These words fully apply to many battles of the First World War. For some reason, the modern Russian government, which is so concerned about patriotic education, chose not to notice the 95th anniversary of its beginning
At the state level, they try not to notice this tragic date: 95 years ago, on August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. Then we called this war both the Second Patriotic War and the Great, the Bolsheviks attached the label to it imperialist, and the people called it German. Later they began to call it World War, and after the start of a new one, they added a serial number - World War I. It was she who became the prologue to the twentieth century, without which, perhaps, there would have been no February 1917, which disintegrated the army and the state, no Bolsheviks with October, no fratricidal civil war.
Attack of the dead
In 1915, the world gazed with admiration at the defense of Osovets, a small Russian fortress 23.5 km from what was then East Prussia. The main task of the fortress was, as S. Khmelkov, a participant in the defense of Osovets, wrote, "to block the enemy's closest and most convenient route to Bialystok … to make the enemy lose time either for conducting a long siege or looking for detours." Bialystok is a transport junction, the capture of which opened the road to Vilno (Vilnius), Grodno, Minsk and Brest. So for the Germans through Osovets lay the shortest way to Russia. It was impossible to bypass the fortress: it was located on the banks of the Bobra River, controlling the entire district, in the vicinity there were continuous swamps. “There are almost no roads in this area, very few villages, individual courtyards communicate with each other along rivers, canals and narrow paths, - this is how the publication of the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense described the area in 1939. "The enemy will not find here any roads, no shelter, no closures, no positions for artillery."
The Germans launched the first onslaught in September 1914: having transferred large-caliber guns from Konigsberg, they bombed the fortress for six days. And the siege of Osovets began in January 1915 and lasted 190 days.
The Germans used all their latest achievements against the fortress. The famous "Big Berts" were delivered - siege guns of 420-mm caliber, 800-kilogram shells of which broke through two-meter steel and concrete floors. The crater from such an explosion was five meters deep and fifteen in diameter.
The Germans calculated that to force the surrender of a fortress with a garrison of a thousand men, two such guns and 24 hours of methodical bombardment were enough: 360 shells, a volley every four minutes. Four "Big Berts" and 64 other powerful siege weapons were brought near Osovets, a total of 17 batteries.
The most terrible shelling was at the beginning of the siege. "The enemy opened fire on the fortress on February 25, brought it to a hurricane on February 27 and 28, and so continued to smash the fortress until March 3," S. Khmelkov recalled. According to his calculations, during this week of terrible shelling, 200-250 thousand only heavy shells were fired at the fortress. And in total during the siege - up to 400 thousand. “Brick buildings were falling apart, wooden ones were burning, weak concrete ones gave huge spalls in the vaults and walls; the wire connection was interrupted, the highway was ruined by craters; the trenches and all the improvements on the ramparts, such as canopies, machine-gun nests, light dugouts, were wiped off the face of the earth. " Clouds of smoke and dust hung over the fortress. Together with artillery, the fortress was bombed by German airplanes.
“The sight of the fortress was terrifying, the whole fortress was shrouded in smoke, through which huge tongues of fire erupted from the explosion of shells in one place or another; pillars of earth, water, and whole trees flew upward; the earth trembled, and it seemed that nothing could withstand such a hurricane of fire. The impression was that not a single person would emerge whole from this hurricane of fire and iron,”foreign correspondents wrote.
The command, believing that it was almost impossible, asked the defenders of the fortress to hold out for at least 48 hours. The fortress stood for another six months. And our artillerymen, during that terrible bombing, even managed to knock out two "Big Berts", poorly disguised by the enemy. Along the way, the ammunition depot was blown up.
August 6, 1915 became a dark day for the defenders of Osovets: the Germans used poisonous gases to destroy the garrison. They prepared a gas attack carefully, patiently waiting for the required wind. We deployed 30 gas batteries, several thousand cylinders. On August 6, at 4 am, a dark green mist of a mixture of chlorine and bromine flowed onto the Russian positions, reaching them in 5-10 minutes. A gas wave 12-15 meters high and 8 km wide penetrated to a depth of 20 km. The defenders of the fortress did not have gas masks.
