Don Cossacks in the First World War

Kozma Firsovich Kryuchkov (1890-1919) - Don Cossack of Nizhne-Kalmykovsky farmstead, Ust-Khoperskaya village, Ust-Medveditsky district of the Don Cossacks Host. At the beginning of the First World War, he was a soldier of the Ataman Yermak Timofeyev 3rd Don Cossack Regiment, a part of the 3rd Cavalry Division. On the night of July 30 (August 12), 1914, he was a member of a patrol of four Cossacks that attacked a German cavalry patrol of 27 people near the Polish city of Kalwaria. During the battle, according to the official version, the patrol killed 22 Germans (Kozma Kryuchkov destroyed 11 soldiers), captured two people; three enemies managed to escape. The Cossacks got only wounds. Kozma Kryuchkov suffered the most: he received 16 stab wounds, and his horse - 11. He received the Cross of St. George IV class for his bravery and courage. The Commander of the 1st Army, General of the Cavalry P. K. von Rennenkampf personally awarded him in the military hospital. Young Kozma Kryuchkov became the first cavalier of the Cross of St. George in the Russian Imperial Army during the First World War.

The feat of the Don Cossack was widely reported in the press. Portraits of Kozma Kryuchkov and images of the battle with the German patrol decorated wrappers of sweets, cigarettes, boxes of matches, postcards.