The quartering and arrangement of troops in wartime was one of the most difficult and responsible tasks of the War Ministry of the Russian Empire. A brief overview of the historical experience of solving these problems during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. - the purpose of this article. Of course, in a short article there is no way to consider the selected topic in its entirety. The author limits himself here to some aspects of the quartering and arrangement of troops in wartime.
Late 19th - early 20th centuries were marked by the most acute struggle of the great powers for the last "pieces" of an undivided world. Conflicts and wars have arisen in one or another region of the planet. So, Russia took part in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
In Russia, interest in the Far East began to manifest itself in the 17th century, after Siberia became part of it. The foreign policy of the Russian government until the end of the 19th century. was not aggressive in nature. In that region, the lands annexed to Russia did not previously belong to either Japan or China. Only at the end of the 19th century. the autocracy took the path of territorial conquest. Manchuria was Russia's sphere of interests1.
As a result of the clash with China, part of the troops of the Amur and Siberian military districts and the Kwantung region were located within Manchuria and the Pechili region. By January 1, 1902, 28 infantry battalions, 6 squadrons, 8 hundred, 11 batteries, 4 sapper companies, 1 telegraph and 1 pontoon companies and 2 companies of the 1st railway battalion were concentrated there2. For the most part, the troops were temporarily housed in tents and dugouts. The command of the military units and headquarters were occupied by fanzas (at home - I. V.) in Chinese villages and cities. Given the current political situation, the construction of military buildings was not carried out.
The emergence of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. connected with the general aggravation of contradictions between the powers in the Far East, with their desire to undermine the positions of their competitors in this region.
With the announcement of mobilization, Russia sent from the Far East troops: 56 infantry battalions, 2 sapper battalions, 172 guns and 35 squadrons, and hundreds of field troops; 19 battalions, 12 guns, 40 hundreds of reserve and preferential units. To reinforce these troops, if necessary, the troops of the Siberian Military District and two army corps from European Russia were intended. The general reserve was four infantry divisions of the Kazan military district3.
The base of the South Ussuri and South Manchurian theaters was the Amur Military District, where wartime reserves were mainly concentrated. Meanwhile, this district, more than 1000 versts distant from the South Manchurian theater, was connected with the latter by only one, not completely secured, railroad. An intermediate base was needed. The most convenient point for this was Harbin. This point, which was a "junction of railway lines, connected both theaters of military operations (TMD) with each other and with our rear, and in wartime was of the most serious importance."
By mid-April 1904, when hostilities began on land, the Russian Manchurian army (commanded by Infantry General A. N. Kuropatkin) numbered over 123 thousand people and 322 field guns. Its troops were in three main groupings: in the Haicheng, Liaoyang, Mukden (over 28 thousand.people), on the Kwantung Peninsula (over 28 thousand people), in Vladivostok and the Amur region (over 24 thousand people). In addition, two separate detachments (vanguard) were put forward from the main forces: Yuzhny (22 thousand people; Lieutenant General G. K. Stakelberg) - on the coast of the Liaodong Bay and Vostochny (over 19 thousand people; Lieutenant General M. I. Zasulich) - to the border with Korea.
In accordance with the "Regulations on the field control of troops in wartime", the deployment of "passing units of troops, teams, transports and individual ranks … assistance in providing all these units and ranks with food, fuel and bedding …" 5 was occupied by the chief of military communications of the army, Major General A. F. Zabelin. A large number of settlements in the western part of the Manchurian theater of operations made it possible to deploy troops according to fanzas occupied "by the law of war" 6. The villages of the rural population consisted of adobe fanz surrounded by adobe fences7.
After the outbreak of hostilities, the situation with the deployment of personnel changed radically. Most of the units and subdivisions of the army in the field became bivouacs only because there were not enough residential buildings, since the villages were destroyed. Some of the officers and staffs were located in the fanzas. “When it was necessary to bivouack near any village,” an officer of the active army recalled, “its inhabitants took special pleasure in taking officers into their fanzies” 8. Apparently, the reason for this was the desire on the part of the owner to guarantee the integrity of his good. In the east, in the mountains, there were few dwellings, and therefore the troops used exclusively tents. “On Sunday, June 6, General Stackelberg's corps moved to the town of Gaijou,” the newspaper commented on the hostilities, “and became a bivouac on bare arable fields …” 9. Riflemen and gunners camped in outstretched small tents. The bivouac was damp and dirty.
