August 1, 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of Germany's declaration of war on Russia. This war in the memory of generations turned out to be overshadowed by subsequent terrible events: the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. The war of 1914 was disparagingly called "imperialist" in Soviet historiography, and was usually referred to as a failure for Russia. But for our ancestors, who shed blood in its fields, it was not "imperialistic", but the Great and Second Patriotic War. And a simple comparison of the facts makes one wonder: was it so unsuccessful for us? Indeed, in the First World War, the Germans were not allowed to either the Volga or Moscow, neither Kyiv nor Minsk were given away, military operations were carried out only in the Kingdom of Poland, Western Belarus and the Baltic states. One cannot but agree with a modern historian: “Not a single war in which Russia participated was so disgraced in the minds of the people through the efforts of the Bolsheviks ... Not a single one left such a gaping vacuum, not a single one was so erased in the memory of descendants ... " .

We are talking about the First World War and Russia's participation in it with Ruslan Gagkuev, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Drofa Publishing House.

- Ruslan Grigoryevich, because of what and why did this war start?

- The First World War, or, as it was called at first, the Great European War, was the result of a huge number of contradictions that had accumulated in the world by the beginning of the 20th century. Opposed in it two groups of countries. On the one hand, these were the powers of the Entente (the name comes from the French entente - "consent") - the military-political bloc of England, France and Russia, which formed in 1904-1907 as a counterbalance to the countries grouped around Germany. On the other side was the Quadruple Alliance consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria. As the war escalated, 38 states were involved in it. None of the world's conflicts before it had such a scope.

The German Empire, which formed rather late as a single state, was actually late for the colonial division of the world. This was the reason why Germany was one of the main initiators of the redistribution of the already divided world. The source of the conflict between the German and Russian empires was both economic and foreign policy contradictions. Many problems have also accumulated in relations between Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

As we know from world history, such tensions between the strongest world powers could persist for quite a long time. Russia did not want war. It is no coincidence that P. A. Stolypin, one of the creators of the country's economic growth, said: "Give the state twenty years of peace, internal and external, and you will not recognize today's Russia." The country was developing rapidly, and this development was supposed to make it almost the strongest world power.

The reason for the start of the war was the assassination on June 15, 1914 in Sarajevo by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph I). The government of Austria-Hungary, under pressure from Germany, delivered an ultimatum to Serbia, in which conditions that were actually unacceptable in advance were put forward. Serbia did not accept them, and exactly a month after the fatal shots in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on her, starting hostilities.

Russia found itself in an extremely difficult situation. Of course, one could refuse to support a fraternal country in trouble and stay on the sidelines. Emperor Nicholas II, who did everything to avoid war, took a different path. He supported Serbia, which was left face to face with the strongest enemy. The Russian government announced a partial mobilization in the country. Germany, which had begun a secret mobilization and concentration of troops near its borders in advance, unceremoniously demanded that Russia stop the military preparations it had begun. Without responding to this interference in internal affairs, the country continued its preparations for war. In response to this, on July 19, Germany declared war on Russia (on July 23, under pressure from the German government, Austria-Hungary also entered the war with Russia). In the following days, most of its main participants, bound by international treaties, entered the war. The main land fronts in the outbreak of war were the Western (French) and Eastern (Russian). The German Empire hoped to tear away from Russia part of Poland, the Baltic states, and a number of provinces of Little Russia that were part of it.

- We often hear that Russia had no reason to get in touch with the Entente and join this war. Meanwhile, Russian intelligence data is known that Germany planned to start a war with Russia in 1915. So did we have a chance to avoid participation in the First World War, or was it inevitable due to the aggressive intentions of Germany?

- The international situation is probably never simple. Of course, when concluding an alliance treaty with Russia, both England and France pursued their selfish interests first of all. As, however, and Russia. There were enough contradictions between the allies. However, a potential conflict with Germany and Austria-Hungary was still more likely for Russia. The decade before the First World War was generally extremely difficult for Russian foreign policy. The policy of avoiding war at any cost led to significant defeats in the international arena. Suffice it to recall the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary in 1908 - the "diplomatic Tsushima" of the Russian Empire. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, unsuccessful for Russia, misled the German Emperor Wilhelm II and his government about the strength of Russian weapons. Russia was not considered a serious adversary.

In Germany, since the 1890s, aggressive circles have come to power, who considered a war with Russia not only possible, but also beneficial. The German press openly propagated the course of an "offensive to the East", an anti-Russian campaign was conducted, in which Russia was presented as the main obstacle to the creation of a "great Germany". Even if Russia had left Serbia to the mercy of fate in the summer of 1914, it would hardly have been possible to stay away from the international conflict, with the preparations for the war that were being conducted in other countries.

- When you read the statements on the eve of World War I by other German professors, politicians, military men about the superiority of the Teutonic race, about the racial inferiority of the Slavs, you get the feeling that German Nazism did not arise from scratch and that Hitler had worthy predecessor teachers. What was the actual moral character of our opponents?

- Preparation for such a big war that Germany planned, of course, required a certain indoctrination of society. Obviously, two decades later, before the start of a new world war, the Nazi elite in Germany could not but use the experience of their predecessors. To characterize the moral state of German society during the First World War, and most importantly, the origin of National Socialism, the feature film of the Austrian director Michael Haneke "White Ribbon - German Children's Story" (2009) is in many ways indicative. In it, the author’s attempt to show the origins of Nazism in the system of German education and mentality is quite obvious, to tell how evil and violence ripen in society, that ideology, the founders of which unleashed the bloodiest war in world history.

Meanwhile, excessive self-confidence eventually went sideways to Germany. Starting the war, the German Empire was guided by the plan of the former chief of the German General Staff, Alfred von Schlieffen. The plan provided for the lightning defeat of France by the German troops. It was important to do this before the time when "clumsy" Russia mobilizes and put forward its troops to the front. But the German command failed to realize this plan. The culprit for this was Russia, which managed in the shortest possible time, at the cost of great sacrifices, to launch an offensive in East Prussia.

- How do you explain the patriotic impulse of Russian society after the start of the war? After all, the enthusiasm was really great: volunteers were rushing to the front, many private hospitals for the wounded were being created, ladies from high society, including the royal family, were working as sisters of mercy...

- The main reason that pushed all sections of the Russian population to the front in 1914 was the realization of the fact that Germany was the aggressor. The attitude of the Russian government to preserve peace was well known in society. The threat from the "treacherous Germans" awakened in the population of the country the social instinct of self-preservation. Another reason that was understandable to the common people was the need to protect the right to existence of the half-blooded and same-faith Serbian people, sympathy for the younger brother who was in trouble.

In the manifestos of July 20 and 26, 1914, the sovereign directly outlined the reasons why Russia enters the war: the preservation of territorial integrity, the protection of the honor, dignity and position of our country among the great powers and Slavic peoples. The very fact that Germany declared war on Russia contributed to the perception in society of this war as a domestic one, the main goal of which is to repel aggression. Prayers were performed by priests throughout Russia "for the granting of victory over the perfidious and insidious enemy." Mass marches and manifestations in support of the government took place in the cities, especially powerful ones took place in St. Petersburg and Moscow. It is significant that the very next day after the declaration of war in St. Petersburg, thousands of people gathered on Palace Square to support the authorities. These were representatives of all classes of Russian society: intelligentsia, petty bourgeois, workers, peasants from nearby villages. They all knelt together in front of the sovereign and empress, who had come out onto the balcony of the Winter Palace. Nicholas II read out to the people a manifesto on Russia's entry into the war and was the first to solemnly take the oath on the Gospel. On August 4, the sovereign and his family arrived in Moscow, on the streets of which he was enthusiastically greeted by about half a million Muscovites and peasants near Moscow. A solemn prayer service "to the glory of Russian weapons" was held in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The fact that society met the outbreak of war in a single patriotic impulse is indisputable.

The patriotism of Russian society was also manifested in the readiness of broad sections of the population for self-sacrifice. So, the first of the wartime mobilizations (there were 19 in total) was not only successful and fast - the turnout of conscripts was almost one hundred percent. It also led to the beginning of a mass volunteer movement. Many young people who had a deferment from conscription went to the army. These were students, intellectuals, workers of defense factories who had reservations. The writers V. V. Veresaev and A. I. Kuprin, the poet N. S. Gumilyov, and many other figures of culture and science voluntarily signed up for the army. It is significant that even the revolutionaries who were in exile submitted petitions to the authorities asking them to be sent to the active army. It can be said that all sections of Russian society reacted to the outbreak of the world conflict not only with due understanding, but also with readiness for self-sacrifice.

One of the few exceptions was the Russian Social Democrats. If the leader of the Menshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, G. V. Plekhanov, took a national position with the outbreak of the war and called for a fight against German imperialism, the same cannot be said about the leaders of the Bolshevik faction. Thus, the leader of the Bolsheviks, V. I. Lenin, believed that the outbreak of a world war should be welcomed, since defeat in it is a bridge to revolution. According to him, the world war was to develop into a civil war. No one in Russia in 1914 could have imagined that in just three years, for various reasons, the mood in society would change so dramatically, and the Bolsheviks would be able to legally carry out their political program to the masses.

- What was the degree of readiness of Russia for war?

