Black Hussars of Ataman Annenkov. Boris Vladimirovich Annenkov: biography. As punishment to the front

09 February 1889 - 25 August 1927

ataman of the Siberian Cossack army, commander of the separate Semirechensk army, major general, participant in the Civil War

Biography

From the Siberian Cossacks. Born into the family of a retired colonel. He was a fencing teacher at a military school.

1906 - Graduated from the Odessa Cadet Corps.
1908 - Graduated from the Alexander Military School, was released as a cornet into the 1st Siberian Cossack Regiment as a commander of a hundred.
Transferred to the 4th Siberian Cossack Regiment (Kokchetav).
1914 - A riot broke out in the Cossack camp. The rioters chose Annenkov as their temporary chief, but he did not take direct part in the protest. Annenkov personally reported what had happened to the Siberian military ataman. In response to the demand from General Usachev, who arrived with the punitive expedition, to name the instigators and persons involved in the murder of the officers, he refused. On charges of concealment and inaction, he was brought before a military court among 80 rebels. Acquitted by a military court. He was handed over to a higher district military court, which sentenced him to 1 year and 4 months of imprisonment in a fortress with restricted rights. Annenkov's sentence was replaced by a transfer to the German front.
1915 - As part of the 4th Siberian Cossack Regiment, he took part in battles in Belarus. Finding himself surrounded, he brought out the remnants of the regiment.
1915-1917 - Commanded one of the partisan detachments created on his initiative. He was awarded the cross of St. George and St. Anne, an honorary weapon, the French Order of the Foreign Legion (from the hands of General Poe), as well as the English medal "For Bravery".
March 3, 1917 - With the detachment he swore allegiance to the Provisional Government.
September 1917 - Placed with a detachment at the disposal of the headquarters of the 1st Army.
December 1917 - Sent to Omsk with a detachment to be disbanded “for counter-revolutionism.”
January 1918 - Refused to disarm the detachment at the request of the Bolsheviks and began to fight, settling in the village of Zakhlamlinskaya, but was forced to retreat to neighboring villages.
February 18-19, 1918 - During the “Popov's Rebellion” he organized a raid to save the military shrines of the Siberian Cossacks - the Military Banner of the 300th Anniversary of the House of Romanov and the Banner of Ermak - after which he went to Kokchetav, then to the Kyrgyz steppe.
March 1918 - Elected military ataman of the Siberian Cossacks by an illegally convened military circle of the Siberian Cossacks in the village of Atamanskaya (near Omsk).
March 12, 1918 - At the head of the Separate Rifle and Horse Brigades, he rebelled against Soviet power.
March 19, 1918 - Omsk was captured.
End of April 1918 - Annenkov's rebellion was suppressed, Omsk was taken by the Bolsheviks.
June-October 1918 - The detachment reached a strength of 1,500 bayonets and sabers (4 regiments, an artillery division and several auxiliary units), together with the White Czechs took part in battles against the Bolshevik troops in Western Siberia.
July 28, 1918 - Military foreman.
Commanding a combined detachment of Orenburg and Siberian Cossacks, he defeated the detachments of Kashirin and Blucher on the Upper Ural Front and took Verkhneuralsk.
September 11, 1918 - Brutally suppressed the Bolshevik uprising in the Slavgorod and Pavlodar districts, capturing the red district peasant congress of 400 delegates.
October 15, 1919 - Awarded the Order of St. George IV degree and promoted to major general.
October 23, 1918 - The partisan detachment was transferred to the subordination of the ataman of the Semirechensk Cossack army and renamed the “Partisan Ataman Annenkov Division”.
December 22, 1918 - Counterintelligence and individual units of the detachment participated in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising in Omsk and brutal reprisals against its participants.
December 1918 - Received command of the 2nd Steppe Corps with the order to liberate all of Semirechye from the Reds.
January-April 1919 - He fought in the area of the village of Andreevka with varying success.
July 1919 - Conducted military operations in the Andreevka area. He allocated several regiments to the Eastern Front.
August 1919 - Commander of the Separate Semirechensk Army. Suppressed uprisings in Semipalatinsk and Lepsinsky district.
Winter 1919-1920 - Took command of Dutov's units.
February 29, 1920 - Refused to accept the ultimatum of the Red Army command and lay down arms.
March-April 1920 - With an 18,000-strong detachment, he retreated to the Chinese border, settling at the Selke Pass.
April 28, 1920 - Left with the remnants of the detachment for China, where he was based in Xinjiang.
August 15, 1920 - Relocated to Urumqi.
September 1920 - Moved to the Gucheng fortress.
March 1921 - Arrested by Chinese authorities and sent to prison in Urumqi.
February 1924 - Released through the efforts of the chief of staff of the detachment, Major General N.A. Denisov, and thanks to the intervention of representatives of the Entente countries.
April 7, 1924 - Fraudulently captured by the commander of the 1st Chinese People's Army, Marshal Feng Yuxiang (for a large monetary reward) and handed over to security officers operating in China, after which he was taken to the USSR through Mongolia.
July 25 - August 12, 1927 - court hearing of the visiting session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in Semipalatinsk.
August 25, 1927 - Shot together with N.A. Denisov.
September 7, 1999 - The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to rehabilitate B.V. Annenkov and N.A. Denisov.

