Always with Honor: The Memoirs of General Wrangel

by Pyotr Wrangel

Russia, 1917. As World War I drags on, political turmoil slowly paralyzes the Empire. The Czar abdicates. His replacements are ineffectual and incompetent. Violence sweeps the country. One by one, institutions collapse under the weight of chaos and terror. The Bolsheviks, a small group of communist radicals initially supported by German intelligence, launch a revolution that sends the country into a tailspin. The nation is plunged into a terrible civil war which by its end will leave over 10 million Russians dead, with millions more scattered across the globe.

Leading the anti-communist “White” forces against the new “Red” army to the end was Pyotr Wrangel. Wrangel, a career cavalry officer who fought with distinction in the Russo-Japanese War and World War i, found himself at the center of various intrigues in the early stages of the Russian Revolution. After narrowly escaping death at the hands of a Bolshevik execution squad, Wrangel joined the Volunteer Army of General Denikin. Although Wrangel accomplished the impossible repeatedly, leading his tiny cavalry force to victory over communist units many times its size, he was unable to persuade Denikin to abandon an ill-planned assault on Moscow. After that offensive failed, the Volunteer Army collapsed.

Widely recognized for his tactical brilliance and unimpeachable character, Wrangel accepted the burden of command over the last remnant of anti-communist forces. Under his leadership the outnumbered and out-gunned White Army launched a devastating counterattack, retaking Crimea and the surrounding area from the Reds. There, he and his remaining men staged a heroic defense while attempting to obtain international support. After Russia was abandoned by its former allies and his position became untenable, Wrangel personally directed the evacuation of his Army and thousands of civilian refugees.

Wrangel published his memoirs in 1928, shortly before his death. Although the book was translated into English in 1929, it eventually fell out-of-print. For more than 60 years, no new copies were made. The few remaining used editions became unaffordable for the average reader. We are proud to make the memoirs of one of the greatest champions in the fight for civilization available to the public once again.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Biography, Politics, War, Military Fiction

307 pages, Paperback

Published October 23, 2020

About the author

Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel (Russian: Барон Пётр Никола́евич Вра́нгель)was a Russian Lieutenant General, one of leaders of anti-Bolshevik White Army in south Russia. In 1918-1919 commander of equestrian corpse in General Anton Denikin army. In April 1920 he was chosen for Commander-in-Chief of the White forces in Crimea.

Reviews

[Charles Haywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently wrote of the Finnish Civil War, where the Whites defeated the Reds. In the twentieth century, that pattern was unfortunately the exception, with the more common result being seen in the Russian Civil War of 1918–20, where the Russian Reds defeated the Russian Whites. That struggle, though not as forgotten as the Finnish Civil War, does not loom large in modern consciousness, and books on it are rare. This volume, the recently-reprinted war memoir of Pyotr Wrangel, probably the most successful and certainly the most charismatic of the White generals, addresses that gap. It also carries many lessons, including about what might occur in a twenty-first-century ideological civil war in a large country.

The Whites lost for more than one reason, including poor generalship, inability to work in a unified fashion, and betrayal by the Allies, particularly Britain. We will return to all of these as seen through Wrangel’s eyes. He was a Baltic German, born in 1878 in the Russian Empire, what is now Lithuania. Trained as a mining engineer, he volunteered for Imperial service, and became a cavalry officer in the prestigious Life Guards. He fought in the Russo-Japanese War, and then all through World War I, receiving numerous decorations for bravery. This book picks up in 1916, as the war dragged on for Russia, and as the Russian elite, corrupt and clueless, shattered upon the shoals of destiny.

Wrangel’s memoir, essentially an edited war diary, was first published in 1928, the year Wrangel died, serialized in German in a White émigré magazine. Translated into English the next year by one Sophie Goulston, it fell from view, but was republished in 1957. This second edition added a preface written by Herbert Hoover, but also fell from view. It is not obvious from within the pages of this book why Hoover wrote a preface. It is because when Wrangel died, probably by poison, at only forty-nine, all his papers were sent to the new Hoover War Library, which was aggregating information about the former empires of Europe. Apparently, to this day the Hoover Archives harbors the single largest collection pertaining to Russian émigré documents, presumably still containing all of Wrangel’s documents. (They also contain much else interesting, such as the archives of the Tsar’s secret police, the Okhrana, a sadly ineffective body.) Thus, what is now the Hoover Institution must have had a connection to Always With Honor being republished in 1957.

Until very recently, therefore, this book was functionally unavailable to the public. You could buy a copy for hundreds of dollars, if you were lucky. But as I have noted before, a new publishing house, Mystery Grove Publishing, has been doing yeoman’s work in rescuing important books with a right-of-center tilt from the deliberate obscurity into which they have been placed, and this book made their list. True, most people today are frighteningly under-educated, so no doubt sales are not in the millions. It doesn’t matter for current purposes; reading the Mystery Grove books allows our future elite to self-educate, avoiding or repairing the indoctrination the Left has used to ruin America. Other than Always with Honor, there appears to exist only one English-language biography of Wrangel, published in 2010: The White Knight of the Black Sea, by a Dutchman, Anthony Kröner. Although it was blurbed by the Hoover Institution, suggesting an ongoing connection, Kröner’s book is obscure and nearly impossible to obtain. After chasing down leads (Twitter is sometimes good for something), I was able to order a copy from a Dutch bookstore. But it just goes to show that even today, serious, mainstream books can become functionally unavailable—it’s not just books published decades ago.