— By 1914, Russia was not fully prepared for a world war. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 clearly showed the need to reform and strengthen the army and navy. After the end of the war with Japan, a lot was written about this in the military press. The Russian government has taken a number of measures aimed at strengthening the country's defense capability: to increase the combat capability of the army, to centralize the highest military administration, to reorganize the army and improve its technical equipment. The military transformations carried out in Russia in 1905-1912 played a positive role in all spheres of military affairs. But many of the planned for various reasons still failed to implement. According to the calculations of the Russian General Staff, with the necessary rates of economic growth, the country would be ready for a large-scale world war by 1917-1919. This unpreparedness was revealed literally at the very beginning of the armed struggle. Logistics, the transport network were the weak points of our active army and rear. The Great Retreat of 1915 was the result of the country's insufficient readiness for war. At the same time, the self-sacrifice and heroism of the Russian soldiers and officers shown already in the first days of the war, their readiness for heroic deeds in the name of the honor and greatness of the Fatherland, to a large extent minimized the technical superiority of the enemy.

- All participating countries signed the Hague Convention on the Humane Treatment of Prisoners, but did everyone comply with it? What was the situation of our prisoners in Germany in reality?

- The Russian Empire was one of the initiators of the convening of the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907, in which 44 states took part. This international forum has adopted 13 Hague conventions. These conventions, based on the principle of the humanization of war, were undoubtedly progressive in nature. However, the most important proposals made in The Hague - on the limitation of armaments and the introduction of an arbitration court to resolve international conflicts - did not receive the support of the majority of the great powers and, mainly, Germany.

The number of Russian soldiers and officers who were captured during the First World War was unprecedented for our society. According to the estimates of the outstanding Russian military scientist General N. N. Golovin, in total about 2.4 million people were captured. Life in captivity during the World War was not easy for anyone. Feeding such a mass of mouths to the countries that captured them, given all the economic difficulties, of course, was not easy.

Many of the prisoners were involved in various kinds of work. Cases of prisoners refusing to work, which is harmful not only to Russia, but also to its allies in the war, were quite frequent. The report of a Russian military agent in Serbia is indicative. At the beginning of 1915, “seven lower ranks who fled from Austrian captivity arrived there ... They and their comrades who remained in captivity were forcibly involved by the Austrian authorities in the construction of fortifications on the Serbian front. In order to force them to work, our prisoners were subjected to cruel tortures. In this regard, according to senior non-commissioned officer Solovyov and other prisoners from the Dolsky camp (in Slovakia), the gallant behavior of the prisoner, private of the 82nd Dagestan Infantry Regiment Nikolai Alekseev, a Chuvash, deserves mention. For refusing to dig trenches of the named lower rank, the Austrians first hung him for 20 minutes on a string to a tree, and an Austrian officer with a revolver in his hand threatened him with death all the time. Even the Austrian guards turned away from this spectacle. When the next day, Private Alekseev refused to dig trenches, he was taken away for ten days to Vinkovtsy, upon returning from Vinkovtsy to Dol, the named private again refused to dig trenches, although the Austrians convinced him that the trenches being built were intended against the Italians, and not against Russians. After this, Private Alekseev was again taken away from Dol to no one knows where, and his further fate is unknown. The behavior of the designated rank of the Russian army made a strong impression on both our prisoners and the Austrians. An officer at the prison where Private Alekseev was imprisoned took the imprisoned Austrians out and, calling them “internal enemies of the state” for their unworthy behavior, set them as an example of the Russian Alekseev, who showed such deep devotion to his Motherland.

I will cite one more document characterizing the attitude towards the prisoners of our enemy. “On March 20, a reconnaissance officer of the 1st Army, a former reserve, junior non-commissioned officer of the 141st Mozhaisk Regiment, Porfiry Panasyuk, who had fled from the Germans, arrived at the headquarters of the 1st Army, with a cropped right ear and a mutilated nose,” the order of the Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the North Western Front General M. V. Alekseev. - According to Panasyuk, the Germans captured him on the night of March 15-16 north of Myshinets, from where they escorted him to Rossov, apparently to some kind of German headquarters. There, in the presence of ten German officers, he was offered to spy for the Germans for a monetary reward, and first they began to force him to give information about the location of our troops. Panasyuk’s categorical refusal was followed by a threat from the German officers that, in case of persistence, his ears and nose would be cut to pieces, his eyes would be gouged out, and, finally, he would be hanged by his feet. The threat did not shake Panasyuk's courage; he again refused to give any information about our troops.

Then one of the officers ordered to bring scissors and proceeded to brutal torture. With his own hand, first he cut off the lobe of the right ear, then sequentially, four times within an hour, cut off the auricle all around, leaving a small cartilage around the ear canal; at the same time, another officer mutilated the nose with his hand, separating the cartilage from the bones, at the same time striking with his fist on the teeth. Courageously, selflessly enduring the torture, Panasyuk stubbornly continued to refuse [answer] the questions about our troops that were proposed to him. Having failed to achieve success with more than an hour of torture, the interrogating officer ordered Panasyuk to be taken under arrest. On the way, Panasyuk, taking advantage of the darkness of the night, fled from the convoy accompanying him and went to the front of our troops, from where he was taken to the headquarters of the 1st Army, and then to the infirmary of the Red Cross community in Warsaw. For the courage shown in the name of the oath and fidelity to duty and the Motherland, courage, steadfastness and selflessness under the torture of our enemies, the commander of the 1st Army awarded Panasyuk with the St. George Cross of the 4th degree and a cash allowance.

Russia tried not to leave its prisoners in trouble. Humanitarian aid was organized for Russian soldiers and officers who were in German and Austrian camps, delegations were sent to examine the situation of Russian prisoners of war. The life of Russian soldiers and officers in the German camps is well told in the autobiographical stories of V. V. Korsak (Zavadsky). As an officer of the 171st Kobrin Infantry Regiment, in November 1914 he was wounded and taken prisoner. Throughout almost the entire war (until February 1918) he was in the Munich POW camp in Germany, about which he told in the stories "Captivity" and "Forgotten", reprinted in modern Russia.

But we must not forget that not only Russian military personnel were captured. An even greater number of enemy soldiers and officers were captured by the Allies in the Entente. The number of German prisoners of war was almost 1 million people, Austro-Hungarian - 2.2 million. By 1918, almost 2 million former soldiers of the German, Austrian, Turkish and Bulgarian armies were in Russian captivity.

- What was the state of the Russian army and society by 1917?

- Russia was better prepared for the 1917 campaign than for the previous ones. Mistakes were taken into account both in strategic planning and in the logistics of the army. For Russia, it was also of great importance that in September 1916, on the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula, the ice-free port of Romanov-on-Murman (renamed Murmansk in April 1917) was laid. By November 1916, the construction of the Murmansk railway was completed, which connected the seaport with Central Russia. Allied convoys could now arrive in Russia all year round.

In all the major battles of 1916 (near Verdun in France, in Trentino in Italy, in Eastern Galicia on the Eastern Front), the Entente forces achieved great victories. By the beginning of the 1917 campaign, England, France and Russia were increasingly superior to the countries of the Quadruple Alliance both in terms of the number of troops (14 million versus 7.3 million people), and in terms of weapons and logistics. After the US entered the war in April 1917, the Entente's advantage became even greater. The strategic initiative passed to the allies in the Entente - the year 1916 finally undermined the military and economic power of Germany and its allies. The High Command of the Entente countries intended to deliver concerted major blows on the Russian and French fronts, the result of which would be the final defeat of the Quadruple Alliance by the end of the coming year.

The Russian army was well prepared for the spring offensive of 1917. During the winter respite, General V. I. Gurko, Acting Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, reorganized the army, which made it possible to reduce the number of soldiers on the front line (as a result, losses were reduced), while increasing the firepower of divisions. Unlike previous years, rifles and ammunition were sufficient for the 1917 campaign.

The victory in the war was already not far off. To achieve it, it remained to make the last effort. But with all the readiness of the Russian army for new battles in the country itself, there was a clear fatigue of the population from the war. It probably would not have been critical if political stability had been maintained. But the political situation in the country was swayed both by the Duma parties and figures, and by the not always thoughtful actions of the government itself. Expectations of an early victory, unfortunately, were not destined to come true. February 1917 arrived. The anti-government rhetoric of many Duma politicians, who later became members of various Provisional Governments, played a significant role in the events of February 1917. None of the facts of treason, which were spoken about from the high tribunes of the Duma, was later proved by the new government.

- The February events, as you know, became the beginning of the collapse of the army and the country. Did the “golden German key of the Bolsheviks”, to use the expression of S. P. Melgunov, play a role in their preparation?

- The February revolution, of course, was a gift for Germany, but it did not play any noticeable role in these events themselves. Of course, the German agents carried out underground work in Russia, but the practical results were much more modest than the consequences of the February events. Germany's participation was already significant for the Bolsheviks' coming to power in October 1917 and, in part, in the ensuing Civil War. Here I can address readers both to the works of S. P. Melgunov, B. V. Nikitin's memoirs "Fatal Years", and to the books of modern researchers.

