Revolution and revolt in the Manchurian armies, as perceived by a future leader of the White movement

General Mikhail Vasilevich Alekseev, chief of staff of the Imperial Headquarters during the First World War and one of those military leaders who advised Nicholas II to abdicate in February 1917, is renowned in émigré and Soviet history as the man who organized the White movement in South Russia during the Russian Civil War. However, his first contact with the chaos of revolution was in Manchuria, in 1905. His experience there is of importance not only for an estimation of what really happened in the Russian armies fighting against the Japanese but also for an understanding of how Alekseev later reacted to the revolutionary events of 1917 and after. Specifically, this chapter examines how senior Russian officers criticized the errors of the government and the army in 1905, in relation to the mutinies among Russian forces around Siping after the battle of Mukden and how they struggled against the army’s disintegration.