ISBN: 978-9941-513-80-0
Category: Military Histories, Science Books, Academic Publications
Pages: 200
Format: 14 x 20.5
Published: 2025
Cover: Soft
Price: 0.00 
On February 24, 1921, during the Russian-Georgian war, for the first time in Transcaucasia, tanks and infantry collided on the battlefield. The battle took place near Tbilisi, near the Tbilisi International Airport, next to the Lochini River. Georgian infantrymen were guarding the hills on the left bank of the Lochini River when, in the afternoon, three tanks of the Red Army of Soviet Russia emerged unexpectedly from the fog. What happened after, or rather the beginning of the story, is described both by Russian and Georgian participants in the battle in a similar manner: Specifically, the fact that the tanks and infantry of the Red Army occupied the Georgian trenches. The Georgian and Russian versions of the rest of the story, however, differ dramatically. In the present book, as a result of a comparison and critical analysis of sources and hitherto unknown archival documents, an attempt is made to restore the true picture of the clash and identify the place of the battle. The analysis of the sources allows us to restore the general picture of the course of the battle, although it is not easy to determine the objective reality due to the tendentious nature of the sources. Therefore, in the book, you will find not only a comparison of the information in the sources but also their critical analysis.
Compared to the reconstruction of the battle, it was much easier to localize the battlefield, which became possible after multiple visits of sources, maps and the Lochini River valley. The topography of the place itself provides the key to solving the problem.
In the present book, other issues related to the battle of Russian tanks and Georgian infantry are discussed and researched, such as the history of the making of the tank, the peculiarities of its use in World War I and the following years, theoretical visions and practical experience of fighting against tanks, the knowledge of anti-tank warfare in the Georgian military, the history of the few existing yet decommissioned tanks in the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Georgia, and a humorous misadventure of one of them.
