CHAPTER XXVI

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MAY AND THE BEGINNING OF JUNE IN THE SPHERE OF MILITARY ADMINISTRATION--THE RESIGNATION OF GUTCHKOV AND GENERAL ALEXEIEV--MY DEPARTURE FROM THE STAVKA--THE ADMINISTRATION OF KERENSKY AND GENERAL BRUSSILOV.

On May 1st the Minister of War, Gutchkov, left his post. "We wished," so he explained the meaning of the "democratisation" of the Army which he tried to introduce, "to give organised forms and certain channels to follow, to that awakened spirit of independence, self-help and liberty which had swept over all. But there is a line, beyond which lies the beginning of the ruin of that living, mighty organism which is the Army." Undoubtedly that line was crossed even before the first of May.

I am not preparing to characterise Gutchkov, whose sincere patriotism I do not doubt. I am speaking only of the system. It is difficult to decide who could have borne the heavy weight of administering the Army during the first period of the Revolution; but, in any case, Gutchkov's Ministry had not the slightest grounds to seek the part of guiding the life of the Army. It did not lead the Army. On the contrary, submitting to a "parallel power" and impelled from below, the Ministry, somewhat restively, _followed the Army_, until it came right up to the line, beyond which final ruin begins.

"To restrain the Army from breaking up completely under the influence of that pressure which proceeded from the Socialists, and in particular from their citadel--the Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates--to gain time, to allow the diseased process to be absorbed, to help the healthy elements to gain strength, such was my aim," wrote Gutchkov to Kornilov in June, 1917. The whole question is whether the resistance to the destroying powers was resolute enough. The Army did not feel this. The officers read the orders, signed by Gutchkov, which broke up completely the foundations of military life and custom. That these orders were the result of a painful internal drama, a painful struggle and defeat--this the officers did not know, nor did it interest them. Their lack of information was so great that many of them even now, four years later, ascribe to Gutchkov the authorship of the celebrated "Order No. 1." However it may be, the officers felt themselves deceived and deserted. Their difficult position they ascribed principally to the reforms of the Minister of War, against whom a hostile feeling arose, heated still more by the grumbling of hundreds of Generals removed by him and of the ultra-monarchical section of the officers, who could not forgive Gutchkov his supposed share in the preparation of the Palace _coup d'état_ and of the journey to Pskov.[48]

Thus the resignation of this Minister, even if caused "by those conditions, in which the Government power was placed in the country, and in particular the power of the Minister of the Army and the Navy with respect to the Army and the fleet,"[49] had another justification as well--the want of support among the officers and the soldiery.

In a special resolution the Provisional Government condemned Gutchkov's

## action in "resigning responsibility for the fate of Russia," and

appointed Kerensky Minister of the Army and the Navy. I do not know how the Army received this appointment in the beginning, but the Soviet received it without prejudice. Kerensky was a complete stranger to the art of war and to military life, but could have been surrounded by honest men; what was then going on in the Army was simple insanity, and this even a civilian might have understood. Gutchkov was a representative of the Bourgeoisie, a Member of the Right, and was distrusted; now, perhaps, a Socialist Minister, the favourite of the Democracy, might have succeeded in dissipating the fog in which the soldiers' consciousness was wrapped. Nevertheless, to take up such a burden called for enormous boldness or enormous self-confidence, and Kerensky emphasised this circumstance more than once when speaking to an Army audience: "At a time when many soldiers, who had studied the art of war for decades, declined the post of Minister of War, I--a civilian, accepted it." No one, however, had ever heard that the Ministry of War had been offered to a soldier that May.

The very first steps taken by the new Minister dissipated our hopes: the choice of collaborators, who were even greater opportunists than their predecessors, but void of experience in military administration and in active service;[50] the surrounding of himself with men from "underground"--perhaps having done very great work in the cause of the Revolution, but without any comprehension of the life of the Army--all this introduced into the actions of the War Ministry a new party element, foreign to the military service.

A few days after his appointment Kerensky issued the Declaration of the rights of the soldier, thereby predestining the entire course of his

## activity.

On May 11th the Minister was passing through Moghilev to the Front. We were surprised by the circumstance that the passage was timed for 5 a.m., and that only the Chief-of-Staff was invited into the train. The Minister of War seemed to avoid meeting the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. His conversation with me was short and touched on details--the suppression of some disturbances or other that had broken out at one of the railway junctions and so forth. The most capital questions of the existence of the Army and of the coming advance, the necessity for unity in the views of the Government and the Command, the absence of which was showing itself with such marked clearness--all this, apparently, did not attract the attention of the Minister. Among other things, Kerensky passed a few cursory remarks on the inappropriateness of Generals Gourko and Dragomirov, Commanders-in-Chief of fronts, to their posts, which drew a protest from me. All this was very symptomatic and created at the Stavka a condition of tense, nervous expectation.

Kerensky was proceeding to the South-Western front, to begin his celebrated verbal campaign which was to rouse the Army to achievement. The _word_ created hypnosis and self-hypnosis. Brussilov reported to the Stavka that throughout the Army the Minister of War had been received with extraordinary enthusiasm. Kerensky spoke with unusual pathos and exaltation, in stirring "revolutionary" images, often with foam on his lips, reaping the applause and delight of the mob. At times, however, the mob would turn to him the face of a wild beast, the sight of which made words to stick in the throat and caused the heart to fail. They sounded a note of menace, these moments, but fresh delight drowned their alarming meaning. And Kerensky reported to the Provisional Government that "the wave of enthusiasm in the Army is growing and widening," and that a definite change in favour of discipline and the regeneration of the Army was displaying itself. In Odessa he became even more irresistibly poetical: "In your welcome I see that great enthusiasm which has overwhelmed the country and feel that great exaltation which the world experiences but once in hundreds of years."

