Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

In fact, at the Paris Peace Conference the Council of Ten had decided, as early as 25 July 1919, that Western Ukraine (Eastern Galicia) would be granted to Poland. Warsaw’s right to the territory was also subsequently recognized by Petliura’s government under the terms of its alliance with Poland in the Treaty of Warsaw (21–24 April 1920), thereby severing the Act of Zluka. The Curzon Line was also a feature of the Treaty of Riga (18 March 1921), which brought to an end the Soviet–Polish War (and curtailed the brief existence of the Moscow-backed Galician Soviet Socialist Republic). Poland’s claim to Eastern Galicia was finally confirmed by the Allied Conference of Ambassadors at Paris on 15 March 1923; on the following day Petrushevych’s government-in-exile was wound up. This territorial settlement prevailed until the Second World War, when most of the lands claimed by the Western Ukrainian People’s Republic were incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

WESTERN VOLUNTEER ARMY. Formed on 9 May 1919, on the orders of General N. N. Iudenich, and commanded by Major-General P. R. Bermondt-Avalov (with Colonel P. P. Chaikovskii as his assistant commander), this anti-Bolshevik force (which operated mainly on Latvian territory) comprised the 1st Western Volunteer (General Keller) Corps under Colonel S. N. Pototskii and the 2nd Volunteer Corps under Colonel Vyrgolich. The army was nominally subordinate to the Western Russian (Berlin) Government, but Bermondt-Avalov was averse to obeying orders from anyone. Its roots can be traced to the Northern Army Corps, formed by General F. A. Keller at Kiev in late 1918, which after the fall of the regime of Hetman P. P. Skoropadskii and the death of Keller moved to the Baltic. There, in June 1919, it united with remnants of the German forces in the region that were operating as the Baltic Landeswehr, following the latter’s defeat in the Landeswehr War. This was in contravention of the Allies’ demand that Freikorps forces leave the Baltic theater.

The Western Volunteer Army numbered some 50,000 men by September 1919, of whom at least 40,000 were reported to be Germans. The true loyalties and concerns of the army and its commanders were revealed when, rather than join Iudenich’s advance on Petrograd, in October 1919 the Western Volunteer Army attacked and briefly occupied Riga and attempted to drive the nationalist government of Kārlis Ulmanis from its capital. Driven back by Latvian forces, who were aided by the Royal Navy, and then routed by Lithuanian forces near Radviliškis (in early December 1919), many of the members of the army made their way home to Germany, where 20,000 of them were interned in East Prussia. Many members of the Western Volunteer Army subsequently joined the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA).

WHITE FLEET. The main naval forces controlled by the Whites during the course of the civil wars included the Black Sea Fleet, the Kama Flotilla, the Siberian Flotilla, the Flotilla of the Northern (Arctic) Ocean, and the Caspian Flotilla. Other, smaller anti-Bolshevik naval squadrons included the River Military Fleet of the People’s Army (a formation that included around 40 armed steamers, operational chiefly on the Volga, which assisted in the capture of Kazan′ on 1 August 1918); the Northern Dvina River Flotilla (formed in the winter of 1918–1919 and operational alongside the Northern Army and forces of the Allied intervention the following spring); the Lake Chud Flotilla (whose vessels were commandeered by Estonia in November 1918); the Lake Onega Flotilla (active alongside the North-West Army and forces of the Allied intervention in 1919); and the Don Flotilla (active with anti-Bolshevik forces in that region from March 1918 to August 1919). There were also several flotillas that operated in the rear of the Russian Army in Siberia, on the Enisei, Ob, and Irtysh Rivers and on Lake Baikal. As White regimes around the country subordinated themselves to Admiral A. V. Kolchak as “supreme ruler” during 1919, all White naval forces became theoretically subject to the authority of the (landlocked) naval ministry of the Omsk government, overseen by Vice Admiral M .I. Smirnov, but in practice they remained independent.