KURSK-KROMI
“THESE FORMATIONS, NUMBERING JUST OVER 22,000 MEN, WERE HIGHLY MOTIVATED, EXPERIENCED, BATTLE-HARDENED VETERANS”
By August 1919 General A.I. Denikin’s Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR) constituted the major threat to the Bolshevik regime. The Red Army was facing a circle of enemies: to the west, Poland occupied Minsk; to the northwest another ‘White Guard’ force threatened Petrograd; to the east the armies of Admiral A.V. Kolchak were heading towards Moscow, the Bolshevik capital of Russia since the summer of 1918. However, the AFSR was also marching from southeastern Ukraine and was by far the most likely to take Moscow.
The Moscow Directive
In late June 1919 the AFSR had taken Tsaritsyn, (later better known as
