Первая мировая война (World war one / Đệ nhất thế chiến / 第一次世界大戰)

The Russian army recovered after its Great Retreat,

and convinced the enemy of it’s battle efficiency.

By 1916 the shortage of weapons and military supplies was eliminated.

New soldiers were taking the place of those, who came out of action.

All efforts were directed toward fighting the enemy,

who had forced Russia to enter one of the most horrible wars in human history.

World War I Episode 6

What made you go to war? You were a student,

why didn’t you just keep living your life?

I’m not a student. I finished school and was preparing for the university…

Sure you are. You have it written on your face.

– Where are you from? – Moscow.

You should have stayed there.

My brother died at the front.

And… Well, I just couldn’t stay home.

What about your parents… They already lost one son.

My mother blessed me.

We’ll be at the station soon. The commander is Lieutenant Colonel Vasilchenko.

He’s one angry fellow! And he hates the likes of you, students.

But I’m just an ordinary soldier!

Vasilchenko will tell who you are in no time.

Can’t hide it from him.

BELARUS January 1916

Volunteers! Over here!!

Name?!

Kopeikin… Boris.

What? This army is turning into a joke!

But… My ancestors fought against Napoleon.

Silence!

Welcome to war, student!

You were born lucky! You’ll live long now!

For two years now, Russia was forced against its will

to fight a horrible, exhausting war.

School graduates were still eager to volunteer for military service,

but contrary to the first days of war,

a lot of people were sincerely puzzled by their patriotic disposition.

Russian attitudes were split in two, part being the so-called “defenders”,

who believed in fighting the war until the final victory,

and another part, the “defeatists”, who only wanted for the war to end.

The latter were growing in numbers, as the war kept exhausting the country:

multimillion military and defense expenses, hundreds of thousands people killed,

retreat of the Russian army,

influx of refugees from territories occupied by the enemy...

In winter of 1916, western and eastern front lines tuned into positional warfare.

The overall lull in fighting was occasionally interrupted by skirmishes,

artillery bombardments and air attacks.

Russia’s allies used this

to their advantage and began preparing for the summer offensive.

The German command believed Russia to be incapable of taking

serious action any time soon, and didn’t worry about the Eastern Front.

On the Western Front, the Germans began first aerial combat in history.

Since January 1915, German zeppelins

and aircrafts kept attacking Britain one bombing raid after another.

Bombs were destroying old English cities, killing innocent people...

German newspapers were thrilled with excitement.

"... Our zeppelins brought down their fiery wrathful revenge upon Britain.

The most modern air weapon, a triumph of German engineering ingenuity —

the zeppelin — can strike the very heart of our enemy!

It is the fastest way to come out of this war victorious,

meaning the most humane as well…”

The only thing left untouched by the German air attacks were the royal palaces.

Upon personal order of the German Emperor Wilhelm II,

who was a cousin of the English King George V,

German pilots were forbidden to attack royal residences.

German zeppelins carried out regular attacks on the British Isles

But the first raid of London with 14 German Gotha G.IV aircrafts

Took place on 13th of June 1917 killing 162 civilians.

Throughout the war,

German zeppelins carried out 51 air attacks on Great Britain.

Another 52 bombings were made by airplanes,

dropping a total of 280 tons of bombs.

These air attacks resulted in casualties of 1413 people killed and 3409 injured.

Germans bombarded French cities as well..

Air defense measures were still under development,

and the damage, especially psychological, was so severe,

that the French authorities decided to build on the capital’s outskirts

a life-size replica of Paris.

Magnificent replicas of buildings, factories and railway stations

were supposed to fool German pilots and save the real Paris from destruction.

The bombings of innocent cities

aroused hatred of the Entente countries towards the Germans.

The ground for hatred was long prepared

with the help of a new phenomenon of the civilized world —

the huge propaganda machine.

Early in the war, Britain established the War Propaganda Bureau.

The Bureau enlisted

eminent British writers and public figures:

Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, Gilbert Chesterton, John Galsworthy,

Herbert Wells and many others.

The Bureau put great efforts into printing countless articles and pamphlets

about the German atrocities with eloquent headlines like

"The Barbarism of Berlin" or "When Blood is Their Argument'".

A classic example was the article written by Kipling for the Morning Post,

in which the author of "The Jungle Book" stated:

"there are only two divisions in the world today - human beings and Germans.

Britain was literally flooded by countless broadsheets,

leaflets and anti-German cartoons.

The propaganda of horrors kept producing new terrifying hoaxes,

openly lying without a moment’s hesitation about the Germans allegedly converting

the bodies of their soldiers into stearin and pig food;

and about German soldiers, who cut off the hands of Belgian and French children.

