On services for reselling things like Avito, you can find an interesting medal that few people have heard of. It is called "For the excellent performance of the general mobilization of 1914." You can buy it for only 5000 rubles. It seems that no one values this award today.
Such medals were minted in February 1915 in a huge circulation – at least 50 thousand pieces – and handed over to everyone: from sports instructors to ordinary local officials, who then performed the functions of the current military commissars.
Why so many medals? And what is the medal for? The fact is that the incredible success of the mobilization of 1914 – the first general mobilization since the military reform of Alexander II, which abolished recruiting – was an extremely important thesis for Russian propaganda. If you read the newspapers of that time, you may get the impression that the whole country rushed in unison to the recruiting centers in order to quickly fulfill its duty to the emperor and the state.
The press of the first days of the war reports how bravura rallies and demonstrations with portraits of the tsar, crosses, banners and patriotic banners like “Victory for Russia and the Slavs!” are held on the central streets and squares of Moscow and St. Petersburg! Again, according to official reports, the success of the mobilization was confirmed not only by loyal slogans, but also by numbers.
The tsarist government happily reported on the phenomenal indicators of mobilization (that’s why, in fact, they minted medals): they say that in 45 days they gathered everyone they wanted, and even more than that – as much as 15% more appeared on their own initiative!
The tsarist government happily reported on the phenomenal indicators of mobilization
The peacetime army then amounted to a little more than 1.4 million people. This was not enough for the war with Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey.
According to official reports, in July-August, 3.1 million lower-ranking military personnel were called up from the reserve. Plus, by the end of the year, more than 700,000 people aged 20-21 and 900,000 militia soldiers (that is, those who had not served in the army before – they, in theory, should were used to protect military warehouses and facilities in the rear, but this rule, of course, was often violated). In addition, as part of the mobilization, 1.3 million horses were requisitioned from the population for the needs of the army.
This version, we repeat, from the pages of the then official newspapers, which not only underwent strict military censorship, but also engaged in conscious propaganda, became canon. It was also uncritically retold by Soviet history textbooks (yes, they say, the war was imperialistic and senseless, but the glory of Russian weapons did not cancel anyone), they continue to tell it in today's Russian schools – the mobilization of 1914 was super-successful and filled with patriotic enthusiasm.
The war was imperialistic and senseless, but the glory of Russian weapons did not cancel anyone
Here's another example. Evening Time reported on the second day of mobilization:
“Today, by six o’clock in the morning, the entire capital took on an unusual appearance. From all over the city stretched groups heading to the police stations… The upsurge among the conscripts is extraordinary… The more you peer into the crowd, the calmer your soul becomes. Serious, sober people, gathered earnestly to fulfill their duty, without noise, without hysterical cries. And it seems that everyone's eyes have darkened from an inner thought, from determination.
But it seems to be a distortion. Well, let's put it this way: would you like the mobilization of 2022 to be judged by the broadcasts of Solovyov and Kiselyov? The question is rhetorical.
By the way, one more fact about the same medal for successful mobilization, on the obverse of which the profile of the king himself was also stamped. It so happened – and this, no doubt, is the beautiful irony of history with a capital letter – that this was literally the last medal in the history of the Russian Empire. Then only revolutions, abdication at the Dno station, civil war – and all these patriotically inspired people for some reason turned their bayonets in the other direction after three years.
There was nothing surprising in this. Modern historians, who work with diaries, memoirs and private letters from 1914, are gradually restoring the real picture of what happened. It is still impossible to prove the fabrication of figures (three million in 45 days), but such a possibility still remains – this is indirectly indicated by defeats at the front. Like, on paper there was a division, but on the field it was understaffed. But most likely, to a large extent, people were really mobilized. As today, first of all, from villages, villages, provincial county towns.
People were mobilized, as they are today, first of all, from villages, villages and provincial county towns
Here is what General Danilov wrote:
“The Russian people turned out to be psychologically unprepared for the war. Its main mass – the peasantry – hardly had a clear idea why they were called to the war. The goals of the war were unclear to him. The peasant went to the call because he was accustomed in general to fulfill everything that the authorities demanded of him; he patiently but passively carried his cross until the great trials approached.
More than half of those mobilized not only did not know who Archduke Ferdinand was and where Sarajevo was located, they were simply illiterate. This is the worst indicator among the European powers that entered the world war at that time.
Misunderstanding turned into melancholy, sadness – and even anger and despair. One of the mobilized, Perm peasant Ivan Zyryanov, recalled the call as follows:
“Grief struck the women. The faces of the women are red and swollen from tears … The women delayed the departure of the train for two hours. They definitely went crazy … After the third bell, many lamented rushed under the wheels of the train, sprawled on the rails, climbed on the buffers, on the steps of the wagons. They could not be separated from their husbands. This is seeing off … All the district authorities ran to the station. The look of the authorities is confused, pathetic. They don't know what to do with the women… They called a special outfit from the local escort team. The escorts carefully picked up women clinging to the rails and carriages, carried them away from the platform somewhere deep into the station. The women were screaming as if they were being cut.”
The crying woman was generally one of the brightest symbols of that mobilization. The Riga worker A. Pireiko, called up for mobilization, recalled the dispatch of his echelon in the following way:
“When they began to load us into the wagons, heart-rending cries and cries of women, relatives and friends of the mobilized were heard … The wives of the mobilized from grief tore their hair out of grief, clung to the buffers of the cars to stop the departing train with loved ones. The howl rose so that it seemed as if people were being sent to the cemetery.
