The psychic attack of the Kappelites, Anka the machine-gunner, the battle plan on potatoes, death in the Ural River ... The film "Chapaev" introduced the figure of the heroic divisional commander into our culture, and legends and anecdotes were not slow to appear. "Around the World" figured out if it's true that ...

Did Anka have a real prototype

Anna in 1919 was with her husband, a commissar in the Chapaev division: she was in charge of cultural and educational work, staged performances. However, Furmanov soon began to be jealous of his wife for Chapaev, and not without reason. Relations between the political worker and the commander deteriorated, it came to complaints “upstairs”, and Furmanov was soon transferred to Turkestan. Later, the commissioner saw a positive side in the scandal. The recall from the division, Furmanov noted in his diary, saved his life, because otherwise the writer would probably have died in the same year along with Chapaev near Lbischensk.

Maria Popova, nurse-machine gunner

The prototype of Anka is also considered the nurse of the Chapaev division Maria Popova, the publication of which caught the eye of one of the directors of the film. During the battle, Maria crawled up to the seriously wounded machine gunner, and he, pointing a gun at the frightened girl, forced her to take the place of the killed partner and shoot from the maxim at the enemy.

The death of the divisional commander

Related jokes

In the Museum of the Revolution, the guide demonstrates the skeleton of Chapaev.
“And what is that little skeleton next to him?” they ask him.
- This is Chapaev in childhood.

Vasily Ivanovich comes to Anka, but she does not open. He kicks the door in. He sees naked Anka.
Why aren't you dressed? I gave you so many different dresses! Here, in the closet: pink, green, yellow, red - hello, Petka, - blue ...

Muller calls Stirlitz and asks suspiciously:
- Stirlitz, don't you think that we have already met somewhere?
- Maybe in the fortieth in Poland, gruppenführer?
— No, Stirlitz...
“Maybe in 1936 in Spain, Gruppenfuehrer?”
— No, Stirlitz...
- Maybe...
— Petka?!
- Vasily Ivanovich, so it's you!

"Vasily Ivanovich, the whites are in the forest!"
- Not the time, Petka, to pick mushrooms.

The whites surrounded the reds. Chapaev hid in a barrel. Leads Petka's convoy past the barrel:
"Vasily Ivanovich! Get out - we've been betrayed." And kicks the barrel with his foot.

I have been watching “Chapaev” for more than a year and I still hope: maybe it will swim? ..

- Well, you, Vasily Ivanovich, and oak!
— Yes, Petka, I am mighty!

Photo: RIA Novosti (x3), Alexey Beloborodov (CC-BY-SA), Photoxpress, RIA Novosti Nikolai Simakov, Igor Ageenko / TASS Newsreel, Diomedia, iStock, Igor Stomakhin / Photoxpress, Igor Sokolov / Lori Photobank

The truth about the "psychic attacks" of the Whites

The publication of a significantly supplemented and revised edition dedicated to General V.O. Kappel (Kappel and Kappelians / ed. and comp. R.G. Gagkuev. M., 2007), in the White Warriors series, is caused by a number of reasons.

The main one is that at the beginning of this year the ashes of the commander returned to their homeland and on September 1 a monument was erected on his grave in the Donskoy Monastery. Finally, the first edition of the book, which appeared in 2003, has long been sold out. Since that time, historians specializing in the study of the Civil War in Russia have managed to learn a lot about the general. This information is supplemented by previously unpublished documents.
Against the general cruel background of the fratricidal Civil War, Kappel was distinguished by the fact that he tried not to shed the blood of his compatriots unnecessarily. Now, on the days of the 90th anniversary of the creation of the Volunteer Army, I would like to talk about the military path of the general and his subordinates.
Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel was born on March 16, 1883 in the family of a native of Sweden, a retired officer and a hereditary nobleman. After graduating from the Second Cadet Corps, Kappel entered the Nikolaev Cavalry School, which he graduated with honors in 1906. He was promoted to cornet, then to lieutenant. In 1908, as reported in the documents, Lieutenant Kappel had “very good morals, an excellent family man. Loved by comrades... Developed and very capable... Has a great ability to instill in people the spirit of energy and a desire for service... endures all the difficulties of camp life courageously. He is not subject to gambling, drinking alcohol and revelry.
Then there was the Academy of the General Staff, which Kappel graduated with the first category. After the outbreak of the First World War, he participated in the battles, from the middle of 1916 he was on the Southwestern Front. By October 1917, he was a lieutenant colonel, awarded many military orders.

