General base. Military specialists in the corps of the General Staff of the Red Army See what "Officers of the General Staff" are in other dictionaries

(that is, those who had the right to eventually receive a position in the General Staff).

However, this did not mean, contrary to a common misconception, that they all served in the General Staff itself (Main Directorate of the General Staff, GUGSH) - they served directly in those formations where they were seconded after graduating from the Academy, mainly in the headquarters of units and formations. At the same time, they were listed in the lists of ranks both according to the General Staff and according to the type of troops where they served directly.

The name of the latter was added to the name of the rank of officers after being assigned to the General Staff, for example: “ General Staff Captain ”, which was preserved even with promotion in ranks, for the entire time of the state in the lists of the General Staff.

In the headquarters (from the military district - from the city to the divisional), as well as the departments of individual brigades, fortresses, there were special positions that were to be replaced only by the ranks of the General Staff.

see also

Literature

• Collection of legal provisions on the General Staff, corrected and supplemented on January 1, 1899 / Comp. Captain Krylov - St. Petersburg: Military printing house (in the building of the General Staff), 1899. - 145 p.
• Ganin A.V. On the Role of the General Staff Officers in the Civil War. Archived from the original on August 25, 2011. Retrieved March 16, 2011.

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See what "Officers of the General Staff" is in other dictionaries:

General staff officers- Officers of the General Staff - a category of officers of the armed forces assigned to the General Staff. History In the Russian Imperial Army in the last third of the 19th century at the beginning of the 20th century, officers who completed the full course were considered such ... ... Wikipedia

General Staff Academy- The Academy of the General Staff, established in 1832 as the Imperial Military Academy, since 1855 the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff (in memory of Emperor Nicholas I), since 1909 the Imperial Nikolaev Military Academy. Trained officers with higher ... ... Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg"

General Staff Academy- established in 1832 as the Imperial Military Academy, from 1855 Nikolaevskaya A.G. (in memory of Emperor Nicholas I), since 1909 the Imperial Nikolaev Military Academy. Trained officers with higher military education and officers of surveyors. AT… … St. Petersburg (encyclopedia)

General Staff building- The building of the General Staff. August 2006 The General Staff Building is a historic building located on Palace Square in St. Petersburg. The construction of the building lasted from 1819 to 1829. Architect: K. I. Rossi. Sculptors: S. S. Pimenov ... Wikipedia

General Staff Academy (Russian Empire)- This term has other meanings, see Academy of the General Staff. Imperial Nikolaev Military Academy (since 1909), Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff (1855), Imperial Military Academy ... Wikipedia

Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff- The Academy of the General Staff is the highest military educational institution in the Russian Empire. The building of the Academy Suvorovsky pr., 32. Arch. Alexander Ivanovich von Gauguin. The official name at the time of creation was the Imperial Military Academy, since 1855 it has been ... ... Wikipedia

Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR named after Marshal of the Soviet Union K. E. Voroshilov

Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. K. E. Voroshilova- Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Founded 1918 Location Moscow Legal address 119571, Moscow, Vernadsky Avenue, 100 Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian ... ... Wikipedia

Military Academy of the General Staff- Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Year of foundation 1918 Location Moscow Legal address 119571, Moscow, Prospekt Vernadsky, 100 Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation higher military educational institution ... Wikipedia

Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation- Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Founded 1918 Location Moscow Legal address 119571, Moscow, Vernadsky Avenue, 100 Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian ... ... Wikipedia

Books

• Finances of Russia in the 19th century. Volume I, Ivan Stanislavovich Bliokh, I. S. Bliokh - a native of a family of Polish Jews, the largest Russian banker, co-owner of railways, one of the founders of the movement for peace in Europe, supported the development of Zionism. ... Series: Publisher: Book on Demand, Buy for 1691 rubles
• Finances of Russia in the 19th century. Volume III, Ivan Stanislavovich Bliokh, I. S. Bliokh - a native of a family of Polish Jews, the largest Russian banker, co-owner of railways, one of the founders of the movement for peace in Europe, supported the development of Zionism. ... Series:

Before proceeding to the presentation of the question of attracting to the Red Army the most valuable and trained part of the officer corps of the Russian army - the corps of officers of the General Staff, we will briefly dwell on what this component of the General Staff was, especially since in Soviet historiography there are only a number of articles by the author of a monograph on the history of the General Staff of the Russian Army in the period of interest to us 52 . Incompetence in this matter sometimes leads some authors to serious mistakes. So, N. D. Saltykov in his book “Reporting to the General Staff” (M., 1983, p. 252) erroneously claims that the term “general staff officer” in 1941 sounded “incomprehensible and strange. There was no such service in the Red Army and they were not prepared for it.

The General Staff - the supreme governing body of the Russian army - was a combination of management: central (Main Directorate of the General Staff - hereinafter GU GSh) 53 and local, from the headquarters of military districts to the directorates of individual brigades inclusive (Military Directorate of the General Staff - VUGSH) 54, as well as corps of officers of the General Staff who successfully completed the full course of the Academy of the General Staff (from July 31, 1909 it became known as the Nikolaev Military Academy, on August 8 of the same year the word “imperial” (hereinafter: Military Academy) was added to its name), “ranked ” to the General Staff, and then “transferred” to it (for an explanation of these terms, see below) 55 . The names of these officers were included in the "List of the General Staff" published annually (the last one came out in 1917), which, in essence, was a list of the corps of officers of the General Staff for the corresponding year. At the same time, the “List” included the names of not only those officers who served in the positions of the General Staff (in the GUGSH or VUGSH), but in general of all those who had ever served in the positions of the General Staff for at least three years, and then switched to another service (which often had nothing to do not only with the service of the General Staff, but with military service in general). However, according to special provisions, these persons were left the right to continue to be in the corps of officers of the General Staff, to wear the uniform assigned to them and to be included in the above "List".

Chief officers of all military branches of the Guards and the Army 56 were admitted to the Military Academy, which required at least three years of service in the officer's chip (of which at least two years - in a combat position), positive attestation, fitness for health reasons and successful Exams passage. The total number of students at the Military Academy was determined at 314 people 57 . Therefore, only the number of officers that was missing for the established contingent (an average of 70 people) was allowed to receive annually. Hence the rather difficult preliminary written examinations at the headquarters of military districts 58, and especially the entrance oral examinations at the Military Academy, as a result of which many officers, even those who successfully passed the written examinations, did not pass the competition. Education at the Military Academy included two classes - junior and senior (one year each) and an additional course (9 months), intended for special training for the service of the General Staff 59 . But only such a number of officers who graduated from two classes of the Military Academy in the 1st category 60 (according to the seniority of the average score) were transferred to the additional course, which was annually determined by the Minister of War, depending on the vacancies available in the General Staff. The rest of the officers who graduated from the two classes of the Military Academy, both in the 1st and 2nd categories, received a silver academic badge and were seconded to their units 61 . They were given significant benefits in the service (in particular, promotion to lieutenant colonel after a 3-year stay in the rank of captain instead of 8-10 years).

Officers who successfully completed the additional course of the Military Academy, which consisted of independent development of three topics (military-historical, military art and strategic), and who proved themselves to be reliable from the political and moral side, received the right to "recruitment" to the General Staff 62 . This was a special category of officers, established above the ranks who occupied full-time positions in the General Staff, to replenish the annual loss in the General Staff and strengthen its composition in wartime. But only as many officers who completed the additional course of the Military Academy were "assigned" to the General Staff as there were vacancies in the General Staff 63 ; the rest of the officers were seconded to their units. In this regard, I would like to emphasize that "assignment" to the General Staff, as a rule, depended only on the successful completion of the Military Academy and was not associated with the origin or social status of the officer. Therefore, it seems to us unsubstantiated the assertion contained in the book “Commander-in-Chief of All the Armed Forces of the Republic I. I. Vatsetis” (Riga, 1978, p. 14) that Vatsetis successfully graduated from the Military Academy in 1909, but was not “ranked” with the General headquarters, "where mainly representatives of the aristocracy fell." The situation was different: Vatsetis was not "ranked" to the General Staff, not because he really did not belong to the "aristocracy", but because he graduated from the Military Academy penultimate (52nd out of 53), and the General Staff were " only 42 officers were enrolled (and then four more, but also with a higher average score than Vatsetis) 64 .

Officers “assigned” to the General Staff were distributed among military districts (mainly border ones) and seconded to the corresponding district headquarters “for a comprehensive test of their compliance with the service of the General Staff.” The right to be "transferred" to the General Staff, as vacancies opened up, was enjoyed only by officers "assigned" to the General Staff and who had successfully served their qualifications in full, the rest were seconded to their units. The officer “transferred” to the General Staff received significant benefits in the service. So, in peacetime, an officer of the General Staff received a regiment, as a rule, after 15-17 years of service, which even outstanding military officers, but without an academic diploma, could count on only after 25 years. A wide road was opened for the officers of the General Staff not only in the army, but also outside the military department.

* Compiled by: List of the General Staff. Pg., 1914. S. 755-779. The list also contains the names of 196 chief officers "assigned" to the General Staff in 1911-1914. (Ibid., pp. 625-692). In brackets - the actual number of officers of the General Staff. See: Ibid. pp. 697-714; General list of members of the Main Directorate of the General Staff. SPb., 1914., Kavtaradze A. G. Military Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army//Voen.-ist. magazine 1978. No. 6. S. 81.

** The number 852 - the number of officers of the General Staff by state - does not include the positions of teachers of military sciences in military and special schools (as of July 18, 1914 there were 49) (TsGVIA. F. 2000. Op. 2. D. 2883. L .221).

On the eve of the First World War, on July 18, 1914, the corps of officers of the General Staff consisted of 1135 people (including 425 generals, 472 headquarters and 238 chief officers).

Table data. 10 indicate that only 713 officers of the General Staff, including 120 generals, were involved in the direct preparation of Russia for war, while in Germany - 228 officers, including 5 generals, in France - 285, including 1 general etc. 66 In addition, 279 officers of the General Staff, including (and this is especially important) 257 generals, served in positions that were not expected to be filled by officers of the General Staff according to the state.

From the foregoing, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1) a characteristic feature of the corps of officers of the General Staff of the Russian army was its huge number; 2) the distribution of officers of the General Staff by position shows that only 28% of the generals (i.e., those who replaced the positions of the General Staff in the GUGSH and VUGSH) dealt with issues that were directly related to the preparation of the country for war; 3) the situation in which 60% of the generals of the General Staff of the Russian army did not serve in the positions of the General Staff indicates that they, by no means satisfied with the performance of the service for their intended purpose, sought to monopolize command functions, which resulted in their "seizure" of the highest command positions from the corps commander and above; 4) the hypertrophy of the corps of officers of the General Staff of the Russian Army also consisted in the fact that a significant number of its generals occupied the highest administrative positions in various central and local departments of both the military and other departments, many of which had nothing to do not only with the service of the General Staff , but also in general with military service 67 .

Therefore, it is not surprising that at that time (especially in the civilian part of Russian society) there was an identification of the concept of "General Staff" (i.e., the highest body designed to develop plans for preparing the country for war) with the entire corps of officers of the General Staff (which was often called “General Staff”), and above all with that part of it that occupied the highest military, administrative (and, under autocracy, court) positions in the country. Due to the fact that all those who were in the corps of officers of the General Staff were connected by a common higher military education, service (including in the distant past) on the General Staff, uniforms and being included in the "List of the General Staff" compiled annually, broad public opinion did not versed in the intricacies of the features of the service of the General Staff, allowed a broad interpretation of the concept of "General Staff", attributing to this body of military command such a nature of activity that the General Staff had never been engaged in.

