In
1914 the Russian government considered Germany
to be the main threat to its territory. This was reinforced by Germany's
decision to form the Triple Alliance.
Under the terms of this military alliance, Germany,
Austria-Hungary and Italy
agreed to support each other if attacked by either France
or Russia. In 1907 Russia joined Britain
and France to form the Triple
Entente.
Industrial unrest in Russia continued throughout this period and in
1912 hundreds of striking miners were massacred at the Lena goldfields.
During the first six months of 1914, almost half of the total industrial
workforce in Russia took part in strikes.
In 1914 the Russian Army was the largest
army in the world. However, Russia's poor roads and railways made
the effective deployment of these soldiers difficult.
The Russian Army Air Service (RAAS) was
established in 1912 and two years later owned 360 aircraft
and 16 airships. This made the RAAS the
largest airforce in the world.
In 1914 the Russian Navy had 4 battleships,
10 cruisers, 21 destroyers,
11 submarines and 50 torpedo
boats.
On
the outbreak of the First World War General
Alexander Samsonov was given command
of the Russian Second Army for the invasion of East Prussia. He advanced
slowly into the south western corner of the province with the intention
of linking up with General Paul von Rennenkampf
advancing from the north east.
The commander
of the German Eighth Army, General Maximilian Prittwitz, was dismissed
for ordering the retreat when faced with the Russian Second Army.
General Paul von Hindenburg and General
Erich Ludendorff were sent forward
to meet Samsonov's advancing troops. They made contact on 22nd August,
1914, and for six days the Russians, with their superior numbers,
had a few successes. However, by 29th August, Samsanov's Second Army
was surrounded.
General
Alexander
Samsonov
attempted to retreat but now in a German cordon, most of his troops
were slaughtered or captured. The Battle
of Tannenberg lasted three days. Only 10,000 of the 150,000 Russian
soldiers managed to escape. Shocked by the disastrous outcome of the
battle, Samsanov committed suicide. The Germans, who lost 20,000 men
in the battle, were able to take over 92,000 Russian prisoners.
On 9th
September, 1914, General General
Paul von Rennenkampf
ordered his remaining troops to withdraw. By the end of the month
the German Army had regained all the
territory lost during the initial Russian onslaught. The attempted
invasion of Prussia had cost Russia almost a quarter of a million
men.
By
December, 1914, the Russian Army had
6,553,000 men. However, they only had 4,652,000 rifles. Untrained
troops were ordered into battle without adequate arms or ammunition.
In 1915 Russia suffered over 2 million casualties and lost Kurland,
Lithuania and much of Belorussia. Agricultural production slumped
and civilians had to endure serious food shortages.
Vladimir
Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks,
was appalled by the decision of most socialists in Europe to support
the war effort. Living in exile in Switzerland, Lenin devoted his
energies to campaign to turn the "imperialist war into a civil
war". This included the publication of his book, Imperialism:
The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Along with his close collaborators,
Gregory Zinoviev and Lev
Kamenev, Lenin arranged for the distribution of propaganda that
urged Allied troops to turn their rifles against their officers and
start a socialist revolution.
In
September 1915, Nicholas II replaced Grand
Duke Nikolai as supreme commander of the Russian
Army fighting on the Eastern Front.
This failed to change the fortunes of the armed forces and by the
end of the year there were conscription riots in several cities.
General
Alexei Brusilov, commander of the Russian
Army in the South West, led an offensive against the Austro-Hungarian
Army in June, 1916. Initially Brusilov achieved considerable success
and in the first two weeks his forces advanced 80km and captured 200,000
prisoners.
The
German Army sent reinforcements to help their allies and gradually
the Russians were pushed back. When the offensive was called to a
halt in the autumn of 1916, the Russian Army
had lost almost a million men.
Nicholas
II, as supreme commander of the Russian
Army, was now closely linked to the country's military failures
and during 1917 there was a strong decline in his support in Russia.
On 13th March, 1917, the Russian Army High Command recommended that
Nicholas abdicated. Two days later the Tsar renounced the throne.
A
Provisional Government, headed by
Prince Georgi Lvov, was formed on 15th March,
1917. Lvov attempted to maintain the Russian war effort but he was
severely undermined by the formation of soldiers' committee that demanded
"peace without annexations or indemnities".