"All living things in the open air on the bridgehead of the fortress were poisoned to death," recalled a participant in the defense. - All the greenery in the fortress and in the nearest area along the path of the movement of gases was destroyed, the leaves on the trees turned yellow, curled and fell off, the grass turned black and lay on the ground, the flower petals flew around. All copper objects on the bridgehead of the fortress - parts of guns and shells, washstands, tanks, etc. - were covered with a thick green layer of chlorine oxide; food items stored without hermetic sealing - meat, oil, lard, vegetables, turned out to be poisoned and unsuitable for consumption. " "The half-poisoned ones wandered back, - this is another author," and, tormented by thirst, bent down to the water sources, but here, in low places, gases lingered, and secondary poisoning led to death."
German artillery again opened massive fire, after the barrage and the gas cloud, 14 battalions of the Landwehr moved to assault the Russian forward positions - and this is no less than seven thousand infantrymen. On the front line, after the gas attack, hardly more than a hundred defenders remained alive. The doomed fortress, it seemed, was already in German hands. But when the German chains approached the trenches, from the thick green chlorine fog … the counterattacking Russian infantry fell upon them. The sight was terrifying: the soldiers walked into the bayonet with their faces wrapped in rags, shaking from a terrible cough, literally spitting out pieces of lungs on their bloody tunics. These were the remnants of the 13th company of the 226th infantry Zemlyansky regiment, a little more than 60 people. But they plunged the enemy into such horror that the German infantrymen, not accepting the battle, rushed back, trampling each other and hanging on their own barbed wire. And on them from the Russian batteries shrouded in chlorine clubs, it seemed, already dead artillery began to beat. Several dozen half-dead Russian fighters put three German infantry regiments to flight! The world military art did not know anything of the kind. This battle will go down in history as the "attack of the dead".
Unlearned lessons
The Russian troops nevertheless left the Osovets, but later also by order of the command, when his defense became meaningless. The evacuation of the fortress is also an example of heroism. Because everything had to be taken out of the fortress at night, during the day the highway to Grodno was impassable: it was constantly bombed by German airplanes. But the enemy was not left with a cartridge, or a projectile, or even a can of canned food. Each gun was pulled on the straps by 30-50 gunners or militias. On the night of August 24, 1915, Russian sappers blew up everything that survived the German fire, and only a few days later the Germans decided to occupy the ruins.
This is how the "downtrodden" Russian soldiers fought, defending "rotten tsarism" until the revolution disintegrated the exhausted and tired army. It was they who held back the terrible blow of the German military machine, preserving the very possibility of the country's existence. And not only his own. "If France was not wiped off the face of Europe, then we owe this primarily to Russia," said Marshal Foch, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces, later.
In the then Russia the names of the defenders of the Osovets fortress were known to almost everyone. That is the heroic deed on which to bring up patriotism, isn't it? But under Soviet rule, only army engineers were supposed to know about the defense of Osovets, and even then only from a utilitarian and technical perspective. The name of the commandant of the fortress was deleted from history: not only was Nikolai Brzhozovsky a "tsarist" general, he also fought later in the ranks of the whites. After the Second World War, the history of the defense of Osovets was completely transferred to the category of forbidden: comparisons with the events of 1941 were too unflattering.
And now in our school textbooks of the First World War, several lines are devoted, on the bookshelves of worthy publications - in every respect. In the exposition of the State Historical Museum about the war of 1914-1918, there is nothing at all, in the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia (formerly the Museum of the Revolution) there is an exposition on a crawler: three shoulder straps, an overcoat, a bomb launcher, a mountain gun, four captured machine guns and a pair of captured rifles. Slightly more interesting is the exposition of the exhibition "And the World Fire broke out …": authentic maps of the fronts, photographs of soldiers, officers and nurses. But this exposition is short-term, moreover, oddly enough, within the framework of the project "The 65th Anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War."