In fiction

from the nobles of the Novgorod province, son of a retired regiment, descendant of the Decembrist I.A. Annenkova. Genus. in Kursk province. He graduated from the Odessa Cadet Corps (1906), the Alexander Military School (1908). In service since 1906. Cornet (from 08/09/1908). Sotnik (from 10/15/1911). Podesaul (for military distinction, from 04/16/1915). Esaul (1917). Military foreman (for military distinction, from 07/28/1918 from seniority from 07/10/1918). Colonel (from 10/19/1918). Major General (since 1919). Service: In the 1st Siberian Cossack Regiment (1908-1914), junior officer of the 1st hundred, commander of the 1st hundred. Seconded to the management of the 1st military department of the Siberian Cossack Army (1914). For failure to take measures to stop the rebellion of mobilized Cossacks in the assembly camp near Kokchetav, he was court-martialed and sentenced to 1 year and 4 months of imprisonment in a fortress with military exception. services. Punishment was postponed until the end of hostilities (1914). Member of the First World War. In the 4th Siberian Cossack Regiment (1914-1915), commander of the 5th hundred. Wounded, shell-shocked twice. Pardoned by the emperor (03/20/1916). Head of the special purpose detachment (partisan detachment) of the Siberian Cossack division (from 12/12/1915), active. behind enemy lines. He arrived at the head of a detachment in Omsk for disbandment (12.1917), refused to obey the order of the Council of Cossack Deputies on disarmament and was declared an outlaw. He headed the Cossack “Organization of Thirteen” in Omsk, which was soon reorganized into a partisan detachment (01/1918). He led a partisan detachment of Siberian and Orenburg Cossacks, which took part in battles with the Reds in the Omsk region, in the West. Siberia, the Southern Urals and Turkestan. With the formation of the Provisional Siberian Government in Omsk, Annenkov’s detachment was included in the separate Ural Army Corps (from 08/26/1918 - III Ural Army Corps). In the summer of 1918, Annenkov’s detachment numbered approx. 200 people, operated in the area of Verkhneuralsk and Beloretsk. Participant in battles with I.D. Kashirina and N.D. Tomina. At the beginning of September 1918, he was forced to leave the front of the III Ural Army Corps to suppress the uprising in the area of Slavgorod. With a detachment he occupied Slavgorod and carried out mass executions (09/15/1918). Participant in punitive operations in the white rear. Commander of the consolidated Partisan named after. Ataman Annenkov's division (from 10/23/1918). From 01.1919 he operated in Semirechye, mainly in the southeast of the Semirechensk region. (Kopalsky and Lepsinsky districts). Commander of the II Steppe Siberian Army Corps (from November 26, 1919, replaced by General I.S. Eftin). Commander of a separate Semirechensk army (from con. 1919), created from parts of the II Steppe Siberian Army Corps and the Separate Orenburg Army. In exile - in China (from 05/10/1920). In the camp on the Borotol River (north of the city of Kuldzha). Without fulfilling the requirements of the whale. authorities about the disarmament of the detachment, left for Urumqi (mid-07.1920) in order to get from there to the area of the city of Kobdo, cross the border and begin military operations against the Reds in Altai. Threatening with weapons, Annenkov received from the whale. authorities funds and from Urumqi headed to the fortress. Guchen, which he took with a fight. Arrested with the headquarters of the whale. authorities in Guchen and imprisoned in Urumqi prison (03.1921-02.1924). Upon his release, he took up horse breeding in Gansu province. He agreed to organize a detachment as part of the army of Marshal Zhang Tso-lin, but the general was detained. Feng Yu-hsiang, transferred to OGPU agents in Kalgan (03/31/1926) and taken to the USSR (04/10/1926). Shot in Semipalatinsk by military verdict. Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR after an open trial (07-08.1927). Honorary Cossack Art. Semipalatinsk Semirechensky Cossack army. Awards: St. Stanislaus 3rd class. (1911), St. Anne 4th Art. with the inscription “For bravery” (1914), St. Anne 3rd Art. with swords and bow (1915), St. Stanislaus 2nd art. with swords (1915), St. Anne 2nd Art. with swords (1915), swords and bow for the Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd class. (1916), St. George's weapon “for the fact that, holding the rank of centurion, on January 29, 1915, during the departure from East Prussia, he was hastily sent with his hundred to the left flank of the 28th Infantry Division within 3 days continuously on the 29th, 30th and 31st January, despising any danger and regardless of the superior forces pressing on him, he fought a stubborn battle, holding back the persistent onslaught of the enemy, and thereby facilitated the withdrawal of division units to Suwalki, personally working with a saber along with Cossacks in dashing battles" (VP 01/11/1917), Insignia of the Military Order of the 4th Art. with a laurel branch for officers (1917), Order of St. George, 4th class. “for the liquidation of the “Cherkassy defense” of the Reds on the Semirechensky front” (10/15/1919), French. Legion of Honor.