If there is a defect to this book, it is that you have to know at least the basics about Russian history from 1914 through 1918 in order to understand its contents. Wrangel wrote for an audience that was intimately familiar with that history, and makes no effort to either explain events or introduce individuals; he merely drops them, uncoated, into his own personal story. Wrangel begins in 1916, when World War I had ground on for three years, and there was great turmoil at the top of Russian society. He saw this first hand, because for a brief time he was aide-de-camp to the Tsar, leaving to return to the front right before Rasputin was killed. Although he only touches glancingly on Russian imperial politics, Wrangel seems to blame the Tsar for not seeing how corrupt many of the men surrounding him were, and for ignoring the needs of the people. He does not offer the details of what was happening as Russia came apart, merely a sketch, along with making two key points. First, the generals, the High Command, increasingly felt that “things could not go on as they were,” and many sought a solution that involved removing the Tsar—and not only to serve Mother Russia. “Others, again, desired a revolution for purely personal reasons, hoping to find in it scope for their ambitions, or to profit from it and settle their accounts with such of the commanders as they hated.” That is to say, a fragmenting society finds many eager to accelerate the fragmentation. Second, the people as a whole, and the upper classes in particular, acted as if everything was normal, they paid “no heed to the approaching storm.” That is to say, apparent normalcy says nothing about whether a society is about to founder.

In early 1917, after the February Revolution, Wrangel was sent back to St. Petersburg by his superior to remonstrate with the new Minister of War, Alexander Guchkov, who was promoting disorder in the Army, mostly by undermining authority through promoting “democracy” in the Army, in the form of Communist-dominated “soldiers’ committees.” Arriving in St. Petersburg (after having on the train thrashed a man with a red ribbon for insulting a woman), he was appalled to see the widespread disorder and profusion of Communist paraphernalia, most of all red ribbons and flags. Although officers not wearing a “red rag” were often attacked, Wrangel, all 6’ 7” of him, refused, and seems somewhat surprised nobody bothered him. Wrangel’s aim was to strengthen the Provisional Government’s hand against the expanding power of the “soviets,” that is, groups organized to seize power by the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and the Socialist Revolutionaries, but he discovered the truth for himself—the Provisional Government was utterly incompetent.

Wrangel in passing mentions meeting “General Baron Mannerheim” on a train, who was leaving St. Petersburg after the ascendancy of the Provisional Government, as Wrangel himself was returning to Petersburg. In fact, Wrangel’s career bears more than passing parallels to those of the Finnish hero. Both were born on the outskirts of the Empire and ably served the Tsar, then fought his enemies after he abdicated. Like Mannerheim, Wrangel was extremely competent and decisive. And both had little patience for politicians, less for bureaucrats, and struggled to balance political imperatives with military dictates. Mannerheim won his struggle against Communism, at least his first one, though, and Wrangel lost.

He describes, from a ground-level view, the struggle between the Provisional Government and the new Petrograd Soviet, including how the Bolsheviks, subsidized by Germany, rapidly expanded their power. It wasn’t just money—they seized whatever property they wanted to use, and the Provisional Government took no action against them. The new government was eager to suppress the conservative press, but never bothered the left-wing press, which was openly treasonous. Sounds familiar. Guchkov, who had rejected Wrangel’s pleas, was replaced as Minister of War by Alexander Kerensky, and Wrangel went back to the front in June 1917, in what is now Ukraine, as part of Kerensky’s major summer offensive, which he hoped would unify the Russians.

It did not; the unrest Wrangel witnessed in St. Petersburg was merely the run-up to the “July Days,” where the Bolsheviks attempted to seize power and were defeated, but unwisely were not slaughtered. The commander-in-chief of the army, Lavr Kornilov, whom Wrangel knew, assaulted the Petrograd Soviet, in what may or may not have been a coup attempt against the Provisional Government. This failed, strengthening the Soviet. The October Revolution soon followed, and Kornilov, escaping prison, went on to create the Volunteer Army, the largest military grouping of the Whites. Meanwhile, Wrangel had been discharged by the Provisional Government—he was, no doubt justifiably, regarded as completely politically unreliable. Thus, he went with his wife and four children to Yalta, in the Crimea, where he had a home.

Soon enough, though, war came to him. The postwar events in southern Russia are enormously complex. It was not just the struggle of the Reds to establish power, opposed by the gradually coalescing Whites, but also involved many other players, such as the Ukrainian Parliament, seeking independence but willing to cooperate with the Whites, seeing the Reds as joint enemies, and various Cossack groups, generally hostile to the Reds but desirous of managing their own affairs. For the Whites, whose internal interactions often featured disunity, one point of unity was opposition to breaking up Russia. Thus, a constant challenge was how to fight side-by-side with groups opposed to maintaining the Russian Empire, or who wanted some degree of independence within the Empire. With the Cossacks, federation was a possibility, given history and their own organization; with the Ukrainians, not so much (as we see even today, though I know little about the modern specifics).

Wrangel joined the Volunteer Army, soon commanded by Anton Denikin. In Wrangel’s telling, much of the blame for ultimate White failure lies on Denikin, whom he faults for bad leadership and terrible strategic decisions, most of all requiring a premature march by all White forces on Moscow, in 1919. “We wanted to do too much and make ourselves master of every position at once, and we [succeeded] only in weakening ourselves and so becoming powerless.” Wrangel also faults squabbling among the Whites, corruption among their leaders, and a lack of discipline among the men. He admits that “requisitioning” is necessary, but gives constant pained descriptions of how many White officers of all ranks simply engaged in organized looting for personal advantage, turning the Army into “a collection of tradesmen and profiteers.” He also faults Denikin for inflexibility in coming to terms with the Cossacks and the Ukrainians. His relations with Denikin were further soured by third-party agitation for Wrangel to supplant Denikin. “As is usual in such cases, as one man was more and more discredited, another became dearer and dearer to the people. Unfortunately, this other was myself.”

