from Galicia. During this catastrophic retreat, many divisions were dispersed in all directions; and often single soldiers or groups of soldiers found themselves many miles away from their units, and would naturally be left alone for some weeks before they rejoined. This was not desertion, but it could easily lead to desertion, and it was in fact the chief cause of the beginning of desertion on a large scale. On this occasion, desertion was unintentional, but later on it became intentional; and the longer the war went on, the more desertions there were and the more deliberate and malicious was their character. It is estimated that just before the Revolution there were about two million deserters in the country.
It is a fact that the Revolution was accompanied by a considerable increase in the number of desertions—probably because the soldiers thought that the war would now soon be over, and perhaps also under the stimulus of alleged land division. But it is equally a fact that the Revolution was very quickly aware of the danger. It began to stimulate a movement to induce the deserters to return, which at first was very successful. The deserters, who were of course unconditionally pardoned by the Provisional Government, came back in heaps. In many towns meetings of deserters were held, at which resolutions were passed, followed by an immediate return to the front. Only at a later stage, when the army became the object and centre of the struggle between the Revolution and the counter-Revolution—only then did the deserters refuse to join their units. Then began the hideous scenes in several towns of Russia, where "patriotic" units, notably of military cadets, organised virtual stalking expeditions to round up deserters, resulting in much bloodshed and passionate resentment.
Thus desertion from the front on a large scale, which, owing to the false silence of the correspondents, was not heard of in this country till after the Revolution, was a notorious evil in Russia long before that event.
