18 October 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

Petrograd, Russian Republic

Allied military representatives met at the Minister of War’s house at 9.30 a.m. to hear a summary of the steps proposed to raise the morale of the army.

It is proposed to reduce its strength by the elimination of the older classes from the 10,000,000 it is now supposed to contain to 7,500,000, of which 4,000,000 will be combatants, 500,000 depot troops and 3,000,000 auxiliary services.

Storm battalions are to be encouraged. Mounted and dismounted “ militia ” units are to be raised from wounded officers and soldiers to maintain order in the interior. After the elections for the Constituent Assembly which are to take place on November 15th, all political agitation is to be stopped in the army. Committees and Commissaries are to be retained.

Many of the proposals are excellent and others are fantastic. The suggestion to abolish the death penalty drew strong protests from General Niessel, who is quite an orator, and from me. We told the Minister that we considered it quite impossible for commanders deprived of the power of inflicting this penalty to stop a panic.

Verkhovski, finally, very pale and nervous, agreed that no army would fight without it, but he added that if it was found impossible to retain it, we were to understand that it was not his fault.

I saw Tereshchenko at 5.30 for half an hour. There are now 43,000 officers unemployed out of a total of 210,000. One corps in four will be withdrawn from the front line to train. The first corps to be withdrawn under this scheme is the Ilnd Guard. Result—it got hold of vodka in Podolya and is completely out of hand.

Tereshchenko fears that the German operations in the Gulf of Riga are preliminary to an attempt against Petrograd. He bases his idea on the size of the German fleet employed —sixteen dreadnoughts out of twenty-seven. He foresees a landing at Hapsal, the destruction of the Russian Baltic fleet, the sweeping up of the mine-fields with a simultaneous advance along the coast to the capital—an affair by land and sea of one and a half months, or if by sea only of three weeks. He is convinced that Germany has decided to have peace by Christmas, and is now determined to attain a strong strategical position, at whatever risk, before opening up negotiations. Germany had said all along that she would only risk her fleet at the end.

On the other hand, Germany has transferred seven divisions to the Western theatre in the last fortnight, viz., one from Galicia, one from Lake Naroch and no less than five from the Riga front. This proves to me that though she may contemplate a raid, she can hardly intend a considered land-and-sea operation against Petrograd, even taking into consideration the present state of the Russian army.

Tereshchenko acknowledged that a “ big offensive ” was not to be expected from the Russian army next spring. All he hoped for was that it would retain the “ 130 ” divisions now opposite it and “ perhaps draw off more.” (The number of divisions now opposite the Russian army is 121, viz., 85 German and 36 Austrian.)

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