Transcaucasian Front

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Transcaucasian Front or Transcaucasus Front (Russian: Закавказский Фронт) was a Front (military subdivision) of the Soviet Army during the Second World War. This sense of the term is not identical with the more general usage of military front which indicates a geographic area in wartime, although a Soviet Front may operate within designated boundaries.

The Transcaucasus Front describes two distinct organizations during the war. The first version was created on August 23, 1941 from the Transcaucasus Military District, which was apparently originally formed in 1922. The boundary of the Front extended along the border with Turkey and along the Black Sea coast from Batumi to Tuapse. It was commanded by Lieutenant-General Dmitri T. Kozlov (Козлов Дмитрий Тимофеевич) from August 1941 to December 1941.

The initial Front organization incorporated the four Soviet armies stationed in the district in June 1941: the 45th and 46th on the border with Turkey and the 44th and 47th on the border with Iran. On August 25, 1941 troops from the Front entered Iran according to the Soviet-Iran Treaty of February 21, 1921, which eliminated the direct threat to the Baku oil fields.

Contents

[edit] Order of Battle, Invasion of Iran, 1941

Here is the Soviet OOB for the 25th of August 1941:[1]

44th Army( Major General A.A. Khaldejev)

  • 20th Mountain Rifle Division
  • 77th Mountain Rifle Division
  • 17th Cavalry Division
  • 24th Tank Regiment

47th Army(Major General V.V. Novikov)

  • 63rd Mountain Rifle Division
  • 76th Mountain Rifle Division
  • 236th Rifle Division
  • 6th Tank Division
  • 54th Tank Division
  • 13th Motorcycle Regiment

53rd Army (invaded Iran from Turkmenistan on the 27th of August)

  • 58th Rifle Corps
  • 83rd Mountain Rifle Division
  • 4th Cavalry Corps

The Transcaucasus Front was briefly renamed the Caucasus Front on December 30, 1941. The second version of this front was again created from the Transcaucasus Military District on May 15, 1942 and continued in existence until its reorganization as the Tbilisi Military District on August 25, 1945 after the end of the war. It was commanded by General Ivan V. Tyulenev, and included the Soviet Fourth Army.

[edit] Postwar Transcaucasus Military District

After World War II the Transcaucasus Front reverted to being a part of the Headquarters Transcaucasus Military District (ZakVO), in Tbilisi. In 1979 Scott and Scott reported the District' HQ address as Tbilisi-4, Ulitsa Dzneladze, Dom 46. The District became part of the Southern Direction, headquartered in Baku and including the North Caucasus and Turkestan Military Districts, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[2] Colonel General Igor Rodionov commanded the District in 1988-89 before being removed after the April 1989 massacre in Tbilisi. In the late 1980s dispositions within the District were as follows:[3]

  • 104th Guards Airborne Division VDV, Gyandzha
  • 173rd Training Centre, Tbilisi
  • Seventh Army, HQ Yerevan, Armenian SSR
    • 15th Motor Rifle Division, Kirovakan
    • 75th Motor Rifle Division, Nakhichevan
    • 127th Motor Rifle Division, Leninakan (now Russian 102nd Military Base)
    • 164th Motor Rifle Division, Yerevan
  • Fourth Army, HQ Baku, Azerbaijan SSR
    • 23rd Motor Rifle Division, Gyandzha
    • 60th Motor Rifle Division, Lenkoran
    • 216th Motor Rifle Division
    • 295th Motor Rifle Division, Baku

[edit] Russian Transcaucasus Group of Forces

Following the fall of the USSR, the District became the Group of Russian Forces in the Transcaucasus (Russian Группа российских войск в Закавказье - ГРВЗ; GRVZ). After many of the divisions listed above had dissolved or become part of the former republics' armed forces, in the mid 1990s the GRVZ's dispositions were:

General Major Aleksander Studenikin, former deputy commander of the Moscow Military District's 20th Army, commanded the Group in 2004 with General (Major?) Andrei Popov as his deputy.[4] The Russian base at Vaziani was withdrawn in the late 1990s and an agreement over the withdrawal of the 12th and 62nd Bases by 2008-09 was made in 2005.

As of 2006 Russia still maintains two Russian military bases in Georgia (the 62nd Base in Akhalkalaki and the 12th in Batumi), remnants of the Soviet era, but the bases are in the process of being withdrawn. The process is scheduled to finish in 2007 for the Akhalkalaki base and in 2008 for the Batumi base. The ‘Zvezda’ command post (probably the former District war headquarters) in the town of Mtskheta, just north of Tblisi, was handed over by early September 2005. [5] Due to the espionage conflict between Russia and Georgia, the Transcaucasus Group of Forces headquarters in Tbilisi will be closed down ahead of schedule: 287 Russian servicemen will leave Georgia by December 31, 2006. [6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.1jma.dk/post.asp?method=ReplyQuote&REPLY_ID=36299&TOPIC_ID=1956&FORUM_ID=10
  2. ^ William E Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military, Yale University Press, 1998, p.29
  3. ^ V.I. Feskov, K.A. Kalashnikov, V.I. Golikov, The Soviet Army in the Years of the Cold War 1945-91, Tomsk University Publishing House, Tomsk, 1994
  4. ^ Nino Kopaleishvili, ‘Bomb Injures Russian Military Official’, Tbilisi Messenger, April 8, 2004, p.5
  5. ^ ‘Zvezda has been transferred to Georgia’, Georgian MOD website, www.mod.gov.ge/?=E&id=10, accessed 29 October 2005.
  6. ^ Russia to withdraw Tbilisi garrison early - minister, RIA Novosti, October 10, 2006
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