Boris Vladimirovich Annenkov (February 9, 1889 - August 25, 1927, Semipalatinsk) - ataman of the Siberian Cossack army, commander of a separate Semirechensk army, major general, participant in the Civil War. Grandson of the Decembrist Ivan Annenkov.
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+4 photos + text....>>>

(Ataman B.V. Annenkov with his convoy)

Information (not to incite things, from the wiki)
Biography

From the Siberian Cossacks. Born into the family of a retired colonel. He was a fencing teacher at a military school.
1906 - Graduated from the Odessa Cadet Corps.
1908 - Graduated from the Alexander Military School, was released as a cornet into the 1st Siberian Cossack Regiment as a commander of a hundred.
Transferred to the 4th Siberian Cossack Regiment (Kokchetav).
1914 - A riot broke out in the Cossack camp. The rioters chose Annenkov as their temporary chief, but he did not take direct part in the protest. Annenkov personally reported what had happened to the Siberian military ataman. In response to the demand from General Usachev, who arrived with the punitive expedition, to name the instigators and persons involved in the murder of the officers, he refused. On charges of concealment and inaction, he was brought before a military court among 80 rebels. Acquitted by a military court. He was handed over to a higher district military court, which sentenced him to 1 year and 4 months of imprisonment in a fortress with restricted rights. Annenkov's sentence was replaced by a transfer to the German front.
1915 - As part of the 4th Siberian Cossack Regiment, he took part in battles in Belarus. Finding himself surrounded, he brought out the remnants of the regiment.
1915-1917 - Commanded one of the partisan detachments created on his initiative. He was awarded the cross of St. George and St. Anne, an honorary weapon, the French Order of the Foreign Legion (from the hands of General Poe), as well as the English medal "For Bravery".
March 3, 1917 - With the detachment he swore allegiance to the Provisional Government.
September 1917 - Placed with a detachment at the disposal of the headquarters of the 1st Army.
December 1917 - Sent to Omsk with a detachment to be disbanded “for counter-revolutionism.”
January 1918 - Refused to disarm the detachment at the request of the Bolsheviks and began to fight, settling in the village of Zakhlamlinskaya, but was forced to retreat to neighboring villages.
February 18-19, 1918 - During the “Popov's Rebellion” he organized a raid to save the military shrines of the Siberian Cossacks - the Military Banner of the 300th Anniversary of the House of Romanov and the Banner of Ermak - after which he went to Kokchetav, then to the Kyrgyz steppe.
March 1918 - Elected military ataman of the Siberian Cossacks by an illegally convened military circle of the Siberian Cossacks in the village of Atamanskaya (near Omsk).
March 12, 1918 - At the head of the Separate Rifle and Horse Brigades, he rebelled against Soviet power.
