The event dates back to 1915. Unclean power is pulled out into the light

Science and life // Illustrations

Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in Moscow, on the roof of the Grand Kremlin Palace. Photo of the first decade of the twentieth century.

Portrait of an unknown officer. 1915

At the shipyard of Sormov. 1915-1916 years.

Next to the airplane I. I. Sikorsky "Russian Knight". At that time it was the largest aircraft and the first - multi-engine. Photo taken in 1913.

Infirmary, arranged in one of the St. Petersburg palaces. Photo 1914-1916.

Sister of Mercy.

Nicholas II inspects the destroyer "Novik".

Having lost men's hands, the village gradually became impoverished.

By the end of the winter of 1915, the Russian army was again replenished to its original level (4 million people), but it was already a different army. Privates and non-commissioned officers trained in peacetime were replaced by yesterday's peasants, officer posts were occupied by junkers who were released ahead of schedule and mobilized students. Nevertheless, the spring offensive on the Austrian front developed successfully. However, the possibility of Austria-Hungary withdrawing from the struggle forced the German General Staff to reconsider their original plans and concentrate additional forces against Russia.

PART II. UNDER THE BURDEN OF MILITARY FAILURE

Spring - summer 1915

The world was horrified by another "German atrocity": on April 9, 1915, near the Belgian city of Ypres, the Germans used gas. The green smoke destroyed the French, leaving a four-mile open gap in their lines. But there was no attack - the operation near Ypres was supposed to divert attention from the upcoming offensive in the east. Here, on April 19, after intensive artillery preparation, the Germans also fired gas, and this time the infantry moved after the gas attack. A week later, the French and British launched an offensive in the west to weaken the German pressure on Russia, but the Russian front along the Carpathians was already crushed.

In the summer, all the Russian border fortresses fell, including the previously mentioned Novogeorgievsk, disarmed in the prewar years. Its reinforced concrete structures could withstand shells of only 6-inch guns, and the Russian command had no doubt that it was impossible to bring up artillery of a larger caliber. However, the Germans managed to do it. The garrison of Novogeorgievsk was assembled from the world on a string: in addition to 6,000 militia warriors and a hundred newly-produced ensigns, General A. A. Brusilov singled out a combat division, but badly worn out and numbering only 800 people. Lieutenant General de Witt, recently appointed commander of this division and heading the fortress garrison, did not even have time to break people into regiments, battalions and companies. A motley crowd was dropped from the wagons in Novogeorgievsk just at the moment when the Germans launched an attack on the fortress. On August 5, Novogeorgievsk fell after a week of resistance.

By the end of the summer, Poland, Galicia, most of Lithuania and part of Latvia are occupied by the enemy, but his further offensive can be stopped. The front froze on the line from Riga, west of Dvinsk (Daugavpils), and almost in a straight line to Chernivtsi in Bukovina. "The Russian armies bought this temporary respite at a high price, and Russia's Western allies did little to repay Russia for the sacrifices made by the latter for them in 1914," writes the English military historian B. Liddell-Gart.

Russian losses in the spring-summer operations of 1915 amounted to 1.4 million killed and wounded and about a million prisoners. Among the officers, the percentage of those killed and wounded was especially high, and the remaining experienced combatants were drawn in by swollen headquarters. There were five or six regular officers per regiment, at the head of companies and often battalions were second lieutenants and warrant officers who had undergone six months of training instead of the usual two years. At the beginning of the war, the War Department made a fundamental mistake by throwing trained non-commissioned officers to the front as privates. They had been knocked out, and now the regimental training teams were hastily "baking" their replacements. Privates of the old composition remained on a few people per company. “During the year of the war,” notes General Brusilov, “the trained regular army disappeared; it was replaced by an army consisting of ignoramuses.” There were not enough rifles, and teams of unarmed soldiers grew with each regiment. Only the personal example and self-sacrifice of the commanders could still force such an army to fight.

Meanwhile, anarchy was growing in the country. It was often impossible to separate the front line from the rear, and the army commanders issued a lot of orders without even coordinating them among themselves, not to mention the civilian authorities. The local population, confused, did not understand what was forbidden and what was allowed. "Heads of civil departments" with the rank of colonel and even "stage commandants" (lieutenants and warrant officers) commanded the civil administration, en masse requisitioned horse-drawn vehicles and food from the townsfolk, although the secret "Regulations on the field administration" allowed requisitions only in an enemy country. A fact is known when the ensign threatened to shoot the governor of Livonia (!) For resisting requisitions.

Counterintelligence raged in the rear. She was recruited from combatants and spares, who knew nothing about being wanted, or even just from rogues who were not taken anywhere in peacetime, and now, for the sake of their careers, they famously cooked up fake espionage cases. Counterintelligence officers, ignoring the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the gendarme corps, civil administration and military authorities, tried to fight speculation, high prices, political propaganda and even the labor movement, but with their inept actions they only provoked unrest and strikes. Any banker, worker or leader of the nobility could be expelled on unproven charges or kept in prison for months.

The war gave Nicholas II a reason to realize the cherished dream of people's sobriety. The production and consumption of any alcoholic beverages, including beer, was prohibited. As a result: the revenues of the treasury fell by a quarter, and secret distillation took on such proportions that the excise officials were afraid to report them to the Minister of Finance, not to mention the sovereign. To the reproaches of his predecessor VN Kokovtsov, Prime Minister I. G. Goremykin replied carelessly: "So what, we print more papers, the people willingly take them." Thus began the collapse of finance, which reached its peak by 1917.

Looking for scapegoats

In the multinational Russian Empire, the war sharply aggravated the national problem.

