Remnants of the Imperial Russian Black Sea Fleet steam away from Sebastopol forever carrying the remnants of Pyotr Wrangels White Russian Army and refugees. The fleet managed to continue to exist as an entity until 1921, going first to Turkey and then to France. In 1924 the ships were turned over to Soviet control but found to be unserviceable, and were sold as scrap.
On this day, the fight of the Russian Whites in the eastern half of what had been the Russian Empire came to an end and the Russian White forces under Pyotr Wrangel abandoned Sebastopol and fled on the remaining loyal elements of the former Imperial Russian Black Sea Fleet, together with refugees. Allied ships also departed the port taking with them their own nationals. While fighting would go on in the east, it was the effective end of the Russian Civil War in the west, and the effective end of the war in general in terms of who would ultimately prevail.
Poster of Wrangel in Cossack regalia.
Wrangel would attempt to lead Russian refugees after his exile and formed, for a time, an organization that attempted to centralize that effort and to plan for a future war against the Communists in Russia, a quixotic effort under the circumstances. In 1927 he moved to Belgium and became a mining engineer. He was poisoned in 1928 by the brother of his butler, who is believed to have been a Soviet agent. His descendants have refused to have him reinterred in Russia as the current Russian government has not denounced the evils of Communism.
Wrangel, who was part of the Russian military community descended from German origin, a surprisingly common demographic in Imperial Russian military leadership, had such close German roots that his grandfather had in fact been Lutheran. Pyotr Wrangel was Orthodox however and had in fact been trained as an engineer prior to joining the Imperial Russian Army. Like many senior military figures, he had actually dropped out of the service at the time of the Russian Revolution and only joined the Whites after having been arrested by, and escaping from, the Communists. Such experiences were surprisingly common and to a degree demonstrate how Red paranoia actually fueled the war against them. He was a very able commander and highly successful in the Russian Civil War before his reversal of fortunes. A failure to find an overall command for the White effort partially explains this failure.
Wrangel, of wealthy and aristocratic background, obviously managed to find some success after his exile. Most Russian refugees, however, were of much more modest means. In the west they spread out among a collection of countries, with France being a common one, and rebuilt new lives in new countries while also retaining their Russian identity. Their fortunes varied considerably from their compatriots who fled into China a few years later where economic conditions were dire.
Fr. Michael Griffin.
On this same day, Father Michael Griffin, a Catholic Priest in Ireland who sympathized with Republicans, and who had been missing since November 14, was found in an unmarked grave. He is believed to have been murdered by the Black & Tans. He is remembered in the name of a road in Galway, where he was from, and in the name of an Irish football club which is called The Father Griffins.
Eileen Quinn
This event shows the way the Anglo Irish War was starting to go, with guerilla extrajudicial killings becoming common. Just a few days prior the pregnant Eileen Quinn, age 24, was shot by a police auxiliary, a police unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary often confused with the Black & Tans, when she was out in front of her tenant farmhouse nursing a baby. She was wounded in the stomach and died later that day. She and her husband Malachi were tenants of Lady Gregory Augusta, an Anglo Irish playwright of nationalist sympathies. The death of Mrs. Quinn left her husband a widower and her three children without a mother. Her husband had been away at the time of the killing attempting to negotiate a purchase of land. A subsequent military investigation came to the conclusion that the killing was accidental and from a random shot designed to attempt to clear the area.
Both killings resulted in a way from the IRA ambush and murder of Sheriff Frank Shawe-Taylor the previous March, which had brought the Black & Tans and Auxiliaries in.
Black & Tan in Dublin, 1921. He is armed with a Lewis Gun and an incredibly low slung .455 Webley revolver.
The British government had, as noted here the other day, just extended home rule to Ireland, but events like this showed that the measure had come too late. Additionally, their heavy handedness resulted in contempt in both Ireland and the United Kingdom over them and support in Ireland for the IRA.
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