March 19, 1918 - Omsk was captured.
End of April 1918 - Annenkov's rebellion was suppressed, Omsk was taken by the Bolsheviks.
June-October 1918 - The detachment reached a strength of 1,500 bayonets and sabers (4 regiments, an artillery division and several auxiliary units), together with the White Czechs took part in battles against the Bolshevik troops in Western Siberia.
July 28, 1918 - Military foreman.
Commanding a combined detachment of Orenburg and Siberian Cossacks, he defeated the detachments of Kashirin and Blucher on the Upper Ural Front and took Verkhneuralsk.
September 11, 1918 - Brutally suppressed the Bolshevik uprising in the Slavgorod and Pavlodar districts, capturing the red district peasant congress of 400 delegates.
October 15, 1919 - Awarded the Order of St. George IV degree and promoted to major general.
October 23, 1918 - The partisan detachment was transferred to the subordination of the ataman of the Semirechensk Cossack army and renamed the “Partisan Ataman Annenkov Division”.
December 22, 1918 - Counterintelligence and individual units of the detachment participated in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprising in Omsk and brutal reprisals against its participants.
December 1918 - Received command of the 2nd Steppe Corps with the order to liberate all of Semirechye from the Reds.
January-April 1919 - He fought in the area of the village of Andreevka with varying success.
July 1919 - Conducted military operations in the Andreevka area. He allocated several regiments to the Eastern Front.
August 1919 - Commander of the Separate Semirechensk Army. Suppressed uprisings in Semipalatinsk and Lepsinsky district.
Winter 1919-1920 - Took command of Dutov's units.
February 29, 1920 - Refused to accept the ultimatum of the Red Army command and lay down arms.
March-April 1920 - With an 18,000-strong detachment, he retreated to the Chinese border, settling at the Selke Pass.
April 28, 1920 - Left with the remnants of the detachment for China, where he was based in Xinjiang.
August 15, 1920 - Relocated to Urumqi.
September 1920 - Moved to the Gucheng fortress.
March 1921 - Arrested by Chinese authorities and sent to prison in Urumqi.
February 1924 - Released through the efforts of the chief of staff of the detachment, Major General N.A. Denisov, and thanks to the intervention of representatives of the Entente countries.
April 7, 1924 - Fraudulently captured by the commander of the 1st Chinese People's Army, Marshal Feng Yuxiang (for a large monetary reward) and handed over to security officers operating in China, after which he was taken to the USSR through Mongolia.
July 25 - August 12, 1927 - court hearing of the visiting session of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR in Semipalatinsk.
August 25, 1927 - Shot together with N.A. Denisov.
September 7, 1999 - The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to rehabilitate B.V. Annenkov and N.A. Denisov."

