Mobilization, more terrible than the war. As the Russian king on the eve of the First World War made a decision on mobilization and what it led to

At the other end of the wire was the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Sazonov, who had just left the meeting in Nicholas II - the monarch managed to persuade the announcement of general mobilization. The video of the day was only partial the day before - July 30, 1914. So he had to respond to St. Petersburg to the shelling of Belgrade with Austro-Hungarian artillery. The "brother"-series were begged for support.

So Russia had only four military districts (Kyiv, Odessa, Moscow and Kazansky), which was the first to approach the borders of the Habsburg empire for logistics. And in this case and fatal. "Our roads and means of communication are such that the partial mobilization will break the plans of the general when the need will appear. " This obvious truth constantly sounded among the higher command and in the presence of the king.

All the troops for weapons! meant to create a threat to Germany, and her Kaiser Wilhelm II - the triuenal uncle of Nicholas II - warned that he would not be able to keep his soldiers so that they would not be answered with real shots. "At 5pm I went to the central telegraph of St. Petersburg," said the head of the mobilization department of the General Staff Sergey Dobrolsk lo to send the appropriate order. - [in the hall] a grave silence reigned.

Telegraphists sat near their equipment and waited for a duplicate telegrams, which would notify the significant news at all ends . . . A few minutes after six, in complete silence, the cars began to tickle. Began. At about 19:00, all directly connected addressees confirmed the receipt. " The command guessed, but few people imagined what a mess they had brewed. At that time, there were 1. 3 million soldiers in the current troops of Russia. It would seem that there was enough to be enough.

However, the mobilization of all potentially capable of keeping weapons began. And these are 3 million reservists [they were then called warriors] who were already serving, and another 10 million who have never served in health or family circumstances. "We did not have the previous history of the people with weapons, and although many special guidelines were prepared, in practice, this common call was unprecedented and caused serious difficulties," General Dobrolsky wrote in emigration.