"… Such actions usually precede a general fight, in which opponents throw their hats on the ground, call passers-by as witnesses and smear children's tears on their bristly muzzles" [1].
The First World War began for the Russian Empire with the tragic invasion of East Prussia in August 1914. This battle caused a colossal public outcry not only in Russia, but also in Germany. Her semi-official circles immediately drew historical parallels between the defeat of the 2nd Army of the cavalry general A. V. Samsonov near Tannenberg and the Battle of Grunwald in the Middle Ages, in which the Teutonic Order was defeated by the allied Polish-Lithuanian-Russian troops. The victory of 1914 was positioned as a revenge for the defeat in 1410 [2] and there was a certain logic and geographic relationship in it.
In Russia, one of the pages in the history of the East Prussian operation is often associated with much closer in time, but geographically distant events of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905. On its fronts, in Manchuria, the future commanders of the ill-fated armies fought - the aforementioned Samsonov and cavalry general P. K. von Rennenkampf. However, to a wide range of readers, this milestone in their career is known, rather, not for exploits, but … for a slap in the face.
Let us quote the famous Soviet writer Valentin Pikul: “… The last time he fought the Japanese; after the battles near Mukden, he came to the station platform - straight from the attack! - to the train departure. When General Rennenkampf (nicknamed "Yellow Danger") got into the car, Samsonov cracked him in the red face:
- Here's to you, General, for eternal memory … Wear it!
Rennenkampf disappeared into the carriage. In a rage, Samsonov shook his whip after the departing train:
“I led my lava to attack, hoping that this nit would support me from the flank, but he sat all night in Gaolian and didn't even put his nose out of there …” [3].
Anyone who has read Pikul's miniatures probably knows this striking episode. The writer clearly considered it his creative success, including this scene in the texts of his novels [4]. In one of them ("Unclean Power"), Lieutenant General Rennenkampf, for unknown reasons, finds himself in the latrine (?) Instead of the thickets of Gaolyan.
It is generally believed that he, harboring a grudge against Samsonov, allegedly delayed the advance of the army during the East Prussian operation and almost betrayed him. This article is devoted to the extent to which this story with the "slap in the face" corresponds to reality.
Since Pikul's version of events has already been identified, it would be reasonable to start the analysis with it. So, according to the writer, Samsonov insulted Rennenkampf at the railway station after the Battle of Mukden. The date and area of Samsonov's attack are not specified, information about her is abstract. However, even a cursory review of Rennenkampf is convinced of the unjustifiedness of allegations that Rennenkampf was sitting out anywhere during the Mukden operation.
At the very beginning of the battle (February 9), Lieutenant General Rennenkampf took command of the cavalry detachment of Lieutenant General P. I. Mishchenko, seriously wounded in the battle at Sandepa. The forces of this detachment carried out reconnaissance until February 16; at the same time, Rennenkampf formed a detachment of four Cossack hundreds to destroy the railway bridge in the Japanese rear. The sabotage was successful, but practically did not affect the development of hostilities. Already on February 26, Rennenkampf returned to the command of the so-called. Qinghechen detachment [5] and entered into battles with him. A. I. Denikin, who wrote: "The Rennenkampf detachment by stubborn, bloody battles acquired its well-deserved glory" [6] if he exaggerated, then, apparently, only stylistically …
Almost immediately upon the return of Rennenkampf, on February 28, it was ordered to stop the supply of food for his detachment, and the situation with him will remain tense until the end of the operation [7]. During the period of the retreat of the Russian armies to the Sypingai Heights, the detachment was invariably in the rearguard. The losses of his personnel during the Battle of Mukden were recognized by the Military-Historical Commission for describing the Russo-Japanese War as the highest in the entire I Army. It is appropriate to ask the question - how is the role of the head of the Siberian Cossack Division, General Samsonov, assessed in this major work?
The pages of the aforementioned multivolume edition describe the actions of a huge number of units and formations, including "detachments" similar to Tsinghechensky. The intensity of their formation during the years of the Russo-Japanese war reached a peak: “There were cases when corps commanders commanded such tactical units, which did not even include a single battalion of the corps entrusted to them … In one detachment, a force of 51 battalions, there were military units of all three armies, of 11 corps, 16 divisions and 43 different regiments”[8]. Sometimes even the actions of officers with only the rank of captain were awarded a separate consideration. About the attack of the Cossacks of General Samsonov, especially not supported by Rennenkampf from the flank, the authors-compilers of this fundamental study remain silent. To put it simply, this attack did not take place, as there was no scandal generated by it on the railway platform in Mukden.
