The general political situation for the Entente by 1916 was developing favorably. The US relations with Germany were aggravated, and it was hoped that Romania would also take the side of the allies. By the beginning of 1916, the general strategic situation on the war fronts also began to take shape in favor of the Entente. But it was the Entente, not Russia, for the Russian command was constantly busy with the thought that it was necessary to "save" some next ally in a hurry. However, at the end of 1915, there was an illusory hope for the coordination of military efforts and the equal contribution of the allies to the overall success. The Inter-Allied Conference of the Entente countries in Chantilly, held on November 23-26 (December 6-9), 1915, decided to conduct simultaneous offensive operations in the West and in the East in the coming 1916 year.
According to the decision of the military representatives, the actions of the allied armies were to begin in the spring, when climatic conditions became favorable on the Russian front. At the second conference in February 1916, which was also in Chantilly, it was clarified that the allied armies would have to go on the offensive on the Somme on May 16, two weeks after the start of the Russian army's offensive. In turn, the German command believed that after the failures of 1915, Russia was not capable of serious active efforts and decided to limit itself to strategic defense in the East. It decided to deliver the main blow in the Verdun area, and with the help of the Austrians to conduct a diversionary offensive on the Italian front. Thus, the Germans got ahead of the allies' intentions and on February 21 launched a powerful offensive near Verdun, and the French again urgently needed urgent help from Russian soldiers. General Joffre, the commander of the French troops, sent a telegram to the Russian Headquarters with a request to take the necessary measures in order to: a) exert strong pressure on the enemy in order to prevent him from withdrawing any units from the East and deprive him of his freedom of maneuver; b) the Russian army could immediately start preparing for the offensive.
The offensive of the Russian army once again had to begin earlier than the target date. At the beginning of 1916, the Russian armies had 55 and a half corps against the German-Austrian troops, of which 13 were part of the Northern Front under the command of General Kuropatkin, 23 corps were part of the Western Front under the command of General Evert, 19 and a half corps made up the South-Western Front under the command of General Brusilov. The Russian army, in accordance with its obligations to the allies, launched an offensive on March 5, 1916 with the forces of the left flank of the Northern Front from the Yakobstadt area and the forces of the right flank of the Western Front from the area of Lake Naroch. This operation firmly entered the history of military art as a vivid evidence of a senseless frontal offensive and turned into a grandiose ten-day battle. Body by body went to the German wire and hung on it, burning in the hellish fire of enemy machine guns and artillery.
Rice. 1 Russian infantry attack on barbed wire
Sixteen Russian divisions irrevocably lost up to 90 thousand people, the damage of the German divisions did not exceed 10 thousand people. The operation did not lead to even the slightest success. But the French at Verdun breathed more freely. And the allies demanded new sacrifices from Russia. The Italians were defeated at Trentino. Russian troops again had to go on the offensive. At a special meeting before the offensive, General Kuropatkin said that he did not hope for success on the Northern Front. Evert, like Kuropatkin, declared that success on the Western Front also could not be counted on. General Brusilov announced the possibility of an offensive on the Southwestern Front. It was decided to assign the most active actions to the armies of the Southwestern Front, with a parallel task for the Western Front to conduct an offensive from the Molodechno area in the direction of Oshmyany-Vilna. At the same time, all reserves and heavy artillery remained with the armies of the Western Front.
