Reflex Movements

Reflex movements have been reported to occur in up to 75% of brain-dead patients…

The Russian Origins of the First World War, by Sean McMeekin

McMeekin offers his analysis of events in Russia during 1917 and how these effected Russia’s involvement in the war.  The connection of this to the title should become apparent shortly, if you haven’t already figured it out.

              

[It would be] absurd and criminal to renounce the biggest prize of the war…in the name of some humanitarian and cosmopolitan idea of international socialism.

-        Pavel Miliukov, Foreign Minister, Russian Provisional Government; March, 1917

Miliukov was an advocate of continuing the war after the February Revolution; needless to say, this did not garner him much support from the supporters of Lenin.  On 20 April, 1917, he sent a telegram to Britain and France, stating that Russia would continue to support its allies and wage the war to the end.

In the first week of May he resigned his post.  But I am getting ahead of myself….

1916

The war was not going terribly well for the western allies during this year – not much ground lost, but not much ground gained.  The same could not be said for Russia and her advances in Anatolia and the Middle East.  While Congress Poland and the oilfields of Ploesti were lost to them…

…the Russians, after an initial disaster at Lake Narotch in March, had won victory after victory in the East, from Brusilov’s numerous (albeit tactical) breakthroughs in Galicia to northeastern Turkey, where the Caucasian army was carrying all before it.

A year earlier, in 1915, Russia suffered from regular shell shortages.  No longer:

Russia produced four times as much shell as Austria-Hungary in 1916 and nearly as much as Germany, which was sending most of it is own output to the western front.

Foreign capital flowed into the country; the economy was “thriving,” according to McMeekin.

In the meantime, the war on Russia’s south was going well.  Advances were made in Persia and Mesopotamia.  Things were even better in Turkey; the northwestern portions of Turkey were secured during the Anatolian campaign of 1916.  The winter of 1916 – 1917 was harsh, but there was every reason to believe that with the spring, Russia could continue consolidating further gains at Turkey’s expense.

One of Russia’s long-time objectives, the one that would secure the warm-water access that was so coveted, was within sight.  When this was stated openly in the Duma by the new chairman of the Council of Ministers, the announcement was met by “the usual mob of hecklers” – led by Alexander Kerensky.

1917

February saw, with today’s knowledge of what was to come within days, a surreal event in Petrograd.  A conference of the Allies was held: France, Britain, and Italy, along with Russia.  Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia offers extensive notes regarding the internal situation in Petrograd.  For those interested, I offer some passages here.

It was in this environment where Pavel Miliukov made the statement regarding Constantinople, cited above.

The picture was surreal in the war offices as well – war planning for 1917 continued unaltered, unaffected by events in Petrograd.  Planning was moving forward for more aggressive amphibious assaults along Turkey’s Black Sea coast, to even include the Straits. 

March 14 saw the issuing of “Order No. 1” by the new provisional government, abolishing most elements of officer control in the armed forces and mandating the election of “soldier soviets.”  The order was received by Baratov in Persia, as one example, as if it came from “outer space.”  He was not forced to withdraw until June 1918 – fourteen months after the order was issued.

On the European front, however, morale was breaking down – then again, on the European front there were no military advances that might offer a boost to morale.  McMeekin offers this picture as an image of the Russian morale on the European front during 1917; it depicts Russian soldiers fleeing the Germans on the Galician front, July 1917.

Conclusion

The Bolsheviks seized power on the night of 7-8 November, 1917.  They immediately petitioned for and were granted an armistice by the Central Powers, culminating with the Brest-Litovsk negotiations; they repudiated all obligations to their former Allies; Trotsky leaked the “secret treaties” – of which the most important, perhaps, was the Sykes-Picot Agreement – to the Manchester Guardian.

Russia was thrown into Civil War – primarily the Red Army against what is referred to as the White Army.  The most significant fighting occurred within the first three years and the war ended by 1923.  Perhaps 300,000 were killed in the fighting.

The Red Terror, the White Terror, summary executions, Cossacks killed and deported, the economy devastated.

You know the rest.

The Surrealism of War

I was beginning work on my final post regarding Sean McMeekin’s book The Russian Origins of the First World War, when in my further research, I came across the notes of Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia during the war.  The specific section is regarding an inter-Allied conference, held in Petrograd amongst the Allies: Britain, France, Italy and Russia.