A large number of Germans have long lived in the country. Many of them held prominent positions in the civil service, in the army and navy. They were mostly Russian patriots, but they naturally retained their love for their historical homeland. Before the war, anti-German sentiments were equated with revolutionary ones. Brusilov later recalled: “If any commander in the army took it into his head to explain to his subordinates that our main enemy is German, that he is going to attack us and that we should prepare with all our might to repel him, then this gentleman would be immediately expelled from service, unless he is put on trial. Still less could a schoolteacher preach to his pupils love for the Slavs and hatred for the Germans. He would be considered a dangerous pan-Slavist, an ardent revolutionary, and exiled to the Turukhansk or Narym region."

With the outbreak of war, hostility towards the Germans spilled out. St. Petersburg was urgently renamed Petrograd. On Christmas Day 1914, the Synod, despite the protests of the empress, banned Christmas trees, as a German custom. The music of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms was deleted from the programs of orchestras. In May-June 1915, mobs destroyed about five hundred factories, shops and houses in Moscow that belonged to people with German surnames. Bakeries stood with broken windows, pianos and pianos "Bechstein" and "Butner" were thrown out of the music store and burned. At the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent, the sister of the Empress Elizaveta Feodorovna, a woman with a reputation as a saint and one of Rasputin's main opponents, almost became a victim of a raging crowd shouting: "Get out, German!"

The situation was especially difficult in the Baltic states, where the Germans were at the top of society. Here there were signs in German, newspapers were published, office work was carried out. When the first columns of German prisoners of war appeared, they were greeted with flowers. Today, the reader of post-Soviet Russia is not always able to grasp the difference between pro-German sentiment and spying for Germany. But in those days, decent people distinguished between these two concepts, and their confusion seemed barbaric. Therefore, when, with the outbreak of the war, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians rushed to write denunciations against their German fellow citizens, there were no mass arrests, since only one out of a hundred denunciations had at least some real basis.

Jews got even more than the Germans. In Germany and Austria-Hungary, they, unlike Russia, enjoyed all civil rights, so they were suspected en masse of sympathy for the enemy. "When our troops retreated, the Jews were cheerful and sang songs," noted one of the employees of the Council of Ministers A. N. Yakhontov. In June 1915, the chief of staff of the Supreme High Command N. N. Yanushkevich, reporting on the increasing incidence of venereal diseases in the troops, connected this with the intrigues of the Jews. The conclusion sounds like a joke: "There are indications<согласно которым>the German-Jewish organization spends quite a lot of money on the maintenance of women infected with syphilis in order for them to lure officers to them and infect them. a fifteen-verst dig near Warsaw and they are going to bombard the headquarters of the North-Western Front.New boots and pointed lambskin hats were considered a special sign of the German-Jewish spies.

Under the influence of such reports, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich ordered the expulsion of all Jews from the western regions (that is, from the "Pale of Settlement") as soon as possible, without distinction of gender, age or position. The local administration in some places tried to oppose the order: many Jews work as doctors in hospitals, and their supply is largely supported by Jewish merchants. Nevertheless, the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was carried out. Where do the deportees go? The authorities did not know this, and people toiled at the stations for a long time. Where the deportation did not become universal, the most respected Jews, most often rabbis, were put under arrest as hostages.

Let me remind you: moderate opponents of the autocracy, under the influence of a patriotic upsurge in July 1914, offered the government cooperation in the conduct of the war. But now, a year later, everything has changed. Failures at the front, shortages of ammunition and equipment, flaws in military and civil administration revived open enmity between the public and tsarism. Hardly experiencing military failures, the public meticulously and biasedly analyzed the degree of guilt of the commanders of the armies Samsonov and Rennenkampf, the head of the Main Artillery Directorate of the General Staff Kuzmin-Karavaev and the inspector general of artillery, Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich. The popularity of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich also fell. Most of all, they blamed the Minister of War Sukhomlinov, who was considered a puppet in the hands of Yanushkevich.

The oppositionists tried to win the workers over to their side. Even before the war, the Moscow industrialist AI Konovalov tried to organize an information committee with the participation of the entire opposition - from the Octobrists to the Social Democrats. Now he and Guchkov used their new offspring, the Military Industrial Committees, for similar purposes, creating within their framework "working groups" of defense workers. And if the defeatist socialists accused these groups of betraying the class interests of the proletariat, then the government saw them as a hotbed of revolutionary sentiment.

But despite opposition from left and right, in November 1915, at workers' meetings, ten workers were elected and delegated to the Central Military Industrial Committee (TsVPK), headed by Kuzma Gvozdev, a Menshevik from the Erickson factory. Declaring that the irresponsible government had brought the country to the brink of destruction, Gvozdev and his "associates" promised to defend the interests of the workers, to fight for an eight-hour working day and for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly.

The authorities were suspicious of the moderate Gvozdev (the police considered Gvozdev to be a secret defeatist), but the open defeatists got hit much harder. Some of them were arrested, some were forced to emigrate. A few continued the struggle, hiding under false names and changing apartments (all the defeatist organizations were swarming with police agents). In February 1915, the Bolshevik deputies of the Duma were tried and expelled; attempts by the Bolsheviks to organize mass actions in their support were not successful. But the case of S. N. Myasoedov caused a huge resonance in society. This gendarmerie colonel, a big man and a strong man with a scandalous reputation (A. I. Guchkov even before the war accused him of smuggling weapons), through Sukhomlinov got a place in the 10th Army, which in January 1915 suffered a heavy defeat. A certain G. Kolakovsky, who had escaped from German captivity, turned himself in and said that he had been sent by the Germans to kill Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich and that Myasoedov was supposed to get in touch with him. And although Kolakovsky was confused in his testimony, on February 18, 1915, Myasoedov was arrested (at the same time his wife and two dozen people connected with him in one way or another were arrested).

How justified the accusations against Myasoedov were, historians still argue, but Yanushkevich wrote to Sukhomlinov that evidence of guilt was available and, in order to calm public opinion, Myasoedov should be executed before Easter. On March 17, the colonel was tried under a simplified wartime procedure, without a prosecutor and a defense attorney, and found guilty of spying for Austria before the war, collecting and transmitting information to the enemy about the location of Russian troops in 1915, and looting on enemy territory. After hearing the verdict, Myasoedov tried to send telegrams to the tsar and his family with assurances of innocence, but fainted, then tried to commit suicide. That very night he was executed.

