The World Crisis
Page 35
In vain the Imperial family, deeply concerned for their own existence—apart from all other issues—approached their Head. In vain the leaders of the Duma and every independent figure in Russia made their protests. In vain the Ambassadors of the Allied Powers dropped their elaborate hints, or even uttered solemn and formal warnings under the direction of their Governments. Nicholas II, distressed, remained immovable. He saw as clearly as they did the increasing peril. He knew of no means by which it could be averted. In his view nothing but autocracy established through centuries had enabled the Russians to proceed thus far in the teeth of calamity. No people had suffered and sacrificed like the Russians. No State, no nation, had ever gone through trials on such a scale and retained its coherent structure. The vast machine creaked and groaned. But it still worked. One more effort and victory would come. To change the system, to open the gate to intruders, to part with any portion of the despotic power, was in the eyes of the Czar to bring about a total collapse. Therefore, though plunged daily deeper in anxiety and perplexity, he was held alike by all his instincts and his reasoning faculties in a fixed position. He stood like a baited animal tied to a stake and feebly at bay.
It is easy for critics never subjected to such ordeals to recount lost opportunities. They speak lightly of changing the fundamental principles of the Russian State in the stress of the War from absolute monarchy to some British or French parliamentary system. It would be a thankless task to assail convictions so confidently asserted. Nevertheless, the martial and national achievements of Russia in the three terrible campaigns this volume has described constitute a prodigy no less astounding than the magnitude of her collapse thereafter. The very rigidity of the system gave it its strength and, once broken, forbade all recovery. The absolute Czar in spite of all his lamentable deficiencies commanded Russia. It can never be proved that a three-quarters-Czar or half-Czar and the rest a Parliament, could in such a period have commanded anything at all. In fact, once the Czar was gone, no Russian ever commanded again. It was not until a fearsome set of internationalists and logicians built a sub-human structure upon the ruins of Christian civilization, that any form of order or design again emerged. Thus it is by no means certain that the generally-accepted view upon the practical steps is right, or that the Czar for all his errors and shortcomings was wrong. After all, he was within an ace of safety and success. Another month and the accession of the United States to the cause of the Allies would have brought a flood of new energy, encouragement, and moral stimulus to Russian society. The certainty of victory, never again lost, was to dawn like a new sun beyond the wastes of Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Only another month till daybreak! Only another month and the world might have been spared the tribulations of the two most grievous years of the War. That month was lacking. A brief but hideous hiatus marred the scene. Meanwhile Nicholas II, casting his eyes now towards the Providence he sought to serve, now towards the family group he loved so well, clung chained to his post.
All sorts of Russians made the revolution. No sort of Russian reaped its profit. Among the crowds who thronged the turbulent streets and ante-rooms of Petrograd in these March days with resolve for ‘Change at all costs’ in their hearts, were found Grand Dukes, fine ladies, the bitterest die-hards and absolutists like Purishkevitch and Yusupov; resolute, patriotic politicians like Rodzianko and Guchkov; experienced Generals; diplomats and financiers of the old regime; Liberals and Democrats; Socialists like Kerenski; sturdy citizens and tradesfolk; faithful soldiers seeking to free their Prince from bad advisers; ardent nationalists resolved to purge Russia from secret German influence; multitudes of loyal peasants and workmen; and behind all, cold, calculating, ruthless, patient, stirring all, demanding all, awaiting all, the world-wide organization of International Communism.
Actually the deposition of the Czar was effected by the Chiefs of his Army. Nicholas was at his Headquarters at Mohilev when on the afternoon of March 11 the first telegrams about the disorders in Petrograd began to flow in. It was reported at first that they were of no great consequence. Had he been in his Capital accessible to all the moderate forces now inflamed, there might still have been time, not indeed as we hold to avert disaster, but to lessen its shock. But he was at Mohilev, and the Grand Duke Nicholas who should have ruled the Armies was far off in the half-banishment of Tiflis. On the morning of the nth Rodzianko, President of the Duma, confronted with a swiftly mounting crisis, sent the following telegram to his Master:
‘Position serious. Anarchy in the capital. Government paralyzed. Arrangements for transport, supply and fuel in complete disorder. General discontent is increasing. Disorderly firing on the streets. Part of the troops are firing on one another. Essential to entrust some individual who possesses the confidence of the country with the formation of a new government. There must be no delay. Any procrastination fatal. I pray to God that in this hour responsibility fall not on the wearer of the crown!’
