CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE IN THE SUMMER OF 1917--THE DÉBÂCLE.

The Russian offensive which had been planned for the month of May was being delayed. At first a simultaneous advance on all fronts had been contemplated; later, however, owing to the psychological impossibility of a forward movement on all fronts, it was decided to advance gradually. The Western Front was of secondary importance, and the Northern was intended only for demonstration. They should have moved first in order to divert the attention and the forces of the enemy from the main front--the South-Western. The first two of the above-named fronts were not, however, ready for the advance. The Supreme Command finally decided to abandon the strategical plan and to give the commanders of various fronts a free hand in starting operations as the Armies would be ready, provided these operations were not delayed too long and the enemy was not given the opportunity of carrying out re-groupings on a large scale.

Even such a strategy, simplified as it had been owing to the Revolution, might have yielded great results, considering the world-wide scope of the War; if the German Armies on the Eastern Front could not have been utterly defeated, that Front might at least have been restored to its former importance. The Central Powers might have been compelled to send to that Front large forces, war material and munitions, thus severely handicapping Hindenburg's strategy and causing him constant anxiety. The operations were finally fixed for the following dates: They were to begin on the South-Western Front on June 16th, on the Western on July 7th, on the Northern on July 8th, and on the Roumanian on July 6th. The last three dates almost coincide with the beginning of the collapse (July 6th-7th) of the South-Western Front.

As mentioned above, in June, 1917, the Revolutionary Democracy had already acquiesced in the idea that an advance was necessary, although this acquiescence was qualified. The offensive thus had the moral support of the Provisional Government, the Commanding Staffs, all the officers, the Liberal Democracy, the Defencist Coalition of the Soviet, the Commissars, of nearly all Army Committees, and of many Regimental Committees. Against the offensive the minority of the Revolutionary Democracy was ranged--the Bolsheviks, the Social-Revolutionaries of Tchernov's and of Martov's (Zederbaum) group. There was a small appendix to this minority--the Democratisation of the Army.

At the moment of writing I do not possess a complete list of the Russian Armies, but I may confidently assert that on all sectors upon which the advance had been planned we had a numerical and a technical superiority over the enemy, more especially in guns, of which we had larger quantities than ever. It fell to the lot of the South-Western Front to test the fighting capacity of the Revolutionary Army.

The group of armies under General Bohm-Ermolli (the 4th and 2nd Austrian Armies and the Southern German Armies) stood between the upper Sereth and the Carpathians (Brody-Nadvorna) on the position north of the Dniester which we had captured after Brussilov's victorious advance in the autumn of 1916. South of the Dniester stood the 3rd Austrian Army of General Kirchbach, which formed the Left Wing of the Archduke Joseph's Carpathian Front. Our best Army Corps, which were intended as shock troops, were opposed to the last three Armies mentioned above. These Austro-German troops had already been dealt many heavy blows by the Russian Armies in the summer and in the autumn of 1916. Since then, the Southern German Divisions of General Botmer, which had been hard hit, had been replaced by fresh troops from the North. Although the Austrian Armies had been to a certain extent reorganised by the German High Command and reinforced by German divisions, they did not represent a formidable force and, according to the German Headquarters, were not fit for active operations.

Since the Germans had occupied the Cherviche "Place d'armes" on the Stokhod, Hindenburg's Headquarters had given orders that no operations should be conducted, as it was hoped that the disruption of the Russian Army and of the country would follow its natural course, assisted by German propaganda. The Germans estimated the fighting capacity of our Army very low. Nevertheless, when Hindenburg realised in the beginning of June that a Russian advance was a contingency to be reckoned with, he moved six divisions from the Western-European front and sent them to reinforce the group of Armies of Bohm-Ermolli. The enemy was perfectly well aware of the directions in which we intended to advance....

The Russian Armies of the South-Western Front, commanded by General Gutor, were to strike in the main direction of Kamenetz-Podolsk-Lvov. The Armies were to move along both banks of the Dniester: General Erdely's 11th Army in the direction of Zlochev, General Selivatchev's 7th Army towards Brjeczany, and General Kornilov's 8th Army towards Galitch. In the event of victory we would reach Lvov, break through between the fronts of Bohm-Ermolli and the Archduke Joseph, and would drive the latter's left wing to the Carpathians, cutting it off from all available natural means of communication. The remainder of our Armies on the South-Western Front were stretched along a broad front from the river Pripet to Brody for active defence and demonstration.

On June 16th the guns of the shock troops of the 7th and 11th Army opened a fire of such intensity as had never been heard before. After two days of continuous fire, which destroyed the enemy's strong position, the Russian regiments attacked. The enemy line was broken between Zvorov and Brjeczany on a front of several miles; we took two or three fortified lines. On June 19th the attack was renewed on a front of forty miles, between the Upper Strypa and the Narauvka. In this heavy and glorious battle the Russian troops took three hundred officers and eighteen thousand men prisoners in two days, twenty-nine guns, and other booty. The enemy positions were captured on many sectors, and we penetrated the enemy lines to an average depth of over two miles, driving him back to the Strypa in the direction of Zlochev.

The news of our victory spread all over Russia, evoked universal rejoicings, and raised the hopes for the revival of the former strength of the Russian Army. Kerensky reported to the Provisional Government as follows: "This day is the day of a great triumph for the Revolution. On June 18th the Russian Revolutionary Army, in very high spirits, began the advance and has proved before Russia and before the world its ardent devotion to the cause of the Revolution and its love of Country and Liberty.... The Russian warriors are inaugurating a new discipline based upon feelings of a citizen's duty.... An end has been made to-day of all the vicious calumnies and slander about the organisation of the Russian Army, which has been rebuilt on Democratic lines...." The man who wrote these words had afterwards the courage to claim that it was not he who had destroyed the Army, because he had taken over the organisation as a fatal inheritance!

After three days' respite, a violent battle was resumed on the front of the 11th Army on both sides of the railway line on the front Batkuv-Koniuchi. By that time the threatened German regiments were reinforced, and stubborn fighting ensued. The 11th Army captured several lines, but suffered heavy losses. The trenches changed hands several times after a hand-to-hand battle, and great efforts had to be made in order to break the resistance of the enemy, who had been reinforced and had recovered. This action practically signified the end of the advance of the 7th and 11th Armies. The impetus was spent and the troops began once more to sit in the trenches, the monotony of this pastime being only broken in places by local skirmishes, Austro-German counter-attacks, and intermittent gunfire. Meanwhile preparations for the advance began on June 23rd in Kornilov's Army. On June 25th his troops broke through General Kirchbach's positions west of Stanislavov and reached the line of Jesupol-Lyssetz. After a stubborn and sanguinary battle Kirchbach's troops, utterly defeated, ran and dragged along in their headlong flight the German division which had been sent to reinforce them. On the 27th General Cheremissov's right column captured Galitch, some of his troops crossed the Dniester. On the 28th the left column overcame the stubborn resistance of the Austro-Germans and captured Kalush. In the next two or three days, the 8th Army was in action on the river Lomnitza and finally established itself on the banks of the river and in front of it. In the course of this brilliant operation Kornilov's Army broke through the 3rd Austrian Army on a front of over twenty miles and captured 150 officers, 10,000 men, and about 100 guns. The capture of Lomnitza opened to Kornilov the road to Dolina-Stryi and to the communications of Botmer's Army. German Headquarters described the position of the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front as _critical_.

