West Ingermanland Regiment

As a result of negotiations held on March 26, 1919, between the Estonian government, represented by Prime Minister Konstantin Päts , generals Johan Laidoner and Jaan Soots , and the Interim Management Committee of Ingermanlandia, established on January 31, 1919 in Finland by Ingermanland refugees, represented by Lieutenant Pietari Tapanainen , engineer and agronomist J. Savolainen T. Toikka, was signed an agreement on the release of Ingria from the Bolsheviks, under which the territory of Estonia was supposed to form the Institute of ermanlandskih trohbatalonny volunteer regiment of 1,500 people, of which the costs of the Estonian government took upon itself ^{[3] [5] [6]} .

In April 1919, from the refugees arriving in Estonia from Finland and West Ingermanland, the formation of the Ingermanland unit began as part of the 1st division of the Estonian army. The command structure was made up of Finnish and Ingermanland officers, the commander of the detachment was the Ingermanlandian, captain of the tsarist army, and the gentleman of St. George Alexander Tyunni ^{[7] [8] [9] [10]} .

According to some sources, the Ingermanland volunteer detachment in May 1919 numbered 402 people, and half of the detachment consisted of volunteers from Northern Ingria who came through Finland. On May 12, he officially became known as the 1st Ingermanland Battalion ^{[8] [11]} . According to other sources, in May the detachment consisted of two battalions, the first battalion of which consisted of 380 soldiers and four two-inch guns ^[12] .

Special insignia were introduced in the battalion, including Ingermanland symbols - yellow-blue-red chevrons and shoulder straps of yellow color with a gap of two red stripes and a blue strip in the middle ^[13] .

On May 13, 1919, the Northern Corps , which was in Estonia as part of the Estonian People’s Army , under the command of Lieutenant General A.P. Rodzianko, launched an attack on Petrograd. On May 15, a part of the 1st Ingermanland battalion was disembarked from an Estonian ship at the mouth of the Luga River and occupied the village of Krakolye . It was originally planned to land on the Soikinsky Peninsula near the village of Koskolovo , but a detachment of local Izhora , supporters of Soviet power, under the command of Soviet workers P. Trofimov and F. Afanasyev, prevented it with their fire ^[13] . On May 16, east of the first, the second part of the battalion landed ^[14] .

On May 17, the third part of a battalion of up to 150 men landed on the coast of the Kopory Bay in the vicinity of the villages of Peypiya , Sisto-Palkino and Dolgovo. She was to act together with the Ostrovsky Regiment of the Northern Corps. The detachment of P. Trofimov and F. Afanasyev retreated to the village of Koporye . Ingermanlanders occupied the village of Soikino, here they were joined by about 50 local residents ^[15] . The total number of troops was estimated to be red at 500 people ^[14] .

On May 18, the battalion suffered a serious defeat during an attempt to seize the village of Koporye. The defeat was due to the fact that Ingermanlanders, intoxicated by their first successes, approached the village nonchalantly, in the open area, and the Reds, who settled in the Koporskaya fortress , letting them closer, opened heavy fire. In the battles for the Koporye fortress, they died: the commander of the Ingermanlanders Alexander Tunny, three officers, part of the junior commanding staff - only 43 people ^[15] . As a result, the battalion was redeployed to the Soikinsky Peninsula, where it received replenishment from Tallinn and volunteers from the villages of West Ingermanlandia ^[16] .

On May 24, the battalion resumed the offensive and occupied Koporye fortress. By early June, its number increased to 1621 people ^[17] . The Finnish Major A. Uimonen was appointed the new commander of the battalion ^[16] . At the end of May, the Reds launched a counterattack and pushed the battalion to the Suma River, however, on June 3, White was able to seize the initiative, as a result of which the battalion occupied the village of Ust-Ruditsa . On June 10, the Ingermanland battalion was reorganized into a regiment consisting of two battalions and an artillery battery. In mid-June, the number of the regiment was already 2258 people ^[18] . To win the sympathy of local residents to their side, representatives of the Interim Management Committee of Ingermanland, who were in the regiment, began to distribute to local peasants the flour received through the American Red Cross ^[19] .

