THE STAVKA: ITS RÔLE AND POSITION.
On March 25th I arrived at the Stavka, and was immediately received
by General Alexeiev. Of course he was offended. "Well," he said, "if
such are the orders, what's to be done?" Again, as at the War Ministry,
I pointed out several reasons against my appointment, among others,
my disinclination for Staff work. I asked the General to express his
views quite frankly, and in disregard of all conventionalities as my
old Professor, because I would not think of accepting the appointment
against his will. Alexeiev spoke politely, dryly, evasively, and
showed again that he was offended. "The scope," he said, "was wide,
work difficult, and much training necessary. Let us, however, work
harmoniously." In the course of my long career I have never been placed
in such a position, and could not, of course, be reconciled to such an
attitude. "In these circumstances," I said, "I absolutely refuse to
accept the appointment. In order to avoid friction between yourself
and the Government, I will declare that it is entirely my own personal
decision."
Alexeiev's tone changed immediately. "Oh! no," he said, "I am not
asking you to refuse. Let us work together, and I will help you. Also,
there is no reason, if you feel that the work is not to your liking,
why you should not take command of the First Army, in which there will
be a vacancy two or three months hence. I will have to talk the matter
over with General Klembovski. He could not, of course, remain here as
my assistant."
[Illustration: General Alexeiev.]
[Illustration: General Kornilov.]
Our parting was not quite so frigid; but a couple of days went by and
there were no results. I lived in a railway carriage, and did not go to
the office or to the mess. As I did not intend to tolerate this silly
and utterly undeserved position, I was preparing to leave Petrograd.
On March 28th the War Minister came to the Stavka and cut the Gordian
knot. Klembovski was offered the command of an army or membership of
the War Council. He chose the latter, and on April 5th I took charge
as Chief of the Staff. Nevertheless, such a method of appointing the
closest assistant to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, practically by
force, could not but leave a certain trace. A kind of shadow seemed
to lie between myself and General Alexeiev, and it did not disappear
until the last stage of his tenure of office. Alexeiev saw in my
appointment a kind of tutelage on the part of the Government. From the
very first moment I was compelled to oppose Petrograd. I served our
cause and tried to shield the Supreme C.-in-C.--and of this he was
often unaware--from many conflicts and much friction, taking them upon
myself. As time went by friendly relations of complete mutual trust
were established, and these did not cease until the day of Alexeiev's
death.
On April 2nd the General received the following telegram: "The
Provisional Government has appointed you Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
It trusts that, under your firm guidance, the Army and the Navy will
fulfil their duty to the country to the end." My appointment was
gazetted on April 10th.
* * * * *
The Stavka, on the whole was not favoured. In the circles of the
Revolutionary Democracy it was considered a nest of counter-Revolution,
although such a description was utterly undeserved. Under Alexeiev
there was a loyal struggle against the disruption of the Army. Under
Brussilov--opportunism slightly tainted with subservience to the
Revolutionary Democracy. As regards the Kornilov movement, although it
was not essentially counter-Revolutionary, it aimed, as we shall see
later, at combatting the Soviets that were half-Bolshevik. But, even
then, the loyalty of the officers of the Stavka was quite obvious. Only
a few of them took an active part in the Kornilov movement. After the
office of Supreme Commander-in-Chief was abolished, and the new office
created of Supreme Commanding Committees, nearly all the members of
the Stavka under Kerensky, and the majority of them under Krylenko,
continued to carry on the routine work. The Army also disliked the
Stavka--sometimes wrongly, sometimes rightly--because the Army did
not quite understand the distribution of functions among the various
branches of the Service, and ascribed to the Stavka many shortcomings
in equipment, organisation, promotion, awards, etc., whereas these
questions belonged entirely to the War Ministry and its subordinates.
The Stavka had always been somewhat out of touch with the Army. Under
the comparatively normal and smoothly working conditions of the
pre-Revolutionary period this circumstance did not greatly prejudice
the working of the ruling mechanism; but now, when the Army was not
in a normal condition, and had been affected by the whirlwind of the
Revolution, the Stavka naturally was behind the times.
Finally, a certain amount of friction could not fail to arise between
the Government and the Stavka, because the latter constantly protested
against many Government measures, which exercised a disturbing
influence on the Army. There were no other serious reasons for
difference of opinion, because neither Alexeiev nor myself, nor the
various sections of the Stavka, ever touched upon matters of internal
policy. The Stavka was non-political in the fullest sense of the word,
and during the first months of the Revolution was a perfectly reliable
technical apparatus in the hands of the Provisional Government. The
Stavka did but safeguard the highest interests of the Army, and, within
the limits of the War and of the Army, demanded that full powers be
given to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. I may even say that the
personnel of the Stavka seemed to me to be bureaucratic and too deeply
immersed in the sphere of purely technical interests; they were not
sufficiently interested in the political and social questions which
events had brought to the fore.
