Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926

With the arrival of forces of the Austro-German intervention in Crimea over the summer of 1918, Wrangel moved to Ekaterinodar and joined General M. V. Alekseev’s anti-Bolshevik and pro-Allied Volunteer Army on 25 August 1918. Wrangel had missed the Volunteers’ epochal First Kuban (Ice) March, but (to the chagrin of some of the Pervopokhodniki) rose rapidly up the Volunteer Army’s command: he served as commander of a brigade of the 1st Mounted Division (28–31 August 1918), commander of the 1st Mounted Division (31 August–November 1918), and commander of the 1st Mounted Corps (November 1918–January 1919). With the formation of the Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR), he became commander of the Caucasian Volunteer Army (10 January–8 May 1919) and its successor, the Caucasian Army (8 May–4 December 1919). In that role, he led a successful offensive against the Red Army on the Volga, capturing Tsaritsyn (one of the Whites’ greatest prizes) on 2 July 1919. Subsequently, as the White advance on Moscow was repulsed by the Red Army, he was chosen to replace V. Z. Mai-Maevskii as commander of the Volunteer Army (4 December 1919–2 January 1920).

However, the haughty Wrangel never liked the reserved and relatively plebeian commander of the AFSR, General Denikin, and after a fierce quarrel between the two over strategy during the Whites’ Moscow offensive in the autumn of 1919, he was accused of conspiracy, dismissed, and exiled to Constantinople (28 February–20 March 1920). (Wrangel had argued in favor of forging a union with the Russian Army of Admiral A. V. Kolchak, rather than the advance on Moscow along a broad front favored by Denikin in his Moscow Directive, and felt he was constantly being deprived of troops by the commander in chief.)

Following the collapse of Denikin’s efforts, Wrangel was recalled to Crimea in late March 1920 and found enough support among other senior generals gathered at a military conference in Yalta to be chosen, on 4 April 1920, to succeed Denikin as commander in chief of the White forces in South Russia, which were now largely confined in Crimea. As a political leader, he was intolerant of opposition, distrusted all liberals, and remained at heart a monarchist, but he nevertheless formed a government (the Government of South Russia) that included moderate elements (notably P. B. Struve and A. V. Krivoshein) and promulgated a radical land reform in a belated attempt to win the support of the population (and the western Allies, who were by then despairing of the Whites). As a military commander and as commander in chief, he was a strict disciplinarian (e.g., dismissing the unhinged General Ia. A. Slashchov), and he successfully reorganized what remained of the AFSR (renaming it the Russian Army on 11 May 1920). However, a quarrel over command undermined a projected alliance with Józef Piłsudski’s Poland. Consequently, although Wrangel’s forces managed, during the summer of 1920, to break out of Crimea into Northern Tauride, once the Bolsheviks had effectively made peace with Piłsudski in October, ending the Soviet–Polish War, the Red Army was able to concentrate its vastly superior forces on the south and to drive the Russian Army back into Crimea.

In mid-November 1920, Wrangel organized a remarkable and very orderly evacuation of around 150,000 of his men and their dependents to Turkey, which was then under Allied control. He subsequently lived in emigration in Turkey (November 1920–1922); at Sremski Karlovci in the Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenes (1922–September 1927); and in Brussels, Belgium (from September 1927). During that time, he endeavored to keep the scattered forces of the Russian Army unified through the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS), which he founded in 1924. Through this organization, Wrangel hoped to offer financial and social support to his men and to keep the émigré soldiers battle-ready and free from political affiliation, while striving to unite monarchists and republicans under the banner of non-predetermination (i.e., by not prejudging issues regarding the future, post-Bolshevik, government of Russia). However, in November 1924 he announced his recognition of the claim to the Russian throne of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov.