{"id":56581,"date":"2016-04-16T21:33:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-17T02:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=56581"},"modified":"2017-01-18T11:56:32","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T17:56:32","slug":"moscow-on-the-mediterranean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=56581","title":{"rendered":"Moscow on the Mediterranean"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marseilles was awash in pomp and circumstance on April 16th, 1916. \u00a0Military bands played marching songs and patriotic music, as throngs of French citizens flocked to the waterfront, eager to meet the arriving vessel the Himalaya<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Thousands of wide-eyed young men trampled off the causeway, many with musty uniforms and salt-corroded brass – remnants of the group’s more than two-month journey to the Western Front. \u00a0While all of these young men had been born and raised in an urban, industrialized environment, for most of them it was their first trip to a foreign country. \u00a0The experience was overwhelming for men who just months earlier hadn’t even been in military service, and were now showered with attention from local French dignitaries and beautiful French women.<\/p>\n

Only these weren’t French soldiers. \u00a0Or British. \u00a0Or even colonial troops from one of the Western Allies. \u00a0The nearly 9,000 men marching through Marseilles were the soldiers of the Russian 1st Special Brigade – the first of nearly 50,000 Russian troops who would serve on the Western Front.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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The Russians Are Coming! – the arrival in France. \u00a0They had gone East from St. Petersburg, making an arduous two-month journey out of the Pacific port of Vladivostok to France<\/p><\/div>\n

The vast expanse of the Eurasian Steppe had long conjured the image that within the Russian Empire were multitudes of men ready, willing, and able to serve the Tsarist military machine. \u00a0The “limitless” manpower of Russia had been so ingrained in Western popular opinion, that it came to be believed as well by the country’s ruling elite. \u00a0Despite the monstrous losses<\/a> incurred on the Eastern Front in just a year and a half, few in St. Petersburg, London or Paris feared that Russia would – or could – reach a breaking point when it came to fielding an army. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the Entente attempted to coordinate their efforts at Chantilly<\/a> in December of 1915, the belief that Russia’s “endless reserves” could be put to better use on other fronts began to gain traction. \u00a0While the generals met, the French politician (and future President) Paul Doumer toured St. Petersburg, floating the suggestion that 300,000 Russian troops be transferred to the Western Front in exchange for additional French supplies. \u00a0The idea horrified the Russian General Staff. \u00a0The Tsar’s armies had lost over 5 million men in just over a year of fighting<\/a>, and the Russian army was still facing a massive rifle storage. \u00a0St. Petersburg couldn’t properly clothe, feed or arm their soldiers – how could they possibly transfer hundreds of thousands of men on top of that?<\/p>\n

The practicality of the decision was immaterial – Tsar Nicholas II supported it. \u00a0All the General Staff could do was limit Russia’s contribution.<\/p>\n

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A rare color photo of Russian troops in their trenches along the Western Front<\/p><\/div>\n

—<\/p>\n

The first Russians that arrived in\u00a0Marseilles represented a small triumph of negotiation. \u00a0While the men wore Russian uniforms, they held French rifles, carried French artillery and were fed by French supplies. \u00a0Each man had twice the needed number of clothes and each brigade had it’s own field kitchen. \u00a0The French had paid for their new soldiers, armed and clothed them, and transported them in their own ships. \u00a0For that cost, the men (new recruits out of St. Petersburg) would be led by Russian officers and have at least tactical autonomy.<\/p>\n

As the five Russian brigades slowly arrived in France over the course of 1916, the Entente had little idea what to do with them. \u00a0It was becoming rapidly apparent that France and Russia’s “soldiers for supplies” transaction would bankrupt both nations. \u00a0The Russians couldn’t possibly raise 300,000 men beyond their own needs, and France could barely meet the strenuous material requirements of their own army. \u00a0With the arrangement dead in spirit, the fate of the Russian Brigades disappeared from the considerations of the Entente. \u00a0Even with the horrific losses being sustained at Verdun and the Somme, the Russians were still viewed as little more than trench fillers, best used to hold down sectors of the front with little activity to free up experienced French troops to fight. \u00a0Using the same logic, additional Russian brigades were transferred to Salonika<\/a>, placing 20,000 Russians on the unused Greek front.<\/p>\n

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The Russians drill. \u00a0The life of the Special Brigades was largely confined to training<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite being badly needed at home, and forgotten in France, the Russian Brigades were staying put. \u00a0Starting in April of 1916 until September of that year, the Russian Brigades would train at\u00a0Mourmellon-le-Grand-Auberive in the Champagne region. \u00a0The sector was largely quiet, save for a German attack in mid-July that the Russians repelled with relative ease. \u00a0For most of 1916, the Russian existence on the Western Front was one of well-fed, well-trained boredom. \u00a0Between the lack of combat, and the heavily censored letters from home, the young men of the Russian Brigades had little concept of the larger direction of the war – or its hardships.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

By January of 1917, four brigades totaling over 44,000 troops were in place on the Western Front. \u00a0An additional three brigades were said to be forming to join them, placing in theory more than 70,000 Russian soldiers in France by the spring\/summer. \u00a0The remaining brigades would never arrive.<\/p>\n

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Russian troops on parade – these are actually members of the Russian Legion from later in the war. \u00a0The Legion carried a variety of flags after the 1917 fall of the Tsar, and no longer carried his Imperial Banner (a golden flag with a black Romanov coat of arms holding four scrolls)<\/p><\/div>\n

For the Russian Brigades already in the trenches, a German gas attack in January caught the unit completely by surprise. \u00a0Ill-trained to withstand poison gas, the Russians lost heavily. \u00a0It was the Brigades’ first real taste of defeat.<\/p>\n

The units no longer had the good fortunate to be “forgotten” with the ranks of the Entente. \u00a0Following their gas attack debacle, the Brigades were transferred just north of Reims to assist the French in their forthcoming Nivelle Offensive (named after the new French Commander-in-Chief, Robert Nivelle, the commanding general of Verdun’s bloodletting). \u00a0The timing couldn’t be worse. \u00a0As the men prepared in their trenches for the wave assaults Nivelle had in store for them, word of Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication filtered through the ranks. \u00a0Did the Tsar’s fall mean the end of the war? \u00a0Were the Brigades still expected to attack?<\/p>\n

Much like what was happening across Russia at the time, the Brigades formed soviets to debate and vote on their future participation in the war. \u00a0Following the experience of the gas attack months earlier, there was little appetite among the men to continue to fight. \u00a0Almost all agreed that they wanted a speedy repatriation back to Russia. \u00a0Yet others argued that they couldn’t abandon their French compatriots on the literal eve of an offensive. \u00a0By a narrow majority, the soldiers voted to go ahead with the attack; with the provision that the Brigades would be returned to Russia shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

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Russian officers inspect the troops – what authority the Brigade’s officers had melted away following news of the Tsar’s abdication<\/p><\/div>\n

The Nivelle Offensive was a catastrophe. \u00a0Despite a 2-to-1 advantage in soldiers, supported by 7,000 pieces of heavy artillery and 128 Saint-Charmond tanks (the heaviest tank in the French army), the Entente suffered 187,000 casualties in three weeks of fighting. \u00a0Of the total, 4,500 Russians fell to German guns. \u00a0The Brigades had fought extremely well, taking the town of\u00a0Courcy, along with 500 prisoners, and holding their position for three days against German counterattacks. \u00a0French President Raymond Poincar\u00e9 was so impressed by the Brigades, he awarded their commander\u00a0the L\u00e9gion d’honneur<\/i>.<\/p>\n

France’s attitude towards the Russian Brigades would soon change.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

For the Brigades, the Nivelle Offensive had represented their last contribution to the Entente war effort. \u00a0As the unit was pulled out of the front line rotation, the men assumed their demands had been met and that they would be returning home. \u00a0Instead, the units were confronted with needing to take a new\u00a0oath of allegiance – now to the Russian Provisional Government instead of the Tsar. \u00a0Many refused.<\/p>\n

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These Russian troops on the Western Front are prepared for a gas attack – they weren’t so ready in January of 1917<\/p><\/div>\n

