Now we can say that in any conflict between states, both sides are to blame, even if to a different extent. Perhaps this is true for neighboring states. But what is the reason for the dozens of conflicts between Russia and England, the borders of which in Europe have always defended more than a thousand kilometers?
EVERYTHING THERE IS A BUSINESS
The British climbed into any even minor conflict on the borders of Russia. Whether the violent gentlemen in the Vistula region would forget, whether the Turks would fight with the Slavs in the Balkans, whether the Turkestan Governor-General would conduct a punitive raid against the predatory tribes - all of England was a matter of concern. At the same time, Russia has never intervened in any war in Ireland, Asia, Africa and America, which England has been waging continuously for 400 years.
Top British diplomats systematically staged assassination attempts and conspiracies against the leadership of Russia - Paul I, Nicholas II, Lenin, etc. Accordingly, our diplomats and special services have never dealt with this "godly" business on the territory of England.
Moreover, England from the beginning of the 18th century made desperate attempts to get a common border with … Russia from the Caspian Sea to Tibet inclusive.
Back in 1737, the English captain John Elton appeared in Orenburg, where he began to study "astronomy". There the "enlightened navigator" made friends with the Astrakhan governor Vasily Tatishchev and in 1742 went to the Caspian to make some kind of governor's gesheft. Later Tatishchev made excuses: "… supposedly I have a common bargaining with the English captain Elton, who is in Persia." For Elton and other thefts, Tatishchev was removed from his post as governor and put on trial.
Well, Captain Elton, together with another Englishman, Vordoorf, sailed along the shores of the Caspian in 1742-1744 and made cartographic surveys. Moreover, he proposed to the Persian Shah Nadir (1736-1747) to build ships of the "European Maniru" in the Caspian Sea. The Shah happily agreed.
In the evening of the same day, the Russian consul Semyon Arapov sent a "cidulka with tsidulka" to Astrakhan. They read there: "Elton promised the Shah twelve large ships, only he, Elton, took it upon himself out of his madness …"
Elton was a tricky guy. He ordered to collect the lost anchors of Russian ships in the coastal waters and to forge new ones according to their model. In Calcutta (India), the casting of cannons began especially for Persian ships. Throughout Persia, captured Russian pirates and defectors were collected and sent to build ships.
Empress Elizabeth Petrovna demanded that London withdraw Elton from the Caspian Sea, threatening trade sanctions. Elton himself, if he left Persia, was promised a "weather pension for the death of 2000 rubles."
But in August 1746 a messenger from Astrakhan rode up to Tsarskoe Selo with the unpleasant news: a Persian warship stopped a Russian ship near Derbent, and "its commander and crew beat and did other incitement to Russian merchants." This has not happened since the time of Stenka Razin.
Elizaveta Petrovna was not kind, but she did not shed blood in vain. Russia has even abolished the death penalty. But then she too flew into a rage.
ELIMINATE THE ENEMY FLEET
On August 21, 1747, Elizabeth ordered to invite General Count Rumyantsev, Prosecutor General Prince Trubetskoy, Generals Buturlin, Admiral Apraksin and Privy Councilor Baron Cherkasov to the Collegium of Foreign Affairs to discuss Persian affairs and develop a plan of action.
On August 27, this council resolved: “To take advantage of the turmoil in Persia and the death of the Shah to eradicate the shipbuilding established by Elton: for this, order Cherkasov, who is in Gilani, to bribe from the rioters or other Persians to burn all ships built or still under construction, burn there the admiralty, anbars, sailing and other factories and tools, whatever it is possible, they would burn everything, and otherwise they would ravage to the ground, why, although several of their different people, should they persuade them to do this burning as soon as possible, and for that they even a notable sum of state money to issue. If this did not succeed, it is possible for those commanders who will be sent to the Gilan shores on ships with corrupt bread to instruct that they, both on a voyage to the sea, and when they are on the shores, always notice and, where they find Persian ships, try in every possible way, if possible, secretly, but if need be, although obviously, ignite and thus make them disappear altogether; Also, the commanders would have made an effort, being there on small ships, secretly or under the guise of robbers to go to Lengerut and the opportunity to look for the ships located there and every admiralty structure to burn and destroy to the ground. Evenly and about how to try to get the breeder of this ship structure Elton from there, or persuade, or secretly seize, or beg from the Persians for money and immediately send to Astrakhan."