1999 - The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to rehabilitate B.V. Annenkov and N.A. Denisov.
This ataman is a rare exception among other Siberian varieties of this title; In his detachment, iron discipline is established, the units are well trained and perform hard combat service, and the ataman himself is an example of courage, fulfillment of duty and soldierly simplicity of life (A.P. Budberg).
From the testimony of Adjutant Annenkov: “The ataman was nicknamed the Black Baron back in Kokchetav, I don’t remember who was the first... In Omsk, we, our comrades-in-arms, already knew him as a person who did not smoke or consume alcoholic beverages, but who destroyed a lot of candy. He had no friends, shunned women - he was single... In Kyrgyzstan, Annenkov loved to ride in a car, he loved to run over a cat, a dog, a chicken, a sheep... He said that he would like to run over some Kyrgyz citizen.” (“10 years of counter-revolution.” Essay on the most important cases of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR D.I. Matron. // Omsk branch of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (formerly Omsk Historical Party Archive)).

When the people of Russia languished under the yoke of Bolshevism,
Our small detachment raised an uprising
We went to battle, leaving our wives, homes and mothers
We fought with the Reds, wanting to give peace quickly...
For two years they fought with the dark force, losing hundreds of people.
Quite a few brave people died under the bullets of devils.
Alas, capricious fate is stronger than us,
The people's intoxication has not passed, the hour of victory has not come.
And Kolchak himself, the chosen one of the rich.
In Irkutsk he was shot by the hands of executioners.
We fought for a long time in Semirechye, having five fronts,
But apparently the Almighty’s verdict was already ready for us.
And we had to leave everything behind and go to the Selka peaks, dragging shells, guns and vehicles with us.
Without bread, without shelters, we completed the path of suffering,
Exhausted on the road, we shivered in the snow all night.
So, retreating step by step, they made their way to the border.
The Reds' attempts to advance were calmly repulsed (B.V. Annenkov).

War produces both heroes and villains. And it is not surprising that sometimes both qualities coexist in one person. Such was Boris Annenkov - a man of unparalleled courage and unparalleled cruelty. The Reds, against whom he fought, were afraid of his name alone. The whites among whom he found himself did not know what to do with him.

Ataman Annenkov lived only thirty-eight years, but there are a great many memories of his life and “exploits”. The most remarkable thing in his biography: Ataman Annenkov sincerely believed that he was doing a good deed. With the slogan “For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland,” he led his soldiers into battle. And they walked, ready to kill and die.

The military biography of Boris Annenkov is well known, but it is difficult to say anything about his childhood and youth. He was born near Kiev either in March or February 1889 into a noble military family. His father was a retired colonel, so the boy was sent to study at the Odessa Cadet Corps. At the age of seventeen, the young man was released from the corps and immediately went to continue his studies at the Alexander Military School. Two years later, with the rank of cornet, he was assigned to the First Siberian Cossack Regiment, and the nineteen-year-old cornet went to his place of service - to the Chinese border, to Dzharkent.

The year was 1908. Russia had just experienced its first revolution and lost the Russo-Japanese War. When a new commander, the future famous General Krasnov, then still a colonel, arrived in his regiment, he immediately spoke flatteringly about twenty-two-year-old Boris. Intelligent, persistent, excellent with weapons, doing gymnastics, always fit, resilient and cheerful - the centurion could not help but like him. Krasnov decided that a great future awaited him.

