How does a person in war. "War reveals the possibilities of the human spirit, the true essence of man"

Military virtues can be divided into two categories: qualities generally necessary for a warrior to honorably carry his rank under any circumstances, and qualities necessary for him in the performance of certain of his duties as in Peaceful time as well as in war. In other words, the basic, general qualities and the resulting, special qualities.

There are three basic military virtues: Discipline, Calling and Straightforwardness

Courage, which others mistakenly consider the main military virtue, is only a derivative of these basic, main qualities. It is in every one of them. Part and people who maintain discipline under fire, thus already a brave part, brave people. A soldier, by vocation, who firmly and ardently believes in this vocation of his, can no longer be a coward. Finally, straightforwardness - an open confession of one's faith, one's views, one's convictions, frankness and directness - is much higher than courage - for the very reason that this is courage squared. Courage “in itself”, so to speak, “naked courage” is of little value, as long as it does not combine with one of the three basic military virtues, which we will consider in order.

“Subordination, exercise, discipline - victory. Glory! Glory! Glory!”... The immortal words of the immortal “Science of Victory”.

Suvorov gives five concepts in their ingenious simplicity and ingenious sequence. First subordination - alpha and omega of all military unity. Then - exercise - exercise, development, hardening. This gives us discipline, which is composed of elements of subordination and exercise - veneration of rank and joint teaching. Discipline gives victory. Victory is born glory.

We discern in form- external discipline and internal discipline, by nature - automatic discipline and meaningful discipline. In form, the discipline of all organized armies is similar, but in nature it is profoundly different.

In form, external discipline contains external signs servility, internal - the degree of strength of this discipline.

The nature of discipline is different, depending on the armies, peoples and the degree of spirituality of these peoples. Moreover, different historical eras corresponds to a different discipline.

The Russian Army corresponds to a discipline that is meaningful in essence, but tough in form. In order to preserve the precious content of the vessel walls, it does not interfere with being as hard as possible. To preserve the quality of discipline, a certain dose of automatism is necessary. The relation of automatism to meaningfulness is the same as science to art, ligatures to noble metal.

As for the second military virtue - fiery faith in one's Calling - unlike discipline - an acquired virtue - it is innate.

Let a young man who hesitates in choosing a career look at the torn panels of the banner. He will be able to make out or guess the Slavic script: “For repulsing the banner from the French troops on the Alpine mountains” ... “For the feat at Shengraben, in the battle of a detachment of five thousand with a corps of thirty thousand” ... “For distinction at defeat and expulsion of the enemy from Russia in 1812”... “For Shipka and the double crossing of the Balkans”... If these words do not seem to him heavenly music, if he does not see with his “inner eye” right next to him - Gotthard musketeers, Shengraben hussars, Borodino rangers, will not feel in their ranks - then it means he has no military vocation and he has nothing to go to the Army. If he saw the bloody snow of the Muttenskaya Valley and the red-hot cliffs of Shipka, if he heard the “hurray” of the last defenders of the Eagle’s Nest, if he felt that Kotlyarevsky shouted to him: “to the guns, brother, to the guns!” - then it means that the sacred fire flashed brightly in his chest. Then he is ours.

It is not enough to love the military. You have to be in love with him. This love is the most selfless. military profession- the only one that does not generate income. It demands everything and gives very little. Of course, in material terms; in the moral, this “small” is huge.

But being in love with the military is not enough. You still have to believe in your vocation, every minute you feel the field marshal's baton in your heavy satchel - to be convinced that it is you, the company, regiment, corps entrusted to you, that should play leading role, to make a turning point at a critical moment - to become like Desaix at Marengo, even if you pay the same price for it.

The third military virtue is Straightforwardness. Like the second - Calling - it is natural, and it can be spoiled by a misinterpretation of the first military virtue - Discipline. The boss - a despot, rudely - not like an officer - treating his subordinates, terrorizing them with immeasurably strict penalties, can destroy this virtue in his subordinates.