With the beginning of mobilization in July 1914, classes at the Military Academy ceased and a hospital was set up in its premises. Students who switched to an additional course (118 people) and to the senior class (99 people) were seconded to their units, where, as a rule, they became excellent company and battalion commanders. The teaching and teaching and administrative staff that remained after the formation of the Provisional Directorate of the Military Academy was expelled for wartime positions 68 .

However, as subsequent events showed, the decision to stop classes at the Military Academy was erroneous: the expansion of the scale of the war and its duration required new formations, as a result of which a year later there was an acute shortage of General Staff officers, especially in junior positions. This made it necessary to change the existing rules for the service of General Staff officers and take a number of urgent measures to replenish the corps of General Staff officers 69 . But even these measures did not make up for the deficiency; by the summer of 1916, it turned out that only 50% of the most important staff positions in the field headquarters of the Army in the Field were replaced by officers of the General Staff. In this regard, the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, General M.V. Alekseev, in a letter to the Minister of War, General D.S. Shuvaev No. 2172 dated April 18, 1916, proposed opening wartime courses at the Military Academy for "theoretical training of officers intended for .. . chief officer positions of the General Staff in the field headquarters "70 . This proposal was accepted, and after discussing its main issues at the headquarters of the armies and fronts, as well as at the Main Directorate of the General Staff, on October 30, 1916, Nicholas II approved the "Regulations on the accelerated training of officers at the Imperial Nikolaev Military Academy during the present war." The officers of the General Staff from the Active Army were involved in the educational and administrative staff of the Military Academy, who had been in the theater of military operations continuously from their beginning and gained combat experience both in the positions of the General Staff and part of the combatant - in the position of regiment commander. General VN Peters (Kamnev) was appointed acting head of the Military Academy.

On November 1, 1916, classes began at the preparatory courses of the 1st stage, where 240 officers were sent from the front. On January 15, 1917, 237 officers who completed these courses were sent to the Active Army to fill the junior positions of the General Staff in the field headquarters, as deputies of those officers who were intended to be sent to the Military Academy for preparatory courses of the 2nd stage and in the senior class 1- th queue. By February 1, 1917, 339 officers arrived at the Military Academy from the Army in the field: 86 officers for the senior class of the 1st stage, 253 for preparatory courses of the 2nd stage. The purpose of opening the senior class was, firstly, to complete the training of officers who were in the Army in the field, who passed the junior class of the Military Academy in peacetime, and, secondly, to complete the training of officers who completed preparatory courses during the war of the 2nd, 1st, and, if necessary, the 3rd stage . The purpose of establishing preparatory courses of the 2nd stage was to "prepare a contingent of students for the senior class of the academy, if the latter had to be opened in the second stage from September 1, 1917" 71 .

Classes at the preparatory courses of the 2nd stage lasted three months (from February 1 to April 25, 1917), on May 1, 1917, 233 officers graduated. As for the senior class of the 1st stage, classes in it continued from February 1 to May 4, 1917, and on June 13, 84 officers graduated (with simultaneous assignment to the General Staff), of which 81 were ordered by the Provisional Government of the Army and Navy to ranks of the military on September 14, 1917 was "transferred" to the General Staff 72 .

	According to "List General headquarters"
		produced in next rank			excluded from service
		to generals	to headquarters officers		killed died etc.	fired and expelled (including for participation in Kornilov rebellion
generals
Headquarters officers
Chief officers

* Compiled by: List of the General Staff. Corrected on January 3 (with amendments on February 8, 1917). Pg., 1917. S. 1-158; orders: "the highest" in the military department from February 9 to March 3, 1917 and the Provisional Government on the military ranks of the land department from March 4 to October 24, 1917. The officers of the General Staff who were in captivity were not taken into account.

The correctness indicated in the table. 11 of the total number of officers of the General Staff - 1494 people - as a whole is confirmed by the order of the General Staff No. 38 of November 24, 1917, according to which the total number of persons "on the General Staff or on the list of the General Staff" was 1459 73.

Let us compare our final table figures with the data given in the article by L. M. Spirin, who writes that “by the autumn of 1917, the old army had about 1350 General Staff officers, including about 500 generals, 580 colonels and lieutenant colonels, 270 captains and equated to officers of the General Staff” 74 . Unfortunately, the author does not substantiate these figures, nor does he explain what he understands by the category “equated to officers of the General Staff” and what its number was. In our opinion, L. M. Spirin’s reference to the “List of the General Staff” (Pg., 1917) is unconvincing, since the number of the corps of officers of the General Staff given in it, as indicated in Table. 11, given for February 8, and not for the autumn of 1917. The number of officers who completed academic courses during the world war also needs to be corrected. “At the beginning of 1918,” writes L. M. Spirin, “about 100 more people completed the courses of the academy” 75 . Meanwhile, not “at the beginning of 1918”, but on March 23, 1918, 158 people completed the preparatory courses of the 2nd stage (with “assignment” to the General Staff), of which 133 people were ordered by the All-Glavshtab (according to the “General Staff Corps”) No. 18 of June 27, 1918 were "transferred" to the General Staff.

The highest body of military leadership, created after the October Revolution, in the person of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, relied in its activities on some governing bodies of the old army, and in particular on the GUGSH. On May 8, 1918, the All-Russian General Staff was created, which, along with the Main Staff, included the General Staff, the All-Russian Collegium for the Organization and Management of the Red Army, Ch. the commissariat of the university and the Office for the repair of the army.

The vast majority of officers of the VUGSH served in the Army. After the October Revolution, with the democratization and demobilization of the old army, the disbandment of formations and headquarters, etc., this category practically shared the fate of the entire officer corps, as mentioned above.

Let us dwell on the question: how was the attraction of former officers of the General Staff to the Red Army for command, staff, administrative, teaching and other positions. Already on March 5, 1918, the military head of the Supreme Military Council, M.D. Bonch-Bruevich, sent a telegram to the Chief of the General Staff N.M. Petrograd" 76 . And in a memorandum on the need to register former career officers dated April 12, 1918, he paid special attention to identifying and accounting for former officers of the General Staff, who were very needed in the implementation of the military district reform, “for the upcoming new formations of the standing army, and also for service in the parts of the veil.” However, at present, as noted in this document, "correct records of these officers are not kept, without which it is impossible to properly determine the stock of persons with special training." To eliminate this, the Chief of the General Staff was asked to "immediately establish and continue to keep records of all officers of the General Staff" 77 .

However, in solving this issue, many difficulties of an objective nature had to be faced. During the World War, most of the officers of the General Staff were registered with the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, from where information about changes in their official position was sent to the Main Command Staff. These changes were noted in the annually published "List of the General Staff" and until December 15 (28), 1917 were announced in the orders of the army and navy or in the order of the General Staff (from January 1 (14), 1918). In connection with the general demobilization of the army after February 18, 1918, many headquarters and departments up to the headquarters, including the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, were hastily disbanded, and those in them in the positions of the General Staff were divided into three main groups: they transferred to serve in the Red Army ( in administrations, military schools, etc.); lived, left out of work, within the boundaries of the Soviet Republic; went to Ukraine, Don and Siberia. Having dispersed all over Russia and having received in the majority documents on dismissal from the army, these officers, as a rule, did not report their addresses to the appropriate authorities. In addition, most of the headquarters of the Western, Southwestern and Romanian fronts were cut off from Central Russia both by the intervention of the Quadruple Alliance and by the civil war unleashed by the classes overthrown by the October Revolution, so information from these headquarters was received by the GUGSH only in isolated cases. As a result, in the office work of the General Staff, where the lists of the General Staff officers continued to be kept (both general by seniority and graduation from the Military Academy, and by various headquarters and departments), it was not possible to have information about the fate of all the officers of the General Staff who were previously on positions in the Active Army, and, therefore, to properly register and record the General Staff officers.

As for the involvement of specialists from the General Staff for the needs of the upcoming "new formations of the standing army", the main difficulty was that there was no explanation both in relation to the principles on which the new standing army was formed, and in relation to the conditions under which the further service of specialists of the General Staff, receiving appointments with new formations. The absence of such official information led to the fact that the former officers of the General Staff found it difficult "to give their consent to be registered for new formations, preferring to wait for clarification of these issues" 78 .

By order of the Supreme Military Council No. 1522 dated May 14, 1918, the clerical work for the service of the General Staff of the Operational Directorate of the All-Glavshtab was entrusted with “registration throughout the country of all former officers of the General Staff without exception for their further appointment to positions, according to the new states” in connection with the into the life of the "military district reform and new formations of the standing army" 79 .

The states developed by the Supreme Military Council provided for positions that were to be filled by the General Staff. So, they were in the central military bodies, in particular in the All-Glavshtab, which included four directorates from the Main Directorate of General Staff (Operational, Organizational, Military Communications and Military Topographic), and only in the Organizational Directorate there were 31 positions, which should have been replaced by specialists of the General Staff. The positions of the General Staff were also provided for in the states of the military district headquarters 80 , in the Operational Department of the People's Commissariat of War 81 , as well as in the field administrations: the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic 82 , in the headquarters of the field administration of the front (25 posts) and the armies that are part of the front (9-10 positions) 83, in the headquarters of rifle and cavalry divisions (4 positions per division) 84 . Circular telegram No. 877 of the People's Commissariat of War dated July 23, 1918 set "the lowest salary for a junior position of the General Staff at the headquarters and institutions of the military department at 700 rubles per month" 85 . Subsequently, the rates were to be increased in accordance with the norms announced in the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of June 27, 1918.

Resolution of the Supreme Military Council No. 8/8 of June 11, 1918, it was proposed “within a certain, as short as possible, period of time, all persons who served in the General Staff who currently do not have positions, register in the Operations Department (in the office work in the service of the General headquarters) All-Glavshtab"; they were to offer vacancies as they opened up, those who refused two offers, as well as all those who did not register, were to be expelled "from service in the General Staff" 86 .

In pursuance of this decision, the Chief of the All-Glavshtab in a circular telegram invited all persons who served in the General Staff "until August 1 of the new style of this year" to register at the place of residence at the headquarters of military districts, departments, inspections of the formation and at the headquarters of divisions and detachments, or directly in office work for the service of the General Staff; office work should have prepared lists of all such persons "in positions, and a list of available vacant positions of the General Staff" 87 . Announcement of this at the request of the Chief of the General Staff II. M. Potapov was published "in all newspapers published on the territory of the Russian Republic" 88 . In the Operational Directorate of the All-Glavshtab, a certificate was drawn up, according to which, as of July 15, 1918, a total of 245 former officers of the General Staff were registered (not counting employees in the central departments and the Military Academy) 89 ; of these, 224 people have already been appointed to the new formations, and the rest have been made offers to occupy the relevant positions. At the same time, it was announced the need to fill 158 vacant positions of the General Staff (in the headquarters of the regions and units of the "veil" - 20, in the headquarters of military districts - 13, etc.), i.e. there were 7 vacant positions in the General Staff times more than the number of candidates to replace them, and with the growth of new formations, the number of unfilled posts steadily increased.

Thus, despite the measures taken to attract specialists from the General Staff to the Red Army, their shortage in all headquarters and departments on July 23, 1918 reached 50-90% (Table 12).

