Decomposition of the army and society. Consequences. 1914-1917 g

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Interesting factual material about the causes and consequences of the fall of discipline and the decay of the organizational structure of the army on the eve of the February revolution.

It has been shown quite well that the causes of decay and disintegration were of a systemic nature, but for the time being, army discipline kept the army in relative order. But after the February revolution, all the burden of contradictions accumulating in the army manifested itself in all its glory, and Order No. 1, which followed soon after February, contributed to the systemic character of what was described below (for example, drunken pogroms took place both after the February and after the October revolutions) and led, among other reasons, to the complete disintegration of the old army within a year. Excellent photographs (including colored ones) add value to the material.

Decomposition of the army and society. Consequences. 1914-1917

Senyavskaya E. S. "Historical psychology and sociology of history" Volume 6

From the diary of Ensign Bakulin; November 9, 1914. The soldiers searched the German schoolbags, there was no bread, there was 5 pounds of bacon, some of them had canned food, some kind of ointment in jars, which the soldiers tried on the tongue, first smearing the ointment with a finger, and then a finger on the tongue, turned out to be inedible, but disgusting, as some of the soldiers told me.

The flasks contained vodka, which the "countrymen" also tasted, did not approve of either, "it was painfully strong, but very sweet, so it was disgusting."

March 25, 1916. Card games and drunkenness among the troops are flourishing … Games, of course, are gambling. They drink cognac, since it is difficult to get it with various tricks, they get it according to the recipes of military doctors, at a high price from merchants.

Also, now alcohol has become in great demand, which is easier to get than brandy. Sometimes you have to deliver government vodka, and now those who drink it declare that it is weak and also flavored with alcohol to make it stronger.

June 14, 1916. One of our 50th division regiments recaptured 20 barrels of rum. In general, a lot of wine was left in Lutsk, but when the quartermaster appeared, everything was confiscated, and he was already selling cognac and rum to all willing officers for 5 rubles. per bottle, and, since the demand was great, he increased the price to 10 rubles, and now he does not sell at all. The money received from the wine allegedly went to the state revenue. It is unlikely that all, and so, crumbs will fall into the income.

November 23, 1916. In Lutsk, cologne can be bought with the permission of the commandant. The corps doctor, a great specialist in alcohol, is outraged that now alcohol is delivered to the hospital's infirmaries with an admixture of ether. "The devil knows INTO," the doctor exclaims, "they themselves drink, and in order to extinguish the loss, they add ether - you can't even drink."

March 26, 1917. Today the wine cellar was also broken, the wine was released on the ground and here they scooped it right out of the mud. My platoon is all drunk.

In short, all the soldiers get drunk and rowdy. They seek wine from the residents and take them away directly, and the residents, who are dragged with wine, point to others who still have wine - so it goes on continuously …

September 1915 in Polesie a military doctor Voitolovsky draws: Varynki, Vasyuki, Garasyuki … The air smells of fusel oil and alcohol. There are distilleries around.

Millions of buckets of vodka are released into ponds and ditches. Soldiers scoop this dirty slurry from ditches and filter it on gas masks. Or, falling into a muddy puddle, they drink until brutality, to death.

The earth is all saturated with alcohol. In many places, it is enough to make a hole, dig with your heel in the sand, so that it is filled with alcohol. Drunken regiments and divisions turn into gangs of marauders and arrange robberies and pogroms all the way.

The Cossacks are especially violent. Sparing neither gender nor age, they rob every village to the bone and turn Jewish townships into ruins. Drunken revelry takes on wild proportions.

Everyone is drunk - from a soldier to a staff general. Alcohol is released to officers in buckets. Each part comes up with all sorts of pretexts for arranging official drinking bouts.

At one point, the battery of the 49th brigade remembered its battery holiday and stopped in the forest, off the road. Observation posts were somehow built on the tall pines.

Spread out a picnic on the grass. All the chefs were mobilized. They took out the alcohol. Suddenly shelling. Some of the officers crawled under the charging box. A shell lit the box. Everyone was confused.

A firecracker named Novak risking his own head rolled the box and pulled the officer out. The battery hastily moved to another location.

When they sent for alcohol, there was no alcohol. By order of the officers, all the cooks were flogged, but no alcohol was found.

