Dismissal of Sukhomlinov

On 26 June 1915 (13 June in the Julian calendar) Tsar Nicholas II removed General Vladimir Sukhomlinov from the post of war minister, leaving him a member of the State Council. On the same day the running of the ministry was entrusted to General Alexei Polivanov. Sukhomlinov’s departure was a response to the defeats of the Russian army in Galicia and to the general outrage at the shortage of ammunition, for which public opinion blamed him in particular.

Sukhomlinov had headed the ministry since March 1909. He reorganised the army and prepared a programme for its expansion, but its stocks had been prepared with a war lasting a few months in mind. As early as the turn of 1914 and 1915 artillery shells began to run short, and industry could not keep up with production. In the spring of 1915 the minister was also overshadowed by the affair of Colonel Sergei Myasoedov. The officer, whom Sukhomlinov knew and had once protected, was arrested on charges of spying for Germany, convicted by a court martial and executed. Most historians today believe that he was innocent and became a scapegoat for the Russian failures, but in 1915 the affair undermined confidence in the whole ministry. The criticism was fuelled by the leader of the Octobrists, Alexander Guchkov, and by the entourage of the commander-in-chief, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, with whom the minister had long been at odds.

The defeat at Gorlice and the retreat from Galicia settled the matter. In May, on the initiative of the chairman of the State Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko, a special conference on army supply was set up with the participation of deputies and industrialists. It was still chaired by Sukhomlinov, but at the beginning of June Rodzianko and the Duma parties came out in favour of his departure. On 3 June the Russians lost Przemyśl, and on 22 June Lviv. On 18 June the Tsar had already dismissed the interior minister, Nikolai Maklakov, regarded as an opponent of cooperation with the Duma.

The Tsar, who was then at Stavka in Baranovichi, wrote Sukhomlinov a letter. In it he stated that the interests of Russia and of the army required his departure, and that a conversation with Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich had finally convinced him of this. He also thanked the minister for his work so far. A courier delivered the letter on 25 June, and the formal act of dismissal appeared the next day. Sukhomlinov’s successor had been his deputy in 1906–1912, dismissed at that time after a conflict with the minister, and was a close associate of Guchkov. For the Duma and public opinion his appointment was a signal that the government intended at last to cooperate with society on matters of defence. Polivanov formally became minister in September and headed the new Special Council for State Defence.

For Sukhomlinov the dismissal was only the beginning of his troubles. An investigation into his activities was soon opened. In 1916 he was discharged from the service and arrested, and he spent several months in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In the autumn of 1917, after the fall of tsarism, a court found him guilty of failing to prepare the army for war and sentenced him to hard labour for life. He was released in 1918 under an amnesty for the elderly, fled to Finland, and died in poverty in Berlin in 1926.