Pleasing (to a strong extent - sycophancy) - the worst of all the vices of a military man, the only irreparable one - that negative factor that turns all other virtues and qualities into negative values.

An embezzler and a coward are more tolerant than a toady. Those dishonor only themselves - this one dishonors everyone around, especially the one before whom they crawl. Theft and cowardice cannot be systematized in any sort of organized army.. Toadying and its inevitable consequence - eyewash - can. And then - woe to the army, woe to the country! There has never been - and there cannot be a case - that they could lean on bending backs.

We can see that if Discipline is rooted in upbringing and vocation stems from the psyche, then Integrity is a matter of ethics.

Of the special qualities, we put personal initiative in the first place - initiative.

This quality is natural, but it can be developed - or, conversely, suppressed - by the conditions of education, life, the spirit of regulations, the nature of the discipline (meaningful or natural) of a given army.

“The local judges better,” Suvorov taught, “I’m on the right, you need to go to the left - don’t listen to me.” These words refer to the most painful and most "irrational" side of military affairs, namely, the conscious violation of orders - the conflict of initiative with discipline.

When should you go into this conflict and when should you not? After all, if “the local judges better”, then often “the distant one sees further”.

Any kind of schematic and codification in this case out of place. Everything depends on the situation, on the means at the disposal of the private boss, and most importantly, on the strength of the spirit of this latter. This is just the “divine part” of military affairs.

At dawn on May 22, 1854, the Danube army of Prince Gorchakov was preparing to storm Silistria. The mine horns had already been blown up, the Turkish artillery had been silenced, the troops were expecting a mock rocket - when suddenly a courier from Iasi brought Paskevich's order to lift the siege and retreat. Prince Varshavsky had an exaggerated opinion about the strength of the Turkish fortress. Gorchakov, as a “local”, could have judged better, but did not dare to disobey the formidable field marshal. And the retreat from Silistria, having a detrimental effect on the spirit of the troops, nullified the entire campaign, worsening the position of Russia both strategically and politically.

Otherwise, Prince Mikhailo Golitsyn lowered his eyes a hundred and fifty years earlier near Noteburg. Three of our assaults were repulsed, and the troops pressed against the river suffered enormous losses. Tsar Peter sent Menshikov with orders to retreat. “Tell the sovereign,” Golitsyn replied, “that we are here no longer in the tsar’s, but in God’s will!” And by the fourth assault Noteburg was taken.

IN last days January 1916, General Yudenich decided to storm Erzurum, which was considered impregnable, despite the negative attitude of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (who did not believe in the possibility of capturing the Turkish stronghold, and even in winter).

When, in October 1919, General Vetrenko, who commanded the 3rd division of the Northwestern Army, refused to obey the order to go to Tosna and cut off the communications of red Petrograd, he did not take the initiative, but committed a crime. Turning instead of the indicated Tosna to Petrograd, General Vetrenko was guided solely by the motives of personal ambition - and with this self-will he thwarted Yudenich's entire Petrograd operation.

We can say the same about the willfulness of General Ruzsky, who, in the hope of cheap laurels, went to the unimportant Lvov, contrary to the orders of General Ivanov, and missed the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian armies. We observe exactly the same thing with von Kluk, who systematically ignored Moltke's directives: the Prussian generals of 1870 - Kamenka, von der Goltz, Alvensleben - with their initiative did von Kluk a disservice.

In October 1919, the Moscow campaign was disrupted by the breakthrough of Budyonny from Voronezh. At the same time, the 1st Army Corps of General Kutepov defeated the last Red forces near Orel, covering the Moscow direction. General Kutepov had 11,000 excellent fighters. He could rush with them, headlong, to Moscow, abandoning the rest of the army, abandoning the rear, not paying attention to Budyonny who had broken through. But he obeyed the directive of the High Command and retreated, "reducing and leveling the front." Both Kutepov and his subordinates were sure that this was not for long, that this was before Kursk ...