So Guchkov's assertions about the presence of an extensive network of German spies received official confirmation. A wave of indignation also rose against Sukhomlinov. He swore that he was the victim of "this scoundrel" (Myasoedov), complained that Guchkov was smearing this story. In the meantime, Nikolai Nikolaevich and the head of agriculture, A.V. Krivoshein, urged the tsar to sacrifice the unpopular minister to public opinion. On June 12, 1915, Nicholas II, in a very warm letter, informed V. A. Sukhomlinov about his dismissal and expressed confidence that "impartial history will pass its verdict, more lenient than the condemnation of contemporaries." The post of minister of war was taken by A. A. Polivanov, Sukhomlinov's former deputy, who had been dismissed earlier for having too close relations with the Duma and with Guchkov.

Ministers go for broke

In the spring of 1915, a grouping formed within the government of I. L. Goremykin, who considered it necessary to lend a hand to the moderate opposition. Its informal leader was the cunning Krivoshein - to some extent an analogue of Witte, but less sharp, more streamlined, managing to maintain a reputation as a liberal and at the same time maintain excellent relations with the royal couple. Without entering into direct contacts with the Duma and with Guchkov, the factional ministers met regularly at Krivoshein's house to work out a common position. As a result, they presented Goremykin with a demand to remove extreme reactionaries from the Council of Ministers - Minister of Justice I. G. Shcheglovitov, Minister of Internal Affairs N. A. Maklakov and Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod V. K. Sabler. Otherwise, the rebels said, they would have no choice but to resign themselves.

Confident that Goremykin would not only fulfill their demands, but would himself resign in such a situation, the ministers underestimated the tactical abilities of their boss. In early July, on his recommendation, the sovereign replaced N.A. Maklakov with Prince B.N. It would seem that the ministerial opposition has won! However, Goremykin remained at the head of the renewed Council of Ministers and even strengthened his positions by replacing I. G. Shcheglovitov with his protege A. A. Khvostov (uncle of the famous reactionary A. N. Khvostov, Rasputin’s protégé).

At the end of the summer of 1915, battles were no less fierce among the Russian political elite in Petrograd than a year ago at Tannenberg. The accumulated irritation splashed out onto the rostrum of the State Duma, which resumed its meetings in July. And in the Council of Ministers, A. A. Polivanov, torn and aged at once under the weight of responsibility, painted a picture of arrogance, confusion and incompetence of the chief of staff of the Supreme Commander N. N. Yanushkevich. On July 16, Polivanov declared: "The Fatherland is in danger!" Nervousness reached such a degree that the secretary of the meeting Yakhontov's hands were trembling, he could not take minutes.

Later, Yakhontov wrote: "Everyone was seized with some kind of excitement. There was not a debate in the Council of Ministers, but a disorderly cross-talk of excited, captured Russian people. I will never forget this day and experiences. Is it really all gone!" And further: "Polivanov does not inspire confidence in me. He always has a premeditation, an ulterior motive, behind him stands the shadow of Guchkov." In general, in the Council of Ministers, Guchkova was constantly washed at the bones, accused of adventurism, exorbitant ambition, promiscuity in means and hatred of the regime, especially of Emperor Nicholas II.

The attacks of Polivanov and Guchkov on the Headquarters coincided with the efforts of Alice, who sought the removal of "Nikolasha" (that is, the commander-in-chief - the Grand Duke), who spoke out "against the man of God", Rasputin. Goremykin tried to explain to his colleagues that the empress would take advantage of their attacks on Yanushkevich to remove Nikolai Nikolaevich, but such a development of events seemed impossible to them. However, already on August 6, Polivanov brought "terrible news": Nicholas II was going to take over the supreme command. Excited, Rodzianko, having appeared in the Council of Ministers, announced that he would personally dissuade the sovereign. Krivoshein avoided talking to Rodzianko, while Goremykin sharply opposed his intention. Rodzianko rushed out of the Mariinsky Palace, shouting that there was no government in Russia. The porter ran after him to hand over the forgotten cane, but he shouted "To hell with the cane!" jumped into his carriage and drove away. The expansive chairman of the Duma, in fact, both verbally and in writing, persuaded the tsar "not to expose his sacred person to the dangers in which she may be placed by the consequences of the decision," but his clumsy attempts only strengthened Nicholas in his position.

In such a situation, the opposition faction of Krivoshein rushed into a new attack on Goremykin, seeking his resignation. Nobody dared to talk about such a delicate issue with the sovereign, but in the Council of Ministers Krivoshein said on August 19: able". Translated from the bureaucratic bureaucrats into common language, this meant: "The government must cooperate with the Duma, but Goremykin interferes with this, and he must be removed as soon as possible."

The next day, at a meeting in Tsarskoye Selo, the same ministers who demanded changes in the government tried to dissuade the tsar from leading the army. Nikolai listened absently and said that he would not change his decision. The next day, eight ministers took an unprecedented step: they signed a collective petition to the sovereign, imploring him not to take over the supreme command. In the same petition, it was stated that it was impossible to continue working with Goremykin - under such conditions, the ministers threatened, they "lose faith in the possibility of serving the tsar and the motherland with a sense of benefit."

The tsar ignored the petition of the ministers. On August 23, 1915, in an order for the army and navy, he expressed his determination to take over the leadership of the army.

Alexandra Feodorovna violently expressed her joy in her letters: “My only and beloved, I can’t find words to express everything I want ... I only longingly want to hold you tightly in my arms and whisper words of love, courage, strength and countless blessings You will win this great battle for your country and throne - alone, bravely and decisively ... The prayers of our Friend for you ascend day and night to heaven, and the Lord hears them. Meanwhile, in educated society, including the highest, the mood reigned almost apocalyptic. Princess Z. N. Yusupova, crying, said to Rodzianko's wife: "This is terrible! I feel that this is the beginning of death. He (Nikolai) will lead us to revolution."

