A Memoir History of the Russian Civil War: Volume I: Birth of the Volunteer Army

Book One: The Collapse of the Front,the Flight to the Don

The "Russian Civil War" (1916-1926) was really a series of wars, uprisings, and massacres between hundreds of political factions, nationalities, and ephemeral political entities that were thrown into chaotic internecine struggle following the implosion of the Russian Empire in 1917. Although popular histories often refer to a singular “Russian Revolution” that destroyed the Empire, this book will demonstrate that World War, Revolution, and Civil War were experienced in tandem and without pause for the participants on the ground.

The first book of our ambitious compendium-history begins with the total collapse of the Russian Army that occurred from March to December 1917. The memoirs contained in book 1 of volume I demonstrate the effects of the revolutionary socialist agitation against the Russian Imperial Army officer corps amidst the increasingly hopeless military situation at the eastern fronts that followed Tsar Nicholas II's abdication in March 1917.

As the fronts and the rear descended into chaos, the weak provisional government capitulated to the Bolshevik-dominated Soviet, and the Russian state ceased to exist between the fires of World War and civil war. Officers and junkers who rejected the Bolshevik seizure of power now had to escape the bloodshed and anarchy of the state's dissolution. Together, they fled to the comparatively-quiet Don Cossack Host. In the old Cossack land, the officers and junkers hoped to create a new, Volunteer Army with which they could reverse the Bolshevik political victories in the capitals of Russia.

It is here that our series begins.



*Notice to Ebook customers, this series contains both footnotes and endnotes. Footnotes are numbered with Arabic numerals, and endnotes are numbered with Roman numerals. Footnotes concern details about the text that might be missed by casual reading, while endnotes serve as a dictionary of historical biography. Both sets of notes appear at the conclusion of the epub file.