Subsequently, General Kutepov regretted that he did not dare to make the first decision - and did not go from Orel to Moscow. The psychological moment in the civil war is omnipotent, the capture of Moscow would nullify all the successes of Budyonny. But who dares to reproach Kutepov with indecision? In his position, only Charles XII would have rushed to Moscow without hesitation. But this is just a commander who hastily ruined his army. A temporary retreat to Kursk promised, of course, greater benefits than a jump into space with closed eyes. After all, in the event of a very possible failure, death was completely inevitable - and just the core of the Volunteer Army, its flower, would have died.

From all these examples one can see the complete impossibility of drawing a precise line between permitted initiative and disastrous autocracy.

We can indicate this edge only approximately.

Initiative is an improvisational phenomenon. It is appropriate and desirable in Tactics, hardly admissible in Operations, and completely intolerable in Strategy. Any improvisation is the enemy of organization. It is permissible in small things, changing them for the better (as applied to military affairs - in Tactics). But in the essence of the matter (in military affairs - in Operatives and in Strategy) - it is harmful. The 29th Infantry Division of General Rosenshild-Paulin and the 25th General Buldakov solved tactical tasks near Stallupenen. The private initiative of Rosenshield, who rescued a neighbor, is entirely justified, this is a brilliant decision. The division of General Vetrenko near Petrograd decided (under conditions civil war) strategic task - no initiative there was tolerable. Brought up on the example of the tactical initiative of dashing brigade commanders in 1866 and 1870, von Kluk transferred the initiative to the realm of Strategy, which turned out to be sad for the German Army.

Virtue for the tactician, Initiative becomes a vice for the strategist.

Note ambition and love of glory. The desire to live forever in the memory of posterity generally proves the immortality of the spirit. With all this, both ambition and love of glory are vices in and of themselves. Just as a small amount of poison enters into the composition of a medicine, so these two vices in a small dose can be useful as a very effective stimulus.

Let's talk about courage. We know that by itself (without entering constituent element into any of the three cardinal virtues) it is of no particularly high value.

Suvorov understood this. He taught: "for a soldier - courage, for an officer - fearlessness, for a general - courage" - presenting the highest demand to each highest category of military people. These are three concentric circles. Fearlessness is Courage, fully aware of what is happening, courage combined with determination and a sense of high honor to command, to lead the brave. Courage is fearlessness combined with a sense of responsibility. In general, people are not cowards. Those who are able to move forward under fire can no longer be called cowards, even though the real brave men, whom St. George smiled from heaven, may be five people per company. The rest are not brave, but not cowards either. An example of a fearless commander and brave comrades can make them brave; the absence of this example turns them into a herd, and then a disastrous example of open cowardice can ruin everything. At the same time, it should be noted, however, that among the cowards, the quite correctable type of “selfish man” prevails. Real, incorrigible cowards are a rare phenomenon, fortunately for mankind.

Military ethics and military ethics

By military ethics we mean the set of rules and customs, both codified and non-codified, by which adversaries must be guided in war. Under military ethics are the rules and customs that members military family observe in relations with each other - and the entire military environment in relations with non-military.

The end of the 17th century and almost the entire 18th century - with their "cabinet wars" waged by professional armies for state interests - were the golden age of mankind. The war was fought without hatred for the enemy - and there were no "enemies" - there were only opponents, stubborn and ferocious in battle, courteous and courteous after the battle, who did not lose their sense of honor in the hottest business.

After the Battle of Trebia, Suvorov ordered the return of the swords to the captured 17th demi-brigade out of respect for the two hundred years of glory and valor of the Royal Auvergne Regiment, from which it was composed. Half a century earlier, at Fonshenoy, the Scots had come within fifty paces of the French Guards, who remained silent. Lord Gow shouted to the French colonel: "Order to shoot." “After you, English gentlemen!” - answered the French commander Count d "Otrosh, courteously saluting with a sword. A volley from the entire front of the Scottish brigade laid hundreds of Frenchmen. This is: “Apres vous, messieurs les Anglais!” This episode played its role in the history of the two peoples - Marshal French reminded Foch a hundred and seventy years later when that very Scottish brigade sacrificed itself, covering the French withdrawal at a critical moment near Ypres.