When the centurion Annenkov was on vacation, the First World War broke out. When he returned to Kokchetav, the Cossack army was seething. The Cossacks did not want to recognize their superiors. They removed their commanders from their positions, and elected the intelligent and respected Boris as temporary commander. And Annenkov had to go to his chieftain and explain the situation. But during this time, the higher authorities had already sent a punitive detachment of General Usachev to the regiment, which demanded that the instigators be handed over. Annenkov looked him in the eye and refused. The general did not forgive this. His expedition captured 80 Cossacks and an intractable officer and sent them to a court-martial. But Boris was lucky: the court acquitted him. This angered Usachev, and the centurion was tried again, this time by the district court. He was sentenced to one and a half years of imprisonment in the fortress. And since the war was going on, they replaced the fortress with the German front.

Officer Annenkov fought in Belarus, where he achieved the creation of raid detachments, earned many medals and orders during the war years: St. Anne, St. Stanislav, the St. George Cross with a laurel branch and the golden St. George weapon with the Orders of St. George and Anna. During the war years, the centurion rose to the rank of captain.

But then came 1917, the revolution, the October Revolution. Annenkov received orders to relocate to Omsk. But first hand over your weapons. This order immediately opened my eyes to the current situation. The detachment did not surrender its weapons, but sometimes on foot, sometimes by transport, sometimes by rail and began to move east, to Siberia. And during the journey, Boris, now a foreman, saw the proletarian revolution in all its glory. Executions on the spot, without trial, robbery, faces of “civilians” twisted with hatred, corpses. The chieftain was sentimental, but now he decided for himself that the Bolsheviks needed to be killed, and that only terror could be used against terror.

The Cossacks have never been calm and reasonable. They took up the cry of their commander with delight. The border between peaceful people and the enemy has completely disappeared. Cossacks were always taught not to spare rebels. Is it any wonder that the war hero chose scorched earth tactics to truncate the “Hydra of Revolution”?

From the ruined church, his people managed to recapture the military banners, and the detachment went to the steppes, they managed to find contacts with the white underground fighters and prepare reprisals against the Reds in Omsk. In March 1918, he was elected military ataman in the Cossack circle, and on March 19, his people took Omsk from the march. The massacre was monstrous. But the Reds were not asleep either: in April they again recaptured Omsk. True, the detachment was replenished with those who wanted to fight for the Fatherland, and there were fifteen hundred bayonets. Realizing that they could not gain a foothold in Eastern Siberia, Annenkov led his people to the Urals.

There the White Czechs joined their ranks. Soon the royal family was shot in Yekaterinburg. This was the last straw: from that night on, the chieftain chose to forget about humanity and humanism. In September, his people massacred and burned the Pavlodar and Slavgorod districts that rebelled against the whites. Neither children nor women were spared, let alone men? They killed not just, but in such a way that the victims suffered thoroughly. This was the Reds' retribution for the death of the Tsar. For this, Annenkov received another order from the white command - St. George, 4th degree and the rank of major general. His detachment turned into a division, it was ethnically diverse - Russians, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Chinese, Uyghurs, Manchus, Afghans, and the very sight of this horde of the Civil War inspired horror. What about actions?

The division willingly raped, cut tongues, ears and noses, chopped off arms and legs, impaled them on bayonets and ripped open their stomachs. The military successes were excellent, but the white command abruptly stopped rejoicing and holding Annenkov up as an example. After listening to the petitioners and the reports of their own intelligence officers, the command was horrified. In Petropavlovsk, which the horde attacked with a roar and whistle, sixteen “defenders of the fatherland” immediately received a sentence from a field court and a bullet in the head. Wherever they appeared, people fled, abandoning all their property. The white generals did not know what to do. He seems to be one of his own, a patriot and a hero, but this hero seems to be deliberately playing into the hands of the Reds: as soon as people find out that his division is coming, they immediately go over to the side of the enemy! And even worse: when, having completed another partisan raid into suspicious villages, the division encountered red units, they had to retreat. Annenkov's multinational rabble could only kill unarmed people. The division was defeated.

