Cossacks and the First World War. Part IV. 1916 year

8
The general political situation for the Entente for the 1916 year was favorable. US relations with Germany were sharpening, and there was hope that Romania would also be on the side of the allies. By the beginning of 1916, the general strategic situation on the war fronts also began to take shape in favor of the Entente. But it was the Entente, and not Russia, for the Russian command was constantly busy with the thought that it was necessary to “rescue” some regular ally in a hurry. However, at the end of 1915, the ghostly hope of coordinating military efforts and an equivalent contribution by the Allies to overall success appeared. The inter-allied conference of the Entente countries in Chantilly, held on November 23-26 (December 6-9) 1915, decided to conduct simultaneous offensive operations in the West and in the East in the upcoming 1916 year.

By decision of the military representatives, the actions of the Allied armies were to begin in the spring, when climatic conditions would become favorable on the Russian front. At the second conference in February 1916 of the year, which was also in Chantilly, it was clarified that the Allied armies would have to go on the offensive on the 16 Somme of May, two weeks after the start of the Russian army’s offensive. In turn, the German command believed that after the failures of 1915, Russia was not capable of serious active efforts and decided to limit strategic defense in the East. It decided to strike the main attack in the Verdun area, and by the forces of the Austrians launch a distracting offensive on the Italian front. Thus, the Germans were ahead of the intentions of the Allies and February 21 launched a powerful offensive near Verdun, and again the French urgently needed urgent help from Russian soldiers. General Joffre, commander of the French forces, sent a telegram to the Russian Headquarters asking him to take the necessary measures to: a) put strong pressure on the enemy to prevent him from withdrawing any units from the East and deprive him of his freedom to maneuver; b) the Russian army could immediately proceed with the preparation of the offensive.

The offensive of the Russian army for the umpteenth time had to begin earlier than the scheduled date. At the beginning of the 1916, the Russian armies against the German-Austrian forces 55 and a half corps, of which 13 was part of the Northern Front under the command of General Kuropatkin, the 23 corps were part of the Western Front under the command of General Evert, 19 and half of the corps formed the South-Western front under the command of General Brusilov. The Russian army, in accordance with the obligations to the Allies, launched the 5 March 1916 offensive by the forces of the left flank of the Northern Front from the Yakobstadt area and by the forces of the right flank of the Western Front from the area of ​​Lake Naroch. This operation is firmly established in history military art as a vivid evidence of a senseless frontal offensive and turned into a grand ten-day slaughter. The corps behind the corps went on the German wire and hung on it, burning in the hellfire of enemy machine guns and artillery.


Fig. 1 Attack of the Russian infantry against wire obstacles


Sixteen Russian divisions irretrievably lost up to 90 thousand people, the damage of the German divisions did not exceed 10 thousand people. The operation did not lead to even the slightest success. But the French under Verdun breathed more freely. And the allies demanded new victims from Russia. Under the Trentino Italians were crushed. Russian troops again had to go on the offensive. At a special meeting before the offensive, General Kuropatkin declared that he was not hoping for success on the Northern Front. Evert, like Kuropatkin, said that on the Western Front also it was impossible to count on success. General Brusilov announced the possibility of an offensive on the South-Western Front. It was decided to impose the most active actions on the armies of the South-Western Front, with a parallel task for the Western Front to conduct an offensive from the Molodechno area in the direction of Oshmyany-Vilna. At the same time, all reserves and heavy artillery remained with the armies of the Western Front.

Throughout the winter, troops were diligently trained on the Southwestern Front and made from poorly trained replenishment of good combat soldiers, preparing them for the offensive operations of 1916. Gradually rifles began to arrive, though of different systems, but with enough ammunition for them. Artillery shells also began to be fired in sufficient quantities, added the number of machine guns and formed in each part of the grenadiers, who were armed with hand grenades and bombs. The troops cheered up and began to say that under such conditions it is possible to fight and defeat the enemy. By spring, the divisions were manned, fully trained, and had a sufficient number of rifles and machine guns with an abundance of ammunition for them. One could only complain that heavy artillery and aviation. The full-blooded Russian infantry division of 16 battalion was a powerful force and had a strength of up to 18 thousand people, including up to 15 thousand active bayonets and sabers. It included 4 regiments of 4 battalions, 4 companies in each battalion. In addition, there was a horse squadron or Cossack hundred, an artillery division, a sapper company, a machine gun team, a sanitary unit, headquarters, convoy and rear. Cavalry divisions consisted of 4 regiments (hussar, dragoon, ulan and cossack), 6 squadron (6 hundred) personnel with a machine gun team of 8 machine guns and a horse artillery division of 2 battery composition with 6 guns in each battery. Cossack divisions had a similar composition, but consisted entirely of Cossacks. Horse divisions were strong enough for independent actions of the strategic cavalry, but in the defense they lacked a rifle unit. After the field war passed into positional, 4 hundred foot divisions were formed in each equestrian division.