The 1st Russian Brigade – made up of those first young men down the causeway in Marseilles – openly rebelled, chanting “to Russia and nowhere else!” \u00a0The soldiers refused to even drill, claiming it was unnecessary since they were going home. \u00a0Unsure how to proceed, the Russian Provisional Government made an offer – the rebellious troops who took their loyalty oaths would eligible to return home. \u00a0Liaisons from St. Petersburg even began preaching to the other units in the Brigades that the reason they were still in France was because of the 1st Brigade’s refusal to submit. \u00a0Dissension was growing in the ranks.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the position of the French Army was coming apart at the seems. \u00a0The failure of the Nivelle Offensive (Nivelle had bizarrely boasted to his men that his offensive would end the war “in 48 hours”) had caused a crisis of confidence in the French line. \u00a0Whole divisions refused their orders, and the actions of the rebelling Russian Brigades, not the suicidal human wave tactics that had decimated the French nation, were blamed. \u00a0The 1st Brigade was immediately quarantined at their base in La Courtine, cut off from pay or rations. \u00a0Thousands of French and loyalist Russian troops surrounded the encampment. \u00a0The situation was made clear to the rebelling units – either submit or be shot.<\/p>\n

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Mutineer Execution – this is actually a French mutineer as there are few photographs of the Russian mutiny at La Courtine<\/p><\/div>\n

By the morning of September 3rd, 1917, whatever limited patience France and the Provisional Russian Government had was gone. \u00a0Artillery rained down on the 2,000 men within the 1st Russian Brigade; most of it fired by members of the 3rd Brigade. \u00a0The shelling would continue for three days until the mutineers of the 1st Brigade surrendered.<\/p>\n

For the survivors, the original demand to sent back home to Russia would in fact be realized – albeit after a brief stint in a French prison camp in North Africa. \u00a0Eager to be rid of what French authorities viewed as the cancer that had caused their own mutinies, many of the 1st Brigade were returned to Russia amid the collapse of the Provisional Government. \u00a0Others simply decided to stay in France and escape the burgeoning civil war of their homeland.<\/p>\n

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Russian legion and flag<\/p><\/div>\n

—<\/p>\n

Between the mutiny of the Brigades, and the dissolution of the Provisional Government back home, thousands of Russian troops were left in a political and military vacuum in 1917. \u00a0Neither wanted by the authorities in France nor the new Bolshevik leadership in Russia, some remnants of the Russian Brigades chose to stay on the Western Front and fight.<\/p>\n

In the fall of 1917,\u00a0General Zankevich (commander of the Russian Expeditionary Force in France) wired St. Petersburg for permission to form a Russian Legion to continue the war in the West. \u00a0The Legion’s first meetings looked very much like the early soviets of the rebellion –\u00a0held outdoors and open to officers, NCO’s and rank and file alike. \u00a0The group would hold an odd political mix of royalists, Bolsheviks, army careerists and many average Russians caught between the political currents dragging Russia into their undertow. \u00a0The thin unifying reed of the group all being Russians largely abandoned in a foreign land was apparently enough to form the group into a cohesive military unit.<\/p>\n

Still under Russian command, but as a part of the French 1st Moroccan Infantry Division, the Russian Legion fought valiantly amid the furious German spring offensives of 1918, suffering terrible casualties. \u00a0By the time of the armistice of 1918, the unit was down to just over 500 men, and while the group had won numerous metals, there was little interest in the French Army for keeping the soldiers within the French ranks. \u00a0The unit was demobilized, sending hundreds of men into the void of what to do next. \u00a0Some, like future Soviet Minister of Defense\u00a0Rodion Malinovsky, chose to return home to Russia despite the bloodshed. \u00a0Most chose to stay in their new adoptive homeland, becoming French citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marseilles was awash in pomp and circumstance on April 16th, 1916. \u00a0Military bands played marching songs and patriotic music, as throngs of French citizens flocked to the waterfront, eager to meet the arriving vessel the Himalaya. Thousands of wide-eyed young men trampled off the causeway, many with musty uniforms and salt-corroded brass – remnants of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,281],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-ringer","category-ww1-fact-and-myth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56581"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61811,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56581\/revisions\/61811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}