Anti-bolshevist armed groups on the Semirechensky front in 1919: the 2nd separate steppe Siberian corps

In the article, the organizational structure, number and features of completing with the staff of the 2nd Separate Steppe Siberian Corps are considered, which operated at the Semirechensky front in 1919 as a part of admiral A. V. Kolchak’s armed forces. The source base of the research is materials of the White Guard funds of the Russian State Military Archive. The spatial boundaries of the research include the Semipalatinsk and Semirechensk regions of the former Russian Empire, where the studied battlefield took place. It is concluded that the Corps had a complex organizational structure, which was determined by the fact that the Corps was acting at an independent front, being separated from the main force of Admiral Kolchak’s Russian army. The latter was operating at the main - Eastern - front of the Civil War. The headquarters of the Supreme Commander in Omsk considered the Semirechye Front to be of secondary importance, and therefore neglected it. The High Command considered the 2nd Separate Steppe Siberian Corps to be primarily a source of reinforcement of the troops operating in the Urals. The Command of the Corps did not take proper efforts in respect of enhancing their own troops. At the same time, Ataman Annenkov, Chief of the Corps of partisan divisions, was actively creating improvised military formations which were approved by his superiors only post factum. Such practices went beyond the general principles of force generation of Admiral Kolchak’s armed forces, but ultimately contributed to the combat power building of the Corps and ensure the dispatching of its missions. The main task facing the Corps troops - to capture Verny - was not solved. The peak of the fighting capacity of the Corps and its maximum progress at the Semirechie front synchronized with the general collapse of Kolchak’s troops operating against Soviet troops at the Eastern front. As a result, highly favorable opportunities for the further advance deep into Semirechye in October-November 1919 became strategically irrelevant and were not entered into life.