What is of primary interest to me at this moment is the date of the conference: it began on January 29, 1917.  If I must put this date in context, the Russian February Revolution was only weeks away.

Reading these notes, I am struck by the dialogue – and I will focus here on the portions of the dialogue pertaining specifically to the internal situation in Petrograd:

[After having just arrived, Gaston Doumergue] asked me about the internal situation in Russia. I painted it without sparing the darker colours, and drew the inference that it was necessary to hasten military events.

"On the Russian front," I said, "time is not working for us now. The public does not care about the war. All the government departments and the machinery of administration are getting hopelessly and progressively out of gear. The best minds are convinced that Russia is walking straight into the abyss. We must make haste."

"I didn't think the mischief had got so far."

"You'll be able to see for yourself."

Imperial Household Minister, Count Vladimir Frederiks, was responsible for the administration of the Imperial family's personal affairs and living arrangements.  He offered:

"The conference must agree together that after the war the Allies shall come to each other's aid in case of internal disorders. We are all interested in fighting revolution!"

To which Paléologue wrote in his notes:

He is back in the days of the Holy Alliance; only a century behind the times O sancta et senilis simplicitas!

At a small private lunch:

The conversation, which was quite unrestricted and very animated, was mainly on the subject of internal politics.

At one moment, Doumergue thought that my guests were a little too impulsive, a shade too eager to take the field against tsarism, and was advocating patience.

At the very mention of the word "patience," Miliukov and Maklakov burst out:

"We've had quite enough patience! ... Our patience is utterly exhausted! Besides, if we don't act soon, the masses won't listen to us any longer."

Maklakov went on to remind us of Mirabeau's remark: "Beware of asking for time! Disaster never gives it!"

The advice to the Russians from the French was for patience, not resignation.  And: “…whatever you do, put the war first!”

Not for much longer….

Partitioning the Ottoman Empire

We are all familiar with the story of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the agreement between Britain and France for carving up and dividing large portions of the Ottoman Empire after the war.  There is one Entente power not formally included in this common narrative, despite being involved in some of the heaviest and most successful military campaigns in Anatolia, Persia, and Mesopotamia.

Let’s rectify this…

The Russian Origins of the First World War, by Sean McMeekin

On 4 March 1915, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov delivered to his ambassadors in Paris and London a message that came directly from Tsar Nicholas II: a formal sovereign demand for postwar control of Constantinople and the Straits.  That the Russian’s had their eyes on this prize was no surprise – this had long been an objective for the Russians.  Despite this…

Sazonov’s historic aide-mémoire does, however, seem to have offended French and British sensibilities in its deeply inappropriate timing.

It was delivered right in the middle of the bloody Dardanelles campaign, a campaign for which Russia was contributing, as of yet, nothing.  Despite this lack of contribution, the British Cabinet formally endorsed Russia’s claim on 12 March.

The author, McMeekin, is surprised by this approval – it is one of many examples he offers through which he concludes that the British diplomats were dupes and the Russians were brilliant.  As I have mentioned, this seems unlikely to me – and even in this case there is a reasonable alternative interpretation.

As Peter Frankopan offered, Britain wanted Russia focused on Europe so it would not focus on Britain’s Asia.  Had Britain turned down the Tsar’s demands, there was concern that Germanophiles in Russia would convince the Tsar that Britain never intended to support Russia’s claims in Asia Minor.

In the meantime, what was Britain’s formal endorsement actually worth?  Had Britain been successful in the Dardanelles campaign (aka Gallipoli), she would have controlled the Straits.  Postwar, what would any promises be worth, once there would have been one hundred moving pieces on the map to be sorted out – with possession being nine-tenths of the law and all that.

And if Britain failed to secure Constantinople and the Straits – well, she would owe Russia exactly nothing.  So, Britain’s endorsement of the Tsar’s demands would keep Russia fighting in Germany and leave Britain free to secure (or not) Asia Minor…and keep Russia out of one of the key passageways of the east.

The famous Sykes-Picot Agreement was negotiated in the period January – May 1916.  It was negotiated during the time when Britain suffered perhaps its two most humiliating defeats in the Ottoman territories: Gallipoli and Kut.