* * * * *
In discussing the Russian strategy in the Great War, after August,
1915, one should always bear in mind that it was the personal
strategy of General Alexeiev. He alone bears the responsibility
before history for its course, its successes and failures. A man of
exceptional conscientiousness and self-sacrifice, and devoted to
his work, he had one serious failing: all his life he did the work
of others as well as his own. So it was when he held the post of
Quartermaster-General of the General Staff, of Chief-of-Staff of the
Kiev District, and later of the South-Western front and finally of
Chief-of-Staff to the Supreme C.-in-C. Nobody influenced strategical
decisions, and, as often as not, final instructions, written in
Alexeiev's tiny and neat hand-writing, appeared unexpectedly on
the desk of the Quartermaster-General, whose duty under the law
and whose responsibility in these matters were very grave. If such
a procedure was to a certain extent justifiable, when the post of
Quartermaster-General was occupied by a nonentity, there was no excuse
for it when he was superseded by other Quartermasters-General, such as
Lukomski or Josephovitch. These men could not accept such a position.
The former, as a rule, protested by sending in memoranda embodying his
opinion, which was adverse to the plan of operations. Such protests,
of course, were purely academic, but presented a guarantee against
the judgment of history. General Klembovski, my predecessor, was
compelled to demand non-interference with the rightful sphere of his
competence as a condition of his tenure of office. Till then, Alexeiev
had directed all the branches of administration. When these branches
acquired a still broader scope, this proved practically impossible,
and I was given full liberty in my work except ... in respect of
strategy. Again, Alexeiev began to send telegrams in his own hand of
a strategical nature, orders and directions, the motives of which the
Quartermaster-General and myself could not understand. Several times,
three of us, the Quartermaster-General, Josephovitch, his assistant,
General Markov, and myself, discussed this question. The quick-tempered
Josephovitch was greatly excited, and asked to be appointed to a
Divisional Command. "I cannot be a clerk," he said. "There is no need
for a Quartermaster-General at the Stavka if every clerk can type
instructions." The General and myself began to contemplate resignation.
Markov said that he would not stay for a single day if we went. I
finally decided to have a frank talk with Alexeiev. We were both under
the strain of emotion. We parted as friends, but we did not settle the
question. Alexeiev said: "Do I not give you a full share of the work? I
do not understand you." Alexeiev was quite sincerely surprised because
during the war he had grown accustomed to a régime which appeared to
him perfectly normal. So we three held another conference. After a
lengthy discussion, we decided that the plan of campaign for 1917 had
long since been worked out, that preparations for that campaign had
reached a stage in which substantial alterations had become impossible,
that the details of the concentration and distribution of troops were
in the present condition of the Army a difficult matter, allowing for
differences of opinion; that we could perhaps manage to effect certain
alterations of the plan, and that finally our retirement _in corpore_
might be detrimental to the work, and might undermine the position
of the Supreme C.-in-C., which was already by no means stable. We
therefore decided to wait and see. We did not have to wait very long,
because, at the end of May, Alexeiev left the Stavka, and we followed
him very soon afterwards.
* * * * *
What place did the Stavka occupy as a military and political factor of
the Revolutionary period?
The importance of the Stavka diminished. In the days of the Imperial
régime, the Stavka, from the military point of view, occupied a
predominant position. No individual or institution in the State was
entitled to issue instructions or to call to account the Supreme
Commander-in-Chief, and it was Alexeiev and not the Czar who in reality
held that office. Not a single measure of the War Ministry, even if
indirectly affecting the interests of the Army, could be adopted
without the sanction of the Stavka. The Stavka gave direct orders to
the War Minister and to his Department on questions appertaining to
the care of the Army. The voice of the Stavka had a certain weight
and importance in the practical domain of administration at the
theatre of war, albeit without any connection with the general trend
of internal policy. That power was not exercised to a sufficient
degree; but on principle it afforded the opportunity of carrying on
the defence of the country in co-operation with other branches of the
administration, which were to a certain extent subordinate to it. With
the beginning of the Revolution, these conditions underwent a radical
change. Contrary to the examples of history and to the dictates of
military science, the Stavka became practically subordinate to the War
Minister. This was not due to any act of the Government, but merely to
the fact that the Provisional Government combined supreme power with
executive power, as well as to the combination of the strong character
of Gutchkov and the yielding nature of Alexeiev. The Stavka could no
longer address rightful demands to the branches of the War Ministry
which were attending to Army equipments. It conducted a lengthy
correspondence and appealed to the Ministry of War. The War Minister,
who now signed orders instead of the Emperor, exercised a strong
influence upon appointments and dismissals of officers in High Command.
