Kalmyk Division and its Place in the Numbering of Cavalry Units of the Red Army in 1918–1919

Abstract

Despite the great number of works on the history of the Civil War, the history of the military units of the Red Army during the first years of its establishment still has not been thoroughly investigated. The list of the Red Army formations including cavalry units is still not complete. One of the ways to detect cavalry divisions, scheduled for formation, is numbering analysis which was open-type and solid and was maintained in the specific recording system. The analysis showed that among the units formed in 1918–1919 there was the Kalmyk cavalry division that drew special attention of the central military authorities headed by People’s Commissar L. D. Trotskiy due to the fact that Kalmyks were born horsemen and could quickly master cavalry service.