TABLE 12. LACK OF MILITARY SPECIALISTS - FORMER OFFICERS OF THE GENERAL STAFF IN THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE II DEPARTMENTS OF THE RED ARMY ON JULY 23, 1918 *

Service place	Positions that should be be replaced General Staff specialists	Positions that could be replaced specialists General Staff	replaced	Incomplete
At the headquarters of the military districts
In divisions and detachments of the "veil"
At the headquarters of the "veil" districts
At the headquarters of the Eastern Front
In the operational department of the People's Commissariat of War
In the Supreme Military Council
At the Higher Attestation Commission
At the All-Russian General Staff
At the military academy
In the Office of the Military Air Fleet

* Compiled by: TsGASA. F. 11. Op. 5. D. 1124. L. 70.

The lack of persons of the General Staff was explained by the fact that in connection with the conditions of the general demobilization of the old army and the intervention of the Quadruple Alliance, a significant number of former officers of the General Staff and departments of the Western, Southwestern and Romanian fronts ended up on the territory of Ukraine, occupied by the enemy, and could only leave from there alone, hiding from the German authorities, who did not give permission to leave. So, a group of former officers of the General Staff, who remained in Kyiv, at the beginning of March 1918 sent a statement to the Chief of the General Staff that “all of them will arrive in Russia alone and join the Red Army, but ask for financial assistance to leave Kyiv, where they live in poverty without any means. The head of the All-Glavshtab expressed the opinion that “it is urgently necessary to ensure the possibility of moving to Russia for the persons of the General Staff who remained in the areas occupied by the enemy,” and to increase the registration period for former officers of the General Staff “up to 1.5 months from the date of publication in the newspapers of the decision of the Supreme Military Council of June 11, 1918. In order to provide financial assistance for moving to Russia from the territory occupied by the enemy, permission was requested for vacations for the persons of the General Staff "an advance payment of 40-50,000 rubles." 90 .

From May to September 1918, 17 lists (with a total number of up to 400 people) 91 were sent to the clerical work of the General Staff, indicating the names of the General Staff officers who “informed ... about their desire to be appointed to the appropriate positions with the upcoming new formations of the standing army » 92 ; the lists also included persons who graduated from the Military Academy, but were not in the corps of officers of the General Staff. Basically, the lists included General Staff officers who later served in the Red Army, but there were also those who during the Civil War held high positions in the White Guard armies: General Staff Generals V. G. Boldyrev (list No. 7), S. N. Rozanov ( list No. 8), I. P. Sytin (list No. 13), Lieutenant Colonel V. O. Kappel of the General Staff (list No. 4), etc. 93 .

At first, the certification of all former officers of the General Staff took place on a general basis in the certification commission, but on July 10, 1918, its chairman, former lieutenant colonel A.I. positions from the regiment commander and above and their respective positions in military institutions, establishments, etc., with the subsequent submission of these materials for approval by the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs 94 .

On August 21, 1918, two orders of the People's Commissariat of War were issued: No. 721 with the announcement of the "Rules for the Appointment to the Posts of the General Staff" 95 and No. 722 with the draft "Rules for the Enrollment of General Staff Specialists at the disposal of the Chief of the All-Russian General Staff for appointment to the position of the General Staff in formed army" 96 . The first order stated that in order to evenly distribute the persons of the General Staff among all headquarters and departments, all military leaders, chiefs of staff and departments are immediately obliged to begin the gradual transfer of persons of the General Staff from positions other than the General Staff and those that can be replaced by these persons to positions subject, according to the states, to mandatory replacement by persons of the General Staff. Appointments, transfers and dismissals of persons of the General Staff were to take place "only with the consent and knowledge" of the Chief of the All-Glavstab.

The "Regulations on enrollment" provided for the establishment of a reserve of 50 people "to provide the headquarters and directorates of the army being formed with the necessary contingent of specialists from the General Staff." While in the reserve, specialists from the General Staff could be involved in various assignments and assignments that required their knowledge and experience. So, they participated in the work of the Russian-German border commission in Pskov, in peace negotiations with Finland in Berlin; received appointments to positions in the newly formed headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the Czechoslovak Front, in the headquarters of the heads of field reconnaissance in the Moscow area, districts and detachments, various interdepartmental commissions, etc. chief of the General Staff, was scheduled for abolition on June 1, 1918, and all of them were subject to dismissal from service from the same date.

Particular attention should be paid to the “assignment” to the General Staff and the “transfer” of Red Army commanders to it. For the first time after the October Revolution, 133 former officers were “transferred” to the General Staff on June 27, 1918, as noted above. By order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic No. 1944 dated November 19, 1919, 98 students of the former Nikolaev Military Academy, who occupied “in the field military headquarters of the Active (Red, - A. K.) army responsible positions of the General Staff", which, according to the testimony of the relevant headquarters of the fronts or individual armies, were recognized as "quite appropriate for service in the General Staff, distinguished themselves in battles, and also have special service merits", could be allowed "to be assigned to the General Staff". Total to the General Staff 1919-1920. 23 commanders of the Red Army 99 were "ranked" including 19 military specialists. So, in the submission of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 13th Army No. 93 dated December 8, 1919, for the “assignment” to the General Staff of the army commander, the former staff captain A. I. Gekker, it was said that throughout the civil war he held “responsible command posts ” in the theater of operations, “brilliantly commanding” the 13th division, and then the 13th army 100 . Of these 23 commanders, 10 people were "transferred" to the General Staff (Table 13). Thus, in the submission of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (No. 10361 / K of December 31, 1920) for the “transfer” to the General Staff of the Commander of the Southern Front M.V. group of the Eastern Front, the Eastern, Turkestan and Southern Fronts, brilliantly showed in practice his great natural military abilities" 101 . In the submission of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (No. 10363 / K of December 31, 1920) for the "transfer" to the General Staff of the former lieutenant colonel A. I. Yegorov, it was indicated that he assumed the post of commander of the Southern Front at a difficult time, when "our troops are under attack Denikin retreated to the north and left the city of Orel", under his leadership, the troops of the front "went on a decisive offensive, which led the Red Army to the shores of the Black and Azov Seas", he "inflicted a cruel defeat" on bourgeois-landlord Poland with a boldly conceived and skillfully executed maneuver ( which gave "Soviet Russia very solid strategic results"), and then Petlyura, "forcing the latter to leave Galicia" 102 .

TABLE 13. RED ARMY COMMANDERS "TRANSFERRED" TO THE GENERAL STAFF FOR SPECIAL SERVICES DURING THE CIVIL WAR *

Full Name	Year birth	Former rank in the old army	Former personnel officer or officer wartime	No. and year of order Revolutionary Military Council Republic about the transfer to General base
Alafuzo Mikhail Ivanovich		Staff captain	personnel
Alekseev Platon Nikolaevich		Colonel
Armaderov Georgy Alexandrovich
Bobrischev Ardalion Alexandrovich		Colonel
Egorov Alexander Ilyich		Lieutenant colonel
Zakharov Ivan Nikolaevich
Troitsky Ivan Alexandrovich		Staff captain	Called up from the reserve
Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolaevich		Second Lieutenant	personnel
Uborevich-Guborevich Ieronim Petrovich			Wartime
Frunze-Mikhailov Mikhail Vasilievich		Volunteer

* Compiled by: List of persons with higher general military education serving in the Red Army. Compiled according to data as of March 1, 1923. B. m., 1923.

The widespread involvement of former officers of the General Staff in the Red Army made it necessary to somehow distinguish them from other military specialists - non-General Staff officers or those who had a higher military, but special education. In the Russian army, officers of the General Staff added the words “General Staff” before the rank (for example, “Chief of Staff of the General Staff Division, Colonel I. I. Petrov”). in a somewhat transformed form, the “corps of the General Staff”, and the former officers of the General Staff related to it began to be called “persons of the General Staff” (or “specialists of the General Staff”), They received the right to add the word “General Staff” (or “General Staff”) after their position) , for example, "chief of staff of the division of the General Staff (General Staff) I. I. Petrov." But unlike the old Russian army in the Red Army, not only former officers of the General Staff, but also all former officers who had ever graduated from two or three courses of the Military Academy were classified as "persons of the General Staff".

Having dwelled briefly on the peculiarities of attracting former officers of the General Staff to the Red Army, we will consider the question of their number in the Red Army, as well as their relationship with the officers of the General Staff in the White Guard, bourgeois-nationalist and other anti-Soviet armies.

This question was first raised by A. A. Zaitsov, who was mentioned above, 103 who wrote that “there is a widespread opinion about the mass defection of officers of our General Staff to the side of the Bolsheviks. This opinion, however, bears little resemblance to the actual state of affairs. Undoubtedly, a part of our General Staff took part in the building of the Red Army and in doing so rendered the Bolsheviks a great service. However, there is still a long way to go from this to a mass transition to the side of the Reds. The numbers say something else." 104 . To prove this point of view, the author takes as the initial figure the number of officers of the General Staff in 1913 105 . At the same time, he admits the first inaccuracy, calling the "List of the General Staff" for 1913 the last pre-war official list 106, which leads him to an error in the number of officers of the General Staff on the eve of the First World War - 1396 people instead of 1135. Unsubstantiated believing that the number of officers transferred to the General Staff during the war, corresponded to the number of those who died at the front and during the revolution "at the hands of the Bolsheviks", the author takes this figure - 1396 people - as the initial one by the time the "formation of the Red Army" began, as he writes. After that, excluding from the "List of the General Staff" published by the Organizational Directorate of the All-Glavshtab on August 7, 1920, specialists of the General Staff of the Red Army who completed an accelerated course of the Military Academy during the war and were transferred to the General Staff in 1917-1918, Zaitsov concludes that “out of the 1,396 officers of our General Staff, only 283 officers, or 20.3% of the total composition of our General Staff, were in the Red Army ... So, the legend about the transfer of the bulk of the officers of the General Staff to the Red Army does not correspond to reality” 107.

In his calculations, the author makes at least four serious mistakes: firstly, he did not analyze the changes that took place in the corps of officers of the General Staff in 1917, and erroneously considers its number by the end of this year to be 1396 people, while on October 25, 1917, it was 1494 people; secondly, as in determining the total number of military specialists in the Red Army, the author does not take into account a significant percentage of former officers of the General Staff who emigrated and did not participate in the civil war, “dissolved” among the civilian population, went missing, etc. ; thirdly, he unlawfully excludes from the "List" young specialists of the General Staff, many of whom, by the way, ended up in the White and other armies, and, finally, fourthly, he does not take into account a significant number of specialists of the General Staff who served in the Red Army since 1918 g., but for various reasons not included in the "Lists of the General Staff", which were published by the All-Glavshtab in 1919-1920.

The former professor of the Military Academy, General A.K. Vanov, was the first to respond to Zaitsov's speech. Unlike Zaitsov, Baiov took the “List of the General Staff” for February 1917 as the initial data, while the number of specialists of the General Staff in the Red Army was taken from the “List of the General Staff” published by the Organizational Directorate of the All-Glavshtab on July 15, 1919, which contains 418 surnames. Having excluded from this number 98 people, i.e., those who were not in the corps of officers of the General Staff, as well as those who completed an accelerated course and were “transferred” to the General Staff in 1917 and 1918, as “who did not serve in the General Staff of the Imperial Army”, Baiov comes to the conclusion that in the Red Army "voluntarily or involuntarily" there were "only 319 people (21%)" of the total number of the General Staff, which he accepts by the time the Red Army was organized "somewhat less than 1517, namely, probably about 1500". Although the data that Baiov adheres to are more correct than those of Zaitsov, he, in essence, repeated the same mistakes (but in a slightly different version) as Zaitsov.

