The Battle of Galicia, the Sarykamysh operation, the Brusilov breakthrough - all these are almost forgotten episodes of our history today. But our ancestors, real people, once took part in these battles of the First World War.
They experienced the joy of victories and the bitterness of defeats. They died under airplane bombs and during gas attacks. In war it’s like in war.
Entered the battle
Three people - Archduke Franz Ferdinand, his wife Sofia Chotek and their killer Serb Gavrilo Princip - played a fatal role in history. Formally, it was these events that provoked the start of the war. Although the world was ready to burst into flames from any spark. Russia and Europe have been heading towards this war for a long time: contradictions between the countries have been growing for 20 years.
After the assassination of the Archduke in Serbia, Russia could not stand aside. Almost immediately the decision was made to declare war. Russian troops were prepared brilliantly. The economy was at its worst high point of its development. Nothing prevented the government from providing the army with the latest ammunition.
England spent the most
In Russia, from July 1914 to August 1917, over 41 billion rubles were allocated from the treasury for military needs. Britain's military expenditures amounted to about 55 billion rubles, France - 33 billion rubles, Germany - 47 billion rubles.
How much did one day of war cost?
In the spring of 1916, one day of war cost the Russian treasury 31-32 million rubles. In total, the amount of military spending exceeded the 1913 budget by more than 13 times.
Russian troops saved Paris in 1914
In the first weeks of the war, the armies of two generals A. Samsonov and P. Rennenkampf began an active offensive. Russian troops struck in East Prussia. The Germans were forced to transfer troops from the Western Front to the Eastern Front. It was only thanks to this that the Germans lost the first major battle on the Marne River. They were thrown back almost 100 kilometers. Paris was saved.
The tragedy of Samsonov's army
Russian troops quickly conquered enemy territory. But this became the main mistake. Transport links were disrupted. There were not enough weapons and ammunition. In the area of marshy azure swamps, General Samsonov's army was surrounded. Desperate fighting raged for two days. “We had to make this sacrifice for the good of the allies,” one diplomat said privately.
The Polish city of Przemysl surrenders to the Russians
In October 1914, on the Southwestern Front, Russian troops tried to immediately capture the powerful fortified fortress of the city of Przemysl. They cannot do this right away. The Russian command began a blockade using airships and airplanes, which bombed the fortress and adjusted the artillery fire. The Austrians tried to escape to no avail. At the beginning of March the fortress fell. The garrison surrendered to the mercy of the Russians. More than 140 thousand Austrian soldiers, generals and officers expected this mercy.
Frontal attacks in the Battle of Galicia
The success at Przemysl allowed the four Russian armies to fight prolonged battles in Galicia. The range of action of the armies was 450 kilometers. More than 700 thousand Russian soldiers against 830 thousand Austro-German soldiers converged in frontal attacks within a month. Victory remained with the Russians. Lviv, the center of the province, was taken.
Victory on the Caucasian Front
On the Caucasian front in December 1914, Russian troops defeated the Turks in the area of Sarykamysh station. However, it is poorly fortified, and the Russians are holding out last bit of strength. There is not enough food and ammunition. The Turks strike on the right flank. The threat of encirclement is imminent. But winter is coming. This benefits the Russians. They bring up ammunition and with a powerful counterattack push back the enemy, encircling the 9th Turkish Corps. In these battles, 26 thousand Russian soldiers died, Turkish losses exceeded 90 thousand.
The Turkish cities of Erzurum and Trebizond fell one after another in 1916 during the operations of the same name. Supported by Cherno navy Kuban scouts landed in Rize and were able to sow terrible panic through a sudden strike. Historians also explain the successes of the command on the Caucasian front by the remoteness of the Russian Tsar from Moscow.
The fatal mistake of Nicholas II
Historians unanimously say that the decision of the last Russian emperor to lead Headquarters at the front was wrong. It demoralized the command. The military generals were confused by a number of orders coming from Nicholas II and his entourage. Just think about the empress's visit to headquarters. She demanded that General Alexei Brusilov tell her the exact date offensive But Brusilov, of course, said nothing.
The last valiant victory of General Brusilov
This was the crowning achievement of General Brusilov’s career when in 1916 he abandoned the defensive tactics imposed by Nicholas II and began developing a strategic offensive operation against German and Austro-Hungarian troops in the region of Galicia and Bukovina. The offensive went along the entire front. It was main idea Brusilova. The enemy was not ready for such a turn. Usually the Russians defended themselves or went on the attack in small areas. The Austrian defense suffered from the fact that the second and third lines were not distinguished by strong lines. The united fronts - the strong Western and weaker Southwestern - were able to inflict a crushing defeat on the relaxed Germans.
Women's footprint in the army
By that time, society was electrified by unjustified changes of ministers and generals. This leapfrog gave birth to the most ridiculous rumors. The main one is that Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, a German by birth and an unhappy mother by definition, is to blame for everything: Tsarevich Alexei had an incurable genetic disease transmitted through the female line. The royal doctor Botkin could not ease his torment, but the Siberian elder Grigory Rasputin helped. All this gave rise to the most unimaginable fabrications, fueled by spies of the German government. This whole tangle undermined army discipline and was pulled into such a tight knot that Cossack swords continued to cut it for a very long time during the Civil War, confirming the indisputable fact: the Russian army was endowed with all the qualities and all the virtues to win the First World War.
The news of the war caused a wave of patriotic sentiment throughout the country. Mass patriotic demonstrations took place in all major cities, surpassing in scope those that took place at the very beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. It is characteristic that the strikes that took place in the summer of 1914 automatically stopped. Even the authorities were amazed at the active turnout at the recruiting stations. 96% of those liable for military service showed up.
Russia's opponents in the First World War
The main opponents of Russia and its allies were Germany and its allies - Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. At the very beginning of the war, German troops were the first to invade Luxembourg, and then Belgium. Their Austrian allies, who were the first to enter the territory of Serbia, did not lag behind the Germans. Thus, two fronts of the war were formed - Western and Balkan.
In the Russian-German theater of military operations, Russian troops crossed the Prussian border. The Germans, in turn, invaded the southwest of Russian Poland and occupied a number of border towns. In the first months of the war, the main battles took place in the Russian part of Poland. From the end of April 1915 (the beginning of the Great Retreat of the Russian Army) right up to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russian troops defend their native borders, while simultaneously holding a small part of the Austro-Hungarian territory.
After the Russians abandoned Poland and conquered it in 1914. Galicia, enemy troops rushed deep into the empire: into Courland, Livonia, Estland, Belarus, Polesie and Volyn. In 1918 after Russia left the war German command continued the offensive. The Germans reached Rostov, penetrated Crimea and Georgia...
To avoid the simultaneous conduct of military operations on two fronts, the German generals developed a strategic plan for a “lightning war” with France. Following this plan, the German command sent significant forces against France and soon they were already 120 km from Paris. The French government turned to Russia with a request for a speedy offensive by Russian troops.
Russia was forced, in order to save its Entente ally, to begin military operations in East Prussia, without having yet completed the mobilization and deployment of its entire army. This forced the German command to remove two corps from the Western Front and send them to East Prussia. The Russian 2nd Army under the command of General Samsonov was defeated. Losses amounted to 170 thousand people. Shocked, Samsonov shot himself. At this price Paris was saved. Germany increasingly concentrated its troops on the Eastern Front.
During military operations in the fall of 1914. both sides suffered heavy losses. The enemy lost 950 thousand people killed, wounded and prisoners. Russian losses amounted to 2 million people. The war acquired a defensive, positional character, a war of attrition. But no one was ready for such a war.
Positional war is a special, exhausting war. Sitting in wet trenches, stuffy dugouts, constant firefights, machine gun and artillery duels, reconnaissance in force, unexpected gas attacks. Such a war requires regular supplies of ammunition, uniforms and food, rotation of troops at the forefront, and special training of soldiers and officers.
From the very beginning of hostilities, a tragic paradox emerged: heroic soldiers and courageous officers fought in the army. However, the level of the high command turned out to be lower than the level of the army as a whole. There was neither a single will nor serious plans for waging war. This filled the army with uncertainty. But most importantly, catastrophic shortcomings in the supply of ammunition were discovered.
Requests Russian representatives to the allies to hit German troops on the Western Front were ignored. Retreat with heavy fighting in 1915. cost the Russian army 1 million. 410 thousand killed and wounded.
Minister of War V.A. Sukhomlinov was put on trial, and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich was removed from the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief. At the end of August 1915 Nicholas II himself became Commander-in-Chief. From now on and finally, all failures, mistakes, miscalculations and defeats were associated with his name. But the army still lacked guns and rifles, shells and cartridges. There was also a lack of competent, authoritative leadership.
The character of the army changed during the war years. The growth of its numbers, mobilization, and the loss of career officers-commanders of companies and battalions led to the fact that the officer corps was replenished educated people, passed accelerated training. There is no reason to doubt their patriotism and courage. But like many representatives of the intelligentsia, they were susceptible to oppositional sentiments, and everyday participation in the war, in which there was always a shortage of the most necessary things, gave rise to doubts.
At the end of 1915 The Russian command proposed a plan for a joint offensive to the allies with the goal of uniting in Budapest. But again the Allies did not accept the proposal. In May 1916 The armies of the Southwestern Front broke through the front in Galicia and Volhynia and launched an offensive. This was the famous Brusilov breakthrough. It marked a radical turning point in the world war. It became clear that the countries of the Fourth Alliance (Germany and Austria-Hungary were joined by Turkey and Bulgaria) were doomed to defeat. It was only a matter of time. At the end of 1916 diplomatic relations The USA broke off with Germany. At the beginning of 1917 their entry into the war was expected.
Despite the debilitating losses and fatigue from the war, the Russian army by the beginning of 1917. was able to protect most of the Russian Empire, moving away only from the Kingdom of Poland and the provinces in the Baltic states. It firmly held the approaches to Riga and Petrograd. The army's combat supply has improved. Victory was not far away. But she decided differently.
What was the Russian Empire like on the eve of the World War? Here it is necessary to distance ourselves from two myths - the Soviet one, when “Tsarist Russia” is shown as a backward country with a downtrodden people, and the “Novorossiysk” one - the essence of this legend can be expressed by the title of the documentary journalistic film by the Soviet and Russian director Stanislav Govorukhin “The Russia We Lost” (1992). This is an idealized idea of the Russian Empire, which was destroyed by the scoundrels Bolsheviks.
The Russian Empire really had enormous potential and could, with appropriate global, foreign and domestic policies, become a world leader, due to its human reserves (the third largest population on the planet, after China and India), natural resources, creative potential and military power. But there were also powerful, deep-seated contradictions, which ultimately destroyed the building of the empire. Without these internal prerequisites, the subversive activities of the Financial International, Western intelligence services, Freemasons, liberals, socialist-revolutionaries, nationalists and other enemies of Russia would not have been successful.
The cornerstones of the Russian Empire were: Orthodoxy, which preserved the foundations of Christianity as the basis of the system of upbringing and education; autocracy (autocracy) as the basis of the state system; the Russian national spirit, which was the basis for the unity of a vast territory, the core of the empire, at the same time capable of mutually beneficial cooperation with other races, nationalities and religions. But these three foundations were largely undermined: Orthodoxy for the most part became a formality, having lost its fiery spirit of righteousness, the essence was lost behind the rituals - “The Glory of Truth, Righteousness.” The Russian national spirit was eroded by the pressure of Westernism, as a result, a split of the people occurred - the elite (for the most part) accepted European culture, for them Paris and the Cote d'Azur became closer than the Ryazan or Pskov regions, and Marx and Voltaire were more interesting than Pushkin or Lomonosov.
Economic development of Russia that time evokes an ambivalent impression; on the one hand, the successes were high. The empire experienced three economic booms - the first was under Alexander II, the second at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries (it was associated with the stability of the era of Emperor Alexander III and a number of positive innovations such as the introduction of protective tariffs and a wine monopoly, policies to encourage entrepreneurship, etc.), the third the rise occurred in 1907-1913 and, interestingly, continued even during the First World War and was associated with the activities of P.A. Stolypin and V.N. Kokovtsev (Minister of Finance 1906 -1914, Chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1911 - 1914 years). The average annual growth rate in the recent period was 5-8%. This rise was even called the “Russian miracle,” which occurred much earlier than the German or Japanese.