General Bohm-Ermolli meanwhile was concentrating all his reserves in the direction of Zlochev, the point to which the German divisions were likewise sent which had been taken from the Western European Front. Some of the reserves had to be sent, however, across the Dniester against the 8th Russian Army. They arrived on July 2nd, reinforced the shattered ranks of the 3rd Austrian Army, and from that day positional battles began on the Lomnitza, with varying success, and occasionally stubborn fighting. The concentration of the German shock troops between the Upper Sereth and the railway line Tarnopol-Zlochev was completed on July 5th. On the next day, after strong artillery preparations, this group attacked our 11th Army, broke our front and moved swiftly towards Kamenetz-Podolsk, pursuing the Army Corps of the 11th Army who were fleeing in panic. The Army Headquarters, the Stavka and the Press, losing all perspective, blamed the 607th Mlynov Regiment as the chief cause of the catastrophe. The demoralised, worthless regiment had left the trenches of their own accord and opened the front. It was, of course, a very sad occurrence, but it would be naïve to describe it even as an excuse. For as early as on the 9th of July the Committees and Commissars of the 11th Army were telegraphing to the Provisional Government: "The truth and nothing but the truth about the events." "The German offensive on the front of the 11th Army, which began on July 6th, is growing into an immeasurable calamity which threatens perhaps the very existence of Revolutionary Russia. The spirit of the troops, that were prompted to advance by the heroic efforts of the minority, has undergone a decisive and fatal change. The impetus of the advance was soon spent. Most of the units are in a condition of increasing disruption. There is not a shadow of discipline or obedience; persuasion is likewise powerless and is answered by threats and sometimes by shootings. Cases have occurred when orders to advance immediately to reinforce the line were debated for hours at meetings, and reinforcements were twenty-four hours late. Some units arbitrarily leave the trenches without even waiting for the enemy to advance.... For hundreds of miles strings of deserters--healthy, strong men who thoroughly realise their impunity--are to be seen moving along with rifles or without.... The country should know the whole truth. It will shudder and will find the strength to fall with all its might upon all those whose cowardice is ruining and bartering Russia and the Revolution."

The Stavka wrote: "In spite of its enormous numerical and technical superiority, the 11th Army was retreating uninterruptedly. On the 8th of July it had already reached the Serenth, never halting at the very strong fortified position to the West of the river, which had been our starting point in the glorious advance of 1916. Bohm-Ermolli had detached some of his forces for the pursuit of the Russian troops in the direction of Tarnapol and had moved his main forces southwards between the Serenth and the Strypa, threatening to cut off the communication of the 7th Army, to throw them into the Dniester and, perhaps, cut off the retreat of the 8th Army. On July 9th the Austro-Germans had already reached Mikulinze, a distance of one march south of Tarnapol.... The Armies of General Selivatchev and Cheremissov (who had succeeded General Kornilov upon the latter's appointment on July 7th to the High Command of the South-Western Front) were in great difficulty. They could not hope to resist the enemy by manoeuvring, and all that was left to them was to escape the enemy's blows by forced marches. The 7th Army was in particularly dire straits, as it was retreating under the double pressure of the Army Corps of General Botmer, who was conducting a frontal attack, and of the troops of Bohm-Ermolli, striking from the north against the denuded right flank. The 8th Army had to march over one hundred miles under pressure from the enemy.

On July 10th the Austro-Germans advanced to the line Mikulinze-Podgaitze-Stanilavov. On the 11th the Germans occupied Tarnapol, abandoned without fighting by the 1st Guards Army Corps. On the next day they broke through our position on the rivers Gniezno and Sereth, South of Trembovlia, and developed their advance in the Eastern and South-Eastern directions. On the same day, pursuing the 7th and 8th Armies, the enemy occupied the line from the Sereth to Monsaterjisko-Tlumatch.

On the 12th July, seeing that the position was desperate, the Commander-in-Chief issued orders for a retreat from the Sereth, and by the 21st the Armies of the South-Western Front, having cleared Galicia and Bukovina, reached the Russian frontier. Their retreat was marked by fires, violence, murders and plunder. A few units, however, fought the enemy stubbornly and covered the retreat of the maddened mob of deserters by sacrificing their lives. Among them were Russian officers, whose bodies covered the battlefields. The Armies were retreating in disorder; the same Armies that, only a year ago, had captured Lutsk, Brody-Stanislavov, Chernovetz in their triumphal progress ... were retreating before the same Austro-German troops that only a year ago had been completely defeated and had strewn with fugitives the plains of Volynia, Galicia and Bukovina, leaving hundreds of thousands of prisoners in our hands. We shall never forget that in Brussilov's advance of 1916, the 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th Armies took 420,000 prisoners, 600 guns, 2,500,000 machine guns, etc. Our Allies are not likely to forget this either; they know full well that the loud echo of the Galician battle sounded on the Somme and at Goritza.

The Commissars Savinkov and Filonenko telegraphed to the Provisional Government: "There is no choice; the traitors must be executed.... Capital punishment must be meted out to all those who refuse to sacrifice their lives for their country...."

