Russian soldiers resting in the field. Card postmarked November 28, 1916.
Reverse:Postmarked November 28, 1916.
"We hear that Kornilov has been arrested, and do not know whether to be sad or glad; our loyalties are so evenly divided. Kerensky has been our hero since the political revolution in March 1917, but it was thanks to Kornilov that our Armies — especially our beloved 8th Army — achieved such success in Galicia during the recent summer campaigns."
Excerpt from the entry for September 4, (September 17, New Style), 1917 from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, on the arrest of General Lavr Kornilov for plotting a military coup against the government of Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky had appointed Kornilov Supreme Commander of the Russian Army on July 31, 1917 following his relative success in the Russian offensive earlier in the month. Although claiming to support the Revolution, Kornilov opposed many of its reforms, and wanted to bring back the death penalty for deserters from the army, many of whom had simply left the front. He had begun planning a coup with conservative officers, financiers, and industrialists in the first days of the revolution. Kornilov asked that command of the government as well as the military be transferred to himself specifically to prevent a Bolshevik coup. Kerensky had already held the titles of Justice Minister and War Minister when he asked the government to hand him power to deal with Kornilov.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, page 315, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
1917-09-17, 1917, September, Kornilov, Lavr Kornilov, Russian soldiers resting