As General E. Ludendorff, Chief of Staff of the German Army, noted in his memoirs, after October 1917, “trust in the Bolsheviks of our government ... reached such an extent that it promised Mr. M. Ioffe (plenipotentiary of Soviet Russia in Berlin.— R. G.) supply of arms and ammunition”. One of the most famous facts of German support for the Bolsheviks in the Civil War was the participation of German officers in the suppression of the Yaroslavl uprising in July 1918. It is known that the Yaroslavl rebels, led by General P.P. Karpov, realizing the danger of continued resistance for the population of Yaroslavl, mercilessly shelled by the Bolsheviks, surrendered on July 21 to the German Commission of Prisoners of War No. 4, headed by Lieutenant Balk. In an appeal to the “Civilian population of the city of Yaroslavl”, signed by the latter, it was stated that “the Commission will transfer the headquarters as prisoners of war of the German Empire to its immediate superiors in Moscow, where everything will be given further.” What the vague wording “where everything else will be given” meant, it became clear the very next day. Balk handed over the entire headquarters of the rebels and many ordinary participants to the Soviet Emergency Headquarters of the Yaroslavl Front.

This is how Balk himself described his participation in the “Russian turmoil” in an interview with the Russian émigré newspaper Vozrozhdenie: “I know Russia well. Worked there for three years. There were twenty of us. Some were "taken prisoner", others - made their way in other ways. I myself - through Finland. Everyone spoke the language: many had lived in Russia before the war, and all had completed a second practical course before the trip. They trained me in more than one language: I probably knew by heart the plans and names of the streets of several cities where I was supposed to work. They also taught other things. Bauer himself (an intelligence officer of the German General Staff.—) did the last check and gave me instructions. R. G.). By his own order, upon arrival in Russia, I entered the direct jurisdiction of our agent (Major) Titz ... Before the Bolshevik coup, I worked in Kronstadt. I had two chief agents for the decomposition of personnel, who worked excellently at first, and then imagined themselves and in the end completely got out of hand - Mikhelson and Roshal (chairman of the Kronstadt city committee of the RSDLP (b) after February 1917.— R. G.). They were given in the summer of 1917 by the old revolutionary Natanson (M. Natanson, a populist revolutionary, one of the founders and a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, shared the Bolsheviks' belief in the need for the world war to develop into a civil one.— R. G.), with whom Bauer connected us even before the trip (I met Natanson in Zurich). After the October Revolution, for some time I was in the commandant's office of Smolny under the name of the former cornet Vasilevsky. Tietz, during the days of the coup, was in Moscow and there he set up shelling of the Kremlin - he is an artilleryman. Then I had to work with him: we pacified the Yaroslavl uprising. He personally directed the gunfire, I commanded the battery... We managed to knock down a lot of bell towers! I’ll boast: if it wasn’t for our organization, it’s still not known what the matter would have turned into! ”

What were the consequences for the country of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which even its creator Lenin called “obscene”?

- The conclusion in March 1918 of a peace treaty with the countries of the Quadruple Union, notorious to posterity as the Brest or "obscene" peace, was one of the first foreign policy steps of the Soviet government. The signing of peace allowed the Bolsheviks to retain power in the country in an extremely difficult situation for them and to subdue political opponents. But this agreement with an external enemy, with which Russia has waged a bitter struggle over the past four years, has cost the country dearly. According to the peace treaty ratified on March 15 by the IV Extraordinary Congress of Soviets, the Baltic states and part of Belarus were torn away from Russia; in Transcaucasia, Kars, Ardagan and Batum retreated to Turkey. Ukraine and Finland were recognized by Soviet Russia as independent states. The occupation was subject to the territory of the former Russian Empire with an area of ​​about 1 million km2, which was home to about a third of the total population of the country and located about half of the entire industry. In addition, the Council of People's Commissars undertook to demobilize the army (including the newly formed units of the Red Army), and the ships of the fleet were obliged to go to Russian ports and disarm. The customs tariffs of 1904, which were extremely disadvantageous for Russia, were also restored in favor of Germany.

But even more unfavorable for the country was the signing on August 27, 1918 in Berlin, in addition to the previously concluded Brest peace treaty, of a Russian-German treaty and a financial agreement, according to which Russia was guaranteed to pay Germany a military indemnity in the amount of 6 billion marks. In addition, Germany was provided with a quarter of the oil and oil products produced in Baku. Germany continued to occupy the Donetsk coal basin, while Russia was given the opportunity to receive coal in the amount of 3 tons per ton of oil and 4 tons per ton of gasoline. It also provided for the transfer to Germany of almost the entire combat strength of the Black Sea Fleet, including the most powerful and modern ships - the dreadnoughts "Empress Catherine the Great", "Emperor Alexander III", as well as destroyers of the "Novik" type, which could only be compared with a few ships of similar classes of foreign states.

- I would not like to end the conversation about the Great War with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Tell us, please, at least about some of the heroes of the First World War - after all, there were many of them, but they are remembered much worse than the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. Everyone knows about the Brest Fortress, but how many people know about Osovets? Everyone knows the name of Alexei Maresyev, but the name of Yuri Gilsher is unknown to most of our compatriots ...

- It is important and necessary to talk about the heroes of the First World War. In the pantheon of Russian glory, next to the defenders of the Brest Fortress, the defenders of the Osovets fortress, which held the siege of superior enemy forces from September 1914 to August 1915, withstanding several onslaughts of the enemy, should certainly stand up. Citizens of modern Russia, of course, should know the names of the first St. George Cavalier of the First World Don Cossack Kuzma Kryuchkov, who destroyed 11 Germans in an unequal cavalry battle, military pilot Yuri Gilsher, who returned to the army after amputation of his leg and continued to shoot down enemy aircraft in the sky (awarded next military orders, including St. George IV degree, he died heroically at the age of 22 in an unequal battle of two of our aircraft against 16 enemy aircraft), sister of mercy Rimma Ivanova, who led the soldiers left without officers in the attack and was mortally wounded. This list of heroes can be continued for a long time.

Heroism was shown by both officers and many ordinary soldiers. So, during the First World War, there were many escapes from captivity of both privates and officers. The order for the 3rd Cavalry Corps, given by its commander, General Count F. A. Keller in December 1915, is characteristic: “Today, Penzar, wounded in the battle near Kotuman and captured there, returned from Austrian captivity. The first time he fled from the city of Vienna, where he was brought by the Austrians. Near Budapest, he swam across the Danube and, hiding, walked 400 miles to the Romanian border, where he was again captured by the Austrians. Sent to work on the Serbian front, ensign Penzar fled again and returned to Russia through all of Serbia and Romania to his native regiment. Honor and glory to the brave lancer! May God give us more such heroes! I award Lieutenant Penzar as already having three degrees of the St. George Cross with the St. George Cross of the 1st degree and order him to be promoted to ensign. Behind a few lines of this order is the feat of a man who made the most difficult escape from enemy captivity, overcame several hundred kilometers in order to return to his regiment.

The example of the heroes of the First World War is extremely important for the patriotic education of young people. The fact that almost nothing was known about them from the school history course is our misfortune. It is good that in the historical and cultural standard of school education approved in early 2014 by the country's leadership, the First World War is finally given much more space than before. I hope that in the year of the centennial anniversary of its beginning, we will be able to get acquainted with a large number of good publications of modern historians, which will allow us to more fully present the picture of what was happening on its fronts, to get to know its heroes better.

Journal "Orthodoxy and Modernity" No. 29 (45)

Oksana Garkavenko

Good article about the First World War. In general, I respect Natalya Alekseevna Narochnitskaya and try not to miss her articles. Read it, it's interesting.

RUSSIA DEFENDED THE RESULTS OF ITS CENTURY-OLD HISTORY

Renowned historian Natalia Narochnitskaya reflects on the myths around the First World War and its significance for Russian identity

An unknown war... This is sometimes called one of the bloodiest conflicts in the history of mankind, which has become a period of serious trials for Russia. It was during the First World War that all the key contradictions of Russian history were highlighted, the once mighty Russian Empire was broken, destructive social forces came to the fore, and the prerequisites for the February and October revolutions finally ripened. Therefore, it is important for us to turn to the dramatic events of 1914-1918 in order not to repeat the mistakes of the past and maintain national unity in the face of any social cataclysms.

In the light of the approaching 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, which we will celebrate on August 1, 2014, NV is launching a new special project - The Great War. 1914-1918". Over the coming months, our newspaper will publish articles by historians, philosophers, military experts and various archival materials related to one of the largest armed conflicts of the 20th century. The cycle of publications opens with reflections of Doctor of Historical Sciences, President of the Historical Perspective Foundation Natalia Alekseevna NAROCHONITSKA.

On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the First World War, we have to state with regret that the memory of this most important event for our country occupies an undeservedly modest place in the Russian historical consciousness. What is the reason? Of course, the role was played by the fact that the First World War was overshadowed by two revolutions in Russia and the Great Patriotic War, the Great Victory of May 1945, obtained by national super-effort unprecedented in history. However, in terms of the degree of influence on the further course of Russian and world history, the events of 1914-1918 are of tremendous importance, predetermining the future World War II.

But the main reason for the undeserved oblivion of the First World War in the domestic consciousness is that it was subjected to distorted ideological interpretations in Soviet times. If you look at school and college history textbooks since the 1920s, they characterize this war as “imperialist”, “unjust” and “unnecessary for the people”.