Count Vladimir Nikolaevich Kokovtsov, Russian statesman, chairman of the Council of Ministers of Russia in 1911-1914.
For 13 pre-war years, the volume industrial production tripled in size. New industries grew especially rapidly - chemical production, oil production, rapid growth was recorded in coal mining. Railways were built: from 1891 to 1916, the Trans-Siberian Railway (Trans-Siberian, or Great Siberian Road) was built, it connected Moscow and the largest Siberian and Far Eastern industrial centers empire, effectively tightening Russia with an iron belt. It was the longest railway in the world - more than 9 thousand km. The southern branch of the Trans-Siberian Railway became the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), built in 1897-1903. It belonged to the Russian state and was served by subjects of the empire. It passed through the territory of Manchuria and connected Chita with Vladivostok and Port Arthur.
In the light, textile (textiles were exported to China and Persia), and food industries, Russia was fully self-sufficient and exported goods to the foreign market. The situation was more negative in the field of mechanical engineering - Russia itself produced 63% of equipment and means of production.
Western economists and politicians were of great concern fast development Russia. In 1913, the Russian Empire took first place in the world, ahead of the United States, in terms of industrial production growth. Russia was one of the five strongest economic powers, second only to Great Britain and Germany, and catching up with France and the United States. According to the calculations of French economists, if Russia had maintained the pace of such development, while other powers maintained the same speed of development, then by the middle of the 20th century the Russian state should have peacefully, in an evolutionary way, dominated the world in financial and economic terms, i.e. politically, becoming the number one superpower.
And this despite the fact that it is somewhat incorrect to compare Russia and the British and French colonial empires - Paris and London siphoned funds from the colonies, developed the subordinate territories one-sidedly, only in their own interests. The British and French received huge amounts of cheap raw materials from their overseas possessions. The Russian Empire developed under different conditions - the outskirts were considered Russian and they tried to develop them at the same level as the Great Russian and Little Russian provinces. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the natural and climatic conditions of Russia - there is an excellent book about this by A.P. Parshev, “Why Russia is not America.” Develop high civilization in such conditions it is an order of magnitude more difficult than in Europe, the USA or South Asian countries, Latin America and Africa.
We must also take into account the fact that, although the colonies worked for France and England, researchers forget to include the population of Egypt, India, Sudan, Burma and a host of other possessions in the gross per capita indicators, take into account their standard of living, well-being, education and other factors. . And without colonies, the level of development of the “metropolises” was indeed high.
A certain danger for Russia was posed by relatively high financial debt. Although it’s also not worth going too far and considering that the empire was almost an “appendage of Western countries.” The total volume of foreign investment ranged from 9 to 14%, in principle, not much higher than in Western countries. We must take into account the fact that Russia developed according to a capitalist scheme, was not a socialist state, and therefore played the same games as Western countries. By 1914, Russia's external debt reached 8 billion francs (2.9 billion rubles), and the external debt of the United States reached 3 billion dollars (approximately 6 billion rubles). The States were in debt at that time, reversing the trend only due to the First World War .
It was believed that it was more profitable to borrow money; the money was spent on the development of the country, large infrastructure projects or stabilization of the financial situation in 1905-1906 (defeat in the war, the beginning of the revolution in the country). By the beginning of the First World War, the gold reserves of the Russian Empire were the largest in the world and amounted to 1 billion 695 million rubles.
The population of the empire was 160 million people and was growing rapidly, the birth rate was high - 45.5 children per 1 thousand inhabitants annually. The myth about the widespread illiteracy and low culture of the Russian people at the beginning of the 20th century also raises doubts. Western researchers, speaking about 30% of literate people, mainly took into account graduates of universities, gymnasiums, real schools, and zemstvo schools. Parochial schools, which covered a significant part of the population, were not taken seriously in the West, believing that they did not provide “real education”. Again, we must take into account the factor of widespread illiteracy of the inhabitants of the European colonies, which legally and in fact were part of European countries. In addition, in 1912, the Russian Empire adopted a law on universal primary education and about primary schools. If it were not for the war and the collapse of the empire, the empire would have repeated what the Bolsheviks did - illiteracy would have been completely eliminated. Therefore, complete illiteracy persisted only among foreigners (a category of subjects within the framework of the law of the Russian Empire, which did not have a derogatory meaning) in a number of regions of the empire, in the North Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia and the Far North.
In addition, imperial gymnasiums and real schools (secondary education) provided a level of knowledge that was approximately equal to the volume of programs of most modern universities. And a person who graduated from a higher educational institution in Russia was distinguished in better side in terms of knowledge than the majority of current university graduates. Russian culture experienced “Silver Years” - successes were noted in poetry, literature, music, science, etc.
Parliamentary monarchy. You need to know that by the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was no longer an absolute monarchy, in the full sense of this concept. In 1864, during judicial reform(the Judicial Charter was introduced) the power of the emperor was actually limited. In addition, the country began to introduce zemstvo self-government, which was in charge of issues of improvement, health care, education, social protection, etc. The Manifesto of October 17, 1905 and the reforms of 1907 established a regime of parliamentary constitutional monarchy in the country.
Therefore, citizens of the empire had approximately the same amount of rights and freedoms as residents of other great powers. Western “democracy” of the early 20th century was very different from modern one. Suffrage was not universal, the majority of the population did not have this privilege, their rights were limited by age, property, gender, national, racial and other qualifications.
In Russia, since 1905, all parties were allowed, except for those who carried out terrorist activities, which is quite normal. Both Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries got into the State Duma. Strikes were suppressed in all countries (and are still being suppressed), and often in the West the actions of the authorities were harsher. In Russia, preliminary censorship was abolished, which was used by numerous opponents of the regime, from freemasons-liberals to leftists and nationalists. There was only punitive censorship - a publication could be fined or closed for breaking the law (such censorship was widespread and existed not only in Russia). Therefore, you need to know that the myth of the “prison of nations,” where the tsar is the “chief overseer,” was invented by the Western press and then supported in Soviet historiography.
Foreign policy
Petersburg tried to pursue a peaceful policy. At two Hague conferences (1899 and 1907), which were convened at the initiative of Russia, international conventions on the laws and customs of war were adopted, included in a set of norms of world humanitarian law.
In 1899, 26 countries participated in it and adopted 3 conventions: 1) On the peaceful resolution of international conflicts; 2) About the laws and customs of land war; 3) On the application of the principles of the Geneva Convention to naval warfare (dated August 10, 1864). At the same time, the use of shells and explosives from balloons and ships, shells with asphyxiating and harmful gases, and explosive bullets was banned.
In 1907, 43 states took part in it; they had already adopted 13 conventions, including on the peaceful resolution of world conflicts, on restrictions on the use of force in the collection of contractual debt obligations, on the laws and customs of land war, etc.
Russia after the defeat of France in Franco-Prussian war 1871-1871 several times kept Germany from a new attack on French state. St. Petersburg tried to resolve disputes on the Balkan Peninsula through political and diplomatic means, without bringing matters to war, even to the detriment of its strategic interests. During two Balkan Wars(1912-1913), due to its peace-loving policy, all countries in this region, even the Serbs, were dissatisfied with Russia.
Although society was “infected” with Francophilism and Pan-Slavism, the Russian public did not want a big war in Europe. The nobility and intelligentsia considered Paris the cultural center of the world. They considered it their sacred duty to stand up for their “Slavic brothers” or “brothers in faith,” although there were many examples when these “brothers” entered into alliances with Western countries and acted contrary to the interests of Russia.
Germany for a long time, until 1910-1912, was not perceived as an enemy in Russia. They didn’t want to fight the Germans; this war did not bring any benefit to Russia, but it could have brought a lot of harm (as it did).
But Paris and London had to pit the “Russian giant” against the “Teutons.” The British feared the growth of the navy German Empire, German dreadnoughts could seriously change the balance of power in the world. It was the fleet that allowed the “mistress of the seas” to control vast areas of the planet and her colonial empire. They needed to provoke a conflict between Germany and Russia and, if possible, stay on the sidelines. Thus, Sir Edward Gray (British Foreign Secretary in 1905-1916) told French President Poincaré: “Russian resources are so great that Germany will ultimately be exhausted even without the help of England.”
The French were ambivalent about the war; on the one hand, there was no longer “Napoleonic” belligerence, and they did not want to lose the achieved level of well-being (France was the world’s cultural and financial center), but they could not forget the shame of 1870-1871 in Paris. The topic of Alsace and Lorraine was regularly raised on the panel. Many politicians openly led the country to war, among them was Raymond Poincaré, who was elected president in 1913. In addition, many did not like living under the Sword of Damocles of Germany; the German Empire provoked the outbreak of conflict several times, and only the position of Russia and Britain restrained the warlike impulses of Berlin. I wanted to solve the problem in one blow.
There was great hope in Russia. In Paris, many believed that if the “Russian barbarians” were let off the leash, then Germany would be finished. But Russia was quite stable, and its peace-loving position was not shaken by either the Moroccan crises (1905-1906, 1911) or the mess in the Balkans (1912-1913).
Russia’s peacefulness is also confirmed by the fact that while Germany began to prepare for war and heavily arm itself, building an increasingly powerful fleet almost immediately after the victory over France in 1871, Russia only adopted a shipbuilding program in 1912. And even then it was much more modest than the German or British; in the Baltic, the forces of 4 battleships and 4 battlecruisers were only enough to defend their shores. In March 1914 (!) the State Duma adopted a large military program, which provided for an increase in the army and modernization of weapons, as a result the Russian army was supposed to be superior to the German one. But both programs were supposed to be completed only by 1917.
In September 1913, Paris and St. Petersburg reached a final agreement regarding cooperation in case of war. France was supposed to begin military operations on the 11th day after the start of mobilization, and Russia on the 15th. And in November, the French gave a large loan for the construction of railways in the west of the empire. To improve Russia's mobilization capabilities.
Internal opponents of the Russian Empire
- A significant part of the imperial elite. The February Revolution of 1917 was organized not by the Bolsheviks or the Socialist Revolutionaries, but by financiers, industrialists, part of the generals, senior dignitaries, officials, and State Duma deputies. It was not the Red Commissars and Red Guards who forced Nicholas II to abdicate the throne, but ministers, generals, deputies, and freemasons of high levels of initiation who were well-to-do and well-settled in life.
They dreamed of making Russia “nice” England or France; their consciousness was formed by the matrix of Western civilization. Autocracy seemed to them the last obstacle on the way to Western Europe. These were supporters of the “European choice” of Russia at that time.
- Foreign bourgeoisie, mostly Germans and Jews. Many were members of Masonic lodges. Had contacts abroad. They also dreamed of a “European choice” for Russia. They supported the liberal bourgeois parties - the Octobrists and the Cadets.
- A significant part of the Russian national bourgeoisie. A significant number of them were Old Believers (Old Believers). The Old Believers considered the power of the Romanovs to be the Antichrist. This government split the church, disrupted the correct development of Russia, subjected them to persecution, destroyed the institution of patriarchy and nationalized the church. Petersburg planted Western abominations in Russia.
- Most of the intelligentsia was fundamentally Westernized, divorced from the people, a terrible mixture of Voltaires, Hegels, Mars and Engels reigned in their heads... The intelligentsia was fascinated by the West, dreamed of dragging Russia into Western civilization and rooting it there. In essence, the intelligentsia was “anti-people” (despite its high level of education), there were few exceptions like Leo Tolstoy or Leskov, and they could not change the general Western vector of movement. The intelligentsia did not understand and did not accept the Russian civilizational project, therefore, having taken part in kindling the fire of the revolution, they themselves burned out.
- Professional revolutionaries. These were passionaries of all estates and classes; they were united by a thirst for change. They rejected the modern world completely. These people believed that they could create new world, much better than the previous one, but for this it is necessary to completely destroy the old one. Among them were Russians, Jews, Poles, Georgians, etc. This movement was not united, it consisted of many parties, organizations, and factions.
