OFFICER BATTALIONS
______In 1918 the Bolsheviks and their Red Guards found themselves fighting those elements of Russian society who didn't particularly want to be part of the social experiment the followers of Lenin were trying to inflict on everybody. These elements were known collectively as the Whites.
______The White forces were a disparate lot. Some were military units of the old Czarist Army who remained loyal, despite terrible losses on the Eastern Front. Others were units raised by provisional governments representing many nationalistic and ethnic agendas. And some were officer battalions.
______Officer battalions were formed by the Whites out of simple expediency. The officers of the Russian Imperial Army were closely associated with the Czarist regime and remained very loyal to the idea of reinstating the Czar. This was understandable as the soldier-aristocrats were awarded medals for simply showing up for work. Unfortunately for them, the peasants who served as common soldiers in the army did not care for their role as cannon fodder in the Czar's army and decided to go home instead. Some even went over to the Bolsheviks.
______This left the Whites with a surplus of officers and a shortage of soldiers. The solution to this problem was to have officers serve AS soldiers in special battalions, presumably until enough soldiers were recruited to allow them to lead units of their own.
______High rank in the Czar's army did not necessarily translate into leadership positions within the officer battalions; seniority was based on how early an officer joined the battalion. As a result, captains or majors could often be found in command of a battalion where colonels served as NCOs or "in the ranks."
______Officer battalions were considered elite units. As such, they were frequently committed to where the fighting was fiercest and took many casualties. Of course, the savageness with which they fought may have had something to do with the fact that the Reds normally executed any officer they captured.
______Although the Whites inherited most of the senior leadership and many of the technical experts of the old Russian Imperial Army, the differing objectives of the White groups caused them to bicker among themselves. Cooperation between those who wanted a free republic, those who wanted a return to the old Czarist Empire, and those who were fighting for independence from Russia itself was impossible. The Whites wasted much of their time with intrigues and political machinations and were never able to inflict the devastating defeat that would have caused the poorly-led and badly-equipped Red Guards to collapse.
______Due to losses among officers serving in the ranks and recruitment of enlisted soldiers many of the officer battalions became "composite units," consolidating the remnants of the officers into one or two companies with the rest of the companies composed of enlisted soldiers with their normal complement of officers. When the Whites were defeated the Officer Battalions were not the same elite units they had been at the beginning of the war.
WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST BATTLESHIP EVER BUILT?