The reason is obvious. In line with the revolutionary historical "Pokrovsky school" and the Institute of Red Professors, which laid down a class approach to history, everything that happened before the revolution was declared an archaic struggle for false and hostile "working" interests. And most importantly, it was necessary to justify Lenin's slogan: "The defeat of one's own government in the war" - the catalyst for the world proletarian revolution. This morally dubious thesis could only be justified by declaring World War I a "criminal imperialist massacre."

Not surprisingly, after decades of indoctrination, the memory of the First World War has been largely erased from the Russian historical consciousness. We almost do not remember and do not honor the heroes who fell in battles for the honor and dignity of the Fatherland. Except that Alexei Brusilov is occasionally mentioned, and even then thanks to his later going over to the side of the Bolsheviks. We almost completely lack monuments related to the events of 1914-1918. Rare exceptions are a stela erected in 2008 in Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg and a memorial stone in the Kaliningrad region on the miraculously preserved mass graves of participants in fierce battles in their history.

Today, in connection with the approaching centenary of the First World War, there is an occasion to learn how to view this “second Patriotic War” from a panoramic view, while maintaining ownership and not varnishing anything. It is necessary to carefully restore the memory of those events, revising ideologically motivated assessments. And for this, first of all, we have to dispel the most stable and destructive myths that prevent us from appreciating the feat of our ancestors and realizing the true significance of the events of 1914-1918 for the history of Russia.

But what myths are we talking about?
Myth number 1. Russia should not have gotten involved in this war
Some dashing "specialists" in history like to replicate the thesis: "Russia's participation in the First World War is stupidity and a tragic mistake that could have been avoided." Or: "We should not have intervened in this massacre for the sake of saving Serbia." What can you say? One cannot get rid of the impression that such assessments are a mixture of naivety and self-confident desire to put forward an antithesis to the dominant point of view.

Being one of the most active participants in the "European Concert of Powers", Russia could not remain aloof from the events of such magnitude that unfolded right at its borders and in the region of its responsibility and security - in the Balkans and in the Straits (Bosphorus and Dardanelles. - Note ed. .). And the point is not at all in the "imperialist" desire to get new markets and the idea falsely attributed to Russia to seize Constantinople. Russia had its own, not yet mastered, domestic market, which promised to become European in scale, and therefore was not in a state of acute economic rivalry with other states.

And our country had no territorial claims at all. The specific goal of capturing Constantinople was never set either. Yes, there was a dream - to erect an Orthodox cross on St. Sophia! (Looking at how the Turks today do not hesitate to celebrate the enslavement of Constantinople with salutes, you involuntarily daydream about it ...) But geopolitically, this would be necessary only so that we could not block the Straits. At the same time, Russia has always realized that capturing Tsargrad is practically impossible and would cause such a unanimous rejection of the leading Western European powers, especially England, that no fabulous military power would have helped to overcome.

There is only a note from the diplomat Alexander Nelidov to the sovereign dated 1896, where he reflects on the chance and possibility of capturing Constantinople. This note was "sucked" by the accusers of the "aggressive policy of tsarism" from the Institute of Red Professors. However, the fact is that at the ministerial meeting it caused a purely negative attitude! The sovereign himself left a note: "IF it were possible!" At the meeting, they discussed the danger for Russia of a crisis in Ottoman Turkey, which would immediately cause the fleets of the Western European powers to enter the Bosphorus. Given such a development of events, the task was set to at least be in time with everyone, so as not to be ousted!

According to the documents, and not conjectures, the question of Constantinople began to be considered again already during the war. In 1915, when the question arose between Britain and France of the division of the Arabian possessions of Turkey and the protection of the Orthodox in the former Turkish territories, England, by the way, had already bargained for control over the oil-bearing Mosul and Kuwait. So the concern for "democracy in Iraq" has a very old and very mercantile background! Russia then began to probe the possibilities of a strong and responsible presence in Constantinople. But the achievable configuration was seen not by individual, again, but by international control, "but with Russian guns on the Bosphorus." By the way, some historians believe that after agreeing to this option, England begins to finance the revolution in Russia in order not to fulfill its promise ...

By the beginning of the 20th century, strategic aspirations converged on the European maritime borders of Russia in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and remained until the beginning of the 21st century. The interests of the emerging triangle of Britain, Russia and Germany clashed in the Balkans, in the Straits region, as well as in the Baltic, where Germany was attracted by its ambitions in the East and where, after the First World War, the interests of Britain and the United States immediately manifested themselves.

The inevitability of Russia's involvement in the First World War was determined by the critical need to protect the results of its centuries-old history! She was threatened with the loss of the results of three hundred years of work on the northwestern and southern borders, strategic outlets to the Baltic and Black Seas, and the loss of the right to pass through the straits. It is not for nothing that the outstanding Russian diplomat Alexander Gorchakov once said that the Black Sea straits are light powers, by blocking which it is easy to strangle Russia.

The Central Powers, led by Kaiser's Germany, were simultaneously striving for "Drang nach Osten" and "nach Süden" - dreaming of access to the warm Mediterranean Sea through the Balkans and of ousting Russia from the Baltic and from the Straits region. The success of such a plan would allow the Germans to cut Europe along the strategic meridian from sea to sea, pushing Russia into the tundra and the French into the Atlantic. Kaiser Wilhelm intensively built the fleet and the Berlin-Baghdad railway, which threatened to devalue the sea routes of England to the oil regions of the Middle East.

Of course, Russia could not watch these events indifferently, because such a prospect would mean the end of the status of a great power and the subsequent loss of independence. As for supporting the same-faith Serbia, we could not leave it to the mercy of fate, not only for religious, but also for strategic reasons. In the event of its capture, we would have to meet the war that we did not start in more unfavorable conditions - the capture of the Balkans would create a strategic foothold, and the Kaiser would create a “Berlin Caliphate”, becoming the gatekeeper of the Straits instead of the Turkish Sultan. And do not forget that Germany declared war on Russia, and not vice versa!
Myth No. 2. Russia's actions were driven only by geopolitics
However, the movement towards the First World War, in addition to purely geopolitical goals, also had ideological underpinnings. A huge number of communist, social-democratic, Masonic, liberal organizations did not think about national interests, but dreamed of the collapse of political systems and traditions in order to bring the world to a single model on the ruins of the old world. Representatives of these "progressive" circles were distinguished by a fierce hostility to the church, Christianity, traditional values, the monarchy and state sovereignty - all that they considered attributes of the "gloomy past".

Moreover, such ideas were equally inherent not only to the Bolsheviks with their project of the proletarian international. Countless secret societies directly counted that the bloody clashes would turn Europe into a "blank slate", on which, after the collapse of the Christian monarchies, it would be possible to draw new ideological postulates of the future world.

Of course, Russia could not remain aloof from these processes either. Being an Orthodox monarchy, during the First World War it defended the ideals of traditional Europe - classical international law, national sovereignty, religious and family values. Even the formation of a Franco-Russian alliance for Russia - a stronghold of Christian statehood - was hampered by the republican status of "godless" France, which had to be made "ally capable" in the eyes of Russia! For the sake of rapprochement between Paris and St. Petersburg, the Vatican had to work hard, for which the emergence of a Russian-French alliance was a desirable scenario. At his suggestion, the cardinals began to sing toasts to the French Republic, which, by the way, shocked many devout Catholics.

Russia was not looking for war, that's a fact. At the origins of the idea of ​​disarmament, international peacemaking efforts and arbitration was the Russian Emperor Nicholas II, driven by a deep awareness of the coming era, when war became not a continuation of politics by other means, but the greatest world disaster, the death of millions of people, which made even victory meaningless. And unlike US President Woodrow Wilson, who, with his XIV Point Program, masked the task of dictating his terms through international mechanisms from the standpoint of his enormously increased power, there was nothing of the kind in the mind of the noble sovereign.

Thus, Russia in the First World War fought for its borders, for their security, for its already acquired access to the sea, for the sovereignty, faith and fate of Christians.
Myth No. 3. Russia should have taken the side not of the Entente, but of Germany
Another popular myth is that during the First World War, Nicholas II allegedly chose the wrong ally, which ultimately led to the national tragedy of 1917. Russia, de, should have fought on the side of Germany, not the Entente! Some believe in their fantasies that Russia was ready during the war for a separate peace with Germany... Of course, today one can only lament that Russian-German relations in the 20th century were blown up by two terrible campaigns of the Germans to the East. After all, fruitful cooperation has taken place between Russia and Germany over the centuries. It is not for nothing that a persistent, albeit small, Slavophile trend persists in German culture today.

But conjectures do not stand up to scrutiny. It is impossible to ignore the fact that the main geopolitical ambitions of Germany lay precisely in the East. Yes, the legendary Otto von Bismarck bequeathed in no case to fight with Russia. His words are known: "We have no enemies in the East." But for some reason, the German militaristic circles, these chicks of the Bismarck's nest, looked only to the East, forgetting about the wise warnings of the "Iron Chancellor".

Already twenty years before the First World War, a secret note by a prominent diplomat, future Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow wrote: “In a future war, we must push Russia away from Pontus Euxine and the Baltic Sea. From the two seas that gave her the position of a great power. We must destroy its economic positions for at least 30 years, bomb its coasts.” What does it say? The war with Russia was considered inevitable in Berlin back in the nineties of the XIX century!

