It is terrifying to look at the agony of the ship. He is like a wounded person, bends in agony, beats in convulsions, breaks and drowns, while making terrible uterine sounds. It is doubly difficult if your own ship dies. And it is absolutely unbearable - if you drown it yourself!
Destroyer "Fidonisi"
The destroyer "Fidonisi" swayed on the waves in the rays of the setting sun. From a distance of four cables it was impossible to miss. The torpedo slid into the water, seconds of waiting and the destroyer literally burst in half, as if bursting with an unknown terrible force. Its stern and bow lifted apart from each other and, having turned over to the starboard side, disappeared into the sea water.
The death of "Fidonisi" served as a signal for the destruction of other ships. They drowned them wonderfully. The opening of the Kingstones did not end there. Such a primitive submerged ship can be easily lifted, pumped out and put back into service. And if he lays at the bottom for a short time, the damage to the vessel will be minimal! Everything was more solid here. Special teams put subversive cartridges in the engine rooms, opened kingstones and clinkets, and even ripped open windows. With tears in his eyes, with a lump in his throat that does not go away. Having done their job, they silently jumped into the boat, raked away and looked, looked, looked …
One by one, destroyed by Russian sailors, Russian Novik destroyers "Gadzhi-Bey", "Kaliakria", "Piercing", "Lieutenant Shestakov", "Lieutenant-Commander Baranov" went to the bottom of the Tsemesskaya Bay. The destroyers "Sharp-witted" and "Swift" went under the water. There are twelve ships in total.
Now the most important thing could be done. The colossal bulk of the battleship Svobodnaya Rossiya still towered over the water. The destroyer "Kerch" approached the ship and fired a volley of two torpedoes. Its commander, Senior Lieutenant Vladimir Kukel, silently watched as the torpedoes struck the beauty and pride of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The first exploded under the ship, the second passed by. For such a giant, one hit was not at all significant. The ship stood above the water as if nothing had happened. Only a column of black smoke rose above his conning tower. A third torpedo had to be fired, but even after that, the ship not only remained afloat, but did not even bank. Then the fourth torpedo exploded, but the battleship Svobodnaya Rossiya was made so magnificently that even after that it still kept on the surface of the water!
Black Sea, battleship "Free Russia"
Kukel could not believe his eyes - the ship clearly did not want to sink and fought for life by all possible means. The next, fifth torpedo, fired into the middle of his hull, suddenly turned on the opposite course and rushed towards the destroyer itself! But, alas, the battleship was doomed, and the sixth torpedo completed the job. There was a terrible explosion. A plume of black and white smoke rose above the masts and covered almost the entire ship with its base. When the smoke cleared a little, the sailors saw a terrible picture: the armor from both sides fell off and a huge, translucent gap appeared in the ship. A couple more minutes passed, and the battleship began to roll slowly to starboard. A few more minutes later, the ship turned up keel. And he groaned like a drowning man. Breaking from their foundations, huge three-gun 12-inch towers rolled down the deck of the Free Russia into the water, crushing and crushing everything in its path, raising huge columns of water and fountains of spray. After about half an hour, the battleship's hull disappeared under water.
Now it was the turn of the destroyer "Kerch" itself. At about 10 pm on June 18, 1918, the last radio message went on the air: “Everyone. He died, destroying part of the Black Sea Fleet ships, which preferred death to the shameful surrender of Germany."
Destroyer "Kerch"
The Russian Black Sea Fleet ceased to exist. "Free Russia" went to the bottom …
Any sovereign has two points of support! vaz With one foot - the army - it rests on the land, the other with the military fleet - it stands firmly on the seas and oceans. And these two supports are completely unequal. The land army, even to smithereens broken, is recovering quickly. A new generation is growing up, who have not smelled gunpowder, it remains only to arm them and dress them in uniform. This is a costly business, but all countries, swarms, claiming superpowers, have always been able to afford it. But the cost of the naval arms race is in no way comparable to the land arms race. To take and rebuild a new fleet at once is beyond the power of any power. Therefore, the defeat of the land army is a defeat, and the destruction of the fleet is a CATASTROPHE.
