rel="nofollow" href="#n_14" type="note">[14] Maurice Paleologue, the French ambassador, who met his president in the Russian capital, recalls, "When I returned to Petersburg by railway at a quarter to one, I was told that in the afternoon with no reason and by a signal made from a location unknown major plants of the city stopped their work, and clashes with the police started here and there."[15]
None of the cabinet members had time to analyze the sudden flash of labor demonstrations. Right after that the country was shaken in a way that made a couple of damaged tramways a golden age. However, at the end of July 1914 the Russian government was rather anxious about this mayhem. Yet, as the war began, the Russian special service had no time to determine the reasons and orchestrators of the mysterious strikes. Then they had more important issues to deal with, and later they were quickly and efficiently destroyed by the revolution. And the reason for those strikes has never been discovered. Or rather it hasn't been proved, as the authors of the above-mentioned memoirs readily named the guilty parties and orchestrators without much hesitation.
"There is no doubt that the turmoil among the workers was caused by the activities of the German General Staff," Rodzianko wrote.[16] Tatiana Botkina shared his position and wrote that "tryoshnitsy" given to unconscientious workers by anonymous agitators had come from Germany.[17] Here is the guilty party the Germans. And once again, there is this plain evidence like "But who else?" Who could have agitated the strikes in Russia right on the edge of the war with it? Naturally it had to be someone who was going to attack it – the Germans. And everything is consistent and true here if we miss the simple fact that Germany wasn't going to attack Russia!
The only war plan that existed, the Schlieffen Plan, didn't provide for that.[18] And why would Germany need demonstrations and beating up the policemen in Petersburg? It was the war with France that Germany was actually getting ready for. It would be much more logical to cause some turmoil in Paris to destabilize its industry and environment. Could it have been the Japanese again? Hardly so – during World War 1 Japan joined the Entente and forced the Chinese Qingdao out of it. It no longer had contradictions with Russia. Japan was peacefully building its empire in Asia. Why would it destabilize the Russian political landscape?
Yet, there was a nation that had a motive. The one that was tediously preparing the encounter of its two geopolitical opponents, Germany and Russia. Germany wouldn't dare to fight the entire world (meaning the British Empire and its allies). Thus, Britain through the mouth of Sir Gray, the foreign secretary, evoked in the Germans the sense that the moment was unique – only at that moment, Britain would remain neutral and thereat Germany could be rough and determined. The issue with Serbia could have been solved, and Russia and France could have been put in their proper places. The "allies" were ready to do anything to evolve this false sensation with the German and Austrian governments. In particular, they were ready to simulate Russia's weakness by means of the fabricated strike movement…
The British took every effort to set Germany on Russia. It was them who provoked mysterious riots and the turmoil. All of it was just a part of the large-scale campaign for misleading the German government, which would be later joined even by the British monarch. The objective was to trigger a world war.
"Strikes started for no apparent reason," Rodzianko wrote. "Yet, several days before the war was announced, when the international political stature turned threatening, when the powerful Austria issued its notorious and unacceptable ultimatum for small Serbia, brotherly to us, all the revolutionary turmoil had stopped in the capital as if by magic."[19]
"The announcement of war caused a surge of patriotic enthusiasm. All the broken trams and German tryoshnitsy were forgotten…," Tatiana Botkina wrote about the early stage of the war.[20]
Curiously enough, we see that the striking rampage "as if by magic" stopped right after the battle actions had begun. Yet, that's impossible. If the turmoil had been prepared by the German special service, they should have reinforced their effort when Russia and Germany rushed into the war. And here the operations were folded in a couple of days.
Barbara Tuchman, a writer, won the Pulitzer Prize for her book "The Guns of August" ("August 1914"). Such awards are hardly given for nothing. If we open the book, we'll read, "Count Pourtales, an elderly ambassador, who had lived in Russia for seven years, concluded and repeatedly assured his government that this country would not fight for fear of revolution."[21]
Count Friedrich von Pourtales was the German ambassador to Russia. Having seen the broken trams, he sent a letter to Berlin in July 1914 assuring his government that this country, i. e. Russia, would not fight. Having read enough of such letters, the Germans and the Austrians took a rough attitude, which finally led to the World War. Yet, was it the German intelligence service that performed some spectacular strikes and meetings for their own ambassador? No, they were neither the Germans nor the Japanese. Then who took the Russian workers to the streets and paid them with "tryoshnitsy" to demonstrate Russia's weakness?
If this isn't absolutely clear to you yet, let's consider one more mysterious event. It was described in the memoirs of Viktor Chernov, the head of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party. SRs had close relations with the Polish Socialist Party (PSP), their friendship long and time-proven. They tried to destroy the Russian state during the first revolution, together they killed policemen and soldiers. And when the year 1914 came, the situation changed.
"…We felt somewhat odd and alarming during the speech of Jozef Pilsudski in 1914," the head of SRs wrote.[22] What happened? What caused the sudden coolness between the revolutionary parties? It was nothing, the head of PSP and the future leader of the independent Polish state just delivered a lecture at the Geographical Society of Paris. And it was all about its plot…
"Pilsudski was absolutely sure that in the nearest future Russia and Austria were going to enter a war for the Balkans," Chernov wrote giving the words of this Polish Socialist, who had given an accurate forecast of how World War 1 was going to start.[23] Confidently and accurately Pilsudski explained which nations would support each other, and who and why would rush into the armed conflict. Yet, this still was not the main thing!
"…Pilsudski put the question squarely: what would happen and who would win the war? This was his answer – Austria and Germany would defeat Russia, but would be defeated themselves by the Anglo-French (or the Anglo-American-French)."[24]
The Polish dictator's insights into the future were incredible. Neither Nicholas II nor Wilhelm II or Franz Josef suspected that the war was coming. Archduke Franz Ferdinand quietly played with his children in Belvedere Castle, Gavrilo Princip attended his university classes. Mlada Bosna group didn't consider killing the heir to the Austrian throne yet, and the general staffs of the future opponents didn't even have any plans for the upcoming war. However, Jozef Pilsudski didn't just know the war scenario, but was even aware of how it was going to end!
Even the Head of the SR Fraction Chernov, who detested the tsarist autocracy, hardly understood Pilsudski's reasoning. How can Russia be the only one to be defeated if Britain, France, and the USA were on its side, and, according to the orator, were going to win?! In the 21 century, we easily agree with this Polish leader, as we know what happened next. Yet, in 1914 his prediction, as Chernov put it, looked like "a house of cards, a dream of a manipulator in politics."[25] However, Pilsudski didn't just hesitate to predict the coming war and precisely announce its results but also dropped a hint about the winning tactics for those fighting for free Poland in that war. He only suggested that there were outsiders listening. He sent his comrade by the name of Jodko, the future ambassador of Rzeczpospolita in Constantinople, to discuss the details.
"This discussion is one of the best ones that I've ever had," said the head of the Russian