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Pyotr Wrangel | |
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Пётр Врангель | |
![]() Pyotr Wrangel, The Black Baron | |
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of South Russia | |
In office 4 April 1920 – 21 November 1920 | |
Preceded by | Anton Denikin |
Succeeded by | Office disestablished |
Personal details | |
Born | August 27 [O.S. August 15] 1878 Novalexandrovsk, Zarasai County, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire |
Died | 25 April 1928 Brussels, Belgium | (aged 49)
Awards | See below |
Signature | ![]() |
Military service | |
Allegiance | ![]() ![]() |
Branch/service | ![]() ![]() |
Years of service | 1902–1920 |
Rank | ![]() |
Commands | Caucasus Army of South Russia |
Battles/wars | Russo-Japanese War World War I Russian Civil War |
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel (Russian: Пётр Николаевич Врангель, pronounced [ˈvranɡʲɪlʲ]; German: Peter von Wrangel; August 27 [O.S. August 15] 1878 – 25 April 1928), also known by his nickname the Black Baron, was a Russian military officer of Baltic German origin in the Imperial Russian Army. During the final phase of the Russian Civil War, he was commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia.
A member of the prominent Wrangel noble family, Pyotr Wrangel was educated as a mining engineer and volunteered in the Russian Imperial Guard. He served with distinction during World War I as a cavalry commander, reaching the rank of major general. After the February Revolution and Russia's exit from the war, Wrangel retired to the Crimea. He was arrested by the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution, but was soon released[1][2] and later escaped and joined the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army of the White movement. In 1918, he became Anton Denikin's chief of staff in the Armed Forces of South Russia.
Wrangel succeeded Denikin as commander-in-chief of the White forces in the Crimea in April 1920. As head of the South Russia military government, he attempted to carry out sweeping land reforms, reorganised the White armies into a Russian Army (more commonly known the Army of Wrangel), and established relations with anti-Bolshevik independence movements. Severely outnumbered by the Red Army and facing certain defeat, Wrangel organised a mass evacuation from the Crimea in 1920. Early in his exile he lived in Constantinople and Serbia, and came to be known as one of the most prominent White émigrés.[3] He relocated to Brussels in 1927 and died a year later.