Odessa Operation (1920)
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The Odessa operation (11 January – 8 February 1920) was an offensive operation during the
Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...
of the South Western Front of the Red Army against the Novorossiysk Oblast Army Group of the White
Armed Forces of South Russia The Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR or SRAF) () were the unified military forces of the White movement in southern Russia between 1919 and 1920. On 8 January 1919, the Armed Forces of South Russia were formed, incorporating the Volunteer Ar ...
. The operation was a success for the Red Army, as
Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...
was taken on 8 February and, despite an evacuation over the
Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...
supported by the British
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
, many White soldiers and material were captured.


Capture of Odessa

After the failed White Advance on Moscow in Summer 1919, the Red Army had started a counteroffensive in autumn 1919, which after several hard-fought battles, had by winter 1919-1920 turned into a rout of the White forces. On 17 January 1920 the troops of the Red Army seized
Krivoi Rog Kryvyi Rih ( ; , ), also known as Krivoy Rog ( ), is a city in central Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Kryvyi Rih Raion and its subordinate Kryvyi Rih urban hromada in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The city is part of the Kryvyi Rih Metropolita ...
(now Kryvyi Rih) and
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. On 24 January they captured
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(now Kropyvnytskyi) and on 25 January,
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. By the end of January,
Kherson Kherson (Ukrainian language, Ukrainian and , , ) is a port city in southern Ukraine that serves as the administrative centre of Kherson Oblast. Located by the Black Sea and on the Dnieper, Dnieper River, Kherson is the home to a major ship-bui ...
,
Mykolaiv Mykolaiv ( ), also known as Nikolaev ( ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city and a hromada (municipality) in southern Ukraine. Mykolaiv is the Administrative centre, administrative center of Mykolaiv Raion (Raions of Ukraine, district) and Myk ...
and
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were captured. On 3 February Olviopol (now Pervomaisk) and
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(now Ochakiv) were captured. On 6 February the Red Army approached Odessa. Early in the morning of 7 February they broke into the city, and on 8 February Odessa was completely captured by the Red Army. The Red Army was assisted in taking the city by Odessan workers who, on the orders of the Revolutionary Committee, took up arms and seized critical points in Odessa just before the approach of the regular units.


Evacuation by the sea

Aware of the desperate situation, the command of the AFSR in Odessa had started an evacuation over the Black Sea on 3 February. Contemporaries of events and historians called the Odessa evacuation of 1920, ill prepared and "mediocre". Only 1 in 3 could be evacuated. In the city of Odessa, 3 AFSR generals, about 200 officers and 3,000 soldiers (including 1,500 sick and wounded in hospitals) were taken prisoner. According to reports of the Odessa Soviet newspapers of those days, 300,000 pounds of grain also remained in the port of Odessa, 50,000 pounds were found on barges moored in the quarantine harbor. On the ship "Alexandria" a load of brand new British motorcycles of the brand "
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" was found, sent by England to the AFSR and 3,000 pounds of coal. The Railroad tracks were clogged with abandoned wagons with a variety of goods evacuated from
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and current
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, including 130,000 pounds of firewood. The total number of evacuees is difficult to calculate, as transport ships with evacuees dispersed to different ports and many refugees were evacuated privately. Soviet sources reported 3,000 evacuees, which did not correspond to reality. White Guard sources reported 16,000 as a reasonable minimum number of evacuees, with about 40,000 people willing to be evacuated. From the military equipment and supplies, it was possible to evacuate all the tanks that had arrived in Odessa from Nikolaev (now
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), almost all serviceable armored vehicles and parts of the equipment of the technical troops, cars and aviation assets. The British ships involved in the evacuation were : * HMT ''Rio Negro'', received about 1,400 refugees, wounded officers and cadets. Went to the port of Thessaloniki (Greece) * HMT ''Rio Pardo'', transported refugees to Greece * * * * * several destroyers * Coalship ''Votan'' The French sent * * And the US sent the destroyer with
Hugo W. Koehler Hugo William Koehler (July 19, 1886 – June 17, 1941) () was a United States Navy commander, Espionage, secret agent and socialite. Following the First World War, he served as an Office of Naval Intelligence and State Department operative in Rus ...
on board.


Ovidiopol detachment

The garrison of Odessa and other parts of the AFSR, which had previously retreated to the city, as well as various detachments of "militiamen" could not be evacuated by sea. They united in the "Ovidiopol detachment" and were ordered to march to the border with Romania. They were accompanied by a large number of civilians, families of officers of the Volunteer Army, foreigners, wounded and about 600 cadets of the Odessa Cadet Corps (most of which were junior grades - 10-12 years). About 16,000 people, of which no more than 3,000 were able to carry weapons, departed in mid-winter from Odessa on 7 February and moved to the Gross-Liebental -
Ovidiopol Ovidiopol (; ; ) is a coastal rural settlement in Odesa Oblast, Ukraine. It is located on the eastern bank of Dniester Estuary directly across Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi and west of Odesa. Ovidiopol hosts the administration of Ovidiopol settle ...
area, from where they intended to go to Romania. But they were not admitted into Romania by the Romanian authorities and found themselves trapped as the Red units took
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and
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, thus depriving the "Ovidiopol detachment" of the possibility of uniting with the "Bredov detachment", and marching towards Poland. The Ovidiopol detachment was not allowed by the Romanians into their territory. The Romanians did not even let the Cadet children enter, but fired their artillery when a Cadet column headed towards them over the ice across the Dniester. The trapped Ovidiopol detachment lost hundreds of people from attacks by the Red cavalry, shelling by Romanian troops and local marauders. After 5-7 days, the remaining 12,000 people capitulated. At that time, many officers (including General Vasiliev and Baron Maidel) committed suicide, preferring death to Bolshevik captivity.


The Bredov detachment

The units of the AFSR under command of Lieutenant-General Nikolai Bredov and all troops in
right-bank Ukraine The Right-bank Ukraine is a historical and territorial name for a part of modern Ukraine on the right (west) bank of the Dnieper River, corresponding to the modern-day oblasts of Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, as well as the western parts o ...
, were ordered by Lieutenant-General Schilling to march towards Poland. Accompanied by numerous refugees and civilians, they carried out an unprecedented winter march, under constant pressure of superior Red forces, and reached Poland. This march became known as the ''Bredov Campaign''.


Results

By the end of February 1920, all White forces had been chased from Western-Ukraine. The AFSR now only held the Northern Caucasus and Crimea. In total, about 1,200 officers were captured by the Reds. All of them were placed in concentration camps, where they were gradually shot. A mass shooting was held on 5 May 1920. In Odessa, 100 guns of different calibers, four armored vehicles, four armored trains, several hundred thousand shells and cartridges, some engineering, automobile, aviation and other property, and tons of food were captured by the Red Army. {{coord missing, Ukraine 1920 in Ukraine Battles of the Russian Civil War in 1920 February 1920 in Europe Odessa in the Russian Civil War Battles involving the Armed Forces of South Russia Battles involving Soviet Russia (1917–1922)