B) Cuestionario sobre convivencia escolar
2.6 Aspectos éticos
Well before the Russo-Japanese War, Russian foreign policy in Europe had centered around an alliance with France, emerging from the wars of
German unification. When in 1871 German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck created the new unified German Empire out of a patchwork of German states, he did it through the defeat of France, including the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. This ensured French hostility, but Bismarck removed France’s ability to act by taking away all possible French alliances. By con-sciously avoiding efforts to build a navy and empire, Bismarck kept Britain friendly. He established a Triple Alliance in 1881 with Austria-Hungary and Italy. As a former ambassador to Russia, he never underes-timated Russia’s potential power, and he saw no inherent reason why Germany and Russia should be hostile. He accordingly supplemented the Triple Alliance with a 1887 Reinsurance Treaty with Russia to keep France isolated and Germany safe.
When Wilhelm II inherited the German throne in 1888, however, Bismarck was dismissed and the Reinsurance Treaty lapsed in 1890. Rus-sia was forced to look elsewhere for security. RusRus-sia’s chief geopolitical rival was Austria, tied irrevocably to Germany by the Triple Alliance. Brit-ish and Russian interests clashed in central Asia. That left France, so a Franco-Russian alliance was formed in 1892. The alliance gave Russia welcome security from European war, even more when Russia and Aus-tria agreed in 1897 to put the Balkans on ice, postponing any conflict over southeastern Europe. The European diplomatic landscape at the turn of the century was thus clear: Germany and Austria, together with reluctant Italy on one side—Russia and France on the other. Britain remained a neu-tral and disinterested party, though with persistent concerns about Rus-sian expansion in Central Asia and French ambitions for an African empire. The Russo-Japanese War and German pretensions to world power changed that dramatically.
By 1907, Russia’s loss to Japan and subsequent revolution meant that Russia had to be more cautious and realistic about its foreign policy.
Devoid of a navy thanks to Port Arthur and Tsushima, Russia presented less of a threat to Britain. At the same time, Germany was becoming a greater threat to both Britain and Russia. German pretensions to weltpoli-tik, to becoming a world power with global interests and influence, were a direct challenge to the British Empire. At the same time, expanding Ger-man commercial and political influence in the OttoGer-man Empire and Iran threatened Russian interests. With France as a willing broker, Britain and Russia settled their differences in Asia, demarcating spheres of interest to focus on the greater threat in Europe. Though tensions and conflicts remained sharp, they were temporarily outweighed by the common Ger-man threat. This created the Triple Entente—France, Britain, and Russia—
to oppose the German-led Triple Alliance.
Tensions mounted in 1908. Austria-Hungary had occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina in the wake of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), but this did not mean that the province was formally part of Austria-Hungary.
Russia negotiated with Austria to exchange Russian approval of Austria’s full legal possession of Bosnia-Herzegovina for Austrian support of Rus-sia’s effort to obtain passage for its warships through the Turkish Straits.
These talks were preempted by a 1908 coup inside the Ottoman Empire.
Austria then annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina unilaterally, leaving Russia humiliated and devoid of compensation. Austria’s annexation, together with Germany’s belligerent support of her ally, convinced the Triple Entente that Germany was a dangerous power, intent on hegemony in Europe.
Since the expiration of the Reinsurance Treaty in 1890, Russia had to prepare for the possibility of war against a German-Austrian coalition, a possibility that seemed much more likely after 1908. For much of the 1890s, war planning fell to Dmitrii Alekseevich Miliutin’s associate Niko-lai Nikolaevich Obruchev, who had drawn up the plans for the Russo-Turkish War. Obruchev had to wrestle with a number of unpleasant strategic realities, including facing two great powers alone which made him a key advocate of the French alliance. After the alliance, the dilemma was over Russia’s proper target. Russia’s Balkan interests clashed with Austria-Hungary, not Germany, suggesting a southern focus, while France’s priority was clearly Germany.
Russia’s manpower advantages were undercut by its slow mobiliza-tion. Not only was it larger than any European state, but its population centers were far from the western frontier. To make matters worse, it could not efficiently employ the population it did have. In Poland, for example, Russian fears about Polish reliability meant no more than 25 per-cent to 30 perper-cent of any unit could be made up of Poles. Mobilization plans thus shipped Poles out of Poland and Russians in. Russia’s railroad net was terribly underdeveloped compared to the rest of Europe, so Rus-sia would be slower to fight. Precise figures varied over time, but at the turn of the century Germany and Austria could mobilize, deploy troops at the frontier, and be ready to fight in about two weeks. Russia would take at least twice as long. Given the general assumption the next war would be short, since no European state could sustain the burden of war for more than a few months, Russia’s delay was critical.
