On the northwest shore of the Caspian Sea, between the lower reaches of the Volga river and the northern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, lie the almost 26,000 square miles of and steppelands known as the Kalmuck Steppes. This vast land was inhabited, prior to World War II, by 134,000 Torgut Mongols. These nomadic tribesmen were more commonly known as Kalmucks, the name applied by the Turkic peoples of the south.

The Kalmucks were a pure Mongol race which came out of central China in the early 1600's and settled the steppelands. However, on January 5, 1771, the majority of the Kalmucks (some 300,000 to 400,000), fearing oppression by the Tsarina Catherine the Great, began the long trek back into China. This trek took some eight months, and covered almost 3,000 miles to Sinkiang Province in China, where the Torguts are still to be found in widely dispersed regions. The westernmost "Uluses" (major tribal groups) of the Kalmucks decided to remain in Russia and the modern Kalmuck nationality in the Soviet Union descended from this small group, the term Kalmuck meaning "those left behind".

The Kalmucks retained their nomadic way of life, living in tents and depending entirely upon their cattle herds. They were, like most nomadic peoples, highly independent and very religious, following the Lamaist Buddhist sect. At the time of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 the nationalist sympathies of the Kalmucks were sufficiently aroused that they supported the revolutionaries. In March of 1917 a Kalmuck Congress was set up in Astrakhan; however, the Kalmucks were interested only in furthering the cause of their own national aspirations. As a result, they soon found themselves at odds with the Astrakhan workers who were strongly Bolshevik in sympathies. Early in 1918 the Kalmucks broke away from the Astrakhan Soviet and staged a counter-revolutionary uprising which resulted in Kalmuck participation in the civil War. This Kalmuck resistance to the Soviet authorities took the form of unconventional or guerrilla warfare, and was not completely quelled until 1926.

Collectivized

In 1929 the great collectivization drive was begun in Russia and the Soviet authorities decided that the Kalmucks must be collectivized. Before collectivization could be imposed upon the Kalmucks they first had to be forced to abandon their nomadic way of life. To accomplish this, the Soviet authorities took away most of their cattle herds and thus destroyed the economic basis of the Kalmuck way of life. This move to agriculturalize them was, to say the least, greatly resented by the Kalmuck people, as were the constant attacks by the Soviets upon their religion and their feudal social structure.

In the early 1930's, the Soviets realized the error of trying to agriculturalize the Kalmucks and allowed them to return to their nomadic existence. What is more, in 1935, as a balm to Kalmuck nationalism, the Soviets set aside the Kalmuck Steppes as a nominally Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

The invasion of the German armies in World War II had a catastrophic effect upon the entire structure of Soviet society. The effect was nowhere more pronounced than among the various national minorities of the U.S.S.R. who saw this invasion as a liberation from oppression. These national minorities took this opportunity to rid themselves of their Soviet overlords by supporting the German occupation authorities in hopes of gaining true national autonomy. The completely alienated Kalmuck people were among those national minorities who decided that this was the moment to assert their aspirations to nationhood.

German Invasion and Mass Defections

With the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Soviet leaders intensified the resentment of the Kalmucks when they again deprived them of most of their herds during their Wartime Resources Mobilization Drive. The result of the approximately twenty years of Soviet domination of the Kalmucks was that when the German armies reached the Kalmuck Steppes these nomadic people defected to the German cause almost "en masse".

In August of 1942 the German 16th Motorized Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Sigfried Henrici, invaded the Kalmuck Steppes while advancing upon the city of Astrakhan. Otman Werva, a Russian-born Sudeten German was attached to this division by the authority of Colonel Wessel von Freytag-Loringhoven (Intelligence Officer of Army Group "B") . Werva, who used the German name of Dr. Otto Doll, had been a cavalry officer in the White Army during the Russian Civil War before joining Admiral Canaris'Abwehr and serving as a military attache in Odessa. Sonderfuhrer Doll, working as an interpreter and counter-intelligence officer, reported the dissatisfaction of these Kalmuck tribesmen.