In the beginning of July, after the Russian advance had ostensibly failed, it was decided at Hindenburg's Headquarters to undertake a new extensive operation against the Roumanian front by a simultaneous advance of the 3rd and 7th Austrian Armies across Bukovina into Moldavia and of the Right group of General Mackensen on the Lower Sereth. The objective was to seize Moldavia and Bessarabia. But on July 11th the Russian Army of General Ragosa and the Roumanian Army of General Averesco took the offensive between the rivers Susitsa and Putna against the 9th Austrian Army. The attack was successful, the enemy positions were captured, the Armies moved forward several miles, took 2,000 prisoners and over 60 guns, but the operation was not developed. Owing to the natural conditions of the theatre of war and to the direction in which the operation was undertaken, it was more akin to a demonstration in order to relieve the South-Western Front. Also the troops of the 4th Russian Army soon lost all impetus for the advance. In July and until August 4th, the troops of the Archduke Joseph and of Mackensen attacked in several directions and gained local successes, but without any appreciable result. Although the Russian divisions repeatedly disobeyed orders and occasionally left the trenches during the battle, yet the condition of the Roumanian Front was somewhat better than that of the other Front, owing to its distance from Petrograd, to the presence of disciplined Roumanian troops and to the natural conditions of the country. For these reasons we were able to keep that Front somewhat longer. This circumstance, together with the apparent weakness of the Austrian Armies, especially the 3rd and the 7th, and the complete dislocation of the communications of Bohm-Ermolli's group and of the Archduke Joseph's left wing--caused Hindenburg's Headquarters indefinitely to postpone the operation, and a period of calm ensued along the entire South-Western Front. On the Roumanian Front local actions were fought until the end of August. At the same time, German divisions began to move from the Sbrucz northwards in the direction of Riga. Hindenburg's plan was to deal the Russian Army local blows, without straining his own resources or spending large reserves, so urgently needed, on the Western-European Front. By these tactics he intended to contribute to the natural course of the collapse of the Russian front, for it was upon this collapse that the Central Powers based all their calculations in regard to operations and even in regard to the possibility of continuing the campaign in 1918.

Our efforts at advancing on other Fronts also ended in complete failure. On the 7th of July operations began on the Western Front, which I commanded. The details will be given in the next chapter. Of this operation Ludendorf wrote: "Of all the attacks directed against the former Eastern front of General Eichhorn, the attacks of July 9th, South of Smorgom, and at Krevo were particularly fierce.... For several days the position was extremely difficult until our reserves and our gunfire restored the front. The Russians left our trenches; they were no longer the Russians of the old days."

On the Northern Front, in the 5th Army, everything was over in one day. The Stavka wrote: "South-West of the Dvinsk our troops, after strong artillery preparation, captured the German position across the railway Dvinsk-Vilna. Subsequently, entire divisions, without pressure from the enemy, deliberately retreated to their own trenches." The Stavka noted the heroic behaviour of several units, the prowess of the officers and the tremendous losses which the latter had suffered. This fact, however unimportant from the strategical point of view, deserves to be specially noted. As a matter of fact, the 5th Army was commanded by General Danilov (afterwards a member of the Bolshevik Delegation at Brest-Litovsk. He served in 1920 in the Russian Army in the Crimea). He enjoyed exceptional prestige with the Revolutionary Democracy. According to Stankevitch, the Commissar of the Northern Front, Danilov "was the only General who had remained, in spite of the Revolution, full master in the Army and had succeeded in so dealing with the new institutions--the Commissars and the Committees--that they strengthened his authority instead of weakening it.... He knew how to make use of these elements, and he overcame all obstacles in a spirit of complete self-control and firmness. In the 5th Army everyone was working, learning and being educated.... As the best and the most cultured elements of the Army were working to that end." This is a striking proof of the fact that even when the Commanding Officer becomes thoroughly familiar with Revolutionary institutions, this does not serve as a guarantee of the fighting capacity of his troops.