Thus, the version of events replicated in Pikul's works does not stand up to criticism. However, the matter is not at all limited to her - another fiction writer, writer Barbara Takman, in her famous book "August Cannons", reflected the following vision of the situation: German observer. He says that Samsonov's Siberian Cossacks, having demonstrated courage in battle, were forced to surrender the Entai coal mines due to the fact that the Rennenkampf cavalry division did not support them and remained in place, despite repeated orders, and that Samsonov hit Rennenkampf during a quarrel on on this occasion on the platform of the Mukden railway station”[9].
We are talking about the Liaoyang battle - the events of the end of August 1904. When the Russian command learned about the preparations for the crossing of the forces of the Japanese general Kuroki to the left bank of the river. Taijihe, bypassing the flank of the Russians, Kuropatkin decided to withdraw troops deep into the front. It was then that the Russian cavalry units under the command of Samsonov were transferred by a forced march to the Yantai coal mines [10] for their further defense. To the south, the 54th Infantry Division of Major General N. A. Orlova. On the morning of September 2, 1904, the latter launched an attack on Shimamura's 12th Japanese Brigade. Its positions were located at the heights south of the village of Dayyaopu, while the Russians had to advance in the thickets of Gaolyan. Shimamura launched a counter offensive east of Dayyaopu, encompassing Orlov's left flank and attacking the right. The Russian troops wavered and fled - in panic, they fired back from the advancing enemy in the thickets of Gaolyan, but it was indiscriminate fire on their own. In a hurry, having gathered again troops (hardly more than a battalion in number), Orlov again tried to attack the Japanese in the direction of Dayyaopu, but his orders were again scattered in Gaoling, and the general himself was wounded.
According to a contemporary, the participants in this escapade were given the poisonous nickname “Orlov trotters”. Its tactical result was bleak - tangible losses were useless, Samsonov, who had lost more than one and a half thousand people in killed and wounded, was knocked out from the Yantai mines [11]. Rennenkampf was in the hospital all this time after being seriously wounded in the leg on July 13, 1904 [12] He simply could not help Samsonov, and even more so to please him under the "hot hand". Consequently, Takman's version of events is also incorrect. To the author's credit, she herself was inclined to this conclusion: "It is doubtful that Hoffman believed his fairy tale or only pretended to believe" [13].
So, the emergence of the story of the conflict between Samsonov and Rennenkampf Takman connects with the figure of the officer of the German General Staff Max Hoffman. Almost all authors who mention this episode agree on this. A single listing of its variations could constitute a separate bibliographic review.
For example, this is how the American writer Bevin Alexander recently portrayed the situation: “Hoffman was a military observer during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and witnessed a verbal skirmish between Samsonov and Rennenkampf on a railway platform in Mukden, Manchuria, which ended in a real fight”[14]. Among specialists, this version, in particular, was picked up by Professor I. M. Dyakonov is indeed a major specialist, however, in the field of the history of the Ancient East. He wrote about the mediocre actions of “the chief of the General Staff Zhilinsky and generals Samsonov and Rennenkampf (who were at enmity because of the slaps they slapped each other back in 1905 on the railway platform in Mukden)” [15].
The historian T. A. Soboleva, these slaps in the face probably seemed unconvincing, and therefore on the pages of her book "Samsonov came to the train departure when Ranenkampf was getting into the car, and publicly whipped him with a whip in front of everyone" [16].
General of the cavalry A. V. Samsonov
An equally original version of events was expressed by the American war correspondent Eric Durshmid. He connects the conflict between the generals with the defense of the Yantai mines and, as we have already found out, this is not true. However, we abstract from this convention and assume that a quarrel really broke out between Samsonov and Rennenkampf on the platform of the Mukden station. A word to the author: “The enraged Samsonov rushed to Rannenkampf, took off his glove and slapped his unreliable comrade-in-arms with a hefty slap in the face. A moment later, two generals were rolling, like boys, on the ground, tearing off buttons, orders and shoulder straps. Respectable people, division commanders beat and strangled each other until they were taken away by the officers who happened nearby”[17]. The subsequent duel between the generals allegedly seemed inevitable, but Emperor Nicholas II allegedly forbade it by his personal intervention.
