The activities of the Berdsk volost administration on the mobilization during the First World War

The article deals with the activities of the Berdsk volost administration on the mobilization during the First World War. In the last decade, the interest of Russian scholars to the First World War has significantly increased. While in the Soviet times, historians studied the war with ideological bias, the recent jubilee of the war motivated modern researches to study it more thoroughly and objectively. While these studies sufficiently concern the everyday life of the rear, the activities of the administration are mostly examined on the example of cities. The actions of volost administrations, however, is touched upon rarely and on local cases. The article deals with the actions The Berdsk volost administration had to undertake to fulfill its duties on the mobilization. These actions, with the exclusion of providing the families of conscripts with pension, can be divided into three categories: informing the village elders of the mobilization waves, supplying conscripts with transport so that they can arrive at their destinations without delay, and accommodating prisoners of war. In its duties, the volost administration had to deal with numerous obstacles, such as illiteracy of the most of the population, the tension between the population and the military needs, the unreliability of military personnel with whom the administration had to work. With the waves of mobilizations rapidly beginning to call for recruits prematurely, and also accept 2nd-rank militia soldiers who did not expect to go to war in normal conditions, the task became even more difficult. The author concludes that the administration’s duties, while seemingly limited in the grand scheme of things, were nevertheless an important link in the general mechanism of preparing the reinforcements for the front. Although it did not play any role in the actual training or important decisions, it was the administration that brought these orders to the attention of the population and provided training for the personnel of the battalion depots. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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