At this time, serious contradictions were discovered between the regiment command and the commander of the Northern Corps A.P. Rodzianko, who was dissatisfied with his submission to the Estonian army and wanted to establish his own control over him. He also accused the command of the regiment of separatism, namely campaigning for the creation of an autonomous Ingermanland republic in the areas of compact settlement of Ingermanlanders and Izhora ^[20] . The commandant of Yamburg , the guard Colonel A. V. Bibikov, complained to Rodzianko that the regiment commanders in areas of compact settlement of Ingermanlanders did not recognize their commandants and appointed their own ^[21] . While at the headquarters of the regiment, Rodzianko said that he did not know who the Ingermanlanders were and that in Russia there were only Russians. The meeting of the regiment commander A. Uimonen with A.P. Rodzianko on June 9 in Yamburg ended in a scandal and Uimonen's report to the command of the Estonian army about the general’s abusive behavior. Nevertheless, on June 12, the Ingermanland Regiment was promptly subordinated to the Northern Corps, although Finnish officers expressed their disagreement with this ^[22] .

The core of the Ingermanland regiment was the locals - Ingermanlanders. According to the future State Comptroller of the North-West Government Vasily Leopoldovich Gorn, the brutal soldier intolerance shown by General Rodzianko frightened and hostile the Ingermanlanders towards the Russian command ^[23] . In his opinion, there was no separatism in the actions of the Ingermanlanders, their demands were limited only to the creation of local self-government ^[24] . In turn, General Rodzianko issued Order No. 13 “On a temporary right to use land,” which even abolished the reforms of the February Revolution and returned landowner rights, as a result of which the support of the local population disappeared, and Ingermanland peasants began to attack the rear of the advancing White Army ^{[25 ]} .

The conflict between General Rodzianko and the command of the regiment was continued after the events at Fort Krasnaya Gorka and the battery of the Gray Horse . When their garrisons rebelled against the Soviet government on June 13, the unit of the Ingermanland regiment of 150 Soikin volunteers and 37 scouts turned out to be the closest White unit, under the command of the Finnish volunteer Hilden, who carried out reconnaissance in the Lebyazhye area, which occupied the fortifications. However, on June 16, not receiving help from the whites, the Ingermanlanders retreated, and the garrisons fled under the onslaught of the Coast Reds, sent to suppress the rebellion. Rodzianko accused Ingermanlanders of concealing the fact of taking the fort and the battery, as well as disarming their garrisons ^{[22] [26] [27]} .

As a result, Rodzianko ordered the disarmament and disbandment of the Ingermanland Regiment, his rank and file joined the units of the 2nd Division of the Northern Corps, and Finnish officers were given the opportunity to return through Estonia to Finland. Finns were joined by volunteers from North Ingria ^[28] . On June 16, an expeditionary force consisting of a battalion of the Semenovsky regiment and two platoons of the Yamburg rifle squad, under the command of the captain of the 2nd rank P.I. Stolitsa, began disarming the Ingermanladis ^[29] . Local volunteers went home, and the remaining 350 people were brought into a separate battalion as part of the Ostrovsky regiment of the 2nd division ^[30] .

As a result of the reinforcements received by the Reds, the situation at the front escalated, parts of the whites were weakened by continuous fighting and a large number of wounded and killed. In addition, despite the transition to the white of the two regiments of the Red Army and the garrison of Krasnaya Gorka, some of the whites were tired of fighting, there was a sharp decrease in the command staff. In view of this, Rodzianko decided to use the disarmed garrison of Krasnaya Gorka and the Ingermanlanders in Koporye as a reserve. He congratulated the garrison on the transition to the white and ordered the return of weapons to his fighters and disarmed Ingermanlanders ^[31] . After such actions, the Ingermanlanders finally hated the white command, the separatist sentiments were further aggravated, which again led to their violent disarmament ^[32] .

