2 July 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

Kozowa

The Czech officer has just been in to tell me that his people captured twenty guns to-day. The 35th Division and the 4th Finland Division took two more guns.

The Czechs complain of unsympathetic treatment. No less than 20,000 of the Czech prisoners, who, of course, surrendered voluntarily, are said to have perished on the Murman railway. Even now only 10 per cent, of the prisoners are allowed to volunteer for the front, the remainder being detained to work on farms in the rear.

Kerenski said that they should make a revolution in Austria instead of coming to fight on the Russian front. The Vlth Corps failed to make further progress.

The disaffection in the 1st Guard Corps, the only reserve concentrated in rear of the 11th Army, had prevented full advantage being taken of the success of the Vlth Corps on July 1st, for General Erdeli had considered it necessary at the last moment to hold back the 151st Division of that Corps as army reserve, and the Commander of the Corps was therefore left without the necessary weight to push his initial success.

Again General Selivachev’s success with the XLIXth Corps on July 2nd was of no avail, for the 1st Guard Corps was still too far distant to drive the attack home. Simply on account of the disaffection in this Corps the whole advance of the nth Army had to stop on the 3rd, 4th and 5th.

On the morning of the 3rd I met the Pavlovski Regiment marching, it is true, towards the front, but without any semblance of order. I mentioned the fact half an hour later to the Commander of the Division, General Rilski, whom I met at the staff of the nth Army, and he was greatly surprised, for, though the move had been ordered, he did not in the least expect the order to be obeyed.

The Grenaderski Regiment refused to move till the 4th, when it suddenly changed its mind. On the morning of the 5th only two battalions of the 1st Guard Corps had come up into line to relieve tired units of the XLIXth Corps, and especially the Czech Brigade, which had suffered severely on the 2nd. It is not surprising that when the attack was renewed on the 6th the enemy was found to be dug in and in greater strength.

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Alexander Blok

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