The experience of the war indicated that it was almost impossible to hide the place of the main attack, since the earthworks during the preparation of the springboard for the offensive reveal to the enemy all intentions. In order to avoid the above-mentioned important inconvenience, the commander-in-chief of the South-Western Front, General Brusilov, ordered not in one, but in all armies of the front entrusted to him, to prepare one strike site, and in addition, in some corps, everyone should choose their own strike section and start all earthworks for rapprochement with the enemy. Because of this, on the South-Western Front, the enemy saw earthworks in more than 20 locations, and even the defectors could not tell the enemy anything other than the fact that an attack was being prepared at this site. Thus, the enemy was deprived of the opportunity to reserve his reserves to one place, and could not know where the main blow would be dealt to him. And the main attack was decided to inflict 8 th army on Lutsk, but all other armies and corps were supposed to deliver their, albeit secondary, but strong blows, concentrating in this place almost all of their artillery and reserves. This very strongly attracted the attention of the opposing forces and attached them to their sectors of the front. However, the flip side of this medal was that in this case it was impossible to concentrate maximum forces on the main direction.

The offensive of the armies of the South-Western Front was scheduled for May 22 and its beginning was very successful. Everywhere our artillery attack was a complete success. There were enough passages in the barriers. A historian not inclined to lyricism wrote that on this day the Austrians “... did not see the sunrise. From the east, instead of the sun's rays, there is a dazzling death. ” This Russian held artillery preparation, which lasted two days. Strongly fortified positions erected by the enemy during the winter (up to thirty rows of wire, up to 7 rows of trenches, caponiers, wolf holes, machine-gun nests on high ground, concrete canopies over trenches, etc.) were “turned into hell” and cracked. A powerful artillery barrage seemed to announce: Russia overcame a shell hunger, which became one of the main reasons for the great retreat in the 1915 year, which cost us a million and a half losses. Instead of a military strike that was considered a classic in the main line, four Russian armies attacked the entire South-Western Front with a length of about 400 kilometers (in 13 sectors). This deprived the enemy of the possibility of maneuvering reserves. The breakthrough of General A.M. 8 was very successful. Kaledin. His army struck 16 with a powerful blow in the enemy’s defensive kilometer and 25 occupied Lutsk in May (therefore, the breakthrough was initially called Lutsk, not Brusilovsky). On the tenth day, the troops of the 8 Army went deep into the enemy’s position on 60 km. As a result of this offensive, the 4-I Austro-Hungarian army virtually ceased to exist. The trophies of the 8 Army were: prisoners of the 922 officer and 43628 soldiers, 66 guns. 50 bombers, 21 mortar and 150 machine guns. 9-I army advanced even further, on 120 km, and took Chernivtsi and Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk). This army was so defeated by the Austrians that their 7-I army was not capable. 133 600 prisoners were captured, representing 50% of the army. On the Russian 7 Army sector, after the enemy captured three lines of enemy trenches, the cavalry corps was introduced into the breakthrough, consisting of the 6-th Don Cossack Division, the 2-C Combined Cossack Division and the 9 Cavalry Division. As a result, the Austro-Hungarian troops suffered heavy losses and retreated in complete disarray across the Strypa River.


Fig. 2 The advancing chains of the Russian infantry

Across the line of attack, where the infantry had hacked into the enemy’s defenses, the Cossacks, starting a pursuit, went far in the rear, overtaking the fleeing Austrian units, and those who fell between two fires, fell into despair and often simply abandoned weapon. The Cossacks of the 1 Don Cossack Division only in 29 of May captured more than 2 of thousands of prisoners. In total, in the Brusilov breakthrough, the enemy 40 beat Cossack regiments. Cossacks from the Don, Kuban, Terek, Ural, Trans-Baikal, Ussurian, Orenburg, as well as Leib Cossacks participated in the case. And as the Austrian General Headquarters testifies in its history of the war: “the troops reappeared in fear of the Cossacks - the legacy of the first bloody affairs of the war ...”.

