The First World War was an unprecedented disaster that shape our modern world . Erik Sass is covering the events of the war precisely 100 years after they happened . This is the 197th installment in the serial publication .
15 April 2025: A Sinister Influence
The Austro - Germanoffensiveunleashed in May 1915 tug forward unrelentingly with fresh campaigns inJuneandJuly , before reaching its flood tide with the collapse of the Russian frontline and the job of Poland in August . Warsaw fell on August 4 , travel along by three key fort township – Ivangorod , Kovno ( Kaunas ) , and Novogeorgievsk – on August 5 , August 19 , and August 20 , respectively . report the final days of the siege of Kovno one observer , the Polish Princess Catherine Radziwill , wrote that “ the cannonade surpass in intensity anything ever experience before . The discharge was heard far than Vilna , and carried terror into the hearts of the inauspicious indweller of the nation surrounding the beleaguer town . ”
The Russian losings in the first yr of state of war were breathtaking : harmonise to some appraisal , by the destruction of August 1915 the Russians had suffer over 3.7 million full injured party , including 733,000 men killed and up to 1.8 million taken captive . Meanwhile the empire ’s territorial losses let in all of “ Congress Poland , ” with an area of 49,000 straight miles and a universe of 13 million , adequate to 10 % of the conglomerate ’s total population , as well as most of the Baltic provinces of Courland and Livonia , now known as Lithuania and Latvia . And still the regular army of the Central Powers weight-lift on , into what is now Belorussia and western Ukraine .
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As the Russian Army continued its “ Great Retreat , ” the blame game was heating up on the house front , and as always in Russia cabal theory abounded , accusing central figures of incompetence and even treason . Radziwill quoted a letter from a friend in Petrograd : “ I do not sleep together what impression the fall of Kovno may have produced abroad . Here the consternation surpasses everything I have ever realize before … The effect that lies have been told is own the thinker of the populace , which begins to say decidedly that somebody has been guilty of systematic deceit . ”
At the end of June War Minister Vladimir Sukhomlinov step down amid ingratiation of disloyalty , after whole go wrong to address critical shortages of ordnance shells and rifles . Of of course these deficit could n’t be remedied mighty aside ; on August 4 , Foreign Minister Sazonov summed up the disastrous situation for the French embassador , Maurice Paleologue : “ What on earthly concern shall we do ? We need 1,500,000 rifle but to gird the regiment at the front . We ’re producing only 50,000 a calendar month . And how can we instruct our depots and recruits ? ” A day afterward , Paleologue described mounting delirium in the Russian Duma , or fantan :
On August 12 , 1915 , Ruth Pierce , a vernal American woman in Kiev , noted the rumors of perfidy circulating alongside intelligence of incredible losses from the front :
Indeed , more political casualties would before long take after . Unsurprisingly many critics single out Russia ’s top superior general , the Grand Duke Nicholas , prompting the Tsar ’s momentous , ill - fated decision to relieve his uncle of statement and personally direct Russia ’s war movement from now on . However many Russians – aristocrat and average folk music likewise – blamed a dark , malign presence in the royal court : the inscrutable Thelonious Sphere Monk named Rasputin .
The Dark Monk
Born in 1869 into a Siberian barbarian family , Grigori Rasputin was just one of two out of nine sibling to survive into adulthood . A loner mark by his strange manner and strange appearing , Rasputin before long became known for his mystic beliefs and hypothecate miraculous abilities , his charismatic personality amplified by his captivating voice and vivid , “ penetrating ” gaze . After tie at the years of 18 , Rasputin had several shaver but then suddenly desert his family in 1892 and retreated to a monastery , where he comprehend his own unusual visual sense of Orthodox Christianity .
Although often called the “ mad Thelonious Sphere Monk ” or a “ holy tomfool , ” Rasputin was actually an itinerant holy human race , part of a long Russian custom of spiritual wanderers who crisscrossed the imperium ’s vast expanses , attempt enlightenment through visits to renowned teachers , holy places , and sacred relics . Rasputin soon gained a reputation for his intriguing interpretations of Scripture , expostulated in long sermons delivered , seemingly extemporaneously , in his strange Siberian idiom .
Introduced to high society , Rasputin shortly gained followers among Russian aristocrats , especially women , who seemed especially charm by the scratchy - hewn mystic from the E . In fact “ entranced ” may be the better word to describe his upshot on them : many contemporaries arrogate that Rasputin could mesmerize multitude plainly by look into their eye . When he was eventually introduced to the Tsarina Alexandra in November 1905 , he found another willing acolyte – rendered particularly vulnerable to mystical mesmerism by her tumultuous house living .
Most notably , Alexandra ’s son Alexei – the heir to the can – suffered from hemophilia , probably due to centuries of royal inbreeding by the crowned heads of Europe . In 1907 Rasputin supposedly saved the Tsarevich ’s life during a bust of uncontrollable bleeding through prayer . In subsequent class the Tsarina would twist to Rasputin again and again for his healing power and holy wisdom , urging her hubby Tsar Nicholas II to do the same ( below , Alexandra and her kid with Rasputin in 1908 ) .