Modern military ethics is only a pale shadow of that which has been worked out by generations of warriors over a hundred and fifty years of cabinet politics and professional armies. All that reserve of honor, courage and courtesy was enough for the hordes of the First Republic - hordes led by officers and non-commissioned officers of the old royal army, who were able to instill in their subordinates the traditions and spirit in which they themselves were brought up.

The revolution of 1789, with its armed "masses," inflicted severe damage on military ethics. Already armed clashes French people with the armed Spanish and Russian peoples, pictures of barbarian invasions and religious wars were resurrected.

Professional (and semi-professional) armies imparted to wars a touch of humanity that was subsequently completely lost. The Crimean and Italian wars were the last of big wars led by gentlemen. Already the war of 1870 and the behavior of the German armed people in it showed the incompatibility of the rules of morality and military ethics with the intellect of the armed populace. About the ugly massacres of 1914 - the shame of Dinan and Louvain, the atrocities in Serbia, the collapse of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian armies and the disgusting phenomena that accompanied this collapse - there is nothing to say. Replacing professional, "educated" armies with ferocious people's militias, humanity replaced whips with scorpions, exacerbated the disasters of war.

At the same time, war is inevitable, just as illness is inevitable - you cannot get rid of it by any paper contracts. Therefore, humanity needs to arrange itself in such a way as to make wars easier to bear, to get rid of gangrene moral decay, the painful process of which lasts long years after the war itself. Public education cannot help here. Thousands of mentally developed individuals, when combined, will give an ignorant and ferocious crowd. The arsonists of Louvain and the executioners of Dinan belonged to the most literate nation in the world. The decisive factor here is education. And in this area (as in all other areas of military affairs), education dominates teaching. By outliving the psychosis of the “armed people”, by giving the military force as professional a character as possible, and imparting to our life as much as possible an ecclesiastical spirit, we will free ourselves from the noose thrown around our neck by the doctrinaires of 1789 and their followers. War can then be given the character of a “benign ulcer” instead of a malignant boil, and it will be possible to speak again of military ethics.

Military ethics is a set of rules - written, but mostly unwritten - by which the members of the military family are guided in dealing with each other.

Full members of the military family - so to speak, "come of age" - can only soldier by vocation - officer corps, overtime and hunters. Only to them, therefore, it is necessary to present the requirements of military ethics in all their severity.

The relations of juniors to seniors, subordinates to superiors are sufficiently outlined by regulations - “written” rules of military ethics. Much less clear is the relationship between the elders and the younger.

Every boss, no matter what position he holds(up to and including the Supreme Commander), should always remember that he is not just “in command”, but has the honor of commanding . He is obliged to remember this both in peacetime, respecting his military dignity in the Subordinate, and - and especially - in war, when their personal honor, their good name in the eyes of future generations.

General impoverishment folk spirit in continuation of the second half of XIX and the beginning of the 20th century led to a gradual, but extremely tangible decline in military ethics - and we had in world war the surrender of the commander of the XIII Corps, General Klyuev, the surrender of the commander of the XX Corps, General Bulgakov, the surrender of General Bobyr in Novogeorgievsk, the flight of the commander of the VI Corps, General Blagoveshchensky, the flight of General Myshlaevsky, the commander of the Caucasian Army, the flight of the commandant of Kovna, General Grigoriev.

Let us examine from the point of view of military ethics the least severe of these cases - the surrender of General Klyuev.

General Klyuev was justly considered a brilliant officer of the General Staff and an outstanding expert on the German enemy. His real place would be the post of chief of staff of the Northwestern Front. In July 1914, he commanded the Caucasian Corps in Kars and was summoned by telegraph to Smolensk to receive the XIII Corps, whose commander, General Alekseev, was appointed Chief of Staff of the Southwestern Front. He found his body on the way. He did not know either the commanders or the troops; the management of the corps turned for him into solving an equation with many unknowns.