Known are the views of Kaiser Wilhelm, who hated the Slavs, speeches in the Bundestag, the geopolitical doctrine of Friedrich Naumann, which testify to the territorial ambitions of Kaiser Germany precisely in the east of Europe and in relation to the Russian Empire. There is a pan-Germanist map of 1911 (by the way, it is very similar to the map of NATO expansion to the East), on which the super-German formation includes the Baltic possessions of Russia, Ukraine, all of Eastern Europe, the Balkans to the Black Sea. Finally, it is impossible not to recall the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk concluded by the Bolsheviks: it shows for what purposes Berlin waged war.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the exorbitant ambitions of Austria-Hungary and Germany led to the collapse of the Kaiser's Germany and Austria-Hungary. The lesson was not learned, and Hitler repeated the suicidal onslaught. In Germany, some minds still wonder how a gifted and booming nation with gigantic cultural potential could be blinded by monstrous ambitions and misguided geopolitical calculations? In his memoirs, the penultimate tsarist foreign minister, S. D. Sazonov, believed that, if the Germans did not consider themselves masters of the world at the beginning of the 20th century, their rapid economic growth, the talent of industrialists and engineers, coupled with the ability to work effectively on their own, already in a dozen years put forward Germany would take the first roles in Europe.

However, the rapprochement between Russia and Germany - a factor in the stability of continental Europe - has been a real nightmare for the Anglo-Saxons from the beginning of the 20th century up to the present. America created the same NATO bloc not only against the USSR, which did not at all seek to move into Western Europe, barely coping with the acquired zone of control in Eastern Europe. One of the goals of European integration was to dissolve and fetter the historical potential and will of Germany.
Myth number 4. Russia fought unsuccessfully
Another “class” assessment from Soviet textbooks is widely known: “Russia in 1914 was a stagnating despotism, lagging behind in comparison with other great powers and doomed to defeat.” However, experts proved on documents that acute difficulties in the economy and finances during the war were not an exclusively Russian phenomenon. Currency devaluation, rising public debt, the food crisis and the rationing system - all these phenomena were observed in other countries participating in the war, including Germany and Great Britain. Russia's position was by no means worse than others.

A separate conversation is prejudices about the Russian army, which allegedly did not know how to fight and, with rare exceptions, acted unsuccessfully. The most victorious armed forces are not immune from mistakes and defeats. As for the unsuccessful offensive in East Prussia at the very beginning of the war, it was undertaken by Russia in response to the pleas of the French government. The words of Marshal Ferdinand Foch are well known: "If it were not for the sacrificial performance of the Russians on the Eastern Front, then Paris would have been taken already in the very first months of the war."

Yes, Russia did not want war and met the First World War in far from the best shape, being weakened by the revolution of 1905-1907 and the Russo-Japanese War. She was just beginning to recover from the crises, and her military was in the process of being upgraded.

Nevertheless, it was on the Eastern Front that the final victory was ensured! Russia showed the strength of its national character and fidelity to obligations, our soldiers and officers showed miracles of valor and selfless service to the oath even after the collapse of the Russian Empire (Russian Expeditionary Force in France). And many operations were included in textbooks as examples of military-strategic art, for example, the famous Brusilovsky breakthrough. But even the generally unsuccessful offensive in East Prussia made possible the victory of the French on the Marne in September and predetermined the strategic configuration in the subsequent years of the war. In general, the victory of the Entente was paid for with Russian blood.
Myth No. 5. Russia was defeated
This conclusion is a clear simplification. Yes, it was during the First World War that the prerequisites for the February and October revolutions ripened, which became a national tragedy for our country. However, Russia cannot be considered defeated. Another thing is that the country was unable to take advantage of the fruits of its victory after the Bolsheviks came to power, who took it out of the cohort of winners and left the drawing of the new world at the mercy of the Entente.

No wonder Winston Churchill wrote in those years: “We can measure the strength of the Russian Empire by the blows that she endured, by the disasters that she survived ... Holding the victory already in her hands, she fell to the ground alive, devoured by worms.”

In this regard, the question arises: why did the powerful patriotic upsurge at the beginning of the war give way after some time to skepticism, fatigue, defeatism and revolutionary fever?

Of course, the sharp change in the perception of the First World War by Russian society is largely due to its protracted nature. Lasting for months away from the Motherland, the war inevitably dulls the initial impulse. Numerous victims in a foreign land, hardships cannot pass without a trace. The justification for the war was the preservation of traditional values, the honor and dignity of the state. Such eternal old ideals can inspire at the beginning of the war, but then they begin to lose out to fierce, concrete slogans. We are talking about anti-monarchist, pacifist and revolutionary ideas. Their propagandists trumpeted the "uselessness of war" and called for revolution.

Internal furious denunciations are always very helpful to the enemy, who did not stand aside and actively sponsored revolutionary activities. The German leadership was interested in supporting the most radical forces in Russia. With my own eyes I saw a photocopy of a telegram from the German and Austrian archives, which Kaiser Wilhelm read out at breakfast: “The transfer of Lenin to Russia was successful. Starts the intended activity. And in the State Archives of the Russian Federation there is a document - a receipt for receiving five million gold marks for the activities of the Bolsheviks. The German archives also contain orders “to allocate 10, then 15, 20 million gold marks under article 6 of the emergency budget for revolutionary activities in Russia.

Thanks to generous financial injections, the Bolsheviks, Social Revolutionaries and separatists received great opportunities. Their agitators permeated the army, which after the February Revolution was "democratized" to such an extent that the officers actually lost control over the soldiers. As a result, one agitator was enough for one regiment to decompose the spirit and discipline to the point of insubordination.

However, I am not one of those who believes that it is possible to bring the revolution from outside. However, when the country is tottering, external influence is of great importance for which forces will prevail ...

The two Russian revolutions of 1917 were the result of those deep processes that began to tear Russia apart at the beginning of the 20th century. The revolutionary intelligentsia at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries demanded tracing papers from Western European institutions born of the philosophy of progress, which did not go well with the religious foundation of the Russian state idea and the Russian autocracy, which, without the support of the elite and separated from the people, lost its creative potential. The extreme nihilism of the Russian intelligentsia prompted it to ruthlessly trample on everything that Russia defended in the First World War - the Orthodox faith, the monarchy, the tradition of law-abiding, the ideals of serving the Fatherland.

The first crisis, exacerbated by economic realities and the Russo-Japanese War, ended with the first Russian revolution, the October 17 Manifesto, and constitutional reforms. Why, then, was the ten-year activity of the State Duma of the Russian Empire unable to prevent the February Revolution and the October Revolution? But did the deputies and parties of those convocations of the Duma want to prevent this? They, not only the left radicals - the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, but also the Cadets, liberals of all stripes - wanted to destroy, not to build. In the last years before the First World War, Russia developed by leaps and bounds. In steelmaking, railway construction, book printing, and the number of students per capita, Russia was already catching up with Germany. But the rapid modernization tore the social fabric, it burst from overexertion, and the conservative peasantry, falling out of its world, did not find new social ties. There was a massive lumpenization of the population, and the lumpen were easy prey for revolutionary propaganda. The revolutionary explosion was in no small measure prepared for by too rapid changes. You can't pour new wine into old wineskins!

And the former (only?) Duma members needed a tribune to exacerbate social antagonisms, and not to protect the state - they learned to appreciate it only in exile. It was the great reformer Stolypin who threw it at them: “You need great upheavals, but we need great Russia!”

While the Russian army was shedding blood for the territorial integrity of the Fatherland, hysterics were shouting from the rostrum against the “incomprehensible war” and the “decayed” army in favor of separatists of all stripes (do you know?) Often paid from abroad by the oligarch and the first political strategist of the revolution Parvus on means of the General Staff of Kaiser Germany.

There were all the signs of a crisis era, when people in the ecstasy of change begin to break the core on which everything rests. And this passion for self-destruction befell the Russian Empire at the height of the First World War, when Russia actually held the victory in its hands.

Summary

The memory of the First World War is important for Russian society because it allows us to understand very important and fundamental things: “What did we have to fight for in the 20th century? What goals and values ​​of national existence do we need to defend in order to continue ourselves in history? After all, at the beginning of the 20th century, Russia faced such internal political and geopolitical challenges that miraculously recurred at the turn of the 21st century. Restoring the historical memory of the war of 1914-1918 can awaken the lost sense of the continuity of our history and protect us from repeating mistakes.

Perhaps one of the main lessons of the First World War lies in one obvious, but bitter truth: it is impossible to unleash disputes about the structure of the state in the rear of a domestic war with an external enemy. A nation that is able to postpone such disputes for the sake of preserving the Fatherland wins and continues itself in history, retains the opportunity to argue further. If a nation splits at a turning point, then this inevitably leads to the collapse of statehood, huge losses and fratricidal civil clashes.

The outcome of our sacrifice in World War I teaches us that external challenges must unite a nation. It is sinful and vile to use difficulties for internal political purposes. In addition, many processes that are painful for us today (NATO expansion) are easier to understand, knowing the geopolitical and ideological background of the First World War, especially since the forceful arrows of pressure on Russia during that war were miraculously repeated in the 1990s.

We still cannot find unity on many issues of the past, present and future, which is very dangerous for the nation. But if, holding on to the thread of history, we return to 1914, then we again become a single people without a tragic split. Therefore, we must study the First World War in a new way, which will give us both a vision of the geopolitics of the twentieth century and examples of the boundless valor, courage and self-sacrifice of the Russian people. Only those who know history are able to adequately meet the challenges of the future.

