CHAPTER XXX.

GENERAL KORNILOV.

Two days after the Moghilev Conference General Brussilov was relieved of the Supreme Command. The attempt to give the leadership of the Russian Armies to a person who had not only given proof of the most complete loyalty to the Provisional Government, but had evinced sympathy with its reforms, had failed. A leader had been superseded, who, on assuming the Supreme Command, gave utterance to the following:

"I am the leader of the Revolutionary Army, appointed to this responsible post by the people in revolution and the Provisional Government, in agreement with the Petrograd Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates. I was the first to go over to the people, serve the people. I will continue to serve them, will never desert them."[51]

Kerensky, in his evidence before the Commission of Inquiry, explained Brussilov's dismissal by the catastrophal condition of the Front, by the possible development of the German offensive, the absence of a firm hand at the front, and of a definite plan; by Brussilov's inability to evaluate and forestall the complications of the military situation, and lastly, by his lack of influence over both officers and men.

Be it as it may, General Brussilov's retirement from the pages of military history can in no wise be regarded as a simple episode of an administrative character. _It marks a clear recognition by the Government of the wreck of its entire military policy._

On July 19th, by an Order of the Provisional Government, Lavr Georgievich Kornilov, General of Infantry, was appointed to the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

[Map: The Russian Front in June and July, 1917]

In Chapter VII. I spoke of my meeting with Kornilov, then Commander-in-Chief of the Petrograd district. The whole meaning of his occupation of this post lay in the chance of bringing the Petrograd garrison to a sense of duty and subordination. This Kornilov failed to accomplish. A fighting General who carried fighting men with him by his courage, coolness, and contempt of death, had nothing in common with that mob of idlers and hucksters into which the Petrograd garrison had been transformed. His sombre figure, his dry speech, only at times softened by sincere feeling, and above all, its tenour so far removed from the bewildering slogans of the Revolution, so simple in its profession of a soldier's faith--could neither fire nor inspire the Petrograd soldiery. Inexperienced in political chicanery, by profession alien to those methods of political warfare which had been developed by the joint efforts of the bureaucracy, party sectarianism, and the revolutionary underworld, Kornilov, as Commander-in-Chief of the Petrograd district, could neither influence the Government nor impress the Soviet, which, without any cause, distrusted him from the very beginning. Kornilov would have managed to suppress the Petrograd praetorians, even if he had perished in doing so, but he could not attract them to himself.

He felt that the Petrograd atmosphere did not suit him, and when on April 21st, the Executive Committee of the Soviet, after the first Bolshevist attacks, passed a resolution that no military unit could leave barracks in arms without the permission of the Committee, it was totally impossible for Kornilov to remain at a post which gave no rights and imposed enormous responsibilities.

There was yet another reason: the Commander-in-Chief of the Petrograd district was subordinated, not to the Stavka, but to the Minister of War. Gutchkov had left that post on April 30th, and Kornilov did not wish to remain under Kerensky, the vice-president of the Petrograd Soviet.

[Map: The Russian Front till August 19th and after]

The position of the Petrograd garrison and command was so incongruous that this painful problem had to be solved by artificial measures. On Kornilov's initiative, and with General Alexeiev's full approval, the Stavka, in conjunction with the Headquarters of the Petrograd District, drew up a scheme for the organisation of the Petrograd Front, covering the approaches to the capital through Finland and the Finnish Gulf. This Front was to include the troops in Finland and Kronstadt, on the coast, of the Reval fortified region and the Petrograd garrison, the depôt battalions of which it was proposed to expand into active regiments and form into brigades; the inclusion of the Baltic Fleet was likewise probable. Such an organisation--logical from a strategical point of view, especially in connection with the information received of the reinforcement of the German Front on the line of advance on Petrograd--gave the Commander-in-Chief the legal right to alter the dispositions to relieve the troops at the front and behind, etc. I do not know whether this would have really made it possible to free Petrograd from the garrison which had become a veritable scourge to the Capital, the Provisional Government, and even (in September) to the non-Bolshevist sections of the Soviet. The Government most thoughtlessly bound itself by a promise, given in its first declaration, that "the troops which had taken part in the revolutionary movement should not be either disarmed or moved from Petrograd."

This plan, however, naturally failed on Kornilov's departure, as his successors, appointed one after another by Kerensky, were of such an indefinite political character, and so deficient in military experience, that it was impossible to place them at the head of so large a military force.

