnel shortage, which ultimately led to the tragedy of his army in 1919. In particular, in a conversation with General Inostrantsev, Kolchak openly stated this sad circumstance: “You will soon see for yourself how poor we are in people, why we have to endure, even in high positions, not excluding the posts of ministers, people who are far from corresponding to the places they occupy , but this is because there is no one to replace them..."
The same opinions prevailed in the active army. For example, General Shchepikhin said: “It’s incomprehensible to the mind, it’s like surprise how long-suffering our passion-bearer, an ordinary officer and soldier, is. What kind of experiments were not carried out with him, what kind of tricks our “strategic boys” did not throw out with his passive participation,” - Kostya (Sakharov ) and Mitka (Lebedev) - and the cup of patience is still not overflowing..."
In May, the retreat of Kolchak’s troops began, and by August they were forced to leave Ufa, Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk.
After the defeat in the fall of 1918, Bolshevik detachments fled to the taiga, settled there, mainly north of Krasnoyarsk and in the Minusinsk region, and, replenished with deserters, began to attack the communications of the White Army. In the spring of 1919, they were surrounded and partly destroyed, partly driven even deeper into the taiga, and partly fled to China.
The peasantry of Siberia, as well as throughout Russia, who did not want to fight in either the Red or White armies, avoiding mobilization, fled to the forests, organizing “green” gangs. This picture was also observed in the rear of Kolchak’s army. But until September - October 1919, these detachments were small in number and did not pose a particular problem for the authorities.
But when the front collapsed in the fall of 1919, the collapse of the army and mass desertion began. Deserters began en masse to join the newly activated Bolshevik detachments, causing their numbers to grow to tens of thousands of people. This is where the Soviet legend came from about a 150,000-strong partisan army, supposedly operating in the rear of Kolchak’s army, although in reality such an army did not exist.
In 1914-1917, about a third of Russia's gold reserves were sent for temporary storage to England and Canada, and about half were exported to Kazan. Part of the gold reserves of the Russian Empire, stored in Kazan (more than 500 tons), was captured on August 7, 1918 by the troops of the People's Army under the command of the General Staff of Colonel V. O. Kappel and sent to Samara, where the KOMUCH government was established. From Samara, gold was transported to Ufa for some time, and at the end of November 1918, the gold reserves of the Russian Empire were moved to Omsk and came into the possession of the Kolchak government. The gold was deposited in a local branch of the State Bank. In May 1919, it was established that in total there was gold worth 650 million rubles (505 tons) in Omsk.
Having at his disposal most of Russia's gold reserves, Kolchak did not allow his government to spend gold, even to stabilize the financial system and fight inflation (which was facilitated by the rampant issue of “kerenoks” and tsarist rubles by the Bolsheviks). Kolchak spent 68 million rubles on the purchase of weapons and uniforms for his army. Loans were obtained from foreign banks secured by 128 million rubles: proceeds from the placement were returned to Russia.
On October 31, 1919, the gold reserves, under heavy security, were loaded into 40 wagons, with accompanying personnel in another 12 wagons. The Trans-Siberian Railway, stretching from Novo-Nikolaevsk (now Novosibirsk) to Irkutsk, was controlled by the Czechs, whose main task was their own evacuation from Russia. Only on December 27, 1919, the headquarters train and the train with gold arrived at the Nizhneudinsk station, where representatives of the Entente forced Admiral Kolchak to sign an order to renounce the rights of the Supreme Ruler of Russia and transfer the train with the gold reserve to the control of the Czechoslovak Corps. On January 15, 1920, the Czech command handed Kolchak over to the Socialist Revolutionary Political Center, which within a few days handed the admiral over to the Bolsheviks. On February 7, the Czechoslovaks handed over 409 million rubles in gold to the Bolsheviks in exchange for guarantees of the unhindered evacuation of the corps from Russia. In June 1921, the People's Commissariat of Finance of the RSFSR drew up a certificate from which it follows that during the reign of Admiral Kolchak, Russia's gold reserves decreased by 235.6 million rubles, or 182 tons. Another 35 million rubles from the gold reserves disappeared after it was transferred to the Bolsheviks, during transportation from Irkutsk to Kazan.
