Transport was likewise in a state of dislocation. As early as May, 1917, at the Regular Congress of Railway Representatives at the Stavka, the opinion was expressed, and confirmed by many specialists, that, unless the general conditions of the country changed, our railways would come to a standstill within six months. Practice has disproved theory. For over three years, under the impossible conditions of Civil War and of the Bolshevik Régime, the railways have continued to work. It is true that they did not satisfy the needs of the population even in a small measure, but they served the strategical purposes. That this situation cannot last, and that the entire network of the Russian Railways is approaching its doom, is hardly open to doubt. In the history of the disintegration of the Russian Railway System the same conditions are traceable which I have mentioned in regard to the Army, the villages, and especially the industries: the inheritance of the unwise policy of the past in regard to railways, the excessive demands of the War, the wear and tear of rolling stock, and anarchy on the line, due to the behaviour of a licentious soldiery; the general economic condition of the country, the shortage of rails, of metal and of fuel; the “democratisation” of Railway Administration, in which the power was seized by various Committees; the disorganisation of the administrative and technical personnel, which was subjected to persecution; the low producing power of labour and the steady growth of the economic demands of the railway employees and workmen.
In other branches of the Administration the Government offered a certain resistance to the systematic seizure of power by private organisations, but in the Ministry of Railways that pernicious system was introduced by the Government itself, in the person of the Minister Nekrassov. He was the friend and the inspirer of Kerensky, alternately Minister of Railways and of Finance, Assistant and Vice-President of the Council of Ministers, Governor-General of Finland, Octobrist, Cadet (Constitutional Democrat), and Radical Democrat, holding the scales between the Government and the Soviet. Nekrassov was the darkest and the most fatal figure in the Governing Circles, and left the stamp of destruction upon everything he touched—the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Union of Railways, the autonomy of the Ukraine, or the Kornilov movement.
The Ministry had no economic or technical plan. As a matter of fact, no such plan could ever be carried out, because Nekrassov decided to introduce into the Railway Organisation, hitherto strongly disciplined, “the new principles of Democratic Organisation, instead of the old watchwords of compulsion and fear”(?). Soviets and Committees were implanted upon every branch of the Railway Administration. Enormous sums were spent upon this undertaking, and, by his famous circular of May 27th, the Minister assigned to these organisations a very wide scope of control and management, as well as of the “direction” which they were henceforward entitled to give to the responsible personnel in the Administration. Executive functions were subsequently promised to these organisations.... “Meanwhile the Ministry of Railways and its subordinate branches will work in strict accordance with the ideas and wishes of the United Railway Workers.” Nekrassov thus handed over to a private organisation the most important interests of the State—the direction of the Railway policy, the control of the Defence, of industries, and of all other branches dependent upon the railway system. As one of our contemporary critics has said, this measure would have been entirely justified had the whole population of Russia consisted of railway employees. This reform, carried out by Nekrassov on a scale unprecedented in history, was something worse than a mere blunder. The general trend of Ministerial policy was well understood. In the beginning of August, at the Moscow Congress, which was turned into a weapon for the Socialist parties of the Left, one of the leaders declared that “the Railway Union must be fully autonomous and no authority except that of the workersthemselves should be entitled to interfere with it.” In other words, a State within a State.
Disruption ensued. A new phase of the arbitrariness of ever-changing organisations was introduced into the strict and precise mechanism of the railway services in the centre as well as throughout the country. I understand the democratisation that opens to the popular masses wide access to science, technical knowledge, and art, but I do not understand the democratisation of these achievements of human intellect.
There followed anarchy and the collapse of Labour discipline. As early as in July the position of the railways was rendered hopeless through the action of the Government.
After holding the office of Minister of Railways for four months, Nekrassov went to the Ministry of Finance, of which he was utterly ignorant, and his successor, Yurenev, began to struggle against the usurpation of power by the railwaymen, as he considered “the interference of private persons and organisations with the executive functions of the Department as a crime against the State.” The struggle was conducted by the customary methods of the Provisional Government, and what was lost could no longer be recovered. At the Moscow Congress the President of the Union of the Railwaymen, fully conscious of its power, said that the struggle against democratic organisations was a manifestation of counter-Revolution, that the Union would use every weapon in order to counteract these endeavours, and “would be strong enough to slay this counter-Revolutionary hydra.” As is well known, the All-Russian Executive Committee of the Union of Railways subsequently became a political organisation pure and simple, and betrayed Kornilov to Kerensky and Kerensky to Lenin. With a zeal worthy of the secret police of the old régime, it hunted out Kornilov’s followers, and finally met an inglorious end in the clutches of Bolshevik Centralisation.