The women were not the only ones crying. The Vologda peasant I. Yurov, enlisted in the militia because of a sore leg, describes the dispatch of the first batches of mobilized:
“A huge crowd of common people – men, women and children. Many of the men, no matter how hard they tried, had tears in their eyes, and all the women sobbed hysterically or whimpered in some inhuman voice, holding on to their husbands with both hands. The men looked at their wives and children with some dead eyes. Looking at all this, I myself wanted to howl like an animal from impotence against this great and terrible disaster … In Ustyug we were told how a woman who had five children, saying goodbye to her husband, went crazy, and her husband, seeing this, choked himself in despair . One young rural deacon told how he burst into tears, watching the dispatch of spares from his parish: “They took N, you know, he left a wife with five children. He goes, but the face itself is not. One child is in his arms, another is being carried by his wife, while the others have grabbed the hem of their father and mother and are running on their sides. Mother wails, cries and children roar; it's creepy. And I shed a tear!”
And similar scenes unfolded throughout the country. Sofya Andreevna, the widow of Leo Tolstoy, spoke of the discontent of the peasants in Yasnaya Polyana: “Everyone is discouraged; those who are being torn away from their land and family say about the strike: "Let's not go to war!"
Nurse S. Fedorchenko, who collected characteristic statements of the people, the folklore of the First World War, cited the typical words of a peasant about the beginning of the war:
“That war knocked me down like a thunder. I just finished with the house – I laid the floor, blocked the roof, somehow got hold of some money. Here, I think, I’ll get on my feet, no worse than people. And then please! At first I thought about drinking, but only restrained myself – vodka is not a cure for such a misfortune.
The resistance was not limited to tears and words. There were also attempts to "mow", evade and even rebel. So, some conscripts chopped off their fingers, drank poisons or injected them themselves, gave bribes to volost foremen and village elders in order not to go to the front. But there weren't very many of them.
Some conscripts chopped off their fingers, drank poisons, gave bribes to volost foremen and village elders
The future Marshal of Victory Georgy Zhukov, whom the war found as a young man in Moscow, where he worked as a furrier, recalled that at first many young citizens volunteered for the war, his friend, whom he wanted to support at first, and then changed his mind, did not understanding the reasons why it can become a cripple:
“I told Sasha that I would not go to war. Having scolded me, he fled from home to the front in the evening, and two months later he was brought to Moscow seriously wounded.
It is curious (and an obvious parallel also suggests itself) that most of the outrage was not connected with the very fact of sending people to war (and potential death), but with the fact that everything was badly organized in terms of equipment and delivery of conscripts. There were not enough uniforms, and the transports did not arrive on time.
Everything was badly organized in terms of equipment and delivery of conscripts
Fuel was added to the fire by the “dry law”, which they guessed to introduce at the time of mobilization. As a result, the newly-minted warriors and warriors went to rob taverns and wine shops. And seeing off with alcohol continued with drinking bouts at assembly points.
For example, in the Pskov province at the Dno station (the same one where Nicholas II would abdicate the throne in three years) on July 22, law enforcement agencies recorded that the warriors “stormed the wine shop three times, broke the door, took away wine worth 190 rubles. (50 buckets of vodka). As captain Tatarinov reported, “part of the vodka was immediately drunk, the rest was taken away. It was not possible to identify the perpetrators, because the entire echelon (700 people) took part.
And similar "vodka riots" happened literally throughout the country – there is historical evidence of similar incidents in at least half of the provinces. Thus, the historian M. Shilovsky only in four Siberian provinces (Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yenisei and Irkutsk) counted 157 (!) protests mobilized at the beginning of the war. In 9 cases, the soldiers smashed the volost governments, in 136 – taverns.
The riots reached a special scale in Barnaul, Tomsk province, Ya. D. Dragunovsky recalled them: “Screams were heard between the soldiers: “Let's break the breech! Why don’t they give you vodka?.. You have to have a goodbye drink with your family!” The manager of the excise duties of the Tomsk province, Lagunovich, sounded the alarm and transmitted to St. Petersburg: "The indignation of the reserve of the Tomsk province is taking on the character of a rebellion." Those who tried to calm the pogromists, these attempts were sometimes costly – bailiffs and officers were beaten, in some cases to death.
One way or another, by and large, the mobilization, rather, really was crowned with success (it just wasn't so joyful). Even those who grumbled (“It’s time to harvest the bread soon, but here it is! Whom to leave the household to! They also took the horse!”), As a rule, humbly put on soldier’s boots. All the same General Danilov from the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief summed up: "Our people turned out to be law-abiding, and up to 96% of all those called up came to the call, more than expected according to peacetime calculations."
Our people turned out to be law-abiding, and up to 96% of all those called up came to the call
It is noteworthy that already by the fall – literally a few months later – the people got used to the military situation, and in the future, mobilization and conscription activities were much calmer than in July and August.
So, in 1915, 3.6 million people were sent to the front, in 1916 – another 2.5 million. In total, during the years of the First World War (until the autumn of 1917), the Russian Empire mobilized 15 million 798 thousand lower ranks and officers, of which 12, 8 million – residents of villages and villages. For comparison: the entire Entente (including Russia) put 48 million people under arms, its opponents – 25 million.