On January 4, 1920, in Nizhneudinsk, Admiral A.V. Kolchak signed his last Decree, in which he announced his intention to transfer the powers of the “Supreme All-Russian Power” to A.I. Denikin. Until the receipt of instructions from A.I. Denikin, “the entirety of military and civil power throughout the entire territory of the Russian Eastern Outskirts” was granted to Lieutenant General G.M. Semyonov.
On January 5, 1920, a coup took place in Irkutsk, the city was captured by the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik Political Center. On January 15, A.V. Kolchak, who left Nizhneudinsk on a Czechoslovak train, in a carriage flying the flags of Great Britain, France, the USA, Japan and Czechoslovakia, arrived on the outskirts of Irkutsk. The Czechoslovak command, at the request of the Socialist Revolutionary Political Center, with the sanction of the French General Janin, handed over Kolchak to his representatives. On January 21, the Political Center transferred power in Irkutsk to the Bolshevik Revolutionary Committee. From January 21 to February 6, 1920, Kolchak was interrogated by the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry.
On the night of February 6-7, 1920, Admiral A.V. Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Government V.N. Pepelyaev were shot by order of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee. The resolution of the Irkutsk Military Revolutionary Committee on the execution of the Supreme Ruler Admiral Kolchak and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pepelyaev was signed by Shiryamov, the chairman of the committee and its members A. Svoskarev, M. Levenson and Otradny.
According to the official version, this was done out of fear that General Kappel’s units breaking through to Irkutsk had the goal of freeing Kolchak. According to the most common version, the execution took place on the banks of the Ushakovka River near the Znamensky Convent. According to legend, while sitting on the ice awaiting execution, the admiral sang the romance “Burn, burn, my star...”. There is a version that Kolchak himself commanded his execution. After the execution, the bodies of the dead were thrown into the hole.
Recently, previously unknown documents relating to the execution and subsequent burial of Admiral Kolchak were discovered in the Irkutsk region. Documents marked “secret” were found during work on the Irkutsk City Theater’s play “The Admiral’s Star,” based on the play by former state security officer Sergei Ostroumov. According to the documents found, in the spring of 1920, not far from the Innokentyevskaya station (on the bank of the Angara, 20 km below Irkutsk), local residents discovered a corpse in an admiral's uniform, carried by the current to the shore of the Angara. Representatives of the investigative authorities arrived and conducted an inquiry and identified the body of the executed Admiral Kolchak. Subsequently, investigators and local residents secretly buried the admiral according to Christian custom. Investigators compiled a map on which Kolchak’s grave was marked with a cross. Currently, all found documents are being examined.
Based on these documents, Irkutsk historian I.I. Kozlov established the expected location of Kolchak’s grave. According to other sources, Kolchak’s grave is located in the Irkutsk Znamensky Monastery.

Silver medal in memory of the reign of Emperor Alexander III (1896)
- Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree (December 6, 1903)
- Order of St. Anne, 4th class with the inscription “For bravery” (October 11, 1904)
- Golden weapon “For bravery” - a saber with the inscription “For distinction in affairs against the enemy near Port Arthur” (December 12, 1905)
- Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd class with swords (December 12, 1905)
- Large gold Constantine medal for No. 3 (January 30, 1906)
- Silver medal on the St. George and Alexander ribbon in memory of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905 (1906)
- Swords and bow for the personalized Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree (March 19, 1907)
- Order of St. Anne, 2nd class (December 6, 1910)
- Medal in memory of the 300th anniversary of the reign of the House of Romanov (1913)
- French Legion of Honor Officer's Cross (1914)
- Breastplate for the defenders of the Port Arthur fortress (1914)
- Medal in memory of the 200th anniversary of the Gangut victory (1915)
- Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd class with swords (February 9, 1915)
- Order of St. George, 4th degree (November 2, 1915)
- English Order of the Bath (1915)
- Order of St. Stanislaus, 1st class with swords (4 July 1916)
- Order of St. Anne, 1st class with swords (1 January 1917)
- Golden weapon - dagger of the Union of Army and Navy Officers (June 1917)
- Order of St. George, 3rd degree (April 15, 1919)

Mikhail Gordeevich Drozdovsky (October 7, 1881, Kyiv - January 14, 1919, Rostov-on-Don) - Russian military leader, Major General of the General Staff (1918). Participant in the Russian-Japanese, World War I and Civil Wars.
