Military Construction in Army Orders: The Experience of the Southern White Army in Summer 1919

The article examines military construction in the Russian Army of Admiral A.V. Kolchak. It focuses on the Southern Army, which emerged after reformation of the Orenburg Independent Army, the Southern Army Group, and units of the Orenburg military district in the end of May 1919. Soviet and modern historiography highlights the defense of Orenburg by the Red Army and the victory of the Reds over the Southern Army in the battles of late August – September 1919. The events of summer 1919, the Southern Army being an integrated combined arms force, remain poorly studied. Prior and later, the Cossack element and Cossack leadership prevailed. Therefore, it seems important to consider the efforts of the White command to create a combined arms army. An array of army orders is engaged to characterize the military construction of army headquarters from late May to August 1919. They permit to evaluate the system of time and organizational priorities of the army headquarters and its commander in military construction. Besides orders, the study uses memoirs of generals and senior officers who served in the Southern Army. General historical methods are used in the analysis. The research is to assess the progress and effectiveness of the efforts of the army level White command in military construction in a relatively quiet sector of the front. Commander P. A. Belov engaged in military organizational activities, introducing formations and re-formations of units and forces. The troops were brought in line with authorized staff. Artillery, sanitary service, reserve units, rear administration were regulated. The article shows that General P. A. Belov carried out routine work on military construction energetically and intelligently. However, outside stereotypical events, he demonstrated unsuccessful decisions. Thus, important and risky mission of mastering Turkestan was entrusted to a new force of recently formed reserve units. As a result, large and well-organized army was defeated and disintegrated in the battles in late August – mid-September 1919. General P.A. Belov, an experienced officer, was active in routine tasks, but unable to choose priorities under the conditions of the Civil War. His inability to distinguish essential and non-essential and to distribute forces correctly sabotaged his efforts to create a combined arms army. This was characteristic of the Whites in the Civil War, which makes this research scientifically significant and opens prospects for comparative historical research.