The dashing leader of the "wolf hundred" - General Shkuro
(historical notes about ...)
The name of this man is hardly familiar to Russian youth. Only a few of the older generation will remember his last name, which sometimes popped up in books or films about the events of the Civil War. General Shkuro... one of the odious commanders of the white Cossack wild cavalry... Who is he? Why is he not remembered in his homeland - in the Kuban? Why do historians bypass his "dashing exploits", which in the fateful times of the formation of the young Republic of Soviets were very noticeable and widely discussed?
His life is a steep novel, full of drama and not invented collisions, where no human fantasy could keep up with the quirks of His Majesty - chance. His fate is a tangle of contradictions of ideas, beliefs and convictions.
Today we look with bewilderment at the crumbling and insultingly escalating centuries-old and seemingly indestructible fraternal relations between the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. But after all, if it were only a matter of different views on the construction of national self-consciousness. Who among us Russians was against Ukraine gaining independence in those years when the USSR collapsed? I live in those parts where Ukrainians occupy either the second or third place among the local population on the basis of nationality. And we, Russians, together with them sincerely experience difficult times in the relations between our countries.
Civil wars do not happen by themselves. And in the intricacies of the fate of the person I want to talk about, perhaps an attentive look will see those ominous springs of social indignation that set in motion the mechanisms of terrible fratricidal wars.
1. There was a Skin - became a Skin
Andrei Grigoryevich Shkura was born in 1886 in Ekaterinodar (now Krasnodar), in the family of a colonel of the Kuban Cossack army. Who, if not a military man, he saw himself from childhood. And why didn’t his father change his last name, forcing the boy from a young age to prove with his fists to offenders his intransigence to cruel jokes about the similarity of this generally noble family name to a nickname? It is possible that this is why (so as not to relax). Daring, self-willed, full of ambitious ambitions, the young man already in the capital's cadet school tried to get into the spotlight. And once he distinguished himself so much that it almost came to his expulsion. “We broke the desks and benches, broke the lamps, destroyed the apartment of the corps director,” he later recalled in his memoirs, “and the reason for our dissatisfaction was the unsatisfactory quality of the cutlets served ...”.
He, of course (thanks to the high reputation of his father), was left at the school, and he immediately turned from a freethinker into the most diligent cadet. Having brilliantly passed the final exams, Andrei was enrolled in the Nikolaev Cavalry School out of competition.
In 1907, a nineteen-year-old boy was sent as a cornet to the 1st Usman Cossack Regiment, where he immediately received a military assignment to the Persian border. Here he receives his first combat skills, actively participating in battles with armed gangs, now and then disturbing the Russian borders.
Just before the start of the First World War, Andrei Grigoryevich, having rested for several years in the civil service, returned to the army again - as a cornet in the 3rd Khopersky Cossack Regiment. He entered the service at the moment when the Russians, under the pressure of superior enemy forces in the battles near Warsaw (autumn 1914), were forced to retreat. But quickly regrouping, the regiment launched a counterattack. Breaking away from the main group, the forward patrol of the regiment of seventeen Cossacks under the command of the cornet Skins suddenly met with a squadron of German guards hussars and, despite more than tenfold (!!) superiority of the enemy, boldly attacked him. Not expecting such a brazen pressure, the enemy shamefully fled. And the Cossacks captured two officers and forty-eight enemy cavalry.
It is curious that, while approving the lists of soldiers who distinguished themselves at the beginning of the war, presented for the award of honorary St. George weapons, Emperor Nicholas II expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the name of one of the heroes. And he commanded the highest ... yes ... ordered her to change.
And so became the twenty-eight-year-old Andrei Grigorievich, henceforth not Shkura, but Shkuro.
Another historical fact is interesting. It was in those days and in almost the same places that the Cossacks of the 18th Seversky Dragoon Regiment fought with exactly the same heroism, where non-commissioned officer Semyon Budyonny received his first St. George's Cross. Only five years will pass and the cavalry armies under the command of Shkuro and Budyonny will converge in a bloody massacre on the fields of a fratricidal war.
... 1915 became the year of the "great retreat" for the Russian army. And in these incredibly difficult conditions, when the Germans became masters of the situation due to superiority in artillery, the flying machine-gun teams created by the Russian command in the cavalry regiments came to the rescue. One of these teams volunteered to lead the Cossack officer Shkuro.
In the autumn of 1915, a report from Andrei Grigoryevich, who by that time had been promoted to Yesaul, went to the front commander’s desk with a proposal “to detach him with a party of Cossacks to torment the rear and communications of the enemy.” The command liked the idea. And soon the Kuban special purpose cavalry detachment began operations behind the front line.