The military intelligence reported this dissatisfaction to the Ministry of Eastern Affairs, whose Caucasian Section, headed by Professor Gerhard von Mende, began making preparations for the formation of a Kalmuck National Committee to represent the national aspirations of the Kalmucks. Further, the committee was to function as the semi-autonomous government of the Kalmuck territory. The Germans chose Shamba Balinov, a respected leader among the Kalmucks, to head the Kalmuck National Committee.

While von Mende was trying to form his National Committee, Dr. Doll and the Intelligence Officer of the 16th Motorized Division were trying to recruit some of the Kalmuck nomads into auxiliary cavalry formations. The Kalmuck people responded overwhelmingly to the German appeals that they 'turn against their Soviet oppressors and fight alongside the Germans in the Crusade Against Bolshevism'.

That same month "Abwehrtrupp 103" was created as an anti-partisan security force by order of General of Panzer Troops Friedrich Paulus, the 6th Army commander. In September of 1942 the l6th Motorized Division raised and equipped two Kalmuck Cavalry Squadrons.

On October 17, 1942, these squadrons were officially incorporated into the Wehrmacht, and on November 30th were designated as the Ist and 2nd Troops of Kalmuck Squadron 66. By the end of the year the force had been expanded to become the Kalmuck Cavalry Regiment under Colonel Nazorov.

Within the Kalmuck Steppes the cavalry squadrons were employed as a screening force to head off patrols of Soviet cavalry and to gather information on Soviet troop movements. However, in January of 1943, the encirclement of S ' talingrad took place and it was necessary for the German troops in the Caucasus Mountains to withdraw across the Don River into the Ukraine. When the Kalmucks learned of the German withdrawal they insisted upon going with the Germans rather than staying to be reoccupied by the Soviet Armies.

In addition to the cavalry squadrons, the families of the soldiers also decided to retreat with the Germans. In all, a total of 30,000 Kalmucks were withdrawn along with the German armies. Once the Kalmucks had withdrawn into the Ukraine, the soldiers' families were sent to safety far behind the combat lines. Eventually they were settled in Tolmezzo, Italy in the Dolomite Mountains.

Meanwhile, the nomad cavalry squadrons were employed as security troops in the Ukraine, guarding lines of communications and conducting antipartisan operations. In early 1943, Colonel Nazorov's Regiment was sent to Kherson to be incorporated into the Cossack Cavalry Division, then being formed. It was soon realized that this force was incompatible with the Russian "Cossack" formation and it was decided to retain the Kalmuck forces in a separate command.

Continued recruiting from the evacuating Kalmuck population resulted, by July of 1943, in the formation of seven Kalmuck cavalry squadrons.

By August 1943, Kalmuck Cavalry Corps was created, and it consisted of a Headquarters Company and four Kalmuck Cavalry Battalions. These battalions each contained five cavalry squadrons, with three troops per squadron. The average cavalry troop contained some 60 to 150 men.

A typical operation for the Kalmucks was carried out during November and December of 1943. One of the Kalmuck Cavalry Battalions, commanded by Major Abushinov, and advised by only a German senior sergeant, Willi Lilienthal, was subordinated to General of Mountain Troops Ferdinand Schoemer's 40th Panzer Corps. The Kalmuck Battalion's 1,200 cavalrymen were assigned to contain the partisan activities in the Plavna River swamps where Army Detachment Nikopol was trying to set up a defensive line.

Account of Kalmuck Valor

An interesting account of the valor and intransigence of these Kalmuck cavalrymen has been given to us by Peter Huxley-Blythe:

"The Kalmucks were brilliant fighters in an undisciplined way. Given an order to accomplish a mission that they agreed with, nothing could stop them. However, if they disagreed with the order, nothing could make them advance. Another thing that annoyed the Germans was the Kalmuck refusal to accept tactical instructions. To them only the objective mattered, and there was in their military philosophy only one way to win a battle, a head-on charge, ignoring the losses."

In addition to the Kalmuck cavalry's single-mindedness in their method of attack, the Germans often had great difficulty in stopping the Kalmucks from murdering their prisoners. Despite the stubbornness of the Kalmucks, they were effective auxiliary forces in the German military operations.

Due to losses the German Army decided to reorganize the Kalmuck Cavalry Corps in July of 1944, creating two brigade commands each of which controlled two regiments (redesignations of the battalions). The strength of the Kalmuck Cavalry Corps at this point was recorded as 147 officers, 347 NCO's and 2,917 men. They were equipped with various German, Russian and Dutch small arms, 30 heavy machine guns and some heavy mortars for support.