We now come to another element in the life of the State—Finance. Every normal financial system is dependent upon a series of conditions: general political conditions, offering a guarantee of the external and internal stability of the State and of the country; strategical conditions, defining the measure of efficiency of the National Defence; economic conditions, such as the productivity of the country’s industries and the relation of production to consumption; the conditions of labour, of transport, etc. The Government, the Front, the villages, the factories, and the transport offered no necessary guarantees, and the Ministry of Finance could but have recourse to palliatives in order to arrest the disruption of the entire system of the currency and the complete collapse of the Budget, pending the restoration of comparative order in the country. According to the accepted view, the main defects of our pre-War Budget were that it was based upon the revenue of the spirit monopoly (800,000,000 roubles), and that there was scarcely any direct taxation. Before the War the Budget of Russia was about 3½ milliards of roubles; the National Debt was about 8½ milliards, and we paid nearly 400,000,000 roubles interest per annum; half of that sum went abroad, and was partially covered by 1½ milliards of our exports. The War and Prohibition completely upset our Budget. Government expenses during the War reached the following figures:
The enormous deficit was partially covered by loans and by paper currency. The expenses of the War were met, however, out of the so-called “War Fund.” At the Stavka, in accordance with the dictates of practical wisdom, expenditure was under the full control of the Chief-of-Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, who determined the heads of expenditure in his Orders, schedules, and estimates.
The Revolution dealt the death-blow to our finance. As Shingarev, the Minister of Finance, said, the Revolution “induced everyone to claim more rights, and stifled any sense of duty. Everybody demanded higher wages, but no one dreamt of paying taxes, and the finances of the country were thus placed in a hopeless position.” There was a real orgy; everyone was desperately trying to grab as much as possible from the Treasury under the guise of democratisation, taking advantage of the impotence of the Government and of powerlessness to resist. Even Nekrassov had the courage to declare at the Moscow Congress that “Never in history had any Czarist Government been as generous and prodigal as the Government of Revolutionary Russia,” and that “the new Revolutionary régime is much more expensive than the old one.” Suffice it to quote a few “astronomic” figures in order to gauge the insuperable obstacles in the way of a reasonable Budget. The decline of production and the excessive rise in wages resulted in the necessity of enormous expenditure for subsidies to expiring concerns and for overpayments for means of production. These over-payments in the Donetz Basin alone amounted to 1,200,000,000 roubles; the increase in the soldiers’ pay, 500,000,000 roubles; railwaymen’s pay, 350,000,000 roubles; Post Office employees, 60,000,000 roubles. After a month the latter demanded another 105,000,000 roubles, while the entire revenue of the Posts and Telegraphs was 60,000,000 roubles. The Soviet demanded 11 milliards (in other words, nearly the total of the Budget for 1915) for allowances to soldiers’ wives, whereas only 2 milliards had been spent till 1917 under this head. The Food Supply Committees cost 500,000,000 roubles per annum, and the Land Committee 140,000,000 roubles, etc., etc. Meanwhile the revenue was falling steadily. Thus, for example, the Land Tax fell 32 per cent. in the first few months of the Revolution; the revenue from town property, 41 per cent.; the House Tax, 43 per cent., etc. At the same time, our internal troubles caused the depreciation of the rouble and a fall in the price of Russian securities abroad. The Provisional Government based its financial policy upon “reorganisation of the Financial System on democratic lines and the direct taxation of the propertied classes” (Death Duties, Excess Profits Taxes, Income Taxes, etc.). The Government, however, would not adopt the measure recommended by the Revolutionary Democracy—a compulsory loan or a high Capital Levy—a measure distinctly tainted with Bolshevism. All these just taxes, introduced or planned, did not suffice even partially to satisfy the growing needs of the State. In the month of August the Finance Ministry was compelled to increase indirect taxation on certain monopolies, such as tea, sugar, and matches. These measures were, of course, extremely burdensome, and therefore highly unpopular.
Expenditure was growing, revenue was not forthcoming. The Liberty Loan was not progressing favourably, and there could be no hope for foreign loans on account of the condition of the Russian Front. Internal loans and Treasury Bonds yielded 9½ milliards in the first half of 1917. Ordinary revenue was expected to yield 5,800,000,000 roubles. There remained one weapon established by the historical tradition of every revolution—the Printing Press.
Paper currency reached colossal proportions:
According to the estimates of July, 1917, the total of paper currency was 13,916,000,000 roubles (the gold reserve was 1,293,000,000 roubles), as against 2 milliards before the War. Four successive Finance Ministers were unable to drag the country out of the financial morass. This might possibly have been achieved by the awakening of the national spirit and an understanding of the interests of the State, or by the growth of a wise and strong power which could have dealt a final blow to the anti-State, selfish motives of the Bourgeois elements that based their well-being upon the War and upon the blood of the people, as well as of the Democracy, which, in the words of Shingarev, “so severely condemned through its representatives in the Duma the very same poison (paper currency) which it was now drinking greedily at the moment when that Democracy had become its own master.”
The first and fundamental question with which I was confronted at the Stavka wasthe objective of our Front. The condition of the enemy did not appear to us as particularly brilliant. But I must confess that the truth as at present revealed exceeds all our surmises, especially according to the picture drawn by Hindenburg and Ludendorff of the condition of Germany and of her Allies in 1917. I will not dwell upon the respective numerical strength, armaments, and strategical positions on the Western Front. I will only recall that in the middle of June Hindenburg gave rather a gloomy description of the condition of the country in his telegram to the Emperor. He said: “We are very much perturbed by the depression of the spirits of the people. That spirit must be raised,or we shall lose the War. Our Allies also require support, lest they desert us.... Economic problems must be solved, which are of paramount importance to our future. The question arises—Is the Chancellor capable of solving them? A solution must be foundor else we perish.”