This is where the darling of a free Cossack, who missed the desperate battles, unfolded! Having formed his detachment from the same desperate fellows as he, Shkuro ordered his fighters to attach a wolf's tail to black Kubankas, and to draw a grinning wolf's mouth on the banner of the detachment.
"Wolf Hundred" from the first raids began to massively exterminate the German infantry. And a lot of time passed before the Germans, having recovered from the panic horror into which they came from the raids of the Shkuro detachment, learned to counteract them.
Cossack cavalrymen achieved particular success on the fronts of opposition to the Ottomans (Turks). It was there that the main cavalry forces were thrown by the Russian military command at a time when the fate of the entire military campaign was at stake - in February 1917. The Shkuro detachment, which joined the vanguard of the Caucasian Cavalry Corps, fought heroically in battles where the Russian army won major victories over the Ottoman Empire.
2. White stone
Where Colonel Shkuro wandered and what he did from the end of hostilities at the front until the spring of 1918 - historians, apparently, are not interested in that. He emerged from the chaos of the outbreak of the civil war, finding himself in Krasnodar, where the commander-in-chief of the newly-made Kuban-Black Sea Soviet Republic, Alexander Avtonomov (for some reason, an active participant in the civil war little known to us) formed regular units of the Red Army from the Kuban and Don stanitsa. 32-year-old Alexander Grigorievich ended up in the camp of the Bolsheviks not for ideological reasons. As a patriot of Russia, he could not come to terms with the invasion of the country by German divisions, which in a strange way did not want to leave the North Caucasus. And for some time he again began to "blunt checkers on German heads." But not for long.
Who can figure it out now: either a large part of the Cossacks could not accept the ideology of Bolshevism, or the Bolsheviks were too “revolutionary”, but soon those irreconcilable ones broke away from the combat formations of the Red Army and joined the “white movement”.
It was then that something inexplicable happened: without waiting for the arrival of Denikin's Volunteer Army in the Kuban, the former centurion Shkuro announced the creation of the Southern Kuban Army, into which all the fighting Cossacks, restless and languishing from idleness, immediately begin to join. It is curious that at the time of that ambitious announcement, the "army" consisted of ... 14 people (along with their commander). Why - Shkuro? Why on earth - some (albeit combat) colonel? But the army grew like a snowball. And soon she boldly declared herself, knocking out the Red Army from Kislovodsk.
The worried leadership of the Kuban-Black Sea Soviet Republic urgently began to gather serious forces to confront Shkuro. But, without waiting for their formation, the newly appeared Cossack army comes forward and in the early summer of 1918 enters Stavropol in triumph.
Shkuro meets Denikin already, as an equal with an equal. And, nevertheless, he unconditionally passes to him, along with his entire army, into submission. And not in vain. After a short time, he was given command first of a cavalry division, then a corps, and by the end of 1919, Shkuro became the commander of the Kuban Army (one of the main components of the Armed Forces of the White Guard South of Russia) with the rank of lieutenant general. And this is at the age of 34!
The civil war in the south of Russia was reflected in historical documents as a cruel and bloody massacre, where tens and hundreds of thousands of soldiers died, as they understood - "for the liberation of the Motherland from enemies." Only the concept in this word "enemies" they invested - each of his own.
General Shkuro also contributed greatly to the temporary successes of the White Guards. With his comrades-in-arms, he cruelly played tricks both in the Kuban and on the Don. And only with the transfer of the red cavalry of Budyonny to fight him from Voronezh were Denikin's men put to flight. In the Crimea, Denikin himself left for Europe, transferring command to General Wrangel. Ran, taking advantage of the moment, and other white senior officers. Sneaked away to Europe and Shkuro. But he didn’t just run away, but as befits a self-respecting Cossack officer, he departed as ... a diplomatic representative from the Armed Forces of the South of Russia.
3. White nostalgia with a brown tint
It would be possible to put an end to the story about one of the frequently mentioned characters of the civil war. We have long been sympathetic to the ideological errors of those White Guard officers who remained true patriots of their Motherland until the end of their lives. To some extent, we are even ready to forgive Kolchak for his cruelty.
However, are we not mistaken in believing that there were no right and wrong in the civil war?
So in the history of the White Guard General Shkuro, fate decreed that all of his human essence came out as soon as the opportunity arose to return to his homeland.
... White officers who ended up in exile, those who did not want to continue the armed struggle against Soviet Russia, settled down whoever they could - journalists, drivers, porters in hotels. The hereditary nobleman and Cossack general considered it below his dignity to indulge in such activities. In addition, the only thing he knew how to do well in this life was to stay in the saddle and wield a saber. And Shkuro went to work ... as a circus artist. The troupe he put together from former Cossack colleagues toured Europe for several years with unfailing success. In the circus arena, he was caught by the news of the outbreak of World War II.