After the interruption of the legitimacy of the Russian government, the destruction of the main contenders for the throne, the next task of the British was to destroy our fleet. Only after that could the elimination of the Russian Empire, competing with the British, be considered successful. For this, all available means were used: pressure on the Bolshevik leadership, direct military destruction, "cooperation" with the White Guards. Let's be fair: the "allies" stubbornly pursued their goal throughout the entire Russian turmoil. And - they brought their ideas to life. Compared to the pre-war period, Russia found itself practically without a fleet. The difficult years of collectivization will pass, the terrible war years will pass, and the Soviet Union will create a powerful ocean-going fleet. So that for the second time in one century it would be "zeroed" by the clever actions of politicians. During perestroika and the Yeltsin chaos that followed, the almost completed aircraft carrier will be scrapped and the latest submarines will be sawn. Are you surprised? Not worth it, all this was already in our history in 1918. We just forgot it well …
Having suffered defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905-1906, having lost all the color of the Russian fleet in unsuccessful naval battles, the government of Nicholas II developed a large shipbuilding program. It is this Russian program of action that fell on the period of the general breakthrough of the world "naval" arms race. The last word of the then naval science was the improved battleships (battleships). They became known as dreadnoughts. Their name, which has become a household name, they received from the "pilot" English ship called "Dreadnought" ("Fearless"), built in 1905-1906. Created according to the latest science and technology, these ships were more tenacious and unsinkable. Huge, squat ships with very large caliber cannons became weighty arguments in the future world battle. Dreadnoughts began to build at a faster pace in the fleets of all rival powers. The cost of these ships, the amount of steel and armor consumed in the production of these monsters, were simply mind-boggling. It was the dreadnoughts who were the personification of the power of the state and its weight in the international arena. Armored expensive giants, "budget eaters" served as an indicator of his financial well-being, economic prosperity, the level of development of science, technology and industry. But not only that, the development of the armored monsters themselves went so quickly that after five years the question was already about the release of "superdreadnoughts", twice as large as the previous dreadnoughts …
Russia began building dreadnoughts later than other powers, so at the beginning of the world war not a single ship was in service. But at different stages of construction there were twelve of them. In 1917, the last of the Russian dreadnoughts were to take up service. Fate decreed otherwise. By the end of the Civil War, only four of them remained in Russia, and of them only three were in a miserable but combat-ready state. Let's take off our hats, remember the dead Russian ships and ask one reasonable question: why did such a pestilence suddenly attack them? Did the Russian fleet lose a general naval battle, such as Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War? No, I didn't. Simply because there was no such battle for our fleet in the First World War. Where did such large losses come from?
None of the Russian titan ships died in battle, as befits a real military ship. All of them became victims of the turmoil that happened in Russia. The newest and most powerful superdreadnoughts "Izmail", "Kinburn", "Borodino" and "Navarin" were never "born", being liquidated in the "womb" of the shipyard. And what handsome men they should have become! They were supposed to install the most powerful artillery and anti-aircraft weapons at that time. But it didn't work out. And one should not blame the Bolsheviks alone for the death of the ships. The liquidation of the fleet was started by the Provisional Government. In the summer of 1916, the naval ministry hoped to commission the firstborn of the Izmail series in the next fall, that is, 1917. But as soon as the monarchy in Russia fell, the government of the “new free Russia” immediately postponed the readiness of the Ishmael towers to the end of 1919, and the rest of the ships to 1920.
Sevastopol, Poltava, Petropavlovsk, Pinut, Izmail, Kinburn, Borodino, Navarim, Empress Maria, Empress Catherine the Great, Emperor Alexander III, Emperor Nicholas I"
Then the money from the Kerensky government ceased to flow altogether. The Bolsheviks needed warships even less than the "temporary workers". By a decree of July 19, 1922, the unfinished mastodons were excluded from the lists of the fleet, and then by a decree of the State Planning Committee in May of the following year, they were allowed to be sold abroad. The ships were acquired "as a whole" by the German company "Alfred Kubats", in order to cut them into metal in their docks …
The rest of the Russian dreadnoughts were eliminated using a whole arsenal of political means. Betrayal, bribery, lies, slander - all of this found a place in the short story of the destruction of our ships. But in the same way, in this short epic, there were also heroes who laid down their lives for the Russian fleet!
But everything is in order. The main forces of our ships before the First World War were concentrated in the Baltic and Black Seas. At the first stage of the war, the Russian fleet in the Baltic Sea received a purely defensive task of protecting the Gulfs of Riga and Bothnia from enemy invasion.
The battleship "Sevastopol" - the first domestic dreadnought
In 1915, with the appearance in its ranks of the dreadnoughts "Sevastopol", "Poltava", "Petropavlovsk" and "Gangut", the Russian fleet could already behave more actively, but it was firmly "corked" by the Germans in their waters. However, in connection with the German offensive, his actions became more intense: the ships began to support the ground forces. In 1916, seven of our new Bars-class submarines appeared on enemy lines of communication, as well as British submarines sent by the British "allies". In the fall, German ships tried to break into the Gulf of Finland and lost 7 (!) Newest destroyers at our minefield. Our losses amounted to 2 destroyers and 1 submarine. As you can see, before the beginning of the Russian turmoil, the Russian Baltic Fleet did not suffer any catastrophic defeats. He fulfilled his tasks, and the losses of the Germans even surpassed ours.
1917 was to be the year of our offensive. But this year's revolutions turned events in a completely different direction. The general decomposition of the armed forces to a large extent also affected the naval organism. The discipline and combat capability of the ships now left much to be desired. During the reign of Kerensky and company, the sailors turned from a fighting force into a crowd of lumpen, who would never want to risk their skin in a real battle. They preferred a heroic death to reprisals against their own officers. The process of decomposition went so far that in October 1917, at the time of the capture of the Moonsund Islands by the Germans, the crews were simply afraid to go to sea. So, the command of the minelayer "Pripyat" refused to mine the Soelozund Strait. The shipboard committee did not give its approval for this operation, since mines would have to be placed within the range of the enemy's naval artillery, and this is "too dangerous." Other revolutionary ships simply ignominiously fled from the enemy or refused to leave the parking lot under the amusing pretext that "they are shooting there."
And yet the Russian fleet snapped: as a result of the capture of the Moonsund Islands, the Germans lost the destroyers S-64, T-54, T-56 and T-66, the patrol ships Altair, Dolphin, Guteil, Gluckstadt and a minesweeper M-31. The Russian fleet lost the battleship Slava and the destroyer Grom. Again, we see an interesting picture: even during a period of rapid disintegration of discipline and a sharp decline in combat effectiveness, the Russian fleet inflicted significant losses on the enemy.