Throughout the winter, the troops on the Southwestern Front were diligently trained and made from the poorly trained replenishment of good combat soldiers, preparing them for the offensive operations of 1916. Rifles gradually began to arrive, albeit of various systems, but with a sufficient number of cartridges for them. Artillery shells also began to be fired in sufficient quantities, the number of machine guns was added and grenadiers were formed in each unit, who were armed with hand grenades and bombs. The troops cheered up and began to say that under such conditions it is possible to fight and defeat the enemy. By the spring, the divisions were completed, fully trained, and had a sufficient number of rifles and machine guns with an abundance of cartridges for them. One could only complain that there was still not enough heavy artillery and aviation. The full-blooded Russian infantry division of the 16th battalion was a powerful force and had a strength of up to 18 thousand people, including up to 15 thousand active bayonets and sabers. It included 4 regiments of 4 battalions of 4 companies in each battalion. In addition, there was a horse squadron or a Cossack hundred, an artillery battalion, a sapper company, a machine-gun command, a medical unit, a headquarters, a train and rear. The cavalry divisions consisted of 4 regiments (hussars, dragoons, uhlans and cossacks), 6 squadrons (6 hundredths) with a machine-gun team of 8 machine guns and a cavalry artillery battalion of 2 batteries, 6 guns in each battery. The Cossack divisions had a similar composition, but consisted entirely of Cossacks. The cavalry divisions were strong enough for independent actions of the strategic cavalry, but in defense they lacked a rifle unit. After the field war turned into a positional one, 4 hundredth foot divisions were formed in each cavalry division.
The experience of the war indicated that it was practically impossible to hide the place of the main attack, since the excavation work during the preparation of the bridgehead for the offensive disclosed all intentions to the enemy. In order to avoid the above important inconvenience, the commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front, General Brusilov, ordered not in one, but in all the armies of the front entrusted to him, to prepare one shock sector, and in addition, in some corps, each to choose his own strike sector and in all these areas immediately begin earthwork for rapprochement with the enemy. Thanks to this, on the Southwestern Front, the enemy saw earthworks in more than 20 places, and even the defectors could not tell the enemy anything other than that an attack was being prepared in this sector. Thus, the enemy was deprived of the opportunity to pull his reserves to one place, and could not know where the main blow would be delivered to him. And it was decided to deliver the main blow by the 8th Army to Lutsk, but all other armies and corps had to deliver their own, albeit minor, but strong blows, concentrating in this place almost all their artillery and reserves. This in the strongest way attracted the attention of the opposing troops and attached them to their sectors of the front. True, the reverse side of this medal was that in this case it was impossible to concentrate maximum forces on the main direction.
The offensive of the armies of the Southwestern Front was scheduled for May 22 and its start was very successful. Everywhere our artillery attack was crowned with complete success. Enough passes have been made in the barriers. A historian not inclined to lyricism wrote that on this day the Austrians “… did not see the sunrise. From the east, instead of the sun's rays, there is a dazzling death. It was the Russians who carried out an artillery barrage that lasted two days. Strongly fortified positions erected by the enemy during the winter (up to thirty rows of wire, up to 7 rows of trenches, caponiers, wolf pits, machine-gun nests on hills, concrete canopies over the trenches, etc.) were “turned into hell” and hacked. A powerful artillery barrage, as it were, announced that Russia had overcome the shell starvation, which became one of the main reasons for the great retreat in 1915, which cost us half a million losses. Instead of a strike on the main axis, which was considered a classic of military affairs, four Russian armies struck along the entire strip of the Southwestern Front with a length of about 400 kilometers (in 13 sectors). This deprived the enemy of the ability to maneuver reserves. The breakthrough of General A. M.'s 8th Army was very successful. Kaledin. His army with a powerful blow made a 16-kilometer gap in the enemy defense and on May 25 occupied Lutsk (therefore, the breakthrough was initially called Lutsk, and not Brusilov). On the tenth day, the troops of the 8th Army penetrated 60 km into the enemy's position. As a result of this offensive, the 4th Austro-Hungarian Army practically ceased to exist. Trophies of the 8th Army were: prisoners of 922 officers and 43628 soldiers, 66 guns. 50 bombs, 21 mortars and 150 machine guns. The 9th Army advanced even further, 120 km, and took Chernivtsi and Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk). This army inflicted such a defeat on the Austrians that their 7th Army was ineffective. 133,600 prisoners were captured, which was 50% of the army. In the sector of the Russian 7th Army, after the infantry captured three enemy trench lines, a cavalry corps was introduced into the breakthrough, consisting of the 6th Don Cossack Division, the 2nd Consolidated Cossack Division and the 9th Cavalry. As a result, the Austro-Hungarian troops suffered heavy losses and retreated in complete disarray across the Strypa River.