So was the White Guard Cossacks really a stronghold of the struggle to save the Motherland from enemies? Judge for yourself. Already in the summer of 1942, the Cossack regiments "Platov" (17th Army), "Jungshults" (1st Tank Group), 1st Life Guards Atamansky, 3rd Donskoy, 4 fought on the side of the Germans on the Soviet-German front th and 5th Kuban, 6th and 7th Consolidated Cossacks, later consolidated into the 1st Cavalry Division under the command of General Helmut von Panwitz. By March 1943, the Wehrmacht included 20 Cossack cavalry regiments with a total of 25,000 sabers and bayonets.
And in 1943, the Directorate for Cossack Affairs of the Eastern Ministry of the Third Reich, created at the initiative of Himmler, was entrusted by the German military command to head the former ataman of the All-Great Don Army, General Krasnov. Well, he called his deputy (responsible for preparing reserves for the Cossack units) his Kuban comrade, General Shkuro, as his deputy. So what? Having abandoned his circus exercises, the former “fighter for the Fatherland” immediately rushed to take part in the shameful “crusade against Russia” for the former Russian. He was kindly treated by the German military command, having received the rank of SS Gruppenführer, which was equivalent to an army lieutenant general.
On January 17, 1947, on the last pages of the Pravda and Izvestia newspapers, a short message was published by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, which “sentenced German intelligence agents, former leaders of the armed White Guard units during the Civil War, Ataman Krasnov P.N., generals Belaya Army Shkuro A.G., Prince Sultan Kilych-Girey, Krasnov S.N., Domanova T.I. and General of the German Army SS von Panwitz to death by hanging. The sentence has been carried out." Only one P. N. Krasnov was shot because of his age.
No, the Cossack Shkuro himself did not cause much harm to our Motherland. Once in the service of the German SS unit, at first he carried out his official duties too formally, and then he completely took to drink. Apparently, only out of respect for his past merits, the Germans tolerated all the eccentricities of the former Cossack cavalryman.
Well, the fact that the Motherland deservedly appreciated the "exploits" of the fugitive general - this, one must understand, is a fair assessment of his entire rebellious life.
Photo by TIME
Here is such an interesting article dedicated to the Cossacks fighting on the side of the DPR appeared on the TIME website and then was translated and posted on several Russian sites. Rumors about the military organization of the Kuban Cossacks called "Wolf Hundred" have been circulating for a long time, but only now they are receiving sufficient confirmation, although much remains closed and incomprehensible to the average layman.
For weeks, the Kyiv authorities and their allies in the US and the EU have been trying to find convincing evidence of a Russian presence in Ukraine. And now, independently of each other, 4 fighters of the "Wolf Hundred" (a Cossack detachment serving on the side of the rebels) admitted that they were from the Kuban.
However, it is not easy to prove their connection with the Kremlin - the fighters insist that they are volunteers, driven by the ideals of the Cossack brotherhood. These are irregular units, and they do not need orders from the army command or the permission of parliament. They obtained most of their weapons during the seizure of arsenals located in the buildings of the Ukrainian police and security services. 
Photo: Maxim Dondyuk
According to TIME correspondents, there are at least ten people in the detachment, although the number is changing with the arrival of new volunteers from the eastern Ukrainian cities held by the activists. Reinforcements also come from the ranks of the Russian Cossacks, who penetrate the border without much difficulty.
The fighters of the "Wolf Hundred" claim that they arrived to fight the fascists who seized power in Ukraine.
According to Ponomarev, the Wolf Hundred was created in the 1990s, long before Putin included the Cossacks in the Russian Armed Forces: Empire. We have been doing this for almost 20 years, as part of various military units, but always as the Wolf Hundred.
The history of the detachment is rooted in the events of a century ago. It was founded in 1915 by the Kuban Cossack Yesaul Andrey Shkuro. During the First World War, this detachment became famous as the most cruel in the Russian Imperial Army. He was easily recognizable by the black banner with the wolf's head. Papakhas were made from wolfskin rather than traditional sheepskin; wolf tails were attached to the hoods. The unit was known for its intimidating war cry, imitating the wolf's howl. During the First World War, he mainly operated in the south of Russia, today's Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.
However, then the detachment lasted only 5 years from the moment of its foundation. After the October Revolution of 1917, a civil war broke out in the country. Having joined the Whites, Shkuro, at that time already in the rank of lieutenant general, contributed to the transformation of the Kuban into one of the most recalcitrant centers of resistance to the Reds. And yet, by 1920, the Wolf Hundred was defeated. Shkuro with other officers departed for Europe.
