Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

This article is devoted to the episode of Russian-British cooperation during the First World War, specifically the British Military Equipment Section under the command of General Poole. Analysis of activity of Poole’s mission is based primarily on preserved documents within collection of the Records of the Cabinet Office held by the National Archives of the UK. Main documents are the reports which were sent by General Poole and his closest aide Colonel Byrne to Committee of Russian Supply in London (the so-called Lord Milner’s Committee). Unfortunately these reports don’t clarify some important aspects of daily operations of the mission but they are an excellent illustration of the perception of Russian reality in 1917 by the representatives of the British military and political elite. The British military supply mission had to verify, in the first place, the proper use of weapons and ammunition from the United Kingdom and, in the second, had to help in establishing closer contacts between industrial businessmen of the two states. General Poole and his team observed work of the artillery parks and aviation workshops as well as the defense facilities. According to the British officers all of them suffered from common problems. Revolutionizing of the masses diverted many people from work, contributed to the fall of the discipline, and was accompanied by the reluctance of the military and civilian officials to do anything for normalizing the situation. Both tasks of the mission were failed. The first reason was the gradual collapse of the front and army work in the rear, and the second was the Bolshevist pursuit to conclude the peace with Germany. General Poole and Colonel Byrne were both skeptical about Russia’s ability to continue the war. In the beginning of 1918 the Poole’s team tried to prevent the looting of British goods in Russian ports. The collapse of the Russian state and economic mechanisms was the great trouble for British politics because the fall of the Eastern Front could not be allowed. Poole’s mission was a stage of preparation of the British intervention in Russia.