He repeated this to the Commanders-in-Chief on all the Army-group ‘Fronts,’ and to Alexeiev at the Stavka, with a request for their support; and next day, the 12th, he telegraphed again to the Czar:
‘The situation is growing worse. Immediate steps must be taken, for to-morrow will be too late. The final hour has come when the fate of the country and the dynasty must be decided.’
To such grave tidings was added scarcely less disturbing news from Tsarskoe Selo. The Royal children had sickened of the measles. The Czar replied to his counsellors with hard defiance, and to his wife with overflowing sympathy.
As the day wore on Alexeiev took to his bed with anxiety and fever. The Czar called for the Imperial train. His duties as a Sovereign and as a father equally demanded his return to the seat of Government. The train was ready at midnight; but it took six hours more to clear the line. The Dowager-Empress had arrived. Mother and son travelled together. The next afternoon the train stopped at Dno. Impossible to proceed! A bridge had been, it was said, blown up or damaged. The Czar indicated an alternative route, and for the first time came in contact with naked resistance. Such authority as now reigned in Petrograd refused to permit his further approach. Where to turn? Some hours passed. Back to Mohilev? We do not know how far he tested this possibility. Perhaps he had been conscious of the unspoken reproach with which the atmosphere of the Stavka was loaded. To the North-West Front then—to General Ruzski. Here at least he would find a trusty commander, whose armies lay nearest to the rebellious capital.
The train reached Pskov. Ruzski was there with grave salutes. But with him also very soon were Guchkov and Shulguin as a deputation from the Duma. Here were able, determined public men with plain advice: immediate abdication in favour of his son, and the Regency of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich. The Czar appealed to Ruzski. Ruzski, anticipating his responsibilities, had felt that the matter was too serious for him. Already before the Czar’s arrival he had consulted the Stavka and the other commanders. Accordingly fateful telegrams had been despatched through the Stavka along the whole length of the Russian front. All the Army Group Commanders, Brusilov, Ewarth, the Grand Duke, and finally, with many reservations, Sakharov from distant Roumania, declared in favour of abdication. The document was drawn. Guchkov presented the pen. Nicholas was about to sign. Suddenly he asked whether he and his family could reside in the Crimea, in that palace of Livadia whose sunlit gardens seemed green and calm and tranquil. Bluntly he was told he must leave Russia forthwith, and that the new sovereign must remain among his people. On this his fatherly love triumphed over his public duty and indeed over his coronation oath. Rather than be separated from his son, he disinherited that son. The paper was redrafted and Nicholas II abdicated in favour of his brother. Thus all claim of legitimacy was shivered; and everything in a second stage was thrown into redoubled confusion.
However, it is over now. The Czar has ceased to reign. The brother, around whom everything is melting, fears to seize the abandoned reins of power without the vote of a National Assembly, impossible
to obtain. Nothing could ever bring stabilizing ideas together again. We cannot here follow the long, swift, splintering, crashing descent which ended, as it could only end, in the abyss. The dynasty was gone. Vainly did leaders of the Duma and the Zemstvos strive to clutch at hand-holds. In their turn they broke. Vainly did Kerenski with his nationalist democracy try to stop the fall a long leap lower down. Vainly did the great men of action, Kornilov the warrior, Savinkov the terrorist patriot, strive to marshal the social revolutionary forces in defence of Russia. All fell headlong into the depths where Lenin, Trotski, Zinoviev and other unnatural spirits awaited their prey.
