제1차 세계대전과 러시아 장교단

Abstract

World War I raised the need for large-scale recruitment of officers due to the general mobilization, the new formation of military units, and the enormous loss of troops. The Russian authorities mobilized retired or reserve officers, and hastily commissioned military academy cadets as officers. The short courses of military academies was opened and the Ensign School was established. And brave or educated soldiers or non-commissioned officers were promoted to officers. In this way, the Russian authorities were able to increase the number of officers in service approximately from 330,000 to 340,000. It can be said that the war efforts of the czar system were quite successful in this way. However, this rapid expansion of the Russian officers’ corps was coupled with the enormous loss of the officers’ corps. As infantry officers at lower ranks and at the early period of the war experienced the most loss and regular officers were promoted to fill the vacancy in the upper positions, the number of regular officers in the infantry unit sharply decreased. The upper ranks of the Russian officers’ corps were still mostly regular officers, but most infantry regiments were commanded by officers with not much administrative-commanding experience and experienced officers in the regiment was few. Therefore, it was difficult for the hierarchical leadership system within the officer corps to function effectively. On the other hand, wartime officers with low educational background hardly earned respect from the soldiers due to their lack of military knowledge and experience. Therefore it would not be acceptable as a satisfactory explanation to suggest that the large influx of ‘unqualified’ wartime officers was the sole cause of the weakening of officers’ control over their soldiers. The lack of command ability of regular officers who were quickly promoted to major commanding positions and the strategic incapacity of senior generals who took for granted huge human losses should be considered as the another causes. Moreover, the fact that the upper echelons of the Russian army officers consisted mainly of regular officers, while the lower tiers consisted of wartime officers had a negative effect on the unity of the officers. While the number of hereditary aristocrats in the wartime officers declined sharply, the number of peasants increased rapidly. But this tendency was started before the war and only intensified during the war. The majority of hereditary aristocrats before World War I were not ‘landlords’ but ‘service aristocrats’ who made military service their sole or main means of livelihood. Therefore the proposition that the Russian officers represented the “bourgeois-landlord aristocracy” just before World War I cannot be admitted. Finally, as almost educated or brave youngsters who had positive toward war became to serve as officers, soldiers or noncommissioned officers that would have had a potential influence among soldiers were reduced, which would have negatively affected the soldiers’ attitudes and moods toward war. (Chonnam National University / sachpak@jnu.ac.kr)