The fight between Samsonov and Rennenkampf in Durshmid's book is watched by the same indispensable Hoffman. The failed duel between them has also been featured in foreign literature for a long time [18]. It is in this detail of the plot that one of its flaws is hidden.
Indeed, a duel as a form of reaction to an insult was practiced among the Russian officers. For a long time it was banned, which at some point even led to the spread of the so-called. "American duels", reminiscent of a medieval horde: the use of pills, one of which is deadly poisonous, launching into a darkened room with opponents of a poisonous snake, etc. Therefore, in May 1894, the "Rules for the Investigation of Quarrels Occurring in the Officers' Environment" which actually legalized dueling among officers. The decision on their appropriateness or inappropriateness was transferred to the competence of the courts of the society of officers (courts of honor), although their decisions were not binding [19]. However, it was forbidden to call officers to a duel because of a conflict regarding service.
In addition, Nicholas II himself seems highly unlikely to interfere in the quarrel. The tsar learned about the fights that had already taken place from the report of the Minister of War, to whom, on command, court materials were presented and only then made a decision on the trial. Rumors about a future duel, no matter how quickly they did not spread, would hardly have outstripped the new appointments of the opponents, who were already on the opposite borders of the empire in the fall of 1905. And one way or another, they would have caused a certain resonance in the secular circles of the capital - as you know, a duel between A. I. Guchkov and Colonel S. N. Myasoedov immediately hit the pages of newspapers, and the police took emergency measures to prevent the duel [20]. To take seriously this detail, woven into the context of the quarrel, would be reckless, as well as to many similar newspaper articles of that time: "Vossische Zeit." reports that Generals Kaulbars, Grippenberg, Rennenkampf and Bilderling, every man for himself, challenged Kuropatkin to a duel for their comments in a book about the Russo-Japanese war”[21].
The press to this day remains greedy for such scandalous stories from history, therefore the publication in modern periodicals of Samsonov's previously unknown monologue after a slap in the face to Rennenkampf is not surprising: “The blood of my soldiers is on you, sir! I no longer consider you an officer or a man. If you like, please send me your seconds”[22]. However, it is discouraging to believe in this mythologeme of such a prominent specialist as the late Professor A. I. Utkin [23].
Meanwhile, it is necessary to identify the primary source of information about the notorious "Mukden slap in the face". As already noted, most of the authors reporting about it refer to Max Hoffman as an eyewitness. But in fact, if one of the foreign military attachés could have witnessed a hypothetical skirmish between Samsonov and Rennenkampf, then either the Austro-Hungarian agent Captain Sheptytsky (assigned to the Trans-Baikal Cossack Division), or the Frenchman Shemion (assigned to the Siberian Cossack Division, rank unknown) [24]. During the Russo-Japanese War, Max Hoffman was a military agent at the headquarters of the Japanese army [25] and simply could not be an eyewitness to anything at the Mukden station after the battle.
The last doubts about this dispel his recollections: “I heard from the words of witnesses (sic!) About a sharp clash between both commanders after the Liaoyang battle at the Mukden railway station. I remember that even during the battle of Tannenberg we spoke with General Ludendorff about the conflict between the two enemy generals”[26].
Hoffman turned out to be more honest than many writers and historians who did not quite conscientiously appeal to him. Moreover, despite the adherence of the memoirist himself to the version of the scandal after the abandonment of the Yantai mines [27], the situation depicted by him looks the most plausible of all the above. It was successfully formulated by the venerable military historian G. B. Liddell Harth: “… Hoffman learned a lot about the Russian army; he learned, among other things, the story of how two generals - Rennenkampf and Samsonov - had a big quarrel on the railway platform in Mukden, and the case almost came to insult by action”[28]. He does not even mention a slap in the face, let alone a scuffle, whipping and demands for satisfaction.
Could a similar situation have taken place? This should not be categorically rejected. A quarrel between the generals could break out, for example, after the battle on the river. Shahe. In it, Samsonov's detachment and Rennenkampf's division fought in the same sector of the front as part of the Eastern detachment of General G. K. Stackelberg [29]. The actions of these units sometimes turned out to be inconsistent, and not only through the fault of Rennenkampf. He covered the left flank of Samsonov's cavalry, which reached Xianshantzi on October 9, 1904, and in the morning of the same day tried to advance further to the village of Bensihu with the support of the infantry detachment of Lyubavin. However, due to the uncertain actions of the latter, Rennenkampf also abandoned his plan.
