The fate of the admirals of the Russo-Japanese War
The governor of the Far East, Admiral Alekseev, opens a number of retracted admirals. In 1904, he was 61 years old, viceroy of the emperor, commander-in-chief of land and sea forces in the Far East, he sounded the alarm even before the start of the war, for which he received a short cut from St. Petersburg, because Nikolai Alexandrovich did not want war, and therefore - it should not be . When everything went as it went, Alekseev was first removed from the high command, in June 1905, and from the governorship with an appointment to the State Council, that is, nowhere.
The admiral, who offered to occupy not Port Arthur, but Qingdao, who explored Korean ports and wanted to organize Russian bases in Korea, who strengthened Port Arthur, despite interference from Witte, of course, was awarded, and the St. George Cross of the third degree and the Order of Alexander Nevsky fell on his neck, but they also set aside in fact and from fleet, and from politics. And Witte and contemporaries, in addition, also cheated. Of course, the “good genius Admiral Eugene” was not a genius, he was an authoritarian leader, never a talent, an ordinary workhorse of the Empire. But there was no guilt behind him, except perhaps belonging to the Bezobrazov group, and that out of necessity - the bezobrazovtsy were on horseback, and the choice was - one way or the other. After the defeat, the group was set aside, and the admiral was set aside, the epithets are nothing more than echoes of the political struggle of that era. And the admiral died in May 1917 in Yalta, leaving no descendants and not seeing the future ... fortunately for him.
Vice Admiral Stark
Oscar Viktorovich Stark is an example of a man who was lucky - in 1904, at the age of 58, he reached the peak of his career, commanding the Pacific squadron. There is no particular fault on him for the start of the war - Petersburg demanded not to succumb to provocations, and in the morning a campaign was being prepared, and mine action nets would have interfered with these plans. As a result, three damaged ships and a ready culprit for everything. He had a good first battle, although even here they are accused of not completely defeating the Japanese, having much less strength, but then the admiral was removed from the Far East and in 1905 was appointed senior flagship of the Baltic Fleet. The humor is that there was no fleet left in the Baltic, and Oskar Viktorovich was put in command of an essentially incompetent antiques. And when the fleet began to appear in commercial quantities, then in 1908 the resignation followed.
Then there was the chairmanship of the board of the Obukhovsky and Izhora factories, participation in the White movement and emigration to Finland, where Oscar Viktorovich died in 1928, his sons, all three, became naval officers, participated in the First World War, and the eldest managed to fight under Tsushima on a cruiser Dmitry Donskoy. The reason for the disgrace and resignation is clear and understandable - someone had to be guilty for everything, so the first persons of the fleet were removed. Stark is still lucky on this list, he left the Far East before the really big defeats.
Vice Admiral Skrydlov
At the age of 60, Vice Admiral, hero of the Russian-Turkish War, Nikolai Illarionovich Skrydlov was appointed commander of the Pacific Fleet. He did not have time in Port Arthur before the blockade began, which is often blamed on him, but no one in delirium could have imagined that the army would retreat so quickly and decisively. From Vladivostok, it was only possible to command the FOK, which the admiral did. Everything else is like the ideas of a breakthrough to Port Arthur on a junk, from the category of unheard of things. After the war, Skrydlov returned to St. Petersburg, without really commanding anything (the VOK had Jessen and Bezobrazov, the 2nd squadron had Rozhdestvensky), and in 1906 he became commander of the Black Sea Fleet. He became not just like that - a revolution was burning in the country, and Nikolai Illarionovich was an old honored Black Sea man, respected by sailors. In parallel with the appointment, he received special powers to fight the revolutionary movement, and as soon as it began to decline, he immediately retired, becoming ... an honorary member of the Imperial Russian Water Rescue Society.
However, in civilian life, such professionals were needed, and Skrydlov did not live in poverty:
“He was a member of the Special Committee for the Strengthening of the Navy on Voluntary Donations, Director of the Board of the Shipping and Steamship Society “I. I. Konetsky, member of the Council of Congresses of Shipowners, member of the board of the Russian Far Eastern Industrial Joint Stock Company.
