Orel–Kromy operation
오룔-크로미 작전
The operation of 11 October to 18 November 1919 in which the Red Southern Front stopped and threw back the 1st Army Corps of Denikin's Volunteer Army, then driving on Moscow, around Orel and Kromy. English works call it the Orel–Kursk operation. A shock group built around the Latvian Rifle Division, brought from the Western Front, struck the White flank, and Orel, lost to the Kornilov regiments on 13 October, was retaken on the 20th by the Estonian and 9th Rifle Divisions. The Whites never came closer to Moscow again.
In depth
The shock group, about 10,000 strong, consisted of the Latvian Rifle Division under Antons Martusevičs (nine rifle regiments and a cavalry regiment), Vitaly Primakov's Separate Cavalry Brigade of Red Cossacks and Pavlov's Separate Rifle Brigade. Kutepov's 1st Army Corps had the 1st Infantry Division with the Kornilov and Markov regiments and the 3rd Infantry Division with the Drozdovsky regiments. The 1st Infantry Division took Kromy on 10 October and Orel on the 13th, and the Kornilov regiments reached Mtsensk. The shock group pushed back Drozdovsky units and entered Kromy on the 15th, and while the Whites halted their drive on Tula to turn their main force on it, the Estonian Rifle Division pressed on Orel from the west. The Kornilov regiments abandoned Orel on the night of the 19th and fell back south.
Kromy changed hands again on 23 and 24 October and was retaken by the Latvians on the 26th and 27th, with Dmitrovsk at about the same time. On 3 November Primakov's 8th Cavalry Division, formed from the Red Cossack and other brigades, broke into the White rear and struck Ponyri, Fatezh and Lgov in turn, and on 17 and 18 November the Estonian and 9th Divisions retook Kursk. At the same time Budyonny's cavalry beat the White cavalry at Voronezh and Kastornoye. The Reds did not encircle and destroy the Volunteer Army, but they regained the strategic initiative, at the cost of half the Latvian Division.