Military Reforms—The Generals—The Dismissal from the High Command.

Preparations for the advance continued alongside of the so-called “Democratisation.” These phenomena must be here recorded, as they had a decisive effect upon the issue of the summer offensive and upon the final destinies of the Army. Military reforms began by the dismissal of vast numbers of Commanding Generals. In military circles this was described, in tragic jest, as “The slaughter of the innocents.” It opened with the conversation between the War Minister, Gutchkov, and the General on duty at the Stavka, Komzerovski. At the Minister’s request the General drew up a list of the Senior Commanding Officers, with short notes (records of service). This list, afterwards completed by various people who enjoyed Gutchkov’s confidence, served as a basis for the “slaughter.” In the course of a few weeks 150 Senior Officers, including seventy Commanders of Infantry and Cavalry Divisions, were placed on the Retired List. In his speech to the Delegates of the Front on April 29th, 1917, Gutchkov gave the following reasons for this measure: “It has been our first task, after the beginning of the Revolution, to make room for talent. Among our Commanding Officers there were many honest men; but some of them were unable to grasp the new principles of intercourse, and in a short time more changes have been made in our commanding personnel than have ever been made before in any army.... I realised that there could be no mercy in this case, and I was merciless to those whom I considered incapable. Of course, I may have been wrong. There may have been dozens of mistakes, but I consulted knowledgeable people and took decisions only when I felt that they were in keeping with the general opinion. At any rate, we have promoted all those who have proved their capacity among the Commanding Officers. I disregarded hierarchical considerations. There are men who commanded regiments in the beginning of the War and are now commanding armies.... We have thus attained not only an improvement, but something different and equally important. By proclaiming the watchword ‘Room for talent’ we have instilled joy into the hearts, and have induced the officers to work with impetus and inspiration....”

What did the Army gain by such drastic changes? Did the cadres of the Commanding Officers really improve? In my opinion that object was not attained. New men appeared on the scene, owing to the newly-introduced right of selecting assistants, not without the interference of our old friends—family ties, friendship and wire-pulling. Could the Revolution give new birth to men or make them perfect? Was a mechanical change of personnel capable of killing a system which for many years had weakened the impulse for work and for self-improvement? It may be that some talented individuals did come to the fore, but there were also dozens, nay, hundreds, of men whose promotion was due to accident and not to knowledge or energy. This accidental character of appointments was further intensified when later Kerensky abolished for the duration of the War all the existing qualifications, as well as the correlation of rank and office. The qualification of knowledge and experience was also thereby set aside. I have before me a list of the Senior Commanding Officers of the Russian Army in the middle of May, 1917, when Gutchkov’s “slaughter” had been accomplished. The list includes the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the Commanders-in-Chief of Fronts, Armies and Fleets, and their Chiefs of Staff—altogether forty-five men:

I have excluded five names, as I have no data about them.

These men were the brain, the soul and the will-power of the Army. It is difficult to estimate their military capacity according to their last tenures of office, because strategy and military science in 1917 had almost entirely ceased to be applied and became slavishly subservient to the soldiery, but I know the activities of these men in regard to the struggle against democratisation—i.e., the disruption of the Army, and the above table indicates the three groups into which they were divided. Subsequently, after 1918, some of these men took part in the struggle or kept aloof from it.

Such are the results of the changes in the High Command, where men were in the public eye and where their activities attracted the critical attention not only of the Government, but of military and social circles. I think that in the lower grades things were no better. The question of the justice of this measure may be open to discussion, but, personally, I have no doubt whatsoever about its extreme impracticability. The dismissal en masse of Army Chiefs definitely undermined the faith in the Commanding Staffs, and afforded an excuse for the arbitrariness and violence of the Committees and of the men towards individual representatives of the Commanding Staff. Constant changes and transfers removed most officers from their units, where they may have enjoyed respect and authority acquired by military prowess. These men were thrown into new circles strange to them, and time was needed, as well as difficult work, in the new and fundamentally changed atmosphere in order to regain that respect and authority. The formation of Third Infantry Divisions was still proceeding, and was also occasioning constant changes in the Commanding Personnel. That chaos was bound to ensue as a result of all these circumstances is fairly obvious. So delicate a machine as the Army was in the days of War and Revolution could only be kept going by the force of inertia, and could not withstand new commotions. Pernicious elements, of course, should have been removed and the system of appointments altered, and the path opened for those who were worthy; beyond that the matter ought to have been allowed to follow its natural course without laying too much stress upon it and without devising a new system. Apart from the Commanding Officers who were thus removed, several Generals resigned of their own accord—such as Letchitzki and Mistchenko—who could not be reconciled to the new rÉgime, and many Commanders who were evicted in a Revolutionary fashion by the direct or indirect pressure of the Committee or of the soldiery. Admiral Koltchak was one of them. Further changes were made, prompted by varying and sometimes self-contradictory views upon the Army Administration. These changes were, therefore, very fitful, and prevented a definite type of Commanding Officer from being introduced.

Alexeiev dismissed the Commander-in-Chief, Ruzsky, and the Army Commander, Radko-Dmitriev, for their weakness and opportunism. He visited the Northern Front, and, having gained an unfavourable impression of the activities of these Generals, he discreetly raised the question of their being “overworked.” That is the interpretation given by the Army and Society to these dismissals.

Brussilov dismissed Yudenitch for the same reasons. I dismissed an Army Commander (Kvietsinski) because his will and authority were subservient to the disorganising activities of the Committees who were democratising the Army.

