Baranovichi. General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief during the World War I period of 1914-1915
On August 1, 1914, World War I broke out. And already during the first year of the war, Baranovichi began to attract the attention of those who were following the developments of the military operations.
From September 1914 until August 8, 1915, Baranovichi hosted the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevitch was the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, and in August 1918, Emperor Nicholas II took personal command.
During the whole time that the General Headquarters was in Baranovichi, Nicholas II visited it 10 times. The General Headquarters, as it was called, was, in fact, a strip of railway track with carriages of different types. Around them there stood few buildings and but were some barracks of one of engineer troops camp location, where there were some departments and offices of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief’s staff.
The staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was small. The Supreme Commander’s retinue included only 10 people, of which 6 were aide-de-camps; and the General Headquarters was staffed by about 15 officers, and the number of all ofiicers of all combat arms did not exceed 50 people.
There were also topographers and quartermaster officers, representatives of the naval staff, Foreign Ministry and civilian officials. Military representatives of the allied armies, French, British, Japanese, Belgian and Serbian, were also permanently present at the Headquarters.
On the basis of the research conducted by Stanislav Shcherbakov, an ethnographer from Baranovichi, it is possible to say in the firm belief that the General Headquarters itself was to the south-west of the railway station Baranovichi-Polesskiye, in the vicinity of the present-day streets - Malakhovskaya, Voikov and Sverdlov.
Geographic coordinates: N 57° 07' 12,91" E 26° 01' 55,14"
Foto: Олега ПОНОМАРЕВА, из архива