The Gallipoli campaign began as a naval assault in February 1915. In April, British forces landed on the peninsula.  The battle lasted until January 1916, ending with a British evacuation.  Casualties on the Allied side numbered almost 190,000, including 27,000 from France.  This does not include over 100,000 evacuated due to sickness.

The British first took Kut, in today’s Iraq, in September 1915.  In December 1915, the Turks began a siege of the city.  In April 1916, the British surrendered, but not before some 23,000 British and Indian soldiers died in trying to retake it.  Some 8,000 British soldiers survived the siege and were taken into captivity.

Meanwhile, Russia was achieving meaningful successes in Anatolia. The Russians began their campaign in January, taking Erzurum, moving along the Black Sea and taking Rize and Trabzon.  Further successes were to follow; as these came after the Sykes-Picot Agreement was ratified, these are not germane to the current topic.

So, Britain was failing, Russia was advancing; Britain carved up the Ottoman Empire with France, Russia was not involved?

The Enemy Population

Forced displacement or forced immigration is the coerced movement of a person or persons away from their home or home region and it often connotes violent coercion….Some migrants are impelled to cross national borders by war or persecution, due to political, social, ethnic, religious reasons.

Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country….Definitions of deportation apply equally to nationals and foreigners….Deportation is the removal of an alien out of the country, simply because his presence is deemed inconsistent with the public welfare…

Population transfer or resettlement is the movement of a large group of people from one region to another, often a form of forced migration imposed by state policy or international authority and most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion but also due to economic development.

Events such as these have occurred innumerable times over the course of recorded history.  Perhaps the largest in number (and, curiously, least available to the conscious of most people outside of the regions in which this took place) is the expulsions of Germans after World War II, with as many as 14 million forced from various countries in Eastern Europe to Germany.

A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation.

How do you define the word “group”?  Who should be considered part of this “group”?  What to do with such a “group”? 

Genocide is intentional action to destroy a people (usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group) in whole or in part. (Emphasis added.)

Well…I guess this is one possible course of action.

The Russian Origins of the First World War, by Sean McMeekin.

McMeekin devotes a chapter to the situation in Eastern Anatolia, where the Ottoman Empire met Russia.  It is a chapter devoted to Russia’s relationship with the Armenians who lived in this region, and Russia’s role in the eventual fate of these same Armenians.

Most scholars refer to this event as genocide – a deliberate and conscious action to destroy a people, in whole or in part, in this case perpetrated by the Ottoman government.  I have written about this event once before – what is known as the Armenian Genocide.  This post was written about two-and-a-half- years ago, on the occasion of the 100^th commemoration anniversary.  If you are not familiar with the event, it might be worth a read.

I guess it might be relevant to note here that the author of this book, Sean McMeekin, was – at the time the book was published – an assistant professor at Bilkent University located in Ankara, Turkey.  Why is this relevant? 

Article 301 is an article of the Turkish Penal Code making it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish nation, or Turkish government institutions.

The law has been used many times to charge those who speak of the Armenian Genocide.  To note: there are a few countries where denial of the Armenian Genocide is illegal. 

History, perhaps even more than science, is never settled.  All I can say – to both the Turkish law and these other laws: truth doesn’t need a law to promote or defend it.  I say the same regarding all similar laws (yes, also that one) designed to protect someone’s version of history.  It strikes me that the more prevalent the number of such laws on any issue, the more concerned one should be about the truth of the protected narrative.

Keeping the author’s sensitive position in mind, let’s begin.

In the case war breaks out [between Russia and Turkey], the Armenians and Assyrian Christians may be of great help to us.

-        S.D. Sazonov, Russia Foreign Minister, August 1914

Until the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Armenian minority in the Ottoman Empire – like other minorities in the empire – lived in relative harmony with the majority population.  The relationship dated back centuries – perhaps for as long as it had been since Turks overran Byzantium.

One reason for this relative harmony was the allowance for each minority to hold to its own customary law:

In the Ottoman Empire, a millet was a separate court of law pertaining to "personal law" under which a confessional community (a group abiding by the laws of Muslim Sharia, Christian Canon law, or Jewish Halakha) was allowed to rule itself under its own laws.