Kerensky dismissed the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the Commanders-in-Chief, Gourko and Dragomirov, because they were strenuously opposed to the democratisation of the Army. He also dismissed Brussilov for the opposite motives, because Brussilov was an Opportunist, pure and simple.

Brussilov dismissed the Commander of the Eighth Army, General Kaledin—who later became the Ataman of the Don and was universally respected—on the plea that he had “lost heart” and did not approve of democratisation. This dismissal of a General with a magnificent War record was effected in a rude and offensive manner. He was at first offered the command of another Army, and then offered to retire. Kaledin then wrote to me: “My record entitles me to be treated otherwise than as a stop-gap, without taking my own views into consideration.”

General Vannovski, who was relieved of the command of an Army Corps by the Army Commander because he refused to acknowledge the priority of the Army Committee, was immediately appointed by the Stavka to a Higher Command and given an Army on the South-Western Front.

General Kornilov, who had refused the Chief Command of the troops of the Petrograd District, “because he considered it impossible to be a witness of and a contributor to the disruption of the Army by the Soviet,” was afterwards appointed to the Supreme Command at the Front. Kerensky removed me from the office of Chief-of-Staff of the Supreme C.-in-C. because I did not share the views of the Government and openly disapproved of its activities, but, at the same time, he allowed me to assume the high office of Commander-in-Chief of our Western Front.

Things also happened of an entirely different nature. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Alexeiev, made several unavailing efforts to dismiss Admiral Maximov, who had been elected to the command of the Baltic Fleet and was entirely in the hands of the mutinous Executive Committee of the Baltic Fleet. It was necessary to remove that officer, who had brought about so much evil, influenced, no doubt, by his surroundings, because the Committee refused to release him, and Maximov refused all summonses to come to the Stavka on the plea that the condition of the Fleet was critical. In the beginning of June Brussilov managed to remove him from the Fleet ... at the price of appointing him Chief of the Naval Staff of the Supreme C.-in-C. Many other examples might be quoted of incredible contrasts in principles of Army Administration occasioned by the collision of two opposing forces and two schools of thought.

I have already said that the entire Commanding Staff of Generals was strictly loyal to the Provisional Government. General Kornilov, the would-be “rebel,” addressed the following speech to a Meeting of Officers: “The old rÉgime has collapsed. The people are building a new structure of liberty, and it is the duty of the people’s Army wholeheartedly to support the new Government in its difficult, creative work.” The Commanding Staff may have taken some interest in questions of general policy and in the Socialistic experiments of the Coalition Governments, but no more than was taken by all cultured Russians, and they did not consider themselves entitled or obliged to induce the troops to participate in the solution of social problems. Their only concern was to preserve the Army and the Foreign policy which contributed to the victory. Such a connection between the Commanding Staff and the Government, at first “a love match” and later one of convenience, prevailed until the General Offensive in June, while there still remained a flicker of hope that the mood of the Army would change. That hope was destroyed by events, and, after the advance, the attitude of the Commanding Staff was somewhat shaken. I may add that the entire Senior Commanding Staff considered as inadmissible the democratisation of the Army which the Government was enforcing. From the table which I have quoted it can be seen that 65 per cent. of the Commanding Officers did not raise a sufficiently strong protest against the disruption of the Army. The reasons were manifold and entirely different. Some did it for tactical considerations, as they thought that the Army was poisoned and that it should be healed by such dangerous antidotes. Others were prompted by purely selfish motives. I do not speak from hearsay, but because I know the milieu and the individuals, many of whom have discussed the matter with me with perfect frankness. Cultured and experienced Generals could not frankly and scientifically advocate such “military” views as, for example, Klembovski’s suggestion that a triumvirate should be placed at the head of the Army, consisting of the Commander-in-Chief, a Commissar, and an elected soldier; Kvietzinski’s suggestion that the Army Committee should be invested with special plenary power by the War Minister and the Central Committee of the Soviet, which would entitle them to act in the name of that Committee; or Viranovski’s suggestion that the entire Commanding Staff should be converted into “technical advisers” and their power transferred entirely to the Commissars and the Committee.

The loyalty of the High Commanding Staff can be gauged from the following fact: At the end of April General Alexeiev, despairing of the possibility of personally preventing the Government from adopting measures which tended to disrupt the Army, and before issuing the famous Proclamation of the Rights of the Soldier, wired in cipher to all the Commanders-in-Chief a draft of a strong and resolute collective appeal from the Army to the Government. This appeal pointed to the abyss into which the Army was being hurled. In the event of the draft being approved, it was to have been signed by all Senior ranks, including Divisional Commanders. The Fronts, however, for various reasons, disapproved of such means of influencing the Government. General Ragosa, the temporary C.-in-C. of the Roumanian Front, who was afterwards Ukrainian War Minister under the Hetman, replied that the Russian people seemed to be ordained by the Almighty to perish, and it was therefore useless to struggle against Fate. With a sign of the Cross, one should patiently await the dictates of Fate!... This was literally the sense of his telegram.

Such was the attitude and the confusion in the higher ranks of the Army. As regards the Commanders, who fought unremittingly against the disruption of the Army, many of them struggled against the tide of democratisation, as they considered it their duty to the people. They did this in disregard of the success or failure of their efforts, of the blows of Fate, or of the dark future, of which some already had a premonition, and which was already approaching with disaster in its train. On they went, with heads erect, misunderstood, slandered and savagely hated, as long as life and courage permitted.