First World War in Chechnya: removal of the "unreliable element" into the "Savage Division", extraordinary security and mobilization of strikers (1914-1917)
In 1914-1917 the Russian Empire waged the world war both with Chechen hands and at Chechen expense: it carried off to the front, in the "Savage Division", those it considered dangerous, laid the upkeep of the Chechen regiment on the Chechen communities themselves, introduced "extraordinary security" with military courts and censorship in the Terek oblast, and sent striking workers into the army. By 1914 Chechnya had lived for half a century under "Military-Popular Administration" - the colonial regime of the Terek oblast (campaign C1170), without the land taken away for Cossack stanitsas (campaign C1171), and under collective punishments for the abrek phenomenon - the empire's name for a highlander's going into the mountains with a weapon after being declared an outlaw; for a single abrek the empire fined and deported entire villages (campaign C1175). The empire did not extend military conscription to the Chechens: a commission of the Caucasus Military District found it desirable to bring the Muslims of the Caucasus into service "...on the same grounds as the indigenous population of the Empire...", but to exempt the Chechens and the neighboring Kumyks temporarily, since the Chechens were not yet sufficiently "pacified"; the commander of the Caucasus Military District objected: "The exemption of the Chechens from military conscription, even a temporary one... will be as it were a recognition of privileges for the Chechens for their robberies and brigandage, and in the cause of the pacification of the North Caucasus will bring harm rather than benefit"[1]. The decision on the gradual introduction of conscription for the Muslim highlanders the empire took only in 1913, but by the start of the war the administration of the Terek oblast had not even begun to compile the family lists - a kind of household census - and did not dare to declare mobilization: it confined itself to recruiting volunteers[1]. The only mobilization the Russian Empire declared was not for the war but against a strike: in May 1916 it mobilized Grozny workers who held military service deferrals, for taking part in the strike[1].
Actors
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| G0009 | Russian Empire | 5 |
Instruments Applied
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| S0012 | Occupation and Controlled Administrations | 4 |
| S0010 | Regular Army | 1 |
Procedures Carried Out
With the start of the world war in 1914 the Russian Empire carried off to the front from Chechnya those it considered dangerous. The Chechen writer Kh. D. Oshaev, a native of the Vozdvizhenskaya settlement and a witness of the events, wrote: "As after 1905, the viceroyalty in the Caucasus decided, during the war, to remove from Chechnya all the unreliable element that had no employment for its hands and that could bring the tsarist administration much trouble 'in life's hard minute'. Those hiding from the authorities who expressed the wish to go to war were amnestied"[2]. For this the empire in 1914 created the Caucasus Native Cavalry Division, nicknamed the "Savage Division", - six national regiments of highlanders, four mounted sotnias each: the Chechen, Dagestani, Ingush, Kabardian, Tatar and Circassian[1]. The same goal was later named by General Denikin, who in the Civil War headed the Volunteer Army that occupied Chechnya in 1919 (campaign C1174): "It was all but the striving to remove the most restless elements from the territory of the Caucasus that was the sole reason for this formation"[1]. Those who remained the empire kept under reinforced garrisons - Kh. D. Oshaev wrote: "During the war the garrisons of the fortifications of Vedeno, Shatoy and Vozdvizhenskaya were enlarged; hundreds of cartloads of provisions, weapons and munitions filled the depots of these fortifications in the very first days of the war"[2]. In August 1916 the soldiers of the Ossetian foot divizion (a battalion-sized unit) training at the Vozdvizhenskaya fortress refused to carry out orders and dragged out their dispatch to the front; the military command transferred an infantry battalion from Grozny, and on 26 August it fired on the protest - historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "16 were killed and over 30 soldiers of the divizion wounded"; some of those who fled took shelter in Chechen auls and homes[1][3]. For instigation the imperial administration arrested two residents of Starye Atagi - Murda Khamidov and Dzhabrail Tolgaev; the same historians write: "Both were sentenced to death and escaped it only thanks to the February Revolution of 1917"[1].
In May 1916 the Russian Empire mobilized into the army the striking workers of the Grozny oil fields - those who held a deferral from military service and took part in the strike. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "an order was issued on the immediate mobilization of all Grozny workers holding a deferral from military service and taking part in the strike"[1]. The strike began with a wage dispute: on 12 May the workers handed the Council of the Congress of Terek Oil Industrialists written demands for a wage rise of 50% on average, on 21 May at two in the afternoon the oil fields stopped at the alarm whistles of the plants, and on 31 May, the same historians write, "the workers everywhere began to return to work"[1]. Those already recruited did not want to fight either: of the one and a half thousand men of the fourth draft of the "Savage Division" training in the reserve regiment, only 553 reached the combat units - the rest the military command returned to the Caucasus "in view of their 'unreliability'"[1].
From the formation of the Chechen regiment in 1914 the Russian Empire laid its upkeep on the Chechen communities themselves: the full equipment of each horseman cost 300 rubles, and it was paid not by the treasury but by the village communities that had recommended the man into the regiment. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "the upkeep of the national regiments lay as a heavy burden on the peasant-highlanders"[1]. State funds did not suffice for the rest either: the new horses assembled to replenish the division in the autumn of 1916 were, as the same historians write, "very poor", and the division's command sought the allocation of funds to buy horses[1].
On 13 August 1914 the Russian Empire placed the Terek oblast under the regime of "extraordinary security" - an imperial regime that handed the residents over to the extrajudicial powers of the administration - and then the oblast administration issued an order "on the protection of tranquility at the enterprises", under which the fate of "violators of tranquility" was decided by military courts[1]. How this worked can be seen from the strike of May 1916 at the Grozny oil fields: the administration brought armed Cossacks onto the fields, they arrested 13 workers, and, as historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov remark, "all those arrested turned out to be Muslims"[1]. The police arrested nine more workers on the first day of the strike - for sounding the alarm whistles of the plants[1].