June 3rd, 2014
The First World War in Photographs / World War I in Photos
Alan Taylor series in 10 parts
In connection with the sending of soldiers to the front, the warring countries also had to equip the rear, where women who remained at home played a varied and big role in various matters. At the same time, as villages became battlefields, more and more refugees appeared throughout Europe.
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Part 6. Soldiers and civiliansFrom the author (Alan Taylor). Of the thousands of images viewed from the First World War, some of the most impressive photographs are not images technological advances or tormented battlefields, but the faces of people caught in the chaos of war. To look at these faces of soldiers, young and old men, and see in them emotions, their human qualities instead of uniform or nationality - this is a gift and a real window into the world of a hundred years ago. While soldiers bore the brunt of the war, civilians were no less involved. Of the millions of refugees forced to leave their homes, many ordinary people became involved in the war, volunteering as ambulance drivers, cooks, nurses, orderlies, and support workers in the army. In today's episode we take a look into the lives of these men - in combat, on break, at rest and at work - during World War I.
For this 100th anniversary, I've pulled together photographs of the Great War from dozens of collections, some digitized for the first time, to try to tell the story of the conflict and all those caught up in it, and how it all affected the world. Today's article is the 6th of 10 parts about the First World War.
Group French soldiers standing at ease, wearing awards. The award appears to be the Military Medal, established on March 25, 1916, for conspicuous courage. They were probably awarded for their participation in the Battle of the Somme. Their French helmets feature distinctive reflective ridges. / (National Library of Scotland)
2.
Private Ernest Stambash of the 165th infantry regiment The 42nd Division lights a cigarette with the help of Miss Anna Rochester, an American Red Cross volunteer at Evacuation Hospitals Nos. 6 and 7, at Souilly, Meuse, France, October 14, 1918. / (AP Photo)
3.
Three unknown New Zealand soldiers riding camels during the First World War, with the Sphinx and pyramid in the background. / (James McAllister/National Library of New Zealand)
4.
A large group of soldiers, probably South African infantry, are celebrating something, stamping their feet and waving whatever they can get their hands on, be it a cane or a blade. There are smiles and cheerful grimaces on their faces, as if there are no worries at all. Many soldiers are dressed in kilts and shoes. / (National Library of Scotland)
5.
A French officer drinks tea with English soldiers during World War I / (Library of Congress)
6.
On the Western Front, a group of captured soldiers from the Allied forces, representing 8 countries: Annam (Vietnamese), Tunisian, Senegalese, Sudanese, Russian, American, Portuguese and English. / (National Archive/Official German Photograph of WWI)
7.
German prisoners are brought in to carry wounded Australians. / (National Media Museum/Australian War Records Section)
8.
Killed Highlanders on the Western Front, who were later stripped of their socks and boots, c. 1916 / (Brett Butterworth)
9.
Interior of a German military kitchen, ca. 1917 / (Brett Butterworth)
10.
Telephone operators of the American signal forces in the offensive zone, 3 km from the front line, in France. The women were part of the Signal Corps group of women's telephone operators, earning them the nickname "Hello Girls." Each of the girls had, on the back of a chair, a gas mask in a pouch and a helmet. / (National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, USA)
11.
A British soldier poses from the muzzle of a .38 caliber gun during the First World War. / (AP Photo)
12.
Unspecified time and place, photograph captioned "Merci, Kamerad" from the album "Picturesque Panorama of the Great War". / (State Library of New South Wales)
13.
The group of German prisoners of war in France was probably taken after the Allied offensive in August 1918. / (National Library of Scotland)
14.
French soldiers, some wounded, some dead, after the capture of Courcelles, in the department of Oise, France, in June 1918. / (National Archives)
15.
A French soldier whose face was disfigured in World War I tries on a mask made in the Anna Coleman Ladd workshop of the American Red Cross. / (Library of Congress)
16.
A line of recruits in a New York City army camp shortly after President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany in April 1917. / (AP Photo)
17.
Members of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (W.A.A.C.) play field hockey with soldiers in France during World War I, against the backdrop of drying clothes and a sanatorium for the wounded. / (National Library of Scotland)
18.
Red Cross volunteers Alice Borden, Helen Campbell, Edith McHable, Maud Fisher, Kath Hoagland, Frances Riker, Marion Penny, Frederica Boole and Edith Farr. / (Library of Congress)
19.
This photo of famous trophy “collector” Barney Hines with his savings and a trophy German cap was first published in 1917 with the caption “Wild Eyes, the souvenir king.” Hines became the hero of many war stories. They said that this photo enraged the most German Chancellor the fact that some Australian barbarian is calmly robbing German soldiers. / (Frank Hurley/National Media Museum)
20.
British employee volunteer organization First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY), whose members provided medical and economic assistance, refuel a car on the Western Front. / (National Library of Scotland)
21.
An undated image reportedly of Cpl. German army Adolf Hitler, standing left (marked with a cross) with fellow members of the "Kapelle Krach" ("Noisy Band") orchestra, while recovering from an injury he suffered on the Western Front during the First World War. / (AP Photo)
22.
In the photo, dressed in rather exotic-looking combat boots, hats and fur coats, five female members of the British voluntary organization First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) stand in front of Red Cross ambulances. Because The first volunteers in this organization were representatives of the upper strata of society, perhaps fur coats were not something surprising for this frame. Women were hired as drivers, nurses and cooks. Created by Lord Kitchener in 1907, FANY was originally an auxiliary unit of mounted female nurses, maintaining constant communication between front-line hospitals and troops on the front line. For service in hazardous conditions frontline, by the end of the war, FANY members had been awarded 17 Military Medals, one Legion of Honor and 27 Croixes de Guerre. A monument to the women who died while serving in the organization was erected in St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, London. / (National Library of Scotland)
23.
Giuseppe Uggesi, lying in bed with tuberculosis, is one of the Italian soldiers of the 223rd Infantry Regiment who were in Austrian concentration camp Milowitz, January 1919. / (Library of Congress)
24.
Labor Corps personnel, the photo caption identifies the seven men as "native police." Apparently these black South Africans are from the South African Native Labor Corps (SANLC). In general, indigenous policemen and sergeants were recruited from tribal chiefs or their relatives from families of high status. About 20,000 South Africans worked for the SANLC during the war. They were not deployed in combat zones, but deaths were nevertheless inevitable among them when the coastal docks or transport routes on which they worked were bombed. The worst tragedy was the sinking of the transport ship SS Mendi on 21 February 1917, when 617 SANLC members drowned in the English Channel. / (National Library of Scotland)
25.
Canadian wounded are being transported to a dressing station along a narrow-gauge railway from the front line. / (National Archief)
26.
German troops in Finland during the Finnish Civil War, one of a series of conflicts caused by WWI. "Reds", men and women, are sent to deportation, Hanko, in April 1918. Two warring parties, "Red" and "White", fought for control of Finland. Whites gained an advantage in April 1918, helped by thousands of German soldiers military assistance. / (National Archive/Official German Photograph of WWI)
27.
A group of female carpenters work in a sawmill yard, constructing wooden temporary sheds, in France. Although they do not have a single special uniform, each of the women, as we see, wore a protective robe or apron over her clothes. The photograph is believed to have been taken by British staff photographer John Warwick Brooke. The Q.M.A.A.C., Queen Mary's Auxiliary Corps, founded in 1917 and later renamed the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, numbered some 57,000 women by 1918. / (National Library of Scotland)
28.