But when thousands of families from neutral countries

wanted to adopt the poor cripples,

and even the Roman Pope expressed his concern about this matter,

Britain's War Propaganda Bureau had to explain itself,

saying that their information was somewhat exaggerated.

But all that hardly affected the Bureau's work in the future.

The press was subjected to harsh censorship.

It was almost ridiculous —

newspapers were forbidden to report

the sinking of the British battleship HMS Audacious,

even though this event was witnessed by countless passengers on board

of the transatlantic liner Olympic, and reported by the American press.

The British propaganda machine of the First World War became

the first example of ruthless mass-brainwashing.

The French propaganda was no different, especially considering the fantastic

amount of money assigned to information warfare —

25 million francs. But the Americans went even further.

The US created a special organization naming it rather inconspicuously -

Committee on Public Information, headed by journalist George Creel.

It created monstrous images of the Germans,

that contradicted both logic and common sense.

The American people were supposed to believe

that Germans are the devil incarnates.

Among other things, this propagandistic hysteria was supposed to deflect

the taxpayers’ attention away from the constant failures at the front.

The whole year of 1915, British and French troops

were sustaining horrible casualties,

without any success trying to breach the German defense.

Thousands of soldiers lost their lives fighting for every seized village,

but the front hardly moved.

All the while, the Russian Empire kept drafting new soldiers into the army.

Almost two million soldiers were enlisted by the beginning of 1916.

Supply shortage crisis had been overcome for the most part:

the troops were getting new weapons, shells and ammunition.

Shortage of rifles was partially solved through import from other countries.

Infantry weapons were imported even from Japan.

These measures brought certain results —

the army was prepared to fight Germany,

Austria-Hungary and even the Ottoman Empire.

The British Military Attaché in Russia, General Alfred Knox wrote in surprise:

"The Russian military position had improved far beyond the expectations of any

foreign observer who had taken part in the retreat of the previous year".

Ours, ours are coming! Stop!

TURKEY Winter of 1916

Who are you? How did you get here?

Us be the Donners...on horses all me life, and now them commanders made us infantry.

now us be the polzoons, God forgive!

Uncle Pafren, not "polzoons", but plastoons!

Fedka, don't teach your uncle, yeh little nitwit!

Wait till I get me hands on yeh, ya'll be "plastooning" all day...

What are ya lookin at? Git!

Oh, the Don Cossacks! But of course! We're also headed for Urzrum!

How about we take this Urzrum all together, brothers! Huh?

It's Erzurum, not "Urzrum".

Hey, cavalry, move aside! Let the infantry go forward.

Brothers, lets go!

The Turkish fortress of Erzurum

was defending the way to Istanbul, the Ottoman capital.

Russian troops had a history of seizing this stronghold twice —

back in 1829 and 1878.

Now, in the winter of 1916, they had to do it a third time.

Turks realised the stronghold’s importance

and made sure the fortress was well protected.

New fortifications were built by German engineers

and there was a constant inflow of troops into the city.

It has been less than a months, since the Ottoman Empire’s army

claimed it’s great victory over the British and French troops.

For almost a year

the Allies had been trying to break through the Gallipoli peninsula to Istanbul.

Turks firmly stood on the defensive.

Soldiers from England, Australia, New Zealand, India and France

died by the thousands in pointless attacks.

Only by the end of 1915 did the generals of the Allied forces

realised the futility of these actions and ordered to pull back the troops.

The Gallipoli victory

left Germans and Turks with large forces at their disposal,

that could be deployed against the Russian Caucasus Army.

Nevertheless, the new commander of the Caucasus Front,

Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich decided to seize Erzurum without delay.

There were thorough preparations for fighting

in the mountains under winter conditions.

The army was provided with fur jackets and warm boots.

Soldiers were given out white camouflage cloaks and special sun glasses.

The operation was devised by the commander of the Caucasus Army, General Yudenich.

Russian forces were few in number, but the Cossacks were used to that.

Erzurum served as a gateway

to the Passinskaya plain and Euphrates River valley.

It was a junction of important military roads.

The fortress held together the Turkish front in the Caucasus,

allowing to manage and move military forces and reserves.

It was the main rear base and control center for the 3rd Turkish Army.

Germany helped Turkey modernize the fortress’ old fortifications,

build new ones, equipped it with machine guns and artillery,

and by the end of 1915

Erzurum turned into a huge heavily fortified area,

an impregnable stronghold protected by the mountains and fortifications.

To get through to the Passinskaya plain,

powerful Koprukoy positions had to be seized.

Further yet, the narrow mountain path was blocked by the fortress of Gasan-Kala.