The Revolution in the Armies
en masse after the Revolution. They have had no real importance, he stated, except in the rear; there are probably not more than ten thousand deserters from the front.
3. Desertions and Fraternizations.
This statement, surprising as it may seem at first sight, can readily be believed by any one who has seen the Russian army, or rather the two Russian armies, that of the front and that of the rear. There are, indeed, rather more than two million soldiers on the front, and a much more considerable number of men, nearly all without arms, in the rear, notably at the depots. Their number is reckoned at various figures—roughly at between eight and twelve millions. Nothing more curious can be seen, for instance, than these reserve battalions of regiments which, like that of Préobrajensky, of Volhynia, or of Finland, have their depot at Petrograd. Among these there are battalions which number more than ten thousand men, of whom the largest part have never
123
