Transcaucasian Front or Transcaucasus Front (russian: Закавказский Фронт) was a front of the Soviet Red Army—a military formation comparable to an

army group An army group is a military organization consisting of several field armies, which is self-sufficient for indefinite periods. It is usually responsible for a particular geographic area. An army group is the largest field organization handled ...

, not a geographic military front—during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. The Transcaucasus Front describes two distinct organizations during the war.

First creation

The first version was created on 23 August 1941 from the Transcaucasus Military District, which was originally formed in 1922. The boundary of the Front extended along the Soviet border with Turkey and along the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean 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 bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, ...

coast from

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), second largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's ...

Tuapse Tuapse (russian: Туапсе́; ady, Тӏуапсэ ) is a town in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, situated on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, south of Gelendzhik and north of Sochi. Population: Tuapse is a sea port and the northern center of a ...

.
It was commanded by Lieutenant-General Dmitry Kozlov from August 1941 to December 1941. On 22 June 1941, when the German invasion started, the Transcaucasus Military District included the 3rd, 24th, and 40th Rifle Corps, the 28th Mechanised Corps, two cavalry divisions (the 17th Mountain and the 24th) and three separate rifle divisions (the 63rd, 76th, and 77th). Also part of the District were three fortified regions and District troops, which included artillery and NKVD frontier units. The initial Front organization incorporated the four Soviet armies stationed in the district in June 1941: * the 45th and 46th on the border with

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

and * the 44th and 47th on the border with

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkm ...

. On 25 August 1941 troops from the Front entered Iran according to the Soviet-Iran Treaty of Friendship of 21 February 1921, which eliminated the direct threat to the Baku oil fields.

Order of Battle, Invasion of Iran, 1941

Soviet OOB for 25 August 1941: 44th Army (Major General

Alexander Khadeyev Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

) *20th Mountain Rifle Division * 77th Mountain Rifle Division *17th Cavalry Division *24th Tank Regiment

47th Army The 47th Army (russian: 47-я армия) of the Soviet Union's Red Army was an army-level command active from 1941 to 1946. History The 47th Army was formed in late July 1941 in the Transcaucasian Military District as part of the Soviet Union's ...

(Major General

Vasily Novikov Vasily Novikov (born 1929) is a Soviet former sports shooter. He competed in the 25 m pistol event at the 1952 Summer Olympics The 1952 Summer Olympics ( fi, Kesäolympialaiset 1952; sv, Olympiska sommarspelen 1952), officially known as th ...

) *

63rd Mountain Rifle Division The 63rd Mountain Rifle Division was formed as a specialized infantry division of the Red Army in July 1936, based on the 2nd Georgian Mountain Division. When the German invasion of the Soviet Union began it was in the Transcaucasus Military Dist ...

* 76th Mountain Rifle Division * 236th Rifle Division *

6th Tank Division 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

*54th Tank Division *13th Motorcycle Regiment 53rd Army (Major General

Sergei Trofimenko Sergei Georgievich Trofimenko (10 (22) September 1899 in Ryovny – 16 October 1953 in Moscow) was a Soviet military commander, active in the Russian Civil War and the Second World War. His final rank was colonel-general. He had been promoted t ...

) (invaded Iran from Turkmenistan,

Central Asian Military District The Red Banner Central Asian Military District was a military district of the Soviet Armed Forces, which existed in 1926–1945 and 1969–1989, with its headquarters at Tashkent (1926–1945) and Almaty (1969–1989). By USSR Order No.304 of 4 ...

, on 27 August) *58th Rifle Corps *

83rd Mountain Rifle Division 83rd may refer to: *83rd Academy Awards, a ceremony that honored the best films of 2010 in the United States and took place on February 27, 2011 *83rd Grey Cup, the 1995 Canadian Football League championship game *83rd meridian east, a line of lon ...

* 4th Cavalry Corps As part of the Central Asian Military District (not the TCF), 53rd Army was described by the

Combat composition of the Soviet Army ''Boevoi sostav Sovetskoi armii'' ("Combat composition of the Soviet army") is an official Second World War Soviet Army order of battle published in five parts from 1963 through 1990 by the Voroshilov Academy of the General Staff and Voenizdat. ...

as including 58th Rifle Corps (68th and

389th Rifle Division The 389th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union during World War II. The division was formed in October 1941 part of the 53rd Army of the Central Asian Military District, and was deployed for active field duty from May 194 ...

), 4th Cavalry Corps ( 18th, 20th, 39th Cavalry Divisions), 44th Cavalry Division, and 72nd Independent Mountain Rifle Regiment (огсп) on 1 October 1941. On 1 November 1941 the front was listed in the

as including the 44th (five divisions), 45th (four divisions and 55th

Fortified Region A fortified district or fortified region (russian: Укреплённый район, Укрепрайон, ukreplyonny raion, ukrepraion) in the military terminology of the Soviet Union, is a territory within which a complex system of defense ...

), 46th Army (9, 20th Mountain Rifle Division; 224, 388, 390th Rifle Divisions, 51st Fortified Region), and 47th Armies (five divisions), and forces of frontal subordination including the 61, 151, 223,

396th Rifle Division The 396th Rifle Division was raised in 1941 as an infantry division of the Red Army, and served twice during the Great Patriotic War in that role. The division followed a very similar combat path to that of the 398th Rifle Division in its 1st for ...

s, and forces in Iran consisting of the 402nd Rifle Division, the 1st Mountain Cavalry Division, and the

23rd Cavalry Division Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * High ...

. In November 1941, the 51st Army joined the front after being evacuated from the Crimea. The Transcaucasus Front was renamed the

Caucasian Front Caucaus Front (or Caucasian Front) may have one of the following meanings *Caucasus Front (Russian Republic), the designation for the main army of the Russian Republic (successor to the Caucasus Army of the Imperial Russian Army) in the Caucasus in ...

on 30 December 1941.

Second creation

The second version of this front was again created from the Transcaucasus Military District on 15 May 1942, and continued in existence until its reorganization as the Tbilisi Military District on 25 August 1945 after the end of the war. It was commanded by General Ivan V. Tyulenev (May 1942 - August 1945), and included the 4th and 58th Armies at various periods.

References

{{Fronts of the Red Army in World War II Soviet fronts History of the Caucasus under the Soviet Union