In May,
1917, Alexander
Kerensky
was appointed as Minister of War. He toured the Eastern
Front where he made a series of emotional speeches where he appealed
to the troops to continue fighting. On 18th June, Kerensky announced
a new war offensive. Encouraged by the Bolsheviks,
who favoured peace negotiations, there were demonstrations against
Kerensky in Petrograd.
The July
Offensive, led by General Alexei
Brusilov,
was an attack on the whole Galician sector. Initially the Russian
Army made advances and on the first day of the offensive took 10,000
prisoners. However, low morale, poor supply lines and the rapid arrival
of German reserves from the Western Front
slowed the advance and on 16th July the offensive was brought to an
end.
Soldiers
on the Eastern Front were dismayed at
the news and regiments began to refuse to move to the front line.
There was a rapid increase in the number of men deserting and by the
autumn of 1917 an estimated 2 million men had unofficially left the
army.
Some
of these soldiers returned to their homes and used their weapons to
seize land from the nobility. Manor
houses were burnt down and in some cases wealthy landowners were murdered.
Kerensky and the Provisional Government issued warnings but were powerless
to stop the redistribution of land in the countryside.
After the
failure of the July Offensive on the Eastern
Front,
Kerensky replaced General Alexei
Brusilov
with General Lavr Kornilov, as Supreme
Commander of the Russian
Army.
The two men soon clashed about military policy. Kornilov wanted Kerensky
to restore the death-penalty for soldiers and to militarize the factories.
Kerensky refused and sacked Kornilov.
Kornilov
responded by sending troops under the leadership of General Krymov
to take control of Petrograd. Kerensky was now in danger and so he
called on the Soviets and the Red
Guards to protect Petrograd. The Bolsheviks,
who controlled these organizations, agreed to this request, but in
a speech made by their leader, Vladimir Lenin,
he made clear they would be fighting against Kornilov rather than
for Kerensky.
Within
a few days Bolsheviks had enlisted
25,000 armed recruits to defend Petrograd. While they dug trenches
and fortified the city, delegations of soldiers were sent out to talk
to the advancing troops. Meetings were held and Kornilov's troops
decided to refuse to attack Petrograd. General Krymov committed suicide
and Kornilov was arrested and taken into custody.
Kerensky
now became the new Supreme Commander of the Russian
Army.
His continued support for the war effort made him unpopular in Russia
and on 25th September, Kerensky attempted to recover his left-wing
support by forming a new coalition that included more Mensheviks
and Socialist
Revolutionaries.
However, with the Bolsheviks controlling
the Soviets, and now able to call on 25,000
armed militia, Kerensky was unable to reassert his authority.
On 25th
October, Kerensky was informed that the Bolsheviks
were about to seize power. He decided to leave Petrograd and try to
get the support of the Russian
Army
on the Eastern Front. Later that day
the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace and members of the Kerensky's
cabinet were arrested. After failing to rally the troops against the
new government, Kerensky fled to France
Vladimir
Lenin, the new leader of the Russian government, immediately announced
an armistice with the Central Powers.
The following month, he sent Leon Trotsky, the people's commissar
for foreign affairs, as head of the Russian delegation, to Brest-Litovsk
to negotiate a peace deal with Germany
and Austria.
Trotsky
had the difficult task of trying to end Russian participation in the
First World War without having to grant territory
to the Central Powers. By employing delaying
tactics Trotsky hoped that socialist revolutions would spread from
Russia to Germany
and Austria-Hungary before he had to
sign the treaty.
After nine weeks of discussions without agreement, the German
Army was ordered to resume its advance into Russia. On 3rd March
1918, with German troops moving towards Petrograd, Vladimir
Lenin ordered Trotsky to accept the terms of the Central
Powers. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty resulted
in the Russians surrendering the Ukraine, Finland,
the Baltic provinces, the Caucasus and Poland.
Almost
15 million served in the Russian
Army
during the First World War. Casualties totalled an estimated 1.8 million
killed, 2.8 million wounded and 2.4 million taken prisoner.
Walter
Trier, drawing illustrating the
military alliances in Europe (1914)
(1)
Stephen Graham, Russia and the World
(1915)
I was staying in an Altai Cossack village on the frontier
of Mongolia when the war broke out, a most verdant resting-place with
a majestic fir forests, snow-crowned mountains range behind range,
green and purple valleys deep in larkspur and monkshood. All the young
men and women of the village were out of the grassy hills with scythes;
the children gathered currants in the wood each day, and folks sat
at home and sewed furs together, the pitch-boilers, and charcoal-burners
worked at their black fires with barrels and scoops.