Another exhibition is "The Great War" at the Museum of the Armed Forces. You leave it with the feeling that that war either did not exist at all, or that it was fought in some unknown place, how, why and by whom. Lots of photographs, a little ammunition, rifles, machine guns, sabers, checkers, daggers, revolvers … In addition to piecemeal units of award weapons, everything is depersonalized: ordinary standard weapons, which say nothing, not tied either to place and events, or to time and specific people. On the showcase are woolen socks knitted by the empress and presented to the patient of the Tsarskoye Selo hospital, staff captain A. V. Syroboyarsky. And not a word about who this Syroboyarsky is! Only after digging into the émigré literature, you can find out that Alexander Vladimirovich Syroboyarsky commanded the 15th armored division and was wounded three times in battles, he got to the Tsarskoye Selo hospital in 1916 after being wounded again. As historians suppose, not without reason, this officer carried a feeling to one of the great princesses throughout his life. In the hospital ward, he met with Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her older daughters, Olga and Tatiana. And the august ladies did not come to the hospital for an excursion: since the fall of 1914, they worked here every day as sisters of mercy. There is nothing about this in the museum exposition - just a pair of socks …
Checker of the Tsarevich. A stuffed horse. The overcoat of General Schwartz, who led the defense of the Ivangorod fortress. Photo by Rennenkampf. Ashtray of the commander of the destroyer "Siberian Shooter", Captain 2nd Rank Georgy Ottovich Gadd. Dagger of Vice Admiral Ludwig Berngardovich Kerber. Saber of Admiral Viren. And nothing about what these people are famous for, the same Robert Nikolaevich Viren - the hero of the Russian-Japanese war. He commanded the Kronstadt base and was killed by a brutal sailor on March 1, 1917 …
Alas, this museum is not historical, but political: flesh and blood of the sadly memorable Main Political Administration of the Red, and then the Soviet Army. Political workers, who to this day occupy the high offices of the Ministry of Defense, do not need the truth about this war. Therefore, the Glavpurov's division into two different Russia continues: the First World War is, they say, the war of Kolchak, Denikin, Yudenich, Kornilov, Viren, Kerber, von Essen and other "gaddov". War of the "whites"!
But after all, not only "whites" fought on the fronts, but also "reds". The future Soviet marshals Rokossovsky and Malinovsky left for the war as volunteers, attributing years to themselves. Both deserved the honorary soldier's St. George crosses in battles. Marshals Blucher, Budyonny, Egorov, Tukhachevsky, Zhukov, Timoshenko, Vasilevsky, Shaposhnikov, Konev, Tolbukhin, Eremenko were also in that war. Like commanders Kork and Uborevich, generals Karbyshev, Kirponos, Pavlov, Kachalov, Lukin, Apanasenko, Ponedelin … Like Chapaev, who earned three crosses in the First World War, and Budyonny, who was awarded the 3rd and 4th degree crosses.
Meanwhile, in the Red Army itself, the number of participants in the First World War after the revolution was rapidly decreasing. The bulk of the veterans from among the officers were cleared out by the end of the 1920s, and then thousands of former officers were exterminated during the 1929-1931 KGB special operation "Spring". They were replaced, at best, by former non-commissioned officers, sergeants and soldiers. And those were then "cleaned up". The defeat of the bearers of the invaluable experience of the war with the Germans - the officer corps of the Russian army - during Operation Spring will come back to haunt on June 22, 1941: it was the German veterans who smashed the Red Army. In 1941, the German division had at least a hundred officers who had experience in the 1914-1918 campaign, 20 times more than in the Soviet! And this difference is not only quantitative: the Soviet veterans of the World War came from soldiers and non-commissioned officers, all German ones from officers.
14th and 41st
School textbooks repeat about the rottenness of the tsarist regime, incompetent tsarist generals, about the unpreparedness for war, which was not at all popular, because the forcibly drafted soldiers allegedly did not want to fight …
Now the facts: in 1914-1917, almost 16 million people were drafted into the Russian army - from all classes, almost all nationalities of the empire. Is this not a people's war? And these "forcibly drafted" fought without commissars and political instructors, without special security officers, without penal battalions. Without detachments. About one and a half million people were marked with the St. George Cross, 33 thousand became full holders of the St. George crosses of all four degrees. By November 1916, more than one and a half million medals were issued at the front for Bravery. In the army of that time, crosses and medals were simply not hung up to anyone and they were not given for the protection of rear warehouses - only for specific military merits.
"Rotten tsarism" carried out the mobilization clearly and without a hint of transport chaos. The "unprepared for war" Russian army under the leadership of "talentless" tsarist generals not only carried out timely deployment, but also delivered a series of powerful blows to the enemy, conducting a series of successful offensive operations in enemy territory.
For three years, the army of the Russian Empire held the blow of the war machine of the three empires - the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman - on a huge front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The tsarist generals and their soldiers did not let the enemy go deep into the Fatherland. The generals had to retreat, but the army under their command retreated in a disciplined and orderly manner, only by order. Yes, and the civilian population tried not to abandon the enemy to desecrate, evacuating as much as possible.