- Jews. These people have become important factor Russian revolution, there is no need to downplay their importance, but you shouldn’t exaggerate them either. They made up a significant part of revolutionaries of all stripes. Moreover, it should be noted that these were not Jews in the traditional sense of the word. For the most part, these were “crosses”, “outcasts” of their tribe, those who did not find themselves in traditional life Jewish shtetls. Although they used connections among relatives, including abroad.
- Nationalists. Polish, Finnish, Jewish, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian and other nationalists became a powerful factor in the collapse of the empire, on which the Western powers relied.
First World War 1914 – 1918 became one of the bloodiest and largest conflicts in human history. It began on July 28, 1914 and ended on November 11, 1918. Thirty-eight states participated in this conflict. If we talk about the causes of the First World War briefly, then we can say with confidence that this conflict was provoked by serious economic contradictions between the alliances of world powers that formed at the beginning of the century. It is also worth noting that there was probably a possibility of a peaceful resolution of these contradictions. However, feeling their increased power, Germany and Austria-Hungary moved to more decisive action.
Participants in the First World War were:
on the one hand, the Quadruple Alliance, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey (Ottoman Empire);
on the other, the Entente bloc, which consisted of Russia, France, England and allied countries (Italy, Romania and many others).
The outbreak of World War I was triggered by the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife by a member of a Serbian nationalist terrorist organization. The murder committed by Gavrilo Princip provoked a conflict between Austria and Serbia. Germany supported Austria and entered the war. Two fronts were opened on European territory. Russian – Eastern and Western in Belgium and France. But Russia entered the war without completely completing the rearmament of the army. Nevertheless, the patriotic upsurge in society made it possible to achieve certain successes. Near Lodz and Warsaw, the Russian troops' actions against the German troops were quite successful.
In 1914, Türkiye entered the war on the side of the Triple Alliance. This seriously complicated the situation for Russia. The troops needed ammunition. The complete helplessness of the allies only made the situation worse.
Germany concentrated its activities on the Eastern Front in 1915. During the spring-summer offensive of the German troops, all the gains of the previous year were lost by Russia, and it also partially lost the territories of Ukraine, Western Belarus, the Baltic states, and Poland. After this, German troops were concentrated on the Western Front. Fierce battles took place for the Verdun fortress. The Russian General Staff, in connection with this, developed a plan for the summer offensive. The offensive was supposed to improve the position of the French and Italian troops.
The troops of General Brusilov made a breakthrough in one of the sectors of the Southwestern Front that went down in history. This distracted the Austro-Hungarian and German troops and saved France from a brutal defeat at Verdun.
The course of the war was changed by the revolutionary events of 1917 in Russia. Although the Provisional Government proclaimed the slogan “Continuation of the war to a victorious end,” the offensives in Galicia and Belarus were unsuccessful. And German troops managed to capture Riga and the Moonsund archipelago. The All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the Decree on Peace on October 26, 1917, after which negotiations began in Brest-Litovsk on October 26.
The delegation of the Russian side was headed by Trotsky. She rejected the demands made by the Germans and left the city. However, on February 18, the new delegation was forced to sign a peace treaty under even stricter conditions. Russia lost huge territories in World War I: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and part of Belarus. The presence of Soviet troops was excluded in the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Finland. Russia was also obliged to transfer the ships of the Black Sea Fleet to Germany, demobilize the army and pay indemnity. But the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was soon annulled. 32.NikolaiII: reasons for the collapse of the monarchy Nicholas II was born on May 6 (18), 1868 in Tsarskoe Selo.
Nicholas II is the eldest son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna.
In early childhood he was brought up by an Englishman, and in 1877 his official tutor as the heir was General G. G. Danilovich.
The future emperor received home education as part of a large gymnasium course
His studies continued for 13 years.
Nicholas II ascended the Russian throne in October 1894.
The highest manifesto was published on October 21, on the same day the oath was taken by dignitaries, officials, courtiers and troops
On November 14, 1894, in the Great Church of the Winter Palace, he married Alexandra Fedorovna Family: Wife Alexandra Fedorovna
Alexey Nikolaevich
Has hemophilia
Anastasia Nikolaevna Maria Nikolaevna
Tatyana Nikolaevna
Eldest daughter
Olga Nikolaevna
Foreign policy Russo-Japanese War January 27 (February 9) 1904 - August 23 (September 5) 1905.
The war ended with the Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on August 23 (September 5), 1905, which recorded Russia’s cession to Japan of the southern part of Sakhalin and its lease rights to the Liaodong Peninsula and the South Manchurian Railway.
Nicholas II assumed the Supreme Command of the Russian Army.
Peace of Brest-Litovsk.
Events of January 9, 1905 in St. Petersburg On January 9, 1905, in St. Petersburg, on the initiative of priest Georgy Gapon, a procession of workers took place to Winter Palace. On January 6-8, priest Gapon and a group of workers drew up a Petition on Workers' Needs addressed to the Emperor, which, along with economic ones, contained a number of political demands. The main demand of the petition was the elimination of the power of officials and the introduction of popular representation in the form of a Constituent Assembly.
Nicholas II wrote in his diary: “Hard day! Serious riots occurred in St. Petersburg as a result of the workers’ desire to reach the Winter Palace. The troops had to shoot in different places in the city, there were many killed and wounded. Lord, how painful and difficult!”
Fall of the Monarchy The war, during which there was a widespread mobilization of the working-age male population, horses and massive requisition of livestock and agricultural products, had a detrimental effect on the economy, especially in the countryside. Among the politicized Petrograd society, the authorities were discredited by scandals and suspicions of treason.
On February 23, 1917, a strike began in Petrograd. After 3 days it became universal. On the morning of February 27, 1917, the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison revolted and joined the strikers. Only the police provided resistance to riots and riots. A similar uprising took place in Moscow.
On February 25, 1917, by decree of Nicholas II, meetings of the State Duma were stopped from February 26 to April of the same year, which further inflamed the situation.
A telegram on February 27, 1917 reported: “The civil war has begun and is flaring up. Order the legislative chambers to be reconvened to repeal your highest decree. If the movement spreads to the army, the collapse of Russia, and with it the dynasty, is inevitable.”
Psychological picture. Lifestyle, habits, hobbies. Most of the time, Nicholas II lived with his family in the Alexander Palace or Peterhof. In the summer he loved to relax in Crimea at the Livadia Palace. For recreation, he also made annual trips around Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea on a yacht. I read both light entertaining literature and serious scientific works, often on historical topics. He loved Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines. I smoked cigarettes.
He was interested in photography and also loved watching movies. In the 1900s, I became interested in a then new type of transport - cars. Emperor Nicholas II as an Orthodox sovereign The last Russian autocrat was a deeply religious Orthodox Christian who viewed his political activities as religious service. Almost everyone who came into close contact with the Emperor noted this fact as obvious. He felt responsible for the country given to him by Providence, although he soberly understood that he was not sufficiently prepared to rule a great country.
From March 9 (22) to August 1 (14), 1917, Nicholas II, his wife and children lived under arrest in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Selo.
On August 1 (14), 1917, at 6:10 a.m., a train with members of the imperial family and servants under the sign “Japanese Red Cross Mission” departed from Tsarskoe Selo (from the Aleksandrovskaya railway station). On August 4 (17), the train arrived in Tyumen, then the arrested were transported along the river to Tobolsk. The Romanov family settled in the governor's house, which was specially renovated for their arrival.
At the end of April 1918, the prisoners were transported to Yekaterinburg, where a private house was requisitioned to house the Romanovs, from where they would subsequently go to Moscow for trial. Execution royal family was carried out in the basement of Ipatiev's house in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in pursuance of a resolution of the executive committee of the Ural Regional Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, headed by the Bolsheviks.
The version of the execution of the Bolsheviks comes down to the unstable military situation in the area of the city of Yekaterinburg.
Nicholas II was secretly buried, presumably in the forest near the village of Koptyaki, Perm province; in 1998, the remains were reburied in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.
All the details of the death of the royal family have not yet been established. 33. 1917: the problem of alternative development of Russia.
February revolution Reasons: militarization of industry, closure of peaceful enterprises - mass layoffs of workers, decline in agricultural production - food crisis and speculation, high cost and shortage of food - decline in living standards (permanent); the collapse of the financial system due to an increase in the supply of paper money - rising prices and inflation; failures at the front exacerbated internal contradictions, a political crisis, anti-war and anti-government agitation of socialist parties emerged.
As a result, on February 26, scattered protests by workers in St. Petersburg grew into a general political strike. In response, authorities made arrests and used weapons against demonstrators. As a result, the strike grew into an uprising. Rodzianko announced the creation of a temporary state committee. Duma and that the new government body takes control of the restoration of power. In response, the tsar sent a punitive expedition, but most of the St. Petersburg garrison went over to the side of the Duma. On March 2, Nicholas II wrote a renunciation of the throne, first in favor of his son, then in favor of his brother Mikhail.
On March 3, 1917, the Provisional Government was formed, which headed the state until the convening of the Constituent Assembly. There were 12 people, the head was Lvov. The VP Declaration contained a program of broad democratic reforms: civil liberties, civil equality, amnesty for political prisoners. But a dual power actually developed in the country: the Provisional Government and the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies functioned in parallel, increasingly falling under the influence of the Bolsheviks.
Results: Overthrow of the autocracy; establishment of a democratic republic; the introduction of democratic freedoms, civil equality and personal integrity - the democratization of socio-political life in the country.
OCTOBER REVOLUTION Reasons: unresolved agrarian question, food crisis, inflation and rising prices, crisis of power (dual power developed in the country), participation in the war caused discontent, which was intensified by the Bolshevik agitation. Seeing the inability of the Provisional Government to control the situation, the Bolsheviks at the beginning of October 1917 headed for an armed uprising. For the purpose of its preparation, the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC) was created.
The uprising began on October 25, 1917 with the simultaneous seizure of the Main Post Office, train stations, and state. banks, central telephone exchange. In the evening the Winter Palace was taken and the VP was arrested. On the same day, the Second Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies (SRiKD) was opened.
After the capture of the Winter Palace, the Congress adopted Lenin's resolution on the transfer of power to the Second Congress of Soviets, and locally to the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies.
The congress adopted:
The Decree on Peace, which contained an appeal to the peoples of the warring countries to begin negotiations on a just and democratic peace without annexations and indemnities. -Decree on land: private property rejected to earth; land is the national property and was subject to equal division according to labor and consumer standards. Somewhat later the following were adopted:
Decree establishing an 8-hour working day. -Decree on the abolition of class ranks and civil ranks. -Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which proclaimed the right of nations to self-determination. The right Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks condemned the Bolsheviks for seizing power and left the congress, so the Bolsheviks organized the Council of People's Commissars - the Supreme Congress of Soviets, which was convened annually. To manage the economy - the Supreme Council of the National Economy, and in order to combat counter-revolution, sabotage and profiteering - the Cheka led by Dzerzhinsky. In November 1917, elections to the Constituent Assembly took place, and the Socialist Revolutionaries won. The Bolsheviks took approximately 1/4 of the seats. The balance of power turned out to be unfavorable for the Bolsheviks, so they set a course to disrupt his work. After the refusal, the US Council approved the Declaration of the Rights of Working and Exploited People.
34.Civil war as a national tragedy in Russia: causes, participants, results. The first civil war in Russia still causes a lot of controversy today. First of all, historians do not have a common opinion about its periodization and reasons. Some scientists believe that the chronological framework of the civil war is October 1917 - October 1922. Others believe that it is more correct to call the date of the beginning of the civil war 1917, and the end – 1923.
There is also no consensus on the causes of the civil war in Russia. But among the most important reasons, scientists name:
the Bolsheviks' dispersal of the Constituent Assembly;
the desire of the Bolsheviks who received power to retain it by any means;
the willingness of all participants to use violence as a way to resolve conflict;
the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Germany in March 1918;
the Bolsheviks' solution to the most pressing agrarian question contrary to the interests of large landowners;
nationalization of real estate, banks, means of production;
the activities of food detachments in the villages, which led to a worsening of relations between the new government and the peasantry.