While French investors underwrote Russian railroad construction, Rus-sia’s response was to make its war plans defensive, at least for the early stages of the next war. That meant using fortress complexes in Poland, massively expanded in the 1890s to counter improvements in artillery, to hold back German attacks. Once mobilization was complete, Russia’s eventual offensive would be directed against Austria. Russia’s slow mobi-lization meant that its standing army was disproportionately stationed in the west, to hold the borders until full mobilization.
The Russo-Japanese War brought Russia’s complete military collapse.
The country was simply unable to wage major war, and some in Germany
and Austria argued for preventive war to settle matters before Russian recovery. The results of the Russo-Japanese War were reflected in 1910’s Schedule 19 war plan. Cautious to a fault, it shifted Russia’s deployments east, away from the frontier, to prevent destruction by a sudden German attack while easing troop transfers east in the event of renewed war with Japan. Schedule 19’s timidity ran into a number of political objections.
Its defensive orientation directly contradicted Russia’s alliance commit-ments to France, something French officials emphasized repeatedly. In addition, Russian planners understood Germany’s war plan involved concentrating against France to knock it out of the war quickly. If Russia did nothing to stop that, it faced the unwelcome prospect of a war against Germany and Austria with its French ally lost. Finally, Schedule 19 wrote off most of Poland as lost and delayed indefinitely the offensive against Austria-Hungary that Russian generals thirsted for. As Russia recovered from the disasters of 1904–1905, Russian generals pushed for a more aggressive strategy.
After tumultuous debate in early 1912, Schedule 19 was revised and split into two variant war plans. Both were more aggressive, moving quickly to offensives. Indeed, in 1913 the Russians promised the French to begin offensive operations 15 days after the start of mobilization, long before it would be complete. Variant A, the default option, projected directing the bulk of Russian forces—45 infantry divisions, 18.5 cavalry divisions, and 3 rifle brigades—against Austria, leaving 29 infantry divi-sions, 9.5 cavalry dividivi-sions, and 2 rifle brigades against Germany.
Variant G reversed the proportions, sending 41 infantry divisions, 13.5 cavalry divisions, and 2 rifle brigades against Germany and 33 infantry divisions, 14.5 cavalry divisions, and 3 rifle brigades against Austria. Even Variant A, the one employed in 1914, provided for a two-pronged invasion of East Prussia to take pressure off the French. In nei-ther variant did the Russians employ overwhelming force against einei-ther Germany or Austria, leaving them vulnerable to launching two offen-sives, each just weak enough to fail.
The 1905 Revolution also reshaped the workings of Russian govern-ment, though less in foreign and military policy than in other areas.
Though the Duma had legislative power, the tsar retained exclusive con-trol over war, peace, and foreign relations. A Council of Ministers existed to coordinate policy, but in practice Nicholas granted the Foreign Ministry great latitude to conduct foreign affairs. Defense policy, by contrast, was subject to Duma scrutiny because it was, above all, expensive. The Duma’s budgetary powers meant military policy was a matter of public debate. The Duma was not opposed to military spending, only to Nicho-las’s mismanagement. Indeed, in 1914 it approved a “Great Program” to boost Russia’s peacetime strength to 1.6 million men, as well as a major expansion of the Russian artillery park. Together with French loans for
railway construction, this promised a qualitative leap in Russian military capacity.
Nicholas created a new State Defense Council in 1905 to coordinate for-eign policy and, in addition, a new Main Directorate of the General Staff.
This reflected a desire to do something, anything, after the Japanese debacle, not any real reform program. The State Defense Council had a president who centralized authority by serving as a superminister over the War and Navy ministries. On the other hand, Nicholas decentralized authority by splitting the General Staff from the War Ministry. In both cases, Nicholas sacrificed these reforms in the interests of political expedi-ency. He dissolved the State Defense Council in 1908 for opposing his costly initiative to rebuild the destroyed capital ship fleet. He returned the General Staff to the War Ministry in 1909 to promote his own control over military affairs. As this makes clear, Nicholas’s meddling in defense policy, as in the rest of the Russian state machinery, was the central obstacle to effective administration. Nicholas felt compelled to maintain autocracy, his own personal and undivided authority. That meant the management of an empire spanning one-sixth of the earth’s surface was inordinately centralized in the hands of a single individual. Nicholas was neither stupid nor ignorant, but completely incapable of handling the governmental burdens he refused to share.