Attempts were made to equip military units in the Russian cities of Primorye. "By order of the commandant of the Vladivostok fortress," the Russian Telegraph Agency reported, "a commission has been established to find out the number of vacant premises in the city suitable for quartering troops for the winter."
There were many cases when, during the marches or after the retreat, the troops were stationed in the open. “Tired of the night transition and the tense state of the whole day, people snuggled close to each other and, despite the rain and strong cold wind, wrapped in padded“overcoats”, fell asleep, - noted the officer of the army. “The officers settled down right there, curled up in a ball and wrapped themselves in who in what” 11.
In the course of the war, the troops more than once demonstrated examples of overcoming difficulties and hardships of frontline life. “We arrived in the village. Madyapu, exhausted, vegetated at one o'clock in the morning, using 9 hours of time to walk 7 versts, - recalled officer P. Efimov. “People settled down for the night in a 16-degree frost at the edge of the village in camping tents …” 12. At dawn on February 19, 1905, the 4th Infantry Regiment (commander - Colonel Sakhnovsky) was to follow the 54th Infantry Minsk Regiment (commander - Colonel A. F. Zubkovsky), which was to cross the ice to the right bank of the river. Hunghe. When the companies were following the position, the Japanese opened artillery fire with shimoza13 and shrapnel14, the subunits quickly scattered into a chain and crossed the river at a run.
Winter time was approaching rapidly, when it was necessary to have an abundance of fuel, without which kitchens and bakeries could not function. It was necessary to heat hospitals and buildings of institutions and institutions of the military department. It was impossible to hope for the supply of firewood from Russia, when troops and ammunition were continuously transferred to the theater of operations by rail. The quartermaster service allocated only money for fuel, and the troops themselves had to procure it. “The Chinese give firewood a special price and skillfully hide it from prying eyes, burying it in the ground,” wrote the quartermaster of an infantry division15. Therefore, the Chinese Gaoliang had to be used as fuel16. Then the purchase of timber in the rear was organized and warehouses were formed in the city of Harbin and at the Gunzhulin station17.
It was impossible to use the tents in winter, and therefore other measures had to be taken for accommodation. An engineer from St. Petersburg Melnikov suggested heating dugouts and tents in the field army with "denatured alcohol using burners" 18. Russian troops resorted to the construction of a large number of dugouts equipped with ovens. The materials for the latter were bricks from destroyed villages. "The Japanese wounded report," the Russian Telegraph Agency reported, "that their soldiers in the trenches suffer greatly from the cold, although the Japanese army is almost all equipped with winter clothes."
In the fall of 1904, on the basis of the Manchurian army, three army associations were created: the 1st army (commander - infantry general N. P. Linevich), 2nd army (commander - infantry general O. K. Grippenberg) and 3- I am an army (commander - General of the cavalry A. V. Kaulbars). On October 13, the main command in the Far East replaced Admiral E. I. Alekseev was headed by General of Infantry A. N. Kuropatkin. By the beginning of 1905, Russian troops occupied an almost continuous 100-kilometer defense front on the river. Shahe.
During the armed struggle, the active army widely used the construction of strong points (lunettes, redoubts, forts, etc.). As a rule, they counted on a garrison of 1–2 companies, but in the most dangerous areas they were engaged in a battalion with machine guns and guns. Heated dugouts, kitchens, latrines and other outbuildings were arranged in them. When equipping control points, the templates were not adhered to, but were adapted to the conditions of the terrain. The most original were the Voskresensky fort and the so-called "Ter-Akopov's caponier". The first was a rectangle cut by traverses. It was created from the destroyed fanz d. Linshintsu on the river. Shahe. The second consisted of a dilapidated brick-firing manufactory20. Soon, however, strongholds as a whole showed their ineffectiveness and became a noteworthy target for Japanese artillery.
Russian redoubts during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. (Immunuel F. Teachings drawn from the experience of the Russian-Japanese war by a major of the German army. - SPb., 1909, pp. 66–67)
The appearance of machine guns and massive artillery fire in the Russo-Japanese War required an even more skillful adaptation of defensive structures to the terrain. The troops stationed in separate fortifications and trenches could now be relatively easily hit by massive aimed fire. In August 1904, Russian military engineers began to create a system of continuous trenches with communication trenches in order to disperse artillery fire that affected the positions occupied by the troops. For example, in the Liaodong fortified area between forts and redoubts inscribed in the terrain, rifle trenches were built in the form of continuous trenches.