The opening of the "second front"

The attack of the ministers coincided in time with the most important event - the formation of the "progressive bloc". Whether this was a mere coincidence, whether Masonic connections played a role, is unknown. There must have been some exchange of information. On August 25, the Duma factions of the Cadets, Progressives, Left Octobrists, Octobrist Zemstvo, Center and Progressive Nationalists, as well as liberals from the State Council, signed a common program. Her demands were the simplest, some did not even seem relevant: non-interference of state power in public affairs, and military authorities in civil affairs, the equalization of peasants in rights (it has actually happened), the introduction of a zemstvo at the lower (volost) level, the autonomy of Poland (the issue generally academic, since all of Poland was occupied by the Germans). Heated disputes arose only on the Jewish question, but even here they managed to find a vague wording ("taking the path of abolishing laws restrictive against Jews"), which the rightists accepted with difficulty.

The key requirement of the Progressive Bloc was the following: the formation of a homogeneous government of persons enjoying the confidence of the country to carry out the bloc's program. On the part of the Cadets, who were striving for "a ministry responsible to the people's representatives," this meant a significant concession. The tsar was not required to relinquish control of the government, it was enough for him to remove the ministers, whom the "public" considered reactionaries, replacing them with "persons enjoying the people's confidence."

Krivoshein was 100% satisfied with the bloc's program. The government responsible to the Duma would have been made up of Cadets and Octobrists, and in the "ministry of public confidence" it was Krivoshein who was the main candidate for prime minister. He seemed to consider G.E. Lvov his main rival, about whom he spoke with obvious irritation: “This prince is almost becoming the chairman of some kind of government! At the front, they only talk about him, he is the savior of the situation, he supplies the army, feeds the hungry , treats the sick, arranges hairdressing salons for soldiers - in a word, is some kind of ubiquitous Muir and Maryliz (the then famous Moscow department store. - Note. A. A.). We must either put an end to this, or give him all the power."

On the evening of August 27, the rebellious ministers met with representatives of the "progressive bloc". We agreed that "five-sixths" of the bloc's program is quite acceptable, but the current government cannot implement them. The results of the negotiations were reported to the Council of Ministers on the 28th. Like Witte in 1905, Krivoshein suggested putting the tsar before a choice: an "iron hand" or a "government of people's trust." A new course needs new people. "What new people," shouted Goremykin, "where do you see them?!" Krivoshein answered evasively: let, they say, the sovereign "invite a certain person (apparently, him. - Note. A. A.) and let him designate his future collaborators." "So," Goremykin clarified venomously, "it is considered necessary to deliver an ultimatum to the tsar?" Minister of Foreign Affairs Sazonov was indignant: "We are not seditious, but the same loyal subjects of our sovereign, like Your Excellency! “However, after hesitating, the rebels agreed that this was precisely an ultimatum. As a result, they decided to agree with the leadership of the Duma on its dissolution and at the same time submit to His Majesty a petition to change the Council of Ministers.

However, instead of carrying out this decision, Goremykin, without warning anyone, left for Headquarters. Returning a couple of days later, on September 2, he gathered the ministers and announced to them the royal will: everyone to remain in their posts, to interrupt the meetings of the Duma no later than September 3. Krivoshein attacked him with reproaches, but Goremykin firmly declared that he would fulfill his duty to the sovereign to the end. As soon as the situation at the front allows, the tsar will come and sort everything out himself. "But it will be too late," exclaimed Sazonov, "the streets will be covered with blood, and Russia will be plunged into the abyss!" Goremykin, however, stood his ground. He tried to close the meeting, but the ministers refused to disperse, and the prime minister himself left the Council.

Goremykin turned out to be right: on September 3, the Duma was dissolved for an autumn break, and this did not cause any unrest. Hopes for the creation of a "government of people's trust" evaporated, and the members of the "progressive bloc" abruptly changed tactics. Previously, they criticized the government for its inept conduct of the war. Now, on the eve of the opening of the all-Russian zemstvo and city congress in Moscow, at a meeting in the house of the Moscow mayor M.V. Chelnokov, it was announced that the government was not striving for victory, but was secretly preparing an agreement with the Germans. A separate peace is beneficial for Goremykin, as it leads to the strengthening of the autocracy, and the sovereign is a prisoner of the pro-German "black bloc".

Subsequently, no one has ever been able to confirm these accusations. After February 1917, the Extraordinary Investigative Commission of the Provisional Government, scrupulously investigating the activities of the fallen regime, discovered corruption, carelessness, incompetence, but did not find any traces of the "black bloc", negotiations with the Germans and simply pro-German sentiments in the ruling elite. However, the accusations made in September 1915 came from the favorites of the public, and were directed against people who aroused general hatred. In such cases, proof is not required.

The "revelations" made a stunning impression on the delegates of the congress, which opened on September 7, and they were believed unreservedly. Guchkov called for unity and organization to fight the external enemy, and even more so against the internal enemy - "that anarchy that is caused by the activities of this government." However, no revolutionary slogans were voiced. On the contrary, they decided to avoid internal troubles, which only play into the hands of the "black bloc" and delay victory in the war. The goals were stated to be the most moderate: to expose the plans of the "black bloc", to achieve the resumption of Duma sessions and the creation of a "government of people's trust." The tsar refused to receive the congress delegates, and Prince Lvov wrote him a high-style letter on their behalf, urging him to "renew the government" and to place a heavy burden on those "strong in the country's confidence", and also "to restore the work of the people's representatives." There was no answer.