Somehow it happened that at night the conspirators entered the bedchamber of Nadir Shah and stabbed him with a dagger. A dynastic turmoil began in the country.
And in the village of Zinzeli on the Caspian coast, not far from the admiralty arranged by the British, the new Russian consul Ivan Danilov arrived. He managed to make friends with the "field commander" Haji-Jaymal, who seized power in the city of Gilan. Danilov told Jamal about the huge sums transferred by Nadir Shah to Elton for the construction of ships.
He understood that hint and in the spring of 1751 he raided the town of Lengarut, where the admiralty was located. Later Danilov reported: "Everything is ravaged and burned … And the Persians stole supplies …". Elton himself was captured by the Persians and later killed. On this occasion, Russian historians of the 19th century wrote diplomatically: "Elton has gone nowhere."
To destroy the British ships that entered service, a secret expedition was organized to Astrakhan. July 30, 1751 12-gun shnyava "St. Catherine "and the 10-gun heckbot" St. Ilya "under the command of warrant officers Ilya Tokmachev and Mikhail Ragozeo left the Volga delta and arrived in Anzeli on September 5.
The ships became close to the British ships. On the night of September 17-18, Russian sailors, dressed in robbery attire, under the command of warrant officer Ilya Tokmachev, approached the British ships on two boats. For some unknown reason, the team was absent.
Russian sailors poured oil on both ships and set them on fire. The ships burned out to the waterline, after which the shnyava and the geckbot returned to Astrakhan. According to Tokmachev's report, both ships were three-masted. One of them, 100 feet (30.5 m) long and 22 feet (6.7 m) wide, had 24 cannon ports in two decks. The second, 90 feet (27.4 m) long and 22 feet wide, had four ports on each side.
Warrant officer Mikhail Ragozeo on the day of the burning of the ships "suddenly fell ill and died." Personally, I do not exclude a battle with the Persians and the British, which ended with the burning of ships and the death of Ragozeo.
CHANGE OF DECORATIONS
Despite the sad lesson, the British constantly tried to get through to the Caspian, but they constantly ran into a tough rebuff from the Russian authorities. So, in the 30s of the XIX century, Emperor Nicholas I said: "The British have no trade interests in the Caspian Sea, and the establishment of their consulates in this country would have no other purpose than the establishment of intrigue." Alexander II also refused the British, but in a milder form.
The revolution and the beginning of the Civil War in Russia radically changed the situation.
In the spring of 1918, British troops reached the southern coast of the Caspian Sea and captured the port of Anzali, making it their main base. There they began to form a military flotilla. Commander Norris commanded the British naval forces. The task of creating a flotilla in the Caspian for the British was facilitated by the presence of a British naval flotilla on the Tigris River. Naturally, they could not transport gunboats to the Caspian Sea, but they removed from them naval guns of 152, 120, 102, 76 and 47 mm caliber.
Gunboat Rosa Luxemburg. Photo courtesy of the author
The British captured several Russian merchant ships at Anzali and began to arm them. At first, the teams were mixed - a Russian civilian team and British gun crews. All ships were commanded by British officers, and Russian naval officers were also taken to secondary positions.
Later, Soviet historians will begin to tell how the Bolsheviks defeated the campaign of 14 Entente states. In fact, the purpose of the intervention in the Caspian was not at all the overthrow of the Soviet regime. It was a classic hike "for zipuns" in the style of Stenka Razin, only on a much larger scale. The British Caspian Flotilla delivered British ground troops from Anzali to Baku.
As a result, all Baku oil fields came under British control, and then the oil pipeline and railway to Batum. The British exported over a million tons of oil from Baku. From the end of 1918 to 1923, the British Mediterranean Squadron operated exclusively on Baku oil.