A died in 1918 from a heart attack, becoming involuntarily part of another historical legends:
“After the Bolsheviks announced the policy of the Red Terror, he was taken hostage and on October 4, 1918 was executed. He was buried in his family estate Spas-Beryoza, now the Oleninsky district of the Tver region.
According to the second version, he was drowned in a barge, they didn’t crucify him well and didn’t eat him, and meanwhile his son’s memoirs were published:
“Despite the fact that my father died under the Bolshevik regime, his funeral had some solemnity. Father was in full dress admiral's uniform, the coffin was covered with St. Andrew's flag; an impressive number of sailors followed the coffin. The fleet, I mean the old fleet, which retained enough respect for traditions even in Bolshevized Petrograd, was presented in a funeral procession.
Notes in the press with an obituary of his colleagues have also been preserved.
Vice Admiral Rozhdestvensky
The history of Zinovy Petrovich and his biography are probably known to everyone who has come off so far off. It is less known that he is one of the fathers of the Novikov, that he planned the reforms of the fleet, that even Nikolai Romanov was not eager to determine his resignation, knowing full well WHO was the author of the adventure with the Second Pacific Squadron. Nevertheless, both the resignation and the trial were inevitable, which Rozhdestvensky himself understood. When he tried to write his memoirs, nothing came of it - no matter how you write, but the supreme power is to blame for the defeat, so the admiral flew out of service and died quietly on New Year's Eve 1909, guilty without guilt.
Rear Admiral Jessen
The dashing commander of the VOK, Makarov's appointee, certainly had nothing to present, he acted impeccably during operations. But this did not save him from the common fate. First, the commander of the only detachment of ships in the Pacific Ocean is subordinated to the head of the port of Greve, and upon returning at the head of the detachment of ships to the Baltic in 1906, they are reprimanded based on the results of the inspection review of the detachment. The ships that passed through Port Arthur and Tsushima, which were interned in foreign ports, whose crews served every conceivable time, were ill-prepared at the height of the revolution. It sounds like a mockery, especially in terms of the wording:
“in an insufficiently attentive and serious attitude to his duties as the commander of the detachment, who did not set himself the goal of creating an impressive military force from the ships of the detachment entrusted to him.”
True, they nevertheless gave the vice admiral, and finally set him aside in 1908, holding until then the junior flagship of the actually non-existent Baltic Fleet. Then there was fictitious ownership of the shipyard and death in 1918. The fate of Greve, appointed to command a military admiral in 1905, is almost identical - resignation in 1907 and death in 1913 in France.
The rest suffered the same fate - Ukhtomsky, Radlov, Reitsenstein, Enkvist and others either immediately retired or received honorary positions, but not related to the combat activities of the fleet. Almost all of them were disgraced during their lifetime and after death, accused of all sins and went down in history as some mediocrity. Meanwhile, those who did not go to war made their careers much better, in fact, the peers of the retired, but who did not fight, and therefore not disgraced, were nominated to the first roles.
To be fair, all this did not affect the younger generation, those who met the war as ship commanders made good careers, they essentially led the Russian fleet into the First World War, but they could not contain the revolution. It is understandable - the normal connection of generations in the navy was interrupted, the old career ladder was broken in search of the extreme for everything, but they did not really have time to lay down the new one. Yes, and Birilev was not better than Stark or Rozhdestvensky, he simply did not go into battle and did not expose himself to the inevitable defeat, so he became a minister. And Rozhdestvensky, with his exaggerated sense of duty, went, so he received wounds and resigned.
In general, of course, the normal reaction of the state apparatus to a catastrophe arranged by it, even in a mild version, could have been executed in another era, but if you count the damage from the search for switchmen during this period ... Everyone who earned such expensive experience in commanding formations turned out to be switchmen ships.
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