page_title: Pyotr Wrangel
section_title: Russian Civil War
hierarchical_section_title: Pyotr Wrangel / Russian Civil War
caption_attribution_description: Русский: П.Н.ВРАНГЕЛЬ, митрополит Антоний (Храповицкий) и другие гости и постояльцы в «Здравнице имени генерала Врангеля» в Белграде на Дединье. Надпись на фотографии: "В первый день святой Пасхи в здравнице в Топчидере 11/24 апреля 1927 года" 15,5 х 24 см. на картоне. владельческая запись на оборотной стороне, указывающая персонажей. подклейка прозрачным скотчем. очень редкое фото. Санаторий (здравницу) для больных русских военных в Белграде устроила жена полководца баронесса О.М.Врангель (1883-1968). В первом ряду сидят (слева направо): Сергей Николаевич Палеолог (бывший русский посланник в Сербии), генерал Пётр Николаевич Врангель, митрополит Антоний (Храповицкий), архиепископ Анастасий (Грибановский), Ольга Михайловна Врангель протоиерей Пётр Беловидов доктор Николай Александрович Терещенко (начальник «Здравницы»).
context_page_description: Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel was a Russian officer of Baltic German origin in the Imperial Russian Army. During the later stages of the Russian Civil War, he was commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia. After his side lost the civil war in 1920, he left Russia. He was known as one of the most prominent exiled White émigrés and military dictator of the South Russia.
context_section_description: After the end of Russia's participation in the war, Wrangel resigned his commission and went to live at his dacha at Yalta, in the Crimea. Arrested by the Bolsheviks at the end of 1917, he was released and escaped to Kiev, where he joined Pavlo Skoropadskyi's Ukrainian State. However, it was soon apparent to him that the new government existed only because of the waning support of Germany, and in August 1918, he joined the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army based at Yekaterinodar, where he was given command of the 1st Cavalry Division and the rank of major general in the White movement. After the Second Kuban Campaign in late 1918, he was promoted to lieutenant general, and his division was raised to that of a corps.
  As an aggressive commander, he won a number of victories in the north of Caucasus. In January 1919, his military force was renamed to the Caucasus Volunteer Army. Wrangel soon clashed politically with Armed Forces of South Russia leader Anton Denikin, who demanded a quick march on Moscow. Wrangel insisted that his forces should instead take Tsaritsyn first, to join up with the army of Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, which his troops accomplished on June 30, 1919, after three previous attempts by Pyotr Krasnov had failed in 1918.
  
  Wrangel gained a reputation as a skilled and just administrator, who, unlike some other White Army generals, did not tolerate lawlessness or looting by his troops. However, after he was unable to join forces with Admiral Kolchak and at the insistence of Denikin, he led his forces north towards Moscow on a failed attempt by the Whites to take it in autumn 1919. Continuing disagreement with Denikin led to his removal from command, and Wrangel departed for exile to Constantinople on February 8, 1920.
  However, Denikin was forced to resign on March 20, 1920, and a military committee, led by General Abram Dragomirov in Sevastopol, asked for Wrangel's return as Commander-in-Chief of the White forces in Crimea. He assumed that post on April 4, 1920, at the head of the Russian Army, and he put forth a coalition government that attempted to institute sweeping reforms (including land reforms). He also recognized and established relations with the new (and short-lived) anti-Bolshevik independent republics of Ukraine and Georgia, among others.
  However, by that stage in the Russian Civil War, such measures were too late, and the White movement was rapidly losing support, both domestically and overseas.
  Wrangel is immortalized by the nickname of "Black Baron" in the marching song The Red Army is the Strongest, composed as a rallying call for a final effort on the part of the Bolsheviks to end the war. The song was immensely popular in the early Soviet Union in the 1920s.
  After defeats in which he lost half his standing army and, facing defeat in Northern Tavria and in the Crimea, Wrangel organised a mass evacuation on the shores of the Black Sea. Wrangel gave every officer, soldier, and civilian the choice to evacuate and go with him into the unknown, or to remain in Russia and face the wrath of the Red Army. Wrangel evacuated the White forces from the Crimea in 1920; the remnants of the Russian Imperial Navy became known as Wrangel's fleet. The last military and civilian personnel left Russia with Wrangel on board the General Kornilov on November 14, 1920.
  Initially, Wrangel lived on his yacht, Lucullus, at Constantinople. It was rammed and sunk by the Italian steamer Adria, which had sailed from Soviet-held Batum. Wrangel, then on shore, escaped with his life in what was widely regarded as an assassination attempt.
caption: Wrangel, Metropolitan Anthony, Metropolitan Anastasius and other Russian émigrés in Yugoslavia, 1927
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