Rice. 2 The advancing chains of the Russian infantry
Along the entire line of the offensive, where the infantry broke into the enemy's defenses, the Cossacks, starting the pursuit, went far to the rear, overtook the fleeing Austrian units, and those, caught between two fires, fell into despair and often simply threw down their weapons. The Cossacks of the 1st Don Cossack Division only on May 29 captured more than 2 thousand prisoners. In total, 40 Cossack regiments beat the enemy in the Brusilov breakthrough. The Don, Kuban, Terek, Ural, Trans-Baikal, Ussuri, Orenburg Cossacks, as well as the Life Cossacks, took part in the case. And as the Austrian General Staff testifies in its history of the war: "fear of the Cossacks reappeared in the troops - the legacy of the first bloody deeds of the war …".
Rice. 3 Capture of the enemy battery by the Cossacks
But a significant part of the Russian cavalry (2 corps) at that time ended up in the Kovel swamps, and there was no one to build on the success and reap the fruits of the remarkable victory near Lutsk. The fact is that, having failed to break through the enemy's defenses in the Kovel direction, the command hastened the reserve cavalry and threw it in to help the infantry. However, it is well known that a dismounted cavalry division, taking into account the smaller number and the diversion of up to a third of the composition to the horse breeders, is not quite equivalent even to a rifle regiment. It is a completely different matter when the same cavalry division in equestrian formation is introduced into a breakthrough, then its price is completely different, and no infantry will replace it. To the shame of the headquarters of the army and the front, they did not manage to competently dispose of the reserves and instead of transferring cavalry from the Kovel direction to Lutsk, to strengthen and develop the breakthrough, they allowed the command of the 8th Army to burn excellent cavalry in foot and horse attacks on fortified positions. It is especially sad that this army was commanded by a Don Cossack and an excellent cavalryman, General Kaledin, and he was fully involved in this mistake. Gradually, the 8th Army exhausted its reserves and, meeting stubborn resistance west of Lutsk, stopped. It was not possible to turn the offensive of the Southwestern Front into a grand defeat of the enemy, but it is difficult to overestimate the results of this battle. It has been fully proven that there is a real possibility of breaking through the established positional front. However, tactical success was not developed and did not lead to decisive strategic results. Before the offensive, the Stavka hoped that the mighty Western Front would fulfill its mission, and the Southwestern Front was denied reinforcement by even one corps. In June, major successes of the Southwestern Front were revealed and public opinion began to consider it the main one. At the same time, the troops and main artillery forces remained on the Western Front in complete inactivity. General Evert was firm in his unwillingness to attack, by hook or by crook delayed the start of the offensive, and the Headquarters began to transfer troops to the Southwestern Front. In view of the weak carrying capacity of our railways, this was already a dead poultice. The Germans managed to move faster. While we were transferring 1 corps, the Germans managed to transfer 3 or 4 corps. The headquarters insistently demanded that the Southwestern Front take Kovel, which contributed to the inglorious death of the 2 cavalry corps, but could not push Evert into the offensive. If there were another Supreme Commander in the army, Evert would have been immediately relieved of command for such indecision, while Kuropatkin, under no circumstances, did not receive a position in the army in the field. But with that regime of impunity, both "veterans" and the direct culprit of the failures of the Russo-Japanese war continued to be the favorite commanders of the Headquarters. But even the Southwestern Front, abandoned by its comrades, continued its bloody military march forward. On June 21, the armies of Generals Lesh and Kaledin launched a decisive offensive and by July 1 had established themselves on the Stokhod River. According to Hindenburg's recollections, the Austro-Germans had little hope of retaining the unfortified Stokhod line. But this hope came true thanks to the inaction of the troops of the Western and Northern Russian fronts. We can firmly say that the actions (or rather inaction) of Nicholas II, Alekseev, Evert and Kuropatkin during the offensive of the Southwestern Front are criminal. Of all the fronts, the Southwestern Front was undoubtedly the weakest and there was no reason to expect from it the coup d'etat of the entire war. But he unexpectedly fulfilled his task with interest, but he alone could not replace the entire multi-million Russian army gathered at the front from the Baltic to the Black Sea. After the capture of Brod by the 11th Army, Hindenburg and Ludendorff were summoned to the German Headquarters, and they were given power over the entire Eastern Front.
