Civil War on the Don

Civil War on the Don
	Part of Russian Civil War
	; Parade of Student Squads of the White Armiya.; Rostov–on–Don, 1919
Date	November 8, 1917 – March 27, 1920
Location	Don Host Oblast and adjacent territories
Result	Victory of the Bolsheviks, evacuation of the remnants of the White Movement to Crimea
Belligerents
1917–1918:; From November 1917:; Russia (Southeastern Union); From January 1918:; Russia (Volunteer Army); Until May 1918:; Russia (Don Cossack Host); From May 1918:; Don Republic; April–November 1918:; German Empire; Austria-Hungary; Ukrainian State; 1919–1920:; Armed Forces of South Russia (AFSR); Rebels of the Veshenskaya Uprising (from March 11 to June 8, 1919, then merged into the Don Army as part of the AFSR); British Empire; France	1917–1920:; Russian SFSR; March 23 – May 4 (September 30), 1918:; Don Soviet Republic (until mid-April – Don Republic)
Commanders and leaders
P. N. Krasnov; A. P. Bogaevsky; S. V. Denisov; P. Kh. Popov; A. M. Kaledin † Veshenskaya uprising:; P. N. Kudinov M. V. Alekseyev †; L. G. Kornilov †; A. I. Denikin; P. N. Wrangel; V. Z. May–Mayevsky	L. D. Trotsky – People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs; I. I. Vācietis (Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army); V. A. Antonov-Ovseyenko; S. M. Budyonny; B. M. Dumenko
Strength
German Empire (Imperial German Army); April–May 1919:; Veshenskaya uprising: approx. 30,000 men (5 divisions, 1 brigade, 2 regiments); White Movement:; approx. 40,000 men; Don Army:; approx. 38,000 men; approx. 158 guns; approx. 687 machine guns	Irregular detachments of Trotsky; Regular units of the Red Army; Special Purpose Units

The Civil War on the Don was a series of military conflicts between the Don Cossacks (in alliance with the White Movement in Southern Russia) and the Bolsheviks, primarily on the territory of the Don Host Oblast, which took place from November 1917 to the spring of 1920. It was part of the broader Russian Civil War.

On the Don, as in many other Cossack regions of Russia, there was a historical divide between the non-Cossack population and the Cossacks. The fact that the Don became one of the regions where the White Movement began to form its armies is primarily explained by the fact that the Don Oblast received autonomy and self-government at a new level as early as the spring of 1917, with the region electing an ataman and establishing its own governing institutions.