One of the prominent organizers and leaders of the White movement in the South of Russia. Drozdovsky “became the first general in the history of the White movement to openly declare his loyalty to the monarchy - at a time when the “democratic values” of February were still in honor.”
The only commander of the Russian Army who managed to form a volunteer detachment and lead it as an organized group from the front of the First World War to join the Volunteer Army - the organizer and leader of the 1200-mile transition of a volunteer detachment from Yassy to Novocherkassk in March-May (NS) 1918 of the year. Commander of the 3rd Infantry Division in the Volunteer Army.

Start of service
From 1901 he served in the Volyn Life Guards Regiment in Warsaw with the rank of second lieutenant. From 1904 - lieutenant. In 1904 he entered the Nikolaev General Staff Academy, but without starting his studies, he went to the front of the Russo-Japanese War.
In 1904-1905 he served in the 34th East Siberian Regiment as part of the 1st Siberian Corps of the 2nd Manchurian Army. He distinguished himself in battles with the Japanese from January 12 to 16, 1905 near the villages of Heigoutai and Bezymyannaya (Semapu), for which, by order of the troops of the 2nd Manchurian Army No. 87 and 91, he was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 4th degree with the inscription “For bravery.” In a battle near the village of Semapu he was wounded in the thigh, but from March 18 he commanded a company. On October 30, 1905, for participation in the war he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd degree with swords and a bow, and on the basis of orders No. 41 and 139 of the Military Department he received the right to wear a light bronze medal with a bow “In memory of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905."

General Staff Officer
After graduating from the Academy on May 2, 1908, “for excellent achievements in science” he was promoted to staff captain. For two years he passed the qualification command of a company in the Life Guards Volyn Regiment. Since 1910 - captain, chief officer for assignments at the headquarters of the Amur Military District in Harbin, since November 1911 - assistant to the senior adjutant of the headquarters of the Warsaw Military District. On December 6, 1911 he was awarded the Order of St. Anne, 3rd degree. Received the right to wear a light bronze medal “In memory of the 100th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812.” Later, Mikhail Gordeevich will also receive the right to wear a light bronze medal “In memory of the 300th anniversary of the reign of the House of Romanov.”
With the outbreak of the First Balkan War in October 1912, Mikhail Gordeevich applied for a secondment to the war, but was refused.
In 1913 he graduated from the Sevastopol Aviation School, where he studied aerial observation (made 12 flights each lasting at least 30 minutes; in total he was in the air for 12 hours 32 minutes), and also became acquainted with the fleet: he went to sea on a battleship for live firing, and even went to sea in a submarine and went underwater in a diving suit. Upon returning from aviation school, Drozdovsky again served at the headquarters of the Warsaw Military District.

Participation in the First World War
At the beginning of the First World War, he was appointed acting assistant to the chief of the general department of the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the North-Western Front. Since September 1914 - chief officer for assignments from the headquarters of the 27th Army Corps. He put into practice the experience gained during his stay at the flight school, while flying on an airplane and in a hot air balloon. Since December 1914 - acting as a staff officer for assignments at the headquarters of the 26th Army Corps. Since March 22, 1915 - Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff, confirmed in his position. On May 16, 1915, he was appointed acting chief of staff of the 64th Infantry Division. Having headed the headquarters, he was constantly on the front line, under fire - the spring and summer of 1915 for the 64th division passed in endless battles and transitions.
On July 1, 1915, for distinction in cases against the enemy, he was awarded the Order of the Holy Equal to the Apostles Prince Vladimir, 4th degree with swords and bow.