At first, Kappel served in the headquarters of the Volga Military District, but after the start of armed uprisings against the Bolsheviks, he joined the counter-revolutionary-minded officers.

Although he was aware of the shortcomings of the old system, but unlike many other leaders of the White movement, in his views he was a monarchist and was not ashamed of it.
On the night of June 8, 1918, Soviet power in Samara was overthrown. The Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) announced the creation of new authorities. Kappel's soldiers fought against the 1st Army under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky, participated in the capture of Kazan.
However, fate soon changed them. The Reds occupied Simbirsk, then Ufa. Fierce battles followed with the 25th division under the command of V.I. Chapaev, which found their artistic reflection in the famous film "Chapaev" (a separate article is devoted to him in the book). The author of the article is E.V. Volkov rightly notes that in the film, directors and actors, despite the influence of the era, tried to avoid an unambiguously negative interpretation of the image of the Kappelites. According to the creators of the film, the famous "psychic attack", memorable to the audience, "was designed to demonstrate the" clash of two wills, two forces in the Civil War. In reality, “such attacks took place as follows,” writes Volkov, “the battalions, advancing, went to full height without stopping. But not in columns, as in the film, but in a chain.

Along the way, those who were out of action were immediately replaced by other fighters from the reserve battalion, following behind along with the orderlies ... the enemy had the impression of the invulnerability of the approaching whites, which brought confusion and panic into his ranks.

By the way, in a real battle, when the Kappelites used a kind of “psychic attack” against the Chapaevs, the division commander himself did not participate, as he was wounded.
After the Kolchakites left Omsk and Novo-Nikolaevsk, Kappel was appointed commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front. A.V. Kolchak accepted his plan to withdraw the armies beyond the Yenisei. The exodus has begun. Most of the book is dedicated to the people who fought and died next to the general.
Near Krasnoyarsk, the remnants of the army, due to the transition of one of the brigades to the side of the Reds, were surrounded. Many were captured or surrendered voluntarily. Among those who remained with the general, believed him, there were many civilians who also had a difficult path ahead. Frost, skirmishes with the enemy, fear of death, uncertainty and a huge number of typhoid patients. F. Puchkov, whose memoirs were published in the book, wrote about this: “I had to put the sick three or four on one sled, tie and entrust the will of God and the supervision of one of the comrades.”
Other testimonies of those days have also been preserved: “With the fall of Omsk, a tragedy began along the entire great Siberian railway line, which, in its horrors, stands out even on the common bloody front of the Russian revolution. Echelons with refugees and hospital trains stretched out in a long ribbon between Omsk and Novo-Nikolaevsk, from which the locomotives were forcibly taken away by the Czechs, driven by them to their sites. The wagons stood silently on the rails - sarcophagi with a terrible load dying in them from hunger and cold. The main, if not the only, culprit of this indescribable horror was the Czechs. The famous poet of the Russian Diaspora, Arseny Nesmelov, described the tragedy of the Whites in Siberia in verse:
Echelons, echelons, echelons, -
You can't go far along the rails! ..
Frozen red wagons
Along the entire Siberian route ...
Catch up, overtake, press,
Enemies do not give us rest,
And a silver-gray blizzard
Sleeps us in the middle of the taiga ... In Nizhneudinsk, the train A.V. Kolchak was detained by the Czechs, who gave the admiral to the Irkutsk Revolutionary Committee.

Kappel decides to organize a campaign against Irkutsk and release the former Supreme Ruler of Russia.

But soon Kolchak was shot. Feeling responsible for his subordinates, Kappel began crossing the Kan River. The ice that bound the rivers was fragile, and during the transition, Kappel fell into a polynya. Despite the illness and fever, he continued to walk along with everyone. When the whites reached the dwelling, the doctor amputated the general's frostbitten heels and part of his toes. He continued his march, wishing to ride. All persuasion was in vain. The general refused to transfer to a sleigh or lie down in one of the Czech hospital trains, remaining in the ranks. The Kappelites believed in their commander, who remained with them until the last moment of his life. The general carried loyalty to his comrades to the end. It is no coincidence that people who knew him once wrote: "I am faithful to my friends to the last ... an excellent officer."
January 26, 1920 Kappel died and was buried in Chita. Then, in the fall of 1920, his ashes were transported from Transbaikalia to Harbin. In 1929, at their own expense, the soldiers erected a modest monument on the grave of their commander, which was a granite block with a stone cross, at the base of which was a crown of thorns. Soviet soldiers, having entered Harbin in 1945, did not touch the monument to the white general, but in 1955 it was destroyed.
In 2007, thanks to the philanthropic activities of the head of the White Warriors project, A.N. Alekaev's ashes of the general returned to Russia, and soon a tombstone appeared on the grave, which is almost identical to the one in Harbin. And now, finally, Kappel's battle path has found its detailed presentation on the pages of the collection, which, in addition to rich factual material, is also distinguished by scientific objectivity and maximum balanced assessments, which, unfortunately, is rarely found in books dedicated to the Civil War - our nationwide tragedy. .