What means could be used by people who wanted to change the regime, but did not want to play into the hands of Germany and Austria? In Guchkov's papers, a document compiled by an unknown person, chaotic in style and content, entitled "Disposition No. 1" was found. It is dated September 8, 1915. Stating that the struggle is being waged on two fronts, that “it is unthinkable to achieve complete victory over an external enemy without first defeating an internal enemy,” the “disposition” suggested that Guchkov take over “the supreme command organized by the people in the struggle for their rights ... Methods of struggle for rights people should be peaceful, but firm and skillful."

What are these methods? Strikes were ruled out as harmful to the conduct of the war. The main weapon was supposed to be "refusal of fighters for the people's cause from any communication with a person whose removal from state or public functions is decreed by the supreme command." The authors of the "disposition" proposed to frighten their reactionary opponents like disobedient children, publicly writing down their dirty tricks "on a book" and promising to pay for everything after the end of the war.

On September 18, Disposition No. 2 appears in Moscow, which is not inferior to the first in terms of spectacular expressions, combined with toothlessness and vagueness. Condemning the "most naive" Kovalevskys, Milyukovs, Chelnokovs and Shingarevs for collaborating with the government (Kovalevsky is a progressive, Shingarev is a leftist Cadet and both Freemasons), "thoughtlessly leading the country to internal aggravation", the "disposition" proposed to form a "Salvation Army of Russia" at the head with A. I. Guchkov, A. F. Kerensky, P. P. Ryabushinsky, V. I. Gurko and G. E. Lvov - with the championship again Guchkov. The leaders of this incomprehensible "army" were to immediately gather in Moscow and take steps to convene a new zemstvo and city congress on October 15. Again, a public boycott and a completely incomprehensible "system of personal, social, economic and mental influence on the enemies of the people" were proposed as methods of combating "internal enemies" (among others, liberal ministers Shcherbatov and Samarin were included among them).

It seems that the authors of the "dispositions", who belonged to Guchkov's entourage, saw no difference between Goremykin and his opponents inside the cabinet. Meanwhile, the tsar summoned the guilty ministers to Headquarters on September 16. The day before, Alice reminded her husband in a letter: "Do not forget to hold the icon in your hand and comb your hair several times his(Rasputin. - Note. A. A.) a comb before the meeting of the Council of Ministers. "Did Nicholas's absentee support of his wife help, but the tsar kept calm. Sternly informing Krivoshein and his associates that he was extremely dissatisfied with their letter of August 21, Nicholas II asked what they had against Goremykin. Shcherbatov spoke in in a joking tone - he, they say, is as difficult to negotiate state affairs with Goremykin as to manage the estate together with his own father. Goremykin muttered that he would also prefer to deal with the senior prince Shcherbatov. The emperor called the behavior of the ministers boyishness and declared that he completely trusted To Ivan Loginovich (Goremykin) Then he turned the conversation into a mundane plane - they say, this is all an unhealthy Petrograd atmosphere, and invited the ministers who had made a mistake to have dinner.

The world seemed to be closed. But two days later, the tsar, returning to Petrograd, dismissed Shcherbatov and Samarin. Krivoshein realized that he had lost and resigned himself. The resumption of Duma sessions, scheduled for November 15, was postponed without announcing a new date.

So, in the country at war, an internal front has developed, where the authorities and the "public" have settled in "trenches" against each other. The working class remained neutral. The peasants groaned, but obediently put on their overcoats and went to fight the Germans and Austrians. There have not yet been any casualties on the home front, but the beginning of trouble is not bad ...

Page 5 of 11

Military action in 1915

The Russian command entered 1915 with the firm intention of completing the victorious offensive of its troops in Galicia.

There were stubborn battles for mastering the Carpathian passes and the Carpathian ridge. On March 22, after a six-month siege, Przemysl capitulated with its 127,000-strong garrison of Austro-Hungarian troops. But the Russian troops failed to reach the Hungarian plain.

In 1915, Germany and its allies sent the main blow against Russia, hoping to defeat her and withdraw her from the war. By mid-April, the German command managed to transfer the best combat-ready corps from the Western Front, which, together with the Austro-Hungarian troops, formed a new shock 11th army under the command of the German General Mackensen.

Having concentrated on the main direction of the counteroffensive troops, twice the strength of the Russian troops, pulling up artillery, numerically superior to the Russian by 6 times, and by heavy guns by 40 times, the Austro-German army on May 2, 1915 broke through the front in the Gorlitsa area.

Under the pressure of the Austro-German troops, the Russian army retreated from the Carpathians and Galicia with heavy fighting, left Przemysl at the end of May, and surrendered Lvov on June 22. Then, in June, the German command, intending to pincer the Russian troops fighting in Poland, launched strikes with its right wing between the Western Bug and the Vistula, and with its left wing in the lower reaches of the Narva River. But here, as in Galicia, the Russian troops, who did not have enough weapons, ammunition and equipment, retreated with heavy fighting.

By mid-September 1915, the offensive initiative of the German army was exhausted. The Russian army entrenched itself on the front line: Riga - Dvinsk - Lake Naroch - Pinsk - Ternopil - Chernivtsi, and by the end of 1915 the Eastern Front stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Romanian border. Russia has lost a vast territory, but retained its forces, although since the beginning of the war, the Russian army by this time had lost about 3 million people in manpower, of which about 300 thousand were killed.

At a time when the Russian armies were waging a tense unequal war with the main forces of the Austro-German coalition, Russia's allies - England and France - on the Western Front throughout 1915 organized only a few private military operations that were not significant. In the midst of the bloody battles on the Eastern Front, when the Russian army was fighting heavy defensive battles, the Anglo-French allies did not launch an offensive on the Western Front. It was adopted only at the end of September 1915, when the offensive operations of the German army on the Eastern Front had already ceased.

The pangs of conscience from ingratitude towards Russia were felt very belatedly by Lloyd George. In his memoirs, he later wrote: "History will present its account to the military command of France and England, which in its selfish obstinacy doomed its Russian comrades in arms to death, while England and France could so easily save the Russians and thus would help themselves best ".