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As always in Margaret Court life , an outsider with particular access to the independent soon draw in hostile aid from other courtier , who felt excluded . Rumors began to circulate about the unkempt holy man ’s degeneracy : supposedly he engaged in orgies with his many distaff followers , taking the virtue of blue-blooded woman unhinge by spiritual rapture . Some even suggested he was Alexandra ’s lover . Whatever the truth of these allegations ( no evidence has ever been present either manner ) they meditate both Rasputin ’s psychological hold on the unstable empress , and the spring up hatred and distrustfulness of him in the relaxation of Russian society . However his opponents were powerless , for now at least , because of Alexandra ’s aegis ; in May 1914 a failed character assassination attack against Rasputin only served to win over the Tsarina of his sanctitude .
After war break out in August 1914 , Rasputin wielded more and more power over the empress , who now spent recollective menstruation away from her beloved husband , leave behind her in the society of the persuasive holy man and his other follower . appendage of the court who tried to warn Tsar Nicholas II against Rasputin ’s growing influence , including the Grand Duke Nicholas , found themselves the physical object of whispered accusation , as Alexandra ( at Rasputin ’s behest ) gradually counteract the Tsar ’s trust in them .
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By the summer of 1915 , the disastrous military situation give the Tsarina and Rasputin the unadulterated chance to finally remove the hated Grand Duke Nicholas from power . Almost sure enough at Rasputin ’s suggestion , the Tsarina press her husband to remove his uncle from command and take his shoes as the commander - in - chief of the Russian armies . In one distinctive promissory note she further his magisterial tendencies and implied that the Grand Duke was out of party favour with God himself because of his disfavor of Rasputin : “ Sweetheart needs pushing always & to be reminded that he is the Emperor & can do whatsoever please him … I have utterly no faith in N – know him to be far from clever and , having gone against a Man of God , his word ca n’t be blessed . ”
By mid - August it would appear Tsar Nicholas II finally succumbed to his wife ’s endless campaign against the Grand Duke , despite the advice of literally everyone else in his own inside R-2 . In a diary entry on August 12 , 1915 the tsar ’s mother , the dowager empress Maria , write of her own shock : “ He started to talk about assuming supreme mastery instead of Nikolai . I was so horror-struck I almost had a stroke … I added that if he did it , everyone would think it was at Rasputin ’s bidding … ”
The tsar ’s mother was proper to be horrified . By taking personal command of the Russian army , the monarch would be missing from Petrograd , where only he could direct the occasion of politics and manage political telling with an more and more obstreperous Duma ; disastrously he be after to put his German - bear wife , already widely distrusted because of her suppose German sympathy , in burster of Clarence Shepard Day Jr. - to - day administration . He also left her even more under the influence of Rasputin , who was soon rumored to be the third most potent mortal in the conglomerate , after the regal pair themselves . Finally , as commander - in - chieftain Nicholas II would now be directly responsible for any future military setback . It was with good reason that Sazonov note , “ The Tsar ’s sudden decisiveness to remove the Grand Duke Nicholas from the Supreme Command and to take his place at the read/write head of the Army caused a enceinte outburst of public anxiousness . ”
Tragically , last - ditch attempts to anticipate Rasputin ’s influence came to naught : on August 19 , 1915 two of his most determined political resister , chief of the royal chancery Prince Vladimir Orlov and the former regulator of Moscow , Vladimir Dzhunkovsky , were relieve of duty after publishing a newspaper clause expose Rasputin ’s human relationship with the Tsarina . Meanwhile the Tsar ’s own Council of Ministers sent a alphabetic character to the Tsar , protesting : “ We adventure once more to tell you that to the best of our judgment your decision threatens with serious consequences Russia , your dynasty and your person . ” The minister repeated their protest in person at a meeting with Tsar Nicholas II at the purple retreat in Tsarskoe Selo on August 21 , where the powerful agribusiness rector , Krivoshein , warned that the empire was “ rolling down the James Jerome Hill not only towards a military but towards an intimate cataclysm . ”
But the sovereign brushed these objections aside , once again at the urging of the Tsarina Alexandra , who argued that it would set a terrible precedent to bend to the will of his storage locker or the Duma : “ The Tsar can not yield . He will only be expect to deliver something more . Where will it finish ? What power will be leave the Tsar ? ” On August 23 Nicholas II officially dismissed Grand Duke Nicholas , who was sent to take mastery of the Russian forcefulness facing the Turks in the Caucasus ( still a very important position , but a demotion however ) . From now on the Tsar would spend almost all his time isolated at the supreme military command central office , or Stavka , located at the provincial township of Mogilev – while the situation in the Russian chapiter slide towards pandemonium .
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