The Germans were anticipating a big offensive of the British and the French on the Western Front, where they had concentrated their main attention and their main forces, leaving on the Eastern Front after the Russian Revolution only such numbers as were scarcely sufficient for defence. And yet the position on the Eastern Front continued to create a certain nervousness at the German G.H.Q. Will the Russian people remain steadfast, or will the Defeatist tendencies prevail? Hindenburg wrote: “As the condition of the Russian Army prevented us from finding a clear answer to that question, our position in regard to Russia remained insecure.”
In spite of all its defects, the Russian Army in March, 1917, was a formidable force, with which the enemy had seriously to reckon. Owing to the mobilisation of industry, to the activities of the War-Industries Committees, and partly to the fact that theWar Ministry was showing increased energy, our armaments had reached a level hitherto unknown. Also, the Allies were supplying us with artillery and war materials through Murmansk and Archangel on a larger scale. In the spring we had the powerful Forty-Eighth Corps—a name under which heavy artillery of the highest calibre for special purposes, “Taon,” was concealed. In the beginning of the year the engineering troops were reorganised and amplified. At the same time new infantry divisions were beginning to deploy. This measure, adopted by General Gourko during his temporary tenure of office as Chief-of-Staff of the Supreme C.-in-C., consisted in the reduction of regiments from four battalions to three, as well as the reduction of the number of guns to a division. A third division was thus created in every Army Corps, with artillery. There can be no doubt that, had this scheme been introduced in peace-time, the Army Corps would have been more pliable and considerably stronger. It was a risky thing to do in war-time. Before the spring operations the old divisions were disbanded, whereas the new ones were in a pitiable state in regard to armaments (machine-guns, etc.), as well as technical strength and equipment. Many of them had not been sufficiently blended together—a circumstance of particular importance in view of the Revolution. The position was so acute that in May the Stavka was compelled to sanction the disbanding of those of the Third Division which should prove feeble, and to distribute the men among units of the line. This idea, however, was hardly ever put into practice, as it encountered strong opposition on the part of units already disaffected by the Revolution. Another measure which weakened the ranks of the Army was the dismissal of the senior men in the ranks.
This decision, fraught with incalculable consequences, was taken on the eve of a general offensive. It was due to a statement made at a Council at the Stavka by the Minister of Agriculture (who was also in charge of supplies) that the condition of supplies was critical, and that he could not undertake the responsibility of feeding the Army unless about a million men were removed from the ration list. In the debate attention was drawn to the presence in the Army of an enormous number of non-combatants, quite out of proportion to the numbers of fighting men, and to the inclusion in the Army of a quantity of auxiliary bodies, which were hardly necessary, such as of Labour Organisations, Chinese, and other alien Labour Battalions, etc. Mention was also made of the necessity of having a younger Army. I very much feared this trend of mind, and gave orders to the Staff to draw up accurate lists of all the above-named Capitalists. While this work was stillin preparation the War Minister issued, on April 5th, an Order of the Day giving leave, in the internal districts, to soldiers over forty to work in the fields till May 15th. Leave was afterwards extended till June 15th, but practically hardly anyone returned. On April 10th the Provisional Government discharged all men over forty-three. Under the pressure of the men it became unavoidable to spread the provisions of the first Order to the Army, which would not be reconciled to any privileges granted to the rear. The second Order gave rise to a very dangerous tendency, as it practically amounted to abeginning of demobilisation. The elemental desire of those who had been given leave to return to their homes could not be controlled by any regulations, and the masses of these men, who flooded the railway stations, caused a protracted disorganisation of the means of transport. Some regiments formed out of Reserve battalions lost most of their men. In the rear of the Army transport was likewise in a state of confusion. The men did not wait to be relieved, but left the lorries and the horses to their fate; supplies were plundered and the horses perished. The Army was weakened as a result of these circumstances, and the preparations for the defensive were delayed.
The Russian (European) Front in 1917.
The Russian Caucasian Front in March 1917.
The Russian Army occupied an enormous Front, from the Baltic to the Black Sea and from the Black Sea to Hamadan. Sixty-eight infantry and nine cavalry corps occupied the line. Both the importance of and the conditions obtaining on these Fronts varied. Our Northern Front, including Finland, the Baltic and the line of the Western Dvina, was of great importance, as it covered the approaches to Petrograd. But the importance at that Front was limited to defensive purposes, and for that reason it was impossible to keep at that Front large forces or considerable numbers of guns. The conditions of that Theatre—the strong defensive line of the Dvina—a series of natural positions in the rear linked up with the main positions of the Western Russian Front, and the impossibility of any important operations in the direction of Petrograd without taking possession of the Sea, which was in our hands—all this would have justified us in considering that the Front was, to a certain extent, secure, had it not been for two circumstances, which caused the Stavka serious concern: The troops of the Northern Front, owing to the vicinity of Revolutionary Petrograd, were more demoralised than any other, and the Baltic Fleet and its bases—Helsingfors and Kronstadt, of which the latter served as the main base of Anarchism and Bolshevism—were either “autonomous” or in a state of semi-Anarchy. While preserving to a certain degree theoutward form of discipline, the Baltic Fleet was actually in a state of complete insubordination. The Admiral in command, Maximov, was entirely in the hands of the Central Committee of Sailors. Not a single order for Naval operations could be carried out without the sanction of that Committee, not to speak of Naval actions. Even the work of laying and repairing minefields—the main defence of the Baltic—met with opposition from Sailors’ Organisations and the crews. Not only the general decline of discipline, but the well-planned work of the German General Staff were quite obvious, and apprehensions were entertained lest Naval secrets and codes be revealed to the enemy. At the same time, the troops of the Forty-Second Corps, quartered along the Finnish Coast and on the Monzund Islands, had been idle for a longtime and their positions scattered. With the beginning of the Revolution they were, therefore, rapidly demoralised, and some of them were nothing but physically and morally degenerate crowds. To relieve or to move them was an impossibility. I recall that in May, 1917, I made several unavailing endeavours to send an Infantry Brigade to the Monzund Islands. Suffice it to say that the Army Corps Commander would not make up his mind to inspect his troops and get into touch with them—a circumstance which is typical of the troops as well as of the personality of their Commander. In a word, the position on the Northern Front in the spring of 1917 was the following: We received daily reports of the Channel between the Islands of the Gulf of Riga and the mainland being blocked with ice, and this ice appeared to be the chief real obstacle to an invasion of the German Fleet and Expeditionary Forces.