In Soviet historiography, the question of the number of military specialists-general staff officers in the Red Army was first raised by L.M. 526 people, respectively, as well as data taken from the “Lists of the General Staff”, published by the Organizational Directorate of the All-Glavshtab, on the number of specialists of the General Staff by July 15, 1919 (417 people) 110 and August 7, 1920 (407 people).

We will make an attempt to offer our point of view on this issue. To do this, taking as a basis the last “List of the General Staff” published in the Red Army, compiled according to the information available in the Organizational Directorate of the All-Russian General Staff by August 7, 1920, in which 407 names are placed, we will determine the number of “persons of the General Staff” in the corps of the General headquarters of the Red Army by the end of the civil war according to the following scheme:

1. Let's exclude from this "List" 21 people who were not members of the former corps of officers of the General Staff 111 .

2. Let's add 129 people who were not included in the "List" on August 7, 1920, but appeared in the "List" on July 15, 1919 (70 people) and in the "Additional List of the General Staff", compiled according to the information of the former People's Commissariat for Military Affairs of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic by September 1, 1919 (59 people). The “Additional List” contains a total of 70 “persons of the General Staff” (11 of them are included in the “List” as of August 7, 1920), who, by order of the People’s Commissar of Ukraine No. 174 of March 26, 1919, were called up for military service “to staff the headquarters and military institutions by persons with special higher military training” 112, of these 70 people continued to serve in the Red Army 14 113 , went to Denikin’s and other armies - 9, went missing - 47 114 .

3. Let's add military specialists - "persons of the General Staff" (124 people), who in the period from November 1917 to December 1920 collaborated with the Soviet government (in particular, M. D. Bonch-Bruevich, S. I. Odintsov, J. G. Pekhlivanov, N. M. Potapov, M. S. Svechnikov, etc.) and served in the Red Army, but for various reasons were not included in any of the three above "Lists".

So, in the corps of the General Staff of the Red Army in 1918-1920. in total, 639 "persons of the General Staff" served, including 252 generals, 239 staff officers, 148 chief officers.

In order to calculate what percentage is 639 of the total number of General Staff officers, one must first determine what it was made up of. As noted above, on October 25, the corps of officers of the General Staff consisted of 1494 people; 133 former career officers who graduated from the senior class of the 2nd stage of accelerated courses of the Military Academy were transferred to the General Staff by order of the All-Glavshtab. Finally, 305 people graduated from the accelerated courses of the Military Academy in Siberia (from September 9, 1918 it was called the All-Russian Academy of the General Staff). Of this number, 217 were transferred to the General Staff in November 1918 115 and 88 in May 1919 116

Thus, by the end of the civil war there were 1932 General Staff officers, of which 33% (639 people) served in the Red Army, i.e., much more than A. A. Zaitsov and A. K. Baiov thought.

However, when counting the number of General Staff officers in the Red Army, it should be borne in mind that not all of the above 639 people honestly served the Soviet government: some of them went over to the side of the Whites, participated in counter-revolutionary organizations, etc.

But 475 military specialists-general staff officers, as calculated by the author on the basis of archival materials of the TsGVIA and TsGASA (service records, registration cards, etc.), honestly served the Soviet government in various command, staff, administrative and teaching positions, including senior command positions in the front-army-division link in the Active Red Army (see Appendix 4).

Unfortunately, we do not have the combat schedules of the White Guard and other anti-Soviet armies. However, a study of the fate of former officers of the General Staff, including young General Staff officers who completed accelerated courses at the Military Academy and were transferred to the General Staff in 1918-1919, still allows us to express some considerations on this issue. So, in our opinion, 750 general staff officers served in the white and other armies, of which over 700, approximately equally, in the Denikin and Kolchak armies, and in the first of them served mainly general staff officers who were in the corps of officers of the General Staff, and in Kolchak - seven eighths were officers of accelerated graduations from the Military Academy, "transferred" to the General Staff in 1918-1919. Emigrated (and among them could be members of the white movement) 225 people, finally, the fate of 275 General Staff officers could not be established.

Thus, during the civil war, the Red Army had a corps of the General Staff of the Red Army, and the “persons of the General Staff” included in it represented the most valuable part of military specialists, the involvement of which the Communist Party and the Soviet government paid special attention to. The establishment of the "corps of the General Staff of the Red Army" allowed the Supreme Military Council in a somewhat transformed form (taking into account the new conditions in the army) to recreate the "service of the General Staff": starting with the "curtains" that served as the basis for the creation of fronts, then in the formed armies and divisions, as well as in central administrations, institutions and military schools, etc. according to the states, positions were provided that were to be filled only by "persons of the General Staff." Therefore, we allow ourselves to disagree with the opinion of a military specialist, a former officer of the General Staff, later Marshal of the Soviet Union B. M. Shaposhnikov, that after the October Revolution the General Staff of the Russian Army "went down to the grave" 117 . True, due to a number of circumstances, the consideration of which is beyond the scope of the monograph, on August 5, 1921, the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army was renamed the Military Academy of the Red Army (in 1925 it was named after M.V. Frunze) 118 , and then by order of the Revolutionary Military Council Republic No. 1904 of August 10, 1922, everything that was connected with the concept of "General Staff" was abolished. Thus, the order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic No. 1944 of 1919 on the procedure for "recruiting" commanders of the Red Army to the General Staff was canceled; in the regulations and states, the name “persons of the General Staff” was abolished for those who graduated from the former Nikolaev Military Academy (General Staff Academy) and the Military Academy of the Red Army and replaced by the name “persons with a higher general military education”; instead of the “Lists of the General Staff” published by the Organizational Directorate of the All-Glavshtab in 1919-1920, the Department for Command Staff of the Headquarters of the Red Army in 1923 published the “List of Persons with a Higher General Military Education in the Service of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (according to data as of March 1, 1923)”; from the staff of the Operational Directorate of the Headquarters of the Red Army, the department for the service of the General Staff, which was in charge of accounting, service, etc., of "persons of the General Staff" was excluded; By order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic No. 2256 of September 26, 1922, the special uniform for “persons of the General Staff”, established by order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic No. 322 of January 31, 1922, was canceled, and they were assigned the uniform of the unit in which they served.

However, 13 years later, on September 22, 1935, the Headquarters of the Red Army was renamed the General Staff of the Red Army, headed by a former military specialist, Marshal of the Soviet Union A.I. named after M. V. Frunze, the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army was recreated, headed by a former military specialist division commander D. A. Kuchinsky 120 . Thus, the General Staff of the Red Army, as the highest body of military command, and the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army, a military educational institution designed to train highly qualified personnel for the Red Army, including for service in the General Staff, again took pride of place in the Armed Forces. Forces of the USSR.

January 25 marked the 251st anniversary of the creation of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. On the eve of this date, the Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces General of the Army Valery GERASIMOV gave an exclusive interview to the editor-in-chief of the Independent Military Review Viktor LITOVKIN.

- Before starting our conversation, Valery Vasilyevich, I cannot but mention the holiday - the Day of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. This year, without exaggeration, our leading body of military command, according to the definition of Marshal of the Soviet Union Boris Shaposhnikov, the "brain of the army", turns 251 years old.

Yes. With the emergence of the General Staff service in the Russian Empire, this most important element of the military organization of the state immediately began to play a noticeable, and over time, the most important role in the life of the army. The General Staff officers have always been with the troops in the days of defeats and victories, laying down and strengthening traditions that allow the current generation of our officers to adequately fulfill all the tasks assigned to ensure the military security of our country.

- And what is the General Staff today? What are its main functions?

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is the central body of the military command and control of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the main body of operational command and control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In accordance with the new Regulations on the General Staff, which was approved by the President of the Russian Federation in July 2013, the powers of the General Staff are not limited only to the tasks facing the Armed Forces, but also cover issues of ensuring military security and defense of the state as a whole.

Today, along with the management of the daily activities of the Armed Forces, the daily resolution of issues of military development, The main functions of the General Staff also include:
- organization of defense planning of the Russian Federation;
— development of plans for strategic operations;
- directing the activities of military intelligence agencies;
- organization of planning for mobilization training and mobilization in the Russian Federation within the powers of the Russian Ministry of Defense;
- coordination of the activities of other troops, military formations and bodies in the field of defense.

In addition, the General Staff organizes the development of proposals for the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of defense and takes part in its implementation. As the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation said at an expanded meeting of the board of the Ministry of Defense held in December 2013:

«… understanding all the difficulties and prospects for the development of new types of weapons and methods of warfare, each in his place must not only do his job, but approach it creatively, always think about how to take the next step towards improving our great military machine. Headquarters at various levels, and above all the General Staff, are of great importance in carrying out this task. These are not just people who count pieces of paper, shift them and file them into cases, but above all, an analytical center. Today it matters more than ever…»

Obviously, there is no better answer to the question of what result the country's leadership expects from us.

- And how are military specialists selected for service in the General Staff, where they are trained? What qualities should they have?

Being an officer of the General Staff is not only an honor for any officer of the Russian Army, it is, above all, a difficult and responsible job.

For service in the General Staff, the most trained officers are selected from the main headquarters of the types and headquarters of the military branches of the Armed Forces, as well as the best representatives of the headquarters of the military districts. Officers and generals who have achieved a high level of coherence between their subordinate command and control bodies and troops, as well as possessing the necessary individual qualities, are being selected for the highest military positions. The last condition can be considered the main one.

Analytical thinking, a broad outlook, an inner need and a habit to improve one's professional level are just some of the features that a candidate for service in the General Staff must possess.

All officers during the selection are interviewed and checked the level of professional training directly in the structural units of the General Staff. First of all, the ability of officers to creatively and non-standard approach to solving any task is assessed. The flexibility of thinking is valued on a wide range of issues of ensuring the military security of the state.

An officer of the General Staff, using the example of the history of Russia, should have an idea about the place and role of the army in the state and society, about the role of Russia in the past, present and future world, be proficient in issues of geopolitics, geoeconomics, and the processes of globalization of society.

An effective tool for high-quality recruitment of military positions in the General Staff is the federal and departmental personnel reserve of the Armed Forces. In 2013, at the meetings of the Central Attestation Commission of the Ministry of Defense, a method was introduced to consider candidates for military positions on an alternative basis - at least three candidates are submitted for one vacant military position.

The main and basic university for the training of officers of the General Staff is the Military Academy of the General Staff, which has been training military personnel for the strategic level of command for more than 180 years. It is the legal successor of the Imperial Military Academy, founded in 1832 on the initiative of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. On December 8, 2013, the Academy celebrated its 181st anniversary.

On the basis of the Military Academy of the General Staff, officers are trained under a two-year program of higher military education, as well as professional retraining and advanced training under additional professional education programs. In their specialized specialties and areas of activity, officers are trained in the military academies of the types and branches of the Armed Forces.

Military thought does not stand still. Weapons are being improved, the forms and methods of conducting military operations are changing. All this needs to be known and taken into account daily in the course of performing tasks and making managerial decisions. The broad outlook of a General Staff officer should cover the sphere of political and economic relations both within the country and abroad. It is necessary to have complete information on a daily basis about everything that is happening in Russia and abroad in the field of military construction and development of the armed forces, military and state administration, in the field of training and employment of troops and forces.

