16 April 1917. Alfred Knox

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Alfred Knox

It was obvious that the Russian soldier would never attack unless the death penalty was

again established, but so long as he was only asked to remain quietly in his trenches, was fed

by Government, and had little or no work to do, he had too little initiative to become actively

mutinous unless stirred by propaganda. This propaganda was most harmful where it was

conducted by some unscrupulous temporary officer.

Probably the worst division at this time in the army was the 109th, and probably the worst

regiment in that division was the 436th, in which the ringleaders were Lieutenant Khaust and

Ensign Sievers. Sievers was a German who had only assumed Russian nationality two years

before the war.

One day early in April, when the men of this division were fraternising with the enemy

between the lines, a battery of the 8th Heavy Division opened fire on the crowd. Khaust came

to the battery, arrested the two officers and took them off to his regimental headquarters to be

tried. They were subjected to every kind of indignity, and were only finally released owing to

a threat of the gunners to open fire on the “ court-martial.”

On April 20th, Khaust, Sievers and nine men of their regiment appeared at the Assembly of

the 12th Army and demanded the immediate conclusion of peace, the Germans and Russians

to lay down their arms simultaneously. But the Assembly, though only consisting of soldiers,

was not prepared to go so far, and the general attitude towards the party was so hostile that

only the intervention of the Jewish soldier President, Rom, saved them from bodily hurt”

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15 April

Prokofiev celebrates Easter

Blok describes the Easter service in the empire’s foremost cathedral

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1916: Year in Review.

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in Moscow