Let us be just.

Kerensky called on the Army to do its duty. He spoke of duty, honour, discipline, obedience, trust in its commanders; he spoke of the necessity for advancing and for victory. He spoke in the language of the established revolutionary ritual, which ought to have reached the hearts and minds of the "revolutionary people." Sometimes, even, feeling his power over his audience, he would throw at it the words, which became household words, of "rebel slaves" and "revolutionary tyrants."

In vain!

At the conflagration of the temple of Russia, he called to the fire: "Be quenched!" instead of extinguishing it with brimful pails of water.

Words could not fight against facts, nor heroic poems against the stern prose of life. The replacement of the Motherland by Liberty and Revolution did not make the aims of the conflict any clearer. The constant scoffing at the old "discipline," at the "Czar's generals," the reminders of the knout, the stick, and the "former unprivileged condition of the soldier" or of the soldier's blood "shed in vain" by someone or other--nothing of this could bridge the chasm between the two component parts of the Army. The passionate preaching of a "new, conscious, iron revolutionary discipline," _i.e._, a discipline based on the "declaration of the rights of the soldier"--a discipline of meetings, propaganda, political agitation, absence of authority in the commanders, and so forth--this preaching was in irreconcileable opposition to the call to victory. Having received his impressions in the artificially exalted, theatrical atmosphere of meetings, surrounded both in the Ministry and in his journeyings, by an impenetrable wall of old political friends and of all manner of delegations and deputations from the Soviets and the Committees, Kerensky looked on the Army through the prism of their outlook, either unwilling or unable to sink himself in the real life of the Army and in its torments, sufferings, searchings, and crimes, and finally to attain a real standing-ground, get at vital themes and real words. These everyday questions of Army life and organisation--dry in their form and deeply dramatic in their content--never served as themes for his speeches. They contained only a glorification of the Revolution and a condemnation of certain perversions of the idea of national defence, created by that Revolution itself. The masses of the soldiery, eager for sentimental scenes, listened to the appeals of the recognised chief for self-sacrifice, and they were inflamed with the "sacred fire"; but as soon as the scene was over, both the chief and the audiences reverted to the daily occupations: the chief--to the "democratisation" of the Army, and the masses--to "deepening the Revolution." In the same way, probably, Djerzinsky's executioners in Soviet Russia now admire, in the temple of proletarian art, the sufferings of young Werther--before proceeding to their customary occupation of hanging and shooting.

At any rate, there was much noise. So much, that Hindenburg sincerely believes even to this day that in June, 1917, the South-Western Front was commanded by Kerensky. In his book _Aus meinem Leben_ the German Field-Marshal relates that Kerensky succeeded Brussilov, "who was swept away from his post by the rivers of Russian blood which he shed in Galicia and Macedonia (?) in 1916" (the Field-Marshal has confused the theatres of war), and tells the story of Kerensky's "advance" and victories over the Austrians near Stanislavov.

* * * * *

Meanwhile life at the Stavka was gradually waning. The wheels of administration were still revolving, everybody was doing something, issuing orders and giving directions. The work was purely formal, because all the plans and directions of the Stavka were upset by unavoidable and incalculable circumstances. Petrograd never took the Stavka into serious account, but at that time the attitude of the Government was somewhat hostile, and the War Ministry was conducting the work of reorganisation without ever consulting the Stavka. This position was a great burden to General Alexeiev, the more so that the attacks of his old disease became more frequent. He was extremely patient and disregarded all personal pin-pricks and all efforts at undermining his prerogatives which emanated from the Government. In his discussions with numerous Army chiefs, and organisations which took advantage of his accessibility, he was likewise patient, straightforward, and sincere. He worked incessantly, in order to preserve the remnants of the Army. Seeking to give an example of discipline, he protested but obeyed. He was not sufficiently strong and masterful by nature to compel the Provisional Government and the civilian reformers of the Army to take the demands of the Supreme Command into account; at the same time, he never did violence to his conscience in order to please the powers that be or the mob.

On May 20th, Kerensky stopped for a few hours at Moghilev on his way home from the South-Western Front. He was full of impressions, praised Brussilov, and expressed the view that the general spirit at the front and the relations between officers and men were excellent. Although in his conversation with Alexeiev Kerensky made no hint, we noticed that his entourage was somewhat uneasy, and realised that decisions in regard to certain changes had already been taken. I did not consider it necessary to acquaint the Supreme Commander-in-Chief with these rumours, and merely seized the first opportunity for postponing his intended visit to the Western Front so as not to put him into a false position.

In the night of the 22nd a telegram was received dismissing General Alexeiev and appointing General Brussilov by order of the Provisional Government. The Quartermaster-General Josephovitch woke up Alexeiev and handed him the telegram. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief was deeply moved, and tears came down his cheeks. May the members of the Provisional Government who are still alive forgive the vulgarity of the language: in a subsequent conversation with me the Supreme Commander-in-Chief inadvertently uttered the following words: "The cads! They have dismissed me like a servant without notice."

A great statesman and military leader had thus left the stage, whose virtue--one of many--was his implicit loyalty (or was it a defect?) to the Provisional Government.

On the next day Kerensky was asked--at a meeting of the Soviet--what steps he had taken in view of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief's speech at the officers' Conference (see