* * * * *

On July 11th Kornilov, upon his appointment to the Chief Command of the South-Western Front, sent to the Provisional Government his well-known telegram, of which he forwarded a copy to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. In that telegram, already quoted above, Kornilov demanded the reintroduction of capital punishment, and wrote: "... I declare that the country is on the verge of collapse and that, although I have not been consulted, I _demand_ that the offensive be stopped on all Fronts in order that the Army may be saved, preserved and re-organised on the basis of strict discipline, and in order that the lives may not be sacrificed of a few heroes who are entitled to see better days." In spite of the peculiar wording of this appeal, the idea of stopping the advance was immediately accepted by the Supreme Command, the more so that the operations had practically come to a standstill irrespective of orders as a result of the reluctance of the Russian Army to fight and to advance, as well as of the schemes of the German Headquarters.

Capital punishment and Revolutionary courts-martial were introduced at the front. Kornilov gave an order to shoot deserters and robbers and to expose their bodies with corresponding notices on the roads and in other prominent places. Special shock battalions were formed of cadets and volunteers to fight against desertion, plunder and violence. Kornilov forbade meetings at the Front and gave an order to stop them by the force of arms. These measures--which were introduced by Kornilov at his own risk and peril, his manly, straightforward utterances, and the firm tone in which, disregarding discipline, he began to address the Provisional Government, and last, but not least, his resolute action--considerably enhanced his authority with the wide circles of Liberal Democracy and with the officers. Even the Revolutionary Democracy within the Army, stunned and depressed as it was by the tragic turn of events, saw in Kornilov, for some time after the _débâcle_, the last resource and the only possible remedy in the desperate position. It may be stated that the date of July 8th, on which Kornilov took command of the South-Western Front and addressed his first demand to the Provisional Government, sealed his fate: in the eyes of many people he became a national hero and great hopes were centred upon him--he was expected to save the country.

During my stay at Minsk I was not very well informed of the unofficial tidings prevailing in military circles, yet I felt that the centre of moral influence had moved to Berditchev (Headquarters of the South-Western Front). Kerensky and Brussilov had somehow suddenly receded to the background. A new method of administration was put into practice: we received from Kornilov's Headquarters copies of his "demands" or notices of some strong and striking decision he had adopted, and in a few days these were repeated from Petrograd or from the Stavka, but in the shape of an order or of a regulation.

The tragedy of July undoubtedly had a sobering effect upon the men. In the first place, they were ashamed because things had happened that were so shameful and so disgraceful that even the dormant conscience and the deadened spirit of the men could not find excuses for these happenings. Several months later, in November, after fleeing from the captivity of Bykhov, I spent several days under an assumed name and in civilian clothes among the soldiers who had flooded all the railways. They were discussing the past. I never heard a single man confessing openly or cynically his participation in the treachery of July. They all tried to explain away the matter and chiefly attributed it to somebody's treason, especially, of course, the treason of the officers. None spoke of his own treachery. In the second place, the men were frightened. They felt that a kind of power, a kind of authority had arisen, and they were quietly waiting for developments. Lastly, operations had ended and nervous tension had been relieved--which caused a certain reaction, apathy and indifference. _This was the second occasion (the first took place in March) on which, had the moment been immediately and properly taken advantage of--it might have been the turning point in the history of the Russian Revolution._

As the sounds were dying out of the last shots fired at the Front, the men who had been stunned by the disaster began to recover their senses. Kerensky was the first to return to sanity. The horror had passed away, the nerve-wrecking, maddening fear which had prompted the issue of the first stringent order. Kerensky's will-power was dominated by his fear of the Soviet, of the danger of definitely losing all prestige with the Revolutionary Democracy by resentment against Kornilov for the resolute tone of the latter's messages and by the shadow of the potential dictator. The drafts of military regulations by which it was intended to restore the power of the Commanding Officers and of the Army were drowned in red tape and in the turmoil of personal conflicts, suspicions and hatreds. The Revolutionary Democracy once again sternly opposed the new course, as it interpreted this course as an infringement upon the liberties and as a menace to its own existence. The same attitude was adopted by the Army Committees, whose powers were to be curtailed as a first step in the proposed changes. In these circles the new course was described as counter-revolutionary. The masses of the soldiery, on the other hand, soon appraised the new situation. They saw that stern words were mere words, that capital punishment was only a bogy, because there was no real force capable of mastering their arbitrariness. So fear vanished again. The hurricane did not clear the close and tense atmosphere. New clouds were overhanging and peals of a new deafening thunder were to be heard in the distance.