The Western Front extended from the Disna to the Pripet. On this long line two sectors—Minsk-Vilna and Minsk-Baranovitchi—were of the greatest importance to us, as they represented the two directions in which our troops, as well as the Germans, might undertake offensive operations, for which there had already been precedents. The other sections of the Front, and especially the Southern—the Pollessie, with its forests and marshes—owing to the conditions of the country and of the railways, were passive. Along the River Pripet, its tributaries and canals, a kind of half-peaceful intercourse with the Germans had long since been established, as well as a secret exchange of goods, which was of some advantage to the “Comrades.” For example, we received reports that Russian soldiers from the Line, with bags, appeared daily in the market of Pinsk, and that their advent was for many reasons encouraged by the German authorities. There was another vulnerable point—the bridge-head on the Stokhod by the station, Chrevishe-Golenin, occupied by one of the Army Corps of General Lesh. On March 21st, after strong artillery preparation and a gas attack, the Germans fell upon our Corps and smashed it to pieces. Our troops had heavy casualties, and the remnants of the Corps retreated behind the Stokhod. The Stavka did not get an accurate list of the casualties, because it was impossible to ascertain the numbers of killed or wounded under the head of “Missing.” The German Official Communiqué gave a list of prisoners—150 officers and about 10,000 men. Owing to the conditions in that theatre of war, this tactical success was of no strategical importance, and could lead to no dangerous developments. Nevertheless, we could not but wonder at the frankness of the cautiousNorddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the official organ of the German Chancellor, which wrote: “The Communiqué of the Stavka of the Russian Supreme Command of March 29th is mistaken in interpreting the operations undertaken by the German troops, and dictated by a tactical necessity which had arisen only within the limits of a given sector, was an operation of general importance.” The paper knew the facts of which we were not certain and which have now been explained by Ludendorff. From the beginning of the Russian Revolution, Germany had a new aim:Unable to conduct operations on both the main Fronts, she had decided attentively to follow and to encourage the process of demoralisation in Russia, striking at her not by arms, but by developing propaganda. The battle of the Stokhod was fought on the personal initiative of General Linsingen, and the German Government was frightened because it considered that “at a moment when fraternisation was proceeding at full speed” German attacks might revive the dying flames of patriotism in Russia and postpone her collapse. The Chancellor asked the German G.H.Q. to make as little as possible of that success, and the G.H.Q. cancelled all further offensives “in order not to dash the hopes for peace which were about to be realised.”
Our reverse on the Stokhod produced a strong impression in the country. It was the first fighting experience of the “Freest Revolutionary Army in the world....” The Stavka merely gave the facts in a spirit of impartiality. In the circles of the Revolutionary Democracy the reverse was explained partly by the treachery of the Commanding Officers and partly by a conspiracy to emphasise by this example the impracticability of the new Army Regulations and the danger of the collapse of discipline, partly by the incompetence of the military authorities. The Moscow Soviet wrote to the Stavka accusing one of the assistants of the War Minister who had commanded a division on that Front of being a traitor. Others attributed our defeat solely to the demoralisation of the troops. In reality, the reasons for the defeat were two-fold: Thetacticalreason—the doubtful practicability of occupying a narrow bridge-head when the river was swollen, the insecurity of the rear and perhaps inadequate use of the troops and of technical means; and thepsychologicalreason, the collapse of themoraland of the discipline of the troops. The last circumstance, apparent in the enormous number of prisoners, gave both the Russian Stavka and Hindenburg’s headquarters much food for thought.