Scientists distinguish 3 stages of the civil war. The first stage lasted from October 1917 to November 1918. This was the time the Bolsheviks came to power. Since October 1917, isolated armed clashes gradually turned into full-scale military operations. It is characteristic that the beginning of the civil war of 1917 - 1922 unfolded against the backdrop of a larger military conflict - the First World War. This was the main reason for the subsequent intervention of the Entente. It should be noted that each of the Entente countries had its own reasons for participating in the intervention. Thus, Turkey wanted to establish itself in Transcaucasia, France wanted to extend its influence to the north of the Black Sea region, Germany wanted to establish itself in the Kola Peninsula, Japan was interested in Siberian territories. The goal of England and the United States was both to expand their own spheres of influence and to prevent the strengthening of Germany.
The second stage dates from November 1918 – March 1920. It was at this time that the decisive events of the civil war took place. Due to the cessation of hostilities on the fronts of the First World War and the defeat of Germany, military operations on Russian territory gradually lost intensity. But, at the same time, a turning point came in favor of the Bolsheviks, who controlled most of the country’s territory.
The final stage in the chronology of the Civil War lasted from March 1920 to October 1922. Military operations during this period took place mainly on the outskirts of Russia (the Soviet-Polish War, military clashes in the Far East). It is worth noting that there are other, more detailed, options for periodizing the civil war.
The end of the civil war was marked by the victory of the Bolsheviks. Historians call its most important reason the broad support of the masses. The development of the situation was also seriously influenced by the fact that, weakened by the First World War, the Entente countries were unable to coordinate their actions and strike at the territory of the former Russian Empire with all their might.
The results of the civil war in Russia were terrifying. The country was virtually in ruins. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Western Ukraine, Bessarabia and part of Armenia left Russia. In the main territory of the country, population losses, including as a result of famine, epidemics, etc. amounted to 25 minutes. Human. They are comparable to the total losses of countries that took part in the hostilities of the First World War. The country's production levels fell sharply. About 2 million people left Russia, emigrating to other countries (France, USA). These were representatives of the Russian nobility, officers, clergy, and intelligentsia.
A new fundamental study of the famous Russian historian Oleg Rudolfovich Airapetov on the history of the participation of the Russian Empire in the First World War is an attempt to combine an analysis of the foreign, domestic, military and economic policies of the Russian Empire in 1914–1917. (before the February Revolution of 1917) taking into account the pre-war period, the features of which predetermined the development and forms of foreign and domestic political conflicts in the country that died in 1917. The first book is devoted to the background of the conflict and the events of the first year of the war.
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The given introductory fragment of the book Participation of the Russian Empire in the First World War (1914–1917). 1914 The Beginning (O. R. Airapetov, 2014) provided by our book partner - the company liters.
How the war began - society's reaction
The long peace in Europe was coming to an end; for politicians and senior military officials, the war came unexpectedly. The mobilization found hundreds of senior officers in Essentuki and Mineralnye Vody, from where they had difficulty getting out to their units 1 . Moreover, nothing like this was expected in the garrisons; life there flowed calmly and measuredly 2 . “As always happens on the eve of a big war,” M.D. Bonch-Bruevich quite correctly noted in his memoirs, “no one believed in the imminent possibility of it... the regiment stood in the camp, but dazzling white tents, and flower beds broken by soldiers, and neatly sprinkled The sandy paths only enhanced the feeling of a serenely peaceful life that possessed each of us” 3.
Members of the public also did not expect war. “No one suspected at the same time,” recalled A. A. Kiesewetter, “that the world was on the eve of the greatest of wars. True, the Balkans were boiling like a hot cauldron, from which hot steam billowed out in clouds. But somehow no one thought that this was a prelude to a worldwide fire. And the declaration of war came like a sudden tornado” 4. There was a lot of symbolism in this tornado. In St. Petersburg, at first, posters about general mobilization were red: “Small posters were red on the walls like a bloody stain. Then they realized it. All the rest went white" 5 . Having learned about the declaration of war in Riga, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich noted: “Among the general joy was the news (that Germany had declared war on Russia. - A. O.) produced the effect of a bomb exploding. I must admit that this war was an extreme surprise, even more than the Japanese war." 6
Seminarist A. M. Vasilevsky, the future Marshal of the Soviet Union, met July - August 1914 on vacation in Kineshma. He also noted: “In any case, the declaration of war came as a complete surprise to us. And, of course, no one expected that it would drag on for a long time." 7 English traveler S. Graham found the declaration of war in a distant village in Altai. His description of the reaction of the local population to the mobilization order is reminiscent of the immortal pages of Sholokhov’s “ Quiet Don": "A young man galloped down the street on a beautiful horse, with a large red flag fluttering in the wind behind him; galloping, he shouted the news to everyone: War! War!" 8 . Then something happened that obviously surprised the British so much: “People knew nothing about the problems of Europe, they were not even told against whom the Tsar started the war. They saddled their horses and galloped off readily, without asking about the reason for the call.” 9 General Yu. N. Danilov gave exact description behavior of the Russian peasant during the war: “...patient and inert by the properties of their nature, they went to the draft, where their superiors called them. They walked and died until great upheavals came." 10
In such readiness to fulfill one's duty at the same time there lay considerable danger. People who did not ask who they would have to fight with had little idea of the goals of the war, let alone its causes. Sooner or later, this ignorance had to play a role. A number of General Staff officers paid special attention to the need to educate Russian public opinion even before the war. The vast distances of Russia, the weakness of its political parties, the significant proportion of illiterate and insufficiently financially secure population forced us to look into the future with caution. The State Duma and the press did not raise much hope as spokesmen for public opinion. “We need something more or less permanent,” Colonel A. A. Neznamov wrote in 1913, “definitely known, long-lasting. I would allow myself a comparison: if in the West they (by public opinion. - A. O.) can be used as a discharge from a Leyden jar, we need to prepare a whole battery for ourselves” 11. Russia did not have time to prepare anything like this; the “spiritual mobilization” of Russian society, according to a contemporary, “did not take place in an orderly manner”: “Almost everyone had their own theory of the perception of war, or even several theories - sequentially or simultaneously. In any case, I don’t remember that one ideological concept or even a clear feeling united everyone” 12. Meanwhile, at the outbreak of hostilities of this scale great value received propaganda.
The most effective, of course, remained the idea of the threat of invasion, which practically did not need to be developed in a number of countries (France, Belgium, Serbia, Germany). In some cases, military propaganda had to solve more complex problems: for example, the first American soldiers captured on the Western Front, when asked the reason for their arrival in Europe, answered that the United States entered the war to liberate the “great lake of Alsace-Lorraine”, and where it was located lake, the prisoners didn’t really know. However, this was followed by energetic propaganda actions on the part of the command expeditionary force 13 . In Russia, the situation was different, including because a significant number of poorly educated and illiterate soldiers made the effect of military propaganda extremely difficult. According to A.I. Denikin, before the war, up to 40% of illiterate recruits were drafted 14. The future commandant of Berlin, General A.V. Gorbatov, who met this war as a private in the cavalry, recalled that in the squadron in which he served, “half of the soldiers were illiterate, about twenty out of a hundred were illiterate, and for the rest, education was limited to a rural school” 15 .
In this respect, the Russian army was clearly inferior to its opponents and allies in both quality and quantity. For comparison, in 1907 in German army there was one illiterate per 5 thousand recruits, in English per 1 thousand - 10 illiterate, in French per 1 thousand - 35 illiterate, in Austro-Hungarian per 10 thousand - 220 illiterate, in Italian per 1 thousand - 307 illiterate . The 1908 recruitment gave the Russian army 52% of literate soldiers 16 . This composition of the army was fraught with considerable danger. “The uncultured Russian people,” recalled a contemporary of the war and revolution, “did not give themselves an account of the events that took place then, in 1914, just as they did not give themselves the same account later, in 1917, abandoning the front and scattering with with rifles in their hands “without annexations and indemnities” going home” 17 .
The peace between the government and political parties, whose actions objectively contributed to the corrupting influence of the enemy. The First World War was also the first total war. “In this war,” noted Erich Ludendorff, “it was impossible to distinguish where the power of the army and navy began and where the power of the people ended. Both the armed forces and the peoples were one. The world saw a war of nations in the literal sense of the word. With this united power the most powerful states of our planet. The fight against enemy armed forces on huge fronts and distant seas was joined by the fight against the psyche and vital forces of enemy peoples, with the goal of destroying and weakening them” 18. Before the war, the German General Staff considered the human material that the Russian army possessed to be as good as before: “The Russian soldier is strong, undemanding and fearless. Positive traits Russian infantry were of greater importance under the previous conditions of battle in close formation than under the present conditions. By external signs Russians are relatively little receptive, and after failures, Russian troops, apparently, will quickly recover and will again be ready for a stubborn fight” 19. But the problem was that he should have been better.
The paradox was that while they were waging a total war with Russia, that is, a war of people against people, it, both in the person of its military-political leadership and in the person of the public, was never able to rise to the point of waging the same war with your opponents. General A. A. Brusilov very accurately noted: “Even after the declaration of war, the reinforcements who arrived from the internal regions of Russia did not understand at all what kind of war had befallen them, as if out of the blue. How many times have I asked in the trenches what we are fighting about, and I always inevitably received the answer that some Erz-Hertz-Pepper and his wife were killed by someone, and therefore the Austrians wanted to offend the Serbs. But who the Serbs were - no one knew what the Slavs were - it was also dark, and why the Germans decided to fight over Serbia was completely unknown. It turned out that people were being led to slaughter for no one knows why, that is, at the whim of the tsar” 20 . Against the backdrop of significant losses and successes that did not compensate for them in scale, this misunderstanding was sooner or later bound to lead to dangerous consequences.
G.K. Zhukov, whom the war found in Moscow, where he worked as a furrier, recalled that at first many young townspeople volunteered for the war; his friend, whom he first wanted to support, also volunteered to go, and then changed his mind, not understanding the reasons , due to which he may become crippled: “...I told Sasha that I would not go to war. Having cursed me, he fled from home to the front in the evening, and two months later he was brought to Moscow, seriously wounded." 21 The future marshal was drafted in the summer of 1915. This early conscription, which included those born in 1895, did not evoke positive emotions in him: “I did not feel any particular enthusiasm, since at every step in Moscow I met unfortunate cripples who had returned from the front, and I immediately saw how the sons of rich men still lived widely and carelessly nearby” 22 . Losses at the front and the retreat of 1915 had a destructive effect on the rear, and that, in turn, on the army, giving it, along with its recruits, doubts about victory.
According to General A.V. Gorbatov, the despondency that was natural during a long retreat after victories received support from recruits: “Reinforcements arriving from the depths of the country further increased this mood with their stories about the imminent famine and the mediocrity of the rulers” 23 . The exception was conscripts from national minorities, who associated this war with the idea of confronting the eternal historical enemy. In October 1915, I. Kh. Bagramyan, upon reaching the age of 18, voluntarily joined the army and, judging by his recollections, did not experience any depressed feelings at all in connection with the prospect of an imminent sending to the front: “Soldier’s service with all its difficulties and hardships was not at all darkened my moral condition. Healthy condition, mood and good spirits did not leave me. “I diligently fulfilled all my duties, and, under the guidance of experienced non-commissioned officers and experienced soldiers, I tried to prepare myself for the upcoming campaigns and battles, for the harsh conditions of front-line life” 24.
National units at the end of 1917 demonstrated greater resistance to anti-war propaganda. The enemy also noted this. Colonel Walter Nicolai, head of German military intelligence in east direction, especially highly appreciated the resilience of Russian subjects - Germans, Siberians, Muslims, Latvians and Estonians. Among representatives of the latter two peoples, anti-German sentiments were very strong 25 . However, these sentiments were rather the exception, since a different picture was observed in the Russian provinces. At the end of 1915 - in the winter of 1916, conscripts in the rear, without hesitation, sang: “They took a guy to the position for the German queen” 26 . V. Nikolai recalled: “Judging by the Russian prisoners of war, the war did not arouse any enthusiasm among the Russian people. The soldiers showed that they were “driven” to war. Being, however, good soldiers, they were obedient, patient and endured the greatest hardships. They surrendered only when the battle was hopeless." 27
The large number of illiterate, that is, dependent people in the army especially weakened it during the days of crisis. In a private conversation, one of the Russian generals spoke about the nature of his subordinate: “He is an excellent soldier as long as everything goes well, according to the program, when he knows where his officers are and hears how our guns support him, in other words, during a successful attack or defense in the trenches, but when something unexpected happens, as usually happens in actions against the Germans, everything changes(emphasis mine. – A. O.)" 28 . The selected part of the general’s reasoning, as it seems to me, can just as well be attributed to the very educated part of Russian society, which is generally fatally unstable to failures.