One of Wrangel’s chief talents appears to have been as a judge of men. I cannot say if his portrait of Denikin is accurate, but it comports with what history I know, and the results Denikin achieved. Nearly every other important person with whom Wrangel meets is judged and given an incisive summary (and Wrangel admits where he made errors, as well). Thus, in passing, Wrangel mentions that “Captain Baron Ungern Stenberg, or simply ‘the Baron,’ as his troops called him, was more complex and interesting. He was of the type that is invaluable in wartime and impossible in times of peace.” (Ungern was a fascinating figure, whom I have discussed elsewhere.) This talent to judge men is completely invaluable in a Man of Destiny and completely inborn (though it can be polished with training); it also seems nonexistent in today’s American political leaders, perhaps because they have come to rely on money and the media to achieve their ends, rather than on forming a cohesive and dedicated group of men with the same objectives, on whom they can rely.

The main White armies, including the Volunteer Army, were largely defeated by early 1920. Again, this is an area I am not expert in, and one that does not have a lot of historiography directed at it, although I have ordered what appear to be the two main scholarly works on it, by Peter Kenez, written forty years ago. I don’t know why this is, though certainly most histories of Russia, or of the Russian Revolution, cover the Civil War to some degree. Wrangel then went into exile in Constantinople, and thus ends Part I of his memoir.

But by April 1920, he was back, after Denikin resigned and the remaining military commanders asked Wrangel to be Commander-in-Chief of the remnants of the Whites. Part II narrates two difficult tasks Wrangel had—trying to reverse military defeat while achieving political renewal. His hope was that if he could achieve both, and establish stable White rule in Taurida (the Russian province composed of Crimea and “mainland” Russia north of it, including parts of Ukraine and the Kuban), that could form the “healthy nucleus” of a new Russia. From there, they could ultimately completely defeat the Bolsheviks and rebuild a new version of old Russia.

To win militarily, Wrangel had to reconstruct the shattered White forces, gather new men, and not only resist, but push back, the Reds, most of all from the rich agricultural land of northern Taurida. To win politically, he had to satisfy multiple constituencies—the Army, of course, but also the peasants, terrified of the Reds but desirous of land reform, and the middle classes, mostly also terrified of the Reds but many still holding, stupidly, to non-Communist leftism and hoping for the return of something like the Provisional Government. He had to run a government, as well, with too few competent bureaucrats. These intertwined tasks were monumental (and the strain, combined with the morale crusher of ultimate failure, may, in fact, account for Wrangel’s early death, rather than poison).

To head the government, he recruited . . . [Review completes as first comment.]

[Mansoor · Rating 4 out of 5]

رنگل خود سلطنت‌طلب بود، اما درک می‌کرد که عصر پادشاهی‌های سنتی به سر آمده و زمانه چیزی دیگر می‌طلبد

[Monty Milne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really excellent stuff, though it is so sad to think how things could have been so different. I really do think Wrangel could have won, and – to use Churchill’s phrase – strangled the Bolshevik baby in its cradle, thus saving Russia and the world from oceans of suffering. The treachery and betrayal of the British – largely due to my namesake and distant kinsman General George Milne – is particularly painful for me to read.

Wrangel’s tone is fair, dispassionate, and measured. The military action is explained in clear and fascinating detail, especially the key battles around Tsaritsyn – which, of course, is the city which under its (temporary) name of Stalingrad would later be the scene for equally decisive conflict on a far greater scale. Political matters are given their due too – especially Wrangel’s determined attempt to introduce democracy and land reform. Tragically, all his reforms were undone when the Bolsheviks won. One of the inevitable consequences of undoing all Wrangel’s sensible agrarian policies and imposing Bolshevik policies instead was a devastating famine in which millions died – and yet that was only the first of many famines, all either caused or exacerbated by Bolshevism, which would poison the land for decades to come.

There are some very entertaining pen portraits of some of Wrangel’s colleagues, who included the heroically brave and inspirational but also alcoholics, incompetents, and the clearly insane. Efforts at the front were frequently vitiated by enemy propaganda behind the lines, or by the foolishness of his allies – which included newspapers advocating pogroms, for example. One senses Wrangel’s frustration as his noble efforts, both on the battlefield and to build a free Russia, are undermined from both within and without.

Wrangel is icily polite about many of his colleagues, but in ways which make it clear why they were so useless. This is particularly true of the unfortunate General Denikin. His catastrophic handling of the White cause in south Russia meant that the command he bequeathed to Wrangel was by then a poisoned chalice. All that could really be achieved was a successful evacuation of the Crimean last bastion – which, had anyone but Wrangel been in charge, would almost certainly have been a disaster.

Wrangel – never shy of recording the failures as well as the triumphs of those who served with him – notes at one point that he had one of his own officers executed “for certain excesses in a restaurant.” Maybe it’s just as well we aren’t told what those excesses were – one presumes something more serious than ordering the wrong wine or blowing one’s nose on the napkin.

[Καιρὸς · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all those interested in the history of the Russian revolution and civil war. It's a great shame that the west turned their backs on Russia and let her get engulfed by the red flames of communism.

[Michael King · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intimate account from the man who lead the last remnants of the Russian army in the face of Bolshevism.

Despite us knowing the ultimate doom of this venture, one cannot help but feel excitement and hope while reading through many of the pages. However, tragedy and betrayal become insurmountable in the last weeks of the campaign. Crimea is evacuated and so too are we, from the common notions of western benevolence for the cause of anti-bolshevism.