Then the Bolsheviks took up the baton of the disintegration of the Russian fleet from the Provisional Government. On January 29, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree on the dissolution of the tsarist fleet and the organization of the socialist fleet. Lenin quite rightly began the construction of the “new” with the complete destruction of the “old”. But if in the land army this meant general demobilization, then in the navy the main consequence of Lenin's decision was the mass dismissal of cadre officers from the ships, as an obviously counter-revolutionary force. And on a ship, the role of an officer is incomparably more important. If the land army, brought to the point by the Bolshevik propaganda, was replaced by new detachments of the Red Guard and, at the very least, could try to hold the front, then the situation at sea was an order of magnitude worse. The fleet, devoid of officers, could not fight at all, and it was impossible to replace it with another, "red" fleet. The point is not even that there was no one else to command the screaming sailors, just to shoot from the guns of a super-powerful dreadnought requires knowledge of many complex disciplines. They don't shoot a peephole at a distance of tens of kilometers. The specialists left - the ships turned into simply floating barracks and ceased to be combat units. The officers were dismissed en masse. Having written them off to the shore, the Bolsheviks immediately took the Baltic Fleet out of the game and chained it to the docks of the ports. And it was at this moment that “strange” things began to happen to the Baltic Fleet. Lenin and Trotsky gave the order … to destroy the Baltic Fleet …
It happened in the following way. The next stage in the tragedy of the Russian fleet was the signing of the Brest Peace Treaty.
Article 5 of the enslavement agreement read as follows:
“Russia immediately undertakes to carry out a complete demobilization of its army, including the military units formed AGAIN by its current government. In addition, Russia will either transfer its warships to Russian ports and leave there until a general peace is concluded, or it will immediately disarm. The military courts of the states, which are still in a state of war with the powers of the quadruple alliance, since these vessels are in the sphere of power of Russia, are equated to the Russian military courts …"
It seems to be okay. It is necessary to transfer the fleet to Russian ports - we will transfer, why not. But it seems so only at first glance. The naval specificity comes into play again.
Firstly, ships float on the water, and secondly, they can land on the shore only in places strictly designated for this. The number of such places is incredibly small and are called ports. But for the parking of an entire fleet, including huge ultra-modern dreadnoughts, not every port is suitable. As a result, having signed the Brest Peace Treaty, no one bothered to see where, to which Russian ports the ships could be relocated.
As a matter of fact, before the number of stops of the Russian fleet in the Baltic was minimal: Revel (Tallinn), Helsingfors (Helsinki) and Kronstadt. Everything, nowhere else was there the appropriate infrastructure, the proper depth and other things necessary to accommodate the ships. By signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia recognized the independence of Finland and the rejection of Estonia. Consequently, there was only one Russian port, Kronstadt, to base the Baltic Fleet. The wanderings of Russian ships began. First, the Germans occupied Revel. Part of the fleet located there relocated to Helsingfors, passing through the ice. But staying in the Finnish capital did not solve the problem, but only postponed its solution for a couple of weeks. Finland also became independent. In addition, it was at this moment that the Germans responded to the request of the "white" Finnish government, helping him in the fight against the "red" Finns. On March 5, 1918, the Germans landed a landing, starting their advance into the interior of the northern country. Now the position of the Baltic Fleet has become completely sad. The White Finns and the Germans, completing the destruction of the Finnish Red Guard, were approaching the anchorage of the ships. And so the commander of the German squadron presented an ultimatum demand that the entire Russian fleet stationed in Helsingfors be transferred to the Germans before March 31. One should not be surprised at Berlin's impudence. After the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Germany consistently blackmails the Bolsheviks, presenting them with new and new demands. The Germans can be understood - feeling the military helplessness of the Leninist leadership, they are in a hurry to get as much as possible from Russia. In pursuit of tangible benefits, the German leadership overlooks one important detail. Crises in relations with Russia, provoked by themselves, do not give the Germans the opportunity to abruptly and quickly withdraw troops from the Eastern Front to the Western. This leads to a devaluation of the advantages obtained by Germany through an agreement with the Bolsheviks. This was what the "allies" were counting on when they entered into a "gentlemanly" agreement with the Germans on the transfer of Lenin's group to Russia.
Following the letter of the treaty with Germany, the fleet should be immediately transferred to a purely Russian port, in Kronstadt. However, it was impossible to do this due to the difficult ice conditions. This is exactly what the Bolshevik elite "thought". A few days earlier, part of the Russian ships had already successfully broken through the ice from Revel to Helsingfors and thus showed that such a transition is possible. But the Bolshevik leadership did not order the fleet to relocate from Helsingfors to Kronstadt, through the same ice and hummocks that they had already overcome. Why? Because Lenin and Trotsky are not thinking about saving ships. Germany demands to leave the ships in Helsingfors, possibly intending to seize them. At the same time, representatives of the Entente demand to prevent the capture of ships by the Germans. It is necessary to carry out two mutually exclusive "orders", and the fate of the proletarian revolution depends on this. Here Lenin and Trotsky are looking for an option that satisfies the requirements of the "allied" Scylla and the German Charybdis, and not a solution that will save the fleet for Russia!