Having received a territorial gain on the Eastern Front, the German command, however, did not achieve the main thing - it did not force the tsarist government to conclude a separate peace with Germany, although half of all the armed forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary were concentrated against Russia.

In the same 1915, Germany tried to deal a crushing blow to England. For the first time, she made extensive use of a relatively new weapon - submarines, in order to prevent the supply of necessary raw materials and food to England. Hundreds of ships were destroyed, their crews and passengers perished. The indignation of the neutral countries forced Germany not to sink passenger ships without warning. England, by increasing and accelerating the construction of ships, as well as developing effective measures to combat submarines, overcame the danger hanging over her.

In the spring of 1915, for the first time in the history of wars, Germany used one of the most inhumane weapons - poisonous substances, but this ensured only tactical success.

Failure befell Germany in the diplomatic struggle. The Entente promised Italy more than Germany and Austria-Hungary, which clashed with Italy in the Balkans, could promise. In May 1915, Italy declared war on them and diverted some of the troops of Austria-Hungary and Germany.

This failure was only partly offset by the fact that in the fall of 1915 the Bulgarian government entered the war against the Entente. As a result, the Quadruple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria was formed. The immediate consequence of this was the offensive of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops against Serbia. The small Serbian army resisted heroically, but was crushed by superior enemy forces. The troops of England, France, Russia and the remnants of the Serbian army sent to help the Serbs formed the Balkan Front.

As the war dragged on, the countries participating in the Entente grew suspicious and distrustful of each other. According to a secret agreement between Russia and its allies in 1915, in the event of a victorious end to the war, Constantinople and the straits were to go to Russia. Fearing the implementation of this agreement, on the initiative of Winston Churchill, under the pretext of attacking the straits and Constantinople, allegedly to undermine the communications of the German coalition with Turkey, the Dardanelles expedition was undertaken with the aim of occupying Constantinople.

On February 19, 1915, the Anglo-French fleet began shelling the Dardanelles. However, having suffered heavy losses, the Anglo-French squadron stopped the bombardment of the Dardanelles fortifications a month later.

On the Transcaucasian front, in the summer of 1915, Russian waxes, having repulsed the offensive of the Turkish army in the Alashkert direction, launched a counteroffensive in the Vienna direction. At the same time, the German-Turkish troops intensified military operations in Iran. Based on the uprising of the Bakhtiar tribes provoked by German agents in Iran, Turkish troops began to move towards the oil fields and by the autumn of 1915 occupied Kermanshah and Hamadan. But soon the arriving British troops pushed back the Turks and the Bakhtiars from the oil fields, and restored the oil pipeline destroyed by the Bakhtiars.

The task of clearing Iran from the Turkish-German troops fell on the Russian expeditionary force of General Baratov, who landed in October 1915 in Anzali. Pursuing the German-Turkish troops, Baratov's detachments occupied Qazvin, Hamadan, Qom, Kashan and approached Isfahan.

In the summer of 1915, British detachments captured German South-West Africa. In January 1916, the British forced the German troops surrounded in Cameroon to surrender.

Germany shifts the focus of military operations to the Eastern Front in order to withdraw Russia from the war.

The 1915 campaign was difficult for the Russian army. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and officers were killed, wounded and captured. The Russian army left. Galicia, Bukovina, Poland, part of the Baltic States, Belarus.

The Russian command entered 1915 with the firm intention of completing the victorious offensive of its troops in Galicia. There were stubborn battles for mastering the Carpathian passes and the Carpathian ridge. March 22, after a six-month siege, Przemysl capitulated with its 127,000th garrison of Austro-Hungarian troops (400 guns). But the Russian troops failed to reach the Hungarian plain.

In 1915, Germany and its allies sent the main blow against Russia, hoping to defeat her and withdraw her from the war. There was a widespread belief in German military circles that a number of strong blows could force Russia into a separate peace, and then concentrate troops to win on the Western Front. By mid-April, the German command managed to transfer the best combat-ready corps from the Western Front, which, together with the Austro-Hungarian troops formed a new shock 11th army under the command of the German General Mackensen. Concentrating on the main direction of the counteroffensive of the troops, twice the strength of the Russian troops, pulling up artillery, numerically superior to the Russian 6 times, and heavy guns - 40 times, On May 2, 1915, the Austro-German army broke through the front in the Gorlitsa area.

Gorlitsky operation, launched on May 2, 1915 at 10 am, became the first carefully prepared offensive of the German army on the Eastern Front, which for a time became the main theater of military operations for the German Headquarters. She was "artillery attack" - against 22 Russian batteries (105 guns), Mackensen had 143 batteries (624 guns, including 49 heavy batteries, of which 38 heavy howitzers of 210 and 305 mm caliber). The Russians, on the site of the 3rd Army, had only 4 heavy howitzers. In total, the superiority in artillery is 6 times, and in heavy artillery 40 times.

The Gorlitsky offensive operation lasted 52 days and became one of the largest defensive operations of the Russian army during the war years.

The breakthrough of the Russian front in the Carpathian region led to the "Great Retreat", during which the Russian army retreated from the Carpathians and Galicia with heavy fighting, left Przemysl at the end of May, and surrendered Lvov on June 22.

The command of the Central Powers also tried to oust the Russians from Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic states. In June, the Austro-German troops reached the Lublin-Holm line, and after breaking through from Prussia and forcing the Narew River, they threatened the Russian armies in Poland from the rear. In the summer of 1915, Russian troops fought defensive battles, trying to get out of the attack in time and prevent encirclement. On July 5, the Headquarters decided to withdraw the armies to the east to straighten the front. However, the retreat continued throughout August. In autumn, the front was established along the line Western Dvina - Dvinsk - Baranovichi - Pinsk - Dubno - Tarnopol - r. Rod. By mid-September 1915, the offensive initiative of the German army was exhausted. The Russian army entrenched itself on the front line: Riga - Dvinsk - Lake Naroch - Pinsk - Ternopil - Chernivtsi, and by the end of 1915 the Eastern Front extended from the Baltic Sea to the Romanian border. Russia lost a vast territory, but retained its strength.

