Baltic Fleet mutiny

On the evening of 16 March 1917 (3 March by the Julian calendar) the crews of the battleships of the Baltic Fleet mutinied at Helsingfors, present-day Helsinki. The signal was the news of the abdication of Nicholas II. During the night and the following day the sailors killed several dozen officers, and on 17 March they shot the fleet commander, Vice-Admiral Adrian Nepenin. Three days earlier a similar massacre had taken place at Kronstadt. No other part of the Russian armed forces went through the February Revolution as bloodily as the fleet in the Baltic.

Kronstadt

Kronstadt, a fortified island at the far end of the Gulf of Finland, was the fleet’s main rear base and guarded the approaches to Petrograd. It was home above all to training and depot units, and many sailors had fallen under the sway of revolutionary agitation. The mutinies of 1905 and 1906 were also remembered. The port commandant and military governor, Admiral Robert Viren, a hero of the defence of Port Arthur, was known for his severity and petty discipline. On the afternoon of 13 March, at a conference with his officers, most of those present admitted that the sailors could not be relied upon.

During the night of 13–14 March the sailors of the 1st Baltic Fleet Crew left their barracks, and the rest of the garrison followed them. Early on 14 March a crowd dragged Viren out of his house, tore off his epaulettes and led him to Anchor Square, where the admiral was killed. The chief of staff of the port, Rear-Admiral Aleksandr Butakov, and the commanders of the naval crews were also killed. According to various tallies about forty naval and army officers were killed at Kronstadt, and about two hundred were locked up. The Bolshevik Fyodor Raskolnikov later claimed that the sailors took revenge only on the most hated. On the evening of 14 March the news of Viren’s death reached the Tsar at Pskov.

Helsingfors

The fleet’s main forces, including the dreadnoughts and the older battleships, lay icebound at Helsingfors, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland, and at Reval. They had been commanded since September 1916 by Vice-Admiral Adrian Nepenin, the creator of Baltic radio intelligence and one of the ablest Russian admirals, regarded as an officer of moderate views. In the first days of the revolution he acted cautiously. On the morning of 14 March he informed the fleet that power in the capital had been taken over by the Provisional Committee of the Duma, which demanded that the troops obey their officers, and he advised the Tsar to make concessions to the Duma. On 15 March he announced that he was acting in full agreement with the Committee, and in the evening, on his own initiative, he joined the front commanders who were asking the Tsar to accept the Duma’s demands. He telegraphed then that he was keeping the fleet in obedience “with enormous difficulty”.

The sailors saw it differently. Nepenin delayed announcing the news from the capital, banned meetings and would not receive delegates of the crews, while news of events in Petrograd and Kronstadt reached the ships by other routes. On the evening of 16 March, when the command announced the act of abdication, mutiny broke out on the battleships of the 2nd Brigade, Andrei Pervozvanny and Imperator Pavel I. According to Russian studies the first victim was the officer of the watch of Andrei Pervozvanny, Lieutenant Bubnov, who would not allow the St Andrew’s ensign to be replaced by a red flag and was bayoneted to death. On the gangway of the flagship the brigade commander, Rear-Admiral Arkady Nebolsin, was shot and died during the night. The mutiny spread to further ships, and in the darkness the sailors hunted officers on the decks and in the town.

Nepenin’s death

Nepenin tried to bring the situation under control. He met the mutineers’ delegates and assured them that he recognised the Provisional Government, but they refused to release the arrested officers. On the morning of 17 March the sailors proclaimed Vice-Admiral Andrei Maksimov, regarded as the senior officer most sympathetic to the revolution, the new commander of the fleet. Nepenin refused to hand over command to him without an order from Petrograd. Soon afterwards a crowd of sailors, largely from Imperator Pavel I, demanded that he come with them to a meeting. According to a witness, an officer of the hydrographic corps, the admiral agreed in order to avoid worse. Outside the port gate the sailors pushed aside his two aides-de-camp, and Nepenin was shot in the back. His body was desecrated in the mortuary.

How many officers died is not known exactly. Russian historians estimate that up to 120 naval officers were killed in Helsingfors, Kronstadt, Reval and Petrograd, of whom 76 were murdered: 45 in Helsingfors, 24 in Kronstadt, five in Reval and two in the capital. Other researchers regard about 40 victims in Helsingfors alone as certain. By comparison, since the start of the war all the Russian fleets and flotillas had lost about 245 officers.

A fleet without officers

The Provisional Government, having no choice, confirmed Maksimov as commander. Sailors’ committees were formed on the ships and interfered ever more boldly in command, while the officers who had not been killed lost their authority. Kronstadt soon became one of the most radical centres of the revolution, and throughout the spring of 1917 the Baltic Fleet was practically incapable of operations. These days passed more calmly on the Black Sea, where Admiral Alexander Kolchak himself announced the news from the capital to the sailors and for the time being kept control of the fleet.