On October 11, the latter once again tried to attack the fortified positions of the Japanese and was again forced to withdraw - this time due to the inaction of none other than Samsonov. At the end, he completely retreated, depriving Rennenkampf of the opportunity to organize another, already night attack. And it was then that the head of the Trans-Baikal Cossack Division, in turn, refused to support Samsonov, who planned an attack, but did not dare to launch it. But this was not the result of the tyranny of Rennenkampf, but of Stackelberg's order to suspend the advance of the entire Eastern detachment [30].
The tactical initiative was missed - on October 12, Japanese troops went over to the offensive. Even the day before, Samsonov and Rennenkampf faced the same task - advancement with access to the rear of the army of General Kuroki. However, the next day, he pulled up the artillery to his right flank and, under its fire, Samsonov and Rennenkampf began to retreat from their positions. In this extremely difficult situation, which was also due to their fault, the likelihood of an outbreak of a quarrel between the generals was high as never before. But, according to the testimony of Baron P. N. Wrangel, an eyewitness of the described events, nothing of the kind happened: “… Having approached the battery, General Rennenkampf dismounted and, stepping aside with General Samsonov, conferred with him for a long time” [31].
Be that as it may, the fictitiousness of Hoffman's "evidence" becomes apparent. Perhaps in his writings, he focused on the quarrel between Samsonov and Rennenkampf with a completely ordinary goal: to give post factum greater significance to his role in organizing the defeat of one Russian army and ousting the other from the borders of East Prussia in 1914. It is strange that an experienced Prussian General Staff officer put painstaking operational work and rumors ten years ago on one level, but he could freely trump that notifying the command of the 8th Army about them.
As we could see, this example of Hoffman's self-promotion has found many supporters in domestic and foreign literature. Commander A. K. Kolenkovsky [32]. Almost simultaneously with him, the most prominent military historian of the Russian Diaspora A. A. Kersnovsky, on the contrary, was indignant: “With the light hand of the notorious General Hoffmann, absurd fables about some kind of personal enmity that had allegedly existed since the Japanese War between Rennenkampf and Samsonov, and that, they say, for this reason, the former did not give help to the latter. The absurdity of these statements is so obvious that there is nothing to refute them”[33]. In modern literature, the version of the "Mukden slap in the face" was unequivocally rejected by the writer V. E. Shambarov [34] is by no means a scientific scrupulous author. In general, the situation that has developed in the historiography of the issue under consideration directly indicates an insufficient study of the events of the military history of Russia during the last reign.
This depressing conclusion is especially true in relation to the history of the First World War and even such a significant page as the East Prussian operation. The reasons and circumstances of its unsuccessful outcome for the Russian army have long been named and discussed by experts. The significance of this battle in the framework of the further development of events remains a subject of debate - there are even opinions that Tannenberg in 1914 predetermined and significantly brought the collapse of the Russian Empire [35]. However, it is completely incorrect to associate it with some mythical quarrel between two generals during the years of the Russian-Japanese war, as E. Durshmid does not hesitate. Conscious or involuntary solidarity with him by some Russian historians cannot but surprise. Against this background, the skeptical attitude of German historiography proper to the version of the conflict between Samsonov and Rennenkampf is indicative. Indeed, as the English historian J. Wheeler-Bennett reasonably noted, if the Battle of Tannenberg was lost by the Russian troops at the railway station in Mukden ten years earlier, then the German command cannot consider the victory in it their merit [36].
The history of mankind develops in parallel with mythology, they were and remain inextricably linked. However, until the researchers of the First World War remove the slaps in the face of the generals, the many-sided conspiracies of maids of honor, leading to the revolution "German traces" and the golden keys from it, the study of its history will be hampered by the inertia of the sum of these and a number of other mythologemes.
_
[1] Ilf I. A., Petrov E. P. Twelve Chairs. Golden calf. Elista, 1991. S. 315.
[2] Pakhalyuk K. A. East Prussia, 1914-1915. The unknown about the known. Kaliningrad, 2008. S. 103.
[3] Pikul V. S. Historical miniatures. T. II. M., 1991. S. 411.
[4] See for example: V. S. Pikul. I have the honor: Roman. M., 1992. S. 281.
[5] Ivanov V. I. Mukden battle. To the 100th anniversary of the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905. "Russia and the Asia-Pacific". 2005. No. 3. P. 135.