The drunken soldiers were completely out of control. The most respectable of our gunners stagger about. The dapper Blinov caught my eye the other day in a terrible state: all dirty and with a big black eye.

- And you are not ashamed, Blinov? - I chided him.

- I'm sorry! - he answered with a tangled tongue. - Vodka knits your mouth, but pleases your soul …"

Warrant Officer D. Oskin: The Radziwills are rapidly collapsing. Almost every day, in one or the other end of the city, fires occur from the careless handling of our soldiers with ovens in which they cook food, not content with meals from the field kitchen …

In the cellars, the soldiers find vodka and wine. While the officers do not know about this, the soldiers get drunk on their own, but as soon as they are discovered, wine and vodka are taken into the officers' meeting.

By seven o'clock in the morning our regiment entered the city. The losses were colossal … The only reward for the survivors was the mass of liqueurs, liqueurs and liqueurs captured in Brody. For three or four days of standing in reserve, all the officers of the regiment were drunk. They drank until they destroyed the entire supply."

Ensign Bakulin noted in his diary: "The order of the chief of the Western Front says:" The doctors, despite their high vocation, do not behave as they should, indulge in drunkenness and corrupt the sisters of mercy, which is put on their appearance and offer them to reform ".

On May 13, 1916, he writes: “Venereal diseases rage not only between the military, but also, sadly, between the sisters of mercy, and it is not them who are awarded with diseases, but they.

Recently from st. Molodechno was sent to heal one hundred sisters; according to one doctor, up to 300 sisters and several priests were in the hospital in Warsaw.

Sick soldiers are also not evacuated for treatment, only those who have a severe form of the disease are evacuated. When all the sick were evacuated, it was noticed that some were deliberately infected in order to evacuate. In Poland, even Jews offered goods with the question: "For pleasure or evacuation?"

Ensign Oskin: "At the front, syphilis is even called a" sister ", and the symbols of the Red Cross over the institutions of military-sanitary organizations are compared with a" red lantern. " our officers."

On November 20, 1914, the artillery ensign F. A. Stepun (the future famous philosopher) wrote to his wife from Galicia: “Above the whole city is the howl of the remaining inhabitants. The requisition of kerosene, hay, oats and cattle is taking place.

At a street lamp, two Russian women are fighting over kerosene. Restoring order, they are dispersed by the Cossacks. Each has a velvet tablecloth under the saddle or a cushion made of silk instead of a saddle. Many have a second or third horse. Dashing audience.

What kind of warriors they are, whether they spare or don’t spare themselves in battle, opinions differ about this, I don’t have my own opinion yet, but that they are professional marauders and will not spare anyone for anything - there are no two opinions about this maybe.

However, the difference between Cossacks and soldiers lies in this respect only in the fact that Cossacks with a clear conscience drag everything: necessary and unnecessary; and the soldiers, nevertheless experiencing some remorse, take only the things they need.

I absolutely cannot be very strict about this. A person who gives his life cannot spare the well-being of the Galician and the life of his heifer and hen.

A person who experiences the greatest violence against himself cannot but become a rapist. Kutuzov understood this, and when people came to him with complaints of looting, he used to say “the forest is being cut, the chips are flying”.

On April 19, 1915, Voitolovsky described the retreat of Russian troops from the same Galicia: There is a petty looting. Aimless, impudent. Bags, buckets, dishes are removed from fences. They run into yards, rummage in peasant huts, rob houses, farms, townships.

And in twenty minutes all the loot flies under the feet of the rumbling stream. They throw everything they take: muslin curtains torn from the windows, plush tablecloths, linen, samovars, pots, gramophone pipes, records, vases, brushes, pots …

All this clogs up the road, cracks under the wheels and kindles the thirst for pogrom. They throw one thing - and again they rob the houses lying along the way, and again they throw it. The fleeing army knows neither pity nor evangelical love, and with contemptuous disgust toward patriotism, the judgment of posterity and other people's property …"

On June 22, 1915, a secret order was issued by the commander of the 3rd Army, General of Infantry Lesch, which, in particular, read: “According to reliable information that has reached me, the city of Zamoć was plundered by the Cossacks (partly in Circassians) during the retreat of our troops, and there were cases of violence over women.

Cases of breaking into chests and cabinets have been established. Unfortunately, I myself was personally convinced of the validity of the complaints, especially against the Cossack troops. I order all superiors to take the most stringent measures against looting and robbery."