The big retreat was a severe moral shock both for the soldiers and officers of the Russian army, and for public opinion in Petrograd. The atmosphere of despair and mental breakdown that gripped the Russian army in 1915 was well conveyed by BUT. Denikin in his book of memoirs "Essays on Russian Troubles":

“The spring of 1915 will remain in my memory forever. The great tragedy of the Russian army is the retreat from Galicia. No ammo, no shells. From day to day bloody battles, from day to day difficult transitions, endless fatigue - physical and moral: either timid hopes, or hopeless horror ... "

1915 brought the biggest the loss of the Russian army during the war - about 2.5 million killed, wounded and captured. Enemy losses were more than 1 million people . And still the enemy failed to solve his strategic tasks: to encircle the Russian army in the “Polish bag”, put an end to the Eastern Front and force Russia to withdraw from the war by concluding a separate peace. It is important to note that the success of the German troops on the Eastern Front was facilitated by the minimal activity of the Allies on the Western Front.

Video - "The Great Retreat"

Russian-Turkish front 1915.

Since January, N. N. Yudenich took command of the Caucasian Front. In February-April 1915, the Russian and Turkish armies were reforming. The fighting was local. By the end of March, the Russian army cleared southern Adzharia and the entire Batumi region of the Turks.

N. N. Yudenich

In July, Russian troops repulsed the offensive of Turkish troops in the area of Lake Van.

During the Alashkert operation (July-August 1915), Russian troops defeated the enemy, disrupted the offensive planned by the Turkish command in the Kars direction and facilitated the actions of the British troops in Mesopotamia.

In the second half of the year, hostilities spread to the territory of Persia.

In October-December 1915, the commander of the Caucasian Army, General Yudenich, carried out a successful Hamadan operation, which prevented Persia from entering the war on the side of Germany. On October 30, Russian troops landed in the port of Anzali (Persia), by the end of December they defeated the pro-Turkish armed groups and took control of the territory of Northern Persia, securing the left flank of the Caucasian army.

Western Front

In 1915, both sides on the Western Front switched to strategic defense, large-scale battles were not fought. By early 1915 Anglo-Belgian troops were in the Artois region, partly in Belgium, the main French forces were concentrated in the Champagne region. The Germans occupied part of the territory of France, moving inland to the city of Noyon (Noyon ledge).

AT february-march french organized an attack in Champagne, but advanced only 460 meters, losing 50 thousand people

March 10 began the offensive of the British forces (four divisions) in Artois on the village of Neuve Chapelle However, due to supply and communication problems, the development of the attack slowed down, and the Germans managed to organize a counterattack. On March 13, the offensive was stopped, the British managed to advance only two kilometers.

On April 22-25, the Battle of Ypres took place. On the first day of the operation, after a two-day bombardment, On April 22, the Germans used chemical weapons on a large scale for the first time. (chlorine). As a result of the gas attack, 15 thousand people were poisoned within a few minutes.

In January 1915, chemical weapons based on chlorine compounds were put into production in Germany. The point chosen for the attack was in the northeastern part of the Ypres salient, at the point where the French and English fronts converged. The command did not set the task of a broad offensive, the goal was only to test weapons. Cylinders with liquid chlorine were buried on 11 April. When the tap was opened in the cylinder, chlorine came out as a gas. Gas jets, released simultaneously from balloon batteries, formed a dense cloud. Bandages and vials of hyposulfite solution were distributed to German soldiers, the use of which reduced the risk of being hit by chlorine vapors.

Italy signed a secret treaty of London with the countries of the Entente. For £50 million Italy pledged to open a new front against the Central Powers

25 May - Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary. Austrian divisions blocked the Italian army in the area of the river. Asonzo and defeated them.

October 11 - Bulgaria entered the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The defeat of the Serbian army in the Balkans.

In solving the geopolitical problems of Russia, the Dardanelles landing operation Entente (February 1915 - January 1916), carried out to divert Turkish troops from the Caucasian front. Too active preparation of the British for the operation frightened Petrograd. This led to the execution in March-April 1915 of a number of treaties, according to which England and France agreed to the transfer of Constantinople to Russia with the territory adjacent to it. However, both the naval part of the operation and the landing on the Galliopoli Peninsula were unsuccessful. As a result, the Allied troops were transferred to the Thessaloniki front.

Results of 1915:

Germany and its allies failed to liquidate the Eastern Front.
Positional (“trench”) warfare on the Western Front.
France and England have strengthened their military potential.
There has been a military-economic advantage of the Entente countries.
Disruption of Germany's strategic plan to withdraw Russia from the war
The war acquired a positional character on the Eastern Front

Attack of the Dead

During small defense fortress Osovets, located on the territory of the presentBelarus , the small Russian garrison only needed to hold out for 48 hours. He defended himself for more than six months - 190 days!

The Germans used all the latest weapons achievements, including aviation, against the defenders of the fortress. For each defender, there were several thousand bombs and shells dropped from airplanes and fired from dozens of guns of 17 batteries, including two famous "Big Berthas" (which the Russians managed to knock out in the process).

The Germans bombed the fortress day and night. Month after month. The Russians defended themselves in the midst of a hurricane of fire and iron to the last. There were very few of them, but the offer to surrender was always followed by the same answer. Then the Germans deployed 30 gas batteries against the fortress. Hit the Russian positions from thousands of cylinders 12-meter wave of chemical attack. There were no gas masks.

All living things on the territory of the fortress were poisoned. Even the grass turned black and withered. A thick poisonous green layer of chlorine oxide covered the metal parts of guns and shells. At the same time, the Germans began a massive shelling. Following him, over 7,000 infantrymen moved to storm the Russian positions.