On June 19, General J. Laidoner announced the resignation of command of the Northern Corps. The main reason for this decision was the disarmament of the Ingermanland Regiment by white forces. On the same day, General A.P. Rodzianko issued an order to withdraw the corps from submission to the Estonian commander in chief and transform it into the Northern Army . At the suggestion of the English general Hubert Hoff , on July 1, she was renamed the Northwest Army - so as not to confuse her with the Northern Army, operating near Arkhangelsk and Murmansk ^[33] .

After the dispersal of the Ingermanland Regiment at the end of June 1919, about 350 people remained in its ranks. Some of his fighters were able to cross over to the Estonian side, the other, mostly West Germanic, went home. Almost the entire Finnish command staff and dozens of North German volunteers crossed over to Finland ^[34] . In June 1919, the formation of the North Ingermanland Regiment began in the regions of the Petrograd district bordering Finland, ^[35] . He was joined by some of the soldiers of the dissolved Rodzianko Ingermanland Regiment, now called West Ingermanland ^[36] . To the rest, General Laidoner gave permission to organize his unit, which is part of the Estonian army ^[34] . In late July - early August, a new West Ingermanland Regiment was formed in the city of Narva-Jõesuu ^[37] . The commander of the regiment, instead of Major Uimonen who had left for Finland, was taken over by the German captain Emil Pekkanen ^[34] .

In early August, the regiment totaled 1,165 people ^[37] . On August 14, the following order went into the regiment: “Finnish and non-commissioned officers are required to wear epaulettes of the Finnish or Estonian armies. The rest: Estonians, Russians and Ingermanlanders must wear the Estonian uniform, since the regiment is part of the Estonian army. ” In late August, in the village of Bolshoye Kuzemkino, the regiment was replenished with residents of local parishes mobilized by the West Inermanland Committee ^[38] .

Another attempt to seize Petrograd was carried out on September 29, 1919. The Northwest Army, under the leadership of General N.N. Yudenich, intended, with the support of the Estonian Army, as well as the West Ingermanland Regiment, to approach Petrograd through the Duderhof and Pulkovo heights , Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk . The West Ingermanland Regiment, which at that time numbered more than 1,600 people, advanced from the left flank south of the village of Foals , through the village of Lopukhinka and reached the coast of the Gulf of Finland in the vicinity of Peterhof ^[39] .

In addition to Ingermanlanders, an international company was fighting in the ranks of Yudenich’s army, in which one platoon was Finnish, the other Swedish, the third Russian. The company and at the same time the Swedish platoon were commanded by Shtan, the Russian by the Finnish ensign Algren, the Finnish by the Finnish ensign Honkanen. The company was used as an assault squad under the cover of tanks. The Finnish platoon was supposed to perform the most difficult tasks, including the capture of Tsarskoye Selo. Because of the black clothes, the whole company was called "black devils." In addition, the first corps of Yudenich included: the French Legion, who arrived from Arkhangelsk via Revel , a battalion of Narva boy scouts , a volunteer American partisan detachment, and local partisans ^[40] .

On October 20, the West Ingermanland regiment of 1,000 people, with 30 machine guns and 16 auto-guns, advanced along the coast of the Kopory Bay. In the future, the regiment intended to attack the fort Krasnaya Gorka along the railway from Gostilitsa via Ust-Ruditsa ^[41] . On October 25, together with the 23rd Pechora Regiment and the French Legion, units of the West Ingermanland Regiment in the amount of 500-700 men consisting of two battalions, including 6 companies, 12 officers, 12 machine guns, 18 machine guns and 6 bombers with headquarters in the village of Lopukhinka , acted in the area of ​​the village of Gostilitsy ^[42] . In late October, Ingermanland units showed activity for the last time, supplanting the Reds at Ropsha ^[43] .