Cossacks and the First World War. Part IV. 1916 year
Fig. 3 Cossacks seize enemy batteries

But a significant part of the Russian cavalry (2 corps) at this time was in the Kovel marshes, and there was no one to build on the success and reap the fruits of the remarkable victory near Lutsk. The fact is that, having failed to break through the enemy's defenses in the Kovel direction, the command hurried to reserve cavalry and threw infantry into aid. However, it is well known that the dismounted cavalry division, in view of the smaller numbers and the diversion of up to one third of the convoders, is not quite equivalent even to the infantry regiment. It is quite another thing when the same cavalry division in the equestrian system is introduced into a breakthrough, then its price is completely different, and no infantry will replace it. To the shame of the army and front headquarters, they failed to properly manage the reserves and, instead of transferring cavalry from the Kovel line to Lutsk, to strengthen and develop the breakthrough, they allowed the command of the 8 Army to burn beautiful cavalry on foot and equestrian positions. It is especially sad that this army was commanded by the Don Cossack and the excellent cavalryman General Kaledin and he is fully involved in this error. Gradually, the 8 Army exhausted its reserves and, stubborn resistance met west of Lutsk, stopped. It was not possible to turn the offensive of the South-Western Front into a grand defeat of the enemy, but the results of this battle are difficult to overestimate. It was fully proved that there is a real possibility of a breakthrough in the established positional front. However, tactical success was not developed and did not lead to decisive strategic results. Before the offensive, the Stavka hoped that the mighty Western Front would fulfill its mission, and the South-Western Front was denied support even by one corps. In June, the major successes of the South-Western Front were revealed, and public opinion began to consider it the main one. At the same time, the troops and the main artillery forces remained on the Western Front in complete inactivity. General Evert was firm in his unwillingness to attack, with all sorts of truths and crook he delayed the beginning of the offensive, and the Headquarters began to deploy troops on the South-Western Front. Due to the weak capacity of our railways, this was already a dead poultice. The Germans had time to transfer faster. While we were moving the 1 case, the Germans managed to transfer the 3 or 4 case. The headquarters steadily demanded that the Southwestern Front take Kovel, and this contributed to the inglorious death of the 2's cavalry corps, but was unable to push Evert to the offensive. If another commander-in-chief were in the army, Evert would immediately be removed from command for such indecisiveness, but Kuropatkin under no circumstances received a post in the army in action. But under the regime of impunity, both the “veteran” and the immediate perpetrators of the failures of the Russo-Japanese war continued to be the favorite military leaders of the Stavka. But even the South-Western Front, abandoned by its comrades-in-arms, continued its bloody battle march forward. June 21 army Generals Lesch and Kaledin launched a decisive offensive and by 1 July established on the river Stokhod. According to the memoirs of Hindenburg, the Austrian-Germans had little hope of retaining the unfortified line of Stokhod. But this hope came true, thanks to the inaction of the troops of the Western and Northern Russian fronts. It can be firmly said that the actions (or rather inaction) of Nicholas II, Alekseev, Evert and Kuropatkin during the offensive of the South-Western Front are criminal. Of all the fronts, the south-western front was undoubtedly the weakest, and there was no reason to expect a revolution of the whole war from him. But he unexpectedly fulfilled his task with interest, but alone he could not replace the entire multimillion Russian army assembled at the front from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

As a result of the operations of the South-Western Front, 8225 officers, 370 153 privates, 496 guns, 744 machine guns and 367 bombers and around 100 searchlights were captured. The offensive of the South-Western Front armies in 1916 year tore the offensive initiative from the German command and threatened the complete defeat of the Austro-Hungarian army. The offensive on the Russian front attracted all the reserves of the German-Austrian troops, which were available not only on the Eastern Front, but also on the Western and Italian fronts. During the period of the Lutsk breakthrough, the Germans were deployed to the South-Western Front 18 divisions, of which 11 were withdrawn from the French Front, and the Austrian 9, of which six divisions were from the Italian Front. Even two Turkish divisions appeared on the Russian front. Other Russian fronts conducted minor distracting operations. In total, during the period from 22 May to 15 September, the Russian army was: 8 924 officer and 408 000 privates captured, 581 gun, 1 795 machine guns, 448 bombers and mortars, as well as a huge number of varied targets, and a huge amount of diverse figure, and a lot of this figure, as well as a lot of this figure, as well as a lot of this figure, and a lot of this figure. -stones The losses of Austria-Hungary killed, wounded and captured reached 1,5 millions of people.


