World War I. Russia at war
Introduction
Russia entered the bloody struggle for world domination as a second-rate member of the Entente. The military strength of the Russian Empire hid its internal contradictions and fundamental weaknesses. Russian tsarism combined elements of a semi-feudal, semi-colonial country, heavily dependent on foreign capital, with the aggressive features of imperialism.
However, Russia's military objectives were regional and provincial, reflecting its relative weakness. Tsarism did not strive for domination in Europe, but for the seizure of the Turkish straits. This would turn the Black Sea into a "Russian lake" and allow the Russian naval the fleet pass freely into the Mediterranean. Also, the aspirations of tsarism extended to Polish Galicia, the Balkans, and the lands of the Caucasus under Turkish control.
Great Britain and France were quite happy to promise to grant these lands to the Russian Empire in case of victory. Promises they weren't going to keep.
But in exchange for such promises, a certain price had to be paid. Frightened by the seemingly unstoppable German offensive, the French imperialists insistently demanded that the Russian army attack in the East in order to ease pressure on France and divert German troops from Paris.
French imperialism insisted that Russia start military operations as a means of diverting German troops to the East. Since tsarist Russia was heavily indebted to French finance capital, there could be no question of a refusal to comply with the request of Paris, which in fact looked more like a direct order. People in Paris were now paying back their debts. Russia paid with the blood of its people for its right to be a member of the imperialist club.
Latent weakness
On paper, Russia was a formidable military force, and the mood of the Russian ruling circles was optimistic. In March 1914, an article appeared in the Russian press that was believed to be the work of Minister of War Sukhomlinov. It said:
The army is not only numerous, but also superbly equipped. Russia has always fought on a foreign land and has always won. Russia is no longer on the defensive. Russia is ready.
The cruel irony of these words was fully revealed even before the end of the year.
The Russian army is used to fighting the more backward peoples of the Caucasus and Central Asia. This morally "disarmed" the Russian soldiers who were not ready to confront the formidable forces of modern industrial Germany. The inherent weakness of the Russian army was brutally exposed by the war with Japan in 1904-1905, which led directly to the revolution of 1905-1906. In the years of the counter-revolution that followed the defeat of the revolution, the monarchy, with the support of the bourgeoisie, tried to reform and modernize the army. But these reforms remained incomplete in 1914, when Russia faced a much more severe test.
Each army is a reflection of the society from which it emerges, and the Russian army was no exception. There were very talented Russian officers, people like Alexei Alekseevich Brusilov. Years later, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery opined that Brusilov was one of the seven outstanding military commanders of the First World War. But for every capable officer in the Russian army, there were a dozen idle, cowardly, and inept aristocrats promoted to leadership positions through favoritism and family ties.
The deep contradictions in society were extremely aggravated by the war, which not only turned ordinary soldiers and sergeants against their officers, but even forced some of the latter to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War.
Throughout the First World War, at every turn, the army leadership was exposed to the poisonous influence of the court clique, especially the queen, who constantly manipulated and intrigued to remove capable men and replace them with their favorites.
Russian offensive
Under the command of Grand Duke Nicholas, the Russian army entered the war with a total number of 1,5 million people with 3 million reservists - more numerically than the German army. In August 1914, two Russian armies entered Germany through East Prussia and Austria through the Carpathians. In the beginning, the Russian army was successful against both the Germans and the Austrians.
No one could doubt the courage of the Russian soldiers, who, when they ran out of ammunition, fought with bayonets. But in modern warfare, the courage of the individual soldier is not necessarily the deciding factor. For all their bravery, the Russian soldiers were nothing more than cannon fodder. Their initial successes only masked deep problems in the Russian army.
The real balance of forces in modern warfare is determined not only by numbers, but also by equipment and supplies, modern weapons, training of troops and the quality of officers and sergeants. These factors, in turn, are determined by the relative level of industrial, technological and cultural development of each country. Russia's less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership were vividly demonstrated during the unfolding events.
The initial Russian attack caused panic among the German civilian population. There was a cry from all sides: "The Cossacks are coming!" Anxiety soon spread to the German General Staff, which transferred two divisions from the Western Front to the Eastern Front. This helped the French to give the respite they needed on the Marne to stop the German advance on Paris. But the Germans shouldn't have been so worried.
Thousands of Russian servicemen were sent to the front without proper equipment. They lacked everything: weapons, ammunition, shoes and bedding. Up to a third of Russian soldiers did not receive a rifle. At the end of 1914, the Russian General Staff reported that 100 new rifles were required every month, but Russian factories were capable of producing less than half of that amount (000 per month). The Russian army had sixty batteries of heavy artillery, while the German army had 42. Russia had two machine guns per battalion, and Germany had thirty-six.
By December 1914, the Russian army numbered 6 people. However, they only had 553 rifles. Untrained troops were ordered to engage in combat without proper weaponry or ammunition. In the Russian army, there was about one surgeon for every 000 people. With medical personnel scattered across the front, the likelihood that any Russian soldier would receive any medical treatment was close to zero.
