Problems of the development and implementation of the defence project of the Lower Amur and its mouth in 1906-1914. Part I. The Commissions of the Special Consultation of the State Defence Council

Using sources from the NA RF, this article first examines the history of creating the defence project of the Lower Amur and its mouth in 1906-1914. There was investigated the defence problem of this secondary theater of the operations in the new war with Japan which was expected and the history of the elaboration in 1906 in the Commissions of the Special Consultation of the State Defence Council of a new defence project of the Lower Amur territories. The Commissions' decisions were the keystone of the defence conception of the territory before World War I. The study of the problem showed the almost unknown part of the administrative machine's supporting agencies that were formed in the State Defence Council to solve specific problems. It was determined that part of these supporting agencies in the State Defence Council included highly competent professionals and worked rather effectively. Among them was the Special Consultation for the defence of the Lower Amur and its mouth, particularly, two Commissions, formed for to confer different variants of ground and "navy" defence of this territory. The Far East had three Russian fortresses: Port Arthur, Vladivostok and Nikolaevsk. The history of the latter is still unknown for the scholars. At the same time the Nikolaevsk Fortress was very important for the defence of the Lower Amur and its mouth against the probable foe attack and the entry of the enemy fleet to the river, which was the most important transportation line. The common statement that on 5 June 1906 it was decided to form the Amur River Fleet is a mistake, because a complex defence solution was developed. The River Fleet was just one of its elements mostly implemented later. At the stage of elaboration of different versions of defence building, the special commission proposed truly unique fortification and engineering decisions: to build close-range batteries with infantry forts armed with 6-inch "guns of the modern system in turrets" at the rear. The designed measures were not fully adequate to the real military needs, because the commission had no elementary geographical data, and several ministers were responsible for it. There was no sufficient information in the Empire about its own lands and infrastructure, without it defence in the Russian scope was unthinkable. The archival materials about the elaboration and discussion in the commissions of the complex project of "mobile" and "immobile" defence of the Lower Amur and its mouth, about the unique ideas of fortification building near Khabarovsk, Nikolaevsk and Sofiysk are first published.

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