Northern Taurida operation (1920)
북타브리아 작전 (1920)
The fighting of 6 June to 3 November 1920 between Wrangel's Russian Army and the Red Army for Northern Taurida, the steppe north of Crimea between the lower Dnieper and the Sea of Azov. Wrangel broke out of Crimea in June and took the steppe, and from August the Reds threatened him from the Kakhovka bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper. On 28 October Frunze's Southern Front counterattacked and drove the Whites towards the Crimean isthmuses, but the main White force, though badly mauled, got back into Crimea by 3 November.
In depth
Wrangel, who took over from Denikin on 4 April, reorganised the remaining forces as the Russian Army on 11 May and, with the Red Army tied down by the Polish war, set out to escape the meagre resources of Crimea. On 6 June (the 7th in the Russian source) Slashchov's 2nd Corps landed at Kirillovka on the Azov coast in the rear of the Red 13th Army, while Kutepov's 1st Corps broke out at Perekop and the Kuban Cossack corps at Chongar. The Whites took Melitopol and reached Aleksandrovsk, and according to the English source captured 8,000 prisoners, 30 guns and two armoured trains. At the end of June and the beginning of July Zhloba's cavalry corps, sent to cut the Whites off from their rear, was destroyed near Tokmak and the German colonies. Wrangel did not push further north but set about building up his army in a territory twice the size of Crimea. On 7 August the Reds established the Kakhovka bridgehead, and on 19 August, after the Battle of Warsaw, the Politburo named the Wrangel front the main danger. Frunze became commander of the Southern Front in September, and in October the Starobilsk Agreement was made with Makhno's insurgents.
Between 8 and 15 October the Whites crossed the Dnieper near Khortytsia and Nikopol to take the bridgehead from the rear, but they were stopped by Mironov's 2nd Cavalry Army, lost the cavalry corps commander Babiev, and withdrew. On 28 October the Southern Front, 133,000 strong by the English source and 140,000 to 186,000 by the Russian, attacked some 35,000 to 38,000 Whites. Kork's 6th Army and Budyonny's 1st Cavalry Army struck out of Kakhovka, and on the 29th Blyukher's 51st Division reached the village of Perekop but could not take the Turkish Wall, while Makhno's force took Melitopol the same day. On the 30th the 1st Cavalry Army reached Salkovo before Chongar, but Barbovich's cavalry corps broke its divisions near Salkovo and Genichesk and opened the way into Crimea for Kutepov's troops. The Reds captured 2 million poods of grain and five armoured trains. On 2 November Trotsky wrote that "five armies are closing their pincers from all sides" and that the cavalry must "not let the beaten White Guards board the French ships", but Frunze conceded that "cut off from the isthmuses, Wrangel's men did not lose heart and, at colossal cost, broke through to the peninsula". The Perekop–Chongar operation began on 7 November.