Kaiser's birthday. German officers during the celebration of the Kaiser's birthday, in Rauscedo, Italy, January 27, 1918 / (CC BY SA Carola Eugster)
29.
French dragoons and chasseurs at the beginning of the First World War. / (Library of Congress)
30.
British ambulance drivers stand in ruins. / (Library of Congress)
31.
German prisoners of war during the First World War. These portraits of German prisoners were selected by British censors to be shown to relatives at home. / (National Library of Scotland)
32.
Villagers needing help from arriving British troops. / (National Library of Scotland)
33.
Western Front. Captive British soldier collects trophies from his fellow British soldiers killed in battle in April 1918. / (National Archive/Official German Photograph of WWI)
34.
During a rest stop, soldiers from the British, French and US armies, as well as girls from the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), watch French children play in the sand in France during the First World War. / (National Library of Scotland)
35.
British soldiers play football wearing gas masks, France, 1916. / (Bibliotheque nationale de France)
36.
Three young, at first glance, German prisoners of war. Their clothes of unknown type of troops are stained with mud. The soldier on the left still has his helmet, while the others only have bandages on their heads. / (National Library of Scotland)
37.
Somewhere between Laon and Soissons, German soldier railway troops washing his clothes right next to 50 cm bombs, July 19, 1918. / (National Archive/Official German Photograph of WWI)
38.
Thiepval, September 1916. The bodies of German soldiers are scattered across the trench. / (National World War I Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, USA)
39.
Berlin. Children of soldiers fighting at the front. / (Library of Congress)
40.
Local residents look at German prisoners of war walking down the street in the French town of Solesmes, November 1, 1918, at the end of the First World War. / (Henry Armytage Sanders/National Library of New Zealand)
41.
German non-commissioned officers from the 358th Infantry Regiment pose as if they are drinking wine, eating gherkins and playing cards, although they themselves are wearing gas masks. / (Brett Butterworth)
42.
French patrol in the captured city of Essen, Germany. / (Library of Congress)
43.
The famous 369 arrived in New York City, ca. 1919 Members of the 369th [Negro] Infantry, formerly the 15th New York Regulars. / (U.S. National Archives)
44.
The killed Russian soldier was buried at the place of his death, on German soil. Russia lost approximately two million men during the First World War. / (Brett Butterworth)
45.
A German machine gun point and a dead machine gunner, at Villers Devy Dun Sassey, France, November 4, 1918 - a week before the end of the war. / (NARA/Lt. M. S. Lentz/U.S. Army)
Adventures military and civilian
When the revolution began, I first came to German front, then to the civil war, to the 12th Red Army, to the Denikin Front, and entered the university. In general, here I started a mishmash of university and all sorts of civil wars. I either fought, then ended up in Moscow and immediately sat down at the Zoological Museum with my formaldehyde and alcohol fish. And he earned money mainly as a loader. I was good at lifting and all sorts of things like that, and working as a loader was very profitable back then: cards of the first category and additional cards, plus all sorts of cronyism, so to speak, super-intelligent.
Before that, I worked for one summer as a shepherd in the Tver province. This is also very profitable. And, besides, this is a most pleasant position. Of all the professions that I have tried in my life, this is perhaps the most pleasant profession: dumb animals, pleasant company, mostly cows. I tended a state farm herd in one of the first state farms in the Tver province. There was, of course, a bull and about half a hundred cows. Moreover, the bull was powerful, but somehow stupid, he always trailed behind the herd. I received the flock from my predecessor, a shepherd from the military Serbs, from the Austrian army, Purčil. Purchil was a wonderful shepherd; he also shepherded at home in Serbia. He taught the cows to several Serbian songs, which he whistled or hummed, and I adopted these Serbian songs and Varka the cow from him. The piebald cow was large, she was so smart, she was a respectable cow. And here we are, just like before me, Purch hugged her, I walked with her in an embrace in front of the herd, and the herd followed us. And I had a good, also trained during three years of captivity by Purchil, a shepherd dog of the “court councilor” system - a mongrel. And I had a very good time.
And even before that, after spending a short time at the German front, I became a sergeant. Today this means foreman in the cavalry, since I served in the Cossack unit. In 17, actually, the cavalry at the fronts was all dismounted, and we were driven into the trenches, so I was assigned to cavalry non-commissioned officer ranks, and I served on foot. This later led to a number of anecdotes that happened to me already in the Red Army: according to my papers, I am a sergeant, but I don’t know the cavalry system properly. I always later boasted that I was promoted to sergeant at about the same time as a certain comrade Budyonny. He was also a sergeant in tsarist times. But then he made some kind of career, became a marshal, and I remained a sergeant. True, he later became an assistant platoon commander, already in the 12th Red Army. But I didn’t try high ranks. Here.
In Moscow, when I got to Moscow, under the patronage provided by Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich... There was such an old Bolshevik, a friend of Lenin and the first manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars, Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich. His specialty was some kind of humanist, philologist or literary critic. And all my life I dealt with all sorts of schismatics, Old Believers, and sectarians. He had a colossal card index of all sorts of priests and non-priests, and Khlysty, and runners - who the hell. In general, he was an old Bolshevik, but a rich, lordly one, from Bessarabian landowners, in my opinion. He had a very tangential relationship with me.
The fact is that one of my aunts in St. Petersburg in 1905 hid it from the police somewhere under the sofa or something like that. And he remembered this and treated our family well. And when we felt really bad and had nothing to eat, he tried to take care of us a little: he got me a job as a loader at Centropechat, and it was a very profitable job back then. Not as profitable as shepherding, of course. When I was a shepherd, I probably earned ten times more in a summer full professor Moscow University. And as a loader I earned five times the professor's salary. Twice less than a shepherd. Yes, and most importantly: in addition to the cards of the first category, there are additional cards for hard work.
In addition, we left something else. Our artel was such Ivan Ivanovich, an elderly worker, from Grachev from Okhotny Ryad. We received some kind of salary, which no one was interested in, at Tsentropechat, because at that time there were millions of lemons, and it was still impossible to buy anything with them. But we got good cards, and Bonch arranged it for us: each loader received three dining cards for the third canteen of the Council of People's Commissars of the Metropol Hotel. This famous restaurant, Metropol, had already been turned into a Soviet canteen.
They fed us what they were supposed to: thin millet porridge with some water. Chekhov was changed in those years, and they said that rust eats iron, aphids eat grass, and psha eats the soul. And then - brown eyes. And this is what the soldiers called “brown eyes”: roach heads, dried roach were boiled in water... Now there is such a rare product, for which for some reason people instantly line up, but before it was the food of beggars and the cheapest thing in the world. When a person has nothing to eat, he devoured a couple of vobbles with a crust of bread. You beat them against a stone, you beat them, then you can eat them. So the heads were cut off and boiled in water. They were completely boiled over. They threw in a little bit of what they had: some grass, cabbage leaves sometimes, if there were any, then a little millet. And most importantly, these heads were completely boiled, eyes fell out of them, skulls, skulls sank to the bottom, and the eyes floated to the surface. That’s why this soup was called: “Oh, you brown eyes!”