The South-Western Front, from the Pripet to Moldavia, was the most important, and attracted the greatest attention. From that Front, operating lines of the highest importance led to theNorth-West, into the depths of Galicia and Poland, to Cracow, Warsaw and Brest-Litovsk. The advance along these lines was covered from the South by the Carpathians, separated the Southern Austrian group of armies from the Northern German, and threatened the rear and the communications of the latter. These operating lines, upon which no serious obstacles were encountered, led us to the Front of the Austrian troops, whose fighting capacity was lower than the Germans. The rear of our South-Western Front was comparatively well-organised and prosperous. The psychology of the troops, of the Command, and of the Staffs always differed considerably from the psychology of other Fronts. In the glorious, but joyless, campaign only the armies of the South-Western Front had won splendid victories, had taken hundreds of thousands of prisoners, had made victorious progress hundreds of miles deep into the enemy territory, and had descended into Hungary from the Carpathians. These troops had formerly always believed in success. Brussilov, Kornilov, Kaledin had made their reputations on that Front. Owing to all these circumstances the South-Western Front was regarded as the natural base and the centre of the impending operations. Consequently, troops, technical means, the greater part of the heavy artillery (“Taon”) and munitions were concentrated at that Front. The region between the Upper Seret and the Carpathians was, therefore, being prepared for the offensive,Places d’armeserected, roads made. Further south there was the Roumanian Front, stretching to the Black Sea. After the unsuccessful campaign of 1916 our troops occupied the line of the Danube, the Seret and the Carpathians, and it was sufficiently fortified. Part of General Averesco’s Roumanian troops occupied the Front between our Fourth and Ninth Armies, and part were being organised under the direction of the French General, Berthelot, assisted by Russian Gunner Instructors. The reorganisation and formation proceeded favourably, the more so as the Roumanian soldier is excellent war material. I became acquainted with the Roumanian Army in November, 1916, when I was sent with the Eighth Army Corps to Buseo, into the thick of the retreating Roumanian Armies. Curiously enough, I was ordered to advance in the direction of Bucarest until I came into contact with the enemy, and to cover that direction with the assistance of the retreating Roumanian troops. For several months I fought by Buseo, Rymnik and Fokshany, having two Roumanian Corps at times under my command and Averesco’s Army on my flank. I thus gained a thorough knowledge of the Roumanian troops. In the beginning of the campaign the Roumanian Army showed completedisregard of the experience of the World War. In matters of equipment and ammunition their levity was almost criminal. There were several capable Generals, the officers were effeminate and inefficient, and the men were splendid. The artillery was adequate, but the infantry was untrained. These are the main characteristics of the Roumanian Army, which soon afterwards acquired better organisation and improved in training and equipment. The relations between the actual Russian Commander-in-Chief, who was designated as the Assistant C.-in-C., and the King of Roumania, who was nominally in Chief Command, were fairly cordial. Although the Russian troops began to commit excesses, which had a bad effect upon the attitude of the Roumanians, the condition of the Front did not, however, cause serious apprehension. Owing to the general conditions at the Theatre of War, only an advance in great strength in the direction of Bucarest and an invasion of Transylvania could have had a political and strategical effect. But new forces could not be moved to Roumania, and the condition of the Roumanian Railways excluded all hope of the possibility of transport and supplies on a large scale. The theatre, therefore, was of secondary importance, and the troops of the Roumanian Front were preparing for a local operation, with a view to attracting the Austro-German forces.
The Caucasian Front was in an exceptional position. It was far distant. For many years the Caucasian Administration and Command had enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy. From August, 1916, the Army was commanded by the Grand-Duke Nicholas, a man of commanding personality, who took advantage of his position whenever there was a difference of opinion between himself and the Stavka. Finally, the natural conditions of the theatre of war and the peculiarities of the enemy rendered that Front entirely different from the European. All this led to a kind of remoteness and aloofness of the Caucasian Army and too abnormal relations with the Stavka. General Alexeiev repeatedly stated that, in spite of all his efforts, he was unable clearly to discern the situation in the Caucasus. The Caucasus lived independently, and told the Government only as much as it considered necessary; and the reports were coloured in accordance with local interests.
In the spring of 1917 the Caucasian Army was in a difficult position, not by reason of the strategical or fighting advantages of the enemy—the Turkish Army was by no means a serious menace—but of internal disorganisation. The countryside was roadless and bare. There were no supplies or forage, and thedifficulties of transport made the life of the troops very arduous. The Army Corps on the Right Flank was comparatively well supplied, owing to facilities for transport across the Black Sea, but the other Army Corps, and especially those of the Left Flank, fared very badly. Owing to geographical conditions, light transport required an enormous number of horses, while there was no fodder on the spot. Railways of all kinds were being built very slowly, partly owing to a lack of railway material and partly because that material had been wasted by the Caucasian Front upon the Trapezund Railway, which was of secondary importance, owing to the parallel Maritime transport. In the beginning of May General Yudenitch reported that, owing to disease and loss of horses, transport was completely disorganised, batteries in position had no horses, half of the transport was non-existent, and 75,000 horses were needed. Tracks, rolling stock and forage were urgently required. In the first half of April 30,000 men (22 per cent.) of the Infantry of the Line had died of typhus and scurvy. Yudenitch therefore foreshadowed the necessity of a compulsory retreat to points of supply, the centre towards Erzerum and the Right Flank to the frontier. The solution suggested by General Yudenitch could not be accepted, both for moral reasons and because our retreat would have freed Turkish troops for action on other Asiatic Fronts. This circumstance particularly worried the British Military Representative at the Stavka, who repeatedly conveyed to us the desire of the British G.H.Q. that the Left Flank of our troops should advance in the valley of the River Diala for a combined operation with General Maude’s Mesopotamian contingent against Halil Pasha’s Army. This advance was necessary to the British rather for political considerations than for strategical requirements. The actual condition of our Left Flank Army Corps was, moreover, truly desperate, and in May tropical heat set in in the valley of the Diala. As a result the Caucasian Front was unable to advance, and was ordered actively to defend its position. The advance of the Army Corps of the Left Flank, in contact with the British, was made conditional upon the latter supplying the troops. As a matter of fact, in the middle of April, a partial retreat took place in the direction of Ognot and Mush; at the end of April the Left Flank began its fruitless advance in the valley of the Diala, and subsequently a condition arose on the Caucasian Front which was something between War and Peace.
