Biography of Colonel Vladimir Sarchimelia of the Russian Imperial Army and His Memoir of World War I

Abstract

Little has been written about World War I in the former Soviet Union and thereafter. The reason for this appears to be that historians in Bolshevik Russia and later in the Soviet Union did not believe that the wars waged by Tsarist Russia were worth researching. Following World War II, this mentality became very apparent. We know almost nothing about the Georgians who fought in World War I. According to unconfirmed sources, between 150,000 and 250,000 Georgians fought in World War I. Among them were 102 generals and thousands of officers. This paper aims to partially address this void. The life of Vladimir Simonovich Sarchimelia, a Georgian officer who served in World War I, along with a detailed account of a battle operation he oversaw is covered in the article. I obtained V. Sarchimelia’s unpublished, typewritten, and bound memoirs, which are written in Russian, from a Tbilisi secondhand book dealer a few years ago and use it as my primary source of data for the article. Given that this book was written by a Georgian colonel who fought in the Caucasus Front during World War I and who was a firsthand witness to the events described, the importance of “Memoirs” to the history of World War I cannot be overstated. The progression of V. Sarchimelia’s military career is as follows: He began his military training at the age of 20 on December 30, 1889; second lieutenant – from September 1, 1895; lieutenant – from September 1, 1899; staff captain – from September 1, 1903. The aforementioned list was put together as of November 1, 1912. However, for some reason, the list does not mention that V. Sarchimelia was promoted to captain on June 4, 1911. He was still a member of the 154th Derbent Infantry Regiment at the time. In the introduction and the main body of the text of his memoirs written in 1933, V. Sarchimelia states that he was “a colonel in the king’s army.” The year he attained this rank is not documented in any way, however as his memoirs show, V. Sarchimelia held the rank already in 1917. I reconstructed the events of the battle for the village of Pusidere in January 1916 using V. Sarchimelia’s memoirs. I selected this fight in particular because none of the military books published in Georgia or Russia mention it. The explanation is that the Russians lost the battle for Pusidere. In this battle V. Sarchimelia was wounded. Preparations for defense of Batumi and a negative attitude of V. Sarchimelia, as well as of general G. Kvinitadze towards the plan of the high command are also discussed in the article.