“It all happened once!” – such thoughts arise when you watch a news feed about the events of russia’s war against Ukraine. Current stormy events increasingly force us to draw certain historical parallels.
It is appropriate to recall some of these parallels at this time.
“SUVOROV’S SWISS TRIP”
In 1789-1799, the Great French Revolution took place in France. But soon the same France had problems with its remote region – the Helvetic Republic (today – the territory of Switzerland).
russia could not tolerate this and decided to help the “brotherly people of the Helvetic Republic” by launching a military operation. The declared goal was to liberate the Republic from the criminal junta of French nationalists, and in 1799, the russian army under the command of O. Suvorov invaded French lands to defeat the army and punish France. But the campaign turned out to be extremely difficult and unsuccessful: the russian army fought its way through the mountains, not having the necessary equipment and experience in mountain warfare. As a result, all the artillery and 27% of the personnel were lost in the battles.
Suvorov failed to achieve his intended goals, since the French army was not defeated, and France retained the entire territory of the Helvetic Republic. The reasons for the failure of the Swiss campaign are cited by historians as errors in the assigned tasks, poor planning and logistics.
“MOBILIZATION OF TSAR’S RUSSIA”
In 1914, russian generals Pavlo Rennenkampf and Oleksandr Samsonov were defeated in the East Prussian operation, where, despite relatively equal strength, the German troops were more coordinated than the russians. The Imperial Army had failed. Surrounded by the Germans, General Samsonov shot himself, and General Rennenkampf was forced to retreat after prolonged fighting. The losses of the russian army in this operation amounted to 80 thousand soldiers.
In order to at least somehow justify the losing situation of the russian army at the front on September 5, 1915, Emperor Nicholas II appointed himself Commander-in-Chief. But that didn’t work either. At the end of 1916, the losses of the russian empire in this war amounted to 664 thousand soldiers killed, about 3.5 million people wounded, and more than 2 million missing. And this is where Nicholas II makes a fatal mistake, after which the collapse of the empire began. He announced mobilization. Uneducated peasants were sent into battle without training, simply as “cannon fodder”. This led to huge casualties and eventually mass desertions.
After the long-term failures of the russian army at the front, dissatisfaction among the people with their government began to grow. This, of course, led to protests that began throughout the territory of the russian empire. On November 1, 1916, at a duma meeting, Cadet leader Pavel Milyukov made a statement: “We have lost faith in the fact that this government can lead us to victory.”
In the state duma, in newspapers and even in elite circles, the betrayal of the empire’s interests by members of the royal family and its entourage began to be discussed. In the end, all this led to the end of the 300-year history of the Romanov dynasty – the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II.
“IF YOU STUDY AS YOU SHOULD, THEN WISDOM WOULD BE YOURS…”
In order not to repeat fatal mistakes, civilized countries carefully study history and draw parallels, because the country’s historical experience cannot be bought with petrodollars, it is priceless. But it seems that this is unknown to the kremlin’s helmsman.
The historical ignorance and short-sightedness of key moscow geostrategists deserves to be awarded honorary degrees, but not russia, because history must know the names of the “heroes”.
And it remains for us to quietly do our job in order to speed up the result of modern events determined long ago by history.