But, of course, it is not possible to cover all spectrums of activities of the Armed Forces with the training programs of military academies. Therefore, the professional training of any officer in the Armed Forces is a daily and continuous process. Generals and officers of the General Staff are no exception. In addition to all that has been said, an officer of the General Staff must be an unconditional patriot of Russia, a spiritual and moral and in all respects a healthy citizen of the Fatherland.

- The National Center for State Defense Control is being created. What functions will it perform, including in relation to the Armed Forces? What is the role of the General Staff here? What will change?

At the suggestion of the Minister of Defense S.K. Shoigu, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation decided to create a National Defense Control Center of the Russian Federation within the structure of the Ministry of Defense. On January 20, 2014, as you know, the first stone was laid in the building of the Center on Frunzenskaya Embankment.

The National Center being created will cover all levels of leadership of the Armed Forces, and will also allow coordinating the efforts of 49 ministries and departments participating in the implementation of the country's Defense Plan. For the first time in the Russian Defense Ministry, a vertically integrated multi-level automated control system will be created and a single information and control space will be formed to ensure the joint actions of heterogeneous forces and means. In addition, the National Center will become the main tool for managing the country's mobilization.

During the implementation of this project, only breakthrough technologies and the most modern software solutions will be used. Equipping them will make it possible to quickly display the situation from any region, as well as the area of ​​operations of troops (forces), including those located at considerable distances from their permanent deployment points.

The construction of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is carried out by the Ministry of Defense in accordance with the Plan for the Construction and Development of the Armed Forces. The plan is developed for five years and approved by the President of the Russian Federation. If necessary, by decision of the President of the Russian Federation, measures for the construction and development of the Armed Forces may be specified.

The Plan for the Construction and Development of the Armed Forces reflects the issues of manning the types and branches of the troops that are part of them, arming military and special equipment, modernizing its existing models and developing promising ones, developing military infrastructure, and all types of support. In addition, in order to implement the tasks set by the President, to synchronize all activities, programs and plans for the development of the Armed Forces, a detailed Action Plan of the Ministry of Defense for the period up to 2020 has been developed.

It covers all areas of activity of the Armed Forces - from maintaining the combat readiness of troops to increasing the attractiveness of military service. All activities are detailed on a monthly basis in plans and schedules that are developed from the Deputy Minister of Defense to the formation and military unit, inclusive. A strict system for monitoring the implementation of the plan has been organized.

It consists of closed and open parts. The open part of the plan can be found on the official website of the Ministry of Defense. And changes and additions to it are made only by decision of the collegium of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. This allows the Ministry of Defense, in close cooperation with other federal executive bodies, to carry out stable and purposeful work on the construction, development and use of the Armed Forces.

– I know that the General Staff is also actively engaged in international military cooperation. What are the challenges ahead of him?

The General Staff takes an active part in the preparation and conduct of measures of international military cooperation on a bilateral and multilateral basis. There are many tasks. The priority areas of international military cooperation for us are:
- development of the military component of the CSTO;
— strengthening the military organization of the Union State with the Republic of Belarus;
- ensuring the selective military presence of the Russian Federation in various regions of the Commonwealth and in the world to strengthen regional and global security;
- strengthening the security system in the Central Asian region, taking into account the withdrawal of international security assistance forces from it;
- preventing the emergence of new nuclear missile threats along the perimeter of Russian borders;
— continuation of cooperation in the military field with the United States and NATO on issues of arms control, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, ensuring regional and global security;
— implementation of the decisions of the political leadership of the state to promote Russian approaches in the field of missile defense, the implementation of the requirements of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Arms;
- fulfillment of Russian obligations in the field of military-technical cooperation for the supply of weapons and military equipment from the presence of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

At present, international military cooperation is versatile, dynamic and focused on solving the tasks set by the country's leadership for the Russian Ministry of Defense. Since the issues of international military cooperation are directly related to the issues of ensuring the military security of the state, they are the subject of constant concern of the General Staff.

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The general staff officer corps is administered by the office of the quartermaster general, which in 1832 was renamed the "department of the general staff", as one of the departments of the War Office. At the same time, in addition to the administrative functions of managing the corps of general staff officers, the Department of the General Staff was entrusted with the responsibility of accounting for the general location, quartering, actions of the ground forces, the management of the Imperial Military Academy, geodetic surveys and all cartography.

According to the state of 1832, the corps of officers of the General Staff included:

Generals of the Guards General Staff and General Staff -17, Colonels of the Guards General Staff -2, Colonels of the General Staff -30, Lieutenant Colonels of the General Staff -48, Captains of the Guards General Staff -4, Captains of the General Staff -54, Staff Captains of the General Staff -60, lieutenants of the guards general staff -6, lieutenants of the general staff -68, lieutenants of the guards general staff -4. guards general staff officers are simply either guards officers who have been transferred to staff service, or general staff officers who have been given guards rights for their military distinction.

There was no separate guards general staff.

The corps of officers of the General Staff as a special closed corporation within the Russian officer corps finally took shape in the 90s. 19th century By the beginning of the twentieth century. the prestige of an officer of the General Staff has increased significantly. The officers of the General Staff, representing the elite of the Russian army, were candidates for the highest command and staff positions. Therefore, line officers treated the General Staff badly and, envious of their rapid career growth, came up with a contemptuous nickname for them - “moment”. The General Staff officers paid the drillers in the same coin and themselves looked down on those who did not study in, considering them losers and people ignorant of military science.

The years of study at the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff were a serious test for students, the training course was quite difficult, and the program, according to many graduates, was overloaded. In some ways, this approach was justified, because the skills acquired by the students depended on the lives of people and the outcome of hostilities. The main course of study at the academy was divided into two year classes (junior and senior) and consisted of both theoretical and practical classes. The main subjects were tactics, strategy, military administration, military history, military statistics, geodesy, auxiliary - Russian, information on artillery and engineering, political history, international law, foreign languages. As for foreign languages, the study of at least one of them was mandatory, the other two languages ​​could be studied at will. There was intense competition among the students of the academy, associated with the rating system of assessments during graduation.

The selection of candidates for the General Staff was multi-stage and practically excluded the access of random people there. Suffice it to note that in the process of learning from the academy at the beginning of the twentieth century. at least 40% of the officers enrolled in the junior class were expelled. At the same time, success or failure at the academy meant a lot in the career and life of an officer, predetermined the entire future service of an officer, dramatically changed the character of a person and his attitudes in life.

Training at the academy for one officer cost the state 40,000 rubles. The grades for passing subjects were given on a twelve-point scale: "excellent" - 12 points, "very good" - 10-12 points, "good" - 8-9 points, "satisfactory" - 6-7 points, "mediocre" - 4-4 points. 5 points, "weak" - 1-3 points. In the summer, students participated in filming and practical training in tactics. Officers who received an average of at least 10 points at the end of the senior class and did not have unsatisfactory grades were considered to have completed the course in the first category and were enrolled in an additional course. Those who received less than 10 points were considered to have graduated from the academy in the second category and were expelled to their units. Such officers, "who did not get into the General Staff, perhaps only due to the lack of some small fraction in the final score, returned to service with a depressed psyche, with the seal of a loser in the eyes of combat officers and with completely vague prospects for the future"

Positions that were to be completed by generals of the general staff:

• war minister,
• Quartermaster General of the General Staff,
• director of the military topographic bureau of the General Staff,
• Head of the Department of the Scientific Committee of the General Staff,
• five generals for special assignments at the General Staff,
• two generals at state shootings,
• chief quartermaster of the guards corps (by this time all the guards regiments were consolidated into the guards division, and those into the guards corps),
• Quartermaster General at Army Headquarters,
• Chief Quartermaster of the Caucasian Army Corps,
• chief quartermaster of a separate corps of internal guards,
• chief quartermaster at military settlements.

In addition, for the duration of their tenure, they were assigned to the General Staff:

• academy director,
• chiefs of the main staffs of the armies,
• corps chiefs of staff.

Officers of the General Staff and the Guards General Staff were appointed to various positions in the headquarters of armies, corps and divisions. The list of such positions is very large and it is impossible to list it within the framework of this article. These posts were to be staffed by academy graduates. Therefore, the General Staff each year set the number of students admitted to the first year of the academy, based on how many general staff officers might be needed in three years (the term of study at the academy), taking into account potential wars.

In wartime, the positions that were to be occupied by generals and officers of the general staff: At the army headquarters:

• quartermaster general,
• three senior adjutants
• four staff officers for assignments,
• four chief officers for assignments.

At the headquarters of the infantry corps:

• chief quartermaster,
• two senior adjutants,
• one staff officer for assignments,
• two chief officers for assignments.

At the headquarters of the reserve corps:

• chief quartermaster,
• chief officer for assignments.

At the headquarters of an infantry or cavalry division:

• division quartermaster,
• chief officer for assignments.

After being assigned to the General Staff, the name of the latter was added to the name of the rank of officers, for example: "General Staff captain", which was preserved even with promotion in ranks, for the entire time of the state in the lists of the General Staff.

commanders

Officers assigned to the Corps of General Staff Officers

Sources

F.Maksheev. Russian General Staff. Its composition and service. St. Petersburg. 1894 M. Gazenkampf. The device and service of the Russian General Staff. St. Petersburg. 1888 The economy in the mouth, squadron and hundreds. Publisher V. Berezovsky. St. Petersburg. 1891 Life of the Russian Army XVIII-early XX century. Military bullying. Moscow. 1999 A.A. Ignatiev. Fifty years in service. Military publishing house. Moscow. 1986 List of the General Staff for ... a year. St. Petersburg-Pg., 1816-1917. Title: for 1816-1833 - List of generals, staff and chief officers of the Guards General Staff. Ed. 2 times a year, since 1843 - 3 times a year. since 1892 - monthly.

Dates of entry into service, place of service and seniority; from 1883 to 1914 - year of birth, religion, education, awards, positions held, marital status. Lists are compiled by rank. Decree: names (since 1871).

Prussian V.K. To materials on the history of the Russian General Staff. Combat awards to the ranks of the retinue e. and. in. for the quartermaster and ranks of the General Staff on the highest orders of 1796-1901. SPb., 1902. 110 p.

List of persons who graduated in 1834-1896. course Imp. military academy and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, awarded the Order of George and golden weapons.

After graduating from the Academy in 1913, after sorting out the vacancies, I went to the Kiev military district. In his articles - memories of the service in the 6th lb.-guards. His Majesty's Don Cossack Battery, Lb.-Gds. Horse Artillery in Nos. 102, 103 and 104 of the Military Story magazine, I told how in the fall of 1913, being in Kamenets Podolsk as a senior adjutant of the General Staff at the headquarters of the 2nd Cossack Consolidated Division, I received an offer from the commander of our battery Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich to submit a report on the expulsion of his own free will from service in the General Staff and return to duty, to the battery, to the post of second senior officer. I told in the same place that from the very first days of the war, from August 20, 1914, I had to leave the line and follow the path for which the Academy was preparing me, and accept the position, albeit an emergency one, of the chief of staff of the separately operating guards Cossack brigade; then, on May 3, 1915, I was again assigned to the General Staff with the appointment of a chief officer for assignments at the headquarters of the Guards Corps.