In conclusion, mention must be made of another portion of the Armed Forces of Russia in that theatre—the Black Sea Fleet. In May and in the beginning of June serious disturbances hadalready occurred, which led to the resignation of Admiral Koltchak. The Fleet, however, was still considered strong enough to carry out its task—to hold the Black Sea and also to blockade the Turkish and Bulgarian coasts and guard the maritime routes to the Caucasian and Roumanian Fronts.
I have given a short summary of the conditions of the Russian Front without indulging in a detailed examination of strategical possibilities. Whatever our strategy during that period may have been, it was upset by the masses of the soldiery, for from Petrograd to the Danube and the Diala demoralisation was spreading and growing. In the beginning of the Revolution it was impossible to gauge the extent of its effects upon various fronts and upon future operations. But many were those whose minds were poisoned by a suspicion as to the futility of all our plans, calculations and efforts.
We were thus confronted with a crucial question: SHOULD THE RUSSIAN ARMY ADVANCE?
On March 27th the Provisional Government issued a proclamation “To the Citizens” on the subject of war aims. The Stavka could not detect any definite instructions for governing the Russian Army in the midst of a series of phrases in which the true meaning of the appeal was obscured in deference to the Revolutionary Democracy. “The Defence at all costs of our national patrimony and the liberation of the country from the enemy who has invaded it is the first and vital aim of our soldiers, who are defending the freedom of the people.... Free Russia does not aim at domination over other peoples, at depriving them oftheirnational patrimony, or at the forcible seizure of foreign territories. She aims at a lasting peace, on the basis of the self-determination of peoples. The Russian people do not wish to increase their external power at the expense of other peoples ... but ... will not allow their Mother Country to come out of the great struggle downtrodden and weakened. These principles will constitute the basis of the Foreign Policy of the Provisional Government ...while all the obligations to our Allies will be respected.”
In the Note of April 18th, addressed to the Allied Powers by the Foreign Minister, Miliukov, we find yet another definition: “The universal desire of the people to carry the World War to a victorious conclusion ... has grown owing to the consciousness of the common responsibility of everyone. This desire has become more active, because it is concentrated on the aim which is immediate and clear to everyone—that of repelling the enemy who has invaded the territory of our Mother Country.” These, of course, were mere phrases, which described the War aims in cautious, timorous and nebulous words, allowing of any interpretation, and deprived, moreover, any foundation in fact.The will for victory in the people and in the Army had not only not grown, but was steadily decreasing, as a result of weariness and waning patriotism, as well as of the intense work of the abnormal coalition between the representatives of the extreme elements of the Russian Revolutionary Democracy and the German General Staff. That coalition was formed by ties which were unseen and yet quite perceptible. I will deal with that question later, and will only say here that the destructive work, in accordance with the Zimmerwald programme, for ending the War began long before the Revolution and was conducted from within as well as from without. The Provisional Government was trying to pacify the militant element of the Revolutionary Democracy by expounding meaningless and obscure formulas with regard to the War aims, but it did not interfere with the Stavka in regard to the choice of strategical means. We were, therefore, to decide the question of the advance independently from the prevailing currents of political opinion. The only clear and definite object upon which the Commanding Staffs could not fail to agree was to defeat the enemy in close union with the Allies. Otherwise our country was doomed to destruction.
Such a decision implied an advance on a large scale because victory was impossible without it, and a devastating war might otherwise become protracted. The responsible organs of the Democracy, the majority of whom had Defeatist tendencies, tried correspondingly to influence the masses. Even the moderate Socialist circles were not altogether free from these tendencies. The masses of the soldiery utterly failed to understand the ideas behind of the Zimmerwald programme; but the programme itself offered a certain justification for the elementary feelings of self-preservation. In other words, it was a question with them of saving their skin. The idea of an advance could not, therefore, be particularly popular with the Army, as demoralisation was growing. There was no certainty not only that the advance would be successful, but even that the troops would obey the order to go forward. The colossal Russian Front was still steady ... by the force of inertia. The enemy feared it, as, like ourselves, he was unable to gauge its potential strength. What if the advance were to disclose our impotence?
