Pavel Bermondt-Avalov
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Pavel Rafalovich Bermondt-Avalov (Russian: Павел Рафалович Бермонт-Авалов) (1884-1973) was an Ussuri Cossack and warlord.
Bermondt-Avalov was appointed to lead the German-established Russian army (subsequently frequently known after his name as "the Bermontians") which was meant to go to fight the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War, but, believing that communists would be defeated without his help, Pavel Bermondt-Avalov decided to strike against the newly independent nations of Lithuania and Latvia instead. His "Special Russians Corps" numbered about 50,000 men, mostly Baltic Germans as well as some Russian POWs recruited from Germans camps.
Bermondt-Avalov was promoted Major General in 1918. He took over the White Forces in the Baltic from Prince Anatoly Liven, who commanded a contingent in the Baltische Landwehr. In 1919, his forces joined those of Major General Rüdiger von der Goltz to form the so-called "Western Volunteer Army" (Западная добровольческая армия) which attempted to proclaim the "Western Central Government" in Riga. The Bermontians managed to capture a large part of Samogitia and western Latvia and entered Riga, but later were defeated by the Lithuanian and Latvian armies, with the help of the Estonian forces .
Pavel Bermondt-Avalov then emigrated to Western Europe, where he published a book of memoirs.
[edit] Bibliography
- Bermondt-Avaloff Pavel, Im Kampf gegen den Bolschevismus. Erinnrerungen von..., Hamburg 1925.
- Paluszyński Tomasz, Walka o niepodległość Łotwy, Warszawa 1999.
- Валерий Клавинг, Гражданская война в России: Белые армии. Военно-историческая библиотека, Мaсквa, 2003.