The order for this appointment found me in the village. Drozdovo, where at that time the headquarters of the guards Cossack brigade was located. My faithful batman Illarion Fokich Biryulin quickly collected our traveling belongings, I said goodbye to the commander of the brigade, General Ivan Davydovich Orlov, to dear atamans, who recently had the headquarters of the brigade, and we set off on a short 10-verst journey to the city of Lomzha, where we were headquarters of the Guards Corps. He was accommodated comfortably and spaciously in the large peacetime barracks. Appearing to my superiors, I soon settled down in the room allotted to me and quickly entered the course of my new duties, which I would not say that I liked very much. We, junior officers of the General Staff in such an already large headquarters as the headquarters of the Guards Corps, were little executors of orders given by senior commanders, we were always on the alert, expecting every minute that the headquarters officer Gen would call us for instructions. headquarters Colonel Domanevsky. Almost every day the three of us, Gen. Headquarters Captain Lundekvist, my classmate at the Academy, Staff Captain Alekseev, and I made ourselves comfortable, grabbing large notebooks with carbon paper, and clearly wrote orders or orders to the corps under the dictation of Colonel Domanevsky. We were constant and eternal visitors in a large room reserved for the communications service, where Yuza telegraph devices were installed for communication with higher authorities, giving a ready-made printed tape of an order or an official conversation field telephones for communication with the headquarters of divisions and many institutions of the corps. We were always on these phones, or we called, or we were called. We never belonged to ourselves for a minute, and in order to get out of the headquarters building for the shortest possible time, we agreed among ourselves. It was especially hard for Captain Lundekvist. The corps commander, General Bezobrazov, apparently having his own reasons, strictly forbade the presence of officers' wives in the area where the corps was located, and Lundekvist's wife was a sister of mercy in one of the sanitary institutions located right there, not far from our headquarters. The whole problem was for him to go to visit his wife, and Alekseev and I made every effort and trick to help him with this. And then it just so happened that soon after my relocation to Lomza, my wife from Pavlovsk also came to me for a week. There was a lull at the front at that time, communication with Warsaw was established more or less regular and free. Only Lundekvist, Alekseev and, of course, my Biryulin, who now entered at her full disposal, knew about her arrival. He also found a private room nearby, quickly orienting himself and familiarizing himself with Lomza, bought groceries with his wife and took care of preparing lunch and dinner. I had to eat at headquarters. The dining room served us as a large barracks hall, in which at a long table we sat decorously in rank under the chairmanship of the corps commander himself. I think that I am not mistaken if I say that at least 30 people sat at the table. For some reason, from this dining room, the most insignificant incident in itself crashed into the memory, which once amused all of us and made us laugh for a long time. At the very beginning of dinner, when everyone was sedately and silently waiting for him, a young lieutenant of the guards artillery from the department of the Inspector of Artillery Kocherovsky, thin and very tall, entered the dining room belatedly, and this was not supposed to be at all. Embarrassed, holding his cap in his hands, he approaches the corps commander and asks permission to sit down. General Bezobrazov looked sternly and silently nodded his head. Kocherovsky turns to the left in a circle, raises his eyes to the high ceiling, notices only to him alone, visible, thanks to his height, a small carnation near the ceiling, stretches out his long arm and easily hangs his cap on it. All those present attentively followed everything that was happening, and when he so comically determined the appropriate place for his cap, a general thunderous laughter was heard in the dining room, supported by General Bezobrazov himself. Confused and not understanding what was the matter, Kocherovsky modestly went to the left flank to his place.

One day, when my wife was still in Lomza, the corps commander called me to his place. I went to him with anxiety, not knowing why he was calling me personally, whether he had accidentally found out about the arrival of my wife in Lomza, but, fortunately, everything turned out well. He instructed me the next day in the morning to carry out secret reconnaissance of some section of the terrain that he was interested in, which he outlined for me on the map, between Lomza and the Osovets fortress, in a northerly direction, towards the enemy. Reconnaissance of this area was required in relation to the paths and patency for the troops. He, of course, did not let me in on his plans, for what purpose he needed this reconnaissance, but it was clear to me that either for our offensive, or the possibility of using this area by the enemy. My wife was very worried about my tomorrow's trip, and mainly because I would not be carrying out the assignment with a traveling party, but only together with the orderly. We left very early, walked to the reconnaissance site quickly, with variable gait, in order to return early.

The next day I submitted my detailed report to the corps commander. The area turned out to be very swampy, without roads, impassable for large military formations with artillery and convoys. Only local residents could use this area along the paths known to them. I am not accustomed to such sedentary work as in the headquarters of the corps, and this, although a small reconnaissance assignment, refreshed me a little, and I recalled with such pleasure my former supernumerary post of chief of staff of the guards Cossack brigade for 8 months. The work there was independent, I knew only my brigade commander and carried out only his orders. There were difficult, responsible and dangerous moments, but there was also relative freedom. The attitude of the senior commanders - the commander of the brigade and the commanders of the regiments towards me was helpful, cordial, and from the side of the kindred Cossack environment of the officers, most of whom we were also connected with by a common primary education in the same Don Emperor Alexander 3rd Cadet Corps , friendly and comradely. During these 8 months, I managed twice, during a lull in combat, with the kind permission of the brigade commander, to go for a short time to Warsaw, using the representing road. I always stayed there, from the memory of peacetime, at the Polonia Hotel and tried to enjoy bathing in the famous Roman Sleigh, and besides, with the task of getting rid of uninvited guests acquired over a long time of hiking with daily changing overnight stays. There were periods when every day we walked somewhere along the fields of left-bank Poland. Today, in rain and sleet, we settle down for the night in a village clogged with infantry, we only care about covering the somehow tired horses and feeding them, and ourselves, untying the cloak from the saddle, sitting to take a nap, leaning against the door of the hut. Sometimes, although it was not often, when we were far from the infantry, we spent the night perfectly in some rich landowner's house. Everyone was accommodated and fed, and the officers had dinner in the dining room of a hospitable Polish landowner. He treats them with wonderful wine and the famous Polish starka vodka, asking them not to be shy so that the Germans do not get this good. Once, during one of these, though rare, Lukullian dinners, my orderly quietly entered the dining room and whispered in my ear that my horse “Lord” was sick, the veterinary assistant said that he had a temperature. I answer the Cossack that I will come now, but my mood fell, I was very upset, tomorrow I will perform somewhere further, and the horse fell ill. I decided to treat him in the same way as a person, poured imperceptibly into a large glass of golden starka, grabbed an empty bottle of wine from the table and quietly left the dining room. I found the “Lord” standing sadly, with his head bowed, and not paying attention to the hay lying in front of him. I poured the starka into an empty bottle, leaving two good sips in the glass for the paramedic and the messenger, we raised the horse's head up and stuck the bottle in his mouth. Then I saw to my joy that he did not let his master down and not only did not protest against such a medicine, but even licked his mouth with his tongue when we took out an empty bottle and lowered his head. Then, with straw bundles, the Cossacks rubbed his back, sides, stomach, chest well, covered him with a blanket and left him alone. I don’t know if the miracle cure or rubbing helped, or all together, at least in the morning I went on it and everything was fine.

I have not preserved any records, documents or diaries that would allow me to accurately, day by day, restore in full the past episodes of our military past in the 1st Great War, but in many ways the preserved track record helps me in this regard, which and now, with its precise dates and laconic writing, it makes me relive the main moments of my participation in the war. "Awarded with the Order of St. Vladimir of the 4th degree with swords and a bow for the decisiveness shown in the battles near the city of Lenchitsy on September 18. 1914 (Rus. Inv. 1915 No. 31. High order January 31, 1915)”. Then the general situation, of course, was not known to us, and we, 8 hundred with a battery of guards kaz. brigades, in front of the front of our 2nd Army, conducted reconnaissance, sending forward two reconnaissance hundreds. We did not know that on September 15, the first German offensive of Mackensen with two corps against Warsaw began in our area. On September 25, he occupied Lodz, and on the 26th he already approached Groipy, directly threatening Warsaw. Thus, on September 18, our skirmishes near Lenchitsa were with the advanced reconnaissance units of the enemy, who were advancing with large forces, about which we received a notice from the army headquarters on the same day in the evening with an order to immediately withdraw. The brigade began to prepare for the night transition, and I, as the chief of staff, on which the intelligence organization lay, faced the solution of the most important task of conveying the order to two reconnaissance hundreds, thrown about 15 miles ahead, from where they illuminated the lying area in front of them for a short distance. so that, in view of the imminent danger of being cut off, they immediately retreat and join the brigade in the area indicated by me. I kept in touch with them by means of the railway telegraph. I immediately conveyed the order to one hundred, reminding them of the destruction of the telegraph tape. When I tried to convey the order to another, then to my horror I stumbled upon an unexpected obstacle: the damaged telegraph line just at our nearest site refused to work. The attitude of the telegraph officials was benevolent towards us, and it soon became clear to me that from the next half-station, about 10 versts away, the line was in good order and it would be possible to contact a hundred. I report to the commander of the brigade, General Ponomarev, that I cannot go with them without warning the reconnaissance hundred of the danger that threatens it, and therefore I ask him to allow me to use the small private Polish car temporarily available at the headquarters, the owner of which also wanted, in the event of a German offensive, to leave with us. I could not ride, not knowing the roads, and, moreover, at night, at a pace, it would be very slow. The owner of the car, a local resident, knew well both the roads and their quality. General Ponomarev allowed and appointed an adjutant of the Lb.-Gds. Consolidated Cossack regiment, Orenburg podsaul Naumov. The brigade went east, and Naumov and I, entrusting our fate to the will of God and our benevolent Polish driver, went west, into darkness, without headlights, towards the enemy. I won't say that we felt very happy being practically defenseless with our two revolvers in the event of an encounter with an enemy with whom we had clashes this afternoon, but I had no other choice. The Lord was merciful. We silently drove up to the stop, a lot of time passed until I called the commander of the hundred to the Morse apparatus, briefly conveyed to him the situation and the order to immediately "wash off the fishing rods." With a relieved heart, we turned back and caught up with the brigade only at dinnertime, far from Lenchitsy, and in the evening, to my joy, both reconnaissance hundreds also approached. In his articles: "The 14th Frontier Cavalry Regiment in 1914" in Nos. 104 and 105 of the "Military Were", P. Makova describes many of the same experiences that we had, and, in addition, I found out that in the 14th cavalry division just such a sad incident occurred, fortunately ending happily, when during the retreat they had two reconnaissance squadrons and one Don hundred in the rear of the enemy. Apparently, communication with them was unreliable or they were thrown very far ahead, which is why they were not warned in time about the danger that threatened them. They hid in the forests for about a month, and then only thanks to the benevolent attitude of the local population towards us, and joined only after the German army was driven back from Warsaw for the first time. And what could happen if the Germans could not be thrown back, as was the case during the second German offensive, two squadrons would have died or been taken entirely prisoner. After I was let down by what seemed to be a well-established connection, in the future, when sending out reconnaissance hundreds, I paid special attention to the communication service with them in various ways, and also tried not to send them very far from the core of the brigade. Having warned my hundreds of the danger that threatened them, I only considered that I had fulfilled my official duties in a combat situation, I did not find anything special in this and did not think or imagine that this would give General Ponomarev a reason, or rather, as I later found out, forehead commander. -Guards. The Ataman Regiment to Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich to invite General Ponomarev to present me for the first military award, and even such a big one as the Order of St. Vladimir 4th class. with swords and bow. We were already on the Narew front, near Lomza with. Drozdovo, it was around the end of March 1915, when I received there an elegant, government-issued order of St. Vladimir. The Grand Duke was pleased with the success of his petition and congratulated me sympathetically. General Ponomarev was no longer with us at that time, he received the Don Cossack division.

