Foreign Military Formations in Russia during the First World and Civil Wars

Abstract

The article reveals one of the controversial topics in the history of the early 20th century — the participation of foreign military units in the First World War and the Civil War in Russia. The authors revealed the main points of the creation of national formations as part of the Russian imperial army. Particular attention is paid to the problem of choosing by the command and personnel of these units of their “place” in the conditions of the civil confrontation caused by the revolutionary upheavals of 1917 in the expanses of the former Russian Empire. This choice was driven by a number of important factors. These are the features of the internal structure and management that had developed within the units and subunits by October 1917; it is also a factor of being in a certain territory by the time the Bolsheviks came to power; this is the desire of the opposing governments to use national units as their strike forces at the time of the formation of the white and red armies. A detailed study and analysis of these historical plots becomes relevant in the field of studying the problems of the development of national movements in the critical period of national history.