The memoirs and his character leave us to reflect on what we value and what we would give our everything to. Wrangel ultimately maintains his honour, and I suspect earns the great respect of many (including myself). Calling us all to celebrate the sacrifices of him and his men in their fight.

[/Fitbrah/ · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best war memoirs I have read. Not only was it a great chronicle of the major events of the Russian Civil War but it made me rethink the relationship between the army and the state and the role played by politics and economics.

General Wrangel is such a charismatic writer, it's hard not to be thoroughly moved as he proceeds through the events, their defeat was imminent since he took command from General Denikin, but not once did he falter from his goal to preserve as much of the White Army's lives, or at least to provide them a dignified death.

Very likely one of the biggest chads in history.

[Tristan McGonigal · Rating 5 out of 5]

"She said only that duty was the most important thing in the world."

An incredible memoir of an incredible man who possessed an unwavering dedication to his country in the face of insurmountable odds.

An important reminder to readers on the importance of duty, maintaining your honor, and holding onto hope.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent memoir of the Russian Civil War by the Commander-in-Chief of the White Army, Pyotr Wrangel. He fought hard against the Bolsheviks but couldn't overcome the overwhelming superiority in numbers and matériel of the Red Army.

Wrangel was a Baltic German nobleman by birth and a dedicated servant of the Tsar. He served in the Russian army with distinction in the First World War.

Wrangel made extraordinary efforts to instill discipline and put order in the anticommunist forces of southern Russia. His dedication to the cause was unassailable. He chose to return to Russia from exile to lead the White Army when he knew it was a hopeless cause. Yet his patriotic sense of duty compelled him to return from exile and fight. He acted "always with honor" as the title says.

According to Wrangle, he inherited an impossible situation from his less than competent predecessor, General Anton Denikin. Wrangel was also betrayed by the Western powers, especially Lloyd George who sympathized with the communist "experiment" underway in Russia. France and the United States gave moral support to the White Army, but not much more than that. Lack of support from abroad, combined with corruption and major internal divisions, doomed the anti-communist cause.

The memoir was published in 1928, just before the author was murdered by Soviet agents. Like all memoirs, it should be supplemented with other more objective histories, but it is nevertheless an excellent eyewitness account of the Russian Civil War.

At the time, most Europeans were exhausted from the First World War which had just concluded. But they should have seen the seriousness of the Bolshevik threat and crushed it at the beginning. There had already been numerous communist revolutions all over Europe after the armistice, including Germany, Hungary, and Austria. It would have been easy for the West to defeat the Red Army if they wanted to. It would have saved Europe so much suffering and misery thanks to communism.

I'm taking off one star because of the horrible editing job of the publisher, Mystery Grove. Lots of typos that should have been corrected. It looks like the editor took an original book and scanned it with OCR software but didn't correct it. Too bad.

[Anodos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A superb memoir by an extraordinary man. He accepted the command of a doomed army and sought (as the title suggests) to preserve the honor and dignity of the Russian army. He refused to compromise or negotiate with the Bolshevik forces, and fought to the end. Refusing to surrender, he instead coordinated an incredible withdrawal of all of his forces from the Crimea. At which point he endeavored to protect and support his soldiers in exile, and maintain a state readiness. Eager to one day return and restore their homeland.

Wrangel is a noble and admirable figure. It is a shame his name is not more widely known.

I strongly encourage you to read it.

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 3 out of 5]

A memoir of the leader of the White Army in defense of Russia against the communist horde. It is sad how much misery has occurred as a result of Marx and his vile theories.

[Murtaza]

Until recently this memoir of a White Russian officer fighting the Bolsheviks was unavailable to the public. Thanks to the work of a few committed anti-Communists it has been resurfaced, providing an alternative view on the Russian Revolution from the perspective of the other day. Wrangel was a defender of what he saw as the Russian nation against an internationalist, anti-Russian movement that was bent on using his country as a base for world domination. He turned out to be quite correct in that appraisal as the Soviet Union did become a force for global tyranny and colonialism in the decades after he passed. Wrangel survived many massacres of White officers and went on to lead a desperate resistance to the Bolsheviks from a base in Crimea. That resistance failed, but Wrangel's last words to the Russian people and Europe in general before his defeat remain haunting.

[Tom Andersson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Baron Wrangels memoarer är väldigt spännande och väldigt gripande. Den otroliga övermakt som han och hans mannar slogs mot och överträffade vid flera tillfällen. Alla om och men kring de vitas kamp mot de röda - deras briljanta segrar och deras förkrossande strategiska och taktiska felsteg. Från hopp till förtvivlan till hopp igen och när man till slut närmar sig avgörandet så är det som om man inte vill låtsas om det man faktiskt vet utan hoppas att den armé som rest sig från spillrorna skall stå kvar och den regim som fördelat jorden, stoppat plundringarna och tagit vacklande steg mot demokrati skulle härda ut och vinna. Men när Polen sluter fred med med soviet står en armé på 41.000 åtgångna män mot den röda horden på 187.000 män.

[Ryan Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the name of strength and honor, I humbly ask you all to consinder reading this book and giving it to more men in your lives. I've never read a more stirring account of honor in my life.

[D.J. Speckhals · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a soft spot for the more obscure leaders in history, and Pyotr Wrangel fits that description perfectly. I've also found the Russian Civil War (which took place soon after the Bolshevik Revolution) an enigma and wanted to know more.

Always with Honor definitely gives a detailed eye-witness account of that horrible conflict that ended very poorly for the author and his people: the result was 70 years of Russian enslavement to Communism, and tragic, rippling effects across the world.