In November, the West Ingermanland Regiment continued to operate on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland ^[44] . The British command gave him two batteries of heavy 12-inch artillery, which were located on the shores of the Gulf of Finland and were to be used against the Red Forts, but the regiment suffered a serious defeat at Peterhof. On November 4, units of the West Ingermanland Regiment, consisting of 500 bayonets, withdrew from the Ust-Ruditsa area and were transferred to protect the coast in the Kalishche -Rakopezhi-Dolgovo-Kernovo area. In the village of Ust-Ruditsa, the pier was guarded by 40 people, and two three-inch guns were installed near the village of Rakopezh. It was expected that the West Ingermanland Regiment would be taken to the reserve and replaced by the 1st Estonian Regiment. On November 14, the regiment was located in the following positions: 1st company with the headquarters of the regiment in the village of Small Aspiration , 2nd and 3rd companies in the village of Zaozerye , 4th company was located in the village of Peipiya . On November 17–20, the position of the regiment sharply worsened. He numbered no more than 200 bayonets and, together with the 4th Estonian regiment, retreated beyond the Lugu River and concentrated in the villages of Staroe and Novoe Strupovo , Bolshoy and Malye Kuzemkino and Ropsha ^[45] .

Cases of desertion and the transition to the Reds became more frequent in the regiment ^[43] . The headquarters of the regiment was located in the village of Ropsha. The commander of the regiment was Emil Pekkanen, the commander of the 1st battalion was Captain Karkkainen, the commander of the 2nd battalion was Captain Merelond. On November 21–22, during the battles at the villages of Staroe Strupovo, Bolshoy and Maloe Kuzemkino and Ropsha, the regiment was defeated. Два батальона численностью 150—200 человек и добровольцы из Сойкинской волости отошли к деревням Венекюля и Коростель . 25 ноября остатки Западно-Ингерманландского полка заняли район деревни Саркюля и перешли в подчинение 4-го Эстонского полка ^[46] .

5 декабря Эстония вступила в переговоры о перемирии, 31 декабря было заключено перемирие между Эстонией и РСФСР, а 2 февраля 1920 года в Тарту был подписан мирный договор ^[47] .

Западно-Ингерманландский полк, в составе которого на начало января 1920 года числилось 1728 человек, по условиями Тартуского мирного договора должен был быть расформирован. Его расформирование проходило постепенно, до конца мая 1920 года он выполнял функции подразделения эстонской пограничной стражи. Последние бойцы полка были демобилизованы 7 июня 1920 года ^{[4] [25] [48]} .

Флаг полка , жёлто-сине-красный со скандинавским крестом на основе цветов ингерманландского герба времён Карла XII создал капитан Ээро Илмари Хаапакоски ( фин. EI Haapakoski ). Полковое знамя практически сразу стало восприниматься всеми, как национальный символ ингерманландских финнов. В июне 1919 года оно было поднято в качестве государственного флага в республике Северная Ингрия ^{[3] [49] [50]} .

Под этим же флагом сражался и Северо-Ингерманландский полк , созданный в июне 1919 года на севере Петроградской губернии в селении Кирьясало (ныне на территории Всеволожского района Ленинградской области ). Восставшие против продразвёрстки крестьяне удерживали это селение под своим контролем полтора года. Ими был избран Временный комитет Северной Ингерманландии ( фин. Pohjois-Inkerin Hoitokunta ) и провозглашена идея создания независимого государства Республика Северная Ингрия . 8 сентября 1919 года полковое знамя было освящено, как государственный флаг ^[51] .

После заключения Тартуского мира , 6 декабря 1920 года государственный флаг был торжественно спущен и вывезен в Финляндию. В 1921 году Временный комитет Северной Ингерманландии на своём внеочередном собрании утвердил размеры и цвета (жёлтый, синий, кирпично-красный) национального ингерманландского флага. Известный финский геральдист Кари К. Лаурла ( Kari K. Laurla ) определил пропорции элементов флага: длина 18 (5 + ½ + 2 + ½ + 10) единиц и высота 11 (4 + ½ + 2 + ½ + 4) единиц, где ширина синего креста — 2 единицы, а красной окантовки — ½. В настоящее время является официальным флагом ингерманландской национально-культурной автономии ^{[52] [53] [54]} .

• апрель 1919 — май 1919 — капитан Александр Тюнни
• май 1919 — июнь 1919 — майор А. Уймонен
• июнь 1919 — июнь 1920 — капитан Эмиль Пекканен

• Северо-Ингерманландский полк

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