by Nina BYSTROVA, Dr. Sc. (Hist.), leading researcher of the RAS Institute of Russian History (Moscow)

The developments of October of 1917 divided Russia into two hostile sides and triggered Civil War, an ordeal for the nation with many tragedies. The fate of the Russian Fleet was one of them.

THE RUSSIAN SQUADRON

This laconic phrase, cited in literature, "Since 1924, when France extended recognition to Soviet Russia, all Russian ships in Bizerta passed into the possession of the mother country", i.e. France, sealed the fate of what remained of the Russian Imperial Fleet, which found shelter in North Africa.

In reality the diplomatic history of the Russian marine squadron did not end there. Throughout the 1920s the issue of the Bizerta fleet figured in Soviet-French relations alongside with problems of old debts and credits, return to Russia of consular and church property, and

economic matters. In Soviet-French negotiations return of old Russian debts was made conditional on return of the fleet; recognition of the Soviet state by the French depended on that.

It must be emphasized that while different economic issues mentioned above were studied long ago and in detail by researchers, the problem of the Bizerta fleet received much less attention. However, this was one of the central and most controversial issue of that time. What can we tell of those events today?

In the middle of November 1920, the fleet left the Crimea, the last bastion of the White Movement. Giving the order for evacuation, Baron Pyotr Vrangel warned the White Guard men that leaving their motherland, they would be in for an uncertain future. As is known, part of the land forces left for Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and then dispersed all over the world. But the fate of the Russian Fleet was different.

The voyage from the Crimea in the stormy Black Sea of 126 ships with 150,000 men on board, including seamen, officers and civilians, who became suddenly exiles and for whom the present turned out to be more fearful than the future, was extremely trying. Finally the ships arrived in Constantinople. Its authorities refused to give asylum to the refugees, worn out and anxious about their future.

By order of the fleet commander (No. 11 of November 21, 1920) the Black Sea Fleet was renamed a Russian Marine Squadron. Vice-Admiral Mikhail Kedrov (1878-1945) was appointed its new commander and Rear-Admiral Nikolay Mashukov (1889-1968), its chief of staff.

THE ROUTE TO BIZERTA

Upon signing with Vrangel a convention on taking the army and fleet under its protection in exchange for the revenues from sales of the navy and civil fleet, on December 1, 1920, the French government took the ships

into its trusteeship and decided to send the Russian Marine Squadron to Bizerta, a Tunisian port. Already on December 8 the first ships left Constantinople and set course for Bizerta. The fleet cut its way escorted by French ships and had a French flag atop the mast and a Russian St. Andrew's ensign astern, as the ships belonged no longer to an independent state according to the international law of the sea. The voyage of the fleet that included both battleships (such as the General Alekseev battleship, several cruisers, big torpedo boats, submarines) and also ships of nonmilitary designation (maintenance ships, a collier, a mine-sweeper and even the Ilya Muromets, the biggest Russian icebreaker of that time), from Constantinople to Bizerta was carried out in two stages. The first four divisions arrived in Tunisia at the end of December 1920,  and the remaining ships came in January-February 1921.  In mid-February 1921 the whole squadron arrived there, i.e. 33 ships with about 6,000 refugees on board, who founded the first Russian community in Tunisia.

On the instructions of the French government the ships were met personally by Marshal Henri Pétain (1856-1951), a hero of World War I, of Verdun. The reaction of the local authorities was lukewarm and cautious. The response of different strata of Tunisian society to the arrival of the ships was described also by Anastasia Man-stein-Shirinskaya (1912-2009), a daughter of Senior Lieutenant Alexander Manstein, of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the last representative of the Russian emigration of the "first wave" in Bizerta and an eyewitness of those events. In her book "Bizerta, The Last Moorage" (the French edition in Bizerta in 2000 and the Russian edition in Moscow in 2001 and in St. Petersburg in 2006) she recalls that the local Jewish community remembered "that Vrangel had a reputation of an anti-Semite, the socialists considered the emigrants to be strike-breakers, and the workers organizations and the native population protested without any mercy against potential competitors". The head of the security service in Tunisia applied to the French colonial authorities with the request of strengthening the police service of Bizerta's political security. Besides, several secret agents were sent from France to watch the Russians.

For about a month the Russian squadron was placed in quarantine; the French were not afraid of smallpox, typhoid or plague but, rather, according to one Russian officer, they were afraid above all of "the red pest". Some of the emigres who wished to return to their native country were taken aboard the Grand Duke Constantine

packet ship (a two-masted vessel for transportation of mail and passengers. -Ed.) and sent homeward. Meanwhile, the local authorities decided to set up refugee camps. A total of 7 such camps were prepared, including those in Bizerta, Tabarka (coastal town in the northwestern part of Tunisia next to the Algerian border) and Monastir (port located 162 km south of the city of Tunis). However, many emigrants began to leave Tunisia, unable as they were to find a job. In 1921 more than 3,000 left for France. But naval officers and men could not abandon their ships without an express order.

In March 1921 they began to get the ships ready for long-term moorage and also reduce the squadron personnel. During four and a half years the seamen and their family members continued to live aboard the ships in the Bizerta bay. A floating hotel was established aboard on the old battleship George the Victorious. Ana-stasia Manstein-Shirinskaya: "The families led an independent way of life there, i.e. they had their own school, church, and doctors, and observed their holidays and traditions. They had almost no contacts with the outside world because of the lack of material resources." The French maritime authorities did not interfere in the affairs of the refugees. All instructions were conveyed through Rear-Admiral Mikhail Berens (1879-1943), a new commander of the squadron.