We each had three coupons. You get three of these soups, carefully add the excess water, and you get a bowl of these brown eye concentrates. And then there is this one - “...and psha the soul...”, the second so-called. Then they were given an eighth of bread or cake, a black blob. Three octams each is already four and a half bread - a pound, not a kilo, but a pound. Yes, according to additional cards we were entitled to extra money. For the first category, a quarter of a pound, and for additional cards - another quarter of a pound. In total, we got three-quarters of a pound of this black mass - and we could eat.
So we lived very well. First of all, the work is very pleasant. A loader, if you work on the equipment... I remember on our trips along the Amur, along the Lena, along the Yenisei... There, these tourist ships also take cargo. And on another pier you see unloading. So you come across such hacky artels, Lord! And I still remember, in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur the artel unloaded and loaded our ship. It was beauty! It was real professional work. What do you think loaders are? Any fool can be an engineer or a professor, but a loader! It’s almost like Svyatoslav Richter among pianists... This is the practice of technique, precision technique of all kinds of grip, both foot and self made, and spinal work. And when a team of real movers works, it’s beautiful. I then received a certain amount of dollars shortly before this, some kind of fee. And there were, like them, certificates. And at Beryozka I bought myself English cigarettes. And so I forked out the cash: I donated the entire supply of these English cigarettes I had taken for the trip to this team of movers. The guys were happy, it was terrible!
So, Ivan Ivanovich, our artel, organized this. There were rarely any trains back then. And so all sorts of district and volost commissars came to Moscow from all over Russia from the provinces, such guys in leather jackets, with a gun hanging from their belts, for literature and paper. We had to load them up. We had a packaging room in Tsentropechat and there were big bales of matting. We received additional cards and were considered to have the hardest work, because we had these bales of five and seven pounds. Indeed, especially on the steps, even on a small staircase, seven pounds on a spinosa seems a bit boring, one might say. We worked, however, from eight to four, an eight-hour work day. And after four I went to the university, and in the evening we had a club, so the whole time was busy.
Ivan Ivanovich found out when a commissar with a car came to pick up paper and books, and then in Moscow you could literally count on one hand the number of trucks that ran on auto cognac - a mixture of alcohol and gasoline... This is not science, what I’m telling you, but serious things... There were several of these trucks, and they were usually given to some commissar literally at a short time bring your bales directly to a departing train and load them into wagons. If he doesn’t get in, he could be stuck in Moscow for two months and die of hunger by the end of the first month, because citizens received eight pieces of bread on ration cards.
So Ivan Ivanovich found out that such a district commissar was from somewhere in Tmutarakan, which means he came for literature... Then the first constitution and all sorts of philosophical books appeared. We all made fun of him then and asked everyone about Dühring. “Anti-Dühring” - such a brochure appeared in large numbers then, and we all said: “There is Anti-Dühring, but why is there no Dühring? Give us Dühring." The Marxists of that time tried to explain to us in scientific terminology why Dühring need not be published, but only Anti-Dühring. Usually this same customer had to board a train departing in the direction he needed before dark, and then his work was finished, and he went home to some grain-producing province and prospered further. And if he doesn’t leave, then he’s karachun.
And my profession was demagoguery, I was an artel demagogue. This means that we carelessly loaded this customer’s car, a teaspoon per hour. Some kind of nasty fruit in such a leather jacket, belted with a wide leather belt, on his belt he has a gun in a leather case - in a word, as it should be. And the cap is usually leather. And sometimes even leather breeches, and leather boots - in general, solid leather. And at exactly four o’clock I went into action: “Comrades, quit work, that’s enough, drink our blood,” he started full of demagoguery, “four o’clock, the end of the working day. Tomorrow at eight in the morning we will continue.” He first grabbed the gun and pulled it out. I calmly told him: “You, my dear, hide the gun, you are not at home, but in Moscow. Here we’ll take your gun away and punch you in the face.” Well, he had to put the gun away.
We didn’t hit him in the face, of course. And at that time Ivan Ivanovich was thinking to him from the back of his mind: of course, if... and so on, look from the point of view... then it would be possible... In a word, the matter ended with the fact that We took away his wide leather belt first of all. This most valuable thing was used for the soles of leather shoes. The most valuable thing. What about his belt? Just think, a belt. People here are starving, there is nothing to eat, and he will walk around in a wide leather belt. Sometimes Ivan Ivanovich oiled him up so much that he even gave away his leather jacket. We then drank it together. If he had any bread, they took it all away; if he had cash, they took it away. He offered us his gun - we didn’t take it, we don’t need it, you’re the one out there doing bandits somewhere, and we live in the capital of our homeland, Moscow, and we don’t need “left-handed guns” because we are in danger from jumpers... And Back then in Moscow the jumpers were in white sheets. Jumpers are like spirits; you can't shoot them with a cannon.
We also had Vanka, a kid about 16-17 years old, a generally healthy guy, but he was always stupid, dirty, kind of shabby, but an expert in his field: he knew from all Moscow trucks where the hole was through which he could release car cognac. And we had a small artel jar, like a metal can. While we were bargaining, he was releasing cognac from the truck through a hole, leaving a little for the road to the station - he worked honestly. When he releases the car cognac, he blinks at us, then we quickly, in a quarter of an hour, throw up these seven-pound bales - and off we go.
We then went to a semi-basement former cab driver's tavern on Sretenka. It remained in some kind of half-form - it is unknown whether it was private or state-owned. Of course, it was already a state-owned tavern, a Soviet tavern, but, on the other hand, the owner, who was behind the counter, stood at the counter, managed the business, and there were sex workers there. We came with car cognac. They kept a glass for themselves - terrible disgusting! And the rest went to the innkeeper. And for this we received a real daily allowance of cabbage soup with slaughter and a crust of not quite cake bread, black also and unbaked, but still similar to bread. And sometimes, even if there was some, they dumped some psha into the cabbage soup and ate it properly. Well, then I went to the fish, of course. This is how we lived.
I was interrupted all the time because I again found myself at the front. I could have avoided all this, fronts and so on, but all my life I have had a feeling of awkwardness about finding myself in some more or less exceptional conditions. If everyone is at war, we must fight. If everyone is starving, you need to starve. Well, starving... all starving people try to grab something, of course, and eat. Well, I tried to grab it and eat it, but it’s unpleasant to find myself in some exceptional conditions. And then we fought barefoot, naked, hungry, cold. Horror! Horror! Horror! But nothing.
First, Denikin’s men drove us all the way to Tula, and then we drove them all the way back to the Black Sea. So the war was fun and lively then. We, I remember, probably fought against the Wild Division for about a month and a half. They took dumb cattle from the peasants, and all we had left was poultry. When they rolled back, they ate all the livestock, but somehow you can’t keep up with everything, and chickens, ducks, geese - we already finished off those. So after the mutual civil war, the peasants remained...at peak interest.
I don’t know how clearly I described to you the style of life at that time: a mixture of studying, listening to university lectures, social circles, working as a loader, working at the Zoological Museum. All this was periodically interrupted by military-civilian episodes. In general, in my opinion, life was fun: we went hungry a little, got cold a little - all that. But we were young, healthy, strong people. We lived, strange as it may seem, in general, quite outside of politics. I belonged to those people who deliberately did not end up, say, in emigration, among the whites. Not for political reasons. I was by no means a communist, or a “Sicilist”, or any other strekulist, but I simply believed that you need to be within the borders of your Fatherland. That's all. And fight with those who come from outside into the borders of my Fatherland.