In 1920 it became clear that the White movement had lost. Kolchak died in Irkutsk. With the remnants of the army, the ataman left for China. On the border with China, his army “had fun” for the last time - they slaughtered not only the Reds, but also the Whites and all sorts of intellectuals. For fun, they stood in a circle and chopped everyone indiscriminately like cabbage. The chieftain could not do anything. He could only write poetry. And he wrote. Inept poems, sad, lost. About the homeland, about battles, about the road, about snow, about hunger, about death. Some of his people did not want to go into exile. All of them were killed in their homeland. Annenkov himself ended up in Urumqi, China. Nobody needed him there. He was soon arrested by Chinese authorities. The reason for the arrest is unclear: either they wanted to force the Russian partisans to give up all their valuables, or they wanted to take away the Manchu regiment, created on the basis of a former partisan detachment, from foreigners, or the army in China could not resist robberies and violence. Three years later, General Denisov managed to get him out of the dungeon. However, he was unlucky again: now the Chinese marshal was tempted by the reward promised by the security officers for the ataman’s head. And he was captured and transported to Soviet Russia. Together with Annenkov, his defender Denisov was also taken. And three years later in Soviet captivity, blaming an unimaginable number of victims, on August 25, 1927, the ataman was shot.

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Portrait

Ataman Boris Vladimirovich Annenkov (1889-1927) from among the daring Cossack freemen, for whom personal freedom is always more valuable than law and order. He had a developed sense of duty and honor, but was no less self-willed and independent.

Hereditary nobleman Annenkov had a passion for learning. In 1906, he graduated from the Odessa Cadet Corps, and two years later from the Alexander Military School. He was especially successful in learning languages. In addition to English, French and German, in a short time he mastered the Kazakh and Chinese languages.

Annenkov was an excellent athlete: he fenced well, rode a horse and shot. With his fellow soldier, cornet Bernikov, he stormed the yet unconquered peaks of the Dzhungar Alatau. He gave the heights names, for example, Ermak Timofeev or Nicholas II.

“Black Baron,” - that’s what Annenkov was called for his passion for the color black; he did not have the habit of smoking or drinking, shunned women and did not make friends. He also had weaknesses - candy and horses. He had a special passion for horses. He carefully selected horses, bred them, but especially loved his faithful Sultan.

As punishment to the front

Annenkov, then still a centurion of the 4th Siberian Cossack Regiment, showed his best qualities during the riot. The rebellious Cossacks of one of the camps elected him to be their commander, but he did not get involved with the rebels and reported everything to his superiors. But when a punitive expedition arrived to suppress the riot, when asked to extradite the instigators of the riot, he declared that he was an officer, not an informer.

As punishment, the military court sends Annenkov to the German front. There, on the fields of the First World War, the military talents of the future chieftain were most fully revealed. Finding himself surrounded, he managed to accomplish the almost impossible - to remove the remnants of the regiment from it.

Having established himself as an excellent officer, with general approval Annenkov was appointed commander of a partisan detachment assembled from Cossack volunteers. Fighting behind enemy lines, he takes the Germans by surprise over and over again with his daring raids. Iron discipline among his subordinates even then distinguished him as a military leader.

"Red" fight!

After Nicholas II abdicated the throne, Annenkov and his squad swore allegiance to the Provisional Government, but the Bolsheviks who came to power exiled him to Omsk for counter-revolution. The commander refused to disarm his subordinates and, retreating deep into Cossack territories, became opposed to the new regime. In March 1918, he was elected ataman of the Siberian Cossacks, and in July - military foreman.

Having initially a relatively small number of soldiers - about 1,500 bayonets and sabers, Annenkov, nevertheless, successfully entered the Civil War. One after another, he defeats the detachments of Kashirin and Blucher, together with the “White Czechs” he selflessly fights against Soviet power in Western Siberia, participates in the suppression of the Bolshevik uprisings, and also liberates Semirechye from the “Reds”.

According to the last word

Not having enough funds, the ataman, nevertheless, monitors the quality of his soldiers’ uniforms and weapons. Of course, there was some trickery involved. So, in Semipalatinsk, putting pressure on the bourgeoisie who remained there, he collects “voluntary” contributions, quite decent sums, and spends them on his army.