Soviet and foreign historians let a lot of fog in, covering up the true reasons for the Bolshevik zeal in attempts to drown their own fleet. In this pitch darkness of falsifications and untruths rarely, but nevertheless, timid rays of the terrible truth about the fate of the Russian ships broke through. Baltic sailor, officer G. K. Graf directly writes about the strange position of the Bolshevik leadership:
“Moscow's instructions were all the time ambiguous and inconsistent: either they talked about transferring the fleet to Kronstadt, then about leaving it in Helsingfors, or about preparing for destruction. This suggested that someone was putting pressure on the Soviet government."
Alexey Mikhailovich Shchastny
After the dismissal from the fleet of almost all the officers, the Baltic Fleet was left without a commander and the ships are led by a collegial body - Tsentrobalt. However, a noisy sailor freelancer is not suitable for performing delicate assignments; a specific performer is needed, on whom, in case of anything, it will be possible to dump all the blame. And this is what Trotsky himself finds. The hastily appointed Alexei Mikhailovich Shchastny will have to fulfill the directive of the Center. This is a naval officer, the commander of the ship.
His new position is admiral, but since the Bolsheviks abolished all military ranks, at the time of his appointment he began to be called Namoren (Chief of Naval Forces) of the Baltic Sea. We can safely say that he is the savior of the Baltic Fleet. It is thanks to Shchastny that Russia will keep its ships in the Baltic and the powerful guns of the Russian battleships will meet the Nazis on the approaches to Leningrad in 23 years.
Having assumed command of the ships stationed in Helsingfors, the new commander finds himself in a most difficult situation. Trotsky's calculation was that, finding himself in a terrible time trouble and under pressure from Moscow, he would obediently fulfill any instructions of the Bolshevik elite and send the ships to the bottom, and would not think about saving the fleet. British intelligence is also not going to calmly look at the development of events. To persuade Shchastny to blow up ships, the "allied" agents send him photocopies of several telegrams from the German command to the Soviet government. Whether they are fake or not, we do not know, but when reading them, Namorsi should have got the impression that Lenin and Trotsky were carrying out German directives and were traitors. Their interest - the total destruction of the Russian fleet - the "allies" disguise as a simple concern that the enemy of the Entente does not receive reinforcement.
"The naval agent Captain Cromie traveled to Helsingfors several times in order to obtain from the captain of the first rank AM Shchastny the sinking of the fleet," writes GK Graf.
Cromie is the same British intelligence resident who, six months later, will be shot by the Chekists in the English consulate of Petrograd. So that Shchastny would not be tormented by doubts about the destruction of the Baltic Fleet, the British show him an example of "selfless service to the Motherland." At the base of our fleet in the Ganges, a few tens of kilometers from Helsingfors, at that time there is a parking lot for British submarines, sent by the British to the Baltic in 1916. British submarines "If-1", "E-8", "E-9", "S-19", "S-26", "S-27" and "S-35", their base "Amsterdam", and also three steamers explode on the orders of the British command. In the literature devoted to these events, you will find mention of the fact that British submarines were allegedly blown up due to the impossibility of transferring them to the Russian port. This is complete nonsense, which can be dispelled by one simple fact: all Russian submarines that were in the same ice were safely evacuated from Helsingfors to Kronstadt. The British would like to save their submarines, they would have every opportunity to do it. And it was not at all because the British submarines went to the bottom because the Russian sailors, busy solving their problems, did not want to save the "allied" ships.
Everything is much more cunning. In chess, it is customary to sacrifice pawns to achieve great success. So, the sinking of submarines is, of course, a blow to their own people for the British. At the same time, it is a clear and simple example for Russian sailors. We British are blowing up seven of our submarines. Well, you Russians, blow up your entire fleet! So that the Germans don't get it. Captain Francis Cromie supervised the destruction of British submarines. A career English scout explodes submarines, and on this basis, many researchers of that period write him down as a submariner. Although the gallant captain served in a completely different "department". Because at the same time, for safety reasons, Cromie was negotiating with a secret organization of naval officers. The idea suggested by the British intelligence officer and Shchastny and the officers is very simple: leaving the spoiled ships in the Finnish capital is an obvious fulfillment by Lenin and Trotsky of the order of their German masters. What should real Russian patriots do in this case?
Please note that the British do not offer the option of rescuing the squadron by redeploying. They cannot advise anything better than sinking ships. Yes, this is understandable, because they need exactly the destruction of the fleet.
Here we will take a break and think. Germany knows that Lenin fears the continuation of the German offensive more than anything else. It will mean the collapse of Soviet power, the collapse of everything. Nobody knows when the second opportunity to conduct an experiment to build a socialist society will be presented. Most likely never. Therefore, Germany can put pressure on Lenin and blackmail him with a peace treaty. "… Whoever is against an immediate, albeit articulate peace, is destroying Soviet power," Ilyich wrote these days. Lenin needs peace like air. How can you save it? It's very simple: to observe the peace treaty of Brest and not give the Germans a reason to violate it. This is the surest way to preserve the peace that Ilyich needs so much. The letter of the peace treaty says that the Bolsheviks have two options for this. Lenin's alternative is simple: if you want to keep the peace, either transfer the ships to Kronstadt, or leave them disarmed by the Finns, which in fact means handing over to Germany. So, there are only two options for action. Historians also give two interpretations of the further behavior of Lenin and Trotsky. The first says that they were German spies and in every possible way worked off the money provided by Germany, performing various actions in her interests. The second asserts that although the Bolsheviks were red internationalists, they always acted in the interests of their people. So let's evaluate the further actions of Ilyich, having all of the above in mind.