An example is the behavior of the public in similar situations during the Crimean, Liberation and Japanese wars. And, of course, the radically minded part of the intelligentsia was not able to explain to the people the reasons and meaning of the war. F. A. Stepun, who graduated from Heidelberg University, recalled how unlike the German intellectuals the Russians seemed to him before the war: “The explanation for this essentially incredible fact must, it seems to me, be sought in the traditional disinterest of the Russian radical intelligentsia in matters of foreign policy. The history of France was reduced in socialist circles to the history of the Great Revolution and the Commune of 1871; the history of England was of interest only as the history of Manchester and Chartism. The attitude towards Germany was determined by hatred of the Iron Chancellor for his fight against the socialists and admiration for Marx and Bebel. Few people were also interested in specific issues of Russian industry and foreign trade. Among the Socialist-Revolutionaries they boiled down to the demand for land and freedom, among the Social Democrats - to an eight-hour working day and the theory of surplus value. I don’t remember that we ever talked about Russian mineral wealth, about Baku oil, about Turkestan cotton, about flying sand in the south of Russia, about Witte’s currency reform. The Slavic question also did not exist for the radical left intelligentsia, like the question of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. It is clear that with this approach to politics our campaign was not able to clothe the brewing war in the tangible flesh of living historical meaning. In our immediate sense, the war was approaching us more as a natural than as a historical phenomenon. That’s why we wondered about it, like summer residents about a thunderstorm, who always think that it will pass by because they want to take a walk” 29.
This feature objectively made a certain part of Russian society susceptible to various forms of enemy, primarily German, propaganda. The conduct of war on the “internal enemy front,” as E. Ludendorff called it, was taken very seriously in Berlin: “Shouldn’t Germany have resorted to this powerful means, the effects of which she experienced on herself every day? Was it really not necessary to undermine the moral foundations of enemy peoples, as, unfortunately, our enemy so successfully achieved? This struggle had to be waged, firstly, through neutral states, and secondly, across the front line” 30. In these statements, written after the war, the German general is surprisingly frank, with the exception of the reference to enemy propaganda. Distinctive quality German actions during the war, as is known, were a reference to the fact that their opponents were the first to use this or that weapon. This happened with gases and air raids on cities. But the fact that propaganda in the rear through neutral states is ranked in importance above that at the front sounds very convincing. Thus, as the primary object of their actions, the Germans chose not a semi-literate soldier in a trench, but a fully educated person in the rear.
At the beginning of the pre-war period, Russian society did not have time to fall under the influence of military sentiments - this needed time. The German ambassador Count F. von Pourtales recalled: “Although 24 hours had already passed since the publication of the mobilization, St. Petersburg on August 1 presented a surprisingly calm picture. And now there was absolutely no general military enthusiasm. The detachments of reserves called up under the banners, which partly passed through the city with music, gave much more of an impression of dejected people than of being inspired. The substitutes were escorted by women, and it was often possible to observe that not only these latter, but also the substitutes themselves were wiping away the tears that had come out. Not a single patriotic song, not a single exclamation was heard. What a contrast to what I saw a few days later in Berlin!” 31.
Yes, in Berlin these days the situation was completely different. True, according to reports from a Russian naval agent in Germany, the mood of the Berliners was undergoing certain changes. On July 13 (26), residents of the capital of the Second Reich blocked its streets, and excesses occurred in front of the Russian embassy. Then the intensity of passions subsided, but on July 15 (28) emergency newspapers were published with the text of Austria-Hungary’s official declaration of war on Serbia, new, even more numerous demonstrations began: “However, this time, in addition to the exclamations of “Long live war!” cries of “Down with war!” were heard. Both sides tried to outshout each other, and the crowd and movement of people on several streets was very significant and at times even the movement of carriages along Unter den Linden stopped. The police acted very energetically, and there were no more hostile demonstrations against our embassy." 32
On July 30 and 31, Berliners began to gather around the Russian embassy again. “The crowd was silent,” recalled Colonel A.V. von Schwartz, returning to Russia from Genoa, “gloomy, gloomy, clearly hostile” 33 . Soon, the mood of people on the streets of the German capital became even more militant: Russians in Berlin, and mostly they were women, children and patients who came for treatment, were constantly attacked, the police did not intervene. The embassy staff could not even protest because the telephones in the building were turned off. In order to contact the German Foreign Ministry, I had to walk - there were no cars or cabs on the streets. Russian subjects who found themselves in Germany tried to take refuge in the embassy building, which was very difficult. On July 20 (August 2), Berlin newspapers announced that Russia had attacked German territory. This caused an explosion of chauvinistic emotions 34.
This is what the former German ambassador to Russia might have seen in the first days of August in Berlin. People on the streets chanted Die Wacht am Rhein, and young ladies dressed in white handed out lemonade, coffee, milk, sandwiches and cigars to conscripts and military personnel; girls in special yellow-and-black Liebesgaben carriages gave “gifts of love” to the German military 35 . On Potstdamer Platz, a crowd of Berliners with joyful enthusiasm pounced on the Japanese passing by and carried them in their arms, imagining that they were dealing with the natural enemies of Russia and no less natural allies of Germany 36 . Even Reich Chancellor T. von Bethmann-Hollweg and the Kaiser fell under the influence of these sentiments, allowing in early August 1914 the export to Japan of heavy guns and armor ordered by the Mikado government. The Japanese took out the order, after which events that were quite unexpected for Germany followed 37.
On August 16, Tokyo presented Berlin with an ultimatum, to which the Germans had to respond by August 23. It consisted of two demands: 1) immediately withdraw troops and navy from Chinese and Japanese waters; 2) no later than September 15, 1914, transfer Qingdao to Japan without any compensation “with the view of its further restoration to China” 38 . The Germans refused to accept these demands, and Japan entered the war on the side of the Entente. Already on August 29, Tokyo declared a blockade of Qingdao and the sea approaches to it 39 .
The population of Austria-Hungary reacted to the outbreak of war in different ways. In Prague, the situation from the very first days strongly resembled the story of the conscription of the brave soldier Schweik to the banner of the Habsburgs. On August 1, 1914, the Russian consul in this city reported: “General mobilization has been announced today. Parts of the troops were sent to the Romanian and Italian border. Mobilization is not going well. There is not enough uniform. There is no enthusiasm. There is strong discontent among the people” 40. In Vienna and Budapest the mood was different: there were mass patriotic demonstrations under black and yellow flags, one parade followed another, reservists hurried to assembly points. In a number of regions of the Czech Republic, soldiers were met at stations by representatives of all walks of life, who distributed bread, tea, and cigarettes among the soldiers.
Not all Habsburg subjects sought active participation in the defense of the empire; its regions differed significantly from each other not only in national and religious composition. 73% of the population of Galicia and Bukovina, on whose territory the great border battle was to take place, was employed in agriculture, compared with an average of 55% for Austria-Hungary. The average annual income per capita was 316 crowns in Galicia, 310 crowns in Bukovina (Lower Austria - 850 crowns, Bohemia - 761 crowns) 41 . Its allies also paid attention to the internal weakness of Austria-Hungary. E. Ludendorff noted: “...as in September (1914 - A. O.), on a trip to Neu-Sandets, I received the impression of the complete backwardness of the nationalities that did not belong to the dominant ones. when I saw the huts of the Hutsuls, it became clear to me that this tribe could not understand what it was fighting for” 42.
It is not surprising that in the battles on the Russian front, the Austro-Hungarian units, staffed by the Slavs, did not always demonstrate resilience on a par with the German units and the Honved. A. I. Denikin, who fought almost the entire war on the Southwestern Front, recalled the Austro-Hungarian army this way: “Of course, we considered it immeasurably lower than the German one, and its diverse composition with significant contingents of Slavs represented obvious instability. Nevertheless, for the quick and decisive defeat of this army, our plan provided for the deployment of 16 corps against the expected 13 Austrian ones” 43 .
On the morning of August 2, 1914, the German embassy (80 people) left the Finland Station by train for home through Sweden 44 . Order was maintained, while during the evacuation of the Russian embassy from Germany, employees, members of their families and Russian nationals who had taken refuge in the embassy, including women and children, were attacked by the crowd, some of them were beaten. Only the ambassador managed to travel unhindered 45. “By a lucky coincidence, I personally did not suffer,” S. N. Sverbeev said in an interview upon his return to Russia. When the diplomats left, the first four cars were escorted by a squad of 15 mounted gendarmes; the rest were left to their own fate, to the fists and canes of Berliners 46 . The situation was very difficult for those who hurried to the borders of neutral states from hospitable German resorts: they were arrested, women and even children were beaten with rifle butts, and crowds of peaceful Germans called for reprisals 47 .
Even the Empress Mother, who was caught in the war in Germany, had difficulties. The departure of her train was accompanied by hooting and insults. Maria Feodorovna had to stay in Denmark: before Great Britain entered the war, the Swedish authorities were very picky about allowing Russian subjects to cross their territory, and the empress did not want to take advantage of her special position. This story caused great irritation to Nicholas II. “The Emperor did not hide,” recalled the Russian Minister of Finance, “his indignation at the lack of simple politeness shown by Wilhelm II towards Empress Maria Feodorovna. He added that if we declared war on Germany, and the mother of the German Emperor was in Russia, he would give her a guard of honor to accompany her to the border.”48
The Germans looked to the future without fear and therefore did not stand on ceremony in observing the rules of decency of the past. German military intelligence in the pre-war years, it noted a constant increase in revolutionary sentiments and propaganda 49. Before leaving St. Petersburg, F. von Purthales did not mince his words. This is also mentioned English ambassador in Russia: “The German envoy predicted that a declaration of war would cause a revolution. He did not even listen to a friend who advised him on the eve of his departure to send his art collection to the Hermitage, as he predicted that the Hermitage would be the first to be looted. Unfortunately, the only violent action of the crowd in all of Russia was the complete looting of the German embassy on August 4.”50 It was against Germany, and not Austria-Hungary, that the feelings of at least the urban population of Russia were then directed; it was in the “German” that, not without reason, they saw the real creator of the crisis and war 51 .
The most noticeable part in the attack on the German embassy building was played by young people, who were noticeably warmed up by the news that came to St. Petersburg about the abuse that Russians were subjected to in Germany 52 . “Street loudmouths, of whom there are always many everywhere, were glad to have an “outstanding” opportunity to shout and demonstrate their cheap feelings on the streets...” the Russian general recalled. “But there was, of course, little patriotism and a lot, a lot of bestiality.”53 The German embassy was destroyed and set on fire. Even the massive sculptural composition on the parapet of the roof of the building, depicting two warriors holding horses by the bridle, was thrown down, and the metal figures were drowned in the Moika 54. On the square in front of St. Isaac's Cathedral, a fire of portraits of the Kaiser taken from the embassy was burning, and papers were flying in the air. The police did not intervene at first; later, a squadron of mounted gendarmes arrived and gradually pushed the crowd back from the sidewalks. All this was observed by the Minister of Internal Affairs N.A. Maklakov in the company of the newly appointed new mayor 55. The minister ignored the request of the Foreign Ministry representative to intervene and stop the acts of vandalism. He believed that in this way the people's passions could be put to safe use 56 .
After the destruction of the German embassy, the crowd went to the Austro-Hungarian embassy, where the ambassador and staff were still present. However, on the approaches to it she was met by reinforced detachments of troops, and she was forced to retreat, and soon scatter through the streets of the Russian capital 57. As a result, the buildings of the editorial office of the German newspaper St. Petersburg Zeitung, a German coffee shop and a bookstore were also damaged. Soon everything returned to normal, although the level of German organized enthusiasm in Russia was never reached. However, these events also caused alarm among the diplomatic corps and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On July 23 (August 5), 1914, its head submitted a memorandum to the sovereign. S. D. Sazonov was extremely concerned about the international resonance that the destruction of the embassy could receive.