P. Makova in his article says that the cavalry corps of General Novikov was pressed against the river. Viole and with difficulty crossed to the right bank, it was already the month of October and the mud. From here, the corps was transferred in marching order to Novogeorgievsk, where it again crosses to the left bank of the Vistula and knocks out the Germans from Sokhochev. I think that all this happened not in October, but in the last days of September. We are guards. kaz. brigade, were also at that time somewhere nearby, on the right flank

Our 2nd Army, General Scheidemann, who on October 1, 1914, deploying from right to left the 2nd Sib., 4th, 1st Arm. and 2nd Sib. corps, inflicted a strong counter blow on the Germans at Prushkov. On October 2, 3 and 4, he continued to push the enemy, occupying Blone. My track record says: “He participated in the battles in the detachment of General Ponomarev near Leshno, Blonet, f. Pass 1914 Oct. 1. and during the capture of Mr. Lovich Oct. four". As for Blonet and f. Pass, as I now see before my eyes a huge field, in some places covered with small shrubs, and on this field numerous sparse formations, in Cossack - lava. On the western flank we, guards kaz. brigade, and to the left of us, to the east, parts of the cavalry of General Novikov, and all these lavas are moving from north to south, to a swampy and overgrown stream, somewhere there was f. Pass, and from behind the stream German batteries are shelling us with rare artillery fire. With a closer approach to the stream, the enemy opens heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, forcing us to roll back. Here we are in this place, despite our common and my “personal” courage, because for this battle I received the Order of St. Anna of the 4th degree, that is, a scarlet lanyard (“cranberry”, as they said in everyday life), and on the handle of the checker there is an inscription “for courage”, here we failed to break through and we went to the north, trying to go deeper behind enemy lines . Moving on October 4 from Sokhachev to Lovich, we captured it at night, driving out the Saxons from there. How we took him, I already wrote in No. 104 of the Military Byli.

Not being able to immediately advance further, we continued to conduct our reconnaissance from here, and our 2nd Army, knocking down the enemy, on October 11 threw him over the river. Ravka, and on October 17 took Lodz. On October 14, Hindenburg ordered his troops to break off the battle, and the 9th German army, which was in front of us, began to quickly retreat to the border, destroying roads and bridges. A. Kersnovsky writes: “Gen. Scheidemann stomped on the spot and lost all contact with the enemy. No one knew where the German army retreated, despite the presence of seven and a half cavalry divisions. I personally believe that General Scheidemann successfully did his job with our valiant infantry and artillery, and it is not his fault that he did not have real cavalry commanders. Our cavalry was first class. There is no count of the dashing, brilliant attacks by patrols, squadrons, hundreds and regiments, divisions - rarely (Keller, Kaledin, Krymov), and there were simply no cavalry corps. Here, on the right flank of our 2nd Army, at that time we could hardly boast of our actions. As far as I remember, somehow it turned out that for a long time we could not overtake our rapidly advancing infantry, and therefore, of course, we lost contact with the enemy, who very quickly broke away and retreated to the west, and there he also quickly transferred the main forces to the north and created by October 29 again a formidable fist at Thorn for a second attack on Warsaw.

On October 20, 1914, he joined us at the Gostynin metro station, near Kutno, and the Lb.-Gds. His Majesty's Cossack Regiment, which until that time was at the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in Baranovichi. Around this time, the 1st and 2nd brigades of the 1st Guards Cavalry Division completed their combat operations in East Prussia and were taken for a long rest and arrived to us, as temporarily unemployed, in their 3rd brigade , Guards Cossack, General Kaznakov, head of the 1st Guards Cavalry. divisions with their chief of staff, Colonel Leontiev. He took us under his leadership and control. I, of course, had to go down in rank and from the non-staff post of chief of staff of a separately operating brigade to move to the role of adjutant Gen. headquarters at the temporary headquarters of General Kaznakov. By the way, he completely ignored his chief of staff and did not talk to him, so that, on top of everything else, I also had to be an intermediary between them.

I will not write about the actions of our brigade under General Kaznakov from the beginning and inclusive to the Lodz operation, because this period is beautifully and in detail described by General K. R. Pozdeev in the Bulletin of the Museum of the Lb. Cossack regiment ”, No. 6, for December 1964, and I will give only a few excerpts, mainly about how we advanced on Brezina on November 8, and then after General Kaznakov received a telegram on the campaign handed to him by a motorcyclist who had caught up with us: "General Kaznakov. I order you, together with the Caucasian Cavalry Division of General Charpentier, which is subordinate to you, to strike at the rear of the German army, which is operating against our second at Lodz. Remember that you have the best cavalry regiments of the Russian Empire. I demand to act boldly and decisively, not stopping at any losses. Adjutant General Rennenkampf. It was still 14 versts to Brezin, it was autumn time, we had to hurry, but we were in no hurry. General Kaznakov decided to advance on Brezina from the east, and General Charpentier was to cover them from the south, but he, too, apparently was in no hurry. And we stood behind the crest in the reserve column, and General Charpentier too, and, having crossed the river. Mroz, the Atamans dismounted and two hundred lb.-guards. Consolidated Cossack regiment and began a slow offensive. As now I see a picture in front of me: below, two versts away, Brezins lie, and to the left, 5 versts, along a hillock, the longest German convoy column is clearly projected on the horizon, wagon after wagon quietly goes along the road from Brezin to Vitkovtsy. All this is happening before the eyes of General Charpentier, but he did not send a single regiment to capture this convoy, and only one or two squadrons of the Seversky Dragoon Regiment rushed, on their own initiative, and captured several wagons. The time is approaching 4:30 p.m. Gen. Kaznakov was probably already thinking about lodging for the night, and to the right of us, from Kanzatsin to Breziny, scouts of the 6th Siberian Rifle Division were already approaching. Gene. Pozdeev writes: “It seemed that everything was going to end the battle victoriously with one throw, and then hand it over to suitable infantry, but General Kaznakov decided otherwise, he ordered to stop the battle and go back to Yezhov for the night. This order caused displeasure among his headquarters and the standing group of officers - Cossacks. Poesaul Shlyakhtin, who tried to protest against such a decision, was abruptly cut off by General Kaznakov. Yes, I got it. If we had General Kaledin or Keller, then, of course, the epic with the Brezins would easily end with the complete defeat of the Germans. A. Kersnovsky condemns us quite correctly. He says: “The encircled Schaeffer group - the remnants of four divisions - was able to break through to their army. On November 10, she retreated in full view of our cavalry masses: Charpentier and Novikov (for some reason he did not mention Kaznakov and me either), let the enemy carts and artillery pass without hindrance and did not think to recapture our numerous prisoners. On November 11, the Germans approached the Brezins, scattered our two regiments of the 6th Siberian Rifle Division, which stood carelessly and were unaware of anything, in a night battle, and left the encirclement. Our cavalry commanders allowed the Germans to freely take out all their artillery, carts, wounded and, most offensive of all, trophies - 16,000 of our prisoners and 64 guns.

On November 16, after a meeting in Sedlec, the Stavka saw the impossibility of invading Germany, and it was decided to besiege the entire North-Western Front, under the persistent pressure of the Commander-in-Chief of this front, General Ruzsky, back to the line of the Bzura and Ravka rivers, and the Germans at that time transferred from the French front to our 4 corps and 7 cavalry divisions, and again went on the offensive on November 19, 20 and 21, inflicting the main blow on our right-flank 1 Army, in the direction of Ilov-Sokhachev. After our not entirely successful actions near Breziny, we, the Guards Cossack brigade with General Kaznakov, again ended up in these familiar places. The track record reminds me: "He participated in the battle in the detachment of General Kaznakov near the village of Ilov - 1914 on November 20 and 21." I don’t remember whether this took place during the period when we were on the right flank of the 1st Army before the Lodz operation or now after it, during the battles near the village of Ilov, but an unpleasant picture also comes to mind. It's already quite dark. After standing all day behind the flank of the infantry, where there is a strong battle, the rumble of a boiling, rumbling cauldron is heard all the time from our and enemy fire, we, as always on schedule, leave for 10 versts for the night. We walked about three versts and stumbled upon a group of horsemen, commanding officials, a corps or army commander. For some reason it seems to me that it was General Churin. We hear a shout: "Who and where?" They stood for about five minutes, General Kaznakov was quietly reporting something, it was not audible. I felt very uncomfortable and I'm sure many of us felt the same way. I know well that people do not need a certain amount of rest like horses, otherwise they will refuse to serve us at the right moment, but in such a combat situation this rest must be distributed alternately. In any case, the authorities continued on their way to the battle line, and we went to spend the night. Repeatedly, General Kaznakov with the chief of staff, with me and one or two orderly officers from the regiments, being on the flank of the infantry line of battle, led us behind this line, apparently interested in the immediate situation and the degree of stability of the situation. On horseback we were a very conspicuous group. Bullets whistled over our heads, and I once told my companions that our general is personally a brave man, and one of the officers quietly tells me that he is deaf and cannot hear the flight of bullets.

By December 9, our 1st and 2nd armies of the Northwestern Front were firmly entrenched on Bzura and Ravka, the winter trench warfare began, the situation was strengthened and our brigade was taken to rest outside of Warsaw. I don’t remember exactly when we said goodbye to General Kaznakov, but my track record reminds me that although there were differences in our views, like a sharp shout near Breziny, he still didn’t forget me when he left and introduced me to the Order of St. Anna of the 3rd degree with swords and a bow for "fights under his leadership" in the period from October 29 to November 24, 1914 (Rus. Invalid 1915 No. 203).

The last commander of the guards Cossack brigade, for whom I still served as chief of staff, was His Majesty's retinue, Major General Ivan Davydovich Orlov. At this time, it seems, even General Bogaevsky received from us Lb.-Gds. A consolidated Cossack regiment, I remember near Lomza its calm figure in battle, bypassing the Cossacks lying in chains. General Grabbe, probably, was already appointed Don Ataman. Ivan Davydovich treated me well. He always amazed me with his originality. During the campaigns, we always stayed in the same hut or room. My Biryulin immediately brought me a pack - a camp bed, a sheet, a cloak, a pillow, some box next to it, a candle in a bottle, and I already felt at home. As for General Orlov, they brought him a bunch of clean straw in a corner, covered it with something, a candle was also lit, he went to bed, incessantly smoked rolls and read an English novel, and right there, somewhere nearby, stood his small carriage, solidly packed and also tightly bound with tarpaulins, never untied. I don’t know what was there, but I heard that anything for comfort, up to a rubber bath. I don’t remember exactly, somewhere they snitched us, we had to quickly reel in the fishing rods, the crew did not have time or they forgot to take it out and he was taken prisoner. I heard that he was a very rich man, had a large mansion on Konnogvardeisky Boulevard in St. Petersburg, he and his wife and no one else, it seems, a great friend of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, but, in my opinion, he had a natural stinginess. Already being near Lomzha, we settled down with the Atamans very conveniently at the brewery in the village. Drozdov. At that time it was calm on our front, and in the evenings we amused ourselves with cards in the cheerful game "aunt". This is the unpacking of the screw, it was necessary to strive to take as few tricks as possible, and even more so penalty kicks, of which there were 9, for them there were 9 matches on the table. A card drawn from another deck, for example, the seven of spades, indicated that if all the bribes in which the queens were considered penalized, then in this case the queen of spades was considered an “aunt” with a double penalty, in addition, the seven of spades itself, the seventh bribe , last and most. General Orlov was very fond of this game. There were always officers who were interested in the game around the table, they laughed when someone pulled penalty tricks, especially the main penalty lady, “aunt”, the game ended with 30 kopecks, but it was interesting that Ivan Davydovich did not like to lose, not because of money, of course, but he simply did not like it when he was unlucky, and in this case he always looked angrily at those who stood behind him, and sometimes simply suggested that they go for a walk. I have never met such a virtuoso scolder like him, he especially excelled in the morning while washing, when there was a basin in front of him, and the awkward batman could not please him, not particularly successfully watered by picking up a mug from a full bucket of water. But what a hero he was, like General Nazarov, under the Bolshevik execution in Novocherkassk, after Golubov captured him. The kingdom of heaven to him! For my "exploits in combat", in the short period of action of the brigade under his leadership, he did not forget me either, introducing me to the Order of St. Stanislav 2nd class. with swords "For distinction in the battle near Lomzha on February 11, 1915." (Issue prik. 1915, May 22).