Strongly disbanded by the predecessors of General Klyuev, the corps did not enjoy a good reputation at all. Mobilization finally upset him, depriving half of the already weak cadres and breaking into three-quarters of the spare. In terms of their qualities, these were second-rate troops - not drawn in and not pulled up. In a week's time, neither Klyuev nor Skobelev could have arranged them. The entire burden of the fighting of the 2nd Army fell on the excellent XV Corps of General Martos. XIII Corps, which had no serious clashes until its death, came from the beginning of the campaign into complete disorder. General Klyuev is only a victim of his predecessor. He found himself in the position of a duelist, receiving at the very barrier from the hands of the seconds a pistol already loaded by them and completely unfamiliar to him. He cannot check the correctness of loading, the fight of the pistol is completely unknown to him ... And so, he was loaded carelessly, and instead of a sharp shot, he got a spitting bullet. The shooter is completely innocent. But if he then becomes cowardly under the enemy's pistol pointed at him, then let him blame himself.

And this is exactly what happened to General Klyuev. He surrendered, completely unaware of what he was doing by doing so, of how the enemy's morale would rise and our own would fall at the news of the surrender of such an important person as the corps commander. He knew that he was in command of the corps, but he never suspected that he was still has the honor of commanding. The higher the official position, the greater this honor. And the commander of the corps - a man at whose appearance tens of thousands of people freeze, refuse their own "I", who can order forty thousand people to go to death - should realize this honor especially and pay for it when it has to - pay without flinching .

When, sixty years before the surrender of General Klyuev, in the battle on Chernaya Rechka, the commander of our III Corps, General Read, saw that the matter was lost, that the corps, which he brought into battle in parts, was defeated, he drew his saber, went in front of the Vologda regiment and was raised by the Zouaves on bayonets.

Honor ordered General Klyuev to report to the Nevsky regiment of the brave Pervushin and go with him - and in front of him - to the German batteries at Kaltenborn. He could die with glory - or he could be taken prisoner with weapons in his hands - as Osman Pasha and Kornilov were taken. The trouble was that he too clearly imagined the end of his career without a saber in the fortress casemate and did not imagine it right there - on the Kaltenborn field. Like Nebogatov, he surrendered “in order to avoid unnecessary bloodshed”, not realizing that the poison he thus introduced into the body of the Army is much more dangerous than bleeding, that this “avoidance of bloodshed” is fraught with even greater bloodshed in the future, that the Army, Navy and Motherland it is easier to endure the death in a fair battle of a corps or squadron than their surrender to the enemy.

We have now come to the question of capitulations. This question was best developed by the French statutes after the sad experience of 1870. For the surrender of a military unit in an open field - it doesn't matter under what circumstances and under what conditions it may take place - the commander is subject to the death penalty.

As for the surrender of fortresses, we have two examples: the ugly surrender of Novogeorgievsk by General Bobyr and the honorable surrender of General Stessel in Port Arthur. Let's not dishonor these pages with a description of Bobyr's crime. Consider the surrender of Port Arthur.

Public opinion was extremely harsh on General Stessel, accusing him of prematurely surrendering the fortress with all stocks of military equipment. If the garrison consisted of metal machine guns, the fortress, of course, could have held out until all supplies were depleted, but these were people - and, moreover, people who invariably withstood an eight-month siege, unheard of in History.

It is not Stessel who is to blame for the fact that the material was handed over to the Japanese - the Charter, which allows for such obvious incongruity as “honorable surrender”. The fact is that, at the conclusion of this, the winner, as the first and indispensable condition, puts the surrender in full serviceability of all artillery and equipment and, in exchange for military honors - for a salute with a saber - receives hundreds of guns and millions of cartridges.