The Soviet government launched large-scale persecution of the Cossacks. Their formations were declared remnants of tsarism and disbanded, thousands of Cossack commanders were killed or imprisoned. And only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cossacks came to life with the support of the state. In 2005, Putin signed a law restoring the tradition of serving Cossacks in the Russian armed forces.
Just as in the tsarist era, the regular Cossack units are subordinate to the supreme commander of Russia. Moscow has a new method of warfare - the use of paramilitary nationalist groups acting in the interests of the Russian authorities. Both in the Georgian war of 2008 and in the March events in Crimea, Cossack detachments fought alongside the Russian army. But it seems that now for the first time they act not just as auxiliary forces.
That's just the figure of the founder of the "Wolf Hundred" Shkuro, upon closer examination, is not so unambiguous, it is enough to say that he participated in the Second World War with the rank of lieutenant general of the SS troops.
ZY Once in Nice, a short man dressed in a Turkish costume and a turban approached me while I was working (the film “A Thousand and One Nights” was filmed).
— Do you recognize me? - he asked.
Even if it were my own brother, then, of course, in such an outfit, I still would not recognize him.
- No, sorry.
- I'm Shkuro. General Shkuro. Remember?…
<…>The exotic make-up of an oriental nobleman hid my expression.
“You have to be able to lose too!…” he drawled as if justifying himself, looking somewhere into space.
The director's whistle interrupted our conversation. I abruptly turned around and went to the "plateau". Illumination lamps flashed with a dead white light, almost invisible in the light of the sun ... Swarthy slaves were already carrying me on a stretcher.
“From prime ministers to extras! I thought. “From formidable generals to fake soldiers of the cinema! ... Truly, fate plays with a man.”
— Alexander Vertinsky. Dear long ... - Moscow: Pravda, 1990 - 576 pages
For the head of Andrei Shkuro in World War I, the Germans gave 60 thousand, his "Wolf Hundred" was the first Russian special forces. During the Civil War, world newspapers wrote about the "white partisan". During World War II, General Shkuro collaborated with the Nazis.
wolf hundred
During the First World War, Shkuro became famous for the creation of a special-purpose cavalry detachment, called the Wolf Hundred. It must be said that the use of wolf symbols was not the invention of Andrei Grigorievich. The first "wolves" were the 2nd hundred of the 2nd Argun regiment of Transbaikal Cossacks. When attacking with lava, the squad even used a characteristic wolf howl, which contributed to the demoralization of the enemy. For the first time this type of psychic attack was used during the Chinese campaign of 1900-1901.
In the middle of 1915, Colonel Shkuro turned to the command of the Russian army with the initiative to create a special detachment that could carry out sabotage operations behind enemy lines. The idea was greeted coolly, but Shkuro "broke through" it, after which he formed the Kuban Special Purpose Cavalry Regiment. As a symbolism, a black banner with a wolf's head was adopted, for which the detachment received its unofficial name.
The activities of the "Wolf Hundred" were extremely effective. In the very first combat exit, the "wolves" destroyed one and a half thousand Germans. The detachment committed sabotage (blew up and destroyed bridges, divisional and regimental headquarters), seized weapons and prisoners. During a sudden raid on the village of Nobel, where the headquarters of the German infantry division was located, Shkuro managed to capture its commander and several officers. After that, he became “enemy No. 1” for the Germans, and a cash reward of 60 thousand rubles was appointed for his head. Of course, this could not stop Shkuro. His "special forces" continued to annoy the enemy - from the Minsk region to the Southern Carpathians.
Despite such obvious successes of the Wolf Hundred, the attitude towards it was ambiguous. Wrangel was an ardent opponent of Shkuro's methods. He was critical of Shkuro's illustrious special unit: “... With a few exceptions, it was mainly the worst elements of the officers who were burdened by service in their native units. Detachment of Colonel Shkuro, led by his chief, operating in the area of the XVIII Corps<…>for the most part he hung out in the rear, got drunk and robbed, until, finally, at the insistence of the corps commander Krymov, he was recalled from the corps section.
Order bearer
Shkuro did not accept the revolution. His “Wolf Hundred” caught red agitators and propagandists and forced them to sing “God Save the Tsar” under whips. The lack of weapons and ammunition also determined the methods of the detachment's struggle - sabotage and subversion. This bore fruit - a hundred Shkuro managed to successfully resist the regular units of the Red Army, surpassing it by 20-30 times.
Shkuro's popularity grew. In July 1918, he took Stavropol, occupied by the Reds, thereby saving the townspeople sentenced to death by the Cheka from certain death.
Having united with the Volunteer Army of General Denikin, Shkuro becomes the division commander. In January 1919, Shkuro's division liberated the upper reaches of the Kuban from the Reds and took Vladikavkaz - Shkuro received the rank of major general.