“By order of the commander of the 10th Army on November 2, 1915, No. 1270, he was awarded the St. George’s Arms for the fact that, taking direct part in the battle on August 20, 1915 near the town of Ohany, he carried out a reconnaissance of the crossing of Mesechanka under actual artillery and rifle fire, directing its crossing , and then, assessing the possibility of capturing the northern outskirts of the town of Ohana, he personally led the attack of units of the Perekop regiment and, with a skillful choice of position, contributed to the actions of our infantry, which repelled the advancing units of the superior enemy forces for five days.”
From October 22 to November 10, 1915 - acting chief of staff of the 26th Army Corps.
Since the summer of 1916 - Colonel of the General Staff. Served on the Southwestern Front. On August 31, 1916, he led the attack on Mount Kapul.
In the battle on Mount Kapul he was wounded in the right arm. At the end of 1917, for the courage shown in this battle, he was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree.
He was treated in the hospital for several months, and from January 1917 he served as acting chief of staff of the 15th Infantry Division on the Romanian Front. As Drozdovsky’s closest assistant in his service at the headquarters of the 15th Division of the General Staff, Colonel E. E. Messner, who served in 1917, wrote g.i.d. senior adjutant of the General Staff with the rank of staff captain: ...not having fully recovered from a serious wound, he came to us and became the chief of staff of the 15th Infantry Division. It was not easy for me to serve as a senior adjutant under him: demanding of himself, he was demanding of his subordinates, and of me, his closest assistant, in particular. Strict, uncommunicative, he did not inspire love for himself, but he did evoke respect: his entire stately figure, his thoroughbred, handsome face exuded nobility, directness and extraordinary willpower.
Drozdovsky showed this willpower, according to Colonel E.E. Messner, by transferring the division headquarters to him and taking command of the 60th Zamosc Infantry Regiment of the same division on April 6, 1917 - general revolutionary looseness did not prevent him from being an imperious commander of the regiment and in battle, and in a positional situation.
In 1917, events took place in Petrograd that turned the tide of the war: the February Revolution marked the beginning of the collapse of the army and the state, ultimately leading the country to the October events. The abdication of Nicholas II made a very difficult impression on Drozdovsky, a staunch monarchist. Order No. 1 led to the collapse of the front - already at the beginning of April 1917.

The October events in Petrograd - the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks and the virtual cessation of the war that soon followed - led to the complete collapse of the Russian army, and Drozdovsky, seeing the impossibility of continuing his service in the army in such conditions, began to be inclined to continue the struggle in a different form.
At the end of November - beginning of December 1917, against his will, he was appointed head of the 14th Infantry Division, but soon resigned his command, taking up the formation of volunteer anti-Soviet formations.
After the General Staff of Infantry General M.V. Alekseev arrived in the Don in November 1917 and the creation of the Alekseev organization there (later transformed into the Dobrarmia), communication was established between him and the headquarters of the Romanian Front. As a result, on the Romanian front, the idea arose of creating a Corps of Russian Volunteers for its subsequent dispatch to the Don. The organization of such a detachment and its further connection with the Volunteer Army became from that moment Drozdovsky’s main goal.
Meanwhile, in the division subordinate to him, Drozdovsky has a serious conflict with the local committee; The committee threatened the division chief with arrest. This circumstance prompted Drozdovsky to leave for Iasi (where the headquarters of the Romanian Front was located), for which his former colleague E. E. Messner, already mentioned above, wrote out a “fake” document to Drozdovsky - an order to go on a business trip to the front headquarters.

Hiking from Yassy to Novocherkassk
December 11 (December 24), 1917 Drozdovsky arrives in Iasi, where the formation of a volunteer corps was being prepared, which was supposed to move to the Don and join the Volunteer Army of the General Staff of Infantry General L. G. Kornilov. Drozdovsky became one of the organizers of this corps, while simultaneously participating in the activities of a secret monarchist organization. He enjoyed unquestioned authority due to his determination.