Beginning in 1909 Nicholas relied on Vladimir Aleksandrovich Sukhomlinov as War Minister and ensured that no Chief of Staff chal-lenged him. Though Sukhomlinov was not the monster he was often por-trayed as being, he was venal and consummately political. At the tsar’s behest, he made every effort to prevent Duma interference, so the Duma detested him in return. Sukhomlinov did push through some reforms, but was handicapped by a lack of funding for his initiatives and opposi-tion from high-placed aristocrats. To reduce the peacetime expense of the army and increase available reserves, the standard service term was reduced to three years in the army (five in the navy), while exemptions and deferments were reduced. He attempted to reduce Russia’s reliance on its Polish fortresses, but was blocked by political opposition. Sukhom-linov failed to improve Russia’s industrial infrastructure for war by resist-ing the integration of private enterprise into munitions production, and he failed to acquire the heavy artillery required to deal with fortifications and earthworks.
Finally, the Russian army itself had to incorporate the consequences of the Russo-Japanese War. The war’s lessons, however, were complex and ambiguous, and the Russian official history of the war was not critical enough. Though some thinkers groped toward an operational under-standing, Russian doctrine was still too committed to a Napoleonic view of warfare, with a clean divide between tactics and strategy, and the idea that wars were decided by single great battles, not extended campaigns.
As shown in a new 1912 field manual, Russian tacticians understood the power of modern firearms, but this did not mean rejecting the offensive.
Indeed, firepower promoted the offensive, since attacks should be launched quickly, before defenders had time to entrench. While frontal assaults, even bayonet charges, were costly and to be avoided if possible, Russian doctrine held they were sometimes necessary and could be suc-cessful. Russia’s theory and training doomed its soldiers to costly and futile attacks in the next war, but in that it was like every other European power.
The Russian officer corps charged with implementing new doctrines in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War was deeply divided. For many, their privileged upbringing and conservative outlook combined to produce a deep distaste for politics and intellectual life. The Russian intelligentsia as a class was viscerally opposed to the regime and the army. Many offi-cers in response rejected anything that smacked of a critical analysis of the regime, or even of scientific research. They remained convinced that will and discipline could overcome any material deficits. For others, how-ever, the Russo-Japanese War meant Russian society had to change for Russia to survive. Individual Japanese were simply better soldiers than their Russian counterparts. This was not a racial judgment, but a political and cultural one. Russians needed to be taught to be committed citizen-soldiers, conscientious and dedicated. While training peasant automata might have sufficed in the nineteenth century, it was not enough for the twentieth. Accordingly, the tsarist government introduced systematic military education in schools and supported paramilitary youth groups.
Elaborate celebrations commemorated Russia’s military triumphs, includ-ing the 200th anniversary of Poltava (1909), the 100th anniversary of Napoleon’s invasion (1912), and the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty itself (1913). For other officers, Russia’s key failing was techno-logical. They turned to the new science of aviation as both a tool for increasing Russia’s military power and sparking Russian development.
In many cases, though by no means all, this traditionalist-reformist split was between Guards and General Staff officers. The aristocratic guards regiments served as finishing schools for the high nobility, who disdained formal military education and cherished their elevated rank and status.
On the other hand, the General Staff officers, graduates of the Nikolaev Academy, saw themselves as an intellectual elite, superior in technical skill to the dilettante guards. At the beginning of World War I, there were only about 1,000 General Staff officers among the 40,000 in the officer corps, but they exerted a disproportionate influence. Russia’s officers, like Russia itself, were caught between tradition and modernity with little understanding of how to balance their competing demands.
Pernicious divides were not limited to the military. After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia enjoyed an unprecedented economic boom,
characterized by rapid industrial growth. While this boosted Russia’s potential power, it enlarged the alienated urban working class, which saw little concrete improvement in its living standards from Russian eco-nomic growth. At the same time, Russia’s educated elites were not only alienated from the urban poor, but from their own government as well.
The tsar consistently and resolutely opposed meaningful participation by Russian society in the government of the empire. All this would have terrible consequences when the next war came.