Such were the motives adduced against an advance. But there were too many weighty reasons in favour of it, and these reasons were imperative. The Central Powers had exhausted their strength, moral and material, and their man power. If our advance in the autumn of 1916, which had no decisive strategical results, had placed the enemy forces in a critical position, whatmight not happen now, when we had become stronger and, technically better equipped, when we had the advantage in numbers, and the Allies were planning a decisive blow in the spring of 1917? The Germans were awaiting the blow with feverish anxiety, and in order to avert it they had retreated thirty miles on a front of 100 miles between Arras and Soissons to the so-called Hindenburg line, after causing incredibly ruthless and inexcusable devastation to the relinquished territory. This retreat was significant, as it was an indication of the enemy’s weakness, and gave rise to great hopes.We had to advance.Our intelligence service was completely destroyed by the suspicions of the Revolutionary Democracy, which had foolishly believed that this service was identical with the old secret police organisation, and had therefore abolished it. Many of the delegates of the Soviet were in touch with the German agents. The fronts were in close contact, and espionage was rendered very easy. In these circumstances our decision not to advance would have been undoubtedly communicated to the enemy, who would have immediately commenced the transference of his troops to the Western Front. This would have been tantamount to treason to our Allies, and would have inevitably led to a separate peace—with all its consequences—if not officially, at least practically. The attitude of the revolutionary elements in Petrograd in this matter was, however, so unstable that the Stavka had at first suspected—without any real foundation—the Provisional Government itself.
This caused the following incident: At the end of April, in the temporary absence of the Supreme C.-in-C., the Chief of the Diplomatic Chancery reported to me that the Allied Military Attaches were greatly perturbed because a telegram had just been received from the Italian Ambassador at Petrograd, in which he categorically stated that the Provisional Government had decided to conclude a separate peace with the Central Powers. When the receipt of a telegram had been ascertained, I sent a telegram to the War Minister, because I was then unaware of the fact that the Italian Embassy, owing to the impulsiveness of its personnel, had more than once been the channel through which false rumours had been spread. My telegram was most emphatic, and ended thus: “Posterity will stigmatise with deep contempt the weak-kneed, impotent, irresolute generation which was good enough to destroy the rotten régime, but not good enough to preserve the honour, the dignity, and the very existence of Russia.” The misunderstanding was painful indeed; the news was false, the Government was not thinking of a separate peace. Later, at thefateful sitting of the Conference at the Stavka of Commanders-in-Chief and members of the Government, on July 16th, I had an opportunity of expressing my views once more. I said: “... There is another way—the way of treason. It would give a respite to our distressed country.... But the curse of treachery will not give us happiness. At the end of that way there is slavery—political, economical, and moral.”
I am aware that in certain Russian circles such a straightforward profession of moral principles in politics was afterwards condemned. It was stated that such idealism is misplaced and pernicious, that the interests of Russia must be considered above all “conventional political morality.”... A people, however, lives not for years, but for centuries, and I am certain that, had we then altered the course of our external policy, the sufferings of the Russian people would not have been materially affected, and the gruesome, blood-stained game with marked cards would have continued ... at the expense of the people. The psychology of the Russian military leaders did not allow of such a change, of such a compromise with conscience. Alexeiev and Kornilov, abandoned by all and unsupported, continued for a long time to follow that path, trusting and relying upon the common-sense, if not the noble spirit, of the Allies and preferring to be betrayed rather than betray.
Was that playing the part of a Don Quixote? It may be so. But the other policy would have had to be conducted by other hands less clean. As regards myself, three years later, having lost all my illusions and borne the heavy blows of fortune, having knocked against the solid wall of the overt and blind egoism of the “friendly” powers, and being therefore free from all obligations towards the Allies, almost on the eve of the final betrayal by these powers of the real Russia, I remained the convinced advocate ofhonest policy. Now the tables are turned. At the end of April, 1920, I had to try and convince British Members of Parliament that a healthy national policy cannot be free from all moral principles, and that an obvious crime was being committed because no other name could be given to the abandonment of the armed forces of the Crimea to the discontinuance of the struggle against Bolshevism, its introduction into the family of civilised nations, and to its indirect recognition; that this would prolong for a short while the days of Bolshevism in Russia, but would open wide the gates of Europe to Bolshevism. I am firmly convinced that the Nemesis of history will not forgiveTHEM, as it would not have then forgiven us. The beginning of 1917 was a moment of acute peril for the Central Powers and a decisive moment for theEntente. The question of the Russian advance greatly perturbed the Allied High Command. General Barter, the Representative of Great Britain, and General Janin, the French Representative at Russian Headquarters, often visited the Supreme C.-in-C. and myself, and made inquiries on the subject. But the statements of the German Press, with reference to pressure from the Allies and to ultimatums to the Stavka, are incorrect. These would have simply been useless, because Janin and Barter understood the situation, and knew that it was the condition of the Army that hindered the beginning of the advance. They tried to hurry and to increase technical assistance, while their more impulsive compatriots—Thomas, Henderson, and Vandervelde—were making hopeless endeavours to fan the flame of patriotism by their impassioned appeals to the Representatives of the Russian Revolutionary Democracy and to the troops.