// Prepared by Mikhail Tyurkin, Ekaterina Portnova

Report at the scientific-practical conference "War, mortally dangerous for Russia ...", held on October 27-28, 2008 by the Foundation for Historical Perspective in conjunction with the Library-Foundation "Russian Abroad".

“According to the superficial fashion of our time,” wrote Churchill, “it is customary to interpret the tsarist system as a blind, rotten tyranny. But the analysis of 30 months of war with Germany and Austria should have corrected these lightweight ideas. We can measure the strength of the Russian Empire by the blows it endured, by the disasters it endured, by the inexhaustible forces it developed... Holding the victory already in its hands, it fell to the ground alive, being devoured by worms.”

Even judging by this statement, it is hard not to notice how much our historiography lacks a deep understanding of the First World War. Russian Soviet and post-Soviet historiography, unfortunately, did not pay attention to many aspects that led to the war. And not so much because of scientific negligence - there are examples of excellent work of scientists on documents - but because of some ideological constraint. Naturally, the paradigm of understanding historical processes at that time was mainly aimed at highlighting those that, one way or another, promoted the world to change the former socio-political system. Concepts such as "national interests" in relation to the people as a nation - when rich and poor, old and young, man and woman - all feel like a single whole, a single successively living organism with common goals, historical experiences, in the Soviet historiographies were not encouraged. And therefore, taking into account the huge research work that, in spite of everything, Russian science did in the Soviet era, today it is necessary to look at this period in a new way, through a different prism.
First of all, it must be emphasized that the Russian army during the First World War, or the Second Patriotic War, as it was called at that time, was truly popular. Moreover, it was much more popular than any armies of today's democratic countries, where the elites shy away from serving in them, and the backbone is made up of those who simply cannot realize themselves in other areas. In the Russian army of that time, only half of the officers consisted of the nobility. The officers were also people of other classes. They were promoted to the highest military ranks from privates for such awards as four St. George Crosses, which my grandfather was awarded.

The question of the inevitability of the First World War is, of course, rhetorical. Too many powerful forces were interested in it: from governments dreaming of a redistribution of the world, revolutionaries, all kinds of internationals, enemies of the Christian church to the Vatican itself, which, together with England, intrigued against its own spiritual daughter - the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

A stolen victory or a new look at the First World War. Cycle "Tsarist Russia"

Documentary film from the cycle Tsarist Russia. Two and a half million Russian soldiers and officers gave their lives for Russia in the 1914 war. But so far, our country has not erected a single monument to them. After the revolution of 1917, the exploits and sacrifices of millions of Russian people were consigned to oblivion, all military graves of those times were destroyed, and the events of the First World War, until recently, were presented in Russian history only as a prologue to the great October Socialist Revolution ...

But the main strategic aspirations by the beginning of the twentieth century converged on the European maritime borders of Russia, in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The interests of the formed triangle - Britain, Russia and Germany - clashed in the Balkans, the Black Sea region, the straits region, and the Baltic.

Doesn't this remind us of today's realities? Don't we now see a reflection of those very contradictions - the pushing of Russia away from the Baltic, from the Black Sea, from the region of the straits, which have now become naval approaches to the main region of the world's resources, to the ways of transporting hydrocarbons.

For Russia at that moment it was absolutely impossible to stand aside, because its entire three-hundred-year history was collapsing. The subsequent events of the 20th century prompt us to appreciate the wisdom of the notorious note of Pyotr Nikolaevich Durnovo (he would later be characterized by Soviet historiography as an arch-reactionary) addressed to the Sovereign on the eve of the war, literally on the eve of it. This note shows that Durnovo foresaw both the revolution and literally everything that Russia would survive. And most importantly, here are these words of Durnovo: “Any sacrifices and the main burden of the war that will fall on us, and the role of a battering ram prepared for Russia, punching a hole in the thickness of the German defense, will be in vain. For we are fighting on the side of our geopolitical adversary - Great Britain, which will not allow any serious gains.

The little-known telegrams of Nicholas II to his dear "cousin Willy" - the German Kaiser Wilhelm II - speak of the fact that Russia, after the Sarajevo assassination, tried with all its might to refrain from war. For example, this: “A shameful war has been declared on a weak country ... I foresee that very soon, yielding to the pressure exerted on me, I will be forced to take extreme measures ... In an effort to prevent such a disaster as a European war, I implore you, in the name of our old friendship, do everything you can to prevent your allies from going too far."

A few years earlier, shortly after the Bosnian crisis, the chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, F. Conrad von Hötzendorf, noted that the invasion of Serbia by Austria would undoubtedly cause a speech on the side of the first Russia. And then casus foederis will come for Germany - a reason for fulfilling allied obligations.

And 15 years before the First World War, the well-known politician of Kaiser Germany B. von Bülow, who became chancellor in 1906, wrote in his notes: “In a future war, we must push Russia away from Pontus Euxine and the Baltic Sea. From the two seas that gave her the position of a great power. We have to destroy its economic positions for at least 30 years, bomb its coasts.” Such documents make it meaningless to ornate that the war, as the Bolsheviks wrote in their leaflets, was unnecessary, vain and incomprehensible.
Each of the internal political forces, despising the common interests and the fate of their own Fatherland, sought to extract only political benefits from the war. Therefore, the First World War, even by the alignment of these internal political forces, is a good lesson for today's politicians.
The aggravation of the contradictions between the states was brought to its apogee by a monstrous campaign against each other in the press, including the Russian one. The tsarist minister Sazonov condemned the “Germanism” of the Russian press, but it was incomparable with the Russophobic hysteria that began in the Prussian newspapers. This we must not forget.

The German historical impulse towards the redivision of the world is usually associated with the name of the "Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck, who left something like a political testament, writing: "We have no enemies in the East." But it was precisely Otto von Bismarck who understood perfectly well: it is impossible to conquer Russia! A war with Russia is absolutely impossible: it will be long, protracted, and in the end it will be lost.

After Bismarck, the creator of a strong Germany, all further development of the political situation in the country went under the halo of his name. But the impulse that has formed in relation to the East and the Slavs, of course, makes one think about how unbridled ambition leads, ultimately, only to losses. An example of this is the fate of Germany and Austria after the First and Second World Wars. And this, too, must always be remembered.

As for the Anglo-German contradictions, it is impossible not to notice how they are obscured by Western historiography. In fact, the Anglo-German rivalry has greatly colored international relations since the early 20th century, including the post-World War II period. However, this circumstance escaped the field of view of Soviet historiography, which considered the entire non-socialist, capitalist world as something unified.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Russia, by its mere existence within its newly acquired borders, represented an unconditional new force - a force that was considered by Britain as a direct threat to its interests. How many British newspapers wrote that "the Cossack cavalry is about to cross the Pamirs (presumably, crossing the Hindu Kush), and invade the possessions of Britain in India"!
The contradictions between England and Russia, which, according to all estimates, at the end of the 19th century should have led to some kind of Anglo-Russian clash, were then vied with each other by both journalism and serious analytics.

However, completely different configurations began to take shape. And the beginning of such changes, according to documentarians, was laid by a letter from the Russian ambassador in Paris, Baron A.P. Morenheim, dated 1886. He, to the surprise of the Russian Central Office, reported that in the event of a possible clash between France and Germany, England would support France. And this is after three centuries of containment by Britain of its main rival on the continent - France!

There is nothing paradoxical in the fact that Bismarck, too, partly owes the first successes of his policy to the benevolent attitude of Britain. But his calculations on the longevity of this benevolence were shortsighted. The policy of England changed as soon as Germany began to take shape as the leading Central European, and then the world's highly industrial and military power.

But in order to contain Germany or prevent her rise, English naval power was not enough. As British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray said, for continental countries such as Russia and Germany, defeats at sea are not catastrophic. And in order for the defeat to be serious, a continental war between continental opponents is needed.

Thus, there is an obvious interest of Britain in a clash between Russia and the Central Powers, which, of course, does not remove responsibility from other participants in the conflict.
This is an extremely interesting topic, and little research has been done on it. The same, for example, can be said about such a component of the world cataclysm as the religious and philosophical confrontation - the task of destroying the last Christian monarchies in Europe, the complete change of the state concept to rationalistic secular states. For such a “trifle” as the religious and philosophical foundations of history was not present in the scientific thinking of even the most venerable historians.

Of course, historians must not fall into marginalism and be careful in their assessments, avoiding vulgar journalistic clichés about the "Masonic conspiracy" and so on. Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the fact that a huge number of movements, organizations of an ideological, as they would say today, ideological sense did not sympathize with their own governments, but with some idea of ​​​​bringing the world to an ideal model, born from the rationalistic consciousness of the philosophy of progress, which from the inside corrupted national communities. .

So, for example, in the Franco-Prussian war, all French liberals supported Prussia only because Protestant Prussia was for them a symbol of progress compared to backward Catholic France. Documents testify to this.
It is no coincidence that one of the patriarchs of British Balkan studies at the beginning of the 20th century, R.W. Seton-Watson (known for a number of serious works on the Eastern Question - one of the burning topics related to the redivision of the world at the end of the 19th century) wrote that the First World War was at the same time the redivision of the world, and the revolutions of 1789 and 1848! He does not mention the theme of the revolution of 1917, because he has in mind the shaking of the world with the ideas of overthrowing the monarchy and establishing secular republics.