December 15, 2006
The remains of General Kappel, found near the walls of an Orthodox church in Harbin, will be transported to Moscow

Remains of General Vladimir Kappel (1883-1920) discovered in Harbin
Russian search group. According to a representative of the search engines, the ashes of one of the most famous military figures of the White movement during the Civil War in Russia were transported from the excavation site on the territory of the former St. A memorial service was held at the coffin, which was officiated by Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, Chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies.

"We do not emphasize that this is a white officer. This is an officer
Russian Imperial Army Cavalier of St. George. He must lie in
Russian land, not near the desecrated temple," said Alexander Alekaev, head of the White Warriors public organization.

Lieutenant General Kappel in 1918-1919 commanded the White Guard troops of the so-called Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), from December 1919 he was the commander of Kolchak's Eastern Front. In the winter of 1920, the Kappelites, retreating under the blows of the Reds, made the transition from Barnaul, Novo-Nikolaevsk and Krasnoyarsk to Chita, which the Whites called the Great Siberian Campaign ("Ice"). The general himself with the strongest
Frostbite of the legs and pneumonia died near the Wutai junction.

The commander was buried in Chita, but then his comrades-in-arms had to transfer his remains to Chinese soil. However, here, in the mid-1950s, the grave mound was razed to the ground. For a long time - almost half a century - it remained a mystery where exactly on the territory of the temple the grave of General Kappel is located: eyewitness accounts that have survived to this day only approximately indicated the place of his burial.

Now, after the discovery, the ashes of the commander, as reported by the archpriest
Dimitri Smirnov, will be transferred to Moscow.

Soviet propaganda did not mention Kappel as often as Kolchak, Denikin or Wrangel. It was Soviet cinema that made him famous in the USSR. In the film about Chapaev, it is the Kappelites who go on the famous psychic attack - in full growth to the drum roll. For the White Guards, Kappel during his lifetime and after his death was one of the symbols of the struggle, Interfax reports with reference to the NTV channel.

Patriarchy.ru

One of the most loyal Kappel units, formed in the 18th year from the rebellious workers of the Izhevsk and Botkinsk factories, were the Izhevsk and Votkinsk Divisions. In the film "Chapaev" they are depicted. Under the command of Kappel were several tens of thousands of our countrymen. Perhaps to him, their families, who left the bloody Izhevsk, owe their salvation.

Should Izhevsk pay tribute to this hero?

In the history of the Civil War, a prominent place is occupied by an active figure in the White Guard movement, General Kappel, whose photo is presented in the article. During the years of Soviet power, his image was either hushed up or presented in a distorted form. Only with the onset of perestroika did many episodes of Russian history receive their true illumination. Became public knowledge and the truth about the life of this amazing man.

Son and successor of the Kappel family

The outstanding Russian Kappel came from a family of a Russified Swede and a Russian noblewoman. He was born on April 16 (28), 1883 in Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg. The father of the future hero, Oscar Pavlovich, came from a family of Russified Swedes (this explains his Scandinavian surname), was an officer and distinguished himself greatly during Skobelev's expedition. Mother Elena Petrovna was also a noblewoman and came from the family of the hero of the defense of Sevastopol ─ Lieutenant General P. I. Postolsky. The parents named their son Vladimir in honor of the holy prince ─ the baptizer of Russia.

Having received his primary education at home, Vladimir decided to follow in his father's footsteps and, having entered the 2nd Imperial Cadet Corps, graduated from it in 1901. After spending two more years in the Nicholas Cavalry, he was promoted to cornet and assigned to one of the capital's dragoon regiments.