Fig. 4 Austrian prisoners on Nevsky Prospect, 1916 year

The offensive on the Russian front eased the tension of the German offensive near Verdun and stopped the advance of the Austrians on the Italian front in Trentino, which saved the Italian army from defeat. The French regrouped and were given the opportunity to launch an offensive on the Somme. However, the situation at that time in France and in her army was very tense, which was described in more detail in the Military Review in the article “How America saved Western Europe from the ghost of the world revolution”. The Austrians, having received reinforcements, launched a counter-offensive. In August, 1916, the fierce fighting on the Stokhod River. At the critical moment of the 6 battle of August, the 2-I-Cossack division approached the already retreating infantry units. With her decisive attack, she literally snatched victory from the hands of the enemy. In this battle, something happened that Napoleon often said: "... the one who has the battalion for the final strike always wins." But the Cossacks, naturally, could not fundamentally change the course of the war. They were too few. Exhausted by the endless transitions and transfers, senseless attacks in the horse and on foot on the fortified lines of defense of the enemy, the Cossack units urgently needed rest and repair of the extremely worn and exhausted horse. But most of all, they needed a meaningful application of their military potential. At the headquarters of the 8 Army, back in November 1915 of the year, they concluded: “The long work of cavalry in the trenches cannot but act destructively both on the horse composition and on its combat activity in the horse formation. Meanwhile, as a combat force deprived of one of its main elements — mobility, the cavalry division almost equals one battalion of the whole. ” But the situation has not changed. On the whole, in the autumn of 1916, the numerous Russian cavalry, consisting of каз of Cossacks, mostly sat in the trenches. On October 31, the combat schedule looked like this: 494 hundreds (squadrons) or 50% sat in trenches, 72 hundreds (squadrons) or 7% bore service for headquarters protection and reconnaissance, 420 hundreds (squadrons) or 43% cavalry were in reserve.


Fig. 5 Ural Cossack Equipment

The success of the Russian army in Galicia prompted Romania to enter the war, which Russia soon bitterly regretted, forced to save this unexpected unfortunate ally soon. The Brusilov offensive was a decisive impetus for Romania, who decided that it was time to hurry to help the winner. When entering the war, Romania was counting on the annexation of Transylvania, Bucovina and Banat - the territories of Austria-Hungary, inhabited mainly by ethnic Romanians. However, before declaring war, the Bucharest government sold the Central Powers all the supplies of grain and oil from the country at a very expensive price, hoping to get everything then for free from Russia. This commercial operation to “realize the harvest of the 1916 of the year” took time, and Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary only on August 27, when the Brusilov offensive was already over. If she had come out six weeks earlier, at the time of the victory of Kaledin and Dochronoutsky’s triumph of Lechitsky in Lutsk, the position of the Austro-German armies would have become completely disastrous. And with the skillful use of Romanian capabilities, the Entente would have been able to disable Austria-Hungary. But a convenient moment was irretrievably missed, and the performance of Romania in August did not have the effect it could have at the end of May. Britain and France, welcomed the appearance in the coalition of another ally, and no one could imagine what problems this new ally would create for the Russian army. In the organizational and technical terms, the Romanian army stood at the level of previous centuries, for example, for artillery thrust, served as ox-sled. The army was not familiar with the elementary rules of field service. For the night, the units not only did not set up the guard, but all went to a sheltered and safe place. It quickly became clear that the Romanian military authorities had no idea about troop control in wartime, the troops were poorly trained, they knew only the front side of military affairs, they had no idea about digging, did not know how to shoot, and there were very few shells, they had no heavy artillery at all. . The German command decided to inflict a decisive defeat on Romania and sent the 9 German army to Transylvania. Not surprisingly, the Romanian army was soon defeated, and most of Romania was occupied. Romanian losses totaled: 73 thousands of dead and wounded, 147 thousands of prisoners, 359 guns and 346 machine guns. The fate of the Romanian army was divided by the corps of the Russian army of General Zayonchkovsky, who defended Dobrudja.