[6] Quoted. Quoted from: A. I. Denikin The path of the Russian officer. M., 2002. S. 189.
[7] The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. T. V. Mukden battle. Part 2: From the exit to the river. Honghe before focusing on the Sypingai positions. SPb., 1910. S. 322, 353.
[8] Airapetov O. R. Russian army on the hills of Manchuria. "Questions of history". 2002. No. 1. P. 74.
[9] Takman B. First Blitzkrieg, August 1914. M.; SPb., 2002. S. 338.
[10] The Russo-Japanese War. M.; SPb., 2003. S. 177.
[11] Portuguese R. M., Alekseev P. D., Runov V. A. World War I in the biographies of Russian military leaders. M., 1994. S. 319.
[12] Makhrov P. Without fear and reproach! "Hourly". 1962. No. 430, p. 18; Showalter D. E. Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, 1914. Dulles (VA), 2004. P. 134.
[13] Takman B. First Blitzkrieg, August 1914, p. 339.
[14] Alexander B. How Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War from Ancient Greece to the War on Terror. N. Y., 2004. P. 285. In translation: Alexander B. How wars are won. M., 2004. S. 446.
[15] Diakonoff I. M. The paths of history. Cambridge, 1999. P. 232. In the lane: Dyakonov I. M. Paths of history: From the earliest man to the present day. M., 2007. S. 245–246.
[16] Quoted. by: Soboleva T. A. The history of encryption in Russia. M., 2002. S. 347.
[17] Durschmied E. The hinge factor: How chance and stupidity have changed history. Arcade, 2000. P. 192. In the lane.: Durshmid E. Victory, which could not have been. M.; Saint Petersburg, 2002, pp. 269–270.
[18] See, for example: Goodspeed D. J. Ludendorff: Genius of World War I. Boston, 1966. P. 81.
[19] Shadskaya M. V. The moral image of a Russian officer in the second half of the 19th century. "Voenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal". 2006. No. 8, p. 4.
[20] Fuller W. C. The Foe Within: Fantasies of Treason and the End of Imperial Russia. Lnd., 2006. P. 92. In the lane: Fuller U. Internal enemy: Spy mania and the decline of imperial Russia. M., 2009. S. 112.
[21] See: Russian Word. 26 (13) February 1906
[22] See: A. Chudakov “You went to the Masurian swamps …”. "Union Veche". The newspaper of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Russia and Belarus. August 2009, p. 4.
[23] See: A. I. Utkin. Forgotten tragedy. Russia in the First World War. Smolensk, 2000. S. 47; its the same. World War I. M., 2001. S. 120; its the same. Russian Wars: XX-th Century. M., 2008. S. 60.
[24] See: Danilov O. Yu. Prologue of the "great war" 1904-1914 Who and how drew Russia into the world conflict. M., 2010. S. 270, 272.
[25] Zalessky K. A. Who was who in the First World War. M., 2003. S. 170.
[26] Hoffman M. War of Missed Opportunities. M.-L., 1925. S. 28-29.
[27] Hoffman M. Tannenberg wie es wirklich war. Berlin, 1926, S. 77.
[28] Liddel Hart B. H. The Real War 1914-1918. Lnd., 1930. P. 109. In translation: Liddell Garth B. G. The Truth About the First World War. M., 2009. S. 114.
[29] Ganin A. V. "The bloody dawn lit up …" Orenburg Cossacks in the Russo-Japanese War. In the book: Russian-Japanese War 1904-1905. A look through the century. M., 2004. S. 294.
[30] The Russo-Japanese War. P. 249.
[31] Quoted. Quoted from: P. N. Wrangel Commander-in-Chief / Ed. V. G. Cherkasov-Georgievsky. M., 2004. S. 92.
[32] Kolenkovsky A. K. The agile period of the first imperialist world war 1914, M., 1940, p. 190.
[33] Quoted. Quoted from: A. A. Kersnovsky History of the Russian Army. T. IV. M., 1994. S. 194.
[34] Shambarov V. E. For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland. M., 2003. S. 147.
[35] See: Airapetov O. R. "A Letter of Hope to Lenin". East Prussian operation: causes of defeat. "Homeland". 2009. No. 8, p. 3.
[36] Wheeler-Bennett J. W. The Hindenburg: The Wooden Titan. Lnd. 1967. P. 29.
