Having been a war correspondent in France for two years, he knew how far from being ready to fight on the terms that had prevailed on the Western Front the Red Army was. A strategic estimate sent to Lenin in early October had set a requirement for a ‘decisive blow’to be launched ‘in the very shortest time’ that would drive Krasnov’s forces back to the Don River. Late in the month, after the situation at Tsaritsyn had stabilized, South Front ordered Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Armies to go over to the offensive in the first week of November and designated the Povorino–Tsaritsyn railroad as their initial objective. On 2 November, a day before the offensive was to have started, Fitskhelaurov’s Cossacks hit Eighth and Ninth Armies. In the next two weeks they advanced up to 40 miles to the north and northeast, cutting the Balashov–Kamyshin railroad, taking Povorino, and threatening Voronezh. Trotskiy replaced Sytin as South Front commander with P. A. Slaven, a Latvian officer who had taken over at Kazan in similar circumstances (except that Voronezh was 125 miles closer to Moscow than Kazan was) and had commanded Fifth Army in the counteroffensive. Ninth Army, under Yegorov, recovered sufficiently by the end of the month to counterattack along the railroad between Balashov and Kamyshin, but its 32,000 troops were not enough to turn the scales against the Cossacks. On its right Eighth Army, with just 13,000 troops, was barely able to screen the approaches to Voronezh; and Tenth Army on its left, which was to have brought the weight of 40,000 bayonets and 9,000 sabers to bear, was letting its front sag toward the Volga between Tsaritsyn and Kamyshin and had allowed a 40-mile-wide gap to open between its and Ninth Army’s flanks northwest of Kamyshin. On 6 December, Slaven told Voroshilov that it was evident Tenth Army was ‘marking time’ and not ‘making war in earnest’. A day later, Slaven reported to Trotskiy that he had given Voroshilov ‘a categorical order’ to give Ninth Army offensive support without delay. While Tenth Army went on ‘clinging to passivity’, as Slaven put it, the Tsaritsyn group managed to persuade Lenin through Stalin that Okulov was at fault for having failed as a commissar to prevent a mutiny in one division and desertions and refusals to fight in several regiments. To a complaint from Lenin, Trotskiy replied that the question of recalling Okulov could not be settled in isolation; all attempts at compromise with Voroshilov having failed, the entire Tenth Army RMC including the commander had to be replaced. On 18 December, Voroshilov relinquished his post at Tenth Army – and simultaneously took up another as a member of the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Ukrainian Government.31 In the meantime, the strategic situation had changed for all parties. The German occupation was ending in the Ukraine, and neither the troops nor their commander had any interest there other than an expeditious passage home. 77 the red army 1918–1941 In mid-December, the Germans abandoned Hetman Pavel Skoropadskiy, whose dictatorship they had sustained since April 1918. The coalition of left-leaning parties that replaced him, the Directory, and its chief military ataman, Simon Petlyura, proclaimed Ukrainian national independence, which evoked instantaneous Bolshevik hostility without attracting material domestic or Allied support. Krasnov could no longer rely on either the Germans or the Ukrainians to protect the western approaches to the Cossack territory, and the Allies were insisting on his renouncing Cossack separatism and subordinating himself to Denikin as a precondition of their assistance. The Directory’s weakness created a power vacuum that the Bolsheviks were eager to fill, and the Allies’ presence in Odessa, Sevastopol, Novorossiysk, Batumi and Baku necessitated operational speed and effectiveness that South Front had not yet come anywhere near achieving. On 19 December, Vatsetis submitted a plan for a two-stage offensive to be begun on about 1 January 1919, in which South Front would destroy the Krasnov and Denikin forces and then sweep west across the Ukraine. South Front thereupon set to work preparing the first stage: a thrust due south from the Voronezh area toward Rostov through the Cossack heartland between the Don and Donets Rivers.
Having been a war correspondent in France for two years, he knew how far from being ready to fight on the terms that had prevailed on the Western Front the Red Army was. A strategic estimate sent to Lenin in early October had set a requirement for a ‘decisive blow’to be launched ‘in the very shortest time’ that would drive Krasnov’s forces back to the Don River. Late in the month, after the situation at Tsaritsyn had stabilized, South Front ordered Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Armies to go over to the offensive in the first week of November and designated the Povorino–Tsaritsyn railroad as their initial objective. On 2 November, a day before the offensive was to have started, Fitskhelaurov’s Cossacks hit Eighth and Ninth Armies. In the next two weeks they advanced up to 40 miles to the north and northeast, cutting the Balashov–Kamyshin railroad, taking Povorino, and threatening Voronezh. Trotskiy replaced Sytin as South Front commander with P. A. Slaven, a Latvian officer who had taken over at Kazan in similar circumstances (except that Voronezh was 125 miles closer to Moscow than Kazan was) and had commanded Fifth Army in the counteroffensive. Ninth Army, under Yegorov, recovered sufficiently by the end of the month to counterattack along the railroad between Balashov and Kamyshin, but its 32,000 troops were not enough to turn the scales against the Cossacks. On its right Eighth Army, with just 13,000 troops, was barely able to screen the approaches to Voronezh; and Tenth Army on its left, which was to have brought the weight of 40,000 bayonets and 9,000 sabers to bear, was letting its front sag toward the Volga between Tsaritsyn and Kamyshin and had allowed a 40-mile-wide gap to open between its and Ninth Army’s flanks northwest of Kamyshin. On 6 December, Slaven told Voroshilov that it was evident Tenth Army was ‘marking time’ and not ‘making war in earnest’. A day later, Slaven reported to Trotskiy that he had given Voroshilov ‘a categorical order’ to give Ninth Army offensive support without delay. While Tenth Army went on ‘clinging to passivity’, as Slaven put it, the Tsaritsyn group managed to persuade Lenin through Stalin that Okulov was at fault for having failed as a commissar to prevent a mutiny in one division and desertions and refusals to fight in several regiments. To a complaint from Lenin, Trotskiy replied that the question of recalling Okulov could not be settled in isolation; all attempts at compromise with Voroshilov having failed, the entire Tenth Army RMC including the commander had to be replaced. On 18 December, Voroshilov relinquished his post at Tenth Army – and simultaneously took up another as a member of the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Ukrainian Government.31 In the meantime, the strategic situation had changed for all parties. The German occupation was ending in the Ukraine, and neither the troops nor their commander had any interest there other than an expeditious passage home. 77 the red army 1918–1941 In mid-December, the Germans abandoned Hetman Pavel Skoropadskiy, whose dictatorship they had sustained since April 1918. The coalition of left-leaning parties that replaced him, the Directory, and its chief military ataman, Simon Petlyura, proclaimed Ukrainian national independence, which evoked instantaneous Bolshevik hostility without attracting material domestic or Allied support. Krasnov could no longer rely on either the Germans or the Ukrainians to protect the western approaches to the Cossack territory, and the Allies were insisting on his renouncing Cossack separatism and subordinating himself to Denikin as a precondition of their assistance. The Directory’s weakness created a power vacuum that the Bolsheviks were eager to fill, and the Allies’ presence in Odessa, Sevastopol, Novorossiysk, Batumi and Baku necessitated operational speed and effectiveness that South Front had not yet come anywhere near achieving. On 19 December, Vatsetis submitted a plan for a two-stage offensive to be begun on about 1 January 1919, in which South Front would destroy the Krasnov and Denikin forces and then sweep west across the Ukraine. South Front thereupon set to work preparing the first stage: a thrust due south from the Voronezh area toward Rostov through the Cossack heartland between the Don and Donets Rivers.