I can't remember reading a memoir from the losing side of a war, especially one where they lost so soundly. It's sad to know how it would all end, but I learned a lot in the process.

Memoirs are hard to review, especially ones approaching 100 years old. The author will always have a bias and rarely admit mistakes. At the same time, it was fascinating to see Russia and its people through Wrangel's eyes; he truly loved his country, its people, and its heritage. It was sad to learn how much the western powers (Britain, France, U.S.) underestimated the Bolsheviks and how monstrous they would become—in this regard, General Wrangel was far ahead of his time.

The best parts of this book were the first third and last third. I found the middle to be very dry, filled with details (equipment captured, minor geographic details, petty politics), and I had to plod through it. The Cossacks were the most mysterious element to me—from my American point-of-view, I wish I had learned more about who they were, what they wanted, and what happened to them.

Always with Honor is a fact-filled—though somewhat dry—account of the first true battle against worldwide communism. It's also an inspirational tale of how to keep your honor, despite being in the losing side of history. Our world could use more men like Pyotr Wrangel, and we would do well to learn some of the lessons he tried to teach a century ago.

[TRE · Rating 5 out of 5]

Criminally under-rated first-hand memoir of a general during the Russian Civil War that was not only anti-Bolshevik, but also not knee-jerk reactionary tsarist. Pyotr Wrangel was a true nationalist and simply wanted a form of government that was representative of what his people wanted, and not one that seized power because the previous system refused to defend itself.

In addition to being a great introduction to this overlooked transitional period - from tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union - it's also a surprisingly vivid display in how (and how NOT) to be a leader, with the former played by Gen. Wrangel and the latter by his indecisive and insecure predecessor, Gen Denikin. Fantastic cautionary lessons for corporate managers can be found in Denikin's pitfalls, and inspiration for dedicated team leaders in Wrangel's refusal to be disobedient to incompetent superiors because of the bad precedent it would set later for himself.

Lastly there are some eery parallels between our current anarcho-tyrannical times and 1918-1920 Russia:
- sclerotic institutional power that only enforces laws against the harmless law-abiding (while ignoring those causing real destruction they don't want to fight),
- career military bureaucrats that thought they could "reason" with radical incoming power,
- insatiable desire for communists to use profanity to such a degree that they become indecipherable,
- the disbanding of police by bolsheviks and replacing them with "public safety committees"staffed entirely by ex-cons that the Reds had just freed.

Highly recommended reading for lovers of history and leadership.

[Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. I wish I had a better mental map of the terrain. It would have made Wrangel's descriptions of the maneuvers and strategy more tangible. But I didn't need a map to realize that part of the world has been disputed and in conflict for quite a long time. Fascinating when he describes Kiev as the cradle of Russian Christianity. (But, wait, I though Kiev was Ukrainian... and hated Russia...) Also, his descriptions about the kind of man needed in a time of civil war and social breakdown is worth reading. Overall, I'm glad I read this!

[Kjartan · Rating 3 out of 5]

búinn með svona 2/3 og nenni ekki að lesa meira, margt gott í þessari bók og góð uppskrift að því hvernig á að leiða herdeild með sæmd, en afskaplega mikil skriffinnska og fundahöld og umfjöllun þar um.

[strategian]

This is translated from Russian into French and then again into English; Wrangel wasn't a typical author and it's non-fiction. With that in mind, I haven't really written to assess whether the text is a "good book" or not, so much as disclose my thoughts on Wrangel as a person, based on his memoirs. I would recommend reading it.

What makes Wrangel a bit impenetrable to a modern is how reflexive and instinctual his world view is. You can contrast it with his opposition: the talking points of the Bolsheviks now are common parlance, but were at the time constantly justified by reference to that which they sought to overthrow. They wanted world revolution, because they claimed the national model was a means of exploitation and oppression and strife; they wanted "democracy" or a facsimile of it, in contrast to the Tsarist despotism - etcetera.

In contrast, in this memoir of a civil war brought about by ideological radicalism, you'll find very little that stands out as ideological conceit. To those sympathetic to the red side, this is more or less a clear cut indication of Wrangel being an arch-reactionary, in the most shallow way. He was "reacting" against Bolshevism, he wanted to stop the revolution. Certainly true, and he does express disgust with the red regime. But in contemporary parlance, reactionary as a term is so weighty and comes with such baggage.

Did Wrangel want to restore the Tsar? In this (admittedly edited) memoir, that doesn't seem to be the case. Did he want to institute a proto-fascist autocracy as a palliative against revolution? Again, not really. He became a powerful executive because in a shambolic rump state under siege, there was no alternative. His policies were informed by necessity: democratic and regional when dealing with the agrarian question, heavy handed with the press, aloof with separatists, aggressively liberal and "progressive" in communication with the west.

It's hard not to see this pragmatism as the product of Wrangel's identification with the army. Neither the autocracy, nor the church, nor imperial territory formed the kernel of his being, but his experience in the military. Of course, imperial Russia's army was produced by Russia - to separate the two entirely is silly. But in the course of the text, the secession of territory, the concession to liberalism and the acceptance of the Russian people as a necessary element of governance are all accepted without any evidence of bitterness or even melancholy. Everything good about the world the Bolsheviks have destroyed is, for Wrangel, preserved in the army: patriotism, self sacrifice, courage, discipline and the preservation of the people. So long as the army endures, the spirit of his country endures.