As a result of the operations of the Southwestern Front, 8225 officers, 370,153 privates were taken prisoner, 496 guns, 744 machine guns and 367 bombers and about 100 searchlights were captured. The offensive of the armies of the Southwestern Front in 1916 snatched the initiative of the offensive from the German command and threatened the complete defeat of the Austro-Hungarian army. The offensive on the Russian front drew in all the reserves of the German-Austrian troops available not only on the Eastern Front, but also on the Western and Italian fronts. During the period of the Lutsk breakthrough, the Germans transferred 18 divisions to the Southwestern Front, of which 11 were withdrawn from the French front, and 9 Austrian ones, of which six were from the Italian front. Even two Turkish divisions appeared on the Russian front. Other Russian fronts carried out minor diversionary operations. In total, during the time from May 22 to September 15, the Russian army was: captured 8,924 officers and 408,000 privates, captured 581 guns, 1,795 machine guns, 448 bombs and mortars, as well as a huge amount of various quartermaster, engineering and railway property -states. The losses of Austria-Hungary in killed, wounded and prisoners reached 1.5 million people.
Rice. 4 Austrian prisoners of war on Nevsky Prospekt, 1916
The offensive on the Russian front weakened the tension of the German offensive at Verdun and stopped the Austrian offensive on the Italian front in Trentino, which saved the Italian army from defeat. The French regrouped and were able to launch an offensive on the Somme. However, the situation at that time in France and in its army was very tense, as described in more detail in the Military Review in the article "How America Saved Western Europe from the Phantom of the World Revolution." The Austrians, having received reinforcements, launched a counteroffensive. In August 1916, fierce battles unfolded on the Stokhod River. At the critical moment of the battle on August 6, the 2nd Consolidated Cossack Division approached the aid of the already retreating infantry units. With her decisive attack, she literally snatched victory from the hands of the enemy. What happened in this battle was what Napoleon often said: "… always the one who has a battalion left for the last blow wins." But the Cossacks, of course, could not radically change the course of the war. There were too few of them. Exhausted by endless transitions and transfers, senseless attacks in horse and foot formation on the fortified enemy lines of defense, the Cossack units urgently needed rest and repair of the extremely worn out and exhausted horse train. But most of all they needed a meaningful application of their military potential. Back in November 1915, the headquarters of the 8th Army came to the conclusion: “The long-term work of the cavalry in the trenches cannot but act destructively both on the horse structure and on its combat activities in the equestrian formation. Meanwhile, as combat force is deprived of one of its main elements - mobility, a cavalry division is almost equal to one full-strength battalion. " But the situation did not change. In general, in the fall of 1916, the numerous Russian cavalry, ¾ consisted of Cossacks, mostly sat in the trenches. On October 31, the combat schedule looked like this: 494 hundreds (squadrons) or 50% were in the trenches, 72 hundreds (squadrons) or 7% were in the headquarters security and reconnaissance service, 420 hundred (squadrons) or 43% of the cavalry were in reserve.