I was a sufficiently literate person to see that the white movement was not serious, that a dozen very diverse movements were all flavored with bourgeois speculation. I had to visit Kyiv during the hetmanate, when I was returning from the Southwestern Front. They took me there and mobilized me into the blue zhupans. From there I went “on horseback” and with all the Cossack uniform to Moscow - and that’s it.
I had adventures there, I had to work with the bandits, the bandits - “anarchists, disciples of Pan Prince Kropotkin himself,” predecessors of the French gangs, long before Makhno - “flogged” me on the Desna in the winter. And I probably would have disappeared there, but I ended up in the gang of Mr. Gavrilenko, who said:
“I am a student of Master Prince Kropotkin himself.” Then I couldn’t stand it and said: “Have you ever seen him?” - “No, but I’m his student.” I say: “And I’m his great-nephew.” Which is actually true. And then he was kindled with incredible respect for me. But this work was difficult. There were fourteen of us. All. We had to forage and drive away the Germans. Why did I stay with them? Because they were doing something useful: driving the Germans out of Ukraine.
The Germans were already behaving terribly and disgustingly. Well, I stayed. Yes, and there in the gang, among these fourteen cavalrymen, I met my comrade from the gymnasium, Chekunov, who was also a Cossack.
But it's very hard work. We didn’t get out of the saddle for days, because we had to attack large German units with convoys. The main thing was... to hell with them, with the Germans without a convoy, we had no reason to beat them - they would finish themselves off, but take the convoy away from them. And there are fourteen of us sabers. But we developed good tactics: we scattered in the dark, spanked our horses, shouted “Hurray” and shot. And the Germans usually could not make out how many of us there were. The crests reported to us where they had settled down for the night, where the convoy was located, and most importantly, the convoy. We immediately surrounded and repelled the convoy. But it was hard, it was hard. We were all slightly wounded; we were hit quite often by bullets.
Since we're in deep trouble. The farm is big, where German battalion settled down with the convoy. There the Desna is frozen, with the banks already icy, here it means there is a road, and here there is the edge of the forest, thorns from the wild pear tree, and there is no way to get through them. It is also impossible to travel through the Desna - it is half-frozen. And that means we attacked the Germans. But, firstly, the crests stupidly did not inform us that they had a machine-gun company. This was an innovation back then. But it’s unpleasant under machine guns. Gray peasants, they are more afraid of artillery: pops, explosions, booms and all that. And our brother, a semi-intellectual, is, so to speak, more afraid of machine guns from his imagination. Here you are lying on the ground under machine guns and imagining: a machine gun is scratching, and all he has to do, the son of a bitch, is lower his nose a little, and he’ll go right over Spinoza. There is more fear from imagination.
And suddenly a whole squadron of German lancers, also mounted, came to our rear. This means that our cavalry advantage disappears. And here Chekunov and I first applied in practice the theory of probability and mathematical statistics. We are karachun: there are machine guns in front, about a hundred sabers behind. They will kill us all, and that will be the end of it.
And then the foolish Germans will be surprised that there are only fourteen of us. And we have already killed more of them. Then we decided that the only possibility was to disperse the horses into the quarry and through the squadron in the dark. It just means that the checkers are drawn, “Hurray” and someone will break through. And, indeed, it wasn’t even Ppu-Ppu, but seven people died, and eight made it through. And at first they thought it was the other way around - I lay down too.
I was always lucky in the war... Apparently, when I crashed into these lancers, one of them hit me flat on the head with a saber. I fell off my horse onto the road, on the highway, and lay there unconscious. Apparently, I was considered dead; no one was interested in me, right at the edge of these thorns. It was late at night, probably towards morning, when there were stars in the sky, I came to my senses and tried to get up. I look - intact! My head hurts terribly, there are two huge bumps on my head. I had a hat, it had disappeared somewhere, I couldn’t find it nearby, and my horse, a Cossack horse, was standing there, gnawing on some bushes, waiting. I climbed on it and by morning I found my gang. Chekunov - in my opinion, he had about twenty light wounds, both bullet and saber wounds - like a cutlet. Well, nothing, after two weeks I completely recovered. Pan Gavrilenko treated us all for our wounds with Shustov cognac. Somewhere he scraped a certain amount of cognac. For antiseptics, the wound was treated from the outside with cognac and washed foot wraps, and a glass was given inside.
Soon after that, I told him: “I’ve done my work, I’ll go home, all the way to Pan Kropotkin himself.” He kept handing me all sorts of jewelry, thanking me very much, all that, some kind of gold watch, cigarette cases. Well, as expected, some kind of gold cigarette case with the inscription: “To the dear and respected Savva Ivanovich - some - Morozov from grateful workers” or something like that. I tell him: “I don’t need it. Give me some bacon and lard.” My horse was too good. I tell him: “Give me some kind of working horse, a peasant horse, from the harness.” Because I wanted a horse on the border... then there was a border between “Velika Vilna Ukraine from the Carpathians all the way to the Caucasus” and ReSeFeSeRe. He gave me a whole bag... I had two bags with all kinds of food, lard, mainly. At the border I exchanged all this for clothes, and I exchanged my horse, and my carabiner, and everything, and part of the bacon. I also received fresh peasant bread on foot, and I don’t remember where I got there with passing carts, to Tula or something, from where I arrived in a freight car to Moscow.
From the book Pages of Diplomatic History author Berezhkov Valentin MikhailovichMilitary aspects At the first meeting of the Subcommittee of Military Representatives, which opened on August 23 at 16:45, in addition to the members of the subcommittee, the heads of delegations were also present. Stettinius presided, the Subcommittee met on the second floor in one of the rooms,
From the book Caesar Augustus author Shifman Ilya SholeimovichChapter 3. CIVIL WARS Summer 44 BC. e. was coming to an end, and the political struggle in Rome entered a new phase. All attempts by the warring factions to eliminate rivalry by peaceful means failed; slowly but surely Rome crawled into a new phase of Civil Wars.
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Chapter 8 Civil Affairs of Wartime. A rumor spread around Lipna: the agronomist Lenka Solovyova accepted Venetsky “as her son-in-law.” No one was surprised by this: many women in the city and in the villages accepted prisoners “as sons-in-law” or, more accurately, as husbands. Among these “sons-in-law” were
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From Michelangelo's book author Dzhivelegov Alexey KarpovichCivil and humanistic motives of the plafond We cannot rely in everything on Michelangelo’s genuine political statements on these issues. There are very few of them. Or rather, they don’t exist. He corresponds diligently with his father and brothers, especially with Buonarroto, who was more cultured
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From the book In the Name of Victory author Ustinov Dmitry FedorovichMILITARY CIRCLES Even when he was in Odessa, Andrei Ivanovich maintained an active acquaintance with officers and teachers of the Artillery Academy, loved to be present at experiments with explosives and took lessons from the military. By negligence, once even
Civilians look at the military with admiration only through women's eyes, and only if the hussars enter the district town. The non-military male population feels slight contempt for the military, mixed with pity.
More than once I myself had to carefully select examples from my thirty years of military service at lectures for “civilian staff” of MBA streams. I saw obvious disappointment on their faces - they did not expect to expose me as a retired soldier, even if he was a colonel.