The objective of his leadership is not purely the destruction of the revolution. He knows that that is beyond his reach and lifetime. The objective is the preservation of his cause's honour and integrity, and he pursues this through fighting for a lost cause in the most effective and dignified manner possible with his meagre resources. Outnumbered and outgunned, battles are fought and won, with little prospect of a final victory; ostensible allies betray the cause, the end looms larger and larger with every hour and hope decomposes. With the final end of the capacity for any resistance, despair seems the only option. But the Baron, principled but no zealot, exacts a final victory through the preservation of discipline and by it an incredible evacuation of his forces and those unwilling to become subjects of the soviets.

Truly, the stuff of legend for the contemporary reactionary; but as I said, there is something profoundly alien about it. Touching, heroic and romantic, but very otherworldly. Could any modern person lay claim to the same absence of pretense Wrangel exhibits throughout? I don't think so. Anyone in the west who draws inspiration from Wrangel will struggle to assert kinship with him, as much as they would the men of antiquity. Yet that alien quality is perhaps chrismation for the really heroic: if ten million men were cut from the same heroic cloth, would there be any need for heroes?

There is an ostensible sense of pride in the final operation, the evacuation, the absence of an any real melancholy or despair. One can naturally attribute this to the same sense of steely reserve and stoicism exhibited throughout the text. But it is hard not to connect this to the same instinctual and automatic sense of honour which coordinated the conduct of the Baron. While his troops, and his subjects, are in retreat, they are not dead, nor imprisoned. Thus, the war continues, the cause no more lost that it was a year before; the empire is gone but the army persists.

[Eli Kentner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal work about the actions of the Russian National Army (White) during the Bolshevik Revolution. Wrangel's ability to adapt to circumstances makes him a towering figure both physically and intellectually. Of all things, Wrangel represented all that was good and worth preserving in the Old Russia. Even Wrangel's wife came to defend him (by self imprisoning herself) when he was accused of treachery against the earliest parts of the Bolshevik regime. (relationship goals tbh)

Its tragic how the circumstances played out. Wrangel was ignored by the other generals, even though his plan for taking Moscow (via coordinated attacks) was the best by far. His taking of Tsaritsyn gave the Russian Nationalists great hope of stopping the Reds before they could fully consolidate. His campaign over the Great Steppe showed tremendous leadership and logistical preparation. The most thrilling part of the book is when the Russian National Army was trapped in the Crimea with a Red Army that crossed the Sea of Azov when its waters fell shallow. As neither could physically retreat, the result was a frantic fight between both sides on the Peninsula.

Although it was published in the late 1920s, the book still has lessons that can be seen today. Wrangel also makes a note about the Ukraine. When strolling through Kiev in 1918, he observes how the German occupying forces of the Ukraine have no palpable concern for the the territory. Rather, the German General Staff government simply made up the Ukraine to act as an antagonistic entity along Russia's border. In other words, the Ukraine began as the Kaiser's-Cats-Paw. This causes one to consider the prospect that the current regime in the Ukraine is the Cat's-Paw not of the Kaiser's empire, but now of the US. Empire.

Wrangel's work is excellent history. Those wanting to asses leadership in times of strife should consult his works. Maybe someday, Southern Russia will be littered with statues to the General and Tsaritsyn will return to its old name.

[A V · Rating 5 out of 5]

The work continuously struck me for its parallels with Thucydides. The author did so as well. Wrangel has an almost dry, certainly a removed way of narrating the events contained in the book: he would most certainly be an analytical man during the exercise of this exalted trade.

In general: I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the Russian Civil War and the subsequent rise of the Bolshevik/Communist government in Russia. Students of history in the West have been inoculated with the figures of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin: their historical importance is a fact. The forces which opposed these figures before they were safely set in the seats of power are less known. Pyotr Wrangel was one of those forces.

The work is recommended to students of military history, of strategy and those who are interested in the more exceptional types of our species.

[Mark McElreath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Following General Wrangel of the White Army in his fight against the Reds of the revolution, this work opens up a time in history that most know nothing about. Wrangel is leading the fledgling White Army in an attempt to take back what he and many others believe is the true Mother Russia. Though difficult to follow if you have little or no understanding of Russian history, it is an incredible read following a man with stalwart conviction and an unseared conscience.

[GamersDidNothingWrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read on the often neglected White Army of the Russian Civil War. Offers an alternative to the Soviet narrative of the revolutions of 1917

[Phillip Radon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely outstanding. An incredible memoir of one of the most tragic periods in human history.

[Rodrigo Domínguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps I could have done without the detailed descriptions of minute events and military tactics. To me, what's interesting is not so much what happened (we largely know what happened), but why and how it happened.

Why it happened? Little is said about the White Army in contemporary discussions; and what little is said is usually not great: reactionary brutes who wanted to reinstate the monarchy and its system of privileges. I once heard someone said that, had the White Army had succeeded, we'd have a Russian —and not Italian—word for fascism.

This treatment of the White Movement is unfair on two levels. First, while it is true that the earlier leaders like Denikin tolerated mounstrous acts, up to and including pogroms, Wrangel distanced himself not only from the virulent antisemitism that ran through imperial Russia, but from pushing a political program altogether. In fact, one of the things I greatly admire about Wrangel is how he embodies the soldier's ethos of keeping clear of politics.

Not only that but, as the weight of political leadership did eventually fall unto him, he made clear that the Russian people would have what form of government the Russian people wished (which is a far more democractic outlook than what the Western Europe of his day would have dared to envision). What's even more, Wrangel's support for peasant self-rule and Cossack autonomy showed that, whatever politics he might have personally favored, they were probably the right politics.

