Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

Not long after, Denikin and Kolchak announced plans for a volunteer force of former Russian prisoners of war, to be trained by Allied advisors in Poland, Romania, and Finland, and repatriated to White-held areas before late autumn. More significantly, Britain cancelled its planned evacuation of some eight thousand British and Commonwealth troops from the North Russian port of Arkhangelsk, and pledged to bring in an equal number of reinforcements to backstop General Yudenich’s promised advance on Petrograd.

With great hope and enthusiasm, Baron Wrangel’s troops and Zhanna’s volunteers set out upriver toward Samara while Southern Army infantry and artillery and Ural Cossack cavalry converged on the city from the east. They met little resistance along the way, liberating Red-held villages and towns with negligible losses. In many places, local partisan bands, largely drawn from the Socialist Revolutionary Party, paved the way with well-timed anti-Bolshevik uprisings.

Along Zhanna’s route, Red garrisons surrendered with providential ease, aided by the Maid’s offer of clemency to those who willingly laid down their arms. Her remaining foes, mainly conscripted workers from Moscow and other Bolshevik strongholds, awaited her in a demoralized state, cowed by reports of her past victories and rumors of her invincibility. As the Maid’s volunteers approached Samara’s periphery, they did more chasing than fighting.

On the eve of her planned attack on Samara, Zhanna issued thousands of printed handbills to sympathetic S-R agents, who distributed them throughout the city. The message read:

“In the Name of God and His Son Jesus. To the People of Samara: the Maid of Baikal hereby informs the patriotic citizens of Samara that her armed forces have taken Uralsk and Orenburg and defeated the Red Army at Buguruslan and Yershov. And know also that the celebrated Red Commanders Frunze and Chapayev have been slain as a result, and many other high officers killed or captured. Stand fast, loyal Russians, for soon you shall be delivered from Bolshevist tyranny! Come to us in peace when you hear our approach. And make ready for a new national assembly to be convened in your city that shall unite all free Russians under a new representative government. Today, commend yourselves to God and beseech Him to watch over you, that you may join the cause of a free and united Russia. Written at Saratov this day, the thirtieth of July, in the year 1919. From Zhanna the Maid.”

The effect of this message in Samara was electric. Throughout the night, neighborhoods rose up and warned the Red defenders to leave the city or be hunted down and slaughtered to the last man. By morning, Trotsky ordered the occupiers to abandon the city under a flag of truce, and to retire northward to Penza, Simbirsk, and Kazan. According to a message intercepted by Ned’s Beregovoy wireless team, Trotsky’s sense of urgency was fueled by a fear that the local populace might betray the Red garrison at the instigation of S-R agitators and thus set a dangerous precedent.

Ned and Colonel Ward delivered news of the Red retreat at once to General Dieterichs at the Stavka in Omsk. Later that day, the Supreme Ruler issued a triumphant proclamation calling for all Russians to thank God for the great victory of the combined White Armies at Samara, accomplished by great courage and prowess at arms, “and by the virtuous deeds and wondrous things achieved by Zhanna, known as the Maid, who has participated in this and other great battles recently won.”

Chapter 17: Samara

“What experience and history teach is this: that people and governments have never learned anything from history.”

—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Musical Theme: Masquerade Suite, I. Waltz, by Aram Khachaturian

EARLY AUGUST, 1919, OMSK

The sun burned mercilessly in a deep blue Siberian sky, with only a few wispy white clouds in the west, when Ned left Beregovoy at mid-morning for an impromptu meeting of Allied officials at Omsk. He had planned to set out for Samara the day before, and had once again arranged for Lieutenant Colonel Neilson to take charge over the Beregovoy wireless operation during his absence. But he had not yet delivered the news to Yulia, whom he expected to return at any time from a trip to Yekaterinburg, where she had sold some of her late husband’s property. So Ned was grateful for the excuse to delay his travel to the Volga by another day.