CHAPTER XIV.

THE STRATEGICAL POSITION OF THE RUSSIAN FRONT.

The first and fundamental question with which I was confronted at the Stavka was _the 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 found _or 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 the War 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 still in 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 a _beginning 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.

[Map: The Russian (European) Front in 1917.]

[Map: 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 the outward 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 long time 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 cautious _Norddeutsche 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: The _tactical_ reason--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 the _psychological_ reason, the collapse of the _moral_ and 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 the North-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'armes_ erected, 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 complete disregard 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 the difficulties 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 had already 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.