Rice. 5 Equipment of the Ural Cossack
The success of the Russian army in Galicia prompted Romania to enter the war, which Russia soon regretted bitterly, and was soon forced to save this unexpected unfortunate ally. The Brusilov offensive was a decisive impetus for Romania, which decided that the time had come to rush to the aid of the victor. Entering the war, Romania counted on the annexation of Transylvania, Bukovina and Banat - the territories of Austria-Hungary, inhabited mainly by ethnic Romanians. However, before declaring war, the Bucharest government sold to the Central Powers all supplies of grain and oil from the country at a very expensive price, hoping to receive everything then for free from Russia. This commercial operation to "sell the harvest of 1916" took time, and Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary only on August 27, when the Brusilov offensive had already ended. Had she made a speech six weeks earlier, at the time of Kaledin's victory in Lutsk and Lechitsky's dobronoutsky triumph, the position of the Austro-German armies would have become completely catastrophic. And with the skillful use of the Romanian capabilities, the Entente would have been able to incapacitate Austria-Hungary. But the opportunity was irretrievably missed, and Romania’s performance in August did not have the effect it might have had at the end of May. England and France welcomed the appearance of another ally in the coalition, and no one could imagine what problems this new ally would create for the Russian army. The Romanian army in organizational and technical terms stood at the level of the previous centuries, for example, for artillery thrust, a bullock team served. The army was not familiar with the basic rules of field service. At night, the units not only did not set up a guard, but all went to a sheltered and safe place. It quickly became clear that the Romanian military leadership had no idea about command and control of troops in wartime, the troops were poorly trained, they knew only the front side of military affairs, they had no idea about digging in, the artillery did not know how to shoot and there were very few shells, they had no heavy artillery at all … The German command decided to inflict a decisive defeat on Romania and sent the 9th German army to Transylvania. Not surprisingly, the Romanian army was soon defeated and most of Romania was occupied. Romanian losses were: 73 thousand killed and wounded, 147 thousand prisoners, 359 guns and 346 machine guns. The fate of the Romanian army was also shared by the corps of the Russian army of General Zayonchkovsky, who defended Dobrudja.
Rice. 6 Defeat of the Romanian army near Brasov
The Romanian withdrawal proceeded in disastrous conditions. There was no bread in the abundant agricultural country: all the reserves were sold to the Austro-Germans on the eve of the declaration of war. The country and the remnants of the army perished from hunger and a terrible typhus epidemic. The Russian troops had not only to help out the Romanian army, but also to save the country's population! The weak combat capability of the Romanian troops, the venality of the administration and the depravity of society greatly annoyed our soldiers and military leaders. Relations with the Romanians were extremely strained from the very beginning. For the Russian army, with the entry of Romania into the war, the front was lengthened by many hundreds of versts. To save the Romanian army, one army of the Southwestern Front was sent to Romania and occupied the right flank of the Romanian front, and instead of the defeated corps of Zayonchkovsky, a new army began to form with its subordination to the Southwestern Front. Thus, it turned out that on the new Romanian front, its right and left flanks were subordinated to Brusilov, while the center was subordinate to the Romanian king, who had no relationship with him, did not enter into contact and did not contact. Brusilov sent a sharp telegram to Headquarters that it was impossible to fight like this. After this telegram, the Headquarters in December 1916 decided to arrange a separate Romanian front with the formally commander-in-chief of the Romanian king, in fact, General Sakharov. It included the remnants of the Romanian troops, as well as the Russian armies: Danube, 6th, 4th and 9th. The frightened Headquarters sent so many troops to Romania that our railways, which were already upset, were not able to transport everyone. With great difficulty, the 44th and 45th corps in the reserves of the Romanian Front were sent back to the Southwestern Front, and the 1st Army Corps to the Northern Front. Our semi-paralyzed railroad network has been completely overstressed. The Russian troops, who came to the aid of the Romanian army, stopped the