We are here concerned only to notice the ruin of those brave armies which had hitherto guarded the Russian land. On March 15 the Petrograd Soviet issued the fatal historic ‘Order No. 1’ which destroyed the discipline of the troops, and delivered the Russian Army in the full storm of war to the rule of elected committees. Nothing mattered any more after that. The soldiers ceased to fight the foreign invaders. Their energies and hatreds were turned upon their own officers. The ignominious tragedies of the Kerenski offensive and the flight from the Riga bridge-head deserve no place in this account. Russia became incapable of offence, of defence or even of retreat. Peace at any price was the only resource. It needed all Lenin’s cold massive logic to compel even the most extreme of those who had laid Russia low to accept the consequences of their acts. An armistice was arranged in November and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed the following March.
The uncertainties and obscurity of the Russian situation, and memories of their painful surprise at Brusilov’s hands, held a large but mainly motionless force of Austrian and German troops upon the Russian front until the Armistice. Even in October, 1917, there were still eighty Teutonic divisions in the East. But in November Austria with German backing threw her main strength upon Italy at Caporetto, and at the close of the year Ludendorff requested Hoffmann to arrange the transport of a million men—fifty divisions and five thousand guns—from Russia to the Western Front. The gigantic heart-shaking battles of 1918, involving the death or mutilation of upwards of two million of British, French and German soldiers, followed their appointed course. The Eastern Front was at an end.
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II
SOME AUTHORITIES CONSULTED
EDMONDS. Military Operations, France and Belgium (British Official History).
ASPINALL-OGLANDER. Military Operations, Gallipoli (British Official History).
GOOCH and TEMPERLEY. British Documents on the Origins of the War.
Les Armées françaises dans la Grande Guerre (French Official History).
CHAPOUILLY. La Grande Guerre: Relation de l’Etat Major russe (Russian Official, translated).
Die Grosse Politik der Europäischen Kabinette (German Official Documents).
REICHSARCHIV. Der Weltkrieg, 1914–1918 (German Official History).
Zur Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges (German Official Committee of Inquiry).
Oesterreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik (Austrian Official Documents).
KAUTSKY. Die deutschen Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch (German Official Documents).
KRIEGSARCHIV. Oesterreich-Ungarns Letster Krieg, 1914–1918 (Austrian Official History).
GOOCH. Recent Revelations of European Diplomacy.
SCHMITT, BERNADOTTE E. The Coming of the War, 1914.
HÖTZENDORF, CONRAD VON. Aus meiner Dienstzeit, 1906–1918.
KNOX. With the Russian Army, 1914–1917.
IRONSIDE. Tannenberg.
HINDENBURG. Out of my Life.
LUDENDORFF. My War Memories, 1914–1918.
FALKENHAYN. The General Staff and its Critical Decisions.
HOFFMANN. War Diaries and Other Papers.
GOURKO. Russia in 1914–1917.
BRUSILOV. A Soldier’s Note-book.
TSCHUPPIK. The Reign of the Emperor Francis Joseph.
MARGUTTI. The Emperor Francis Joseph and His Times.
JASZI. The Dissolution of the Hapsburg Monarchy.
GLAISE-HORSTENAU. The Collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
SUKHOMLINOV. Erinnerungen (German translation).
MARCHENKO. La Catastrophe austro-hongroise.
FEYLER. Les Campagnes de Serbie.
LARCHER. La Grande Guerre dans les Balkans.
DANILOV. Russland im Weltkriege, 1914–1915 (German translation).
DOBROROLSKI. Die Mobilmachung der russischen Armee (German translation).
MONTGELAS. Leitfaden zur Kriegsschuldfrage.
KUHL. Der Weltkrieg, 1914–1918.
SCHWARTE. Der grosse Krieg, 1914–1918.
ELZE. Tannenberg.
ZWEHL. Erich von Falkenhayn.
GALLWITZ. Meine Führertätigkeit im Weltkriege, 1914–1916.
BARBY. L’Epopée serbe.