And at the same time, I, in turn, felt sincere pity for them, the civilians, because managing people and groups the way they do is simply ridiculous, bordering on dangerous. In the army, such “personnel management” would have been dealt with quite clearly. To begin with, they would be demoted to privates, and then they would just try to teach, starting with sergeant shoulder straps. Well, if such managers had managed to mess things up, then they would certainly have been court-martialed, or even executed.
Military and civilians live in completely different worlds, which determines the difference between them. However, by dedicating this article to “Defender of the Fatherland Day,” I want to show some special aspects of the differences, namely how unusual and even unacceptable for civilians, the military manages, organizes and directs, calling it not management, but command.
And I'll start from the very beginning. No, not because the army has the most ancient “management”, but because of how military service begins for any civilian.
While civilian managers are more than concerned about personnel selection, elevating this to the rank of the key to the success of any enterprise, the military takes on military service hitting almost no one. Strange?
Nothing strange! The military simply does not consider the personal and business qualities of a recruit to be something important. Average physical fitness and intellectual level below average are the passing grade for the army.
It would seem that with this approach one can count on victories only if the enemy soldiers are even weaker and dumber. However, the military's secret is different. Taking as a starting point that all recruits are weak and stupid, commanders focus their efforts on physically strengthening the soldiers and training them for what they will do during military service. Physical training and combat training drills.
In an amazingly short time, commanders have physically strong, strong, resilient fighters with quick reactions who confidently handle weapons and equipment. The quality of the soldiers is at a level sufficient for war.
Civilian managers search, choose, invent stupid tests, and still make mistakes, kick out those who are “unsuitable” and who did not live up to expectations, and then get upset and complain about life - “The people today are not the same!” It will never occur to them to teach hired workers how to work. I observe strange civil logic everywhere: “They studied at school/college/institute! Let them think for themselves!”
This difference in approach inevitably leads to an even more serious problem - initiative. The commander who taught the soldier to fight vigilantly ensures that he strictly adheres to the skills drilled into him, otherwise... As soon as the centipede thinks about which foot to step, it begins to get tangled in its legs and falls. This is vital in combat - to act automatically. This is not the time to reinvent the wheel. Each movement has been perfected over tens, hundreds, thousands of years and is the best of many possible options.
In contrast, managers who rely on the intelligence, intuition, common sense, experience, and initiative of untrained workers condemn them to slow and erroneous actions, and they lose in simple situations. This is a ubiquitous statistic.
Well, of course, civilian employees will certainly accuse the military of suppressing freedom of creativity, but the good thing about the military is that they do not understand and take such baseless accusations to heart. A well-known army maxim says: “Initiative is punishable!” It is not punishable by commanders, but by life, and often this leads to death.
To be fair, it is worth noting that the fundamental difference between military commanders and civilian managers comes down to the fact that the former act on the battlefield - the field of life and death, and the latter - on the field of business, the field of income and expenses. Despite the fact that both are Feedback, the military option turns out to be much more influential on human behavior, on the choice of the best options and, in general, on the speed of learning.
Another perspective on the difference between the military and civilians reveals that the commanders fully meet the criteria of a leader, but the higher command does not allow the flame of leadership to burn too hot, otherwise... It would not be an army, but a guerrilla type of management, where everyone is “His own man.” Petliura!
As in many cases, it is the deviation from the ordinary that shows that the parties are right. For the military, this is war. The civilians are in crisis. The best that civilians could come up with was crisis management, the essence of which is to die in an organized manner and bury the business with dignity.
The military... They don't have crises. The military has options for developing the situation. For each option there is an action plan, a map of the area with routes already marked in colored pencils, positions - both your own, those of neighbors, and the enemy, as well as calculations of everything needed - from cartridges to a pack of salt for the field kitchen.
Wherever the curve of military fortune turns, there is a pre-prepared plan. I took out the package, printed it out, gave the order and... Forward to victory!
It may be solely because the military loves colored pencils for maps and small tanks on terrain models that narrow-minded civilians laugh at them.
However, there is a special article of difference between commanders and managers. The commander is responsible for the death of the soldier with his life, and the manager... This special article shapes the spirit of the commander in a special way and influences his soul. Commanders are completely different people. Or rather, they are people. And if so, then learning from the military how they manage people is not at all shameful, but to the highest degree healthy.
I congratulate my military comrades on the Day of the Soviet Army and Navy.
I have the honor!
Sergey Alexandrovich Rusakov.
Rusakov Sergey Alexandrovich
Business consultant "Small Business Management"
The Russian Civil War is an armed confrontation in 1917-1922. organized military-political structures and state entities, conventionally defined as “white” and “red”, as well as national-state formations on the territory of the former Russian Empire (bourgeois republics, regional state formations). Spontaneously emerging military and socio-political groups, often referred to as “third force” (rebel groups, partisan republics, etc.), also took part in the armed confrontation. Also took part in the civil confrontation in Russia foreign countries(referred to as “interventionists”).
Periodization Civil War
There are 4 stages in the history of the Civil War:
First stage: summer 1917 - November 1918 - formation of the main centers of the anti-Bolshevik movement
Second stage: November 1918 - April 1919 - the beginning of the Entente intervention.
Reasons for intervention:
Deal with Soviet power;
Protect your interests;
Fear of socialist influence.
Third stage: May 1919 - April 1920 - simultaneous struggle of Soviet Russia against the White armies and Entente troops
Fourth stage: May 1920 - November 1922 (summer 1923) - defeat of the white armies, end of the civil war
Background and reasons
The origin of the Civil War cannot be reduced to any one cause. It was the result of deep political, socio-economic, national and spiritual contradictions. Important role played by the potential for public discontent during the First World War, the devaluation of values human life. The agrarian-peasant policy of the Bolsheviks also played a negative role (the introduction of the Committee of Poor People's Commissars and the surplus appropriation system). Bolshevik political doctrine, according to which civil war is a natural outcome socialist revolution, caused by the resistance of the overthrown ruling classes, also contributed to the civil war. On the initiative of the Bolsheviks, the All-Russian Council was dissolved Constituent Assembly, the multi-party system was gradually eliminated.
The actual defeat in the war with Germany, the Brest-Litovsk Treaty led to the fact that the Bolsheviks began to be accused of “the destruction of Russia.”
The right of peoples to self-determination proclaimed by the new government, the emergence in different parts countries of many independent state entities were perceived by supporters of “One, Indivisible” Russia as a betrayal of its interests.
Dissatisfaction with the Soviet regime was also expressed by those who opposed its demonstrative break with the historical past and with ancient traditions. The anti-church policy of the Bolsheviks was especially painful for millions of people.
The civil war took various forms, including uprisings, isolated armed clashes, large-scale operations involving regular armies, guerrilla actions, terror. The peculiarity of the Civil War in our country was that it turned out to be extremely long, bloody, and unfolded over a vast territory.
Chronological framework
Individual episodes of the Civil War took place already in 1917 ( February events 1917, the July “half-uprising” in Petrograd, Kornilov’s speech, October battles in Moscow and other cities), and in the spring and summer of 1918 it acquired a large-scale, front-line character.
It is not easy to determine the final boundary of the Civil War. Front-line military operations on the territory of the European part of the country ended in 1920. But then there were also massive peasant uprisings against the Bolsheviks, and the performances of the Kronstadt sailors in the spring of 1921. Only in 1922-1923. the armed struggle ended Far East. This milestone can generally be considered the end of a large-scale Civil War.