The "anti-popular tsarist regime" did not think of repressing the families of those captured, and the "oppressed peoples" were in no hurry to go over to the enemy's side with whole armies. The prisoners did not enroll in legions to fight with arms against their own country, just as hundreds of thousands of Red Army men did a quarter of a century later. And on the side of the Kaiser a million Russian volunteers did not fight, there were no Vlasovites. In 1914, even in a nightmare, no one could have dreamed that the Cossacks fought in the German ranks.
Of course, the Russian troops lacked rifles, machine guns, shells and cartridges, and the technical superiority of the Germans was evident. The losses of the Russian army are estimated at 3.3 million people, and the total irrecoverable losses of Russia amounted to about 4.5 million people. In the Great Patriotic War lost 28 million people - this is the official statistics.
In the imperialist war, the Russian army did not leave its own people on the battlefield, carrying out the wounded and burying the dead. Therefore, the bones of our soldiers and officers of the First World War do not lie on the battlefields. It is known about the Patriotic War: the 65th year since its end, and the number of human beings who have not been buried is in the millions.
Who needs your truth?
But there are no monuments to those killed in the First World War in our country - not a single one. Only a few crosses near the Church of All Saints in All Saints on the Falcon, erected by private individuals. During the German period, there was a huge cemetery near this temple, where soldiers who died of wounds in hospitals were buried. The Soviet government destroyed the cemetery, like many others, when it methodically began to uproot the memory of the Great War. She was ordered to be considered unfair, lost, shameful.
In addition, in October 1917, natural deserters and saboteurs who carried out subversive work on enemy money became at the helm of the country. It was inconvenient for the comrades from the sealed carriage, who stood up for the defeat of the fatherland, to conduct military-patriotic education on the examples of the imperialist war, which they turned into a civil war. And in the 1920s, Germany became a tender friend and a military-economic partner - why irritate her with a reminder of a past discord?
True, some literature about the First World War was published, but utilitarian and for the mass consciousness. Another line is educational and applied: it was not on the materials of the campaigns of Hannibal and the First Cavalry to teach students of military academies. And in the early 1930s, a scientific interest in war was indicated, voluminous collections of documents and research appeared. But their theme is indicative: offensive operations. The last collection of documents came out in 1941; more collections were no longer released. True, even in these publications there were no names or people - only numbers of units and formations. Even after June 22, 1941, when the "great leader" decided to turn to historical analogies, remembering the names of Alexander Nevsky, Suvorov and Kutuzov, he did not say a word about those who stood in the way of the Germans in 1914.
After the Second World War, the strictest ban was imposed not only on the study of the First World War, but in general on any memory of it. And for the mention of the heroes of the "imperialist" one could go to the camps as for anti-Soviet agitation and praise of the White Guards.
Now the largest array of documents related to this war is in the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RGVIA). According to Irina Olegovna Garkusha, director of the RGVIA, almost every third request to the archive concerns the First World War. Sometimes up to two-thirds of thousands of such requests are requests to find information about the participants in the First World War. “Relatives, descendants of the participants in the war write: some want to know if their ancestor was awarded, others are interested in where and how he fought,” says Irina Olegovna. This means that people's interest in the First World War is evident! And growing, archivists confirm.
And at the state level? From communication with archivists, it is clear that the 95th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War in high offices was not even remembered. There is also no preparation for the upcoming 100th anniversary of the war at the state level. Perhaps the archivists themselves should take the initiative? But who will publish it, at whose expense? In addition, this is hellish work that requires many years of painstaking work. For example, in the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, the funds of which are
964,500 storage units, 150 people are employed. The funds of the First World RGVIA - 950,000 units - serve only three people. Belarus, of course, is a much more powerful and wealthy state than Russia …
"We are ready to publish collections of documents on military operations," they say in the RGVIA, "but military specialists are needed to prepare them."Only official historians in uniform are not interested in this, because military history is the diocese of the department that grew out of Glavpur. It still tenaciously keeps a stranglehold on the throat of military history and military-patriotic education, giving out pro-Stalin myths on the mountain. As the head of the Glavpur, General Aleksey Epishev, once said, "who needs your truth if it interferes with our life?" The truth about the German war also prevents his heirs from living: their career was built on "ten Stalinist blows". Real patriots cannot be educated only on false history and the fight against "falsifiers". And education in Glavpurov style has already brought down the country and the army twice - in 1941 and 1991.