Outdated fortifications were replaced by defensive positions equipped with group rifle trenches, dugouts, barbed wire fences and stretching for many tens of kilometers.
Russian soldiers in the trenches. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905
Units and subunits of the active army turned their positions into a whole network of trenches. They were often supplied with dugouts and reinforced obstacles. The trenches were perfectly applied to the terrain and were camouflaged with the help of gaolang, grass, etc. The field war took on the character of a serf war, and the fighting was reduced to a stubborn struggle for fortified positions. In the trenches occupied by Russian soldiers, latrines were set up, and great attention was paid to their sanitary condition21.
The trenches of the Russian army during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. (Immunuel F. Teachings drawn from the experience of the Russian-Japanese war by a major of the German army. - SPb., 1909, pp. 126, 129). Dimensions in meters - 22.5 vershok
In the trenches of the active army, dugouts of the most varied forms were set up. Sometimes whole companies were placed in them, loopholes made of sacks filled with earth or sand were arranged in them. For reserves, dressing points, warehouses of shells and cartridges, dugouts were arranged either under the rear slope, or under the traverses. The passageways of messages were sometimes completely covered with roofs.
Dugouts of the Russian army during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. (Immunuel F. Teachings drawn from the experience of the Russian-Japanese war by a major of the German army. - SPb., 1909, p. 129)
In the Russo-Japanese War, for the first time in the history of wars, the engineering equipment of rear defensive lines was carried out to a great depth. On the defensive lines, such positions as Simuchenskaya, Khaichenskaya, Liaolianskaya, Mukdenskaya and Telinskaya, built in advance under the leadership of military engineer Major General K. I. Velichko, contributed to an increase in the resistance of the troops and contributed to the fact that time was gained for the concentration of troops in the most important points of the theater of operations. After the so-called "Shahei sitting" (in positions in front of the Shakhe River), the Russian troops were forced to withdraw, using the defensive lines created in the rear (Mukdensky and Telinsky). Unable to hold out for a long time on the Mukden line, Russian troops made a withdrawal from it to the Telinsky line, which was held until the end of the war. The Russian army fought bravely. “Our soldier,” wrote the war veteran A. A. Neznamov, - did not deserve reproach: with inimitable energy he endured all the hardships of the campaign in over forty-degree heat, through impassable mud; he systematically didn’t get enough sleep, didn’t leave the fire for 10-12 days and didn’t lose the ability to fight”22.
The interests of increasing the combat readiness of military units insistently demanded the availability of medical support. The infirmaries were supposed to be set up at the infantry regiments - on 84 beds and with the cavalry regiments - on 24. The infirmaries were located in the barracks. In the wards, an internal space of at least 3 cubic meters was relied on for each patient. fathoms. Chambers must be at least 12 feet high. The infirmary had a room for receiving and examining patients (from 7 to 10 sq. Soot), a pharmacy and a kitchen. The uniforms of the patients were kept in the tseikhhaus (3 sq. Soot). A separate room was equipped for a bath with a water heater and a laundry (16 sq. Soot). A barrack was built next to the infirmary, which housed a morgue and a room for the funeral service for dead soldiers (9 sq. Sozh.). During 1904, the military department decided “to open soon 46 new hospitals for 9 thousand. beds in the Khabarovsk - Nikolsk region 23. Despite the fact that the loan was disbursed on time, the construction of the hospitals was delayed due to the lack of workers.
Soon, in the Russian army, auxiliary rooms were adapted to accommodate hospitals. Thus, “a hospital barge was consecrated for the evacuation of the wounded and sick in Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk with all the accessories. The construction of the barracks was completed at the expense of the Moscow nobility”24. Only from September 25 to October 11, 1904, from the field army were evacuated to Mukden, and then further to the rear of the wounded and sick officers - 1026, soldiers and non-commissioned officers - 31 303. At the Mukden station, the wounded and sick were bandaged “in dressing tents, were fed and watered with tea at the Red Cross feeding station, and when leaving on the trains are supplied with warm blankets and robes”25.