The popularity of Andrei Grigorievich was stunning. An armored train and a tank were even named after him. Shkuro also had international fame - the head of the British military mission personally presented the Major General with the highest royal award of Great Britain - the Order of the Bath, 1st degree. Shkuro was called a folk hero and a “white partisan” in the pages of newspapers in Great Britain, France and Russia, and biographies of the young general were published.
rail war
Shkuro was known for his innovative methods of warfare at the time. In preparation for the campaign against Moscow, he suggested that Denikin send sabotage detachments to the rear of the Reds, which could wage a subversive guerrilla "rail" war - blow up communication points and railway stations, thereby interrupting communication between headquarters.
If Shkuro's plan had been approved, the fate of the Moscow campaign could have been completely different. However, Denikin was against it. The French and British were also against it. The honor of taking Moscow was to belong to the officer regiments of the White Army, and not to partisan detachments.
What the Whites abandoned was successfully used by the Red Army in Operation Bagration in the Great Patriotic War, when saboteurs and partisan detachments paralyzed the maneuver of the tank divisions of the Army Group Center, completely disrupting the communications of the Germans.
From generals to circus performers
Shkuro never accumulated wealth. In exile, he found himself almost without a livelihood. In order to somehow make ends meet, the illustrious general organized his own group of Cossack horse riding, he himself performed in the circus. Andrey Grigoryevich's ambitiousness worked here too - his group became the best in Europe, gained world fame. The “white partisan” was also filmed in silent films, but one could not even dream of the former glory. In his memoirs, Alexander Vertinsky, who accidentally met with Shkuro in Nice, commented on this meeting as follows: “From prime ministers to extras! I thought. “From formidable generals to fake soldiers of the cinema! ... Truly, fate plays with a man.”
End
The topic of Shkuro's cooperation with the Nazis remains the hottest to this day. The general turned to the Germans back in June 1941, offering assistance in the formation of Cossack divisions as part of the Wehrmacht and the restoration of the Cossack Republic on the Don and Kuban. After the cruel decossackization, he considered Stalin his personal enemy. Hitler did not like the idea of Shkuro, but Shkuro was nevertheless appointed head of the Cossack reserve under the Directorate of Cossack Troops. Shkuro creates a Cossack division on the territory of Poland, but after the assassination attempt on Hitler, trust in him disappears completely, the Main Directorate of the Cossack troops falls under the personal control of Himmler.
In June 1945, the general, along with 70 thousand Cossacks, was transferred by the British to the Soviet Union. January 17, 1947 Shkuro was hanged.
In the morning the first snow fell and it got noticeably colder. The trees that had shed their yellowed foliage stood washed in white, ready for the long winter ordeal ahead. The roadways were covered with a thin crust of ice, which broke and cracked under the hooves of the horses and the wheels of the carts. Soon winter will come into its own, cover the ground and trees with a thick coat of snow, freeze roads, freeze rivers and lakes, and chill life out of the weak and desperate.
Sergei Odintsov got up at dawn, when the camp was still sleeping. Only the sentinels near the fires wandered from side to side, now and then jumping and stamping, hoping to keep warm. Cold, damn it. Exhaling, Sergei looked at the cloud of steam that rose from his mouth, chilly rubbed his frozen shoulders, covered with a simple linen shirt, with his hands, and returned to the camp tent.
Near the bed, on a wooden step, stood a jug of well water. From the night I was terribly thirsty. Seryoga drained the jug in three gulps, wiped his wet mustache with his sleeve, and returned the jug to its place.
What to do now? Get on the bed, continue the dream. He still has a couple of hours at his disposal. Or put on warm clothes, saddle a horse and ride around the neighborhood with a breeze.
The last few weeks have been quiet and peaceful. The soldiers of Vestlavt trampled foreign land and did not meet resistance from the owners. One got the impression that Prince Borkich either got scared and retreated to the capital itself to give a decisive battle there, or was preparing some kind of cunning trap into which he lures the enemy army with his appeasability. Odintsov did not like all this. He did not like calmness. They usually happen before a storm, but there is nowhere to go.
Today in the afternoon, his hundred, popularly called Wolf, should withdraw from their homes along with three other hundreds and go south, to join the main forces of Vestlavt, in order to massively strike at Vysehrad, the capital of the Principality of Borkich.
Seryoga went up to the barely smoldering hearth, picked up the poker and stirred the coals. I didn’t want to ride in the cold, I confess, and I didn’t want to sleep either. Over the past few days, he slept in reserve. At such moments, Odintsov yearned for a good book that would help kill free time, disperse boredom. He had one book. Composition by Cornelius Knatz, dedicated to the Iron Lands, a mysterious area closed from outsiders, where magicians lived, priests of the technogenic world. So they were christened Sergey in due time.
