Where the Iron Crosses Grow

The French, particularly Georges Clemenceau, had ambitious plans for the Crimea and military intervention in southern Russia against the Bolsheviks. Clemenceau regarded the Crimea as the perfect bastion from which to cooperate with local White forces, since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire enabled Allied naval forces to operate freely in the Black Sea. However, Clemenceau’s vision of rolling back Bolshevism in Ukraine was not matched by the requisite military muscle. A 2,000-man Greek regiment arrived in January 1919 to reinforce the French, and then several French colonial battalions of Senegalese and Algerians, but the Allied force in the Crimea never exceeded 7,000 men. A French fleet, including the dreadnoughts France and Jean Bart, also arrived at Sevastopol, but French control did not extend beyond the range of their fleet’s guns. Morale among the war-weary French forces was poor and their relations with the Crimean people deteriorated rapidly. Nor did White forces, who opposed the Bolsheviks, have more than a token force in the Crimea. By March 1919, the Bolsheviks began moving to eject both the French and the Whites from the Crimea.

Typically for the disorganized Whites, they left the Perekop Isthmus only lightly guarded, and the Red 14th Army easily stormed the Tatar Wall on April 3. Within five days, Red cavalry reached Simferopol, sending the Provisional Government and Whites scrambling for safety. Red troops reached the outskirts of Sevastopol on 14 April and French naval gunfire repulsed the first tentative assault. However, the French had no stomach for real fighting and a serious mutiny broke out on both French dreadnoughts. A number of rebellious French sailors expressed sympathy with the Bolshevik cause and it was soon apparent that many troops were unreliable as well. The French agreed to a temporary cease-fire with the Bolsheviks, in return for evacuating their forces from the Crimea. Even though the British battleship HMS Iron Duke was in Sevastopol, the Royal Navy decided to focus on incapacitating the remaining Russian warships in the port while negotiations dragged on. The British were particularly concerned about the Bolsheviks acquiring intact submarines. British sabotage parties used demolition charges to destroy the engines on a number of warships, including both Evstafi-class pre-dreadnoughts, four destroyers and all nine submarines. Although the French agreed to a cease-fire with the Bolsheviks, the Royal Navy did not, and HMS Iron Duke and two light cruisers shelled Red positions along the coast on April 25 and April 27.¹⁷ On April 28, 1919, the French and Greek troops completed their evacuation from Sevastopol and the Red Army marched in the next day.

Although a large number of Russian civilians left with the French, the remaining White forces retreated to the Kerch Peninsula and entrenched themselves near Ak-Monai. The Reds quickly established the Crimean Soviet Socialist Republic in Simferopol, but due to the outbreak of anti-Bolshevik rebellion in large areas of Ukraine, much of the 14th Army was transferred before victory in the Crimea was complete. Commissar Pavel E. Dybenko, a former sailor and political agitator, was left with only 9,600 troops in the Crimea. Dybenko sent his available troops east to attack the Whites at Ak-Monai, but the Royal Navy intervened; between May 2 and June 9, the British positioned two powerful naval task groups on either side of the Kerch Peninsula, one in the Sea of Azov and the other off Feodosiya. Naval gunfire from the battleships HMS Marlborough and HMS Emperor of India, supported by two light cruisers and six destroyers, prevented Red troops from breaching the White defenses.¹⁸ Furthermore, the Royal Navy helped the Whites to move additional forces from Novorossiysk back to the Crimea. General Yakov Slashchev landed near Feodosiya with an infantry brigade and soon joined with local White forces. Alarmed by reports of White landings in the Crimea, Dybenko opted to abandon the Crimea without a fight. Slashchev’s troops marched back into Sevastopol on June 24, 1919. Thanks to British naval gunfire support, the Whites had recovered the Crimea and Anton Deniken, the leader of the White Volunteer Army, was determined not only to hold onto it as a bastion but to use it as a springboard for one last counteroffensive that ambitiously aimed for Moscow. However, Deniken’s counteroffensive failed, and by early December 1919 the defeated Volunteer Army was retreating to the Crimea, where it would make its last stand. On April 4, 1920, Deniken was replaced by Baron Petr Nikolayevich Wrangel, who assumed command over all White forces in the Crimea.¹⁹