Fig. 6 The defeat of the Romanian army at Brasov

Romanian withdrawal proceeded in disastrous conditions. There was no bread in the abundant agricultural country: all stocks, on the eve of the declaration of war, were sold to Austro-Germans. The country and the remnants of the army perished from hunger and a terrible epidemic of typhus. Russian troops had not only to rescue the Romanian army, but also to save the population! The weak fighting capacity of the Romanian troops, the corruption of the administration and the depravity of society extremely annoyed our soldiers and military commanders. Relations with the Romanians from the very beginning established extremely strained. For the Russian army with the entry into the war of Romania, the front was extended by many hundreds of miles. To save the Romanian army, one army of the South-Western Front was sent to Romania and occupied the right flank of the Romanian Front, and instead of a broken Zayonchkovsky corps, a new army began to form with its subordination to the South-Western Front. Thus, it turned out that on the new Romanian front his right and left flanks were subordinated to Brusilov, while the center was subordinate to the Romanian king, who had no relationship with him, did not enter into a relationship, and did not contact. Brusilov sent a sharp telegram to GHQ that it was impossible to fight like that. After this telegram by the Bid in December 1916, it was decided to arrange a separate Romanian front with the formally commander-in-chief of the Romanian king, in fact, General Sakharov. It includes the remnants of the Romanian troops, as well as the Russian army: Danube, 6-I, 4-I and 9-I. The frightened headquarters sent so many troops to Romania that our railways, already upset, were unable to transport everyone. With great difficulty, the 44 th and 45 th corps in reserve of the Romanian Front were sent back to the South-Western Front, and the 1-th Army Corps to the Northern Front. Semi-paralyzed our railway network was subjected to completely unnecessary stress. Russian troops who came to the aid of the Romanian army stopped 1916 in December - in January 1917 the Austro-German troops on the Siret River. The Romanian front froze in the snows of a brutal winter. The remnants of the Romanian troops were removed from the battle line and sent to the rear, to Moldova, where General Vertelot’s mission from France was completely reorganized. The Romanian front was occupied by 36 Russian infantry and 13 cavalry divisions, in total to 500 000 fighters. They stood from Bukovina in the Moldavian Carpathians, Siret and Danube to the Black Sea, with the 30 infantry and 7 cavalry divisions of the four enemy powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The defeat of Romania was of great importance for the fate of the Central Coalition. The 1916 campaign of the year was very unprofitable for them. In the West, the German army suffered colossal losses at Verdun. For the first time in the entire war, its soldiers questioned their strength in the protracted battle of the Somme, where they left three thousand prisoners and 105 guns in the hands of the Anglo-French 900 for three months. On the Eastern Front, Austria-Hungary was barely able to be saved from a catastrophe, and if Joffre, on Marne, “discharged” Moltke Jr. from the command, then Brusilov, with his offensive, forced Falkenhayn to resign. But a quick and crushing victory over Romania and the conquest of this country with its huge oil reserves once again instilled courage in the peoples and governments of the Central Coalition, raised its prestige in world politics and gave firm ground to Germany to propose to the allies in December 1916 of peaceful conditions the winner’s tone. These proposals were, of course, rejected by the Allied cabinets. Thus, Romania’s entry into the war did not improve, but worsened the situation for the Entente.

In 1916, another remarkable event occurred during the war. At the end of 1915, France offered the tsarist government of Russia to send to the Western front, in the framework of international assistance, 400 thousands of Russian officers, noncommissioned officers and soldiers in exchange for the missing Russian imperial army weapons and military supplies. In January, the 1916 of the year, the 1-I special infantry brigade of the two-track regiment was formed. Major-General N. A. Lokhvitsky was appointed the head of the brigade. Following the march on the railway route Moscow-Samara-Ufa-Krasnoyarsk-Irkutsk-Harbin-Dalyan, then by French maritime transport route Dalyan-Saigon-Colombo-Aden-Suez Canal-Marseille, arrived at the port of Marseille 20 April 1916, from there to the Western Front. In this brigade the future Marshal of Victory and the USSR Minister of Defense Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky fought bravely. In July, the 1916-I Special Infantry Brigade, commanded by General Dieterichs, was sent to the Solonico Front through France to the Solonico Front. In June 2, the formation of the 1916 Special Infantry Brigade under the command of General V.V. Marushevsky was started. In August 3, she was sent to France through Arkhangelsk. Then the last 1916-I Special Infantry Brigade, headed by Major General M. N. Leontiev, was sent to Macedonia. She sailed from Arkhangelsk on the steamer “Martizan” in mid-September, on October 4 of the year arrived in Thessaloniki. The appearance of the allied Russian troops made a big impression in France. The further fate of these troops was very different, but this is a separate issue. Due to transport difficulties, more troops were not sent to France.


