Before proceeding to consider the hostilities on the Eastern Front during the First World War, it is necessary to remember / find out / explain / tell (underline as necessary) what the Russian Imperial Army represented during this period.
Many sources (both imported and domestic) say a lot about the fact that before the First World War, the Russian Imperial Army was the most numerous, but the most backward in terms of weapons in Europe.
We strongly disagree with this interpretation of the situation, and have the following to say:
After the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, it became clear that the army needed reforms.
In March 1909, General Vladimir Alexandrovich Sukhomlinov was appointed Minister of War, and military reform received a priority status.
Why not earlier?
From 1905 to 1907, the events of the First Russian Revolution took place in the country, and, to put it mildly, there was no time for reforms. When the passions have subsided, the time has come to think about the army, in order to prevent defeats like the Russo-Japanese War, although we doubt the loss in military terms. Here, rather, there was a political defeat.
It is also worth noting that during this period, the Main Directorate of the General Staff was created, which was separated from the War Ministry.
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The first was given all the functions and issues of preparing the country for war. The administrative part and the economy are left to the second.
General Vladimir Alexandrovich Sukhomlinov.
In parallel with the military reform, it was necessary to carry out the accelerated development of industry.
It is not a secret for anyone today that at that time Russia was forced to place a significant part of orders for the production of weapons abroad, as its capacities were not enough.
And the point here is not in the tricks of the fifth column, as some think, but in the specifics of historical development. Yes, Russia before the First World War fed the whole of Europe with bread, agriculture was the flagship of the economy. The industry, although it developed by leaps and bounds, lagged far behind the leading European countries.
Of the main activities of the new minister, the following can be noted:
- creation of automotive parts;
- The Imperial Air Force (although this is a huge merit of one of the relatives of Nicholas II, but more on this in detail in the corresponding article);
- the creation of military counterintelligence;
- the introduction of machine-gun teams in infantry regiments and squadrons in the corps;
- the disbandment of the reserve and fortress (garrisons of fortresses) units, due to which it was possible to strengthen the field armies, the total number of corps increased from 31 to 37.
Changes were necessary in the officer corps, since some of it did not correspond to the command positions they held.
Hundreds of officers were dismissed due to their incompetence. A similar phenomenon, meaning incompetence, was inherent not only in the Russian army of that period, but also, for example, in the English army. In Great Britain, even during the war, positions and titles were received by origin, and not by skills and merit. We began to fight this before the start of hostilities.
The tsarist army was a fairly large organized group of people with a gigantic mobilization reserve by the standards of that time.
The ground forces consisted of a standing army and a militia.
The standing army, in turn, was divided into a regular army and a reserve, Cossack troops and foreign units.
In peacetime, the army numbered almost 1.5 million people, in 45 days, when a general mobilization was announced, it could be increased to 5 million people (which happened in August 1914).
Men aged 21 to 43 were liable for military service.
At that time, they served in the infantry for 3 years, which made it possible to constantly have more than 60% of the personnel of the lower ranks of the 2nd and 3rd years of service, that is, soldiers who were sufficiently trained to conduct active combat operations.
After the expiration of the term on active service in the ground forces, a person was in the reserve of the 1st category for 7 years, and for 8 years - the 2nd category.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, 170 million people lived in the Russian Empire, so not all citizens of draft age were conscripted, but about half. The rest who did not serve, but were fit by all criteria, were enlisted in the militia. Most of the men aged 21 to 43 were enrolled here.
The militia was divided into two categories.
The first category is those who, in the event of war, will have to replenish the army in the field.
The second category - men who were not fit for combat service for health reasons, they were enrolled in the battalions (or squads) of the militia. In the event of the outbreak of war, it was planned to form 640 such squads.
Also, the Russian army was accepted on a voluntary basis, which gave some privileges. If you want to serve and good health, you are welcome.
It should be noted that representatives of not all nationalities fell under the military conscription. These were the Muslims of the Caucasus and Central Asia (they paid a special tax), the Finns, and small peoples of the North.
True, the highlanders from the Caucasus could still get into active service, thanks to the "foreign troops" (irregular equestrian formations, formed on a voluntary basis).
A separate military estate was the Cossacks, but we will talk about this in a separate article.
In peacetime, the territory of the Empire was divided into 12 military districts, led by the commanders of the troops: St. Petersburg, Vilensky, Warsaw, Kiev, Odessa, Moscow, Kazan, Caucasian, Turkestan, Omsk, Irkutsk and Amur.
