In a year and a few months, the centenary of the event, which radically changed the fate of mankind, will be celebrated. It's about the First World War. Why am I talking about her now? There are two good reasons for this, in my opinion.
Firstly, the “round date” - August 1, 2014 - will be at the height of the holiday season and the attention to it will not be too great. Secondly, in the country where you and I live, the century of the Great War will most likely be reduced to the anniversary of the Legion of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (OSS).
People's deputies Doniy and Briginets registered a bill a month ago proposing to celebrate this “fateful” date at the state level. Even if this draft does not become law, there is no doubt that we will hear a lot about the OSS in August next year. But the Russian army, I would venture to assume, will remain in a dense shadow. They will only remember it in the context of the battles on Mount Makovka, where, in the opinion of nationalist historians and propagandists, the Sich archers won a grandiose victory over the tsarist troops.
Therefore, there is a great chance that those who fought under the Russian banners will remain in oblivion. And not only our compatriots were among them. The most famous foreigner in the service of Nicholas II is General Radko-Dmitriev. Bulgarian, participant in several wars, army commander. However, Radko-Dmitriev is far from the only native of the Balkans who led our great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers into battle.
Here is another example - Prince Arseny Karageorgievich, brother of the Serbian king Peter I. He received his baptism of fire during the Russo-Japanese war. Then he took part in two Balkan wars and, being disappointed with their results, left for his second homeland - Russia. During the world massacre, he was a brigade commander in the 2nd Cavalry Division. At the headquarters, the prince did not sit out and for his bravery was awarded the Order of St. George IV Art.
If we develop the plot of the service of European aristocrats in the army of Emperor Nicholas II, then we need to recall the great-grandson of Napoleonic Marshal Joachim Murat. In Russia, the descendant of the King of Naples was called Napoleon Akhilovich. At birth (his mother was a Georgian princess from the Dadiani clan), the boy was named Louis Napoleon. He began his military career in the French army. In the Japanese war he joined the Russian service, and in the First World War he was already a general. Prince Murat fought in the Caucasian Native Cavalry Division, better known as the "Wild Division". In the winter of 1914/1915. during the battles in the Carpathians, Napoleon severely frostbitten his legs. After that he walked with difficulty, but remained in the ranks.
The Persian prince Faizullah Mirza Qajar fought in the same "Wild Division". This is already quite "our man" - he studied at a Russian military school and served in the Russian army until the October Revolution. During the World War, he consistently commanded the Chechen Cavalry Regiment, a brigade, and then the entire Caucasian native division.
And a very unique personality - Marcel Pla. Its origin is unknown, it is also unclear how the fate of this man developed after 1916. The fact is that he was dark-skinned, so some believed that straight from the circus he ended up in the Air Squadron (the famous Ilya Muromets bomber unit). There is, however, an opinion that Marseille is from French Polynesia and that he was brought to us as a teenager. Over the course of several years, Plya has pretty much become Russified, although he remained a subject of the Third Republic. Fighting in the Squadron, Plia became a knight of two St. George's Crosses. Marseille was a well-aimed machine-gunner and a very brave man: there is a known case when, during a flight, he climbed onto the wing of "Muromets" and started repairing damaged engines. These works were carried out at a height of one and a half thousand meters.
By the way, it is interesting that almost all of the characters I named fought on the territory of Ukraine. Here they should be remembered in August of the fourteenth, and not "ususus" with their notorious Makovka. But alas …