Features of armed confrontation during the Civil War
Military operations during the Civil War differed significantly from previous periods. It was a time of unique military creativity that broke the stereotypes of troop command and control, the army recruitment system, and military discipline. The greatest successes were achieved by the military leader who commanded in a new way, using all means to achieve the task. The Civil War was a war of maneuver. Unlike the period trench warfare» 1915-1917, solid lines there was no front. Cities, villages, and villages could change hands several times. Therefore, active, offensive actions, caused by the desire to seize the initiative from the enemy, were of decisive importance.
The fighting during the Civil War was characterized by a variety of strategies and tactics. During the establishment of Soviet power in Petrograd and Moscow, street fighting tactics were used. In mid-October 1917, the Military Revolutionary Committee created in Petrograd under the leadership of V.I. Lenin and N.I. Podvoisky developed a plan to capture the main city facilities (telephone exchange, telegraph, stations, bridges). Fighting in Moscow (October 27 - November 3, 1917, old style), between the forces of the Moscow Military Revolutionary Committee (leaders G.A. Usievich, N.I. Muralov) and the Committee public safety(commander of the Moscow Military District, Colonel K.I. Ryabtsev and head of the garrison, Colonel L.N. Treskin) were distinguished by the advance of Red Guard detachments and soldiers of reserve regiments from the outskirts to the city center, occupied by cadets and the White Guard. To suppress strong points White artillery was used. Similar tactics of street fighting were used during the establishment of Soviet power in Kyiv, Kaluga, Irkutsk, and Chita.
Formation of the main centers of the anti-Bolshevik movement
Since the beginning of the formation of units of the White and Red armies, the scale of military operations has expanded. In 1918, they were carried out mainly along railway lines and amounted to the capture of large junction stations and cities. This period was called “echelon war.”
In January-February 1918, Red Guard units under the command of V.A. advanced along the railways. Antonov-Ovseenko and R.F. Sivers to Rostov-on-Don and Novocherkassk, where the forces of the Volunteer Army were concentrated under the command of generals M.V. Alekseeva and L.G. Kornilov.
In the spring of 1918, there was a performance of units formed from prisoners of war Austro-Hungarian army Czechoslovak Corps. Located in echelons along the Trans-Siberian Railway from Penza to Vladivostok, the corps led by R. Gaida, Y. Syrov, S. Chechek was subordinate to the French military command and was sent to the Western Front. In response to demands for disarmament, the corps overthrew the Soviet power in Omsk, Tomsk, Novonikolaevsk, Krasnoyarsk, Vladivostok and throughout the surrounding area Trans-Siberian Railway territory of Siberia.
In the summer-autumn of 1918, during the 2nd Kuban campaign, the Volunteer Army captured the junction stations of Tikhoretskaya, Torgovaya, and Armavir and Stavropol actually decided the outcome of the operation in the North Caucasus.
The initial period of the Civil War was associated with the activities of the underground centers of the White movement. In all major cities of Russia there were cells associated with the former structures of military districts and military units, located in these cities, as well as with underground organizations of monarchists, cadets and Socialist Revolutionaries. In the spring of 1918, on the eve of the performance of the Czechoslovak Corps, an officer underground operated in Petropavlovsk and Omsk under the leadership of Colonel P.P. Ivanov-Rinova, in Tomsk - Lieutenant Colonel A.N. Pepelyaev, in Novonikolaevsk - Colonel A.N. Grishina-Almazova.
In the summer of 1918, General Alekseev approved a secret regulation on the recruitment centers of the Volunteer Army created in Kyiv, Kharkov, Odessa, and Taganrog. They transmitted intelligence information, sent officers across the front line, and were also supposed to oppose the Soviet government as White Army units approached the city.
A similar role was played by the Soviet underground, which was active in the White Crimea, the North Caucasus, Eastern Siberia and the Far East in 1919-1920, creating strong partisan detachments that later became part of the regular units of the Red Army.
The beginning of 1919 marks the end of the formation of the White and Red Armies.
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army included 15 armies, covering the entire front in the center European Russia. The highest military leadership was concentrated under the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (RVSR) L.D. Trotsky and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic, former Colonel S.S. Kameneva. All issues of logistical support for the front, issues of regulating the economy on the territory of Soviet Russia were coordinated by the Labor and Defense Council (SLO), the chairman of which was V.I. Lenin. He also headed the Soviet government - Council People's Commissars(Sovnarkom).
They were opposed by those united under the Supreme Command of Admiral A.V. Kolchak army Eastern Front(Siberian (Lieutenant General R. Gaida), Western (Artillery General M.V. Khanzhin), Southern (Major General P.A. Belov) and Orenburg (Lieutenant General A.I. Dutov), as well as recognizing Kolchak's power Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (VSYUR) Lieutenant General A.I. Denikin (he was subordinate to the Volunteer (Lieutenant General V.Z. May-Mayevsky), Don (Lieutenant General V.I. Sidorin) and Caucasian (General - Lieutenant P.N. Wrangel) army) The troops of the Commander-in-Chief acted in the general direction towards Petrograd Northwestern Front Infantry General N.N. Yudenich and the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Region, Lieutenant General E.K. Miller.
The period of greatest development of the Civil War
In the spring of 1919, attempts at combined attacks by the white fronts began. From now on fighting were in the nature of full-scale operations on a wide front, using all types of troops (infantry, cavalry, artillery), with the active assistance of aviation, tanks and armored trains. In March-May 1919, the offensive of the Eastern Front of Admiral Kolchak began, striking in divergent directions - to Vyatka-Kotlas, to connect with Northern Front and to the Volga - to join the armies of General Denikin.
The troops of the Soviet Eastern Front, under the leadership of S.S. Kamenev and, mainly, the 5th Soviet Army, under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky, by the beginning of June 1919, stopped the advance of the white armies, launching counterattacks on Southern Urals(near Buguruslan and Belebey), and in the Kama region.
In the summer of 1919, the offensive of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (AFSR) began on Kharkov, Yekaterinoslav and Tsaritsyn. After the latter was occupied by the army of General Wrangel, on July 3, Denikin signed a directive on the “march against Moscow.” During July-October, the AFSR troops occupied most Ukraine and the provinces of the Black Earth Center of Russia, stopping on the line Kyiv - Bryansk - Orel - Voronezh - Tsaritsyn. Almost simultaneously with the offensive of the AFSR on Moscow, the attack of the North-Western Army of General Yudenich on Petrograd began.
For Soviet Russia, the time of autumn 1919 became the most critical. Total mobilizations of communists and Komsomol members were carried out, the slogans “Everything for the defense of Petrograd” and “Everything for the defense of Moscow” were put forward. Thanks to control over the main railway lines converging towards the center of Russia, the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (RVSR) could transfer troops from one front to another. So, at the height of the fighting in the Moscow direction, several divisions were transferred from Siberia, as well as from the Western Front to the Southern Front and near Petrograd. At the same time, the white armies failed to establish a common anti-Bolshevik front (with the exception of contacts at the level of individual detachments between the Northern and Eastern Fronts in May 1919, as well as between the AFSR front and the Ural Cossack Army in August 1919). Thanks to the concentration of forces from different fronts by mid-October 1919 near Orel and Voronezh, the commander of the Southern Front, former Lieutenant General V.N. Egorov managed to create a strike group, the basis of which was parts of the Latvian and Estonian rifle divisions, as well as the 1st Cavalry Army under the command of S.M. Budyonny and K.E. Voroshilov. Counterattacks were launched on the flanks of the 1st Corps of the Volunteer Army, which was advancing on Moscow, under the command of Lieutenant General A.P. Kutepova. After stubborn fighting during October-November 1919, the front of the AFSR was broken, and a general retreat of the Whites from Moscow began. In mid-November, before reaching 25 km from Petrograd, units of the North-Western Army were stopped and defeated.