By February 1918, however, the front command abandoned the project of creating a volunteer formation and released volunteers who had signed up to serve in the corps from their obligations.
The reason for this decision was the lack of communication with the Don and the change in the military-political situation on the territory of Ukraine (Ukraine declared its independence, made peace with the Central Powers, declared neutrality, and special permission was required for the passage of an armed detachment through its territory).
However, Colonel Drozdovsky, appointed commander of the 1st brigade in the emerging corps, decided to lead volunteers to the Don. Made an appeal:

I'm going - who's with me?
His detachment included about 800 people (according to other sources, 1050 people), most of whom were young officers. The detachment consisted of a rifle regiment, a cavalry division, a mounted mountain battery, a light battery, a howitzer platoon, a technical unit, an infirmary and a convoy. This detachment in March - May 1918 made a 1200-verst trek from Yassy to Novocherkassk. Drozdovsky maintained strict discipline in the detachment, suppressed requisitions and violence, and destroyed detachments of Bolsheviks and deserters encountered along the way.
The hikers later testified that, despite all his apparent simplicity, Drozdovsky always knew how to remain a detachment commander, maintaining the necessary distance in relation to his subordinates. At the same time, according to his subordinates, he became a real commander-father for them. Thus, the chief of artillery of the brigade, Colonel N.D. Nevadovsky, left the following evidence of the feelings that the commander experienced immediately after the bloody Rostov battles: ... the Rostov battle, where we lost up to 100 people, affected his psychology: he ceased to be a stern boss and became a father - a commander in the best sense of the word. Showing personal contempt for death, he pitied and took care of his people.
Subsequently, such a fatherly attitude of Drozdovsky towards his fighters already during the Second Kuban Campaign of the Volunteer Army - when he sometimes delayed the start of operations, trying to prepare them as much as possible and then act with confidence, avoiding unnecessary losses, and was often somewhat slow, in the opinion of the commander-in-chief, in launching attacks, in order to create the most safe conditions for the Drozdovites - sometimes even dissatisfied the Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin.
Having marched from Romania to Rostov-on-Don, the detachment occupied the city on May 4 after a stubborn battle with detachments of the Red Army. Coming out of Rostov, Drozdovsky’s detachment helped the Cossacks, who rebelled against Soviet power, take Novocherkassk. By the evening of May 7, the Drozdovites, enthusiastically greeted by the residents of Novocherkassk and showered with flowers, entered the capital of the Don Army Region in orderly ranks, effectively saving the Donets from the prospect of receiving it from the hands of the German occupation forces. Thus ended the 1200-mile, two-month “Romanian Campaign” of the First Separate Brigade of Russian Volunteers.

Division commander in the Volunteer Army
Soon after the end of the Romanian campaign, Drozdovsky went to a meeting at the headquarters of the Volunteer Army, located in the station. Mechetinskaya. There, a plan for further action was developed and it was decided to give rest to both the Dobrarmiya - in the Mechetinskaya area, and Drozdovsky’s detachment - in Novocherkassk.
While in Novocherkassk, Drozdovsky dealt with the issues of attracting reinforcements to the detachment, as well as the problem of its financial support. He sent people to different cities to organize the registration of volunteers: for example, he sent Lieutenant Colonel G. D. Leslie to Kyiv. The work of the Drozdov recruiting bureaus was organized so effectively that 80% of the replenishment of the entire Dobrarmia at first went through them. Eyewitnesses also point to certain costs of this method of recruitment: in the same cities, sometimes there were recruiters from several armies, including independent agents of the Drozdovsky brigade, which led to unwanted competition. The results of Drozdovsky’s work in Novocherkassk and Rostov also include his organization of warehouses in these cities for the needs of the army; for the wounded Drozdovites in Novocherkassk he organized an infirmary, and in Rostov - with the support of his friend Professor N.I. Napalkov - the White Cross Hospital, which remained the best hospital for the Whites until the end of the Civil War. Drozdovsky gave lectures and distributed appeals about the tasks of the White movement, and in Rostov, through his efforts, the newspaper “Bulletin of the Volunteer Army” even began to be published - the first white printed organ in the South of Russia. From the Don ataman, cavalry general P.N. Krasnov, Drozdovsky received an offer to join the composition of the formed Don Army as the “Don Foot Guard” - the Don people more than once later suggested that Drozdovsky separate himself from General Denikin - however, Drozdovsky, not pursuing any personal interests and alien to petty ambition, invariably refused, declaring his adamant decision to unite with the Volunteer Army .