At the end of April, just before his retirement, Gutchkov wished to make Kornilov Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front, a post which had become vacant after General Ruzsky's dismissal. General Alexeiev and I were at the Conference with Thomas and the French military representatives, when I was called up to the telegraph instrument to talk with the Minister of War. As General Alexeiev remained at the meeting, and Gutchkov was ill in bed, the negotiations, in which I acted as an intermediary, were exceedingly difficult to carry on, both technically and because, in view of the indirect transmission, it was necessary to speak somewhat guardedly. Gutchkov insisted, Alexeiev refused. No less than six times did I transmit their replies, which were at first reserved and then more heated.

Gutchkov spoke of the difficulty of managing the Northern Front, which was the most unruly, and of the need of a firm hand there. He said that it was desirable to retain Kornilov in the immediate vicinity of Petrograd, in view of future political possibilities. Alexeiev refused flatly. He said nothing about "political possibilities," basing his refusal on the grounds of Kornilov's inadequate service qualifications for command, and the awkwardness of passing over Senior Commanders more experienced and acquainted with the Front, such as General Abram Dragomirov, for instance. Nevertheless, when the next day an official telegram arrived from the Ministry in connection with Kornilov's appointment, Alexeiev replied that he was uncompromisingly against it, and that if the appointment were made in spite of this, he would immediately send in his resignation.

Never had the Supreme Commander-in-Chief been so inflexible in his communications with Petrograd. Some persons, including Kornilov himself (as he confessed to me afterwards), involuntarily gained the impression that the question was a somewhat wider basis one than that of the appointment of the Commander-in-Chief ... that the fear of a future dictator played a certain part. However, this supposition is flatly contradicted by placing this episode in conjunction with the fact that the Petrograd Front was created for Kornilov--a fact that was of no less importance and fraught with possibilities.

In the beginning of May Kornilov took over the 8th Army on the South-Western Front. General Dragomirov was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Northern Front.

This is the second event which gives the key to the understanding of the subsequent relations between Alexeiev and Kornilov.

According to Kornilov, the 8th Army was in a state of complete disintegration when he assumed command. "For two months," says he, "I had to visit the units nearly every day and personally explain to the soldiers the necessity for discipline, encourage the officers, and urge upon the troops the necessity of an advance.... Here I became convinced that firm language from the Commander and definite action were necessary in order to arrest the disintegration of our Army. I understood that such language was expected both by the officers and the men, the more reasonable of whom were already tired of the complete anarchy...."

Under what conditions Kornilov made his rounds we have already shown in Chapter XXIII. I hardly think that he managed to arouse the mass of soldiers to consciousness. The Kalush of June 28th and the Kalush of July 8th show the 8th Army equally as heroes and as beasts. The officers and a small part of the real soldiers, however, were more than ever under the spell of Kornilov's personality. Its power increased among the non-Socialistic sections of the Russian public likewise. When, after the rout of July 6th, General Gutor--who had been appointed to the highly responsible post of Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western Front, merely not to resist the democratisation of the Army--yielded to despair and collapsed, there was no one to replace him except Kornilov (on the night of July 8th).... The spectre of the "General on a White Horse" was already looming in sight and disturbing the spiritual peace of many.

Brussilov was strongly opposed to this appointment. Kerensky hesitated for a moment. The position, however, was catastrophical. Kornilov was bold, courageous, stern, resolute and independent, and would never hesitate to show initiative or to undertake any responsibility if circumstances required it. Kerensky was of the opinion[52] that Kornilov's downright qualities, though dangerous in case of success, would be only too useful in case of a panic-stricken retreat. And "when the Moor has done his work, let the Moor go...." So Kerensky insisted on Kornilov's appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western Front.

On the third day after taking over his duties, Kornilov wired to the Provisional Government: "I declare that if the Government does not confirm the measures proposed by me, and deprives me of the only means of saving the Army and of using it for its real purpose of defending the Motherland and liberty, then I, General Kornilov, will of my own accord lay down my authority as Commander-in-Chief...."

A series of political telegrams from Kornilov produced a profound impression on the country, and inspired some with fear, some with hate, and others with hope. Kerensky hesitated, but what about the support of the Commissars and Committees? The tranquilisation and reduction to order of the South-Western Front attained, among other means, by Kornilov's bold, resolute struggle against the Army Bolsheviks? The oppressive isolation felt by the Minister of War after the conference of July 16th? The uselessness of retaining Brussilov as Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the hopelessness of placing at the head of the Army Generals of the new type, as shown by the experiment of appointing Brussilov and Gutor? Savinkov's persistent advice? Such were the reasons which forced Kerensky--who fully recognised the inevitability of the coming collision with the man who repudiated his military policy with every fibre of his soul--to decide on the appointment of Kornilov to the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief. There is not the slightest doubt that Kerensky did this in a fit of despair. Probably it was the same feeling of fatality that induced him to appoint Savinkov acting Minister of War.