“Your Imperial Majesty was pleased to personally note,” he wrote, “that Russia met the test sent down to it “with calm and dignity.” It was precisely this attitude that greatly contributed to the sympathetic mood that was still noticeable everywhere. It is with all the greater regret that we have to talk about the terrible and shameful event that happened last night. Under the pretext of patriotic demonstrations, a crowd, which included the scum of the capital's society, completely destroyed the building of the German embassy and even killed one of the embassy employees, and the authorities, whose duty it was to prevent or suppress such outrages, unacceptable in a civilized country, did not rise to the occasion. At night, many diplomatic representatives accredited to the highest court, some of whom were eyewitnesses of this wild picture, turned with alarm to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, declaring their desire to leave St. Petersburg, and some even about their desire to request their military vessels to protect personal and property safety their subjects in view of the fact that the imperial government, in their opinion, apparently cannot sufficiently provide it, for since, despite the martial law established here, events like yesterday are possible, there is reason to fear the development of new unrest” 59. These fears were temporarily dispelled, but already in the first days of the war, the weakness of the Russian police, which was small even in the capital of the empire, became apparent.
Despite the fact that Austria-Hungary was the originator of the peace, the anger of public opinion turned out to be directed specifically against Germany 60 . V. A. Sukhomlinov recalled: “The war against Germany - about Austria-Hungary, which was treated with disdain, almost nothing was said - was popular both in the army, among the bureaucrats, the intelligentsia, and influential industrial circles. Nevertheless, when the thunderstorm broke out, at first they did not want to believe it in St. Petersburg. The state of skeptical restraint gave way to intense excitement. Demonstrations with flags and singing appeared in the streets, and the result of the militant mood was the destruction of the German embassy." 61 This assessment of V. A. Sukhomlinov is repeated almost word for word by his irreconcilable opponents.
“The whole nation,” recalled A.F. Kerensky, “residents of cities and towns, as well as rural areas, instinctively felt that the war with Germany would determine the political fate of Russia for many years to come.
Proof of this was the attitude of people towards mobilization. Considering the vast expanses of the country, its results made an impressive impression: only 4 percent of those liable for military service did not arrive on time at their place of registration. Another proof was the unexpected change in the mentality of the industrial proletariat. To the surprise and indignation of Marxists and other book socialists, the Russian worker, like the French and German, showed himself to be as patriotic as his “class enemy” 62. Of course, the “instinctive feeling” could not last long, but for now a militant spirit was seething in Russia, especially in its large cities.
In St. Petersburg, reservists willingly went to recruiting stations, patriotic rallies were held at factories, after the announcement of the decree on mobilization, at midnight on July 18 (31), an 80,000-strong demonstration with national flags and portraits of the emperor took place along Nevsky 63. Naturally, the officers of the capital's garrison especially stood out. According to M.V. Rodzianko, the rumor about a possible suspension of mobilization aroused in them “an unfriendly mood towards the top authorities” 64 . The Mother See, where the mood was also very militant, did not lag behind. “The highest decree on mobilization,” read the editorial of “Voice of Moscow” on July 18 (31), “was greeted by Russian society with complete calm and with the consciousness of the inevitability and logic of the step taken. But even on the eve of mobilization, Russian society responded with a number of friendly manifestations to the current situation, and in this upsurge, exceptional in its strength and unanimity, is the guarantee of the attitude that war will meet in Russia if its inevitability becomes irremovable” 65 .
On July 20 (August 2), 1914, a solemn prayer service was held in the Winter Palace in the presence of the emperor and members of the imperial family, senior military and civilian officials, and the diplomatic corps 66. Nicholas II and his family arrived in St. Petersburg on the yacht Alexandria 67. The transition took place in almost complete and tense silence. The yacht stopped at the Nikolaevsky Bridge, from where the imperial family headed ashore 68. Thousands of people were already standing on the embankment - they greeted the monarch 69. At 11 o'clock the emperor went out to the highest military and civilian officials gathered in the palace to inform them about the beginning of the war 70. “It was a good day, especially in terms of lifting spirits... I signed the manifesto declaring war,” he noted in his diary. – From Malakhitova we went to the Nicholas Hall, in the middle of which the manifesto was read and then a prayer service was served. The whole hall sang “Save, Lord” and “Many Years.” Said a few words. Upon returning, the ladies rushed to kiss hands and patted Alix and me a little. Then we went out onto the balcony on Alexander Square and bowed to the huge mass of people” 71.
“From the Nikolaevsky Hall, the Emperor went out onto the balcony overlooking Alexander Square,” Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich wrote in his diary. “The whole place was filled with people, from the palace to the headquarters buildings. When the Emperor appeared, everyone knelt down” 72. More than a quarter of a million people gathered in the square in front of the Winter Palace to greet Nicholas and Alexandra. Following the example of Alexander I, the emperor declared that the war would not be over until at least one enemy soldier remained on Russian soil. The huge crowd sang Anthem 73. Thousands of voices shouted “Down with Germany!”, “Long live Russia!” and “Long live the king!” “When I looked at the people around me who were shouting,” recalled Serb Milenko Vukicevic, who was standing on Palace Square, “I could not notice any falsehood or pretense on anyone’s face. Everyone shouted sincerely and animatedly... Then everyone wanted victory over the enemy. And we can say that all of Russia breathed this spirit.” 74
“The imperial exit after the declaration of war and the demonstration on the square of the Winter Palace,” recalled A.S. Lukomsky, “reflected the inspiration of the Russian people. No one can say that the people were herded to the Winter Palace or that the demonstration was led by the “police”; no, it was felt that the entire population was merging into one whole and, in a common impulse, wanted to rush at the enemy in order to defend their independence” 75 . At the end of the exit, the imperial couple proceeded from the palace to the embankment, from where they moved to the Alexandria, which headed for Peterhof. The ship was greeted by tens of thousands of people 76 .
The workers of the Northern capital were also inspired by the first days of the war. The strikes, to which not only German diplomats paid special attention, stopped 77. “The war has brought to the Russian nation a solidarity that has never existed here before,” wrote a Times correspondent. – Never before has Russia been so united. The strikes in Petrograd disappeared overnight, and the Cossacks, who had been brought into the city to maintain order on Nevsky Prospect and other public places, suddenly became the object of cheers. One of them is said to have said to his companion: “Is it true that all these people are greeting us, or am I dreaming?” 78. In two and a half years, on Nevsky Prospekt the crowd will greet the Cossacks, who will fire at the police and gendarmes, and will rejoice, smashing the symbols of the monarchy, but for now patriotic demonstrations in Northern capital Russia succeeded each other, jubilant crowds gathered at the Serbian and French embassies, welcoming the allies 79 .
The exception at first was the situation with the British Embassy. On August 1, 1914, The Times issued a series of harsh anti-war publications: “The purpose and result of our entry into this war will be to ensure the victory of Russia and her Slavic allies. Would a dominant Slavic federation, with a sovereignly governed population of, say, about 200 million people, with a very rudimentary civilization, but heavily armed for military aggression, be less of a threatening factor in Europe than a dominant Germany with its 65 million highly civilized population, for the most part engaged in trade and commerce? The last war we fought on the continent was a war aimed at preventing the rise of Russia. Now we are asked to fight to ensure it. It is now unanimously recognized that our last continental war - the Crimean War - was a monstrous mistake and miscalculation. Will this intervention be any wiser or better in results?” 80.
Peaceful demonstrations took place in English university centers, in which students and teachers participated, and English scientists adopted an appeal: “We consider Germany as a country leading the way along the path of Art and Science, and we have all studied and are learning from German scientists. A war against Germany in the interests of Serbia and Russia would be a sin against civilization. If, by reason of the obligations of honor, we should be unfortunately drawn into war, patriotism may shut our mouths, but even with our teeth set, we will feel justified in protesting against being drawn into a struggle with a nation so close to our own and with which we have such a lot in common" 81 . Labor members also opposed support for Russia in any form, in the House of Commons and at a rally in Trafalgar Square. Resolutions of meetings of scientists and socialists were also published in The Times 82 . It is not surprising that before Great Britain declared war, its embassy in Russia was even in danger of sharing the fate of the German one, but on the morning of August 5, J. Buchanan received a short telegram from London: “War - Germany - Act.” The situation suddenly de-escalated in just a few hours 83. On August 23 (September 5), representatives of Russia, Great Britain and France signed an agreement in London on the non-conclusion of a separate peace in the war 84. The Entente as an alliance completed its formation.
Unrest also occurred in other major European capitals. “On the morning of August 3, 1914, Secretary of State von Jagow,” recalled the French Ambassador to Germany, Jules Cambon, “came to the French embassy in Berlin to inform me that Germany had broken off diplomatic relations with us and that in the afternoon I would be given my passports. We were in my office. Its windows overlooking Paris Square were open. Crowds of young people continuously passed through the square, singing patriotic songs; Every now and then hostile exclamations were heard against France. I pointed out to the Secretary of State this excited crowd and asked him when this noise would stop and whether the police would guard the embassy. Yagov assured me that it would be. But not even a few hours had passed before the crowd, moving towards the English embassy, broke the windows there with stones. The Emperor sent one of his officers to my colleague Sir Edward Goschen to express his regret, and I never doubted that von Jagow was deeply shocked by the incident. The government, which was obeyed as never before, was unable to restrain popular passions. The people seemed to be intoxicated" 85 .
In Berlin, not only the British, but also the Russian embassy was destroyed, and the German embassies were destroyed in London and Paris. To some extent, this was natural for a capital city with a large concentration of educated classes, with enormous press pressure on public opinion. “Since 1870,” recalled D. Lloyd George, “there has not been a single year when french army would be less afraid of her great rival" 86 . Raymond Poincaré recalled these days: “Fortunately, on this Wednesday, August 5, the whole country followed only one slogan - trust! As if by a wave of a magic wand, sacred union(union sacree), which I called from the depths of my heart and christened in my message to parliament. The German declaration of war caused a magnificent outburst of patriotism in the nation. Never in its entire history has France been as beautiful as in these hours, which we were given to witness." 87
From the windows of a soldier's carriage to someone who accidentally got there young man these days seemed not as beautiful as from the presidential palace: “The train moved slowly, stopped at sidings, waiting for oncoming trains. At the stations, women saw off the mobilized; many were crying. They shoved liter bottles of red wine into the carriage. The Zouaves drank from the bottle and gave it to me too. Everything was spinning and spinning. The soldiers were brave. On many of the carriages was written in chalk: “Pleasure ride to Berlin” 88 . Something similar happened in England. D. Lloyd George noted how public opinion in his country reacted to the first days of the war: “The threat of a German invasion of Belgium lit the fire of war on the entire people from sea to sea” 89 .
British Prime Minister H. Asquith, looking at the jubilant residents of the imperial capital, noted that war, or anything leading to war, had always been popular among the London crowd. At the same time, he quoted the phrase of Prime Minister R. Walpool: “Now they were ringing their bells; in a few weeks they’ll be wringing their hands (Today they ring the bells for joy, and in a few weeks they will wring their hands in despair)” 90. These words are surprisingly accurate to the fluctuations that the Russian capitals were destined to experience. Such throwing is especially characteristic of an irresponsible public.
A patriotic upsurge was also observed in the provinces. “Russia was gripped by a whirlwind,” recalled the daughter of General M.V. Alekseev. “The younger generation rejoiced: “War, war!”, as if something very joyful had happened. The patriotic upsurge was colossal” 91. Young people who had not previously thought about military career, joined the army. A. M. Vasilevsky described the changes that took place among his peers: “But now, after the declaration of war, I was overwhelmed by patriotic feelings. Slogans about defending the fatherland captivated me. Therefore, unexpectedly for myself and for my family, I became a military man” 92.
These sentiments played a most unexpected role in the decision-making on the most important issue. On July 29 (August 11), 1914, the Main Artillery Directorate came to the government with a project to declare state-owned factories working for defense in a special position. In fact, it was a program for the mobilization of state industry: factories, arsenals, workshops, and not only the Military and Naval Ministries, but also other departments that the army and navy needed. Measures were proposed to significantly tighten production discipline, transfers to another enterprise were prohibited, and imprisonment (from four months to one year and four months) was introduced for negligence, failure to show up for work, or “insolence.” The project was signed by the head of the GAU, General D. D. Kuzmin-Karavaev and V. A. Sukhomlinov. On August 3 (16), the Council of Ministers approved the document, but at the same time recognized its application in practice as untimely. The government believed that in an atmosphere of general upsurge of patriotic feelings, including in the working environment, there would be no special need for these events 93 .