We believe that the only way out from the position there may not be “surrender” - i.e. an agreement concluded by parliamentarians, but simply surrender without any conditions, but, preliminary, with the explosion of all the tops and the reduction of all weapons to complete disrepair. This is what General Kusmanek did in Przemysl, thanks to which our Southwestern Front was unable to use the rich Przemysl arsenal in the critical spring of 1915, while the Germans nailed the French positions on the Yser with Maubeuge artillery for many weeks, and equipped their Alsatian front with Novogeorgiev cannons ... Noble the enemy will give military honors in this case too. And from the ignoble honors in general to accept - not a trace. They would only insult our honor. The defenders of Fort Vaud and the fortress of Longwy refused to take their swords from the hands of the Dinan assassins.

Along with surrender, such a mockery of the oath should be taken out of military use, as consent to a privileged position in captivity for parole not to run. This was invented by a sybarite for a sybarite, not an officer for an officer.

In general, military ethics "from the bottom up" - subordinates in relation to superiors - is to follow the "written" rules. From top to bottom - from superiors to subordinates - in observance of the "unwritten" rules. It is more difficult for a commander to comply with the requirements of military ethics than for a subordinate: more is asked of him, because more is given to him.

Two qualities best express the essence of military ethics: benevolence towards subordinates - the same officers as the chief - and the consciousness of the greatness of the “honor to command”.

mind and will

All the qualities of a military man we have considered - both basic and auxiliary - basically have two principles - “mental” and “strong-willed”. The balance of these two principles, amazingly fully expressed in Peter I, Rumyantsev and Suvorov, gives us the ideal type of military man, the ideal type of leader.

Usually outweighs one of these two elements, giving rise to "predominantly mental" (Bennigsen), or "predominantly strong-willed" (Blucher). In the first case - the planners, in the second - the performers.

There is hypertrophy of one element at the expense of another. A purely mental principle, with atrophy of the will (Kuropatkin, Alekseev). Purely strong-willed, with atrophy of reason (Charles XII). This phenomenon is already pathological in nature, inevitably entailing a catastrophe.

Mind without will is absolute zero. Will without mind is a negative value.

In the sphere of leadership, the predominance of the will element over the intellectual element gives top scores than the predominance of the intellectual element over the volitional. A mediocre solution, if carried out vigorously, will always give better results than an ideal solution, but not put into action, or carried out with hesitation. A copper coin that circulates continuously is more useful than a gold piece buried in the ground. Schwarzenberg's scientific training and intellect are much higher than those of Blucher, but the fiery soul and the indomitable will of the "General Forward" put his military leadership (despite Brienne and Montmiral) much higher than Schwarzenberg's deeds. Having no higher military education, Mackensen turns out to be much higher than the erudite - Academician General Klyuev.

The strong-willed principle, emanating from the heart and therefore irrational, is characteristic of the figures of military art. Therefore, it is higher than the intellectual principle - the rationalistic principle and characteristic of the figures of military science. The will is rarer than the mind - and it is more difficult to develop it than the mind. The will is developed by education, the mind - by training.

The strong-willed principle is characteristic of the Russian people, who created a world power under conditions in which any other people would perish. History gives us such giants of will as Alexander Nevsky, patriarchs Hermogenes and Nikon, Peter the Great. It is also characteristic of Russian military leadership.

Saltykov defended his army from the encroachments of Down and the St. Petersburg "conference". Rumyantsev brought to an end the seemingly hopeless siege of Kolberg, even though the military council he convened spoke three times in favor of lifting the siege. Suvorov showed inhuman willpower near Ishmael, superhuman in the Mutten Valley. Who can truly appreciate the will of Barclay, who went against the current and saved the country beyond its aspirations? Kutuzov, who sacrificed Moscow, revealed greater fortitude than Napoleon, who accepted the Battle of Leipzig. And Kotlyarevsky near Aslanduz? Gurko moved the Russian regiments beyond the Balkans into the fierce winter.