Up to this point, the Kalmuck Cavalry Corps had only Kalmuck officers, with a few German officers and NCO's acting as advisers. However, at this time some 90 German officers were assigned to the Corps, taking over all senior command positions.

In October of 1944 the Kalmucks once more appear in the German records. At this time Shamba Balinov, the head of the Kalmuck National Committee, placed the remnants of the Kalmuck Cavalry Corps under the nominal command of ex-Soviet General Andrei Vlassov's Russian Liberation Army, making the Kalmucks the only non-Russians of that antiSoviet military force.

For the most part the Kalmuck Cavalry Corps was employed behind the lines as an anti-partisan force or to eliminate cut-off pockets of Soviet troops. The Kalmucks were primarily assigned to rear area commands behind Army Group "South", and in 1945 were subordinated to the "Government-General" in Poland. In January of 1945, the Corps was forced into the major action at Radom in Poland, where it suffered serious casualties.

The few remnants were withdrawn to Bavaria, and reformed into a single dismounted Kalmuck Cavalry Regiment. Some of the less reliable members were shipped off elsewhere in Germany to serve as laborers. The Kalmucks were never again engaged in combat actions. The last remnants of the Kalmuck Cavalry Corps were surrendered to the British and Americans in Austria on May 7, 1945.

Post War Deportation

The disposition of the Kalmuck people after the war is a sad story. Those Kalmucks who retreated with the German armies and who had surrendered to the Western Allies were forcibly extradited back to the Soviet Union, where they were either executed or sent off to Siberian Prison Camps.

The Kalmucks who stayed behind and were reoccupied by the Soviet armies fared no better than those retreating with the Germans. On December 27, 1943, the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. passed a decree which abolished the Kalmuck Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic and laid down instructions that the entire Kalmuck nation was to be removed to the Russian interior because of their political unreliability. The decree was formally read in the villages and each family was instructed to gather 100 kilograms of property, including food, and assemble in designated areas. The Kalmucks were transported by trucks to the railheads and then loaded aboard trains which took them off into Central Siberia, The Kalmuck people were finally resettled near the city of Krasnoyarsk in the Kuznets Basin.

The resentment which the Kalmucks held against the Soviets was so great that out of a nation of only 134,000 people, 15,000 men were willing to take up arms against the Soviets. Further, after an occupation of less than six months, almost one quarter of the entire nation was willing to leave their homeland and withdraw behind a foreign invader's armies rather than once again come under the rule of the Soviets. In this light it is easy to see why the Soviet government considered the Kalmucks to be politically unreliable and thus deported the entire nation into exile in Siberia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

P. Carrell, Scorched Earth.
R. Conquest, The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities.
A. Dallin, German Pule in Russia,
G. Pischer, Soviet Opposition to Stalin.
P. Huxley-Blythe, The East Came West.
W. Kolarz, Russia and her Colonies.
D. Littlejohn, Foreign Legions of the Third Reich, Vol. 4.
D. Littlejohn, The Patriotic Traitors.
J. Piekalkiewicz, The Cavalry of World War II.
G. Reitlinger, A House Built on Sand.
W. River, The Torguts.

Europa Option: 2-1-8 Kalmuck Cavalry Brigade

For those hardy souls who want to add a little more chrome to the EUROPA Scorched Earth game system, Frank suggests some optional rules to embellish the normal handling of the 2-1-8 Kalmuck Cavalry Brigade which appears as a conditional Eastern Troop reinforcement.

The Kalmucks are activated if the city of Elista (Map 4A.-3402) is German owned and in regular supply. The 2-1-8 Cavalry Brigade (Kalm) is received if Elista is German owned for at least three turns (as opposed to the usual four turn interval); it need not be in supply. Furthermore, even if Elista is retaken during this interval, the Kalmuck Cavalry Brigade is still received. Merely place it in any Ukrainian city owned by the Axis and in regular supply on the tenth turn after Kalmuck activation.

The Kalmuck Cavalry Corps is primarily an anti-partisan formation and as such has Anti-Parltsan Zones of Control.