Fig. 7 Arrival of Russian troops in Marseille

It should be said that the assumption of the command of Nicholas II led to an improvement in the supply of weapons and ammunition at the front. Already during the 1916 campaign, the army was well supplied, the production of military equipment increased dramatically. The production of rifles doubled against 1914 of the year (110 thousand per month against 55 thousand), the production of machine guns increased six times, heavy guns four times, airplanes three times, projectiles 16 times ... U. Churchill wrote: “Few episodes of great war are more striking, rather than resurrection, rearmament and a renewed gigantic effort of Russia in 1916 year. This was the last glorious contribution of the tsar and the Russian people to the victory. By the summer of 1916, Russia, which had been almost unarmed for 18 months before, which had experienced a continuous series of terrible defeats during 1915, had really managed to put on the battlefield, organize, equip, equip 60 army corps with its own efforts, instead of those 35, with whom she started the war ... ".


Fig. 8 Production of armored vehicles at the Izhora plant

Taking advantage of the long relative winter lull at the front, the Russian command gradually begins withdrawing the Cossack units from the front and preparing them for the new military operations of the 1917 campaign of the year. Begins systematic manning and restoration of the Cossack divisions. However, despite the accelerated coalescence of Cossack units, they did not advance to a new duty station, and a significant part of the Cossacks met the February revolution not at all at the front. There are several points of view on this point, including one very beautiful version, which, however, is not confirmed by any documents or memories, but only, as the investigators say, by indirect and material evidence.

By the end of 1916, the theory of a deep offensive operation had already been welded into the heads of military theorists; in the German version it was later called the theory of blitzkrieg. In the Russian army, this work was headed by the best minds of the General Staff. In pursuance of new theoretical concepts in Russia, they conceived to form two shock armies, one for the Western and one for the South-Western fronts. In the Russian version they were called horse-mechanized groups. For them, dozens of armored trains, hundreds of armored cars and airplanes were built. Sewn was concern N.A. Vtorov on the sketches of Vasnetsov and Korovin several hundred thousand units of special uniforms. Leather sleeves with trousers, leggings and caps were designed for mechanized troops, aviation, armored carriages, armored trains and self-kickers. Special uniform for cavalrymen was with red for 1 army and blue for 2 army bloomers, long-faced overcoats in the streletsky style (with hlyastikami- "conversations" on the chest) and "Russian knight helmets" - warriors. Stocked a huge amount of weapons and ammunition (including the legendary Mauser automatic pistols for mechanized troops). All this wealth was stored in special warehouses along the Moscow-Minsk and Moscow-Kiev railways (some buildings are still preserved). The offensive was planned for the summer of 1917. At the end of 1916, the best cavalry and technical units were recalled from the front, and the cavalry and tech officers at military schools began to learn how to conduct war in a new way. In both capitals, dozens of training centers for training crews were created, tens of thousands of competent workers, technicians and engineers were mobilized from enterprises there, removing their reservations. But they had no particular desire to fight, and the anti-war propaganda of the Cadets, liberals and socialists did the job. In fact, the soldiers of these capital training regiments and armed with Kerensky, to protect the revolution from front-line soldiers, the St. Petersburg workers later carried out the October Revolution. But the property and weapons accumulated for the Russian shock armies were not in vain. Kozhanki and Mauser very fond of security officers and commissars, and the cavalry uniform went to the 1 and 2 uniforms of the Cavalry armies and the red commanders, and then became known as Budyonnovsk. But this is just a version.