It is important to note that Drozdovsky, after his detachment completed the Romanian campaign and arrived on the Don, was in a position where he could choose his own future path: join the Volunteer Army of Denikin and Romanovsky, accept the offer of the Don Ataman Krasnov, or become a completely independent and independent force .
June 8, 1918 - after a vacation in Novocherkassk - a detachment (Brigade of Russian Volunteers) consisting of about three thousand soldiers set out to join the Volunteer Army and arrived on June 9 in the village of Mechetinskaya, where, after a solemn parade, which was attended by the leadership of the Volunteer Army - generals Alekseev, Denikin, headquarters and units of the Volunteer Army, by order No. 288 of May 25, 1918 of the Commander-in-Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin, the Brigade of Russian Volunteers, Colonel M.G. Drozdovsky, was included in the Volunteer Army. The leaders of the Dobrarmiya could hardly overestimate the significance of the addition of the Drozdovsky brigade - their army almost doubled in size, and it had not seen such a material part as the Drozdovites contributed to the army since its organization at the end of 1917.
The brigade (later division) included all units that came from the Romanian Front:
2nd Officer Rifle Regiment,
2nd Officer Cavalry Regiment,
3rd Engineer Company,
light artillery battery,
howitzer platoon consisting of 10 light and 2 heavy guns.

Parts of Colonel Drozdovsky’s detachment did not stay long in Mechetinskaya after the parade, proceeding after its completion to quartering in the village of Yegorlytskaya.
When the Volunteer Army was reorganized in June 1918, Colonel Drozdovsky’s detachment formed the 3rd Infantry Division and participated in all the battles of the Second Kuban Campaign, as a result of which Kuban and the entire North Caucasus were occupied by white troops. M. G. Drozdovsky became its chief, and one of the conditions for his detachment to join the army was a guarantee of his personal irremovability as its commander.
However, by this time Drozdovsky was already ready to fulfill an independent role - the six months that had passed since the collapse of the Romanian Front had taught him to rely only on himself, as well as on proven and reliable personnel. In fact, Drozdovsky already had quite a solid, and more importantly, very successful experience in organizational and, of course, combat work. He knew his own worth and valued himself very highly, to which, of course, he had a well-deserved right (recognized by General Denikin, who highly regarded him), who was aware of his own importance and enjoyed the full support of his subordinates, united by the monarchical spirit, for whom he became a legend during his lifetime, Drozdovsky had his own personal view on many things and questioned the appropriateness of many orders of the Dobrarmiya headquarters.
Drozdovsky's contemporaries and comrades expressed the opinion that it made sense for the leadership of the Volunteer Army to use the organizational skills of Mikhail Gordeevich and entrust him with organizing the rear, allowing him to organize supplies for the army, or appoint him Minister of War of the White South with the assignment of organizing new regular divisions for the front. However, the leaders of the Volunteer Army, perhaps fearing competition from the young, energetic, intelligent colonel, preferred to assign him the modest role of division chief.
In July-August, Drozdovsky took part in the battles that led to the capture of Yekaterinodar; in September he took Armavir, but under the pressure of superior Red forces he was forced to leave it.
By this time, tensions in relations between the 3rd Infantry Division and army headquarters entered the conflict phase. During the Armavir operation of the Volunteer Army, Drozdovsky’s division was entrusted with a task that could not be accomplished by its forces alone, and in the opinion of its commander, the likelihood of failure of the entire operation, due to the literal execution of the orders of the Volunteer Army headquarters, which overestimated the strength of the division, was very high. Being all the time among his troops, correctly assessing his own forces, as well as the forces of the enemy, Drozdovsky, guided by the words of Suvorov, “his neighbor can see better by his proximity,” after repeatedly describing in his reports the position of the division and the possibility of achieving guaranteed success by transferring the operation to a couple days and strengthening the strike group at the expense of available reserves, seeing the ineffectiveness of these reports, on September 30, 1918, actually ignored Denikin’s order.