The collisions occurred sooner than might have been expected. On receiving the order for his appointment, Kornilov at once sent the Provisional Government a telegram "reporting" that he could accept command and "lead the nation to victory and to the prospect of a just and honourable peace only on the following conditions:

"(1) Responsibility to his own conscience and to the whole nation.

"(2) Complete non-interference with his orders relating to military operations and, therefore, with the appointment of the Higher Command.

"(3) The application of the measures recently introduced at the Front to all places in the rear where drafts for the Army were quartered.

"(4) Acceptance of his proposals telegraphed to the Conference at the Stavka on July 16th."

When in due course I read this telegram in the newspapers, I was not a little surprised at the first condition, which established a highly original form of suzerainty on the part of the Supreme Command until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. I waited impatiently for the official reply. There was none. As it turned out, on receiving Kornilov's ultimatum, the Council of the Government hotly debated the matter, and Kerensky demanded that the prestige of the High Command should be upheld by the immediate removal of the new Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The Government did not agree to this, and Kerensky, ignoring the other points mentioned in the telegram, replied only to the second, by recognising the right of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to select his own direct assistants.

Diverging from the established procedure of appointments, the Government, simultaneously with Kornilov's appointment and without his knowledge, issued an order appointing General Cheremissov Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western Front. Kornilov regarded this as a complete violation of his rights, and sent another ultimatum, declaring that he could continue to hold Supreme Command only on condition of Cheremissov's immediate removal. He declined to go to Moghilev before this question was settled. Cheremissov, on his part, was very "nervy," and threatened to "bomb his way" into Front Headquarters and to establish his rights as Commander-in-Chief.

This complicated matters still further, and Kornilov reported by wire[53] to Petrograd that, in his opinion, it would be more regular to dismiss Cheremissov. "For the purpose of strengthening discipline in the Army, we decided to take severe measures with the soldiers; the same measures must likewise apply to the higher military commanders."

The Revolution had upset all mutual relations and the very essence of discipline. As a soldier, I was bound to see in all this the undermining of the authority of the Provisional Government (if such existed), and I could not but recognise that it was both the right and the duty of the Government to make everyone respect its authority.

As a chronicler, however, I must add that the military leaders had no other means of stopping this disintegration of the Army, proceeding from above. And had the Government actually possessed the power, and in full panoply of right and might had been able to assert itself, there would have been no ultimatums either from the Soviet or from the military leaders. Furthermore, there would have been no need for the events of the 27th of August, and those of the 25th of October would have been impossible.

The matter finally resolved itself into the arrival of Commissar Filonenko at Front Headquarters. He informed Kornilov that all his recommendations had been accepted by the Government, in principle, while Cheremissov was placed at the disposal of the Provisional Government. General Balnev was hastily, at random, selected to command the South-Western Front, and Kornilov assumed the Supreme Command on the 27th of July.

The spectre of the "General on the White Horse" became more and more clearly visible. And the eyes of many, suffering at the sight of the madness and the shame now engulfing Russia, were again and again turned to this spectre. Honest and dishonest, sincere and insincere, politicians, soldiers and adventurers, all turned to it. And all with one voice cried out, "Save Us!"

He, the stern and straightforward soldier, deeply patriotic, untried in politics, knowing little of men, hypnotised both by truth and flattery, and by the general longing expectation of someone's coming, moved by a fervent desire for deeds of sacrifice--he truly believed in the predestined nature of his appointment. He lived and fought with this belief, and died for it on the banks of the Kuban.

Kornilov became a sign and rallying point. To some, of counter-Revolution; to others, of the salvation of their native land.

Around this point a struggle for influence and power was commenced by people who, unaided, without him could not have attained to such power.

A characteristic episode had already taken place on the 8th of July, at Kamenetz-Podolsk. Here, in Kornilov's entourage, there occurred the first conflict between Savinkov and Zavoiko, the former being the most prominent Russian Revolutionary, leader of the Terrorist fighting group of the Social-Revolutionary Party, organiser of the most notorious political assassinations--those of Plehve, Minister of the Interior, of the Grand Duke Serge, etc. Strong-willed and cruel by nature, completely lacking in the controlling influences of "conventional morality," despising both the Provisional Government and Kerensky, supporting the Provisional Government from motives of expediency, as he understood it, ready at any moment to sweep them aside--he saw in Kornilov merely a weapon in the fight for Revolutionary power, in which _he_ must have a dominant interest. Zavoiko was one of those peculiar personages who afterwards clustered closely round Kornilov and played such a prominent part in the August days. He was not very well known even to Kornilov. The latter stated, in his evidence before the Supreme Commission of Inquiry, that he became acquainted with Zavoiko in April, 1917; that Zavoiko had been "marechal de noblesse" of the Haisin district of Podolia, had been employed on the Nobel oilfields in Baku, and, by his own statements, had been employed in prospecting for minerals in Turkestan and Western Siberia. He arrived in Czernowitz, enrolled as a volunteer in the Daghestan Mounted Regiment, and was retained at Army Headquarters as personal aide to Kornilov. That is all that is known of Zavoiko's past.