His soldiers are dressed to the nines. They wear black tunics, chakchirs with silver stripes and mentiks embroidered with white cords - almost according to the canons of the hussar uniform. Other regiments that were subordinate to Annenkov also had their own uniform - Orenburg, Semirechensk, Manchu-Chinese.

And the “Annenkovites” are arming themselves to the latest standards. They have English Lewis machine guns and French Shosha systems, American Vickers and Colts, Japanese and English rifles, and even heavy guns.

Disobedience

They tried several times to transfer Annenkov to the Western Front, but to no avail. All he could do was allocate several regiments to be sent to the Eastern Front. He clearly did not want to destroy the small empire created in Semirechye. Among the White Guard leaders, Annenkov was known as a not very reliable and undisciplined commander.

Where did the iron discipline of his soldiers go? The regiments allocated by the ataman for the Eastern Front show themselves from the worst side: in Petropavlovsk they begin to engage in robbery and robbery. By decision of the military court, 16 of the most guilty soldiers were sentenced to death.

Bloody Ataman

One of Annenkov’s colleagues said that when the ataman was riding in a car, he liked to run over a cat, a dog, or a ram, but sometimes he expressed a more savage desire - “to run over some Kyrgyz.” Later, through the efforts of his army, he “crushed” many - not only soldiers, but also unarmed people.

Time gradually changed, in the words of General P.N. Krasnov, a “God-gifted, courageous, decisive, intelligent” person. Defenders of the ataman’s good name justify his cruelty due to wartime and the need to respond to the “Red Terror.” But eyewitnesses in their memoirs paint a less heroic picture.

Annenkov’s personal driver Alexey Larin recalled that his boss quite often made raids on villages, looking for peasants sympathetic to the Bolsheviks. Those caught in sympathy were flogged by the “Black Hussars” until they lost consciousness, but could be hacked to death with sabers or shot. Neither women nor children were spared. At the same time, the ataman himself did not take part in the reprisals, but only observed.

A more terrifying picture was painted by a resident of the village of Cherny Dol who survived one of the ataman’s raids: “They did what they wanted, they took away, they burned, they laughed at women and girls, they raped those 10 years old and older.”<…>They took my husband into the city and chopped him up, cut off his nose and tongue, cut out his eyes, and cut off half his head. We found it already buried.”

End of the Empire

The notoriety of Annenkov's atrocities spread not only among the Bolsheviks and peasants, but also among the White Guards. It is not surprising that after the Red Army forced the ataman to retreat beyond the Chinese border, no more than 700 people remained from his army of thousands.

Annenkov's scattered detachments first reached Urumqi and then settled in Guchen.

It was in Guchen at the end of March 1921 that an armed conflict occurred between Chinese soldiers and Annenkov’s detachment, which, according to historians, was provoked by Bolshevik agents. Annenkov, who went to settle the incident, was immediately arrested and imprisoned. Only in February 1924, thanks to the efforts of former comrades, Annenkov was released.

But the ataman did not have to walk free for long. Already in April 1924, Chinese Marshal Feng Yuxiang, bribed by the Bolsheviks, lured Annenkov out and then handed him over to the security officers. As researchers note, this was one of the first operations of the Soviet government to behead the “white movement” abroad.

Ataman Annenkov was tried in Semipalatinsk in July-August 1927. They accused him not of counter-revolutionary activities, but of mass atrocities against prisoners and civilians. The number of victims of Annenkov’s terror is estimated in many thousands. So, in Sergiopol alone, about 800 people were killed, and near Lake Alakol, on the orders of the ataman, 3,800 soldiers and Cossacks who wished to stay in Russia were shot. On August 24, 1927, Annenkov was executed.

P.S.
On September 7, 1999, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to rehabilitate Boris Annenkov.