What should a German spy do?
Under various pretexts, block the exit of the Baltic Fleet from the Finnish capital and try to transfer it intact to their German masters.
What should a patriot of his country do?
Try to save the fleet and bring it out of the trap that has arisen in Kronstadt.
What is the Bolshevik leadership doing?
The Soviet government does neither one nor the other: it gives an official order to fulfill the demand made by the Germans, but at the same time to render the ships unusable.
This means that Lenin chooses the third option. In whose interest is it to render the Russian fleet unusable? In German? No, the fleet is no longer dangerous for the Germans, the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk has been concluded and Russian cannons are no longer fired at the Germans. The Germans need the fleet intact, with German crews on board. So that it can be used in combat. The flooding or damage of ships by the Bolsheviks, from the German point of view, this is disobedience. This is not at all the help of "German spies" to their masters. And Lenin cannot quarrel with the Germans. Because they themselves still do not really know what to do with Russia.
If the Bolsheviks really carried out the German will, they would try to transfer the German fleet as a whole. It's so obvious. Meanwhile, very often in the literature you can find information that, they say, the fleet had to be blown up so that the Germans did not get it. According to the authors, this is exactly what should have been done by fiery revolutionaries with a crystal clear conscience, who had no financial contacts with the German special services. Let's assume that this is so, but in this case it is completely incomprehensible why half of the country can be given to Germany, but three hundred ships - not? Why can one sacrifice Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Georgia to save the revolution, but the fleet cannot be given to the Germans? Since the Bolshevik comrades are so scrupulous in matters of selling their own homeland, there was no need to conclude a peace treaty with the Kaiser at all. If you have already said "A", then you will have to say "B". It turns out illogical - at first everything that the Germans demanded to be done, and then because of some kind of fleet to enter into conflict with them again.
And in general, what are the interests of the working people require Russian ships to sink and destroy? In the interests of the world revolution, it would be necessary to preserve the only Red Fleet in the world, and not destroy or spoil. Among other things, battleships and dreadnoughts simply cost a lot of money, and if the new socialist Russia does not need a fleet for some unknown reason, then it can simply be sold.
After all, the Bolsheviks will later sell cultural values, why not push the ships at the same time? With the money earned, you can buy food and feed the hungry St. Petersburg workers, their women and children.
So it turns out that Lenin's order to destroy the fleet pursued neither the interests of Germany, nor the interests of Russia, nor the interests of the working people of the whole planet. Then who was leading Ilyich's hand when he was giving such a serious order? For whom is a strong Russian fleet a nightmare? For the British, for this naval nation, any strong fleet is a nightmare. That is why the British carefully sink the French fleet at Aboukir and Trafalgar, but in every possible way refrain from land battles with Napoleon.
Before Waterloo, the British did not fight Bonaparte in any serious battles, even remotely comparable to Borodino, Leipzig or Austerlitz. As always, they gave "honor" to the rest of the coalition members. You still do not understand why the Second Front against Hitler opened in the summer of 1944, and not in the fall of 1941?
The extermination of the Russian fleet for them, the task, as Ilyich would say, is "paramount." Even concern for the strengthening of the German fleet in the event of the capture of our ships does not explain the persistent desire of the British to sink them.
“In particular, if the German fleet was almost three times smaller than the English one, then the Russian was five times weaker than the German,” writes Captain 2nd Rank G. K. Graf in his book. “Of the active forces of our Baltic Fleet, only four modern battleships, the addition of which to the German fleet would not give it the opportunity to compete with the British. Obviously, the British were not afraid of this, and they had their own special considerations …"
In Moscow, Bruce Lockhart and Jacques Sadoul are in constant consultation with Lenin and Trotsky. Ilyich maneuvers, British and French scouts insist. They also make an offer to the Soviet elite, which cannot be refused. And the plan of the "allies" is still the same as in the case of the Romanovs. Since the fanatics-Bolsheviks who came to power did not want to perish immediately after the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly and the violation of the legitimacy of the Russian government, then they must do all the dirty work. Lenin and the company will have to quickly, from March to July:
♦ to destroy the country;
♦ to eliminate the main contenders for the throne;
♦ sink the fleet;
♦ completely disorganize the army, government and industry.
After that, waves of "popular" indignation, generously paid by the same British and French, will sweep away the hated Bolsheviks. There will be no one to ask …
Everything was beautifully conceived by British intelligence, and the Baltic Fleet would have been lying at the bottom, if not for Alexei Mikhailovich Shchastny. He broke a brilliant combination and paid for it with his life. Namorsi makes the only decision that is useful for Russia's interests; he accepts an option that no one offered him: neither Trotsky, nor British agents. Russian patriot, naval officer decides to save the fleet!
“All of Cromie’s efforts have come to nothing. AM Shchastny definitely stated that he would at all costs transfer the fleet to Kronstadt."
It was an unparalleled act of courage. On March 12, 1918, the first detachment of ships leaves Helsingfors, accompanied by icebreakers. The raid, called the Ice Pass, took place in extremely difficult conditions, and not only because of the thickness of the ice and hummocks. The salvation of the fleet was hampered by the lack of staffing of ships with officers and even sailors. The Bolshevik policy led to the dismissal of the former and the active desertion of the latter. There was a situation when there was simply no one to manage the ships.