The British Caspian squadron drove the Soviet Volga-Caspian flotilla into the northern part of the Caspian Sea and … did not bother her any more.
In August 1919, the "enlightened sailors" realized that the case smelled fried, and, in order not to be severely beaten, withdrew the troops from Baku, and divided their Caspian flotilla between the Volunteer Army and the Baku Musavatists. Moreover, the best ships, including the Kars and Ardagan gunboats, were sold to Azerbaijan.
At noon on April 27, 1920, four red armored trains (No. 61, 209, 55 and 65), carrying two rifle companies and comrade Anastas Mikoyan, invaded the territory of "independent" Azerbaijan.
At the junction railway station of Balajari, the detachment split up: two armored trains were sent in the direction of Ganja, and the other two went to Baku. In the early morning of April 28, two red armored trains broke into Baku. The Musavat army capitulated in front of two Soviet armored trains. A train carrying Musavat leaders and foreign diplomats was detained on its way to Ganja.
Only on April 29 did the red cavalry approach Baku.
AND AGAIN ON ENZELI
On the morning of May 1, 1920, Baku met the ships of the Volga-Caspian Flotilla with red flags, the orchestras played the "Internationale". Alas, the whites and the British managed to hijack the entire transport, and most importantly, the tanker fleet to the Persian port of Anzali.
On May 1, 1920, the commander of the Naval Forces of Soviet Russia, Alexander Nemitts, not yet knowing about the occupation of Baku by the flotilla, gave a directive to the commander of the Volga-Caspian Flotilla Fedor Raskolnikov to seize the Persian port of Anzeli: … Since landing on Persian territory is required to achieve this goal, it must be done by you. At the same time, you will notify the nearest Persian authorities that the landing was undertaken by the military command solely to carry out a combat mission, which arose only because Persia is unable to disarm the White Guard ships in its harbor, and that the Persian territory remains inviolable for us and will be cleared immediately on completing a combat mission. This notification should not come from the center, but only from you."
This directive was agreed with Lenin and Trotsky. People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin proposed a cunning move - to consider the landing in Anzeli as a personal initiative of the commander of the flotilla, Raskolnikov, and in case of complications with England, "hang all the dogs on him," right up to declaring him a rebel and a pirate.
The situation with the white flotilla stationed in Anzeli was very difficult in legal terms. On the one hand, Persia is a formally independent state that adhered to formal and de facto neutrality in the Russian Civil War.
But, on the other hand, most of the ships that left for Anzeli used to be tankers, and they were more than necessary for the transportation of oil from Baku to Astrakhan. There was no guarantee that the white ships would not be armed at the right time and would not start cruising operations in the Caspian. Finally, according to the Turkmanchay peace of February 10, 1828, Persia had no right at all to maintain a military fleet in the Caspian.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were several precedents - the landing of Russian troops in Anzeli. I will quote the “Military Encyclopedia” of the 1911-1915 edition: “Constant unrest and unrest in Persia in recent years made our diplomatic representatives very often turn to the Caspian Flotilla for assistance; the transfer of troops to Anzali, to Rasht, to the Astrabad region and to other points on the coast has become commonplace."
Early in the morning of May 18, the Soviet flotilla approached Anzeli. The British coastal batteries were silent. May 18 at 7:15 am the flotilla was already 60 cables from Anzeli. Here the ships split up. Four destroyers - Karl Liebknecht, Deyatelny, Rastoropny and Delyny - turned west to shell the Kopurchal area in order to distract the enemy's attention from the landing site. The auxiliary cruiser Rosa Luxemburg, guarded by the patrol boat Daring, headed south to shell the Kazyan area. The transports, accompanied by an artillery support detachment (auxiliary cruiser "Australia", gunboats "Kars" and "Ardahan", minesweeper "Volodarsky") went to the settlement of Kivru for the landing.