In December 1916, a military council was assembled at GHQ to discuss the campaign plan for 1917. After breakfast, the Supreme Commander began to sit. The king was even more dispersed than at the previous military council in April, and constantly yawned, did not interfere in any debate. In the absence of Alekseev, the council was conducted by the acting chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Gurko, with great difficulty, since he did not have the necessary authority. On the day after breakfast, the king left the council altogether and departed for Tsarskoye Selo. He was clearly not in the mood for the military debate, because during the meeting a message was received about the murder of Rasputin. No wonder that, in the absence of the Supreme Commander and Alekseev, no decisions were made, since Evert and Kuropatkin blocked any proposals for the advance of their fronts. In general, without any specifics, it was decided to attack by the forces of the South-Western Front, provided that it was strengthened and given most of the heavy artillery from the reserve. At this council, it became clear that the food supply business of the troops was getting worse. The government ministers changed as if they were playing leapfrog, and by their extremely personal choice and appointed to the ministries they were completely unfamiliar and in their posts were primarily not in action, but in struggle with the State Duma and public opinion to defend their existence. Chaos has already prevailed in governing the country, when decisions were made by irresponsible persons, all sorts of advisers, curators, deputies and other influential persons, including Rasputin and the empress. Under these conditions, the government was getting worse and worse, and the army suffered from it. And if the soldiers' mass was still mostly inert, then the officer corps and the entire intelligentsia, which was part of the army, being more informed, were very hostile towards the government. Brusilov recalled that “he had left the council very upset, clearly seeing that the state machine was finally reeling and that the state ship was running along the turbulent waters of the sea of ​​life without a rudder, wind and commander. Under such conditions, the ship can easily fly into the pitfalls and die, not from an external enemy, not from an internal, but from a lack of control. ” During the winter of 1916 / 1917, there was still plenty of warm clothing, but there wasn’t enough of a boot, and on the advice of the Minister of War he said that there was almost no skin. In this case, almost the whole country went to the soldiers' boots. An incredible mess was going on in the rear. Replenishment arrived at the front half-naked and barefoot, although in the places of call-up and training it was fully outfitted. The soldiers considered it commonplace to sell everything to the townsfolk on the way, and at the front they should be provided with everything again. No measures were taken against such outrages. Nutrition also deteriorated. Instead of three pounds of bread, they began to give out two, meat instead of a pound began to be given ¾ pound, then half a pound a day, then they introduced two fasting days a week (fish days).

Despite this, by the beginning of 1917, the Russian army, which had survived 2 and a half years of war, had military successes and failures, was not undermined either morally or financially, although the difficulties were increasing. After experiencing a heavy crisis in the supply of fire weapons and the deep penetration of the army of the enemy deep into the country, a committee of cities and zemstvos was organized in 1915 in the country to raise industry and develop military production. By the end of 1915, the arms crisis was out of date, the armies were supplied with sufficient shells, ammunition and artillery. By the beginning of 1917, the supply of firing equipment was so well established that, according to experts, it was never so well equipped for the entire campaign. The Russian army as a whole retained its combat capability and readiness to continue the war to the end. By the beginning of 1917, it was becoming obvious to everyone that the German army must surrender in the Allied spring offensive. But it turned out that the fate of the country depended not on the psychological and military potential of the warring army, but on the psychological state of the rear and the authorities, as well as on the complex and largely secret processes that developed in the rear. As a result, the country was destroyed and plunged into revolution and anarchy.

But there are no revolutions without army participation. The Russian army continued to be called the imperial army, but in its composition it actually turned into a workers' and peasants', more precisely, a peasants'. In the army ranged millions of people, with all the attributes of this mass character. Mass armies in the 20th century gave examples of mass heroism, resilience, self-sacrifice, patriotism, and examples of equally massive betrayal, cowardice, surrender, collaborationism, etc., which was not typical of previous armies consisting of military groups. The wartime officers were massively recruited through the schools of ensigns from more educated classes. Basically, the recruitment came from the so-called semi-intelligentsia: students, seminarians, high-school students, clerks, clerks, solicitors, etc. (now called office plankton). Together with education, these young people received a powerful charge of pernicious and destructive ideas based on atheism, nihilism of socialism, anarchism, frantic satire, and humorous humor from their more educated and older teachers. And these teachers in the brain long before the war fabricated methods of eerie eclecticism and the great ideological bedlam firmly settled, which Dostoevsky called devilish, and our current living classic politically correct called "sunstroke." But this is just an elegant translation from Russian into Russian of the same ideological devilry. No better, or rather worse, the situation was among the ruling classes, in the civil administration and among the bureaucrats. There in the brain was the same bedlam, this indispensable companion of any unrest, only more unbridled and not burdened with military discipline. But such a situation is not something exotic and extraordinary for Russian reality, such a situation has existed in Russia for centuries and does not necessarily lead to the Troubles, but only creates an ideological fornication in the heads of the educated classes. But only if Russia is headed by a tsar (leader, general secretary, president — it doesn’t matter what he is called), who is able to consolidate most of the elite and the people on the basis of the human state instinct. In this case, Russia and its army are capable of enduring immeasurably greater difficulties and trials, rather than reducing the meat ration by half a pound or replacing a part of the troops of boots with boots with windings. But this was not the case, and that is another story.

