Western Army (Russia)

The Western Army (Russian: Западная Армия) or 16th Army was created on November 15, 1918, by the Russian SFSR for the purpose of recovering territories lost by the Russian Empire during the First World War and establishing Soviet republics in those territories. The Western Army engaged various local forces from the Baltic States, Belarus, Poland and Ukraine, and its actions contributed to starting the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1920.

After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the newly established Russo-German border was controlled on the Russian side, by the so-called Western Section of Curtain Troops (Западный участок отрядов завесы), or simply the Western Curtain. The curtain was a sparse and heterogeneous set of detachments. Its commander was Vladimir Egoryev. (His official rank was "military leader" (военный руководитель), since he was a former Tsarist general) The Western Curtain covered over 800 kilometres along the line Nevel–Polotsk–Senno–Orsha–Mogilev–Zhlobin–Gomel–Novy Oskol. Eventually the Western Curtain was arranged into seven detachments with over 20,000 troops. This number was actually very small in relation to the area it covered, and insufficient in case of any larger battle. Moreover, part of its manpower was moved to other bottlenecks of the Russian Civil War.

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