These appointments were sometimes made by him after consultation with
the fronts, but the Stavka was not informed. Army regulations of the
highest importance altering the conditions of the troops in respect of
reinforcements, routine and duty, were issued by the Ministry without
the participation of the Supreme Command, which learnt of their issue
only from the Press. In fact, such a participation would have actually
been useless. Two products of the Polivanov Commission--the new Courts
and the Committees--which Gutchkov _accidentally_ asked me to look
through, were returned with a series of substantial objections of my
own, and Gutchkov expounded them in vain before the representatives of
the Soviet. The only result was that certain changes in the drafting of
the regulations were made.
All these circumstances undoubtedly undermined the authority of the
Stavka in the eyes of the Army, and prompted the Generals in High
Command to approach the more powerful Central Government Departments
without reference to the Stavka, as well as to display excessive
individual initiative in matters of paramount importance to the
State and to the Army. Thus, in May, 1917, on the Northern Front,
all the pre-War soldiers were discharged instead of the prescribed
percentage, and this created grave difficulties on other fronts. On
the South-Western Front Ukranian units were being formed. The Admiral
in command of the Baltic Fleet ordered the officers to remove their
shoulder-straps, etc.
The Stavka had lost influence and power, and could no longer occupy
the commanding position of an administrative and moral centre. This
occurred at the most terrible stage of the World War, when the Army
was beginning to disintegrate, and when not only the entire strength
of the people was being put to the test, but the necessity had arisen
for a power exceptionally strong and wide in its bearing. Meanwhile,
the matter was quite obvious: if Alexeiev and Denikin did not enjoy the
confidence of the Government, and were considered inadequate to the
requirements of the Supreme Command, they should have been superseded
by new men who did enjoy that confidence and who should have been
invested with full powers. As a matter of fact, changes were made
twice. But only the men were changed, not the principles of the High
Command. In the circumstances, when no one actually wielded power,
military power was not centred in anybody's hands. Neither the Chiefs
who enjoyed the reputation of serving their country loyally and with
exceptional devotion, like Alexeiev, and later the "Iron Chiefs," such
as Kornilov undoubtedly was and as Brussilov was supposed to be, nor
all the Chameleons that fed from the hand of the Socialist reformers of
the Army had any real power.
The entire military hierarchy was shaken to its very foundations,
though it retained all the attributes of power and the customary
routine--instructions which could not move the Armies, orders that were
never carried out, verdicts of the Courts which were derided. The full
weight of oppression, following the line of the least resistance, fell
solely upon the loyal commanding officers, who submitted without a
murmur to persecution from above as well as from below. The Government
and the War Ministry, having abolished repressions, had recourse to
a new method of influencing the masses--to _appeals_. Appeals to
the people, to the Army, to the Cossacks, to everybody, flooded the
country, inviting all to do their duty. Unfortunately, only those
appeals were successful that flattered the meanest instincts of
the mob, inviting it to neglect its duty. As a result, it was not
counter-Revolution, Buonapartism, or adventure, but the elemental
desire of the circles where the ideas of statesmanship still prevailed,
to restore the broken laws of warfare, that soon gave rise to a new
watchword:
"_Military power must be seized_."
Such a task was not congenial to Alexeiev or Brussilov. Kornilov
subsequently endeavoured to undertake it, and began independently
to carry out a series of important military measures and to address
ultimatums on military questions to the Government. At first, the only
question raised was that of granting "full powers" to the Supreme
Command within the scope of its competence.
It is interesting to compare this state of affairs with that of the
command of the armies of our powerful foe. Ludendorff, the first
Quartermaster-General of the German Army says (_Mes Souvenirs de
Guerre_): "In peace-time the Imperial Government exercised full power
over its Departments.... When the War began the Ministers found it
difficult to get used to seeing in G.H.Q. a power which was compelled,
by the immensity of its task, to act with greater resolution as that
resolution weakened in Berlin. Would that the Government could clearly
have perceived this simple truth.... The Government went its own way,
and never abandoned any of its designs in compliance with the wishes
of G.H.Q. On the contrary, it disregarded much that we considered
necessary for the prosecution of the War."
If we recall that in March, 1918, the deputy of the Reichstag, Haase,
was more than justified in saying that the Chancellor was nothing but
a figure-head covering the military party, and that Ludendorff was
actually governing the country, we will understand the extent of the
power which the German Command deemed it necessary to exercise in order
to win the World War.
I have drawn a general picture of the Stavka, such as it was when
I took charge as Chief-of-Staff. Taking the entire position into
consideration, I had two main objects in view: first, to counteract
with all my strength the influences which were disrupting the Army, so
as to preserve that Army and to hold the Eastern Front in the world
struggle; and secondly, to reinforce the rights, the power, and the
authority of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. A loyal struggle was at
hand. In that struggle, which only lasted two months, all sections of
the Stavka had their share.
[Illustration: General Markov.]