The problem was partially solved by placing soldiers of the Sveaborg garrison on board.
The Finnish battery on the island of Lavensaari tried in vain to prevent the movement of our ships with its fire. But under the threat of the huge dreadnought weapons, she quickly fell silent. 5 days later, on March 17, 1918, the Russian ships arrived safely in Kronstadt. The second group of ships set out after them, and the last ships of the Baltic Fleet left Helsingfors at 9 am on April 12, three hours before the arrival of the German squadron there. The ice crossing, which was considered impossible, was completed. In total, 236 ships were rescued from 350 combat ships of the Baltic Fleet, including all four dreadnoughts.
However, it was too early to rejoice and rest. The rescue of the Baltic Fleet did not suit British intelligence at all. I had to put even more serious pressure on Ilyich. Since the fleet was not flooded, the Bolsheviks would have to yield on another important issue.
When did Shchastny save the Baltic Fleet?
March 17, 1918
What else was important this month?
That's right - in the second half of March, Mikhail Romanov and other members of the dynasty were arrested. On March 30, 1918, the imposition of a prison regime is announced to the family of Nikolai Romanov. The life of the Romanovs is exchanged for the preservation of the Bolshevik power. We did not cope with the ships from the first call - we will have to excel in another delicate matter. On the same days, the reassured Vladimir Ilyich wrote his programmatic work "The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Power", where the Civil War is described as already won and completed. Lenin is so calm about his future because he was able to come to an agreement with the "allies" again. He and Trotsky have to take upon themselves not only the blood of the children of Nicholas II, but also the death of the Russian fleet …
Having looked behind the curtains of world politics, let's return to the captain's bridge of the Baltic battleship. Namorsi Shchastny and ordinary sailors considered their task completed, and the ships saved. At that moment, a new unexpected directive came from Moscow.
Just 12 days after the Ice Crossing, the People's Commissar of the Military Mariner Trotsky sent a secret order to Kronstadt - to prepare the fleet for an explosion.
The surprise and indignation of Shchastny, who received such a dispatch on May 3, 1918, knew no bounds. The Baltic Fleet, rescued with such difficulty, was supposed to be flooded at the mouth of the Neva in order to avoid its capture by the Germans, whose attack on the city was considered possible by the Bolshevik leadership. Not relying too much on the conscientiousness of the sailors, in the same directive, Trotsky ordered the creation of special cash accounts in the bank for the perpetrators of the future explosion!
Patriot Shchastny made these secret orders available to the "maritime community", which immediately excited the fleet. Even the revolutionary sailor brothers, having familiarized themselves with such interesting orders from Comrade Trotsky, sensed something was wrong.
The crews were especially outraged by the fact that money was supposed to be paid for the explosion of their own ships. It smelled so much of a banal bribery that the crews demanded an explanation.
“And at the same time, rumors persist in the fleet itself that the Soviet government has pledged to the Germans by a special secret clause of the treaty to destroy our navy,” says Lev Davydovich Trotsky, the culprit of the monstrous rumors himself. Surprise shows through in the words of the great freedom fighter. You must admit that sailors cannot have any grounds for such thoughts. There is no reason to suspect the Bolshevik elite in a downright maniacal desire to sink their own warships.
On May 11, 1918, the crews of a mine division stationed on the Neva in the center of the city, decided:
"The Petrograd commune, in view of its complete inability and incapacity to undertake anything to save the homeland and Petrograd, should be dissolved."
To save the fleet, the sailors demanded that all power be transferred to the naval dictatorship of the Baltic Fleet. And already on May 22, at the III Congress of the Baltic Fleet Delegates, the sailors announced that the fleet would be blown up only after the battle. Thus, by promulgating a secret order to destroy the fleet and the fact that money was supposed to be paid for this, Shchastny managed to thwart the plans of British intelligence for the second time. It is easy to evaluate his actions: the hero. But this is a modern look. Trotsky gives a different assessment to Namorsi's actions:
“His task was clearly different: to skip information about monetary contributions to the fleet in the broad masses of it, to arouse suspicions that someone wants to bribe someone behind the back of the sailor masses for some actions that they do not want to talk about publicly and openly. It is absolutely clear that in this way Shchastny made it absolutely impossible to undermine the fleet at the right moment, for he himself artificially caused such an idea among the teams, as if this undermining it is done not in the interests of saving the revolution and the country, but in some extraneous interests. under the influence of some demands and attempts hostile to the revolution and the people."
In this whole story, we are only interested in two questions.
♦ Why are Lenin and Trotsky trying to sink the rescued ships with such maniacal persistence?
♦ Where did the workers 'and peasants' authorities get such a strange idea as paying money to sailors for destroying their own ships?
And before and after these events, the Bolsheviks always fought for an idea, for a bright future, for a world revolution. I have never heard of the red chains going on the attack for money or increased bank interest. Nobody told us about Budyonny's cavalry attacking for a controlling stake or an increase in wages. In a little over twenty years, the German troops will again be at the walls of Petrograd-Leningrad, but no one would even think of offering the Petersburg workers to enroll in the militia for money. Leningraders will starve to death, but they will not surrender to the enemy, and they will not need any bonuses or rewards for this. Because they fought for the Motherland and for the idea, and all this money and bills, all these are concepts from another, bourgeois world. And here on you - the revolution, 1918, red sailors and … bank deposits! Something ends meet. Who came up with the idea of paying money to the revolutionary sailors?