In November, Drozdovsky led his division during stubborn battles near Stavropol, where, having led a counterattack of division units, he was wounded in the foot on November 13, 1918 and sent to a hospital in Yekaterinodar. There his wound festered and gangrene began. In November 1918 he was promoted to major general. On January 8, 1919, in a semi-conscious state, he was transferred to a clinic in Rostov-on-Don, where he died.
Initially he was buried in Yekaterinodar in the Kuban Military Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky. After the Red troops attacked Kuban in 1920, the Drozdovites, knowing how the Reds treated the graves of white leaders, broke into the already abandoned city and took out the remains of General Drozdovsky and Colonel Tutsevich; their remains were transported to Sevastopol and secretly reburied on the Malakhov Kurgan. Wooden crosses with plaques and the inscriptions “Colonel M.I. Gordeev” on the cross at the grave of General Drozdovsky and “Captain Tutsevich” were placed on the graves. Only five Drozdov hikers knew the burial place. Drozdovsky's symbolic grave exists in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery near Paris, where a memorial sign has been erected.
After the death of General Drozdovsky, the 2nd Officer Regiment (one of the “colored regiments” of the Volunteer Army) was named after him, which was later deployed into the four-regiment Drozdovsky (General Drozdovsky Rifle) division, the Drozdovsky artillery brigade, the Drozdovsky engineering company and (operating separately from the division) 2nd Officer's Cavalry Regiment of General Drozdovsky.

Posthumous fate
Drozdovsky's ceremonial funeral took place in Yekaterinodar. The body was buried in a crypt in the cathedral. Then, next to Drozdovsky, they buried Colonel Tutsevich, commander of the First Drozdovsky Battery, who died on June 2, 1919 near Lozovaya from the explosion of his own shell.
When the Volunteer Army retreated from Yekaterinodar in March 1920, the Drozdovites broke into the already abandoned city and took the coffins with the bodies of Drozdovsky and Tutsevich from the cathedral, so as not to leave them to be desecrated by the Reds. The bodies were loaded in Novorossiysk onto the Ekaterinodar transport and transported to Crimea. In Crimea, both coffins were buried a second time on the Malakhov Kurgan in Sevastopol, but, due to the fragility of the situation, under other people's names on the crosses.
During the Great Patriotic War, the graves on the mound, which stubbornly defended itself from the Germans, were dug up with craters from heavy shells. The exact burial place of Drozdovsky is now unknown.

Awards
Order of St. George, 4th class
Order of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir, 4th degree with swords and bow
Order of St. Anne 3rd class with swords and bow
Order of St. Anne, 4th class with the inscription "For bravery"
Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd class with swords and bow
St. George's weapon.
Medal "In memory of the Russian-Japanese War" (1906) with bow
Medal "In memory of the 100th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812"
Medal "In memory of the 300th anniversary of the reign of the House of Romanov"

Drozdovtsy
The name of General Drozdovsky was of great importance for the further development of the White movement. After the general’s death, the 2nd Officer Rifle Regiment he created (later deployed into a division), the 2nd Officer Cavalry Regiment, an artillery brigade and an armored train were named after him. “Drozdovtsy” were one of the most combat-ready units of the Volunteer Army and subsequently V.S.Yu.R., one of the four “colored divisions” (crimson shoulder straps). In 1919, the “Drozdovites” under the command of Colonel A.V. Turkul distinguished themselves by taking Kharkov, and in 1920 - by successful actions during a raid on the Kuban, Crimea and the Dnieper. In November 1920, the core of the division was evacuated to Constantinople and was later based in Bulgaria.

How Denikin pacified Chechnya.