At 4
a.m. on 31st July the first telegram came through; an order to mobilize
and be prepared for active service. I was awakened that morning
by an unusual commotion, and, going into the village street, saw
the soldier population collected in groups, talking excitedly. My
peasant hostess cried out to me, "have you heard the news?
There is war." A young man on a fine horse came galloping down
the street, a great red flag hanging from his shoulders and flapping
in the wind, and as he went he called out the news to each and every
one, "War! War!"
Who was
the enemy? Nobody knew. The telegram contained no indications. All
the village population knew was that the same telegram had come
as came ten years ago, when they were called to fight the Japanese.
Rumours abounded. All the morning it was persisted that the yellow
peril had matured, and that the war was with China. Russia had pushed
too far into Mongolia, and China had declared war.
Then
a rumour went round. "It is with England, with England."
So far away these people lived they did not know that our old hostility
had vanished. Only after four days did something like the truth
come to us, and then nobody believed it.
"An
immense war," said a peasant to me. "Thirteen powers engaged
- England, France, Russia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro,
Albania, against Germany, Austria, Italy, Romania, Turkey.
Two days
after the first telegram a second came, and this one called up every
man between the ages of eighteen and forty-three.
(2)
Felix Yusupov was at first optimistic
about Russia's chances of victory in the First
World War.
The military
campaigns had opened brilliantly by a deep break-through into East
Prussia; the offensive was launched prematurely at the demand of
the Allies to relieve the congested Western front. At the end of
August, through lack of ordnance, General Samsonoff's army corps
was surrounded near Tannenberg. The General, not wishing to survive
the loss of his army, shot himself.
The offensive
was successfully renewed on the Austrian front, but in February
1915 a further offensive in East Prussia ended in the disaster of
Augustovo. On May 2nd, the Austro-German army broke through the
South-Western Russian front. Our troops were underfed, ill-equipped,
and had no ammunition, yet under these appalling conditions they
fought against the best-equipped army in the world. Whole regiments
were taken prisoner without having a chance to resist, owing to
the lack of equipment which failed to arrive in time.
(3) Arthur
Ransome made several visits to the Eastern Front in 1916 and
1917.
I saw a great deal of that long-drawn out front
and of the men who, ill-armed, ill-supplied, were holding it against
an enemy who, even in his anxiety to fight was no greater than the
Russian's, was infinitely better equipped. I came back to Petrograd
full of admiration for the Russian soldiers who were holding the
front without enough weapons to go round.
(4) Nicholas II,
letter to Alexandra
(7th July, 1915)
Again that cursed question of shortage of artillery
and rifle ammunition - it stands in the way of an energetic advance.
If we should have three days of serious fighting we might run out
of ammunition altogether. Without new rifles, it is impossible to
fill up the gaps. The army is now almost stronger than in peace
time; it should be (and was at the beginning) three times as strong.
This is the position we find ourselves in at present. If we had
a rest from fighting for about a month, our condition would greatly
improve. It is understood, of course, that what I say is strictly
for you only. Please do not say a word of this to any one.
(5) In 1915 Hamilton
Fyfe began reporting the war on the Eastern Front.
Brussilov was the ablest of the army-group commanders.
His front was in good order. For that reason we were sent to it.
The impression I got in April was the Russian troops, all the men
and most of the officers, were magnificent material who were being
wasted because of the incompetence, intrigues, and corruption of
the men who governed the country.
In June
Brussilov's advance showed what they could do, when they were furnished
with sufficient weapons and ammunition. But that effort was wasted,
too, for want of other blows to supplement it, for want of any definite
plan of campaign.
The Russian
officers, brutal as they often were to their men (many of them scarcely
considered privates to be human), were as a rule friendly and helpful
to us. They showed us all we wanted to see. They always cheerfully
provided for Arthur Ransome (a fellow journalist), who could not
ride owing to some disablement, a cart to get about in.
(6)
Report from the Russian village of Grushevka (8th August,
1916)
The
figures are: 115 (10 killed, 34 wounded, 71 missing or in captivity)
out of 829 souls mobilized. Consequently, for the village of Grushevka
the losses amount to 13 per cent of the total population of 3,307
souls.