For all the seeming Middle Ages, the world into which Sergey Odintsov, a simple Russian merchant, was thrown, was not at all so simple. It unthinkably combined heavy steel swords, locks, arrow throwers and firearms. The monopoly on the manufacture of complex technical phenomena, obviously failed from the distant future, belonged to a closed caste of magicians. Most of these high-browed wise men lived in the Iron Lands, but there were also those who traveled around the patchwork states, trading products right and left.
Cornelius Knatz's book was about the Iron Lands, only it was written in such ponderous language that after reading a couple of pages it was tempting to pour yourself a glass of wine, then another. And there is no time for a book...
Only here to drink in the morning is at least a bad form. Yes, it didn't pull at all.
Seryoga was about to return to the bed, wrap himself in a blanket and try to sleep. If it doesn’t work out, then remember your homeland, the distant twenty-first century. In dashing days, when battles gave way to battles, the homeland was not remembered. Not before. But in the hours of desperate boredom, damned nostalgia climbed in his throat, reminding Seryoga that, in essence, he was a stranger in this world. True, that bad feeling passed as soon as the road or a new battle called him.
And now the canopy of the tent leaned back and a gray shadow slipped inside without asking. Odintsov reached for the sword standing at the head, but withdrew his hand. Lech Shustrik, a faithful friend who accompanied him from the first steps in this world, stood on the threshold.
“I don't seem to interfere.
- What do you want? Seryoga asked sullenly and unfriendly.
Shustrik felt that the commander was not in a good mood, and decided not to experiment with jokes, so he answered simply:
- An enemy detachment was spotted a few versts from here. A couple of dozen fighters. What they are doing here is unclear. Part of the scouts returned, the rest remained to track the movement of the enemy. What shall we do, Wolf?
Odintsov started up. It seems that this morning promised to be at least interesting. The blood boiled in my veins, the excitement of hunting woke up. The previous melancholy is forgotten. And now he is already pulling his pants, giving orders on the go.
– Raise tenants Dorin and Chernous. Let's go for a drive around the area. Their guys will accompany me. You never know what. We need to find out where the enemy squad came from. Just please don't make too much noise.
- Extra noise, is it like you mixed up the washerwoman's basins with camping drums during your escape from the inn? Lech Shustrik quipped and jumped out.
Seryoga froze with a boot in his hand. Memories came. It seems like it was so long ago and recently. Just a mere six months ago, he was the head of retail sales at a large food trading company. Five days from call to call at work, meetings, negotiations, sales control, employee motivation, logistics. Friday evening, popularly referred to as the "tapnitsa", is a gathering in a bar with friends until the very night. Weekends in an endless attempt to sleep. And a new work week. Work not in order to live, but live in order to work. For only one month a year, he was left to himself and could live as he wanted, without regard to the business schedule. Not that Seryoga complained and something did not suit him. He lived better than many of his peers, and his life was, albeit boring, but stable. Isn't that what people are looking for in a world that is constantly changing.
Everything changed overnight when he agreed with his family to go out of town for mushrooms and berries. Could he have thought then how much his life would change. Yes, and in a terrible dream could not foresee. The walk ended in a failure in another world, where he was a nobody and there was no way to call him. Where even for the right to be free had to be fought.
His journey in the new world began with a prison cell, where he met Lech Shustrik. It just so happened that their fates were tightly connected from the very first days of their acquaintance. Together they ended up in slavery to Prince Borkich, only they tried on different roles. Lech Shustrik was sent to clean up manure after livestock. Sergei Odintsov was destined to become a gladiator slave. In the arena, he was nicknamed the Wolf. Together they fled from the undermountain world, accompanied by a detachment of slaves like them. They were hunted down. Many adventures fell to their lot until they ended up in the capital of the Principality of Vestlavt, Krasnograd, where they enlisted in the army. So Sergei Odintsov became the commander of the Wolf Detachment. Then I did not have time to look back, as I ended up on the battlefields. Just as swiftly, from a simple foreman, he rose to a centurion. And now his thugs were called the Wolf Hundred, and the governors consulted with him.
It seemed that the world of a simple merchant and centurion Volk was separated by thousands of kilometers and liters of shed blood, but in reality it was only some six months. Only here in these half a year the whole human life was located.
Seryoga shook his head, banishing the memories.
Leather pants and a jacket were hidden by metal armor, the chest plate of which was decorated with the bared mouth of a wolf, the work of Cervian blacksmiths. Cervia is a small village in the vicinity of Derry Castle, for the capture of which Odintsov received the title of centurion and the right to his own banner. Sergey threw a warm, fur-lined cloak over his shoulders. Helmet covered his head. Hooking his sword to his belt, he threw back the flap of the tent and stepped out into the street.