PITREICH. Lemberg.
AUFFENBERG. Aus Oesterreich-Ungarns Teilnahme am Weltkriege.
APPENDIX III
REFERENCES
Note.—The following abbreviations are used for the titles of the works from which passages have been quoted. In each case the title-symbol is followed by the number of the volume and of the page or document.
‘A’ Austrian official History, Oesterreich-Ungarns letzter Krieg.
‘B’ British Documents on the Origins of the War.
‘C’ Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit.
‘D’ Die grosse Politik.
‘E’ Elze, Tannenberg.
‘F’ Falkenhayn, The General Staff and its Critical Decisions.
‘G’ German official History, Der Weltkrieg (Reichsarchiv).
‘H’ Hindenburg, Out of my Life.
‘Hm’ Hoffmann, War Diaries and Other Papers.
‘J’ Regimental History, 41st (v. Boyen) Infantry Regiment.
‘K’ Kuhl, Der Weltkrieg.
‘Ky’ Kautsky, Die deutschen Dokumente.
‘O’ Oesterreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik.
‘P’ Pierrefeu, Plutarque a menti.
‘R’ Russian official History, La Grande Guerre (Chapouilly).
‘T’ Tschuppik, The Reign of the Emperor Francis Joseph.
‘Z’ Zwehl, Erich von Falkenhayn.
Reference No.
1. D., XXVI (i), doc, 9026.
2. B., V, doc. 768.
3. B., V, doc. 764.
4. C., II, p. 282.
5. C., II, p. 284.
6. C., IV, p. 34.
7. O., VIII, doc. 9984; Ky. I, doc. 13.
8. C., IV, pp. 36–8.
9. O., VIII, doc. 10,118; C., IV, pp. 44–51.
10. O., VIII, doc. 10,146; C., IV, pp. 57–9.
11. O., VIII, doc. 10,145.
12. C., IV, pp. 61–2.
13. E., pp. 158–160.
14. Z., p. 56.
15. Ky., I. doc. 271.
16. Ky., I, doc. 293.
17. Ky., I, doc. 332.
18. Ky., I, doc. 335.
19. Ky., I, doc. 390.
20. C., IV, pp. 110–111.
21. Ky., I, doc. 503; C., IV, p. 156.
22. C., IV, p. 113.
23. C., IV, pp. 164–5.
24. C., IV, pp. 193–5.
25. C., IV, pp. 203–4.
26. C., IV, pp. 388–9.
27. C., IV, p. 390.
28. C., IV, pp. 391, 393.
29. C., IV, p. 467.
30. C., IV, pp. 507–8.
31. R., p. 133.
32. C., IV, pp. 551–3.
33. C., IV, pp. 701–2.
34. P., pp. 236–7.
35. J., p. 23.
36. A., I, pp. 344–5.
37. H., pp. 118–119.
38. Hm., II, p. 62.
39. H., p. 123.
40. G., VI, pp. 3–5.
41. G., VI, p. 5.
42. G., VI, p. 93.
43. G., VI, pp. 95–6.
44. G., VII, pp. 11–12.
45. H., pp. 137–8.
46. K., I, p. 184.
47. H., p. 139.
/> 48. F., pp. 145–8.
49. Z., p. 213.
Notes
CHAPTER I
1 See Appendix.
2 For convenience in this account Francis Joseph is always referred to as “The Emperor,” and William II as “The Kaiser.”
CHAPTER II
1 In future they will be mentioned as Bosnia.
2 My italics. W. S. C.
CHAPTER III
1 A full account will be found in The World Crisis, 1911–1914.
CHAPTER VII
1 A fuller account of the British naval precautions may be read in The World Crisis, 1911–1914.
2 i.e. Deputy Chief of the General Staff.
3 See map.
4 Now Sir Maurice Hankey.
CHAPTER VIII
1 Dated August 2.
CHAPTER X
1 Armee-Ober-Kommando: the Austro-Hungarian G.H.Q.