“He (Shchastny - NS) says bluntly that the Soviet government wants to 'bribe' the sailors to destroy their own fleet. After that, rumors circulated throughout the Baltic Fleet about the proposal of the Soviet government to pay with German gold for the destruction of Russian ships, although in reality the situation was the opposite, that is, the British offered gold, because it was about not surrendering the fleet to the Germans."
That's all and begins to clear up, thanks to the ma-a-scarlet slip of the tongue by Lev Davydovich.
Gold was offered by the British! This is who is so characteristic of the belief in the omnipotence of the golden calf, who gave Trotsky the idea of bribing sailors by opening bank accounts for them. For the "allies" to completely eliminate Russia as a great power, the sinking of ships is necessary. They put pressure on Lenin and Trotsky and promise, as Churchill says, “that they will not interfere in the internal affairs of Russia,” that is, they will allow the Soviet regime to stand. The cost of this neutrality is the heads of the Romanovs and the flooding of the Russian fleet by the Bolsheviks. But Trotsky would not have been Trotsky if he had not tried to present himself in a noble light in this unattractive story too. Therefore, to the revolutionary tribunal, which later tried Shchastny, Lev Davydovich explained in detail what was what (sorry for the long quote):
“… When discussing the issue of preparatory measures in case of the need to destroy the fleet, attention was drawn to the fact that in the event of a sudden attack by German ships, with the assistance of the counterrevolutionary commanders in our own fleet, on the ships we could create a situation of disorganization and chaos that would cause it is absolutely impossible to actually undermine the courts; in order to protect ourselves from such a situation, we decided to create on each ship an unconditionally reliable and committed to the revolution a group of seamen-shock workers who, in any situation, would be ready and able to destroy the ship, at least sacrificing their own lives … When the organization of these strike groups was still in the preparatory stage, a prominent English naval officer came to one of the members of the naval board and said that England was so interested in preventing the ships from falling into the hands of the Germans that she was ready to pay generously to those sailors who would undertake the obligation to blow up ships at a fateful moment … I immediately gave orders to stop all negotiations with this gentleman. But I must admit that this proposal made us think about an issue that we, in the turmoil and turmoil of events, had not thought about until then: namely, about providing for the families of those sailors who would put themselves in terrible danger. I instructed to inform Shchastny by direct wire that the government is contributing a certain amount to the name of the shock sailors."
That's what a thing. When you die defending your wife and children, your Motherland and your father's home, you do not need to offer money. It is clear and understandable to you why and why you are sitting in a trench or standing at a ship's gun. Money is needed to drown out remorse. When you are sitting in the wrong trench, on the wrong side of the barricades …
What kind of Englishman came to offer money for blowing up our fleet? Fortunately, there was a footnote in the notes to Lev Davydovich's speech. There the surname of this good fellow is indicated. And with this new knowledge, the whole picture for you and me will sparkle with completely new colors.
Have you already guessed the name of the "prominent British naval officer"? Captain Cromie, of course! Now that's really interesting. It is no coincidence that this Briton already appears in our narrative, and always under very "muddy" circumstances. Those who are trying to convince us that he is a simple and honest English submariner must first read Trotsky and ask the question: why does he suddenly start offering Russian sailors money for blowing up their ships ?! Did the British sailors from the blown up seven boats put their caps in a circle? Are they so worried "so that the ships do not fall into the hands of the Germans," that they are ready to give up the last pounds of labor earned by overwhelming underwater labor ?!
Of course not. Everywhere and always, such functions are performed by people from completely different departments, and for cover they can use absolutely any position and form. There were also Rasputin's killers "British engineers." Now engineers in Russia have nothing to do, but submariners can be close to British submarines. There is no need to be naive and look at the shoulder straps and jacket: if you had stayed in the city of the Russian-British hospital, you would be a resident of the English doctor; if you had a British tank regiment near Petrograd, Captain Francis Cromie would have been a tanker. At the same time, the reason for his “heroic” death at the embassy at the hands of those with whom, in fact, the British resident was conducting backstage negotiations, becomes more understandable. Once again, a wonderful coincidence - the only foreigner killed as a result of the liquidation of the "conspiracy of ambassadors" was not just a British resident, but a person who participated in the most piquant negotiations. He knew all the ins and outs about the connections of the British special services and the revolutionary elite and therefore was an unwanted witness both for the Bolsheviks and for the British themselves. Maybe there was no resistance at all, and the Chekists simply used the situation to eliminate Captain Cromie.
However, we are not talking about the life of British special agents full of adventures and dangers. Let's return to the stuffy sailors' quarters. The indignation of the command of the Baltic Fleet no longer allowed to really bribe someone to undermine the ships. The ships remained intact and then they were even very useful to Lenin and Trotsky for the defense of Petrograd from the White Guards. And the award of the grateful Soviet government to the hero Shchastny was not long in coming. Three days after the seamen categorically declared that they would blow up their fleet only after the battle, on May 25, 1918, he was summoned to Moscow. A trifling pretext: Shchastny allegedly did not immediately dismiss two sailors suspected of "counter-revolutionary activities" from the fleet. Immediately upon arrival, after a short conversation with his immediate superior Trotsky, on May 27, 1918, Namorsi was arrested right in his office. And then very strange things began. The investigation was like a lightning bolt, in 10 (!) Days the material on the case was collected and transferred to the specially created (!) Revolutionary Tribunal. Krylenko was appointed the state prosecutor, Kingisepp the chairman of the court.
