Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

Ned returned from his trip to General Denikin’s AFSR Headquarters at Novo-Rossiysk, on the Black Sea coast, just as Admiral Kolchak’s Cossack allies advanced southward in triumph toward their traditional seats of power at Orenburg and Uralsk. On April 9, General Dutov’s Orenburg Cossacks captured Orsk and, two days later took Aktyubinsk,[30] severing the Orenburg-Tashkent Railway and driving the Red Army from the Orenburg Steppe. On April 20, General Tolstov’s Ural Cossacks reached the outskirts of their home city, Uralsk, seven hundred versts east of the Volga River.

Ned arrived back in Omsk at mid-morning and by mid-afternoon set out for the wireless station at Beregovoy. After handing his haversack over to Yulia’s manservant, Genrikh, he crossed the yard to the lodge and found Lieutenant Colonel Neilson sorting through a stack of papers on his desk. Ned pulled up a rough-hewn wooden chair and sat beside him.

“I want to thank you for a brilliant idea,” he greeted Neilson.

“And which one of my many might that be?” the Briton answered, setting his papers aside with a broad smile.

“You pointed out how the AFSR had more armored cars and trench mortars than they could use,” Ned answered. “You were right, and now our Cossack friends will be getting some of them.”

“You don’t say!” Neilson replied with relish.

“It’s not that the AFSR was inclined to be generous,” Ned continued. “It’s rather that that General Denikin, being in the habit of looking gift horses in the mouth, had rejected any vehicle that wasn’t one-hundred percent battle-ready. As a result, quite a few serviceable armored cars languished on the docks awaiting parts or repair.”

“So he’s agreed to release them to our boys?”

“Not exactly,” Ned replied. “Since he refused to accept them, your military mission still carries them in its inventory rather than Denikin’s. Thus, instead of shipping the vehicles back to Baku for repairs, your people will simply ship them across the Caspian to General Tolstov’s Cossacks. So long as they have at least one serviceable gun apiece and can move in first or second gear, I should think the cars would be quite useful in breaching the defenses at Uralsk.”

“Splendid work!” Neilson declared. “How many are they willing to send over?”

“A half dozen or more,” Ned replied. “And a hundred or so trench mortars into the bargain, with assorted shells: high explosive, fragmentation, incendiary—even smoke! We’ll have to scour the ranks to find men trained in using them, but I should think Tolstov has enough veterans of the war against Germany to solve that problem.”

“In a pinch, some of our boys can train the Cossacks,” Neilson agreed. “The light mortars ought to be handy for their mounted raids. And the incendiary and smoke rounds useful against fixed positions at Uralsk.”

The lieutenant colonel rose to fetch two cups of steaming tea from the brass samovar. After handing one to Ned and taking a tentative sip from his own, he recounted the latest news from the Siberian Army’s spring offensive. While Ned was away, Khanzin’s Western Army had advanced on horse-drawn sledges through knee-deep snow to retake Ufa without a fight, and then moved on toward their distant objectives on the Volga. The attack had taken the Red Army’s Eastern Front Commander, Kamenev, completely by surprise. With its local four-to-one advantage in men and two-to-one in artillery and machine guns, the Western Army crushed the main force of the Fifth Red Army in five days.

Khanzin’s troops continued west along the Ufa-Simbirsk[31] Railway, deflecting a weak counterblow and capturing Belebey, Bugul’ma and Buguruslan in rapid succession by mid-April. Another combat group moved north to the River Ik to cut off the retreat of Red soldiers east of the Volga and advanced along the Kama River toward Chistopol. And even further north, General Gaida’s Northern Army, based at Perm, quickly took Okhansk and Osa, forced the Reds to abandon Votkinsk and Izhevsk, and pressed forward on skis to Glazov. Despite Trotsky’s efforts to preserve discipline, the Third Red Army melted before Gaida’s advance. And in the south, the Uralsk and Orenburg Cossacks pushed the Fourth Red Army further back toward the Volga while laying siege to Uralsk and Orenburg.