Marriage of a dashing cornet

The first brilliant victory of the future General Kappel was the conquest of the heart of Olga Sergeevna Strolman ─ the daughter of a major tsarist official. However, the ambitious parents did not even want to hear about the marriage of their beloved Olenka with a barely fledged young officer. Vladimir took this first fortress erected in front of him by storm ─ he simply kidnapped his bride (with her consent, of course) and, neglecting his parental blessing, secretly married her in a village church.

It is known that even a semi-wild mountaineer is able to steal a girl, but a true nobleman, first of all, is obliged to prove that he is worthy of her. To this end, the desperate cornet Kappel, having neither connections nor patronage, manages to enter the Imperial Academy of the General Staff, the doors of which were open only to representatives of the highest nobility.

By this he secured his way to the heights of his military career. After such a feat, the wife's parents saw in him not just a dashing rake, but a man who, as they say, "will go far." Having fundamentally changed their attitude to what happened, they, although belatedly, but blessed the young.

The last years of the great empire

After graduating from the academy in 1913, Vladimir Oskarovich was seconded to the Moscow Military District and met the First World War as a staff captain, that is, with the rank of senior officer. In the biography of General Kappel, it is always noted that even then he showed an outstanding talent in organizing large-scale military operations, doing this as a senior adjutant to the commander of the Don Cossack division. He met the October coup of 1917 already in the rank of lieutenant colonel and knight of several orders he received for heroism shown at the front.

Being a staunch monarchist, Vladimir Oskarovich categorically rejected both the February revolution and the results of the October armed coup. From the posthumously published letters of General Kappel, it is known that he mourned with all his heart the collapse of the state and the army, as well as the humiliation that the Fatherland suffered in the face of the whole world.

Entry into the ranks of the White Guard movement

The beginning of his active struggle against the Bolsheviks was the entry into the ranks of the Komuch People's Army (Committee of the Constituent Assembly), which became one of the first formations of the White Guard movement, created in Samara after it was captured by units of the rebellious Czechoslovak Corps. The army included many experienced officers who went through the First World War, but none of them wanted to take command of the hastily created units, since the numerical superiority of forces was on the side of the Reds, who were advancing in those days from all sides, and the matter seemed hopeless. Only Lieutenant Colonel Kappel volunteered to take on this mission.

Achieving victory in a Suvorov way, that is, not by numbers, but by skill, Kappel so successfully smashed the Bolshevik formations that very soon his fame spread not only throughout the Volga, but even reached the Urals and Siberia. It is important to note that, as a monarchist, he did not share the political convictions of many Social Revolutionaries who were the creators of the People's Army, but, nevertheless, continued to fight on their side, since at that moment he considered the overthrow of Soviet power by any means to be the main thing.

Loud victories of the Kappel troops

If at first there were only 350 people under the command of Kappel, then soon their number increased significantly due to volunteers who flocked from all over the district and poured into his units. They were attracted by the rumor about the military success that accompanied him. And these were not empty rumors. At the beginning of June 1918, after a hot but short battle, the Kappelites successfully drove the Reds out of Syzran, and at the end of the month Simbirsk was added to the cities they liberated.

The greatest success of that period was carried out at the end of August of the same year by units under the command of V. O. Kappel, with the assistance of the forces of the Volga River Flotilla. This victory brought with it innumerable trophies. Leaving the city, the red units retreated so hastily that to the mercy of fate they abandoned a significant part of the gold reserves of Russia that was in it, which from that moment passed into the hands of the leaders of the White movement.

All those who personally knew General Vladimir Kappel and left their memories of him emphasized that he was always not only a skilled commander, but a person distinguished by personal courage. There is a lot of evidence of how, at the head of a handful of comrades-in-arms, he made daring raids on the formations of the Red Army that outnumbered them and invariably emerged victorious, while managing to save the lives of his fighters.

Family held hostage

This period includes a tragedy that left its mark on the whole subsequent life of General Kappel. The fact is that the Reds, not being able to cope with him in open battle, took hostage his wife and two children, who were then in Ufa. It is hard to imagine what mental strength it cost Vladimir Oskarovich to reject the ultimatum presented to him by the Bolsheviks and, despite the threat that hung over the lives of people dear to him, continue the fight.

Looking ahead, let's say that the Bolsheviks did not fulfill their threat, but, in order to save the lives of the children, they forced Olga Sergeevna to officially renounce her husband. After the end of the civil war, she refused to leave Russia, although she had such an opportunity and, having regained her maiden name (Strolman), settled in Leningrad.