Austro-German troops on the Siret River in December 1916 - January 1917. The Romanian front froze in the snows of a brutal winter. The remnants of the Romanian troops were removed from the battle line and sent to the rear, to Moldova, where they were completely reorganized by the mission of General Verthelot, who had arrived from France. The Romanian front was occupied by 36 Russian infantry and 13 cavalry divisions, up to 500,000 soldiers in total. They stood from Bukovina along the Moldavian Carpathians, Siret and Danube to the Black Sea, having against them 30 infantry and 7 cavalry divisions of four enemy powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The defeat of Romania was of great importance for the fate of the Central Coalition. The 1916 campaign was very unprofitable for them. In the West, the German army suffered colossal losses at Verdun. For the first time in the entire war, its fighters doubted their strength in the protracted battle on the Somme, where in three months they left 105 thousand prisoners and 900 guns in the hands of the Anglo-French. On the Eastern Front, Austria-Hungary barely managed to save from disaster, and if Joffre on the Marne "removed" Moltke Jr. from the command, Brusilov forced Falkenhain to resign with his offensive. But the quick and crushing victory over Romania and the conquest of this country with its huge oil reserves once again instilled courage in the peoples and governments of the Central Coalition, raised its prestige in world politics and gave Germany a solid ground for offering the allies in December 1916 peace conditions in the tone of a winner. These proposals were, of course, rejected by the allied cabinets. Thus, Romania's entry into the war did not improve, but worsened the situation for the Entente. Despite this, during the 1916 campaign in the war, a radical change took place in favor of the Entente countries, the initiative completely passed into their hands.
In 1916, another remarkable event took place during the war. At the end of 1915, France proposed to the tsarist government of Russia to send to the Western Front, within the framework of international assistance, 400 thousand Russian officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers in exchange for the weapons and ammunition that the Russian imperial army lacked. In January 1916, the 1st special infantry brigade of two-regimental composition was formed. Major General N. A. Lokhvitsky was appointed head of the brigade. Having followed the march by rail along the route Moscow-Samara-Ufa-Krasnoyarsk-Irkutsk-Harbin-Dalian, then by French sea transport along the route Dalian-Saigon-Colombo-Aden-Suez Canal-Marseille, arrived at the port of Marseille on April 20, 1916, and from there to the Western Front. In this brigade, the future Marshal of Victory and Minister of Defense of the USSR Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovsky fought bravely. In July 1916, the 2nd Special Infantry Brigade under the command of General Dieterichs was sent to the Thessaloniki front through France. In June 1916, the formation of the 3rd Special Infantry Brigade under the command of General V. V. Marushevsky began. In August 1916, she was sent to France via Arkhangelsk. Then the last, 4th Special Infantry Brigade was formed, headed by Major General M. N. Leontiev, sent to Macedonia. She sailed from Arkhangelsk on the steamer "Martizan" in mid-September, arrived in Thessaloniki on October 10, 1916. The appearance of the allied Russian troops made a great impression in France. The further fate of these troops was very different, but this is a separate topic. Due to transport difficulties, more troops were not sent to France.
Rice. 7 Arrival of Russian troops in Marseille
It should be said that the assumption of command by Nicholas II led to an improvement in the supply of weapons and ammunition at the front. Already during the 1916 campaign, the army was well supplied, and the production of military equipment increased dramatically. The production of rifles doubled against 1914 (110 thousand per month against 55 thousand), the production of machine guns increased six times, heavy guns four times, airplanes three times, shells 16 times … W. Churchill wrote: “There are few episodes of the great war more striking than the resurrection, rearmament and renewed gigantic effort of Russia in 1916. This was the last glorious contribution of the tsar and the Russian people to the victory. By the summer of 1916, Russia, which for 18 months before was almost unarmed, which during 1915 experienced a continuous series of terrible defeats, really managed, through its own efforts and through the use of allied funds, to put on the battlefield, organize, arm, supply 60 army corps. instead of those 35 with whom she started the war ….
