The foe within
Subtitle: fantasies of treason and the end of Imperial Russia
By: William C. Fuller, Jr.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Ithaca, N.Y
Language: eng
Number of pages: 286
ISBN-13: 9780801444265
Subjects: Mi͡a︡soedov, Sergeĭ Nikolaevich, 1866-1915.; Sukhomlinov, Vladimir Aleksandrovich, 1848-1926.; World War, 1914-1918 -- Russia.; Treason -- Russia -- History.; Espionage, German -- Russia -- History.; Russia -- History -- Nicholas II, 1894-1917.
Description: In the early morning of March 19, 1915, Lt. Colonel S.N. Miasoedov, a former gendarme officer on active duty with the Russian army in World War I, was hanged after a two-hour trial in Warsaw for treason. Although he was innocent of this charge, Miasoedov's hasty execution, set against the army's disastrous performance in the war against Germany, touched off a wave of "spy mania" that resulted in hundreds of arrests and eventually involved the highest reaches of the Russian Empire, including the minister of war, General V.A. Sukhomlinov, who was arrested for the same crime the following year. The trials of Miasoedov and Sukhomlinov and the purported revelations of elaborate networks of pro-German spies were for many Russians the principal explanation for the military catastrophes Russia had endured at Germany's hands since the beginning of World War I. This belief gradually took hold among the Russian public at large and politicians of all stripes. Today, the fact that both Miasoedov and Sukhomlinov were innocent of treason has been universally accepted, but the full story of the events leading up to their fallacious prosecutions-and the extent of the spy mania-has never before been completely revealed. As told here by William C. Fuller, Jr., it is an astonishing narrative full of vivid incident and populated by a cast of characters that includes the emperors of both Germany and Russia, Baltic noblemen, tsarist generals, courtesans, war profiteers, peasants, Jewish businessmen, tsarist ministers, German spymasters, and Rasputin. - Publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : a hanging in Warsaw; title: Verzhbolovo; title: Kiev; title: St. Petersburg; title: Realignments and betrayals; title: The first phase of the war; title: The roots of spy mania; title: The great retreat; title: Revolution and final act : the case against V.A. Sukhomlinov; title: Conclusion : patriots and traitors.