The backwardness of Russian capitalism manifested itself in shortages of military supplies and finance, as well as in a shortage of ammunition. The number of factories was simply too small for their production, while the lack of railroad lines made it difficult to transport troops.
Battle of Tannenberg
The two Russian armies in East Prussia were under the command of Generals Rennenkampf and Samsonov. Rennenkampf's 1st Army was to clash with Samsonov's 2nd Army in order to give a two-to-one numerical superiority over the German 8th Army. The plan started off well. However, due to poor relations between the two generals and due to the difficulties of communication between the armies, the operation in East Prussia ended in disaster.
The German army under the command of Ludendorff counterattacked, and by August 29 the Russian center, numbering three army corps, was surrounded by the Germans and trapped in the gloomy and impassable depths of the Tannenberg Forest, unable to escape. The Battle of Tannenberg lasted three days. General Samsonov tried to retreat, but found himself surrounded by a huge German cordon, which held the Russian troops in a vice. Most of his troops were killed or captured. Only 10 of the 000 Russian soldiers were able to escape. Stunned by the scale of the disaster, General Samsonov shot himself.
The behavior of the Russian General Staff at Tannenberg was indescribably horrific. Uncoded battle plans were sent out on the radio, and the generals leading the offensive, Samsonov and von Rennenkampf, refused to communicate with each other. The Germans outplayed the Russians and were able to deal with one Russian army at a time due to the incompetence of the generals and the backwardness of communications and transport. Under Tannenberg, the Russians lost 100 men in one day. By the end of the battle, the Germans had destroyed almost the entire Russian 000nd Army.
The Germans, who lost only 13 people in the battle, were able to capture more than 800 Russians. The German victory at Tannenberg set the stage for the First Battle of the Masurian Lakes a week later, where the reinforced German 92th Army now clashed with the Russian 000st Army and inflicted a crushing defeat on it. Despite more than three times the numerical superiority in the region (8 Germans versus 1 Russians), Russian casualties were nine times greater than those of the Germans.
Among the dead Russians were a large number of officers who kindly went into battle in their ceremonial uniforms, becoming excellent targets for German snipers and machine gunners. By 1915, the probability of a Russian officer being killed was eighty-two percent. In some sectors of the front, their life expectancy was only four to five days. The German machine gunner wrote in a letter:
They just kept on advancing, and we just kept firing. From time to time we had to push bodies to the side in order to shoot fresh waves.
The German Ninth Army, led by August von Mackensen, attacked the Russian Second Army under the command of General Smirnov near the Polish village of Bolimów, located on the railway line connecting Lodz and Warsaw. This battle was the first attempt at a large-scale use of poison gas.
On New Year's Eve, the Germans fired eighteen thousand xylyl bromide gas shells at the Russians. But the poisonous cloud carried them back to their own positions. The gas caused few, if any, casualties because the cold weather caused it to freeze, rendering it ineffective.
The failure of the gas attack forced the German command to cancel it. In response, the Russians launched a counterattack with eleven divisions. They were fired upon by German artillery. As a result, 40 people died. No army could withstand such a huge amount of losses that Russia suffered in the first ten months of the war.
In total, the losses amounted to about 350 people, as well as a huge amount of military equipment.
Thus, the Russian offensive in East Prussia ended in a shameful defeat.
The fall of Warsaw
The offensive operations of the Russians on the southwestern front were more successful, allowing them to advance through the Carpathians into Galicia. These impressive glorious victories contrasted sharply with the catastrophic defeats on other fronts. But here the Russian army faced the weak Austro-Hungarian, and not the modern German troops. The successes of Russia against Austria-Hungary are explained more by the weakness of Austria-Hungary than by the strength of Russia.
The success of the Russian offensive, led by General Brusilov, was short-lived.
The arrival of German reinforcements in May 1915 again forced the Russians to retreat. By the spring of 1915, the Russians had retreated to Galicia, and in May the central powers broke through Poland's southern borders. On August 5, they captured Warsaw and forced the Russians to leave Poland.
The invasion of East Prussia was a bloody failure for the Russians. But the worst was yet to come. On the Eastern Front, the next phase of the joint Austro-German offensive against the Russians began in northern Poland as the Austro-Germans advanced towards Warsaw. The Russian army was weakening every day as a result of chronic shortages of supplies and a decline in morale.
Within five days of the start of the offensive, Austro-German forces broke through the Russian lines and pushed the Russian 3rd and 8th armies further east. Russian casualties soon exceeded 400. On August 000, 5, Warsaw itself was taken by Austro-German troops, ending the century of Russian control over the city. Inspired by their successes, the Austro-German troops continued their offensive, capturing Ivangorod, Kovno, Brest-Litovsk, Bialystok, Grodno and Vilnius. By the end of September, Russian troops were driven out of Poland and Galicia far beyond the original lines from which they began the war in 1915.