I moved to the headquarters of the Guards Corps during a lull on our front, when, just at that time, on May 11, 1915, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. They told, laughing, that as if the musicians did not have the score of the Italian anthem in the shelves, so without music they had to sing a song: “How good pasta is with Swiss cheese!” Now I had to be not a participant, as it was in the guards Cossack brigade, sitting on a horse, but only a witness to two serious military operations in which the Guards Corps participated. In view of the long-lasting retreat of our Southwestern Front under pressure from large German forces and our lack of artillery shells and rifle cartridges, in the last days of July 1915, our Guards Corps and the 2nd Siberian were transferred to Krasnostav to help the exhausted 3rd army of General Lesh. Just on July 3, it was attacked by the 4th Austro-Hungarian and 11th German armies, starting the battle of Krasnostav. A. Kersnovsky writes that on July 5 the Prussian guards crashed against ours. The Germans still managed to break through our front at the junction of the 2nd Siberian Corps and our neighboring army of General Gorbatovsky, and General Lesh, despite the success of our guards and the protests of General Bezobrazov, who wanted to go on the offensive, ordered the entire 3rd Army, and with her and us, depart. We were witnesses in these sleepless nights, deciphering and reading these conversations between General Bezobrazov and General Lesh, who answered the demands of our corps commander in such a way that if all units were in such a brilliant form as the valiant Guards Corps and also, as he is equipped, then he would go on the offensive, adding to this "there is not a single cartridge." We were forced, together with everyone, step by step, to retreat with battles. Our second operation was when we were transferred to defend Vilna. And there, too, the withdrawal of neighboring troops forced us to retreat. In Vilna, the corps headquarters was located in a military building, if I am not mistaken, in the building of a military school, but even then not for long. The chief of staff of the corps at that time was my former teacher of tactics at the Mikhailovsky Artillery School of the General Staff, Colonel, and now General Antipov. We did not particularly trust his military abilities; True, at that time there was nowhere to show them.

In this position of chief officer for assignments, in which I stayed a little more than 4 months, I had to daily and incessantly conduct official telephone conversations with the headquarters of our divisions. In the 1st Guards Infantry Division, the chief of staff was Colonel Grekov, in the 2nd, Colonel Sinclair, and in the Guards Rifle Division, Colonel Shubersky. During hostilities and frequent campaigns, our orders for tomorrow were usually written in the evening, and if the order was complex, then late in the evening, it got to division headquarters at night, therefore, by agreement and request of Colonel Grekov, I warned division headquarters as early as possible, as he only found out for himself in a few words what awaited them tomorrow. For example: a hike, a performance at 7 am and no more secret details. Colonel Grekov especially appreciated this, he said that having learned the main thing in the evening, we warn the regiments to be ready for action by 7 o’clock in the morning and calmly go to bed early, and after resting at night, we receive an order, sort out the details without disturbing the regiments until the morning. I have established good, precautionary relations with the headquarters of the divisions, and I suppose that this helped a lot and contributed to the fact that I was given a great honor when, at the beginning of September 1915, the vacancy of the senior adjutant of the General headquarters, then General Notbek, the head of the division, and Colonel Grekov offered me this vacancy. On September 16, 1915, with my whole family, with Biryulin, with horses and belongings, I moved to a new place of service, and by the Highest Order of December 1, 1915, I was transferred to the General Staff with a renaming to captain and approval in my position.

I have the brightest memories of my stay, almost a year old, in this headquarters. The dearest chief of the division of the General Staff, General von Notbek, a former officer of the Lb.-Gds. Jaeger Regiment, in my opinion, was one of the best commanders with whom I had to serve. In military terms, he was, of course, in his place, with a firm and resolute character, he was well versed in the situation, and in personal relations with his subordinates he was correct and friendly. Chief of Staff, also a former lb.-gv. The Jaeger Regiment officer, Colonel Alexander Petrovich Grekov, was a calm, serious, but slow man, more like a civilian, a little gloomy in character, which is why they called him “dark” at headquarters. He loved peace, he liked to relax during the day with darkened windows, and even more so at night. He treated me well and with complete confidence. I disturbed him at night only in the most exceptional, especially important cases, when I myself did not have the right to resolve the difficulties that had arisen. The squeaker telephone receiver that connected me to our central station always lay near my pillow at night. In battle, I was with the division only once, on July 15, 1916, on the Stokhoda River, but there were many movements and preparations for the proposed battles, and we laughingly said that we, the guards, were carried behind the front, like a miraculous icon, they stopped where it was supposed to break through the enemy front in order to throw the collected fist for its development. Commander of the 1st Brigade (Preobrazhenets and Semenovtsy), General Goldgoer, former Preobrazhenets and commander of the Lb.-Gds. 4th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Family, handsome, cheerful, cheerful. The commander of the 2nd brigade (Izmailovtsy and Jaegers), General Kruglevsky, former commander of the Lb.-Gds. Izmailovsky regiment, seriously wounded, having lost an arm. I have forgotten the details of this sad incident, but now the omniscient A. A. Kersnovsky reminded me of it when I looked into his book The Philosophy of War. He says: “On the night of February 4, 1915, the Germans suddenly attacked the Lb.-Gds. Izmailovsky regiment. The enemy managed to reach the headquarters of the regiment and throw grenades at it. The regiment commander, General Kruglevsky, had his arm torn off. The Germans rushed to the wounded general, but ensign Karp Stavitsky, who happened here, protected the commander with his chest; standing at the door of the hut, he killed two Germans who were pounding on the door, and kept the rest until support arrived.

We had a regimental command and control system at the division headquarters, and the headquarters itself dealt directly with the regiments, and the brigade commanders were completely free. I remember back in peacetime there was such a stupid saying that we, laughing, applied to my father, when in 1912 he received the 2nd brigade of the 6th cavalry division: one asks who is free to live in Russia, and they answer: a cat, priest and brigade commander. Probably because the brigade commander was always free, in fact he did not command anyone and was not responsible for anything. The junior ranks of the division headquarters, the senior adjutants for the economic and inspectorate units, and the communications officers seconded from the regiments, made up a small, friendly family. I forgot many names, but. I remember the artilleryman lieutenant Scriabin, second lieutenant Voevodsky, the little huntsman second lieutenant Prince Obolensky, second lieutenant Maletsky, division quartermaster captain Chernysh. At the headquarters was the 6th hundred lb.-guards. His Majesty's Cossack regiment with captain Misharev and centurion Berladin. Relations with everyone were simple and friendly, all the more so, as I found out later, when, having come closer, the surrounding guards family received me cordially into their midst, and that they really disliked my predecessor, the General Staff, Captain Gushchin and were not particularly sad, when he left, having received the post of chief of staff of some division. I was displeased that our Don Cossack failed to create good relations in such an excellent headquarters. Alexander Fedorovich Gushchin, a Don artilleryman, was four years older than me in graduation from the cadet corps, where I remember him well, graduated from the Academy first in 1910, was undoubtedly a capable and talented officer of the General Staff, but apparently unpleasant in dealing with people , suffering from a lack of modesty, and therefore was arrogant. Good and friendly relations were established between me and the regimental adjutants. Several times a day, and when necessary at night, we sat with them at opposite ends of the telephone wire connecting us. Lieutenant Malevsky Malevich - Preobrazhenets, if memory has not changed, Lieutenant Zaitsov - Semenovets, it seems Staff Captain Prokhorov - Izmailovets and since then. Skorino - Jaeger.

There were, I think, 12 of us, the headquarters officials, and about 20 very often sat down at the dinner table. We ate well, there was plenty of everything, not much different from peacetime, the cooks were excellent from among the restaurants, conscripts for mobilization. The division had 5 sanitary facilities, 2 of its own, full-time, for each infantry division of the infirmary, the Marble Palace battalion, the 3rd vanguard of the Red Cross and the Polish battalion. Our host of the meeting had an amicable secret agreement with them, for five weeks each sanitary establishment devoted the headquarters of the division, one week in turn, sharing with him a small amount of alcohol during that week. Gene. Goldgoer assisted us, helping to get a certain amount of cognac from the field department of the store of the Guards Economic Society for the preparation of a wonderful starka, they also got a blackcurrant leaf for this purpose. On the table at dinner there were always two decanters, one golden starka today, and the next day green blackcurrant. Once the commander of the Lb.-Gds had dinner with us. General Drenteln of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, he really liked our tincture, pouring another glass and clinking glasses with General Notbek, laughing, he says: “We are behind you, Your Excellency, ready for both fire and water!” Lieutenant Scriabin and I met the lovely sisters of the Marble Palace flyer, I remember that there were Kolyubakina, Abaza, Yazykova and someone else, they invited us to play screw, and for a long time, when the situation allowed and the flyer was located close to the headquarters, We went to visit, played merrily at vint and had a pleasant time, but the Plenipotentiary, the head of the battalion, did not like it, and we stopped going there.

When we were transferred somewhere to form a fist near the breakthrough of the enemy front that was expected in that place, and the transfer required at least a two-week period, then General Notbek and Colonel Grekov usually went on vacation for this time, and General Goldgoer and I replaced them and carried out rather complex and painstaking operations of the marching movement of the division with its numerous appendages and concentration in the indicated new area. As I clearly see now, I don’t remember, of course, when it was and in what place, but in any case at the end of one of the transitions. General Goldgoer and I had just dismounted from our horses at the gates of the house set aside for the night of the headquarters of the division, as it seemed not far away, led by the commander of the regiment of the General Staff, Colonel Sauvage, Lb.-Gds. The Semyonovsky regiment, which was supposed to pass us to the village assigned to it for the night, a verst from here. Having missed the regiment, General Goldgoer invited the regiment commander to stay with us for lunch. Colonel Sauvage, thanking him, refused and went at a gallop to catch up with the regiment in order to personally be present at its deployment. In less than half an hour, an orderly galloped up with a message that the regiment commander's horse had stumbled and fallen, and Colonel Sauvage, having fallen headlong on a stone, was killed on the spot. The Semyonovites were unlucky in this respect, for a long time they did not have a real owner of the regiment, they always had commanders, and finally they got, apparently, an excellent commander of the General Staff, Colonel Sauvage, a former officer, I think, Lb.-Gds. His Majesty's Cuirassier Regiment, but after the Academy took the direction of the infantry. Knowledgeable, hardworking, caring, he worked hard on the combat training of the regiment, learning to attack a fortified position, etc.

(Ending to follow)

General Staff Colonel Shlyakhtin