In the spring of 1919, a situation that was extremely unpleasant for the White Army arose in Chechnya. Chechnya became a hotbed of separatism and Bolshevism. General Denikin was entrusted with solving the problem. And he completed his task. Situation By the spring of 1919, an extremely unpleasant situation for the Whites had developed in Chechnya. Yes, they took Grozny on January 23, but still Bolshevik propaganda was extremely strong in Chechnya and many Chechens, together with the Red Commissars, continued to resist. It was impossible to suppress Chechnya only by military force, since there was turbulence on the fronts. Most of the White Army was occupied in important areas and did not have the opportunity to redeploy units. General Denikin was entrusted with resolving the situation with Chechnya. The task before him was not an easy one. Time was on the Reds’ side; it was impossible to leave a serious hotbed of separatism and Bolshevism set on fire; it had to be extinguished. But how? Pushkin was killed in battle. General Shatilov was the first to try to “overcome” the Chechens; he carried out several operations, but they were not successful, and Shatilov himself was wounded in battle. He was replaced in his post by Colonel Pushkin. Colonel Pushkin was killed in battle. It was necessary to radically change tactics. This is what Major General Daniil Dratsenko (pictured) did, who took up the matter. Given the experience of previous operations, he realized that it would be wrong to use traditional military techniques that are good at the front to suppress the enemy. He developed his own operation to suppress the Chechens. Dratsenko's tactics Dratsenko realized that in order to defeat the Chechens, one must understand them, so the first thing he did was find several “experts” from among the elders, and learned from them not only the psychology of the Chechens, but also the balance of power in Chechen society. Dratsenko also studied the system of Chechen teips and learned that Chechen society is far from homogeneous. For the Chechens, this was not a Civil War, and certainly not a people’s war. It was a "neighborhood" war. The main confrontation was between the Chechens and the Terek Cossacks. They still had their own territorial and property accounts. Chechen “intellectuals” also said at the meeting that “the Chechen movement cannot be considered a phenomenon of Bolshevism, because the mountaineers, being Muslims, are by nature hostile to atheistic communism.” The “whites” experienced a certain cognitive dissonance when, for example, they watched through binoculars how the Bolshevik gathering was taking place, with green Islamic flags and red Bolshevik flags flashing. One such congress, just before the start of Dratsenko’s operation, was observed by the “whites” through binoculars from the village of Ermolaevskaya. There is a memory of this: “This incident is very indicative; it characterizes the Chechens not only as good Muslims who deeply respect the truths of the Koran, but also capable of holding rallies under red flags and listening to the speeches of a representative of the godless International.” The suppression of Denikin in Chechnya is still remembered. The tactics that General Dratsenko used in battle was to literally raze several villages located near the Sunzha River to the ground, and then withdraw the troops back to negotiate. The first was the village of Alkhan-Yurt. The Chechens resisted, but the onslaught of the Kuban Plastun battalion, cavalry and artillery was so unquestioning that the village fell. The Whites burned everything that could be burned, destroyed everything that could be destroyed, took no prisoners, but released several Chechens so that they could tell “how this could be.” More than 1,000 Chechens were killed in that battle. Denikin made it clear that he was not joking. The next day, Dratsenko attacked and burned the village of Valerik. This time the resistance was weaker. Congress On April 11, 1919, a congress was held in Grozny, at which Denikin expressed his peace terms. Despite the fact that some demands were expressed in very categorical terms (to hand over machine guns and artillery, to return looted property), the majority of Chechens agreed with them. The British representative Briggs was also at the meeting with Denikin. His role was limited to the fact that he assured the Chechens that “abroad” was on the side of the Whites (no matter what the Red propaganda said). Some villages, however, continued their resistance even after the congress. Tsotsin-Yurt and Gudermes resisted, but were suppressed by Dratsenko with all the harshness. Denikin managed to change the balance of power in Chechnya, but within a year the Reds would come here again, and the White generals would soon emigrate. Some, like General Dratsenko, will become Wehrmacht officers in just over 20 years.