The way of life communicated to our Army by Alexander I at the end of Napoleonic Wars(an era incorrectly referred to as “Arakcheevshchina”) did not contribute to education, and most importantly, to the promotion of strong characters. Paskevich froze the Army, Milyutin instilled in it a corrupting “non-combatant spirit”, Vannovsky depersonalized, Kuropatkin demoralized ... This impoverishment of the military spirit was only one of the facets of our nationwide spiritual impoverishment, the general damage to Russian statehood.

Strong-willed natures met in Eastern war(Kornilov, Nakhimov, Muraviev, Bebutov), ​​and in Turkish (Radetsky, Gurko, Skobelev, Targukasov). But lack of will was already beginning to take over on the Danube and in the Crimea - (completely impersonal Gorchakov, who almost lost the war in 1877 Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Senior and Loris Melikov). IN Japanese war the fussy and weak-willed Kuropatkin undercuts the wings of the strong-willed Grippenberg; and, finally, in the World War, the absolutely weak-willed Alekseev brought to naught the brilliant successes of the 1916 campaign with his hesitation, persuasion, negotiations and conversations.

Strong-willed natures were also in the World War: Lechitsky, Plehve, Yudenich, Brusilov, Count Keller. But the character of the catastrophic military leaders of the decadent type - Alekseev, Ruzsky and Evert - were determined and informed the Russian military leadership. The result of the damage to Russian statehood: Alekseev in Headquarters corresponds to Belyaev as Minister of War, Khabalov as commander of the troops of the Petrograd District and Protopopov as Minister of Internal Affairs.

The superiority of the leadership of the “mainly strong-willed” type over the leadership of the “mainly intelligent” type will be especially striking when comparing Russian military leaders with German ones in 1914.

Our chiefs lacked faith in their vocation, faith in the great future of the Motherland and the Army, the will to fight the enemy and win - win at all costs. Neither hot nor cold - they easily and effortlessly received ranks, distinctions and high positions - they did not feel honor and glory military rank, did not feel that they not only “commanded”, but also had the honor of commanding - and that one had to pay for this honor.

On June 2, 1807 - on the day of Friedland - the detachment of Kamensky 2nd, who occupied Koenigsberg, was surrounded by Belliard's corps. 5,000 Russians were surrounded by 30,000 French. Belliard personally went to the Russian chief, outlined the situation to him and offered to surrender on the most honorable terms.

I am surprised at you, general, - Kamensky answered coldly. You see me in a Russian uniform and dare to offer change!

And he made his way ... That's what poor Klyuev did not suspect!

The German commanders of 1914 are in this respect reminiscent of our commanders of the great century. Under Stallupen, General Francois, when ordered to retreat, replied: “Tell me that General Francois will retreat only when he defeats the Russians!” - just like Kamensky 2nd near Orovais (“guys, we won’t retreat until we beat the Swedes to smithereens!”). True, Francois retreated without defeating the Russians, while at Orovaisk Kamensky won. The same Francois at Soldau rushed into battle, without waiting for the concentration of all his forces - some invisible German Suvorov whispered in his ear: “But Artamonov doesn’t even have half - attack with God!” General von Morgen, advancing on Suwalki, reports to Hindenburg: “If I am defeated, then tomorrow I will again clash with the enemy!” Words that Bagration could have said at Shengraben. And Litzman under Brezins showed himself like Dokhturov under Austerlitz.

The Germans drew strength of mind from their national doctrine - from "Deutschland uber alles" (Scharnhorst, Moltke, Schlieffen - only spokesmen; Fichte, Clausewitz, Treitschke - inspirers). Just like Dokhturov, Kamensky and Miloradovich drew their strength from Suvorov’s “we are Russians, God is with us!”

The development of the will among the Germans was facilitated by the sense of officer ethics, extremely highly placed at the top of their military hierarchy, the system of relationships between seniors and juniors, the excellent organization of the officer corps and the order of service, which allowed the promotion of strong characters.

The problem of will is primarily a problem of military ethics, education and organization of officers.

Kersnovsky A. Philosophy of war. Belgrade: Tsarskiy Herald, 1939. pp. 53-66.