A system was also in place to deal with the situation where the crime involved parties from different millets:

When a member of one millet committed a crime against a member of another, the law of the injured party applied, but the ruling Islamic majority being paramount, any dispute involving a Muslim fell under their sharia−based law.

As a minority, it is difficult to ask for much more; if the minorities demanded to be treated equally under the law, all cases would be decided under sharia law – probably not an improvement for the various Christians and Jews in the empire.

Russia’s Strategic Imperative…

…circa 1914.

The Russian Origins of the First World War, by Sean McMeekin.

Prologue

In my introductory post on this book, I offered the following regarding the complimentary nature of McMeekin’s book to that of Frankopan’s Silk Roads:

My one disagreement – or maybe better stated, skepticism: McMeekin portrays the Russians as cunning diplomats and the British diplomats as dupes.  If I believe Frankopan’s analysis, British diplomacy knew exactly what it wanted and got it: Russia focused on Europe and not Asia; if I believe McMeekin, the Russians fooled the British regarding ultimate Russian objectives.

I am about half-way through the book, and so far I believe Frankopan.  My concern: is this so only because I read Frankopan first or is it so because Frankopan’s arguments are more compelling?  On this question, I try to remain open-minded.

At the time, my concern was basic: Great Britain, a tiny island, held an empire that spanned the globe.  Is it possible that this tiny land with no resources of its own was virtually completely inept in the art of diplomacy, in reading tea leaves, in understanding how to manipulate others?

I felt this not to discount Russian diplomats; I only felt that British diplomats couldn’t be so wrong at almost every turn.

I am now much further along in the book, and am coming to the conclusion that – as important and valuable as I find much of McMeekin’s work – I think I lean toward Frankopan’s interpretation of events.  What has swung me on this is McMeekin’s description regarding the British attempts at Gallipoli; while this is a topic for a future post, I will offer a brief summary here:

Russia, being quite clear on her objectives to possess Constantinople and the Straits after the war, somehow got Great Britain to sacrifice tens-of-thousands of her sons in a purely altruistic endeavor – capture the Straits and access to it, then turn over to Russia this access to the Mediterranean, gratis.  Russia was able to trick Britain to attempt this even while offering virtually no support at the Black Sea entrance to the Bosporus at the time of the British landing.

It is difficult to believe.

Now, on to today’s episode….

McMeekin lays out thoroughly Russia’s interests in Constantinople and Austrian Galicia, while touching on Germany’s fears of her neighbor to the east. 

Regarding the latter point first, Russia had over three times the population as did Germany; Russia’ army was triple the size of Germany’s; Russia’s economy was growing at ten per cent per year.  Of course, Russia had also recently had some military setbacks – most notably against Japan a few years earlier.

The Romanov Empire had grown by fifty-five square miles a day since 1683:

It was not hard to extrapolate forward a geopolitical map on which Russian territory included half of China, Afghanistan, northern Persia, Anatolia, Constantinople and the Straits, Austrian Galicia, and Eastern Prussia.

And this, for me, is where McMeekin runs headlong into Frankopan (and MacKinder): Britain intended to divert Russia from Asia by getting Russia to focus on Europe.

In the meantime, Germany had grown to be the greatest military power in Europe – defeating France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.  Germany’s literacy rate in the military was nearly universal, whereas for Russia it was about 30%.  Germany’s economy had also exploded in the latter half of the nineteenth century – surpassing even Britain’s and second only to the economy of the United States.  From pharmaceuticals to automotive to military hardware, Germany was a world leader:

The words Krupp and Skoda alone were enough to terrify infantrymen who might have to face Germans.

McMeekin discounts Britain’s and France’s interest in the Middle East and the future of the Ottoman Empire; in Britain’s case especially, they had already secured their desired prizes – Egypt and the Suez Canal.  Either the desires of these two pre-eminent European colonialists changed drastically within the first year or two of the war’s start, or McMeekin is seeing something that was never there.

Meanwhile, Russia was making plans to take Constantinople:

The mood of the time was well captured in a General Staff memorandum of October 1910 that outlined plans for seizing Constantinople: first the rail and telegraph lines to Adrianople and Ankara would be cut by “agents from the Christian population” (Macedonians and Bulgarians in Europe, Greeks and Armenians in Anatolia), whereupon Russia-friendly Christians in the city would “burn down all the wooden bridges spanning the Golden Horn and set fire to Stambul”…

…a Muslim district blanketed with wooden houses.