Kornilov's first telegram to the Provisional Government was edited by Zavoiko, who "gave it the form of an ultimatum with a concealed threat, in case of non-compliance with the demands presented to the Provisional Government, to proclaim a military dictatorship on the South-Western Front."[54]

I discovered all this subsequently. During all these events I continued working at Minsk, completely engrossed now, not by the offensive, but by the organisation of any sort of skeleton defence of the half-collapsed Front. There was no information, no rumours even, of what was going on at the head of affairs. Only an increased tension was noticeable in all official relations.

* * * * *

Quite unexpectedly, in the end of July the Stavka offered me the post of Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western Front. I communicated by wire with General Lukomsky, the Chief-of-Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and told him that I should obey orders and go wherever I was sent, but would like to know the reason for this exchange. If the reasons were political I should ask to be left at my old post. Lukomsky assured me that what Kornilov had in view was only the military importance of the South-Western Front and the proposed strategical operations in that quarter. I accepted the post.

I parted from my assistants with regret, and, having transferred my friend, General Markov, to the new front, left for my new place of service together with him. On my way I stopped at Moghilev. The Stavka was in a very optimistic mood; everyone was animated and hopeful, but there were no signs of any "underground" conspiratory working. It should be mentioned that in this respect the military were so naïvely inexperienced, that when they really began to "conspire" their work took such _obvious_ forms that the deaf could not help hearing, nor the blind seeing, what was going on.

On the day of our arrival Kornilov held a Council of the Chiefs of Departments of the Stavka, at which the so-called "Kornilov programme" for the restoration of the Army was discussed. I was invited to attend. I shall not repeat all the fundamental propositions, which have already been mentioned both by me and in Kornilov's telegrams--such demands, for instance, as the introduction of Revolutionary courts-martial and capital punishment in the rear, the restoration of disciplinary authority to Commanders and raising their prestige, the limitation of the activity of the Committees and their responsibility, etc. I remember that side by side with clear and irrefutable propositions--the draft memorandum drawn up by the Departments of the Stavka--there were bureaucratic lucubrations hardly applicable in actual life. For instance, with the object of making disciplinary authority more palatable to Revolutionary Democracy, the authors of the memorandum had drawn up a curiously detailed list of disciplinary misdemeanour with a corresponding scale of penalties. And this was meant for the seething whirlpool of life, where all relations were trampled underfoot, all standards violated, where every fresh day brought forward an endless variety of departures from the regulations!

At any rate, the Supreme Command was finding the proper path, and apparently Kornilov's personality was a guarantee that the Government would be obliged to follow that path. Undoubtedly a long struggle with the Soviets, Committees, and soldiery was still to be waged, but, at least, the definiteness of the policy gave moral support and a tangible basis for this heavy task in the future. On the other hand, the support given to Kornilov's measures by Savinkov's War Ministry gave reason to hope that Kerensky's vacillations and indecision would finally be overcome. The attitude to this question of the Provisional Government as a whole was of no practical importance, and could not even be officially expressed. At that time it seemed as if Kerensky had, in some degree, freed himself from the yoke of the Soviet, but, just as formerly all the most important questions of State had been settled by him apart from the Government, in conjunction with the leading Soviet circles, now, in August, the direction of State affairs passed into the hands of a triumvirate composed of Kerensky, Nekrassov, and Tereschenko, leaving both the Socialist and Liberal groups of the Government out of the running.

After the meeting was over Kornilov asked me to stay, and, when all had left, said to me, almost in a whisper: "It is necessary to struggle, otherwise the country will perish. N. came to see me at the Front. He is nursing his scheme of a _coup d'état_ and of placing the Grand-Duke Dmitri on the throne. He is organising something or other, and has suggested collaboration. I told him flatly that I would take no part in any Romanov adventures. The Government itself understands that it can do nothing. They have offered my joining in the Government.... No, thank you! These gentlemen are far too much entangled with the Soviets, and cannot decide on anything. I have told them that if authority is given me I shall carry on a decisive struggle. We must lead Russia to a Constituent Assembly, and then let them do what they like. I shall stand aside and not interfere in any way. Now, General, may I rely on your support?"

"To the fullest extent."

This was my second meeting and my second conversation with Kornilov. We embraced heartily and parted ... only to meet again in the Bykhov Prison.