Materials used:
Gordeev A.A. History of the Cossacks.
Mamonov V.F. and others. The history of the Cossacks of the Urals. Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, 1992.
Shibanov N.S. Orenburg Cossacks of the XX century.
Ryzhkova N.V. Don Cossacks in the wars of the early twentieth century. M., 2008.
Unknown tragedies of the First World War. Captives. Deserters. The refugees M., Veche, 2011.
Oskin M.V. The collapse of the horse blitzkrieg. Cavalry in the First World War. M., Yauza, 2009.
Brusilov A.A. My memories. Military Publishing. M., 1983.
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  1. Mwg
    +2
    24 December 2014 07: 41
    Propaganda of liberal values ​​as an ideological weapon was then used successfully. The bedlam in the heads of the time was the result of such propaganda. Any revolution always begins long before it happens. Dostoevsky was right: the infection of the minds with the ideas of liberalism is pure devilry. Since it is based on the substitution of concepts, the formation of symbolic and analogous thinking in a superficially educated majority.
    Thomas Aquinas said: The devil does not have his own ways, he replaces some ways of the Lord with others.
  2. +1
    24 December 2014 08: 50
    Nothing understood. belay Sixteen Russian divisions of nichrome could not, and the bottom of the Cossack "team" decided everything what Duc, it may dissolve the state. Let them rule in the villages?
  3. +2
    24 December 2014 09: 29
    About the Cossacks something in the article is not enough, the usual retelling of the military chronicle.
    1. 0
      24 December 2014 17: 07
      Walking "About the Cossacks, something in the article is not enough, the usual retelling of the military chronicle."
      I agree. An article about anything but the participation of Cossacks in the First World War.)))
      The author is definitely a plus for the work.))) The cycle of articles is large and a lot of work was spent. But .... he just had to name the article not "Cossacks and the First World War."
      And as something "Russian army in the First World War." Or "Preparing Russia for the First World War." Or at worst "Supply of the Russian army in the First World War.")))
      The article talks about anything but the Cossacks in that war.)))
      By the way ... In my opinion, the illustration for the article "Capture of an enemy battery by the Cossacks" does not depict the Cossacks at all.))))
      1. The comment was deleted.
      2. 0
        25 December 2014 17: 42
        Quote: Nagaibak
        By the way ... In my opinion, the illustration for the article "Capture of an enemy battery by the Cossacks" does not depict the Cossacks at all.))))
        1. 0
          26 December 2014 10: 17
          Yes, Don Cossacks))) with Khokhlak warrant officers at their peak.))) And the stripes ... are an idea?)))) Yes, and one of them’s checkers looks like dragoons.))) I don’t even speak about the uniform. )))) Apparently the artist ... took too much))). And so yes))) - Don Cossacks in berets, the most.))))
  4. 0
    24 December 2014 10: 27
    It's a shame that we merged Russia, if not for the revolution, we would have put the whole geyropa crustacean a hundred years ago.
  5. dmb
    0
    24 December 2014 11: 56
    The latest commentary shows that not all fellow citizens still prefer to think with their own heads. You can write long and tediously about the nonsense set forth by the author (as an example, an ode to the tsar-father on improving the supply of the army and immediately mentioning that under his wise leadership, the supply of the army deteriorated), but the commentary is even more challenging. Why for a hundred years Europe should be considered a "crustacean", and how it would be expressed, the commentator is hardly able to explain. But the funny thing is that his comment completely negates the renaming of this war into the Patriotic War, voiced by our "wise" authorities. The fact that the authorities cheekily lie is easily verified by the direction of the Russian corps, to die for French interests. Or our Fatherland in Paris?
  6. 0
    24 December 2014 18: 00
    I read it with interest.
  7. sfsdf3edg
    0
    25 December 2014 03: 23
    Guys, I recently learned about one chip, with the help of a bucket you can seduce any girl in a couple of minutes. For the male, it also does not have a weak effect, I advise as I tried it myself. More details here - http://strigenko.blogspot.com
  8. 0
    25 December 2014 19: 40
    Where only Russian bones are not scattered.
    It’s a pity for the guys of all and those who saved the French with their lives.
    Alas, not only the French, but also many here, do not remember.
  9. 0
    25 December 2014 20: 02
    The Cossacks were then harsh warriors, not like the current mummers

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