In 1906, the former Manchurian armies were returned to the military districts after the end of hostilities in the Far East. All units of the active army returned to their military camps. Until the end of the occupation in Manchuria, one consolidated corps remained in the 4th East Siberian Rifle Division and the 17th Infantry Division, 11 batteries and 3 Cossack regiments concentrated in the Harbin-Girin-Kuanchendzy-Qiqihar region26. The troops were temporarily housed in barracks built for hospitals and dugouts built during the war. The walls of the barracks were double, wooden, and the gap was filled with ash, asbestos, earth, etc. The barracks were heated with iron stoves27. These premises did not meet the climatic conditions at all, the dugouts were damp and unsanitary, and, for all that, there were not enough premises.
Thus, during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. some work was carried out to equip and deploy personnel in formations and units in the theater of operations. The experience of the war has confirmed that the engineering equipment of the terrain is far from being of secondary importance, not only on a tactical, but also on an operational-strategic scale. However, instead of a deep analysis of this experience, the command of the Russian army was condemned for the practice of building up rear defensive lines in advance, and Major General K. I. Velichko was called "the evil genius of Kuropatkin" 28.
1. History of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. - M., 1977. S. 22–47.
2. All-subject report on the actions of the War Ministry for 1902. General overview of the state and activities of all parts of the War Ministry. Part of the General Staff Building. - SPb., 1904. S. 6.
3. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Collection of documents. - M., 1941. S. 491.
4. Military news of Harbin // Military life. 1905.3 Jan.
5. Order for the military department No. 62 of 1890
6. A collection of systematic reports on the history of the Russian-Japanese war, made in the Vilnius military assembly during the winter period. 1907-1908 Part II. - Vilna, 1908. S. 184.
7. Strokov A. A. History of military art. - M., 1967. S. 65.
8. Ryabinin A. A. In the war in 1904-1905. From the notes of an officer in the field. - Odessa, 1909. S. 55.
9. In the war. Awards for the brave (article without signature) // Bulletin of the Manchurian Army. 1904.16 June.
10. Telegrams of the Russian Telegraph Agency // Bulletin of the Manchurian Army. 1904.18 Oct.
11. 20th East Siberian Rifle Regiment in battles from September 28 to October 3, 1904 (article without signature) // Bulletin of the Manchurian Army. 1904.1 Nov.
12. Efimov P. From the Mukden events (from the diary of an officer of the 4th Infantry Regiment) // Officer's life. 1909. No. 182-183. S. 1197.
13. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. the Japanese army used shimose shells on a large scale for 75-mm field and mountain guns, in which a charge of about 0.8 kg of trinitrophenol was cast in a special way from the melt in the form of a fine-grained mass.
14. Shrapnel - a type of artillery shell designed to defeat enemy personnel.
15. Vyrzhikovsky V. S. Quartermaster questions // Bulletin of the Manchurian army. 1904.15 nov.
16. Gaoliang is a food, fodder and ornamental crop in China, Korea and Japan.
17. Collection of systematic reports on the history of the Russian-Japanese war, made in the Vilnius military assembly during the winter period. 1907-1908 Part II. - Vilna, 1908. S. 191.
18. Heating of military tents and dugouts (article without signature) // Bulletin of the Manchurian army. 1904.27 Oct.
19. Telegrams of the Russian Telegraph Agency // Bulletin of the Manchurian Army. 1904.11 oct.
20. Immunuel F. Teachings drawn from the experience of the Russian-Japanese war by a major in the German army. - SPb., 1909. S. 66–67.
21. Immunuel F. Teachings drawn from the experience of the Russian-Japanese war by a major in the German army. - SPb., 1909. S. 126.
22. A. A. Neznamov. From the experience of the Russian-Japanese war. - SPb., 1906. S. 26.
23. Telegrams of the Russian Telegraph Agency // Bulletin of the Manchurian Army. 1904.18 Oct.
24. Telegrams of the Russian Telegraph Agency // Bulletin of the Manchurian Army. 1904.28 May.
25. Order to the troops of the Manchurian army No. 747 of 1904 // Telegrams of the Russian Telegraph Agency // Bulletin of the Manchurian Army. 1904.1 nov.
26. The most submissive report on the actions of the War Ministry for 1906. The general activity of all parts of the War Ministry. Part of the General Staff Building. - SPb., 1908. S. 15.
27. Immunuel F. Teachings drawn from the experience of the Russian-Japanese war by a major in the German army. - SPb., 1909. S. 126.
28. KI Velichko Military engineering. Fortified positions and engineering preparation of their attack. - M., 1919. S. 26.