December 28th, 2011Among the flags and symbols that were traditionally used by Russian soldiers and personified military prowess and contempt for death, a special place is occupied by the black banner and the image of Adam's head ("totenkopf"). Earlier we talked about the fact that the Russian national flag - the white-blue-red tricolor - was vilely stolen by yesterday's leaders of the Central Committee of the CPSU of the USSR, who now call themselves "democrats". The same story with black flags, which have a deep and ancient Russian history. But in our time they were communized by other opponents of national Russia and the revival of the Russian racial aristocracy - all kinds of anarchists. It must be said that the beginning of this trend was laid by their spiritual inspirers - Father Makhno and the Kronstadt sailors, who also used "pirate" symbols. Where they got it from will be discussed below. Without going into an analysis of the absolutely idiotic ideas of the anarchists of the early 20th century, we will only note how these accomplices of the Judeo-Bolsheviks ended up. The sailors of Kronstadt, one of the most ardent and bloody establishers of "Soviet power", having brought the blank, Bronstein and Sverdlov to power, having understood what this "power of the proletariat" is, in 1921 raised the anti-Bolshevik Kronstadt uprising, about which in this . The uprising of the Kronstadt sailors was mercilessly suppressed by the Red Army, and Kronstadt was purged of the inhabitants as potential "counter-revolutionaries". The survivors of Kronstadt on the ice went to Finland, the country where the local White Guards, led by the former tsarist general Mannerheim, that is, "bourgeois" in the terminology of the revolutionary sailor, won. "Bourgeois and White Guards" accepted the refugees, forgave their yesterday's persecutors and representatives of the Russian emigration, helping them to arrange a normal life in a normal country, even if it was no longer part of the Russian Empire.
An active accomplice of the red gang, old man Makhno, when he no longer needed armor and blanks, was also defeated by an army of loyal Leninists along with his gangs of bezpredelshchikov and fled to bourgeois France, where he quietly died of tuberculosis in poverty and oblivion. But General Wrangel offered him an alliance against the Reds. Offered...
I will not talk about the symbol of the Dead Head here now. There is a detailed article on this subject. The head of Adam as a symbol of the Orthodox army.
But let's dwell on the Black Banners in detail.
For the first time, a black banner with the head of Adam appeared in the Russian army at the beginning of the 19th century in the parts of the formidable ataman - the conqueror of the Caucasus, Yakov Petrovich Baklanov. It was a real warrior, a two-meter Cossack, who cut the enemy to the waist with a saber. In 1851, a parcel arrived in the regiment addressed to Baklanov, which contained a large piece of black fabric with the image of a “dead head” and an inscription from the “Symbol of Faith”: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century. Amen". The sender was not specified, but it is believed that the fabric was embroidered by the hands of the nuns of the Starocherkassk nunnery. Ataman Baklanov turned the gift into the banner of his regiment.
The highlanders experienced superstitious horror from the Baklan symbol. One of the eyewitnesses wrote: “Wherever the enemy saw this terrible banner, flying high in the hands of a Don giant, like a shadow following his commander, the monstrous image of Baklanov appeared there, and inseparable from her inevitable defeat and death to anyone who fell on way."
The 17th Don Cossack Regiment of General Baklanov had the same flag, assigned to it by PVV No. 285 of 1909.
At the height of the Great (First World) War, the symbol of the Dead Head, only slightly changed (bones are replaced with swords), is planned to be introduced in military units. And the most disciplined units under the command of the Russian patriot, the future hero of the white movement, Lavr Georgievich Kornilov, become the pioneers here. But, as we know, for Russia the Great War turned into a civil war and a new military symbol became a direct attribute of one of the best parts of the White movement - the "Kornilovites". As well as headdresses - "heroes", designed and sewn for the Russian army, were actively used by their red opponents, called "budenovka".
The Kornilov banner, like the banners of other shock detachments, or, as they were also called, "death battalions", had not a pure black color, but equally combined red and black stripes. This color scheme was also subsequently stolen and appropriated by anarcho-communists, but this will be discussed in another part.