On another level, one shouldn't fall for the fashionable provocation of denouncing conservatism qua conservatism. The fact that Wrangel and his men stood for God and country is not, in and of itself, an indictment. Not any more than standing for radical secularism and the International are indictments of the communists (though the morally bankrupt Bolsheviks did commit many very real crimes, as the book demostrates). We should remain suspicious of those who would try people for the sole crime of wrongthink against liberalism.

How it happened? The answer is in the book's name. Wrangel and most of his followers conducted themselves with honor above all things (those who didn't apparently got court-martialed and shot). One would be hard-pressed to find a value more distateful for the modern mind, for it is an aristocratic value; one that necessitates two virtues which are antagonistic to the modernist worldview: selflessness and a sense of duty, usually unchosen.

When one reads Wrangel, one can hardly believe these men could behave like this, risking skin and forsaking material gain to an ideal of dignity and courage. In fact, many will chose not to believe it for, as Chesterton said, "there have been so many flaming faiths that we cannot hold; so many harsh heroisms that we cannot imitate…which seem to us at once sublime and pathetic.". We must not only believe, but urgently rescue honor from the graveyeard of outdated clichès as a cure for many of our current ills.

[M. Vtornikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It is not by a triumphal march from the Crimea to Moscow that Russia can be freed, but by the creation, on no matter how small a fragment of Russian soil, of such a Government with such conditions of life that the Russian people now groaning under the Red yoke will inevitably submit to its attractions.” (cope?)

This book was everything I expected and more because Wrangel does everything there is to do and more (apart from winning, of course): he wrestles with disorder among the troops; he almost gets executed; he tries his best to manage the separatist tendencies and fluid loyalties in the Empire’s southern regions (Cossacks, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, Tatars); he falls out with Denikin over military strategy (the march on Moscow, failure to properly secure White-controlled territory, failure to rendezvous with Kolchak); he retires to Constantinople; he steps up to take the reins of leadership when Destiny calls (Denikin steps down) to try to hold Crimea against overwhelming odds; he attempts expansion out of Crimea due to material inadequacies of the peninsula; he tries his best to retain the support of the British crown and the continued material support of the English Mission (to no avail); he establishes a military dictatorship; he fights for the recognition of his Government by France and the US (successfully); he manoeuvres on the international stage to keep the Poles fighting the Bolsheviks and attempts a merger with the Poles; he carries out a successful evacuation of hundreds of thousands and goes on to look after his army-in-exile until his death.

At first, I was sceptical about the title ‘Always with Honour’ but having finished the book, I see that the uniting string running through the narrative is Wrangel’s unshakeable sense of honour. It is exhibited from the start – in his dealings with dissent in the Army, and informs the rest of the story. Even in defeat, when he and his army are forced out of Crimea, the tone is not that of defeat but that of duty done as best it could, accompanied by a calm and resolute embrace of the unknown: “The crowded ships passed before me, cheers filled the air. The Russian spirit is great and the Russian soul unfathomable”. He writes with military curtness but very well.

Unrelatedly, it was interesting to see Wrangel’s rhetorical strategy for securing Western support for his army. He relentlessly insisted that Bolshevism was going to spread if not stopped and that his army was therefore fighting for all of Europe, civilisation, law, human dignity, etc., and hence needed the Allies’ maximal support. Very obvious, strong similarity to Ukrainian rhetoric now. (E.g., “If our sacrifices are to prove in vain, European society, European democracy, will be forced to take up arms to defend its cultural and political possessions against an enemy who is drunk with success”)

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pyotr Wrangel was one of the most prominent figure in Russian Civil War, which ensued right after the Communists took over Russia. Opposing the Communists were the Whites, a hodgepodge of various people who were united only in their common hatred of communism. At its height, The Whites surrounded The Bolsheviks from Baltic down to Ukraine and Southern Russia, right to Russian Far East. However, between the White leaders there were no coordination or unity of command, enabling the Communists to beat them one by one, piece by piece.

General Wrangel himself was, inactive by the early stage of Russian Civil War. Retiring to civil life after refusing to serve under Kerensky government, He ended up joining General Denikin's Volunteer Army, which fought in South Russia. His numerous victories, coupled with his reputation of bringing justice and order to areas within his control (Volunteer Army, like other White Armies, were more known for its pillaging reputation), brought him in tension with Denikin, that caused him to be dismissed from active military service.

After Denikin's final failure to take Moscow, he retired, while the remaining officers called Wrangel back and elected him as Denikin's successor. However then, Wrangel was fighting an uphill battle. trapped in Odessa, The Government of South Russia (The Volunteer Army's creation) counted on foreign support of the remaining Entente powers of France and Great Britain. In this he was no more helped by Ramsay MacDonald's dallying with Soviets. France was more helpful. however, as Wrangel's army failed to break out of Crimea, the writing was on the wall, and Wrangel ended up organizing one of the most successful naval evacuation in history. Living in exile, first in Constantinople, then in Yugoslavia and finally in Brussels, Belgium, he served as the head of White Russian Refugees, forming the Russian-All Military Union, to unite all White Russian Military emigres around the world, and the died suddenly in 1928.

