A number of the hostilities between the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army and the Pyotr Wrangel’s Russian Army for Northern Taurida, which included the Whites offensive (June 6 – October 27) and the Reds’ counter-offensive (October 28 – November 3).

 

The bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper near the village of Bolshaya Kakhovka was captured by the Reds on August 7, 1920, as a result of the offensive of the right-bank group of forces of the South-Western Front of the Red Army under the command of Robert Eideman. From August 8 to October 13 under the guidance of military engineer Dmitry Karbyshev work was conducted to equip the bridgehead. Here, for the first time in the course of the Civil War, a deeply echeloned positional defense comprising 3 defensive zones with an organized system of artillery and rifle-machine-gun fire was built. The total area of the bridgehead amounted to 216 km, depth to 12–15 km.

 

The Kakhovsky bridgehead, which was located within 70 km from Perekop, enabled the Red Army to constantly strike the flank and rear of the units of Pyotr Wrangel’s Russian Army in Northern Taurida. During August – October 1920, the Whites, especially the units under the command of Ivan Barbovich and Yakov Slashchev, repeatedly made attempts to eliminate the bridgehead, which failed. The Kakhovsky position inter alia withstood two tank attacks. However, all attempts by the Reds to go beyond the bridgehead were not a success.

 

October 14 saw the last Pyotr Wrangel major offensive on the Kakhovsky bridgehead begin. The 51st Rifle Division under the command of Vasily Blyukher and other units that were defending it, repelled the offensive, inflicting serious losses on the enemy. On October 28, the troops of the Red Army Southern Front (commander Mikhail Frunze) launched an offensive in the direction of Perekop and threw the Whites back from the Kakhovsky bridgehead, which went down in history as the most effective system of field fortification during the Civil War in Russia.