This phenomenon was widespread and widespread. On March 6, 1916, M. Isaev wrote to his wife from the Caucasian front: “Not a day goes by that the Persians do not come to complain that their soldiers and Cossacks are taking hay from them for free, taking money, even offending women.

There is no smoke without fire. Those who go to forage are given money. It is so tempting to keep 4-5 rubles for yourself. Our soldiers told me that when asked if they have hay, residents always answer "no."

You have to find the hidden hay, take it "impudently" and then pay. So, is the latter always done? And not because the hay is hiding, which is usually not accepted to pay for it.

How many times have I explained to mine the situation of these unfortunate Persians that they are already serfs. But to say that our people would never be abused - I could not.

Knowing individuals, he could vouch for his own, but not for others. And at the same time, as you will especially begin to accuse. After the defeat of S.-B., the carts of some units were directly filled with carpets and other property.

The Red Cross doctor told me the third day that the senior doctor of this transport left him 40 patients, because his carts were filled with carpets. But this is a doctor!

And how much gold sometimes went to the winners. We turn a blind eye to the offense of women. All these "lessons" do not pass without leaving a trace for the soldiers, of course. It’s easy to dissolve, but then how to tighten it up?"

Ensign D. Oskin wrote in June 1916 about the devastated front-line city of the Radziwills, from where all residents were evicted in a few hours:

All the buildings are occupied by the people of the regiment. In almost every courtyard, fluff from ripped pillows and featherbeds flew. Not a single apartment remained unopened chests and wardrobes. Furniture, dishes - everything was broken, distorted. Furniture upholstery - plush, velvet, leather - were ripped off: some for footcloths, others for blankets, others just like that, for the sake of mischief.

The officers of all battalions, taking advantage of the fact that the position passed along the very outskirts of the city, was located not in the trenches, as usual, but in houses, carrying out an audit of the abandoned property there.

If on the first night the residents loaded with household belongings came out of the Radziwill in a row, then in the morning of the next day carts with looted property, accompanied by orderlies, pulled out. The route is small. Only one and a half thousand versts.

All apartments are cleaned of valuable property. With the light hand of some officers, the soldiers, in turn, fill duffel bags with all sorts of junk.

- Where are you going? I ask some of the soldiers. - Are you going to carry all this rubbish until the end of the war? - Nothing, your honor, let's hustle ….

Finally, one more question that should be touched on is the veteran veterans 'acute hostility to the "rear and staff rats", which were dubbed "the internal enemy" among the soldiers' masses.

“In addition to its tragic appearance, the war also showed me its disgusting face,” wrote F. Stepun on October 14, 1914. “The oppressive overcrowding of the gray masses of soldiers that sadly sing in the cattle wagons.

The endless rudeness of some "nobles", the brilliant stupidity of brilliant generals, doctors, strategists and cocotess sisters … … However, all these are exceptions, the general spirit is certainly pure, good and cheerful."

Meanwhile, the downtrodden gray soldier masses were already looking for the culprits of their troubles and did not find them in the enemy trenches.

It is no coincidence that on January 4, 1915, scolding the high authorities in his diary, Ensign Bakulin wrote: In general, people here do not care, because they cost nothing, but some penny government thing is valued, and very highly, lose people as much as you want, you will not be put on trial, but for a state-owned thing, which is worthless, you will be put on trial and you won’t end up in trouble”

V. Aramilev wrote: "In the trenches, ideas about many things are radically or partially changing. In Petrograd, they taught that the" internal enemy "is those who … And at the front, a completely different idea of the" internal enemy "spontaneously grows in the unwise soldier's brain.

On long boring autumn evenings or sitting in a dugout under the impression of a hellish symphony of field and mountain cannons, we sometimes do "literature".

Someone from the rank and file appropriates the rank of platoon officer and asks questions. When asked who is our internal enemy, each soldier answers without hesitation: - We have four internal enemies: the headquarters officer, the quartermaster, the kapten-armus and the louse.

Socialists, anarchists, and all sorts of other "ists" are, for the majority of the soldiers' masses, figures of people who go against the authorities, they don't want what the authorities want.

And the officer, the quartermaster, the captain and the louse are everyday life, everyday life, reality. The soldier sees, feels, "cognizes" these internal enemies every day … ".