August 6 (July 24 O.S.), 1915. It seemed that the fortress was doomed and already taken. Thick, numerous German chains were getting closer and closer ... And at that moment, from a poisonous green chlorine mist, a counterattack fell upon them! There were a little over sixty Russians. Remains of the 13th company of the 226th Zemlyansky regiment. For every counterattack, there were more than a hundred enemies!

The Russians marched to full height. In the bayonet. Shaking from coughing, spitting out, through rags wrapped around their faces, pieces of the lungs onto bloody tunics ...

These soldiers plunged the enemy into such horror that the Germans, not accepting the battle, rushed back. They trample each other in a panic, tangle and hang on their own barbed wire fences. And then, from the clubs of poisoned fog, it would seem that already dead Russian artillery hit them.

This battle will go down in history as "attack of the dead" . During it, several dozen half-dead Russian soldiers put 14 enemy battalions to flight!

The 13th company under the command of Lieutenant Kotlinsky counterattacked units of the 18th regiment along the railway and put them to flight. Continuing the attack, the company again captured the 1st and 2nd lines of defense. At that moment, Lieutenant Kotlinsky was mortally wounded and transferred command of the formation to Lieutenant of the 2nd Osovets sapper company Strezheminsky. From him, command passed to Ensign Radka, with whom the company occupied Leonov's yard with a fight and, thus, completely eliminated the consequences of the German breakthrough in this sector of defense. At the same time, the 8th and 14th companies unblocked the central redoubt and, together with the fighters of the 12th company, drove the enemy back to their original positions. By 8 o'clock in the morning all the consequences of the German breakthrough were eliminated. By 11 o'clock in the morning the shelling of the fortress ceased, which was the formal end of the failed assault.

The Russian defenders of Osovets never surrendered the fortress. She was abandoned later. And by command. When the defense has lost its meaning. The enemy was not left with either a cartridge or a nail. Everything that survived in the fortress from German fire and bombing was blown up by Russian sappers. The Germans decided to occupy the ruins only a few days later.

The Russian command entered 1915 with the firm intention of completing the victorious offensive of its troops in Galicia.

Under the pressure of the Austro-German troops, the Russian army retreated from the Carpathians and Galicia with heavy fighting, left Przemysl at the end of May, and surrendered Lvov on June 22. Then, in June, the German command, intending to pincer the Russian troops fighting in Poland, launched strikes with its right wing between the Western Bug and the Vistula, and with its left wing in the lower reaches of the Narew River. But here, as in Galicia, the Russian troops, who did not have enough weapons, ammunition and equipment, retreated with heavy fighting.

At a time when the Russian armies were waging a tense unequal war with the main forces of the Austro-German coalition, Russia's allies - England and France - on the Western Front throughout 1915 organized only a few private military operations that were not significant. In the midst of the bloody battles on the Eastern Front, when the Russian army was fighting heavy defensive battles, the Anglo-French allies did not launch an offensive on the Western Front. On this occasion, Russian newspapers wrote that England was ready to fight to the last drop of the Russian soldier's blood. It was adopted only at the end of September 1915, when the offensive operations of the German army on the Eastern Front had already ceased.

In the spring of 1915, for the first time in the history of wars, Germany used one of the most inhuman weapons - poisonous substances, but this ensured only tactical success.

As the war dragged on, the countries participating in the Entente grew suspicious and distrustful of each other. According to a secret agreement between Russia and the allies in 1915, in the event of a victorious end to the war, Constantinople and the straits were to go to Russia. Fearing the implementation of this agreement, on the initiative of Winston Churchill, under the pretext of attacking the straits and Constantinople, allegedly to undermine the communications of the German coalition with Turkey, the Dardanelles expedition was undertaken with the aim of occupying Constantinople.

On the Transcaucasian front, Russian troops in the summer of 1915, having repelled the offensive of the Turkish army in the Alashkert direction, launched a counteroffensive. At the same time, the German-Turkish troops intensified military operations in Iran. Based on the uprising of the Bakhtiar tribes provoked by German agents in Iran, Turkish troops began to move towards the oil fields, and by the fall of 1915 they occupied Kermanshah and Hamadan. But soon the arriving British troops pushed back the Turks and the Bakhtiars from the oil fields, and restored the oil pipeline destroyed by the Bakhtiars.

The question of building a stone tower in our city was raised in 1911. At that moment, the old wooden tower (standing in the same place) fell into disrepair.
The Omsk Duma allocated 10 thousand rubles for the construction of the tower. The city government instructed the civil engineer and architect I. G. Khvorinov, the author of the projects of the drama theater, the store M. A. Shanina, and others to draw up a project and estimate.
In July 1912, the design and estimate documentation was ready. A year later, the foundation was laid, the floors were erected, and the masons had to start laying the round part of the tower. However, it turned out that its height, determined by the project of I. G. Khvorinov at 9.5 sazhens from the base to the observation deck, was small: high-rise buildings appeared - JSC "Salamander", "Elvorti", etc. They closed the view.
There was a need to increase the tower by 1.4 sazhens. As a result, the height of the entire structure, together with the forged flagpole and weather vane, was 15 sazhens (about 32 m). The contractor was a former Nizhny Novgorod peasant M. A. Kuznetsov.
The construction of the tower was completed in August (according to other sources in September) 1915. It was built of red brick with light plaster architectural and decorative details. The decoration of the facade reflected Khvorinov's sympathy for the decorative details of the Russian style of the 17th century.
On the first floor of the tower there was a steam fire chimney, on the second - the apartment of the fireman, the head of the city's fire department, who went to every fire.
The tower became the tallest building in pre-revolutionary Omsk. From the observation deck, the whole city opened at a glance.
Initially, under the roof of the tower, a bell hung on the side. On the upper platform, a sentry (guard, sentinel) and occasionally were on duty. Seeing smoke, they gave an alarm. Nearby was the fire station number 2.

Portal for the student. Self-training

Russian-Turkish front 1915.

Western Front

Attack of the Dead

RELATED ARTICLES