Harvesting
and thrashing are going on everywhere, and there is hope that the
work will be finished on time in the fall. In addition to women,
children, and the aged, I have working for me 36 people from the
Kherson jail, and 947 Austrian war prisoners.
(7)
In his book My Reminiscences of the Russian Revolution,
Morgan Philips Price described Kornilov
making a speech in Moscow on 25th August, 1917.
A wiry
little little man with strong Tartar features. He wore a general's
full-dress uniform with a sword and red-striped trousers. His speech
was begun in a blunt soldierly manner by a declaration that he had
nothing to do with politics. He had come there, he said, to tell
the truth about the condition of the Russian army. Discipline had
simply ceased to exist. The army was becoming nothing more than
a rabble. Soldiers stole the property, not only of the State, but
also of private citizens, and scoured the country plundering and
terrorizing. The Russian army was becoming a greater danger to the
peaceful population of the western provinces than any invading German
army could be.
(8)
General Peter Wrangel, Memoirs
(1929)
Towards the winter of 1916 the bloody struggles
which had been waged throughout the summer and autumn drew to a
close. We consolidated our position, filled in the gaps in our effective
forces, and reorganized generally.
The experience
gained from two years of warfare had not been acquired in vain.
We had learnt a great deal, and the shortcomings for which we had
paid so dearly were now discounted. A number of generals who had
not kept pace with modern needs had had to give up their commands,
and life had brought other more capable men to the fore. But nepotism,
which permeated all spheres of Russian life, still brought unworthy
men into important positions too often.
After
two years of warfare, the Army was not what it had been. The majority
of the original officers and men, especially the infantry, had been
killed or put out of action. The new officers, hastily trained,
and lacking military education and espirit de corps, could
not make satisfactory instructors of the men. They found difficulty
in enduring the dangers, fatigue, and privations of life at the
front, and war to them meant nothing but suffering. It was impossible
for them to inspire the troops and put fresh heart into their men.
Neither
were the troops what they had been. The original soldiers, inured
to fatigue and privation, and brave in battle, were better than
ever; but there were few of them left. The new contingents were
by no means satisfactory. The reserve forces were primarily fathers
of families who had been dragged away from their villages, and were
warriors only in spite of themselves. For they had forgotten that
once upon a time they had been soldiers; they hated war, and thought
only of returning to their homes as soon as possible.
(9)
Statement issued by the Petrograd
Soviet (9th April, 1917)
We are
appealing to our brother proletarians of the Austro-German coalition.
The Russian Revolution will not retreat before the bayonets of conquerors
and will not allow itself to be crushed by military force. But we
are calling to you, throw off your yoke of your semi-autocratic
rule as the Russian people have shaken off the Tsar's and then by
our united efforts we will stop the horrible butchery which is disgracing
humanity and is beclouding the great days of the birth of Russian
freedom. Proletarians of all countries unite.
(10)
Paul Milyukov, Foreign Minister
of the Provisional Government,
letter sent to all Allied ambassadors (5th May, 1917)
Free
Russia does not aim at the domination of other nations, or at occupying
by force foreign territories. Its aim is not to subjugate or humiliate
anyone. In referring to the "penalties and guarantees"
essential to a durable peace the Provisional Government had in view
reduction of armaments, the establishment of international tribunals,
etc.
(11)
Soon after the February Revolution the
journalist Harold Williams interviewed
Alexander Kerensky.
Last
week's ridiculous manifesto (Order No 1), issued in the name of
the Council of Workmen's Deputies (the Soviet), calling on the soldiers
not to obey their officers, Kerensky sharply characterized as an
act of provocation. There had been a few instances of grave disturbance
of discipline, but the Minister was confident that this phase would
soon pass, together with the other eccentricities. He declared:
"The general effect of the liberation will, I am convinced,
be to give an immense uplift to the spirit of the troops, and so
to shorten the war. We are for iron discipline in working hours,
but out of working hours we want the soldiers to feel they are also
free men."
