vice during this campaign, Denikin was named chief of
staff of the southwestern front.
Following the war’s end, Denikin returned to Rus-
sia, where Czar Nicholas, the head of the Romanov
dynasty, had been overthrown in a bloodless coup in
February 1917—the February Revolution—and a gov-
ernment under Alexander Kerensky had been estab-
lished. Although Denikin had served the czar faithfully
for more than a decade, he was a strong supporter of
Nicholas’s removal from power. His shifting loyalties
allowed him to work under successive regimes, and he
served as chief of staff to Generals Brusilov, Mikhail
Alexeyev, and Lavr Kornilov. When Kornilov attempted
a military coup to bring a military government to Rus-
sia, Denikin supported him, but the coup plot collapsed
and both men were arrested and taken to the city of
Bykova. The two men escaped together when Vladimir
Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917.
Denikin joined with Kornilov and Alexeyev to form the
nucleus of what was to become the anti-Bolshevik, or
White, army; Alexeyev established a military force in
Rostov and Novocherkassk on the Don River. On 13
April 1918, Kornilov died, and Denikin succeeded him
as commander of the Whites, while Alexeyev served as
the political leader of the ragtag army.
Working with other dissident groups, including
the Don Cossacks under General Petr Krasnov and czar-
ist troops under General Nikolai Drozdovsky, Denikin
began a campaign against the Bolsheviks (also called the
Reds) in the Caucasus mountains (June 1918). Within
three months, a rapid series of victories against the Reds
led to an increase in the numbers of Denikin’s forces
from 9,000 to over 40,000. Assistance from the allied
countries, including the United States, aided the Whites’
cause. By February 1919, Denikin’s army had faced down
more than 150,000 trained Bolshevist troops and pushed
the Reds to near surrender. General Alexeyev died on 25
September 1918, and Denikin became the commander
in chief of the armed forces of Southern Russia.
By the middle of 1919, Denikin was on the verge
of defeating the Bolsheviks and bringing an end to
Communist rule in Russia. His force had grown to over
150,000 well-trained troops, and they were marching
across southern Russia unopposed. He had seized the
cities of Odessa, Kiev, Poltava, Kharkov, and controlled
more than 400,000 square miles of territory. It appeared
that with some military assistance from the Allies, De-
nikin would move onto the Bolshevists and defeat them
once and for all. In May 1919, he launched a huge of-
fensive against the Reds. Denikin’s rapid victories al-
lowed his army to move through the Ukraine and north
toward Moscow. However, he did not know that the
Communist government in Moscow had strengthened
its front-line troops, which held him off.
In October 1919, Denikin’s White forces were
defeated at Oryol, and the following month General
Semyon budenny’s Red forces met Denikin’s troops at
Kupyansk and broke through the White lines, forcing a
retreat. In March 1920, Bolshevist forces retook Rostov,
and Denikin evacuated his forces to the Crimea. These
reverses were the end of his leadership: In April 1920,
he reluctantly handed over control of the White armies
to General Peter Nikolayevich Wrangel and left for exile
in France. In 1946, he moved to the United States andGeneral Anton Denikin
Denikin, Anton ivAnovich