The only witness for the prosecution and in general the only witness … Trotsky himself.
The trial began on June 20, 1918 and was closed. Shchastny was found guilty "of preparing a counter-revolutionary coup, of high treason" and was shot the next day, despite the death penalty officially abolished by the Soviet government! Who needed his head so much? Indeed, in reality, Shchastny did not participate in any conspiracy, on the contrary, he twice saved the fleet, and it was possible to erect a monument to him during his lifetime. And they shoot him. The answer is simple: Lenin and Trotsky need to present something to their partners in secret agreements, to find them extremely guilty. Shchastny, who was only a month in the position of commander of the Baltic Fleet, saved him from destruction, thereby completely ruining the behind-the-scenes agreements and for this he had to answer with his head. The case was so dark and mysterious that when, after perestroika, historians took up this issue, it turned out that the materials of the tribunal did not even appear in the Soviet archives.
The main information center of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs did not have information about them either …
We know the perseverance of the "allies" in carrying out their plans. After unsuccessful attempts to blow up the fleet "at the highest level," the British again decided to act at a lower rank. After the failure of Captain Cromie, another familiar character joins the case. His colleague. General Mikhail Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruyevich, who commanded the defense of Petrograd during the period we are describing, calls him in his memoirs as follows: "… Later exposed professional English spy Sydney Reilly, who repeatedly appeared to me under the guise of a lieutenant of the royal sapper battalion attached to the British embassy."
The fate of the Russian fleet cannot leave the British indifferent, so Sidney Reilly simply came to "help" General Bonch-Bruyevich with good advice. The ships rescued by Shchastny were placed at the mouth of the Neva. It is very dangerous. According to Reilly (and British intelligence), they need to be … correctly positioned:
“Having handed me a diligently drawn diagram showing the parking lot of each battleship and indicating the location of other ships,” Bonch-Bruyevich writes in his memoirs, “he began to convince me that such a redeployment of most of our squadron would ensure the best position of the fleet if the Germans did indeed undertake offensive operations from the Gulf of Finland”.
General Bonch-Bruevich is an experienced man, such a touching concern seems to him very suspicious. After analyzing the scheme, he sees the purpose of the arrival of Sidney Reilly:
"… to expose battleships and cruisers costing many millions of rubles under the attack of German submarines."
Offering to save the ships from the attack, he substitutes them just under it. Listen to the general of the English spy, and the future course of events can be easily predicted. On a dark night, an unknown (of course, "German") submarine would attack the Russian battleships and send them to the bottom. Having understood the game of British intelligence, Bonch-Bruevich draws his own conclusions:
“Having reported all this to the Supreme Military Council, I ordered some of the ships that were part of the Baltic Fleet to enter the Neva and, having placed them in the port and at the mouth of the river below the Nikolayevsky bridge, that is not at all the way Reshi suggested, to make them unattainable for submarines incapable of using the Sea Channel."
Now let's move from gloomy St. Petersburg to sunny Sevastopol. In October 1914, hostilities in the Black Sea were opened by the ill-fated German-Turkish cruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim (Goeben) and its "partner" Midilli (Breslau).
Their German sailors, dressed in Turkish fez, shelled Odessa and our other port cities. At first, Russia had only outdated battleships on the Black Sea, but after the commissioning of the Russian dreadnoughts "Empress Maria" and "Empress Catherine the Great", the balance of forces on the Black Sea changed dramatically in our favor. In addition, at the end of June 1916, Admiral Kolchak assumed command of the fleet. It was with his appearance that the superiority of Russian sailors and ships became colossal. Appointed with the aim of preparing an amphibious operation to capture the cherished Dardanelles, Kolchak launched active operations but mined the enemy's water area and managed to actually squeeze the Turkish fleet in its own ports. The tragic death of the dreadnought "Empress Maria" on October 7 (20), 1916 does not change the situation either.
KOLCHAK Alexander Vasilievich
Now, after ensuring complete supremacy at sea, it was possible to carry out an amphibious operation to capture the Dardanelles. It is planned almost simultaneously with a powerful land offensive. Term - the beginning of the spring of 1917. After two powerful blows, it was planned to knock out Turkey, then Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria collapsed, which led to the inevitable and quick defeat of Germany.
Everything is ready for the landing: for the first time in the world, a transport flotilla has been created, a combination of specially equipped transports adapted to receive troops and equipment.
These are means for disembarking people, bots, self-propelled barges capable of landing troops even on an un-equipped coast. Interaction with ground forces has been worked out. The British can no longer hesitate. If you stretch out for a couple of months, the Russian imperial army and navy will inflict a powerful blow on the enemy and capture the strategic straits. After that, Russia will no longer be crushed. In diplomatic negotiations, the "allies" actually agree to the occupation of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles by the Russians. And their agents in St. Petersburg immediately take decisive action. In the capital of the empire, riots begin: February is coming.
The construction of ships is dramatically slowing down its pace. As a result, the dreadnought "Emperor Alexander III" was nevertheless delivered in October 1917 with a new name received from the Provisional Government: "Will". Its brother the battleship "Emperor Nicholas 1" was not helped by the new sonorous name - "Democracy". It will never enter service and in 1927 it will be sold for scrap.
Continued here: Part 2