(12)
Alfred Knox, diary entry (20th July, 1917)
Events
have moved with dramatic quickness. Kerensky returned from the front
last night and, in a stormy meeting of the Ministry, demanded dictatorial
powers in order to bring the army back to discipline. The socialists
disagreed. Lvov and Tereshchenko did their utmost to reconcile the
diverging views. While addressing the men he was handed a telegram
telling him of the disaster on the South-West Front, where the Germans
have broken through. He took back the telegram to the Ministerial
Council and the attitude changed. Lvov has resigned and Kerensky
will be Prime Minister and Minister of War.
(13)
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet
on the Western Front (1929)
I
am often on guard over the Russians. In the darkness one sees their
forms move like stick storks, like great birds. They come close up
to the wire fence and lean their faces against it. Their fingers hook
round the mesh. Often many stand side by side, and breathe the wind
that comes down from the moors and the forest.
They
rarely speak and then only a few words. They are more human and
more brotherly towards one another, it seems to me, than we are.
But perhaps that is merely because they feel themselves to be more
unfortunate than us. Anyway the war is over so far as they are concerned.
But to wait for dysentery is not much of a life either.
A word
of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of
command might transform them into our friends. At some table a document
is signed by some persons whom none of us knows, and then for years
together that very crime on which formerly the world's condemnation
and severest penalty fall, becomes our highest aim. Any non-commissioned
officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a
pupil, then they are if they were free.
(14)
In the summer of 1917 Ernest Poole visited
the rural areas of Russia. This included an interview with a farmer
who was a member of a village cooperative.
Our cooperative
store has still quite a stock of goods, and the steadier peasants
all belong. We have eighteen hundred members now. Each paid five
roubles to buy a share. There were six thousand purchasers last
year; and because we charge higher prices to outsiders than to members,
so many more peasants wish to join that we are almost ready to announce
a second issue of stock.
Of course,
our progress has been blocked by the war and the revolution. Goods
have gone up to ruinous rates. Already we are nearly out of horseshoes,
axes, harrows, ploughs. Last spring we had not ploughs enough to
do the needed ploughing, and that is why our crop is short. There
is not enough rye in the district to take us through the winter,
let alone to feed the towns. And so the town people will starve
for awhile - and sooner or later, I suppose, they will finish with
their wrangling, start their mills and factories, and turn out the
ploughs and tools we need.
(15)
Albert Rhys Williams, Through
the Russian Revolution (1923)
In thousands
the soldiers were throwing down their guns and streaming from the
front. Like plagues of locusts they came, clogging railways, highways
and waterways. They swarmed down on trains, packing roofs and platforms,
clinging to car-steps like clusters of grapes, sometimes evicting
passengers from their berths.
The ruling-class
used every device to keep those weapons in the soldiers' hands.
It waved the flag and screamed "Victory and Glory." It
organized Women's Battalions of Death crying "Shame on you
men to let girls do your fighting." It placed machine-guns
in the rear of rebelling regiments declaring certain death to those
who retreated.
(16)
Louise Bryant, Six Months
in Russia (1918)
One of the things that strikes coldness to one's heart are the
long lines of scantily clad people standing in the bitter cold waiting
to buy bread, milk, sugar or tobacco. From four o'clock in the morning
they begin to stand there.
(17)
John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the
World (1919)
The policy of the Provisional Government alternated between
ineffective reforms and stern repressive measures. An edict from
the Socialist Minister of Labour ordered all the Workers' Committees
henceforth to meet only after working hours. Among the troops at
the front, 'agitators' of opposition political parties were arrested,
radical newspapers closed down, and capital punishment applied -
to revolutionary propagandists. Attempts were made to disarm the
Red Guard. Cossacks were spent order in the provinces.
In September 1917, matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming
sentiment of the country, Kerensky and the 'moderate' Socialists
succeeded in establishing a Government of Coalition with the propertied
classes; and as a result, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries
lost the confidence of the people for ever.
Week by week food became scarcer. The daily allowance of bread fell
from a pound and a half to a pound, than three-quarters, half, and
a quarter-pound. Towards the end there was a week without any bread
at all. Sugar one was entitled to at the rate of two pounds a month
- if one could get it at all, which was seldom. A bar of chocolate
or a pound of tasteless candy cost anywhere from seven to ten roubles
- at least a dollar. For milk and bread and sugar and tobacco one
had to stand in queue. Coming home from an all-night meeting I have
seen the tail beginning to form before dawn, mostly women, some
babies in their arms.
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