In the middle of autumn 1915, a report from Yesaul Shkuro appeared on the table of the commander of the Southwestern Front with a proposal to “detach him with a party of Cossacks to torment the rear and communications of the enemy.” The command liked the idea and soon the "Kuban Special Purpose Cavalry Detachment" was formed from the Cossacks of the KKV - a special unit for conducting sabotage and reconnaissance operations, the prototype of modern special forces. Having formed it from the most desperate rogue heads, each of which was a match for his commander, captain Shkuro personally introduced unusual distinguishing signs for the detachment: a wolf tail was attached to the black cubans of his Cossacks, and a grinning wolf's mouth flaunted on the self-established black detachment banner. Therefore, the unofficial name - "Wolf Hundred" - was immediately assigned to the "Kuban Special Purpose ...". Shkuro's detachment made raids on enemy rear lines, blew up bridges, artillery depots, smashed carts. This detachment was widely known at the front. The Germans valued Shkuro's head at 60,000 rubles.
The banner of the "Wolf Hundred" was personally designed by A.G. Shkuro and was a black field with an image of a turned in profile, grinning white wolf's head, with bloodshot eyes and bared white fangs. This banner was worn on a staff, decorated with several wolf tails and looked like an old Cossack bunchuk.
- "Wolves skins" at the front
- Banner of the Fourth Hundred Wolf Regiment
"Wolf Hundreds" reappear already on the Eastern Front of World War II in early 1944. The First Hundred was formed on December 26, 1943. Let it frighten them in our days of struggle with them ... "(" Cossack Lava ". 1944, October 12, No. 29). The second Wolf Hundred was formed in February 1944 and sent to France. The third received the honorary name "Wolf Hundred" for the January battles near Rovno. The banners are black with a white wolf head.
- Cossacks of the 6th Terek Regiment with the banner of the "Wolf Hundred" are preparing to meet General Shkuro. 1944
Annenkov during the civil war was one of the most popular leaders of the white armies in Siberia. Many were impressed by the fact that Boris Vladimirovich despised gambling, did not smoke or drink, was not involved in scandalous love affairs. In the division of Annenkov, the use of alcohol was prohibited. Noticed in addiction to alcohol for a long time in the ranks of his "black hussars" did not stay.
Baron A.P. Budberg, director of the War Department. Kolchak in Omsk, who rarely spoke well of someone and especially did not like the Siberian "atamanism", nevertheless wrote about Annenkov in his "Diary of a White Guard" as follows: " This ataman is a rare exception among other Siberian varieties of this title; iron discipline is established in his detachment, the units are well trained and carry out heavy military service, and the ataman himself is a model of courage, duty and the soldier's simplicity of life. His relations with the inhabitants are such that even all the Kirghiz he plundered declared that in the region of the Annenkov district they were paid for everything and that they had no complaints against the Annenkov troops ... Information about the organization of the Annenkov rear and supply gives full reason to think that this the ataman has great inclinations of a good organizer and original military talent, worthy of being promoted to a responsible position".
- Annenkov partisans with their banners
- Badge of the 2nd squadron of the Cossack regiment of Jungshulz
The Cossack Cavalry Regiment "Jungshults", formed in the summer of 1942 as part of the 1st Panzer Army of the Wehrmacht, bore the name of its commander, Lieutenant Colonel I. von Jungshultz.
Beginning in September 1942, von Jungschulz's cavalry regiment operated on the left flank of the 1st Panzer Army, taking an active part in the battles against the Soviet cavalry, which pretty much annoyed the German troops north of the Terek River. This struggle became especially intense in October, when the 287th special forces unit of General Felmi (also known as Corps F), specially formed to wage war in the steppes and deserts, arrived at the front. However, the local area was more suitable for cavalry than for motorized units, and the Cossack regiment played a very prominent role in this struggle.
Providing a junction between parts of the Felmi formation and the 40th tank corps of General Geyer von Schweppenburg, the Cossack squadrons took an active part in the offensive on October 17-19, during which they suffered heavy losses and were thrown back to the east of the 4th Guards Kuban Cossack Cavalry Corps of General I.Ya.Kirichenko. On October 30, acting as part of the 40th Panzer Corps, the regiment of Jungshulz repelled attempts by the Soviet cavalry to break through in the direction of Achikulak. As reported in a report to the headquarters of the 1st Panzer Army dated November 2, 1942, “all units held up well under enemy artillery fire and showed their bearing and military spirit.”
The Cossacks were especially successful against the Soviet troops, who broke through on November 30 to the rear of the Mozdok group of Germans. While the motorized units of the Felmi formation tied up the enemy from the front, the Cossacks utterly defeated the Soviet cavalry regiment with a swift blow from the flank. After the order of the commander of the 1st Panzer Army on a general retreat, given on January 2, 1943, the Yungshults regiment retreated towards the Egorlykskaya station until it joined units of the 4th Panzer Army of the Wehrmacht.
- Cossacks of Jungshulz on the march
The Black Flag has not been forgotten even today, among those who rightfully use it as a symbol of valor, fearlessness and the continuation of the fight against world evil.
- Russian nationalists on the march in memory of Dmitry Borovikov, Ingria