Rice. 8 Production of armored cars at the Izhora plant
Taking advantage of the long relative winter calm at the front, the Russian command is gradually beginning to withdraw Cossack units from the front and prepare them for new military operations of the 1917 campaign. The systematic resupply and restoration of the Cossack divisions began. However, despite the accelerated formation of Cossack formations, they did not advance to a new place of service, and a significant part of the Cossacks did not meet the February revolution at the front. There are several points of view on this score, including one very beautiful version, which, however, is not confirmed either by documents or memories, but only, as investigators say, by circumstantial and material evidence.
By the end of 1916, the theory of a deep offensive operation, later called the Blitzkrieg theory, had already been cooked in the minds of military theorists in general terms. In the Russian army, this work was led by the best minds of the General Staff. In fulfillment of new theoretical concepts in Russia, it was conceived to form two shock armies, one for the Western, the other for the Southwestern fronts. In the Russian version, they were called horse-mechanized groups. Dozens of armored trains, hundreds of armored cars and airplanes were built for them. It was sewn by the concern N. A. Vtorov, according to the sketches of Vasnetsov and Korovin, several hundred thousand units of special uniforms. Leather jackets with trousers, leggings and caps were intended for mechanized troops, aviation, crews of armored cars, armored trains and scooters. Special uniforms for the cavalry were with red trousers for the 1st army and blue for the 2nd army trousers, long-brimmed overcoats in the archery style (with “talk” straps on the chest) and “helmets of the Russian knight” - bogatyrs. We stocked up on a huge amount of weapons and ammunition (including the legendary Mauser automatic pistols for mechanized troops). All this wealth was stored in special warehouses along the Moscow-Minsk and Moscow-Kiev railways (some buildings have survived to this day). The offensive was planned for the summer of 1917. At the end of 1916, the best cavalry and technical units were withdrawn from the front, and cavalry officers and technicians at military schools began to learn how to conduct war in a new way. In both capitals, dozens of training centers for the training of crews were created, tens of thousands of competent workers, technicians and engineers were mobilized there from the enterprises, having removed their reservation. But they had no particular desire to fight, and the anti-war propaganda of the Cadets, liberals and socialists did the job. In fact, the soldiers of these capital training regiments and armed with Kerensky, to defend the revolution from the front-line soldiers, the Petersburg workers later carried out the October Revolution. But the property and weapons accumulated for the Russian shock armies were not in vain. Leather jackets and Mausers were very fond of the Chekists and commissars, and the cavalry uniform went to the uniforms of the 1st and 2nd Cavalry armies and the red commanders and then became known as Budyonnovskaya. But this is just a version.
In December 1916, a council of war was assembled at Headquarters to discuss a campaign plan for 1917. After breakfast at the Supreme Commander-in-Chief they began to meet. The tsar was even more distracted than at the previous military council in April, and incessantly yawned, did not interfere in any debate. In the absence of Alekseev, the council was conducted by the acting chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General Gurko, with great difficulty, since he did not have the necessary authority. The next day, after breakfast, the tsar left the council altogether and went to Tsarskoe Selo. Apparently he had no time for military debate, for during the meeting a message was received about the murder of Rasputin. It is not surprising that in the absence of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and Alekseev, no decisions were made, since Evert and Kuropatkin blocked any proposals for the offensive of their fronts. In general terms, without any specifics, it was decided to attack with the forces of the Southwestern Front, subject to its strengthening and the return of most of the heavy artillery from the reserve to it. At this council it became clear that the food supply for the troops was deteriorating. Government ministers changed as in a game of leapfrog, moreover, according to their extremely strange personal choice, completely unfamiliar to them were appointed to ministries, and in their posts they were mainly engaged not in business, but in the struggle with the State Duma and public opinion in order to defend their existence. Chaos already reigned in the government of the country, when decisions were made by irresponsible persons, all kinds of advisers, curators, deputies and other influential persons, including Rasputin and the empress. Under these conditions, the government went on worse and worse, and the army suffered from this. And if the soldier mass was still mostly inert, then the officer corps and the entire intelligentsia that was part of the army, being more informed, were very hostile towards the government. Brusilov recalled that “he left the council very upset, clearly seeing that the state machine was finally shaking and that the state ship was rushing through the stormy waters of the sea of life without a rudder, sails and commander. Under such conditions, the ship can easily run into pitfalls and die, not from an external enemy, not from an internal one, but from a lack of control. During the winter of 1916/1917, there were still enough warm clothes, but the boots were no longer enough, and at the council the Minister of War announced that the skin was almost gone. At the same time, almost the whole country wore soldiers' boots. An incredible mess was going on in the rear. Replenishment arrived at the front half-naked and barefoot, although in the places of call-up and training they were fully uniform. The soldiers considered it commonplace to sell everything to the townsfolk on the way, and at the front they must again be provided for everyone. No measures were taken against such outrages. Nutrition also deteriorated. Instead of three pounds of bread, they began to give out two, meat instead of a pound began to be given ¾ pound, then half a pound a day, then two fast days a week (fish days) were introduced. All this caused serious discontent among the soldiers.