At 7 hours 19 minutes. the destroyers opened artillery fire on the Kopurchal area. At 7 hours 25 minutes. the auxiliary cruiser "Rosa Luxemburg" began shelling Kazyan, where the headquarters of the British troops was located. Soon after the start of the shelling, an ultimatum was sent to the commander of the British troops on the radio to surrender the port of Anzali with all the Russian ships and property located there.
At about 8:00 am, the auxiliary cruiser Australia and gunboats began an artillery preparation for the landing near Kivru, 12 kilometers east of Anzeli.
It is curious that one of the first 130-mm shells of the cruiser "Rosa Luxemburg" exploded in the British headquarters. British officers jumped out of windows literally in their underwear. Enlightened sailors simply slept through the Soviet flotilla. The time in the Volga-Caspian Flotilla and the British differed by 2 hours, and the first shots of "Karl Liebknecht" for the Reds sounded at 07:19. in the morning, and for the British at 5 hours 19 minutes. (according to the second standard time). Who gets up at 5 o'clock in the morning? Decent gentlemen must still sleep.
An eyewitness, the former commander of the white cruiser Australia, Senior Lieutenant Anatoly Waksmut, wrote: “One fine morning we woke up from cannon shots and the fall of shells in the middle of the port and among our ships. Climbing the masts, we saw in the sea a mass of ships firing at Anzeli. In the English headquarters - complete confusion, none of the batteries answered in red. It turns out that the British fled from these batteries almost in their underwear. After a while, we saw Lieutenant Chrisley board one of our speedboats, raise the white flag and go out to sea to the red ones. We realized that the British were poor defense, and decided to act on our own, that is, we had to leave. The further we go, the safer we will be."
Note that the Reds landed less than 2,000 sailors in Anzeli, that is, however, 2,000 British soldiers who were part of the 36th Infantry Division, and over 600 whites, of which 200 people were officers, not only did not throw the Bolsheviks into the sea, but also rushed to run. Moreover, the whites ran (it's better not to find a verb) to the city of Rasht a day earlier than the British.
On this occasion, the White Guard, the former commander of the cruiser "Australia" Anatoly Waxmuth wrote: "The British abandoned everything, all their warehouses were plundered by the Persians, respect for them was lost, and the whole situation in Persia turned so that we began to be proud of our Russians, although our enemies."
As a result of Anzeli's occupation, large trophies were captured: the cruisers President Kruger, America, Europe, Africa, Dmitry Donskoy, Asia, Slava, Milyutin, Experience and Mercury "Floating base of torpedo boats" Orlyonok ", air transport" Volga "with four seaplanes, four British torpedo boats, ten transports, over 50 guns, 20 thousand shells, over 20 radio stations, 160 thousand poods of cotton, 25 thousand poods of rails, up to 8 thousand poods of copper and other property.
The ships seized in Anzeli gradually began to be transferred to Baku. From the summary of the headquarters of the Volga-Caspian Flotilla of May 23, 1920: “Arrived in Baku from enemy transports captured in Anzeli“Talmud”with 60,000 poods of kerosene; transports were sent from Anzeli to Baku (from the captured): "Aga Melik" with 15,000 poods of cotton wool, "Volga" with two seaplanes on board and "Armenia" with 21,000 poods of cotton."
The reaction of the Soviet government to the capture of Anzeli is very curious. On May 23, 1920, the Pravda newspaper wrote: "The Caspian Sea is the Soviet Sea."
On my own behalf, I will add that until 1922 all Baku oil came to Russia exclusively through Astrakhan on tankers and only then did the Baku-Batum railway work, and even then with interruptions. It is also noteworthy that in terms of carrying capacity, the Caspian merchant fleet in 1913 was 2, 64 times inferior to the Black Sea fleet, but by 1935, both in terms of tonnage and in terms of traffic, it already surpassed the merchant fleets of any other basin of the USSR, including the Black Sea and the Baltic. One of the reasons was that it was not possible to send the Volga-Caspian Flotilla to Constantinople, Bizerte, the ports of England, Shanghai and Manila, where the Russian fleet was hijacked by Baron Wrangel, General Miller and Admiral Stark, during the Civil War.
