Pyotr Wrangel Quotes

(H)is action was merely "galvanizing the corpse" of an army that was already in retreat and heading for defeat.

Night is falling. The stars are gleaming in the darkening sky, the sea is all a-twinkle. The lonely lights on my native shore glow fainter, and then vanish altogether, one after the other. And now the last one fades from my sight. Farewell, my country!

The documents said that they were loaded with munitions. I had them opened. They were not full of munitions, but of passengers, mostly Jews, who wanted to get away and take their merchandise with them. They informed me that they had bribed the station-master and two of his colleagues. I had these three employees court-martialed, and they were hanged the same day. The news of their arrest and execution was communicated to all the railway stations, and after that the evacuation proceeded satisfactorily. Eight trains left daily instead of only seven, and when the Reds approached, the town was completely evacuated.

During the march an orderly came to inform me that General Krymov, who was marching at the head of our column, wanted me. I found him with our General Staff near a wood-house, busily reading a letter which had just come. Whilst I was still some way off he called out to me: "Great news! At last they've killed that scoundrel Rasputin!" The newspapers announced the bare fact, letters from the capital gave the details. Of the three assassins, I knew two intimately: the Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch and Prince Youssoupoff. What had been their motive? Why, having killed a man whom they regarded as a menace to the country, had they not admitted their action before everyone? Why had they not relied on justice and public opinion instead of trying to hide all trace of the murder by burying the body under the ice? We thought over the news with great anxiety.

The Reds’ Crimean victory of mid-November 1920 over the White army led by Baron Pyotr Wrangel marked the effective ending of the Civil War.