Workers of the St. Petersburg industrial region were mainly drafted into the ranks of the 22nd Army Corps, stationed in Finland. “At first, regimental commanders were distrustful of this reserve,” recalled one of the Finnish rifle officers, doubting its political reliability, but in the theater of war they turned out to be an excellent element, and distrust in them quickly disappeared” 94 . However, not everyone experienced patriotic feelings. Some revolutionaries, for whom such beliefs were tantamount to Orwellian “thought crime,” tried to avoid the front at all costs. The most original was the Bolshevik F.F. Ilyin (party pseudonym Raskolnikov), who evaded conscription by enrolling in a midshipman course and successfully saved himself there from German shells and torpedoes until the February Revolution 95 .
General inspiration and successful mobilization - this is what P. Raevsky, who came here from his Chigirin estate, found in Kyiv in the first days of the war. At the suggestion of the Governor General, he, without being liable for military service, headed the Red Cross detachment 96. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, rushing to Moscow from Sevastopol, asked himself a question, looking at this enthusiasm: “And how long will this strange enthusiasm of the Russian intellectuals last, who suddenly replaced their usual philosophy of pacifism with idiotic hostility to everything German, including Wagner’s operas and schnitzel Viennese? 97. Big City in Russia it was simultaneously a center of concentration of patriotic and anti-state elements. While the former went to the front, the latter overwhelmed the mobilization departments and even the Minister of War with requests and petitions for release from service or at least a deferment.
“In the very first days of mobilization, all military commanders, at railway stations, in houses and shacks heard a continuous groan, and a sea of tears saw off the “hero” soldiers to war,” recalled a contemporary. “Doctors, all the authorities who had all kinds of acquaintances, connections, patronage, bribes, everything was used by many just to become “white tickets” or to settle somewhere in safer places - in headquarters, convoys” 98. In August 1914, a shelter was formed for them - Zemsky, and then the City Unions 99. “Patriotic manifestations and outbursts of enthusiasm,” noted Yu. N. Danilov, “were, apparently, only a cheap façade behind which the plain reality was hidden” 100 . Unlike the educated classes and the townspeople, the Russian peasantry went to war meekly, out of habit. However, it did not show patriotic delight at the news of the war.
This reaction was somewhat mitigated by government subsidies that were paid to the families of conscripts. According to the law of June 25, 1912, in case of conscription of privates and non-commissioned officers of the reserve and state militia, benefits were provided to their wives and children (in any case), as well as parents, brothers and sisters, even grandparents, however, if the person being called was the breadwinner. Everything depended on the level of food prices. The monthly allowance was calculated based on the cost of food rations, which included the following products: 27.2 kg of flour, 4 kg of cereals, 4 kg of salt, 400 grams. vegetable oil 101. Thus, the monetary amount of benefits was not unified; sometimes the amount of subsidies in one county differed significantly from that in the neighboring one. There were cases when they reached from 30 to 45 rubles per month, which significantly exceeded the average peasant earnings, and then the women were even pleased that their husbands were drafted into the army. For 1914–1915 about 442,300 thousand rubles were paid, and for 1915–1916. – 760 million, and for a share rural population accounted for 77% of payments. According to N.A. Danilov’s calculations, due to these payments, the total income of the Russian peasantry exceeded pre-war figures by 340 million rubles in the first year of the war, and by 585 million in the second year. 102
“Every day, the brave units, as if in a parade, went to war. They were accompanied by general jubilation and pride,” recalled the Russian diplomat 103 . He was echoed by a naval officer hurrying to his place of duty: “One echelon was carrying a guards Cossack regiment to the front. The Cossacks rejoiced noisily, accordions sounded throughout the carriages, and daring songs were heard. Then a train with hussars passed us, where unusual fun also reigned. Everyone went to their death with delight” 104. A military doctor traveling to the front describes these days in the same words: “From the dimly lit heated cars comes the ringing of a balalaika, the clatter of Kamarinsky bursts of laughter, and the vigorous soldier’s swearing rolls from car to car like an incendiary spark. The oncoming echelons exchange hysterical “hurrays”, and it seems as if all of Russia has boiled noisily and joyfully with waves of armed, unwashed and unbelted men and is rushing at full speed towards the insane whirlpool of war” 105. Stanley Washburn, a special war correspondent for The Times, wrote with delight about what he saw: “Indeed, if the enemy could spend even a day in Petrograd or in any other Russian city, he would be horrified at the rising tide (of Russian patriotism. - A. O.)" 106 .
“It cannot be said that the war took us by surprise: from the spring of 1911 until the beginning of the current war,” noted the commander of the 16th Army Corps, General P. A. Geisman, “we continued to intensively prepare for war in all respects. A lot of “verification” mobilizations were carried out (in spring and autumn), and not only first-line units were mobilized, but also second-line units; From time to time, “experimental” mobilizations were carried out with the call-up of reserves, etc.” 107. However, already at the beginning of the present mobilization, signs of future problems appeared. First of all, non-commissioned officers conscript service, who were in reserve, were not taken into special registration and went to replenish units as privates 108. This happened even in the capital, where guards units were formed 109. The Preobrazhensky Regiment, for example, as a result received 20–30 non-commissioned officers per company, and those who came from the reserve had previously served in the regiment and were thus firmly connected with its traditions 110 . The same picture was observed in the provinces.
“Everything was fine in the regiment,” M.D. Bonch-Bruevich recalled the first days of mobilization. - The only thing that seemed upsetting to me and which I could not correct was the abundance among the called-up reserve sergeants, senior and junior non-commissioned officers former terms of service, who turned here, in my regiment, into ordinary soldiers. The sudden surplus of junior command personnel in the regiment, which pleased me as a unit commander, irritated me as a General Staff officer, accustomed to thinking in broader categories. I thought sadly that it would be more correct to send all these sergeants and non-commissioned officers who were surplus to duty in the regiment to special schools and turn them into warrant officers. The future showed that my thoughts were correct: soon warrant officers began to be produced in large numbers, but only on the basis of a suitable educational qualification” 111.
The mobilization was successful in the sense of the successful organization of the mass conscription of reservists. Of course, never before has the army leadership been faced with such a large-scale and complex task. What should have caused alarm was that from the very beginning her decision contained elements of improvisation and unfortunate miscalculations. Everything was subordinated to one task - not to waste time. Was not shown careful attitude to the frames. In the pre-war calculation of 5–6 months of active hostilities, such “little things” did not matter. N. N. Golovin even noted a case when, during the mobilization of one of the companies, eighteen (!) non-commissioned officers stood as privates in the ranks: “Everyone who knows a little about the life of the Russian army understands that every non-commissioned officer who arrived from the reserve had to would be worth its weight in gold. All these people, so necessary specifically for our army with its uncultured soldiery, were knocked out in the very first battles” 112.
A.I. Denikin recalled that many regiments of the Southwestern Front went on a campaign, having 5-6 officers in their companies and up to 50% of reserve non-commissioned officers as privates 113: “And yet, and yet mobilization took place throughout vast Russia quite satisfactorily, and the concentration of troops was completed in deadlines» 114. The army's gold reserves went to the front as private soldiers, while even then they were needed to maintain order in the rear. However, few people thought about this these days. After all, the war was supposed to be short-term and victorious. Almost everyone was sure that they were going on a hike that would last several months. According to general belief, the war should have ended by Christmas 115.
The army was rushing to the front, many were afraid of not making it in time. “We were in a festive mood,” recalled a junior officer of the 13th Life Grenadier Erivan Regiment of his movement to the borders of East Prussia from Tiflis in August 1914, “everyone was confident in victory, and I will even say more, the most zealous of us were afraid be late for a decisive battle, since it was well drilled into everyone by our military authorities that a modern war should be lightning fast and decisive in its results. I personally believed this theory and went to war light, without stocking up on absolutely warm clothes and good hiking shoes, so important for an infantryman.”116
The war made it possible to resolve an issue that had been addressed several times before it began. In 1913, they once again planned to ban the sale of vodka (the emperor had an extremely negative attitude towards the “drunk budget”, that is, the sale of vodka by the treasury, which, in his opinion, taught the peasants to alcoholism and ruined them), but he vigorously opposed this idea Minister of Finance V.N. Kokovtsov, who did not find anything reprehensible in the sale of alcohol 117. Before the war, the government did not dare to take any decisive measures against this evil. Nevertheless, the need for the struggle itself was recognized at the highest level. Already in April 1914, P. L. Bark presented to the Duma a program to combat drunkenness 118.
But in the first days of the war the situation changed. Based on the Charter of conscription In 1912, during the period of mobilization, it was planned to stop the trade in wine and vodka 119. Not everywhere this requirement was met without incident. On July 6 (19), Major General V.F. Dzhunkovsky, comrade of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Suite, headed to Baku from St. Petersburg 120 . The trip was caused by a strike of oil workers, but by July 16 (29) it had subsided - the oil owners accepted the general’s proposals 121 . When mobilization began, he hurried back. Returning to the capital, during these days he traveled throughout the south of Russia and witnessed riots in the Vladikavkaz region, caused by the fact that reserves were besieging and sometimes smashing wine shops 122. Often those mobilized showed up at recruiting stations with a fair supply of alcohol and behaved provocatively in the first hours after arriving at the unit. “Drunken songs rang through the camp all night,” a contemporary recalled the arrival of conscripts in Tula. “But in the morning there was a reaction: the sobered up reserves were dressed in military uniform, thus turning into soldiers - and they became quieter than water, lower than the grass.” 123
Sometimes the riots didn't end that way in a simple way. In Armavir, unrest among the reserves of the Caucasian Cavalry Division even ended with the murder of an officer 124. There were hitches during mobilization on the Volga and in some areas of Siberia. In the city of Barnaul, Tomsk province, in the Perm, Oryol, and Mogilev provinces, unrest among conscripts, mostly related to the cessation of the wine trade, became widespread 125. True, soon these local troubles (in the southern direction, starting from Rostov-on-Don, according to V.F. Dzhunkovsky, exemplary order reigned) were overcome. The strike ended in Baku. He recalled: “As I approached St. Petersburg, my excitement grew; on the 26th I was in Moscow, spent several hours and witnessed that complacent uplift and good spirits that gripped all segments of the population. The work was in full swing, a powerful impulse of enthusiasm was felt" 126.
As early as July 13 (26), 1914, the Minister of War addressed the Minister of Finance with a request for a widespread ban on the wine trade until the end of the strategic concentration of troops on the border. On August 4 (17), 1914, while in Moscow, Nicholas II, citing requests from peasants to stop the trade in wine, decided to discuss the issue of closing wine shops in the Council of Ministers. At a meeting of the Council of Ministers on August 9 (22), the request of the Minister of War was granted, and the Minister of Internal Affairs was especially active in its support. The result was a supreme ban on the trade in wine and vodka for the duration of the entire mobilization. On August 22 (September 4), the ban was extended for the entire duration of hostilities. On October 8 (21), in response to the most loyal address of the All-Russian Union of Christian Teetotalers, the emperor announced his decision to make the temporary ban on the sale of state-owned alcohol permanent 127.
However, the greatest danger during mobilization was not the unrest or the ban on the sale of alcohol, but the difference between the reserves who had recently returned from duty and those who had already become unaccustomed to army discipline. “The first were soldiers like soldiers,” recalled M.D. Bonch-Bruevich, “they stretched out not only in front of every subaltern officer and sergeant major, but were ready to stand in front of any non-commissioned officer... Didn’t act on such a “lower rank” and long separation from the army. The reserves of the first type on the second day after appearing in the barracks were no different from regular soldiers. But the substitutes from the participants Russo-Japanese War As soon as they arrived at the regiment, they began to show all sorts of complaints; they behaved defiantly, looked at the officers with hostility, despised the sergeant major as a “skin,” and even in front of me, the regiment commander, behaved independently and, rather, cheekily” 128. This was a problem that had not yet acquired dangerous proportions, but with inattention to the army personnel, in the absence of political and ideological unity within the country, it could well become a serious danger.
