Wrangel also known by his nickname the Black Baron, was a Russian military officer of Baltic German origin in the Imperial Russian Army. During the final phase of the Russian Civil War, he was commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia.
Wrangel succeeded Denikin as commander-in-chief of the White forces in Crimea in April 1920. As head of the South Russia military government, he attempted to carry out sweeping land reforms, reorganised the White armies into a Russian Army (more commonly known the Army of Wrangel), and established relations with anti-Bolshevik independence movements. Severely outnumbered by the Red Army and facing certain defeat, Wrangel organised a mass evacuation from Crimea in 1920. Early in his exile he lived in Constantinople and Serbia, and came to be known as one of the most prominent White émigrés. He relocated to Brussels in 1927 and died a year later.