In the end, I found this diary-style autobiography somewhat interesting. The military aspects were quite boring and upsetting, since they lost. However, what interests me is the political jockeying of the Whites, Wrangel's clash with Denikin, the cynical views of Britain and France toward Wrangel's government, and of course, Wrangel's attempt to restore some resemblance of law and order, and his heartrending evacuation preparation. For his exploits, even the Bolsheviks put him in one of their military marches, as the Black Baron who led over the White Army.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

General Wrangel was the best of a bad lot. He was a soldier who loved his country and who saw the Bolsheviks as evil. I don't doubt the sincerity of his beliefs and motives. But I'm not so sure about how honest his memoir is. He's definitely putting himself in the best possible light. He trumpets his military successes, and though he acknowledges that he had a part in the defeats, there always seems to be someone else who is primarily to blame, whether it is General Deniken in the first phases of the Civil War or his subordinate generals when various initiatives failed in the later phases after he had taken over supreme command of the remaining White forces following Deniken's resignation. He may have been loyal and a good strategist and leader of men, but he was also sometimes insubordinate and was always sure that he was right and the other guy wrong. He also claims to have had a strong hand in curbing the notorious misbehavior of White forces in their dealings with the civilian population. This one is hard for me to judge, as the truth is largely lost in the fog of war. His method of controlling looting, rape and pogroms seems to have been a lot of summary court martials and executions. I don't know whether this was effective or consistent. At least he cared enough to claim that he tried to control it. I'm also skeptical of his claims for supporting land reform and democracy. He did take some steps in that direction, but it seems to have been his only choice to buy some loyalty from the peasantry and some support from the US and Western European powers. Finally, I am not so sure that the Whites were the right side to be on in the Russian Civil War. A lot of them were adventurers, monarchists and hard right conservatives. It's true that even in the early days following the October Revolution there were signs that the Bolsheviks were going to turn out to be bad guys, but they stood for the workers and the peasants and throwing off the yoke of tsarism. I'd have probably been on the Bolshevik side as a Menshevik or a Left Socialist Revolutionary. Of course people like that got executed or sent to Siberia a few years later, so it's hard to say that would have been such a smart choice, but I don't think that I could have ever aligned myself with the Whites.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a most enlightening read - I would say that you should read some other material on Russia in the last century of the Tsars rule and read about the Russian civil war itself and the events in Europe during this time. This account is more personal and seems to be directed to an audience already familiar with the events. Wrangel for many years was busy fighting and less with the politics and intrigue of central and eastern Europe as well as the inter power politics of Versailles. It is amazing that many people consider the 11th of November 1918 the end of the great war when in fact violence in the east actually increased after this date and continued for many years.

It is a most illuminating inside view into the end of the Russian empire, the chaos of the revolution and the civil war in Russia. Many in what you could call the "dissident right" or those of us on the minority side of the great divide of society have read this because it has some interesting lessons to teach about the great disaster that probably awaits the west as we collapse like imperial Russia did and the inevitable battles to come.

One can only be depressed by the flaws that befell the white generals in their attempt to save their nation from the evils of Bolshevism. It's never dealt with in the book but one thing you can say for Lenin, he might have been a monster but he had a very thorough understanding of power and its application. His enemies were divided and had no clear vision of what they were fighting for.

The familiar treachery of the useless British establishment in visiting Bolshevism and its 100 million victims on the world is sad but predictable - one can only imagine how the world might have turned out with a reformed Russian empire indebted to the British and French for saving it from Bolshevism. You allow yourself the odd moment of hope at times as the Russian army puts the red army on the back foot and yet we all know how it ended.

Wrangel might have failed in the end but achieved great things in time he was the head of a doomed cause. I think many in the future will have cause to take lessons learned from his experience to heart.

[Leonardo Estrella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um excelente livro! Fonte histórica primaria incrível e super didática!

Fico muito feliz de ter salvado esse livro no meu google por 2 anos até finalmente comprá-lo e e estudá-lo. O livro tem uma leitura super suave e fácil de compreender (tirando os termos militares). O autor, Barão Pyotr Wrangel descreve de maneira super detalhada e usando fontes primárias, como documentos e entrevistas, do seu tempo sua vivência da revolução russa. Wrangel, definitivamente, era o GOAT do exército branco, sem nenhuma dúvida. Há dois grandes problemas no livro: a falta de explicação em relação a questão social da Rússia do século XX, assunto que foi pouco tratado durante os capítulos da reforma de terras e seu governo da Crimeia (do 11 ao 13); e o jeito com o qual o general trata a luta contra o bolchevismo, a qual é considerada uma luta "pela humanidade e a cultura" (mas que humanidade é essa? que cultura é essa? De fato, ele queria reformar muitas coisas, mas é compatível dizer que bolchevismo é um tipo de barbárie? Mesmo com o terror vermelho, não há necessidade de elogiar o que a revolução fez de bom de imediato, mesmo ela tendo o afetado diretamente de maneira negativa?).

De resto, creio que o livro foi incrível, e fico muito feliz de ter lido ele. Creio que aprendi muito com essa leitura e espero aprender mais sobre a revolução e guerra civil russa com livros do Denikin, Trotsky e Lenin.

[شاهنشاه‎ · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, there is no question as to whether or not you should buy and read this book. The answer is yes.

This is a truly fascinating account of the Russian Civil War on the southwestern front from start to finish. You follow General Wrangel from the last days of the Great War for Russia to the November Revolution, Germany's defeat, the first White successes, and the long, drawn-out defeat at the hands of the Reds. You see the Russian national perspective of the Polish-Soviet war, the Ukrainian national awakening, the endless intrigues and instability of the Cossack population, the self-defeating decisions of General Denikin and the Western betrayal, led primarily by England's George Lloyd.

That Russia and the Russian people were the first to stand up to Communism is crystal clear in this memoir of civil war and social strife. That the Soviet Union could have been crushed by Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian forces were it not for hapless leaders and Great Britain's duplicity is also an unfortunate truth to be recognized in Wrangel's writings.

The account is truly well written and worthy of much wider readership. Wrangel was a great early hero in the struggle for Europe and the West.