The Stavka also took into consideration the strong probability that the Russian Army would have rapidly and finally collapsed had it been left in a passive condition and deprived of all impulses for active hostilities, whereas a successful advance might lift and heal themoral, if not through sheer patriotism, at least through the intoxication of a great victory. Such feelings might have counteracted all international formulas sown by the enemy on the fertile soil of the Defeatist tendencies of the Socialistic Party. Victory would have given external peace, and some chance of peace within. Defeat opened before the country an abyss. The risk was inevitable, and was justified by the aim of saving Russia. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Quartermaster-General, and myself fully agreed as to the necessity of an advance. And this view was shared in principle by the Senior Commanding Officers. Different views were held on various Fronts as to the degree of fighting capacity of the troops and as to their preparedness. I am thoroughly convinced that the decision itself independently of its execution rendered the Allies a great service, because the forces, the means, and the attention of the enemy were kept on the Russian Front, which, although it had lost its former formidable power, still remained a potential danger to the enemy. The same question, curiously enough, was confronting Hindenburg’s Headquarters. Ludendorff writes: “The general position in April and in May precluded the possibility of important operations on the Eastern Front.” Later, however, “... there were great discussions on the subject at G.H.Q. Would not a rapid advance on the Eastern Front with the available troops, reinforced by a few divisions from the West, offer a better chance than mere waiting? It was a most propitious moment, as somepeople said, for smashing the Russian Army, when its fighting capacity had deteriorated.... I disagreed, in spite of the fact that our position in the West had improved. I would not do anything that might destroy the real chances of peace.” Ludendorff means, of course, separate peace. What such a peace was to be we learnt later, at Brest-Litovsk....
The Armies were given directions for a new offensive. The general idea was to break through the enemy positions on sectors specially prepared on all European fronts, to advance on a broad front in great strength on the South-Western Front, in the direction from Kamenetz-Podolsk to Lvov, and further to the line of the Vistula, while the striking force of our Western Front was to advance from Molodetchno to Vilna and the Niemen, throwing back northwards the German Armies of General Eichorn. The Northern and the Roumanian Fronts were to co-operate by dealing local blows and attracting the forces of the enemy. The time for the advance was not definitely fixed, and a broad margin was allowed. But the days went by, and the troops, who had hitherto obeyed orders and carried out the most difficult tasks without a murmur, the same troops that had hitherto withstood the onset of the Austro-German Armies with naked breasts, without cartridges or shells, now stood with their will-power paralysed and their reason obscured. The offensive was still further delayed.
Meanwhile the Allies, who had been preparing a big operation for the spring, as they had counted upon strong reinforcements being brought up by the enemy in the event of the complete collapse of the Russian Front, began the great battle in France, as had been planned, at the end of March, andwithout awaitingthe final decision on our advance. The Allied Headquarters, however, did not consider simultaneous action as a necessary condition of the contemplated operations, even before disaffection had begun in the Russian Army. Owing to the natural conditions of our Front we were not expected to begin the advance before the month of May. Meanwhile, according to the general plan of campaign for 1917, which had been drawn up in November, 1916, at the Conference at Chantilly, General Joffre intended to begin the advance of the Anglo-French Army at the end of January and the beginning of February. General Nivelle, who superseded him, altered the date to the end of March after the Conference at Calais of February 14th, 1917. The absence of co-ordination between the Western and Eastern European Fronts was bearing bitter fruit. It is difficult to tell whether the Allies would have deferred their spring offensive for two months, and whether the advances of a combined operation with the RussianFront would have been a compensation for the delay, which gave Germany the opportunity of reinforcing and reorganising her armies. One thing is certain—that that lack of co-ordination gave the Germans a great respite. Ludendorff wrote: “I detest useless discussions, but I cannot fail to think of what would have happened had Russia advanced in April and May and had won a few minor victories. We would have been faced, as in the autumn of 1916, with a fierce struggle. Our munitions would have reached a very low ebb. After careful consideration, I fail to see how our High Command could have remained the master of the situation had the Russians obtained in April and May even the same scant successes which crowned their efforts in June. In April and May of 1917, in spite of our victory (?) on the Aisne and in Champagne, it was only the Russian Revolution that saved us.”
Apart from the general advance on the Austro-German Front, another question of considerable interest arose in April—that of anindependent operation for the conquest of Constantinople. Inspired by young and spirited naval officers, the Foreign Minister, Miliukov, repeatedly negotiated with Alexeiev, and tried to persuade him to undertake that operation, which he considered likely to be successful, and which would, in his opinion, confront the Revolutionary Democracy, which was protesting against annexations, with an accomplished fact. The Stavka disapproved of this undertaking, as the condition of our troops would not permit of it. The landing of an Expeditionary Force—in itself a very delicate task—demanded stringent discipline, preparation, and perfect order. What is more, the Expeditionary Force, which would lose touch with the main Army, should be imbued with a very strong sense of duty. To have the sea in the rear is a circumstance which depresses even troops with a very strongmoral. These elements had already ceased to exist in the Russian Army. The Minister’s requests were becoming, however, so urgent that General Alexeiev deemed it necessary to give him an object-lesson, and a small Expedition was planned to the Turkish coast of Asia Minor. As far as I can remember, Zunguldak was the objective. This insignificant operation required a detachment consisting of one Infantry Regiment, one Armoured Car Division, and a small Cavalry contingent, and was to have been carried out by the troops of the Roumanian Front. After a while the Headquarters of that Front had shamefacedly to report that the detachment could not be formed because the troops declined to join the Expeditionary Force. This episode was due to a foolish interpretationof the idea of peace without annexations, which distorted the very principles of strategy and was also, perhaps, due to the same instinct of self-preservation. It was another ill omen for the impending general advance. That advance was still being prepared, painfully and desperately.
The rusty, notched Russian sword was still brandished. The question was, when would it stop and upon whose head would it fall?