Despite this, by the beginning of 1917, the Russian army, which survived 2 and a half years of the war, had military successes and failures, was not undermined either morally or materially, although the difficulties were growing. After a difficult crisis in the supply of firepower and the deep penetration of the enemy army into the interior of the country in 1915, a committee of cities and zemstvos was organized in the country to raise industry and develop military production. By the end of 1915, the armament crisis was over, the armies were supplied in sufficient quantities with shells, cartridges and artillery. By the beginning of 1917, the supply of fire weapons was so well established that, according to experts, it had never been so well supplied during the entire campaign. The Russian army as a whole retained its combat capability and readiness to continue the war to the end. By the beginning of 1917, it was becoming obvious to everyone that the German army was to surrender in the Allied spring offensive. But it turned out that the fate of the country depended not on the psychological and military potential of the belligerent army, but on the psychological state of the rear and power, as well as on complex and largely secret processes developing in the rear. As a result, the country was destroyed and plunged into revolution and anarchy.
But there are no revolutions without the participation of the army. The Russian army continued to be called the imperial army, but in terms of its composition, in fact, it had already turned into a workers 'and peasants', even more precisely into a peasant's. Millions of people stood in the army, with all the attributes that followed from this mass character. Mass armies in the 20th century gave examples of mass heroism, resilience, self-sacrifice, patriotism and examples of the same massive betrayal, cowardice, surrender, collaboration, etc., which was not typical of the previous armies, consisting of military classes. The wartime officer corps was massively recruited through the schools of warrant officers from the more educated classes. Basically, recruiting came from the so-called semi-intelligentsia: students, seminarians, gymnasium students, clerks, clerks, solicitors, etc. (now called office plankton). Along with education, these young people received a powerful charge of pernicious and destructive ideas on the basis of atheism, nihilism of socialism, anarchism, rabid satire and loose humor from their more educated and older teachers. Long before the war, these teachers had fabricated the great ideological bedlam in their brains, long before the war, and firmly settled the great ideological bedlam, which Dostoevsky called devilry, and our current living classic politically correctly called "sunstroke." But this is just an elegant translation from Russian into Russian of the same ideological devilry. The situation was no better, or rather worse, among the ruling classes, in the civil administration and among the officials. There, in the brain there was the same bedlam, this indispensable companion of any turmoil, only even more unbridled and not burdened with military discipline. But such a situation is not something exotic and extraordinary for Russian reality, such a situation has existed in Russia for centuries and does not necessarily lead to Troubles, but only creates ideological fornication in the heads of the educated classes. But only if Russia is headed by a tsar (leader, general secretary, president - no matter what he is called), who is capable of consolidating most of the elite and the people on the basis of the human state instinct. In this case, Russia and its army are capable of enduring incomparably greater difficulties and trials than reducing the meat ration by half a pound or replacing boots with boots with windings for a part of the troops. But this was not the case, and this is a completely different story.