In the first days of the war, the unity of the country seemed strong. V. G. Fedorov, who was rushing to St. Petersburg to his place of service, still hoped that war could be avoided: “But already in Moscow I felt that my hopes were not justified. I saw troops on the streets hastily returning from the camps to their barracks. The units walked through the city in marching order, dusty and tired. They said that the troops were returned from the camps due to the expected mobilization. That same evening in Moscow on Lubyanka Square Patriotic demonstrations began. Special editions of newspapers were sold in great demand. Little by little, an anxious, feverish state took possession of everyone” 129. The British vice-consul in Moscow recalled these days: “There was the same enthusiasm among the bourgeoisie. The wives of wealthy merchants competed with each other in donations to hospitals. Gala performances in favor of the Red Cross were held in state theaters. An orgy of the national anthem reigned. Every evening at the opera and ballet the audience, seized with exalted patriotism, stood listening as the imperial orchestra performed the national anthems of Russia, England, France and Belgium... If there were pessimists at that time, their voice was not heard publicly. Revolution seemed impossible even in the distant future, although from the first day of the war every liberal-minded Russian hoped that victory would bring with it constitutional reforms.”130
Twenty-three-year-old philology student at Moscow University Dmitry Furmanov was apparently among the pessimists. In his diary, he noted how liberal expectations were manifested on the streets of Moscow. These sentiments, however, had not yet been institutionalized: “I was in this grandiose demonstration in Moscow on July 17, the day the mobilization was announced. I was left with a bad impression. For some, the uplifting of spirit may be very great, the feeling may be sincere, deep and irrepressible - but for the majority, there is something fake, something made up. It is clear that many come out of love for the noise and crowd, they like this uncontrolled freedom - at least for a moment, and I do what I want - this is what it sounds like in every word. And what’s especially bad is that the leaders, these shouters, look either like fools or impudent people. "Down with Austria!" - and some reckless head will shout, and a polyphonic “hurray” will cover his call, and yet - no feeling, no sincere sympathy” 131.
“Potentially, the war gave the government a free hand in relation to the internal enemy,” notes a modern researcher. – The socialist and radical liberal movements were already brought to the brink of an internal crisis by the very fact of the outbreak of war and the inevitable tightening of administrative arbitrariness. At the same time, the situation took on clear outlines overnight, which made it easier for liberals to find their bearings and take their place in the new political situation. However, their position was not as definite as is usually portrayed in historiography. First of all, not all of the liberal opposition experienced the “patriotic frenzy” in which domestic historians accused it.” 132
Such was the mood of these days. Even the Warsaw press appealed to the Poles to come out in defense of the Slavs. These calls did not go unnoticed. The Times correspondent noted: “When Russia began the war, the hearts of the entire Polish people were ignited in a rush of support” 133 . Before the war, when planning mobilization in Poland, it was believed that 20% of those conscripted from the Polish population would evade mobilization; the Russian authorities, according to J. G. Zhilinsky, “were preparing for accidents and uprisings.” The fears were not unfounded. Provinces with a Polish population in 1905–1907. firmly occupied first place in the absence of conscripts without a good reason 134. However, there were no accidents or performances. In fact, not only those subject to conscription appeared, but also volunteers 135. In Warsaw, singing war songs and flying Russian flags, they went to recruiting stations to the greetings of the townspeople 136.
The same thing happened in the very turbulent years of 1905–1907. Transcaucasia. An elevated mood reigned in administrative capital Caucasian governorship - Tiflis. Patriotic demonstrations 137 took place along its streets. Many military men here did not expect such a reaction from society. “On July 18, at about 12 noon, when I arrived at Erivan Square,” recalled General F.I. Nazarbekov, “I was amazed by the huge crowd of people. I asked the first person I met about the reason for the crowd of people, he answered me that there was a prayer service on the occasion of the declaration of war by Germany. It turned out that I was severely mistaken in my assumptions. The mood of the residents was very high. An eyewitness to the wars of 1877 and 1904, I have never seen anything like it. Everywhere there were demonstrations from all walks of life every day. They paraded in front of the governor’s palace and expressed their readiness to do everything for the success of this war imposed on us” 138.
No problems arose in Finland either, although according to the experience of the revolution of 1905–1907. here we were constantly preparing for possible complications which will make it necessary to use troops to restore order 139. As an officer of the General Staff noted: “We were not entirely sure of the mood of the Finns. Even so recently, in 1906, there were anti-Russian riots in many places. When in the spring of 1914 a number of companies from various regiments were sent to Western Finland to form the new 4th Finnish Rifle Brigade, measures were even taken in case of hostile demonstrations or boycotts from local residents. True, these measures turned out to be unnecessary: the Finnish residents not only did not boycott the Russians, but even organized honors for our officers in some places; a lot of attention was also paid to the soldiers” 140. The mobilization proceeded without any hindrance.
The senior adjutant of the same 4th brigade, whose headquarters was located in Tammerfors (Tampere), recalled: “The local population showed complete loyalty and correctness towards us” 141. The fears of the command of the 22nd Corps, stationed in the Grand Duchy, that in the event of war the local opposition would organize strikes and paralyze the mobilization of this unit, were also not confirmed. The Finnish population was friendly towards Russian units, the railway and communications worked perfectly. During all the days of mobilization in Finland, there was only one train delay by 10 minutes; all the others moved exactly on schedule 142. When German subjects followed the main street of Helsingfors, the Esplanade, to the harbor for deportation to Sweden, the Finnish crowd began to beat them, and a company of the 2nd Finnish Regiment had to be called in to guard the Germans 143 .
On August 4 (17), Nicholas II arrived in the Mother See. The next day, the highest exit took place in the old halls of the Grand Kremlin Palace. To the Emperor with welcoming speeches The leader of the provincial nobility, the acting mayor and the chairman of the Moscow provincial zemstvo 144 addressed. Then a solemn prayer service was held in the Kremlin, overshadowed by a small but very remarkable incident. Several thousand people gathered on Kremlin Square. Along the path of Nicholas II, an old peasant was on his knees, trying to submit a paper to the highest name, but the crowd literally crushed him before the eyes of the emperor. An Englishwoman who was present recalled: “The Emperor certainly saw this, but did not give a sign. Calmly, with a firm step, he continued on his way" 145.
Obviously, filled with awareness of the solemnity of the moment, Nicholas II did not consider it possible to pay attention to such “little things.” Four days passed in endless parades, celebrations and assurances of loyalty to the throne from representatives of all segments of the population: “All of Moscow, the entire population took to the streets, hundreds of thousands of people filled the entire route of the Emperor, everyone, as if with one heart, greeted the Tsar, excited, ready for all sorts of sacrifices, just to help the king defeat the enemy" 146.
“Mobilization went well and the number of conscripts, compared with the partial mobilization of 1904, caused general surprise,” recalled A. Knox 147 . “Our people turned out to be law-abiding,” noted Yu. N. Danilov, “and up to 96 percent of those called up came to the draft. More than was expected according to peacetime calculations” 148. Indeed, the turnout of substitutes everywhere exceeded all expectations; the forecast of a 20% shortfall did not come true anywhere 149. Vl., who found mobilization in Tver. I. Gurko noted: “Mobilization was carried out in absolute order... Troop echelons were loaded in exemplary order” 150. N.V. Savich, who was in a village near Rybinsk, observed the same picture: “The mobilization went smoothly, like a well-oiled clockwork. The population obediently came to the assembly points” 151. The commander of the Guards Corps, V.M. Bezobrazov, describes it in the same words: “Mobilization took place quickly and in excellent order” 152.
The commander of the 9th Army Corps, D. G. Shcherbachev, who returned from Switzerland to Kyiv on the first day of mobilization, was pleased with the picture he found there: “The upsurge was extraordinary everywhere, the mobilization proceeded flawlessly” 153 . The strikes stopped and there was no resistance to mobilization. A large number of volunteers showed up at the recruiting stations: “There were those on preferential terms, there were people who were rejected, there were people who were exempt due to age, etc.” 154. Those who were mobilized were seen off with flowers; only after the trains had left did crowds of relatives, accompanied by gendarmes, disperse in silence 155 .
Mobilization, like concentration, took place in in perfect order, in accordance with pre-war plans, this was recognized even by such a consistent critic of V. A. Sukhomlinov as General N. N. Golovin: “Russian railways did a brilliant job of mobilizing the army and concentrating it on the theater of military operations. Not only did thousands of echelons and teams arrive at their destinations in a timely manner, but during the period of concentration, at the request of the Headquarters and front headquarters in connection with the beginning of the enemy offensive, the transportation of others was accelerated, which for the Siberian troops reached three to four days. These departures from plans were carried out without confusion and in some cases had a serious influence on the course of hostilities. The work of the railways in concentrating troops alone resulted in the transportation of more than 3,500 trains” 156.
In August 1914, 214,200 wagons, 47.7% of the wagon fleet, were allocated for military transportation. This figure gradually decreased, reaching 105 thousand cars by December 1914. By September 1 (14), 1914, 50% of 1st and 2nd class carriages and up to 15% of 3rd and 4th classes were used for military transportation. Since it took time to collect empty cargo, most railroads reached maximum capacity eight (21 roads) and twelve (32 roads) days after mobilization was announced. Some difficulties were observed only on the Siberian Railway, where traffic had to be increased from the planned eight pairs of military trains to thirteen. The road coped with this task; moreover, in September regular traffic was established there with 16 pairs of trains 157.
“At the end of the transportation at the concentration,” recalled General S.A. Ronzhin, “the order for the army noted the outstanding success with which they were carried out, and truly the work of our railways in the initial period of the war of 1914 will always be one of the brilliant pages their stories" 158. The head of the mobilization department of the GUGSH A.S. Lukomsky received the only award in the history of the Russian army - the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree on the St. George ribbon, “Vladimir Georgievich,” as the wits immediately dubbed him 159.
So, the mobilization was generally successful, but it must be admitted that there was a flaw in the very mechanism that was supposed to provide an army for a short-term war. V. A. Sukhomlinov recalled with pride the mobilized army: “These were troops faithful to duty and oath. Those 4 1 / million who took up arms when mobilization was announced in 1914 and fulfilled their assignment honestly, “without sparing their bellies” - almost all were out of action by the time of the revolution” 160. However, the first-priority parts often did not have full replacements. Major General K.L. Gilchevsky, who formed the 83rd Infantry Division in Samara from the hidden personnel of the 48th Infantry Division that had gone to the front, noted: “The first-priority regiments took very little care of their hidden personnel. They considered their mobilization a secondary matter and, mobilizing themselves, took the best of personnel, weapons, equipment and other things. The reserve contingent consisted of older soldiers who had even served in the Japanese war. The mood was non-combatant. Military order was poorly observed. Most of the officers were indifferent to their own." 161
All this weakened the Russian army; the combat effectiveness of such units directly depended on the number of career officers working. However, at the beginning of the war, even secondary units quickly acquired quite decent forms. The German military historian describes this army in almost the same words as the Russian Minister of War: “The beginning of the war of 1914 found the Russian army completely combat-ready and internally strong. More than 80% of the soldiers were from peasants; the attitude of soldiers towards officers was characterized by patriarchal simplicity and trust. This changed only when, as a result of the protracted war, almost all peacetime officers and non-commissioned officers and the cadre of soldiers were eliminated” 162. These words contain a lot of truth, as does the following assessment given by General M. Hoffmann: “Hard criticism of Russia’s military efforts, widespread in England and in military circles, is not justified. The Russian army did what it could do. That it was poorly managed and therefore suffered defeats was the result of the absence of a truly great leader." 163
Those who claimed this role were not tested on the fields of military and, perhaps, even more political battles. The First World War began, the last for Imperial Russia, in which all the contradictions of the interwar period would appear in its high military command: between supporters of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (the younger) and Minister of War V. A. Sukhomlinov, between those who defended the Austrian or German direction main blow. The losers from these conflicts, which increasingly went beyond military elite, the idea of a strike on the Straits, the corporate isolation of the officers of the General Staff, Emperor Nicholas II and, finally, the political stability of Russia will successively turn out to be.