In March 1940, the leadership of the NKVD remembered her, and by a court decision, the widow of the White Guard General Kappel was sentenced to 5 years in camps as a "socially dangerous element." Returning from prison, Olga Sergeevna again lived in Leningrad, where she died on April 7, 1960.

The bitterness of defeat

After the capture of Kazan, Kappel suggested that the leadership of the People's Army, developing success, strike at Nizhny Novgorod, and then start a campaign against Moscow, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries, showing obvious cowardice, dragged on to make such an important decision. As a result, the moment was lost, and the Reds transferred the formations of the 1st army of Tukhachevsky to the Volga.

This forced Kappel to abandon his plans and make a 150-kilometer forced march with his units to protect Simbirsk from the approaching enemy forces. The battles were protracted and fought with varying success. As a result, the advantage turned out to be on the side of the Reds, who had an advantage both in the number of their troops and in their supply of food and ammunition.

Under the banner of Kolchak

After a coup took place in eastern Russia in November 1918 and Admiral A. V. Kolchak came to power (his portrait is given below), Kappel, along with his associates, hastened to join the ranks of his army. It is known that at an early stage of joint actions between these two leaders of the White Guard movement, some estrangement was indicated, but then their relations entered the proper track. At the beginning of 1919, A.V. Kolchak, awarded Kappel the rank of lieutenant general, and instructed him to command the 1st Volga Corps.

Despite the fact that, being a skilled and experienced military leader, General Kappel made every effort to complete the assigned tasks, his corps, as well as the entire Kolchak army, could not avoid major defeats. However, even after the loss of Chelyabinsk and Omsk, the supreme commander saw in him the only commander capable of influencing the course of events, and put all the remaining units under his control. Nevertheless, the situation on the Eastern Front became more and more hopeless and forced the Kolchak army to retreat, leaving the Bolsheviks city after city.

Crossing 3 thousand miles long

November 1919 is one of the most striking, but at the same time, dramatic episodes related to the activities of General Kappel in Eastern Siberia. It entered the history of the White movement as the "Great Siberian Ice Campaign". It was a 3,000-verst crossing, unparalleled in its heroism, from Omsk to Transbaikalia, carried out at a temperature that dropped to -50 °.

In those days, Vladimir Oskarovich commanded units of Kolchak's 3rd Army, formed mainly from among the captured Red Army soldiers who deserted at every opportunity. Leaving Omsk, General Kappel, continuously attacked by the enemy, managed to lead his units along the Trans-Siberian Railway, which connected Miass with Vladivostok in 1916. For this feat, Kolchak intended to make him a full general, but rapidly developing events prevented him from fulfilling his promise.

The fall of the Kolchak government

In the first days of January 1920, A.V. Kolchak renounced power, and a few days later he was arrested in Irkutsk. After a month spent in the dungeons of the Cheka, on February 7, 1920, he was shot together with the former minister of the government he created ─ V. N. Pepelev.

In view of the current situation, General Kappel Vladimir Oskarovich was forced to personally lead the fight against Bolshevism in Siberia. But the forces were extremely unequal, and in mid-January 1920, near Krasnoyarsk, the threat of complete defeat and destruction loomed over the Kappelites. However, even in such an almost hopeless situation, he managed to withdraw his troops from the encirclement, but paid for it with his own life.

End of legendary life

Since all the roads were controlled by the Bolsheviks, General Kappel was forced to lead his units straight through the taiga, using the channels of the frozen rivers to advance. Once, in a bitter frost, he fell into a hole. The result was frostbite in both legs and bilateral pneumonia. He made the further journey tied to the saddle, as he constantly lost consciousness.

Shortly before his death, General Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel dictated an appeal addressed to the inhabitants of Siberia. In it, he predicted that the Red troops moving behind him would inevitably bring with them persecution of faith and destroy peasant property. The village drunkards and loafers, having become members of the committees of the poor, will have the right to take everything they want from the genuine workers with impunity. As you know, his words were truly prophetic.

A prominent Russian military leader, General Kappel Vladimir Oskarovich, passed away on January 26, 1920. Death overtook him at the Utai junction, located near the city of Nizhneudinsk in the Irkutsk region. After the death of their commander in chief, the white units made their way to Irkutsk, but they failed to take the city, which was under the protection of numerous red formations.

The attempt to free the man who was in the hands of local Chekists in those days was not crowned with success. As mentioned above, on February 7, 1920, he was shot. Seeing no other way out of the situation, the Kappelites bypassed Irkutsk and withdrew to Transbaikalia, and from there they proceeded to China.

