The Officer Corps of the British Navy in the Observations and Assessments of Russian Representatives to the Grand Fleet, 1914–1918

Abstract

In this article, the author examines the assessment of the Royal Navy’s command staff contained in official reports, correspondence, memoirs, and diaries of naval officers Mikhail Kedrov, Mikhai Smirnov, Gustav von Schultz, and Sergei Izenbek, who were official Russian representatives to the Grand Fleet during the Great War. The purpose of this article is to summarise the views of representatives of the Russian Navy on the traditions, general and professional culture of British naval officers, the level of their maritime, special and tactical training, the specifics of their mentality, service subordination, relationships in a naval environment, the ways of service and everyday life. Considerable differences in the professional qualities of the officers of the British and Russian fleets were noted, stemming mainly from the different principles of recruitment and training of the command staff, as well as the growing distrust of the British naval corporation towards Russia as an ally during the war. The author concludes that professional analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Royal Navy's command staff significantly complemented and updated the image of the British ally formed in the Russian naval milieu during the Great War and in the years following, and contributed to a more balanced self-assessment of Russian naval personnel.