The military operations of 1919 were distinguished by the widespread use of maneuver. Large cavalry formations were used to break through the front and conduct raids behind enemy lines. In the white armies, Cossack cavalry was used in this capacity. The 4th Don Corps, specially formed for this purpose, under the command of Lieutenant General K.K. Mamantova in August-September made a deep raid from Tambov to the borders with the Ryazan province and Voronezh. Siberian Cossack Corps under the command of Major General P.P. Ivanova-Rinova broke through the Red Front near Petropavlovsk in early September. The "Chervonnaya Division" from the Southern Front of the Red Army raided the rear Volunteer Corps in October-November. By the end of 1919, the 1st Cavalry Army began its operations, advancing in the Rostov and Novocherkassk directions.
In January-March 1920, fierce battles unfolded in the Kuban. During operations on the river. Manych and under Art. Egorlykskaya took place the last major equestrian battles in world history. Up to 50 thousand horsemen from both sides took part in them. Their result was the defeat of the AFSR and evacuation to the Crimea on ships of the Black Sea Fleet. In Crimea, in April 1920, the white troops were renamed the “Russian Army”, the command of which was taken by Lieutenant General P.N. Wrangel.
The defeat of the white armies. End of the Civil War
At the turn of 1919-1920. was finally defeated by A.V. Kolchak. His army was scattering, and partisan detachments were operating in the rear. The Supreme Ruler was captured and in February 1920 in Irkutsk he was shot by the Bolsheviks.
In January 1920 N.N. Yudenich, who had undertaken two unsuccessful campaigns against Petrograd, announced the dissolution of his North-Western Army.
After the defeat of Poland, the army of P.N., locked in Crimea. Wrangel was doomed. Having carried out a short offensive north of Crimea, it went on the defensive. The forces of the Southern Front of the Red Army (commander M.V. Frunze) defeated the Whites in October - November 1920. The 1st and 2nd Cavalry armies made a significant contribution to the victory over them. Almost 150 thousand people, military and civilians, left Crimea.
Fighting in 1920-1922. were distinguished by small territories (Tavria, Transbaikalia, Primorye), smaller troops and already included elements of trench warfare. During the defense, fortifications were used (white lines on Perekop and Chongar in Crimea in 1920, Kakhovsky fortified area of the 13th Soviet Army on the Dnieper in 1920, built by the Japanese and transferred to the white Volochaevsky and Spassky fortified areas in Primorye in 1921-1922. ). To break through, long-term artillery preparation was used, as well as flamethrowers and tanks.
Victory over P.N. Wrangel did not yet mean the end of the Civil War. Now the main opponents of the Reds were not the Whites, but the Greens, as the representatives of the peasant insurgent movement called themselves. Most powerful peasant movement unfolded in the Tambov and Voronezh provinces. It began in August 1920 after the peasants were given an impossible task of food appropriation. The rebel army, commanded by the Socialist Revolutionary A.S. Antonov, managed to overthrow the Bolshevik power in several counties. At the end of 1920, units of the regular Red Army led by M.N. were sent to fight the rebels. Tukhachevsky. However, to fight the partisan peasant army It turned out to be even more difficult than with the White Guards in open battle. Only in June 1921 was the Tambov uprising suppressed, and A.S. Antonov was killed in a shootout. During the same period, the Reds managed to win final victory over Makhno.
The high point of the Civil War in 1921 was the uprising of Kronstadt sailors, who joined the protests of St. Petersburg workers demanding political freedoms. The uprising was brutally suppressed in March 1921.
During 1920-1921 units of the Red Army made several campaigns in Transcaucasia. As a result, independent states were liquidated on the territory of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia and Soviet power was established.
To fight the White Guards and interventionists in the Far East, the Bolsheviks created a new state in April 1920 - the Far Eastern Republic (FER). For two years, the army of the republic drove Japanese troops out of Primorye and defeated several White Guard chieftains. After this, at the end of 1922, the Far Eastern Republic became part of the RSFSR.
In the same period, having overcome the resistance of the Basmachi, who fought to preserve medieval traditions, the Bolsheviks won victory in Central Asia. Although a few rebel groups were active until the 1930s.
Results of the Civil War
The main result of the Civil War in Russia was the establishment of Bolshevik power. Among the reasons for the Reds' victory are:
1. The Bolsheviks’ use of the political sentiments of the masses, powerful propaganda ( clear goals, prompt resolution of issues in the world and on earth, exit from the world war, justification of terror by the fight against the enemies of the country);
2. Control by the Council of People's Commissars of the central provinces of Russia, where the main military enterprises were located;
3. Disunity anti-Bolshevik forces(lack of common ideological positions; struggle “against something”, but not “for something”; territorial fragmentation).
The total population losses during the Civil War amounted to 12-13 million people. Almost half of them are victims of famine and mass epidemics. Emigration from Russia became widespread. About 2 million people left their homeland.
The country's economy was in a catastrophic state. The cities were depopulated. Industrial production fell by 5-7 times compared to 1913, agricultural production by one third.
The territory of the former Russian Empire disintegrated. The largest new state was the RSFSR.
Military equipment during the Civil War
New types of military equipment were successfully used on the battlefields of the Civil War, some of which appeared in Russia for the first time. For example, in units of the AFSR, as well as the Northern and Northwestern armies, English and French tanks were actively used. The Red Guards, who did not have the skills to fight them, often retreated from their positions. However, during the assault on the Kakhovsky fortified area in October 1920, most of the white tanks were hit by artillery, and after the necessary repairs they were included in the Red Army, where they were used until the early 1930s. The presence of armored vehicles was considered a prerequisite for infantry support, both in street battles and during front-line operations.
The need for strong fire support during mounted attacks gave rise to such original product battle, like horse-drawn carts - light two-wheeled carts, with a machine gun mounted on them. Carts were first used in the rebel army of N.I. Makhno, but later began to be used in all large cavalry formations of the White and Red armies.
Air squads interacted with the ground forces. An example of a joint operation is the defeat of the cavalry corps of D.P. Rednecks by aviation and infantry of the Russian Army in June 1920. Aviation was also used for bombing fortified positions and reconnaissance. During the period of “echelon warfare” and later, armored trains, the number of which reached several dozen per army, operated together with infantry and cavalry on both sides. Special detachments were created from them.
Recruiting armies during the Civil War
In the conditions of the Civil War and the destruction of the state mobilization apparatus, the principles of recruiting armies changed. Only Siberian Army The Eastern Front was recruited in 1918 by mobilization. Most units of the AFSR, as well as the Northern and Northwestern armies, were replenished from volunteers and prisoners of war. Volunteers were the most reliable in combat.
The Red Army was also characterized by the predominance of volunteers (initially, only volunteers were accepted into the Red Army, and admission required “proletarian origin” and a “recommendation” from the local party cell). The predominance of mobilized and prisoners of war became widespread at the final stage of the Civil War (in the ranks of the Russian Army of General Wrangel, as part of the 1st Cavalry in the Red Army).