A secret funeral and a desecrated monument

The history of the burial of the remains of the White Guard general is very curious. Companions with good reason believed that at the place of death he should not be buried, since the grave could be desecrated by the Reds, who followed on their heels. The body was placed in a coffin and accompanied the troops for almost a month until they reached Chita. There, in an atmosphere of complete secrecy, General Kappel was buried in the city cathedral, but after a while his ashes were transferred to the cemetery of the local convent.

However, in the fall of that year, units of the Red Army came close to Chita, and when it became obvious that the city would have to be surrendered, the surviving officers removed its remains from the ground and went abroad with them. The final resting place of the ashes of General Kappel was a small plot of land next to the altar of the Orthodox Church, erected in the Chinese city of Harbin and consecrated in honor of the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God. Thus ended the life of General Kappel, whose brief biography formed the basis of this article.

Somewhat later, after the end of the civil war, white emigrants erected a monument on the grave of the famous fighter against Bolshevism, but in 1955 it was destroyed by the Chinese Communists. There is reason to believe that this act of vandalism was carried out on the basis of a secret directive from the KGB.

Memory revived on the silver screen

Nowadays, when the events of the civil war, deliberately distorted by Soviet propaganda, have received new coverage, interest has also increased in the most significant historical figures of that time. In 2008, director Andrei Kirisenko shot a film, the hero of which was Kappel. The general, a documentary about which was shown on many federal television channels, was presented in the fullness of his outstanding personality.

Previously, Soviet moviegoers had an idea about the troops of General Kappel only from the film "Chapaev", filmed in 1934. In one of his episodes, the famous Soviet film director showed a scene of a psychic attack undertaken by the Kappelites. Despite the power of its impact on viewers, historians note obvious historical inconsistencies in it.

Firstly, the uniform of the officers in the film is significantly different from that worn by the Kappelites, and secondly, the banner under which they go into battle does not belong to them, but to the Kornilovites. But the main thing is the absence of any documentary evidence that the units of General Kappel ever entered into battle with Chapaev's division. So Eisenstein, apparently, took advantage of the Kappelites to create a generalized image of the enemies of the proletariat.

Boris Pavlov

On June 8, 1918, Samara was occupied by the rebellious Czechs. Small Russian detachments also took part in this. As A. A. Fedorovich writes (“V. O. Kappel”, p. 22):
“On the same evening, in the city liberated from the Bolsheviks, a meeting of the officers of Gen. headquarters, who ended up in Samara. The question was raised who would unite and lead these Russian detachments. There were no people present who wanted to take on this responsibility. Everyone hesitated and was embarrassed silent. Someone even suggested casting lots. Then, unexpectedly, a modest-looking young officer, Gen. headquarters and asked for the floor: “Since there are no people willing, then temporarily, until a senior is found, let me lead units against the Bolsheviks,” he spoke calmly and softly.

It was Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Oskarovich Kappel. Thus began the heroic and thorny path of one of the most prominent leaders of the White Struggle on the Volga and in Siberia. He was only 37 years old. He was born in 1881 into a military family, graduated from the 2nd Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, then the Nikolaev Cavalry School and the Academy of the General Staff. He passed the battlefield of 1914-1917 with honor and was wounded twice.

The Samara united detachment of Kappel turned out to be not numerous - only about 350 volunteers. This is all that Samara has given - a city with a population of more than a hundred thousand people. It seemed insane to start with such forces a fight against the Bolsheviks, who at that time captured almost all of Russia. But Kappel began and honorably completed the task he had undertaken.

The first examination of Kappel's detachment was given three days later, near Syzran. This city was abandoned by the Czechs under pressure from the Reds. From Samara to Syzran about 100 miles. Kappel puts his squad on the train. In the evening, 15 miles from Syzran, he lands a detachment and breaks it into two parts. The smaller part, with a horse battery, is sent around the city. At dawn the next day, exactly at 5 o'clock in the morning, an attack on the city began from two sides. After the victory over the Czechs, the Reds did not expect this. Panic began among them, especially when shells began to fall from their rear. The Bolsheviks fled, abandoning their guns, machine guns, and carts. The losses in people among the Reds were large, the Whites had only four killed.

This first, unexpected success created huge popularity for Kappel, surrounding his name with a halo of victory. From that day on, the Kappel detachment began to proudly call themselves "Kappelites."