Before the war, the imperial army had 208 infantry regiments. The field army was divided into 37 army corps: Guards, Grenadier, I-XXV infantry, I-III Caucasian, I and II Turkestan, IV Siberian.
These corps included all infantry divisions with their own artillery. The staff of the corps was as follows: two infantry divisions, a division of light howitzers (two 6-gun batteries), a sapper battalion.
In each infantry regiment of the 4 battalion (16 company) composition according to the state of May 6, 1910, there was a machine-gun team with 8 Maxim heavy machine guns. In wartime, the regiment was supposed to have 3,776 people. Our direct opponents, the Germans, had six machine guns (7.92 mm MG08 machine gun), per regiment of 12 company composition.
The main armament of the infantry was the 7.62-mm Mosin rifle arr. 1891. The rifles were produced in dragoon, infantry and Cossack versions. In 1910, due to the introduction of a new cartridge, modernization was required. So a new curved aiming bar of the Konovalov system was introduced, which compensated for the change in the trajectory of the bullet.
The appearance of various modifications of the Mosin rifle.
Despite the fact that the rifle was produced at three weapons factories, the factories still could not cope with the required production volumes. Therefore, orders were forced to place in the USA and France. This significantly increased the cost of producing rifles, but there was nowhere to go.
As already mentioned above, a machine-gun command was introduced into the infantry regiment. This was a significant step to increase the firepower of the infantry units, since before that machine guns were purchased mainly by the naval department, and they were intended to be placed in fortresses. With a gun carriage and a weight of 250 kg, this was not surprising. BUT! During the Russian Japanese War, the Russian army was able to assess the effectiveness of this type of weapon and the severe need for the infantry to have it.
Machine gun of the Maxim system on an artillery carriage.
The machine gun was upgraded, and in the infantry version it began to weigh about 60 kg. This significantly increased its mobile properties.
Since 1914, armored vehicles have been actively introduced into the Russian army.
The first field radio stations created by Popov and Troitsky appeared in the armed forces back in 1900. By 1914, radio stations had become, if not a competitor to wired telephone communications, then an assistant.
By 1914, "spark companies" were created in all corps, the first electronic warfare units in the world, born in the Russo-Japanese war and receiving further recognition and development.
Military science developed, the works of a number of military theorists were published: N. P. Mikhnevich - "Strategy", A. G. Elchaninov - "Conduct of Modern Combat", V. A. Cheremisov - "Fundamentals of Modern Military Art", A. A. Neznamov - "Modern War".
In 1912, the "Field Service Charter", "Manual for Field Artillery Operations in Battle", in 1914 "Manual for Infantry Operations in Battle", "Manual on Rifle, Carbine and Revolver Firing" were published.
Offensive was considered the main type of hostilities, but much attention was paid to defense. In the attack of the infantry, intervals of up to 5 steps were used (more rare battle formations than in other European armies).
Crawling, movement in dashes, movement by squads and individual soldiers from position to position under the cover of fire from comrades were allowed. Soldiers were required to dig in, not only in defense, but also during offensive operations.
We studied a counter battle, actions at night. The cavalrymen were taught to act not only on horseback, but also on foot.
Although work on reforming the army was in full swing, and there were significant advances, there were some negative moments.
Part of the officer corps opposed the changes, the dependence on the supply of weapons by foreign firms negatively affected, little attention was paid to the preparation of reserves, only the Cossacks regularly conducted reviews and exercises.
The militia was insufficiently trained or had no training at all. Later, the neglect of the development of heavy artillery will affect (but more on that in a separate article), and the hope for a quick war (hence the insufficient supply of shells).
The idea of building a large number of railways in the west of the empire was not fully implemented, which during the war would have accelerated the mobilization, transfer and supply of the army.
But here we also depended on Western "friends", do not be surprised by the quotes, they wanted to take a loan for this event from England. The very same country that helped the opponents of Russia almost 10 years ago.
Wars always start unexpectedly, and we can say that the Russian Imperial Army was ready for war, not 100%, but ready. But why she suffered defeats in a number of major battles is a topic for a separate conversation.
In any case, even though the reforms in the Russian army were not completed, it was far from the army that fought at Mukden and at Port Arthur. Unpleasant lessons were learned, and RIA embarked on the path of evolution.
In the next article, we will take a closer look at the weapons and ammunition of the infantryman of the Russian Imperial Army arr. 1914 year.
Cornish N. Russian army 1914-1918