Abstract
This paper continues to present the results of a study devoted to the elaboration and discussion the complex project of the Lower Amur and its mouth, prepared by the experts of the War and Navy Ministry, in the Special Consultation of the State Defence Council. It explains the reasons why most part of it was never implemented. Using sources from the NA RF and NAKR, this paper first examines the history of the elaboration and the following implementation of this project in 1906-1914. The decisions of the Special Consultation of the State Defence Council and problems of their practical implementation are analysed. Only one part of the project was implemented in 1911. It was the plan of creating the Amur River flotilla. However, it was greatly sequestered by the reason of financial problems. Not only the absence of money inhibited the creating of the ground defence, but also the gaps in regional geography and some debatable issues of fortifications construction. The War Minister of the Russian Empire V.A. Sukhom-linov saw all this during his visit to the Nikolayevsk Fortress in May 1911. He made a conference of all the leaders of the Priamur-skiy Military District, and the plan of the immobile defence was curtailed and reconsidered. The slow implementation of this plan continued until the outbreak of World War I and went along with the military-geographical and topographical investigation of the Lower Amur region. The results of it were very useful in the Soviet Union time, on the new level of the building in the Russian Far East. Therefore, despite the heavy blunders in the infrastructure organisation, the Amur River flotilla, which already existed by the time of V.A. Sukhomlinov's visit, became the foundation of the Amur defence. The idea of mobile was so prosperous, that the flotilla not only took an active part in World War II, in the time of the Manchu operation of 1945, but also continues its service today. The archival materials about the complex project of the Lower Amur and its mouth, the visit of V.A. Sukhom-linov and decisions that he made in Nikolayevsk about the changes in the building plans of the Nikolayevsk Fortress, the Amur River flotilla assessment and the descriptions of the absence the providing infrastructure are first published.
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