On the maps of the "future", which were published by strategists 24 years before the First World War, Europe is very similar to today's. Instead of Christian monarchies, there are secular republics, Bohemia is separated from Austria, Germany is dismembered... In the caricature of that time, all Christian monarchs are depicted being driven to the police station under a Jacobin red cap.

Another map has also been preserved, where instead of Russia it is indicated: "desert". Obviously, this was not a desert project in the sense of the destruction of the population, it was a dream to deprive Russia of the role of a system-forming element and turn its territory into material for the historical projects of others.

It can be said that the First World War, with the triangle of Anglo-German-Russian contradictions, with the collapse of Russia and the drama of the revolution, led to the fact that the twentieth century became, of course, the century of the Anglo-Saxons. Everything that the German potential failed during the two world wars was excellently accomplished by the Anglo-Saxons, creating a buffer between the Slavs and the Teutons from small non-independent states from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, thereby again dividing Europe.
I must say that the projects of the post-war world, developed at the Versailles Conference, also need a new understanding with the study of archives and documentary publications. This is prompted even by touching the materials and transcripts of the "Council of Ten" of the Paris Conference, which, in fact, developed the Treaty of Versailles. The Inquiery group, led by Colonel House, that unofficial head of American foreign policy, the alter ego of President Thomas Woodrow Wilson, played a huge role in this future world project.

But this is not even amazing, but the fact that every day began with reading telephone messages from M. Litvinov, a representative of the Bolsheviks, who, having settled quietly in Stockholm, was an unofficial ambassador of the Bolshevik government and was in constant contact with the Anglo-Saxon arbitrators of the Versailles Treaty. Litvinov, in one of his telephone messages, even suggested the annexation of some Russian territories in exchange for the fact that the Entente would withdraw its troops from Arkhangelsk and from the northern territories, surrendering the White Army to the mercy of the Red.

At the same time, at the Versailles Conference, those configurations that were beneficial to Britain were obviously being laid. She could not come to terms with the acquisitions of Peter the Great in the Baltic. Already at Versailles, everything was done to consolidate the loss of the Baltic states by revolutionary Russia.
Documents and records of negotiations give rise to the feeling that the Bolsheviks then “surrendered” the Baltic states. And that is why the United States did not fully recognize the restoration of the Baltic republics as part of the USSR. Although until 1917 no one disputed the belonging of these territories to historical Russia. Obviously, the West believed that it was possible to "stand" on what had once been promised by the self-proclaimed authorities of the country, let's note, then they were not even recognized by the West and did not control the entire territory.

S. Sazonov, in his memoirs of the First World War, published in 1925, predicted: “What the international imposed on the Russian people for the rejection of the debt of honor and the renunciation of the covenants of history, it will become clear only to future generations.” And, decades later, in 1991, we experienced a parade of sovereignties that counted their independence precisely from 1918 ...

It is to our contemporaries that history shows what the shameful Treaty of Brest really meant for Russia. Then, with one stroke of the pen, Russia lost everything for which she shed blood in World War I and for which Soviet soldiers shed blood later in the Great Patriotic War.

“Deadly dangerous for Russia,” Durnovo called the imminent world war. He perfectly imagined that the war, in the economic conditions in which Russia found itself, would certainly lead to a revolution, and the revolution would spread to Russia's rival, Germany. And so it happened. The victory of Germany will destroy the German economy, Durnovo wrote in his note to the Sovereign, and the victory of Russia - the Russian economy. No one will be able to compensate for the damage with reparations. But the main thing is that the peace treaty, in case of victory, will be dictated by the interests of England, which will not allow any important territorial acquisitions by Russia, except, perhaps, Galicia. And then P. Durnovo warned: “Only a madman can annex Galicia. Whoever annexes Galicia will lose the empire and Russia itself will become a small Russia. His foresight is amazing, because this is exactly what happened in our time, in the late 1990s.

Stalin annexed Galicia, forgetting that since 1349 it did not share the fate with Orthodox Ukraine and is a completely different cultural and historical type, in which the self-identification of a Ukrainian is “anti-Moscovitism”. We are seeing the consequences of this thoughtless step today. The current position of Poland, eternally restless when it comes to the harm to Russia, is quite understandable to those who are well aware of the works of Polish Pan-Germanists, published in Krakow, in Austria-Hungary on the eve and during the First World War.

True, the founder of the Institute of Red Professors and Vulgar Class Sociology in Historical Science M. Pokrovsky argues that “the German predator was still smaller and lower in flight than its rivals, and the war was directly provoked by the Russian party and the Serbian military, who even months before it began were preparing for the partition of Austria-Hungary" and, as Pokrovsky hints, were behind the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. He makes no mention of the German project Mitteleuropa, based on the doctrine and writings of Pan-Germanists such as Friedrich Naumann, who openly preached in the Reichstag and were actively published in Berlin and Vienna.
It was about creating a German superstate with varying degrees of state unity between foreign territories included in it, up to the straits and Baghdad. Sazonov called this project the "Berlin Caliphate", in which the Kaiser became the "gatekeeper of the straits" instead of the Turkish Sultan.

The pro-German Poles echoed this doctrine. Von Strazhevsky, a professor at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, considered it a historical axiom that "Russia, pushed aside in the Pacific Ocean, seized on the predatory Near-Asian and pan-Slavist plans that Poland interfered with." According to him, "with its thousand-year belonging to Western European Christian culture in all areas of public life," Poland stands immeasurably higher than Russia, which, with its Byzantine-Asiatic character, is "the most important enemy of all European culture."

It is not out of place to recall how already today, in his interview in September 2005, the well-known modern Polish historian Pavel Vecherkovich expressed regret that Poland did not agree with Hitler. Then she would have taken part in the parade of the victorious Polish-German troops on Red Square. Terminology and thinking has not changed since the First World War: Russia is the "northern bear", the direct heir to the conquest aspirations of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan.

However, we must remember that "the opinion of Poland about Russia," as Engels wrote to Vera Zasulich in the nineteenth century, "is the opinion of the West."

Historiography, its tone and accents in the 20th century surprisingly change depending on the ideological and worldview paradigm. During the Cold War, even in historical writings, they begin to accuse Russia of allegedly being the main culprit in unleashing the First World War. The documents, however, say otherwise. Even at the Versailles Conference, when it seemed that all the blame could be laid on the absent Russia, the commission to establish responsibility for the outbreak of the war categorically decided: The First World War was unleashed for the sake of redistributing the world precisely by the Central Powers and their satellites.

Russian scientists today urgently need to initiate major historical conferences with Western colleagues. In the scientific community, which can be seen by working abroad, in principle there is much more decency and objectivity, a willingness to admit the truth of facts and documents, than in the Western press. Discussions in serious audiences are both interesting and fruitful.

However, unfortunately, the achievements of Western European science itself are not always reflected in textbooks. They still suggest between the lines that Russia is a loser in world history.
And in Russia itself, inattention to the study of the period of the First World War led to significant distortions in the historical consciousness of society. But the lack of successive historical consciousness is a weakness of any state. When a nation cannot find agreement on any issue of the past, present and future, it is unable to realize its historical interests and easily succumbs to alien projects and ideas. But navigable rivers and ice-free ports, access to the sea are equally necessary for the monarchies of the 18th century and the republics of the 20th, communist regimes and democracies of the 21st.

The split in society before the First World War largely predetermined the losses and losses that we suffered after the revolution. Russian people, instead of, as stated in the manifesto of Nicholas II, "to repel, having risen as one person, the daring onslaught of the enemy", forgetting all internal strife, on the contrary, they drowned in many-voiced disputes about the structure of the state, betraying the Fatherland, without which, by definition, maybe no state.

The results of the First World War laid the balance of power of the twentieth century - the century of the Anglo-Saxons, which Germany wanted to break, stung by the results of the Versailles Conference. After all, when the text of the Versailles Peace Treaty was made public, it was a shock for the Germans. But instead of understanding their sins and errors, ups and downs, they gave birth to the Hitlerite doctrine of the natural heterogeneity of people and nations, the rationale for unbridled expansion, which finally discredited the German historical impulse in the eyes of the world to the great satisfaction of Britain and the United States. The Anglo-Saxons forever "ordered" the Germans the idea of ​​the unity of all German lands, which is now a nightmare for the politically correct historical consciousness.

In the age of universal human values ​​and computerization, when the microchip supplanted Shakespeare, Goethe and Dostoevsky, the factor of strength, the ability to influence, as we see, remains the basis of strategic control over territories, resource-rich regions and sea approaches to them. This is evidenced by the politics of the great powers in the beginning of the 21st century, although these powers prefer to think of themselves as "great democracies". However, in international relations there is much less democracy than successive geopolitical constants.
In the 1990s, Russia temporarily renounced the sense of its geopolitical mission, discarded all the traditional foundations of its foreign policy. And while its political elite reveled in the "new thinking", the whole world willingly took advantage of the old one.

The lines of force that are now pushing Russia to the northeast of Eurasia are surprisingly similar to those that appeared before the First World War. This is the throwing of Russia into the tundra, away from the Baltic, from the Black Sea, this is the rejection of the Caucasus, this is an Eastern question that by no means remained in the 19th century.

