The Russian Turmoil; Memoirs: Military, Social, and Political. Anton Ivanovich Denikin
asked Dragomirov:
“How long do you think the war will last?”
“Four months.”
Companies went to the front sometimes with five to six officers. Regular officers, and later the majority of other officers, invariably and in all circumstances gave the example of prowess, pluck and self-sacrifice. It is only natural that most of them were killed. Another reliable element—the N.C.O.’s of the Reserve—was also recklessly squandered. In the beginning of the war they formed sometimes 50 per cent. of the rank and file. Relations between officers and men in the old army were not always based upon healthy principles. It cannot be denied that there was a certain aloofness caused by the insufficient attention paid by the officers to the spiritual requirements of the soldier’s life. These relations, however, gradually improved as the barriers of caste and class were broken down. The war drew officers and men ever closer together, and in some regiments, mostly of the line, there was a true brotherhood in arms. One reservation must here be made. The outward intercourse bore the stamp of the general lack of culture from which not only the masses but also the Russian intellectuals suffered. Heartfelt solicitude, touching care of the men’s needs, simplicity and friendliness—all these qualities of the Russian officer, who lay for months on end in the wet, dirty trenches beside their men, ate out of the same pot, died quietly and without a murmur, was buried in the same “fraternal grave”—were marred by an occasional roughness, swearing, and sometimes by arbitrariness and blows.
There can be no doubt that the same conditions existed within the ranks, and the only difference was that the sergeant and the corporal were rougher and more cruel than the officers. These deplorable circumstances coupled with the boredom and stupidity of barrack life, and the petty restrictions imposed upon the men by the military regulations, gave ample scope for underground seditious propaganda in which the soldier was described as the “victim of the arbitrariness of the men with golden epaulettes.” The sound feeling and naturally healthy outlook of the men was not mentioned while the discomforts of military life were insisted on in order to foster a spirit of discontent.
This state of affairs was all the more serious because during the war the process of consolidating the different units became more and more difficult. These units, and especially the infantry regiments, suffering terrible losses and changing their personnel ten or twelve times, became to some extent recruiting stations through which men flowed in an uninterrupted stream. They remained there but a short time, and failed to become imbued with the military traditions of their unit. The artillery and some other special branches remained comparatively solid, and this was due in some measure to the fact that their losses were, as compared with the losses suffered by the infantry, only in the proportion of one to ten or one to twenty.
On the whole the atmosphere in the Army and in the Navy was not, therefore, particularly wholesome. In varying degrees, the two elements of the Army—the rank and file and the commanding cadres—were divided. For this the Russian officers, as well as the intellectuals, were undoubtedly responsible. Their misdeeds resulted in the idea gaining ground that the barin (master) and the officer were opposed to the moujik and the soldier. A favourable atmosphere was thus created for the work of destructive forces.
Anarchist elements were by no means predominant in the Army. The foundations, though somewhat unstable, had to be completely shattered; the new power had to commit a long series of mistakes and crimes to convert the state of smouldering discontent into active rebellion, the bloody spectre of which will for some time to come hang over our hapless Russian land.
Destructive outside influences were not counteracted in the Army by a reasonable process of education. This was due partly to the political unpreparedness of the officers, partly to the instinctive fear felt by the old régime of introducing “politics” into barracks, even with a view to criticising subversive doctrines. This fear was felt not only in respect of social and internal problems but even in respect of foreign policy. Thus, for example, an Imperial order was issued shortly before the war, strictly prohibiting any discussion amongst the soldiers on the subject of the political issues of the moment (the Balkan question, the Austro-Serbian conflict, etc.). On the eve of the inevitable national war, the authorities persistently refrained from awakening wholesome patriotism by explaining the causes and aims of the war, and instructing the rank and file on the Slav question and our long-drawn struggle against Germanism. I must confess that, like many others, I did not carry out that order, and that I endeavoured properly to influence the moral of the Archangel regiment which I then commanded. I published an impassioned article against the order in the Military Press, under the title Do not quench the spirit. I feel certain that the statue of Strassbourg in the Place de la Concorde in Paris, draped in a black veil, played an important part in fostering the heroic spirit of the French Army.
Propaganda penetrated into the old Russian Armies from all sides. There can be no doubt that the fitful attempts of the ever-changing governments of Goremykin, Sturmer, Trepov, etc., to arrest the normal course of life in Russia, provided ample material for propaganda and roused the anger of the people, which was reflected in the Army. Socialist and defeatist writers took advantage of this state of affairs. Lenin first contrived to introduce his doctrines into Russia through the Social Democratic party of the Duma. The Germans worked with even greater intensity.
It should, however, be noted that all this propaganda from outside and from within affected chiefly the units of the rear, the garrisons and reserve battalions of the main centres, and especially of Petrograd, and that, before the Revolution, its influence at the front was comparatively insignificant. Reinforcements reached the front in a state of perplexity, but under the influence of a saner atmosphere, and of healthier, albeit more arduous, conditions of warfare, they rapidly improved. The effect of destructive propaganda was, however, noticeable in certain units where the ground was favourable, and two or three cases of insubordination of entire units occurred before the Revolution, and were severely repressed. Finally, the bulk of the Army—the peasantry—was confronted with one practical question which prompted them instinctively to delay the social revolution: “THE LAND WOULD BE DIVIDED IN OUR ABSENCE. WHEN WE RETURN WE SHALL DIVIDE IT.”
The inadequate organisation of the rear, the orgy of theft, high prices, profiteering and luxury, for which the front paid in blood, naturally afforded material for propaganda. The Army, however, suffered most heavily from the lack of technical means, especially of ammunition.
It was only in 1917 that General Sukhomlinov’s trial disclosed to the Russian Army and to public opinion the main causes of the military catastrophe of 1915. Plans for replenishing the Russian Army stores had been completed, and credits for that purpose assigned as early as in 1907. Curiously enough, these credits were increased on the initiative of the Commission for National Defence, not of the Ministry of War. As a rule, neither the Duma nor the Ministry of Finance ever refused war credits or reduced them. During Sukhomlinov’s tenure of office the War Ministry obtained a special credit of 450 million roubles, of which less than 300 millions were spent. Before the war, the question of providing the Army with munitions after the peace-time stores were exhausted was never even raised. It is true that the intensity of firing reached, from the very outbreak of war, unexpected and unheard-of proportions, which upset all the theoretical calculations of military specialists in Russia and abroad. Naturally, heroic measures were necessary in order to deal with this tragic situation.
Meanwhile, the supplies of ammunition for the reinforcements that came to the front—at first only 1/10th equipped, and later without any rifles at all—were exhausted as early as in October, 1914. The Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western front telegraphed to G.H.Q.: “The machinery for providing ammunition has completely broken down. In the absence of fresh supplies, we shall have to cease fighting, or else send troops to the front in an extremely precarious condition.” At the same time (the end of September) Marshal Joffre inquired “whether the Imperial Russian Army was adequately supplied with shells for the uninterrupted conduct of war.” The War Minister, General Sukhomlinov, replied: “The present condition of the Russian Army in respect of ammunition gives no ground for serious apprehension.” Orders were not placed abroad, and Japanese and American rifles were refused “in order to avoid the inconvenience due to different calibres.”
When