The White and Red armies were distinguished by their small numbers and, as a rule, the discrepancy between the actual composition of military units and their staff (for example, divisions of 1000-1500 bayonets, regiments of 300 bayonets, a shortage of up to 35-40% was even approved).
In the command of the White armies, the role of young officers increased, and in the Red Army - party nominees. The institution of political commissars, which was completely new for the armed forces (first appeared under the Provisional Government in 1917), was established. The average age of the command level in the positions of division chiefs and corps commanders was 25-35 years.
The absence of an order system in the AFSR and the awarding of successive ranks led to the fact that in 1.5-2 years officers progressed from lieutenants to generals.
In the Red Army, with a relatively young command staff, played a significant role former officers General Staff who planned strategic operations (former lieutenant generals M.D. Bonch-Bruevich, V.N. Egorov, former colonels I.I. Vatsetis, S.S. Kamenev, F.M. Afanasyev, A.N. Stankevich, etc. .).
Military-political factor in the Civil War
The specificity of the civil war, as a military-political confrontation between whites and reds, was also that military operations were often planned under the influence of certain political factors. In particular, the offensive of the Eastern Front of Admiral Kolchak in the spring of 1919 was undertaken in anticipation of quick diplomatic recognition of him as the Supreme Ruler of Russia by the Entente countries. And the offensive of General Yudenich’s North-Western Army on Petrograd was caused not only by the hope of quickly occupying the “cradle of the revolution”, but also by fears of concluding a peace treaty between Soviet Russia and Estonia. In this case, Yudenich’s army lost its base. The offensive of the Russian army of General Wrangel in Tavria in the summer of 1920 was supposed to draw back part of the forces from the Soviet-Polish front.
Many operations of the Red Army, regardless of strategic reasons and military potential, were also of a purely political nature (for the sake of the so-called “triumph of the world revolution”). So, for example, in the summer of 1919, the 12th and 14th armies of the Southern Front were supposed to be sent to support the revolutionary uprising in Hungary, and the 7th and 15th armies were supposed to establish Soviet power in the Baltic republics. In 1920, during the war with Poland, troops of the Western Front, under the command of M.N. Tukhachevsky, after the operations to defeat Polish armies on the territory of Western Ukraine and Belarus, transferred their operations to the territory of Poland, counting on the creation of a pro-Soviet government here. The actions of the 11th and 12th Soviet armies in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia in 1921 were of a similar nature. At the same time, under the pretext of the defeat of units of the Asian Cavalry Division of Lieutenant General R.F. Ungern-Sternberg, troops of the Far Eastern Republic and the 5th Soviet Army were introduced into the territory of Mongolia and a socialist regime was established (the first in the world after Soviet Russia).
During the Civil War, it became a practice to carry out operations dedicated to anniversaries (the beginning of the assault on Perekop by troops of the Southern Front under the command of M.V. Frunze on November 7, 1920, on the anniversary of the 1917 revolution).
The military art of the Civil War became a striking example of the combination of traditional and innovative forms of strategy and tactics in harsh conditions Russian "Troubles" of 1917-1922. It determined the development of Soviet military art (in particular, the use of large cavalry formations) in the following decades, until the beginning of World War II.
The military department is changing its appearance again, this time externally. The Minister of Defense is introducing a new uniform for employees of command centers and department management - an office suit. It will be the same for military and civilian employees and will replace the so-called casual uniform - a woolen jacket with trousers and a shirt with a tie.
As State Secretary of the Ministry of Defense Nikolai Pankov explained to Izvestia, the new uniform was designed to make it more convenient for officers and civilian specialists to work indoors.
— This is a lightweight version of the uniform, especially for so-called office work. It’s much more comfortable to be indoors all day long than in a standard woolen jacket,” Pankov described the idea of changing clothes to Izvestia.
At the same time, he emphasized that the traditional officer’s jacket is not disappearing anywhere, but the military will have to wear it less often.
The minister himself and his deputies were the first to change into new suits at the end of August. The civilian deputies - Tatyana Shevtsova and Anatoly Antonov - did not hide their embarrassment when they found themselves in formation at the “tank biathlon” in Alabino in a new black uniform with white “general” shoulder straps - Shevtsova had four stars, like an army general, and Antonov had three , like a colonel general.
Pankov explained to Izvestia that stars were hung on Shoigu’s civilian deputies because of their class rank - Shevtsova is a first-class state adviser, and Antonov is a second-class. All civil servants of the Ministry of Defense with a high rank will have such stars.
The Department of Press Service and Information (UPSI) of the Ministry of Defense told the publication that the new suit was created “within the framework of the funds provided for clothing allowance military personnel,” but they could not name the amount spent on development.
“The suit is made in three colors: green, blue and black. The choice of colors depends on belonging to the corresponding branch or branch of the military and is not intended for wearing in the field,” says the UPSI commentary sent to the editors of Izvestia.
The new suits were sewn in record time at the “specialist for generals” - the 43rd Central Experimental Sewing Plant. Only two months passed from the approval of the sketches to the issuance of the first kits. How for such short term managed to cope with the task of creating a new form, the general director of the plant, Vladimir Kadenko, categorically refused to tell.
At the same time, the owners of the sets, with whom Izvestia managed to contact, complained about the extremely low quality of tailoring.
— Firstly, some strange fabric, like on overalls. This is not suit fabric, like on jackets, and not cotton fabric, like on a field uniform, but it’s not clear what. It is thin and obviously impractical. Secondly, it is clear that everything was done in a hurry. Thirdly, this form is strikingly similar to the form of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, where the minister came to us from. In general, there are only questions for now, let’s see how it behaves in practice,” a high-ranking officer told the publication on condition of anonymity.
Commander of the Airborne Forces, Colonel General Vladimir Shamanov, noted that it is too early to judge the consumer properties of the new suit - too little time has passed.
— We have only four such sets in the Airborne Forces, I have one of them. So far so good, no complaints about the quality. The only criticism is that the fabric is too thick, and wearing the jacket in the room is a bit stuffy. But in general, everything is very functional, this is a big step forward,” said Shamanov.
— On the contrary, it would be good if all law enforcement agencies had uniform uniforms. But it was necessary to criticize when Serdyukov hung up his shoulder straps, and not now, says the Airborne Forces commander.
The Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Defense, Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, spoke out sharply against the innovation.
- Forgot about traditions. There is a winner's uniform, and there is a uniform that should ensure combat readiness so that a soldier or sailor can feel comfortable in it. And no one needs this show off,” the admiral emphasized.
Pavel Grachev was the first of the modern Russian defense ministers to change his military uniform. In 1992, he exchanged Soviet officer tunics for so-called NATO ones with patch pockets, smaller shoulder straps and a double-headed eagle on the crown of the cap. There are 1.5 times fewer items in the uniform.
Marshal Igor Sergeev removed the eagles from his cap, abolished the marshal stars, but introduced sleeve insignia and an astrakhan fur hat for generals.
Major changes in military uniform Anatoly Serdyukov contributed clothes - both for the front and for everyday wear, but most of all he was remembered for the so-called Yudashkin uniform in the color “number” with an shoulder strap on the chest.
In less than a year of managing the department, the current Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu managed to introduce a new field uniform with shoulder straps, return the “Marshal” star to the shoulder straps (instead of the four army general stars) and abandon foot wraps and an army belt with a copper badge.