The Sevastopol Naval Cadet Corps, a creation of Emperor Peter the Great* dating from 1701, cast anchor 3 km from Bizerta in an old French fort on Mount El-Kebir. By the end of 1922 by order of the authorities the naval cadet companies were downgraded in their status and became a gymnasium (grammar school). Upon graduation a majority of cadets were posted as rank-and-file seamen in the squadron. But, some went to higher education schools of other countries, including the French Naval College. Up to its closure (in May 1925)

* See: Zh. Alferov, E. Tropp, "St. Petersburg-Russia's Window on Science", Science in Russia. No. 3, 2003. -Ed.

the Sea Corps had issued certificates to almost 400 cadets, who then saw service in the fleets of France, Yugoslavia, the USA and Australia.

On October 8, 1924, France, the most powerful and influential country on the European continent after World War I, extended diplomatic recognition to the USSR. This event put an end to a seven-year confrontation between Soviet State and the former principal creditor of the Russian Empire and, at the same time, became an important stage in the so-called "parade of recognition" of the new state.

The further fate of the Russian ships was now in the balance. But actually it was already sealed. Thus, in 1921 the French flag was hoisted over the unique Kronstadt floating repair vessel (later called Volcano) and the Ilya Muromets icebreaker (later, the French Pollux mine layer). Early in 1922 France acquired two more transport ships to cover the squadron's maintenance expenses. That year the same lot befell another 8 ships-later they were sold by France to Italy, Poland and Estonia. However, at the end of 1924 half of the squadron was still there at Bizerta.

At last, on October 29, 1924, at 5:25 p.m. the ships of the Russian Squadron hauled down St. Andrew's ensigns. This was a tragedy for thousands of Russian refugees, for St. Andrew's was the last thing binding them to their lost motherland. All the refugees had to land ashore. Many left Tunisia for good, though about 700 cast in their lot with that African country.

THE FURTHER FATE OF THE FLEET

At that time everybody believed that the ships would be immediately handed over to the USSR. So in December 1924 a Soviet-French commission came to Tunisia to inspect the ships and decide on their further fate. Our party of the commission was headed by Alexei Krylov (1863-1945), a specialist in mathematical physics and a member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (elected in 1916) and Yevgeny Berens (1876-1928), a naval attache in Great Britain and France. The mission was especially difficult for Berens, since his brother, Rear-Admiral Mikhail Berens, was the commander of the Bizerta Squadron. The civil war separated these two excellent brothers and officers, who had served Russia devotedly. Probably, not wishing to compromise his brother, Mikhail Berens left Bizerta when the commission was at work and assured the French authorities that his subordinate personnel did not do any intentional harm to the ships.

During their long negotiations the officials reached a preliminary agreement on a transfer of the ships to the USSR. But it was not realized because of economic and political snags. To begin with, the ships needed major repairs before being sent home. The French refused flatly to assume responsibility for their technical condition.

Besides, the issue of the old tsarist debts to the former allies of Russia was still unsettled. At the Genoese Conference held in the spring of 1922 the Russian Squadron became a central issue for the whole Europe as the Soviet delegation countered Great Britain and France, who raised the matter of old debts, with the demand that the fleet should be returned. Both parties failed to come to terms. Besides, the fear of the Western powers and their allies that the Bizerta Squadron would strengthen the Soviet Navy became perhaps the main obstacle in the way of its home coming. Therefore, the French Senate voted against returning the ships to Russia. The Soviet government saw return of the fleet only as a partial restoration of the situation on the Black Sea before General Vrangel ordered the fleet's withdrawal from Sevastopol. Meanwhile heated debates on the issue took place even in the League of Nations, thus elevating it to an all-European scale. Finally, the general political climate in Europe likewise played a part.

In the long run, the Russian ships remained in Bizerta for good. Meanwhile, their combat ability declined from month to month. In 1930 the French began dismantling the few remaining Russian ships, completely out of commission. In yet another 6 years what remained of the squadron was sold for scrap metal. The General Alekseev battleship was the last big vessel to go in 1934. Its dismantled guns remained in Bizerta up until German troops seized them in 1942 and then used for the shore defenses of the French coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the English Channel.

Today a memorial plaque on an Orthodox church built in Bizerta in 1938 bears the names of the Russian ships which never returned to their native land; St. Andrew's ensign was hoisted over holy gates of the church. Thus, the old dream came true: St. Andrew's flag was there again. After more than 70 years, in 1996, Anastasia Manstein-Shirinskaya, who stayed on in the Tunisian port of Bizerta, could see this flag again. In Tunisia a film was shot about her life, and in Bizerta a square where stands the Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Church is named after her. This brave noble woman, whom a modern poetess from St. Petersburg, Nadezhda Kravchenko, called "a child of Russia and Tunisia", remained till the end true to the African country that gave her a home in 1920, and took care of the Orthodox memorial churches (the Alexander Nevsky Church in Bizerta and the Ascension Church in the city of Tunis) and of the Russian graves bearing the inscription, "Seaman of the Russian Imperial Fleet".