Russian operational planning to seize Constantinople dates as far back as 1895-1896, in response to the Turkish massacres of Armenians at that time.  Nearly all Russian naval and army policy papers regarding an amphibious landing on Constantinople referred to the “annihilation of Turkish dominion.”

I recall from Jack Beatty and his book, The Lost History of 1914: How the Great War Was Not Inevitable, that in the years prior to the war, Russia was looking for external peace due to its very unstable domestic situation.  McMeekin sees things a little differently, but offers a clarification:

Stolypin’s famous 1909 remark that Russia needed “twenty years of peace” to complete her economic modernization in reality referred conditionally, like Sazanov’s professions of pacifist intentions, to the prospects of a European war on Russia’s vulnerable western borders.

But Russia’s skirmishes in the east and south would continue. And this was precisely the opposite of what Britain was after; and, it turns out, Russia focused on Europe once the war began.  It leaves one to ask – which “ally” manipulated the other into fighting the desired war?

Russia saw two weak and weakening empires to her south – Austro-Hungary and Ottoman.  She saw the Ottomans lose in the first Balkan War, with Italy, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece all allied against the Turks; she saw Austro-Hungary stay out of the war, as Germany did not offer support.

Meanwhile, Russia also saw Turkey invite Liman von Sanders and more than forty German officers to command the Straits defenses; Russia’s European enemy now defending Russia’s target in the south.  Russia saw the British building naval ships for Turkey; these ships would virtually eliminate any hope of Russia taking major action in the Black Sea.

For Russia, the time for war was fast approaching.

Maybe It Wasn’t Germany

The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.

-        Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles, known as “the war guilt clause.”

The simple answer as to which government was to blame for the beginning of World War One is Germany.  As anyone who has studied the war will tell you, when it comes to the origins of this war, there is no simple answer.

I recently came across an idea, presented by Peter Frankopan in The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, who suggested that some significant portion of the blame falls on Britain – desiring war in Europe to distract Russia from Britain’s possessions in the Near East, Central Asia and the subcontinent.  I cover this most directly here and here.  Now I am reading a book that compliments well Frankopan’s work.

The Russian Origins of the First World War, by Sean McMeekin.

Essentially the great question remains: who will hold Constantinople?

-        Napoleon Bonaparte

I suggest that McMeekin compliments Frankopan because his focus is Russia and its desire for control and expansion – not in Europe, but in Asia and especially Constantinople for the purpose of securing year-round warm water access.  Both authors tell a similar story – in the broad strokes.

My one disagreement – or maybe better stated, skepticism: McMeekin portrays the Russians as cunning diplomats and the British diplomats as dupes.  If I believe Frankopan’s analysis, British diplomacy knew exactly what it wanted and got it: Russia focused on Europe and not Asia; if I believe McMeekin, the Russians fooled the British regarding ultimate Russian objectives.

I am about half-way through the book, and so far I believe Frankopan.  My concern: is this so only because I read Frankopan first or is it so because Frankopan’s arguments are more compelling?  On this question, I try to remain open-minded.

In any case, none of this detracts from the value of either book – I learned much from Frankopan and am learning much from McMeekin.  And with this, let’s dig in.

We all know of Britain and France carving up the Middle East in the aftermath of World War One.  This “carving up” did not come from nothing: the European powers had interests in this region dating back decades – even centuries. 

In the more recent history, Britain placed a priority on this region as it was crucial for access to and protection of its interests in the subcontinent and East Asia.  Further, in the time shortly before the war and through the war, this region became important for oil.

McMeekin introduces another aspect of this history:

…the last hundred years of history in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire – stretching from European Thrace and the Aegean and Black Sea littorals to Anatolia, “Turkish Armenia,” the Caucasus and Persia, Mesopotamia and Palestine – is arguably impossible to record without reference to Russia’s aims in the First World War.

Germany’s Schlieffen, Gallipoli, the Armenian massacres of 1915, the Sykes-Picot Agreement – none of these events can be told without connecting these intimately to Russian foreign policy.

The war of 1914 was Russia’s war even more than it was Germany’s.

We will see.