The Russian attack ended in disaster, but it helped ease the pressure on the French army and undoubtedly played an important role in stopping the German advance on Paris. The head of French intelligence, Colonel Dupont, wrote:
"Their defeat was one of the elements of our victory."
For now, the battered Russian army has been effectively eliminated as an offensive threat on the Eastern Front, allowing the Germans to re-concentrate on the Western Front.
The crisis on the home front
The aggregate losses of the Russians as a result of the Austro-German offensives in Galicia and Poland amounted to more than 1 people, 800 of whom were captured. Capture rates were the most obvious symptom of the disaster. To make up for these horrific losses, barely trained recruits had to be called into active service, a process repeated throughout the war.
The same was true for the officer class, especially in the lower echelons. The gaps left by the loss of skilled officers and sergeants were quickly filled by untrained soldiers moving up the career ladder, usually from the peasant or working class. Many of them were to play a large role in the politicization of the troops in 1917. At the front, Russian soldiers were without rifles, which they could only get from fellow soldiers after they were killed or wounded. Only on July 1, 1915, the Central Committee of the War Industry was created in Russia to oversee production and solve the problem of an acute shortage of artillery shells and rifles.
The news of the military disaster caused panic in the ruling circles. Minister of War Polivanov, responding to his colleagues, alarmed by the situation at the front, said:
I put my trust in impassable spaces, impassable dirt and the mercy of Saint Nicholas of Mirliki, the defender of Holy Russia.
It was August 4, 1915. A week later, General Ruski admitted:
The modern requirements of military equipment are beyond our strength. In any case, we cannot keep up with the Germans.
What came to be known as the Great Retreat often turned into a disorderly flight. Desertion was common. Russian generals forced the civilian population to pay for their own criminal incapacity. They issued a brutal order for the complete evacuation of the Polish civilian population. This caused terrible suffering to the people as they were forced to leave their homes and head east, blocking roads and obstructing the movement of Russian troops. Huge tracts of land were devastated. As always in such cases, bloody pogroms were unleashed against the Jews - as a convenient way to divert the soldiers' anger from the true culprits of their suffering.
The retreating mass of Russian troops and civilians from Poland added fuel to the smoldering flames of political and social unrest in Russia, which were increasingly directed against the tsar and his degenerate and corrupt court clique. The tsar expressed his indignation at the defeat, removing his commander-in-chief of the army, Nikolai Nikolaevich, and taking over command of the army, although he had no practical experience in waging war or commanding infantry and artillery in battle.
Taking personal command of the Russian army, Nicholas hoped to rally his demoralized troops. However, this decision did not have the slightest impact on Russia's military efforts, as the tsar rarely intervened or reversed the decisions of his generals. What really gave him the position of Supreme Commander-in-Chief was his personal responsibility for every military failure. It also put the Russian government in the hands of his ambitious and insidious wife Alexandra during a period of growing social and political crisis. The stench of corruption and incompetence in the imperial government began to spread among the population.
Devastation inside
The devastation of the war affected not only the soldiers at the front.
By the end of 1915, there were clear signs that the economy was crumbling under the unbearable pressure of wartime demands. There was a shortage of food and a rise in prices. Inflation eroded incomes at an alarmingly fast pace, and even items that could be afford were in short supply, especially in St. Petersburg, where remoteness from sources of supply and poor transport networks made matters worse.
Russia was further weakened economically due to the loss of Polish industrial and agricultural production. The conscription of millions of men led to a shortage of labor in peasant land holdings and, as a result, to a reduction in food production. A large number of peasants were also transferred to the industrial sector, which led to a small increase in production, but not enough to meet the military needs of Russia.
As a result, agricultural production fell sharply and the civilian population was forced to experience severe food shortages. The stores ran out of bread, sugar, meat and other products, and long queues lined up for what was left.
The outbreak of war in August 1914 initially served to suppress growing social and political protests by focusing hostilities against a common external enemy, but this false patriotic unity did not last long. As the war dragged on without end, the fog of patriotic intoxication began to dissipate from the minds of the people, as war weariness gradually began to take hold of the masses.
It was the wives of the workers who had to bear the heaviest burden. Working class women in St. Petersburg reportedly spent about forty hours a week shivering from the cold while queuing for food. To feed their hungry children, many were forced to resort to begging or prostitution.
Public morale and support for the war declined and people became more receptive to anti-war propaganda. On September 17, 1915, Alexei Kuropatkin, a former minister of war and commander of the grenadier corps, wrote:
The lower ranks began the war with enthusiasm; but now they were tired, and because of the constant retreat, they lost faith in victory.
Since mid-1915, the number of strikes has grown inexorably. Russia was preparing for revolutionary events.
- Vladimir Zyryanov
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- Marxist analysis. World War I. The first salvoes of the war
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