It was these traditional configurations that were the main content of international contradictions throughout the 20th century, despite the external side - the rivalry between communism and liberalism. The strategic points of the planet have been the subject of the most dramatic clashes on both the diplomatic and military levels. There is nothing new in this world. But only those who know history well are able to adequately meet the challenges of the future.

Notes:
Churchill W. The World Crisis. 1916-1918. - N.Y., 1927. - Vо1. 1. - R.227-229 /

Exercise 1.

Get acquainted with the statement of contemporaries and historians about the war. Answer what the First World War introduced new ideas about the conduct of hostilities.

1) Field Marshal G. Kitchener, UK:

“We must be ready to send millions of armies to the battlefield and provide them with everything they need within a few years”

2) Recognition of France by R. Poincaré:

“At 5 o’clock (April 22, 1915 - T.K.) a tremendous roar of guns began, and heavy shells began to tear deafly over Ypres and over many villages ... The nostrils of people closer to the front sucked in the smell of some hellish essence. Those who were closer to the northern trenches in front of Ypres saw two strange ghosts of a greenish-yellow fog, slowly creeping and gradually blurring until they merged into one, and then, moving further, disappeared into a bluish-white cloud ... Soon the officers behind the front of the British troops were shocked to see a stream of people fleeing in panic, striving for the rear ... The fugitives left behind a breakthrough at the front more than 4 miles wide, filled only with the dead and half-dead, who, choking, agonized, poisoned with chloride poison.

3) B. Tuckman, English historian:

“The former military attache in Brussels ... went with a white flag to the Belgian headquarters ... The parliamentarian said that the zeppelins would destroy Liège if they refused to let the Germans through the city. Negotiations proved fruitless, and on 6 August an L-Z zeppelin took off from Cologne to strike Liège from the air. Dropping thirty bombs and killing nine civilians in the process, he was the first to carry out an air raid ... "

4) V. Hungarian, V. Khoteenkov, Soviet historians:

The “war of engines” manifested itself on land both in the increasingly significant use of vehicles to supply the front ... and in the use of new military means - tanks, armored vehicles, self-propelled guns ... the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcreating “land battleships” found active support from the then Minister of the Navy of England W. Churchill. At his urging, the ministry appropriated £70,000. Art. for the manufacture of 18 prototypes of tanks. The manufacture of tanks in England began in 1915, and in December, to maintain secrecy, the coded name "tank" was adopted, i.e. cistern, tank This name was later established in English and Russian…” (In the first publications in Russia about actions at the front, these vehicles were called “tank” or “tub”.)

5 B. Tuckman, English historian:

“As soon as the Germans entered the city, its walls began to turn white with pre-printed announcements ... the punishment for civilians who shot at soldiers was death. "Anyone who comes within 200 meters of an airplane or balloon will be shot on the spot." The owners of houses where hidden weapons are found will be shot. Everyone who harbors ... soldiers will be sent to permanent hard labor in Germany. Villages where "hostile" acts are committed will be burned. If "acts of hostility occur on the road between two villages, the same measures will be applied to the inhabitants of both villages."

Task 2

Compare the statement of R. Poincare and the description of the military operations of Germany given by the historian N. Yakovlev. Make a conclusion about the features of the conduct of military operations. How do the sources make you feel?

“We are now attacking in an improved way. It is long and carefully prepared. First, intense artillery fire unfolds the enemy's trenches and destroys defenses. When the artillery falls silent, the infantry goes on the attack and takes positions in a bayonet fight. But after this the difficulty lies in keeping the enemy's batteries under fire; our guns must respond to their fire with a powerful counterattack. In these fierce battles, in which miracles of courage are shown and blood flows in streams, we, apparently, achieve no real advantages ... ”(Poincaré R. In the service of France. Memoirs)

“Like a gigantic vile creature, the German troops crawled into Russian positions - the “clawed paws” were infantry, and the “tail” - heavy artillery - was outside the fire of our regimental and divisional artillery. Enemy batteries methodically destroyed the first lines of trenches from a safe distance. When the funnels, overlapping each other, turned the positions into a terrible mess, the rumbling reptile cowardly stretched out its paws: the German infantry made a cautious throw and fixed itself with feverish haste. The inevitable Russian counter-attack followed, and it was beaten off relatively easily, with the help of the German light artillery already moving forward. In the meantime, she pulled up her “tail” ... and it all started from the beginning ”(Yakovlev N. August 1, 1914).

Task 3

Read an excerpt from the letter of F. Stepun (1884 - 1965), a Russian philosopher who during the war years was an artillery ensign. What features of the First World War does the source reveal? Do you agree with his opinion?

“January 28, 1915. Thank God, the night went well ... Young voices are heard under the window. Commands are given. It's the new recruits who have come to our division. It is infinitely pitiful to look at young guys. It is safe to say that few people will return home healthy and unmutilated, and many will be killed in the coming days. Shelves thin out daily. In the victorious battles, about which I have already written to you, our regiment lost half of its own. The regiment will be replenished with incoming reinforcements, this reinforcement will be killed again; the second replenishment will come in five months and he will not be, etc.

Oh, if one of the ardent defenders of the war of the national-cultural point of view were to take all these young lives on their sole responsibility and strangle all these sonorous voices for a century, then I am sure that there would not be a single advocate of war in the world.

The massacre [World War I] has begun; the sound of guns is heard. All Europe is on the move! 15 million bayonets are ready to plunge into 15 million human bodies, ready to kill 15 million loyal, brave, pitiful people, embarrassed by events! – Winston Churchill

The war [World War I] stopped as suddenly and everywhere as it began. Humanity raised its head, looked around the scene of destruction, and all - winners and losers - breathed a sigh of relief. - Winston Churchill

How did World War I start? It arose out of a desire to remake the world. Now the same reason. There are capitalist states that consider themselves deprived by the previous redistribution of spheres of influence, territories, sources of raw materials, markets, and so on. and who would like to redistribute them in their favor again. Capitalism in its imperialist phase is a system that considers war to be a legitimate method of resolving international contradictions, a legal method, if not legally, then in essence. - Joseph Stalin

How was the war of 1914 generally accepted in Russia? Simply saying she was "popular" wouldn't be enough... - Pavel Milyukov

No matter how it ends, in any case, this [World War I] war is great and beautiful. - Max Weber

No other war in the history of mankind has destroyed as many lives as this [World War I]. But even greater were the moral losses. Forces, like a poison that kills the soul [lie and deceit] and the body, were brought to perfection. The moral consequences were as dire as the physical...– Mahatma Gandhi

The general background of the [First] World War is, after all, Anglo-German antagonism. - Theobald Bethmann-Hollweg

The First World War was the first opportunity for a massive transfer of American military forces to Europe. The relatively isolated country quickly moved troops of several hundred thousand people across the Atlantic Ocean: it was a transoceanic military expedition, unprecedented in its size and scale, the first evidence of the appearance on the international scene of a new major actor. Equally important, the war also provided the first major diplomatic moves to apply American principles to European problems. Woodrow Wilson's famous "fourteen points" represented an injection into European geopolitics of American idealism backed up by American power. (A decade and a half earlier, the United States had played a leading role in resolving the Far East conflict between Russia and Japan, thereby also establishing its growing international status.) The fusion of American idealism and American strength thus made itself felt on the world stage.

However, strictly speaking, World War I was primarily a European war, not a global one. However, its destructive nature marked the beginning of the end of European political, economic and cultural superiority over the rest of the world. During the course of the war, no European power was able to demonstrate decisive superiority, and its outcome was significantly influenced by the entry into the conflict of an increasingly important non-European power - America. Subsequently, Europe will increasingly become an object rather than a subject of global power politics.

However, this brief burst of American world leadership did not result in permanent American involvement in world affairs. On the contrary, America quickly retreated to a flattering combination of isolationism and idealism. Although totalitarianism was gaining strength on the European continent by the mid-1920s and early 1930s, the American power, which by that time had a powerful fleet on two oceans, clearly superior to the British naval forces, still did not take part in international affairs. . Americans preferred to stay away from world politics.

This position was consistent with the American concept of security, based on the view of America as a continental island. The American strategy was aimed at protecting its shores and, therefore, was narrowly national in nature, with little attention paid to international or global considerations. The main international players were still the European powers, and the role of Japan increasingly increased.

Zbigniew Brzezinski "The Grand Chessboard: America's Supremacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives"

Look at how the First World War began - with the redistribution of spheres of influence in the colonial world. The second is because of Japan, which wanted to capture half the world, and Hitler, who laid claim to Europe. - Evgeny Primakov

Already in the First World War, the cavalry began to lose its former importance. Mass armies appeared in the theater of operations, saturated with automatic weapons (machine guns), rapid-firing artillery, tanks and aircraft. Solid fronts formed. The troops, buried in the ground and fenced with barbed wire, excluded the successful actions of the cavalry on horseback. The cavalry, along with the infantry, was planted in the trenches, the horse became the predominant means of transportation. - Konstantin Rokossovsky "Soldier's Duty"

I was struck by the picture of years of senseless slaughter that the first world war represented. Despite my youth, I clearly understood that no war could bring anything to any of the warring countries that could be compared with millions of victims and colossal destruction. - Boris Bazhanov "Memoirs of the former secretary of Stalin"