But the front-line officers hated the staff and rear officers no less than the soldiers. Warrant officer Bakulin dedicated many angry pages to them in his diary.

July 11, 1915. Since the rear officers in Warsaw spend a lot of fun, use state-owned cars with chauffeurs-soldiers, stuff girls of easy virtue and behave in cars just like a hooligan, then from the commander of the Southwestern Front there was an order for all officers, even those in positions, to behave more decently and to use government cars for government needs only.

January 13, 1915. Now in the troops in the positions everything is based on ensigns; there are no company commanders, except for ensigns and second lieutenants, in our division even some battalions are commanded by lieutenants.

In the rear offices, in different teams, fat-faced lieutenants and captains sit, these are those to whom the grandmother bewitches and the aunt has a long tail; they are not endangered, they receive ranks, orders, awards for something and do nothing.

In general, whoever is at the forefront is the most unfortunate people: they sit in the trenches, starve, freeze, get wet in the rain and snow, are exposed to danger every second, rewards are given sparingly, and if they do, they get more killed than alive.

In the headquarters, there is a different matter, for all the staff and even orderlies attached to the generals, awards are pouring in, as if from a cornucopia, but for what?

For the fact that there are blockheads in the positions who are sitting, freezing and starving, whom none of the staff can see. In general, the headquarters does not consider the people in the positions, if only they were, but with rifles, it is not worth rewarding them, they will still be killed."

M. Isaev on March 16-17, 1916, wrote to his wife from the Caucasian front: “It is difficult to imagine our experiences, they need to be experienced by yourself. Our nerves must show themselves after the war, and I know that I will never return to the way I went.

And the fault, really, is not these Turks and Kurds that are in front of us - but their own Russian Turks and Kurds, who, with their indifference and indifference, strike us in the back - blow after blow.

At the same time, I do not regret for a minute that I went to war. Conscience is the best measure of our actions, and I have it calm. I know that neither you nor the children were "provided" - but still it is not so little - to leave to their children the consciousness that their father acted honestly."

A month later, on April 24, 1916, on Holy Saturday, he will continue this theme with bitterness: “Oh, how many examples and accusations of insensitivity to neighbors in the rear could be cited. And this is where our social backwardness manifested itself.

The Russkiye Vedomosti published Osorgin's correspondence from Rome, prompted by an article by a Moscow correspondent for an Italian newspaper.

The Italian was directly struck by Moscow's indifference to the war, a wide thirst for pleasure, etc. Osorgin asked if this was really true? Well, the editorial board, of course, says that it is impossible to generalize, that Moscow is working for the war like no one else, but that should still be admitted …

In England - the classic country of horse racing - there are none now, in France there are almost no theaters - and we have a "feast in the time of the plague."

In the old days, merchants smeared the faces of "men" with mustard and paid. Now we buy from the auction for 400 rubles. the last glass of champagne, and serious newspapers consider it their sacred duty to inform the whole of Russia about this, mentioning the name of the patriot-donor.

Of course, you know that Russia is not exhausted by these lovers of spectacles and delicate auctions, but still it is insulting and bitter for the "top", for the "color" of our country.

And the common people continue their work. I think that a deep instinct is in him, that it is necessary to fight, that Russia and its destinies belong to them in the future."

The war broke many stereotypes of consciousness, destroyed spiritual values and moral norms, preparing the people for even more terrible shocks arising in the course of war itself.

In 1917, after the February Revolution and the fall of the monarchy in Russia, amid the ongoing war, the foundations of military discipline first collapsed, and then the army itself.

On March 27, 1917 M. Isaev wrote with bitterness to his children about the situation in the troops: “It’s bad to fight now… the soldiers are not the same. They wanted to make the soldiers citizens, but they didn’t become them, and they ceased to be real soldiers.

The soldier is now better off than the officer. He is not responsible for anything, he is not afraid of the authorities. What kind of warriors they are, everyone thinks about their own skin, but about their fatherland, about Russia, they speak only in words. The workers took pity on the soldiers, but they did not pity us the officers, but what will the army do without the officers?.."

Ahead were October 1917 and the fratricidal Civil War.

Ultimately, the war acted as a catalyst for that "strange anger of the people", which the gendarme general Nechvolodov wrote about after the revolution of 1905-1907, and led to the consequences that the perspicacious minister Durnovo warned the tsar about before entering the war.