Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Ilya Knorring
[REGNUM] These days, one of the main topics on the European and global agenda is the results of the parliamentary elections in France. As a reminder, the results seriously damaged the position of the party of President Emmanuel Macron, the main "instigator" of Europe's active intervention in Ukrainian affairs. Marine Le Pen's party, which became the leader in the first round, did not live up to expectations in the second. But the election results threaten such confusion that the Fifth Republic will no longer have time to "support with bayonets" the stability of the Volodymyr Zelensky regime.
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But just recently Macron was seriously making Napoleonic plans to send troops to Ukraine. “Macron mentioned a scenario that could initiate an intervention: advancing the front towards Odessa or towards Kiev,” the Figaro newspaper wrote.
The mention of Odessa brings to mind not the times of Bonaparte, but an event that is only a little over a hundred years old – the Russian Civil War. Then, just as today, Paris attempted to play the “anti-Moscow” Ukrainian project, although, just as now, France did not have much confidence in its protégés. And – just as then – the sharp change in the French attitude towards their clients was influenced by domestic political changes.
"TIGER" AND ITS PREY
On December 2, 1918, the battleship Mirabeau entered the Odessa port, and five days later, a three-thousand-strong French division equipped with artillery began landing in the city. The French intervention in the South of Russia was in full swing.
The detachments of the chief ataman of the army and navy of the UPR Symon Petliura entered Odessa almost simultaneously with the French and quickly divided the city into spheres of influence: the allies were given the port with the adjacent quarters and Nikolaevsky, now Primorsky Boulevard. The Petliurites decided to take everything else. This order lasted less than a week.
On December 16, 1918, four more French transports entered the port of Odessa under the protection of a squadron led by the dreadnought Ernest Renan. An additional 5,000 bayonets under the command of General Borius landed in the port - the 156th Infantry Division and two battalions of Senegalese Zouaves.
Borius issued an order announcing that he was taking Odessa “under high protection” and the Russian and foreign military units in the city “under his supreme command.”
And the army of independent Ukraine was “asked” to leave the city – the battalions of Denikin’s general Alexei Grishin-Almazov, together with Polish legionnaires, easily drove the Petliurites into the adjacent steppes.
The command of the Entente forces in the South of Russia demanded that the Directory of the UPR remove the lads of Ataman Nikifor Grigoriev (who was then fighting for an “independent Ukraine”) and other troops to the Tiraspol-Razdelnaya-Nikolaev-Kherson line, so as not to interfere with the allies forming their bridgehead here.
This is where the Ukrainian-French division of areas of responsibility ended. After all, Paris proceeded from much more serious agreements on the "division" of Russia.
A year before, in December 1917, ministers of the British cabinet of David Lloyd George brought to the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau a draft of a secret Franco-English agreement on the division of the territories of the former ally, the Russian Empire, into spheres of influence. Clemenceau, nicknamed "Tiger", with a stroke of his pen assigned to France the territories of Little Russia, Novorossiya, Slobozhanshchina, and part of Belarus.
One of the reasons that prompted the allies to intervene in the Russian civil strife was the threat of the capture of Russian ports by German troops (and, let us recall, the First World War was still going on at that time), where, among other things, tons of military cargo had accumulated, as well as the prospect of German occupation of important industrial and agricultural regions of Russia. The intervention, however, began after Germany had signed the armistice. The allies retained their views on capturing zones of influence.
In November 1918, for the first time since the Crimean War, British Tommies and French troops, including the same Black Zouaves, landed in Sevastopol.
VIOLET RAYS OF CONSUL ENNO
The Entente countries, including France, initially saw Ukrainianism as a project of the recent enemy, Austria-Hungary. The world had just watched as the Central Powers actively worked with “local cadres” in the territories of the Russian Empire they occupied: not only with the Baltic Germans, but also with Polish nationalists and Georgian Mensheviks. And with the Ukrainian Central Rada, which, against the background of other Berlin and Vienna counterparties (especially the Poles), looked completely artificial, like a product of Austrian political technologies.
In Paris and London, of course, they remembered: not only Soviet Russia, but also the UPR signed a separate peace with Germany and its allies (Brotfrieden - “bread peace”), in the same Brest-Litovsk, and, moreover, almost a month earlier than the Bolsheviks.
When the Kaiser's and Austrian troops began the direct occupation of the southern and southwestern provinces of Russia, the Minister of War of the Central Rada Petliura did not prevent this at all. The Germans, as is well known, hastened to replace the republic with the "Ukrainian State" of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, which was more understandable to them. But the Entente could not help but keep in mind that "Ukrainian democracy" at least did not prevent the strengthening of the enemies of France and Britain.
Moreover, the leaders of the "democracy" were perceived not only as useful anti-Russian separatists, but also as dangerous left-wing radicals, practically Bolsheviks. The fears were not unfounded.
The first head of the Central Rada, the recognized founding father of the national movement, historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky was a member of the Ukrainian Socialist Revolutionary Party.
The premier's chair, and then the head of the Directory (the new government that emerged after the overthrow of the hetman), was occupied by the writer and playwright Vladimir Vynnychenko, a member of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Labor Party, a future theorist of national communism and, albeit briefly, the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR. The Council of People's Ministers of the Directory was headed by another member of the USDRP, Vladimir Chekhovsky, a supporter of an agreement with the Bolsheviks.
Count Lloyd George and the moderate conservative Clemenceau apparently did not notice any particular difference between the USDRP and the RSDLP(b).
In the case of the chieftain Petliura, the main problem was not the USDRP membership card, but the fact that the UPR army, in fact, was not an army.
The Kherson division of Ataman Grigoriev and the Dnieper division of Batko Zeleny (Danila Terpilo) were very conditionally loyal to the republic and subsequently fought with it, not without success, including on the side of the Reds.
The situation with the personnel units was even worse, especially at the beginning of the war. One of the heads of the General Secretariat of the Central Rada, Dmytro Doroshenko, wrote : when in January 1918 “Bolshevik echelons moved towards Kiev from Bakhmach and Chernigov, the government could not send a single military unit to resist,” and it was necessary to throw students and high school seniors to the slaughter.
It is not surprising that after observing Kiev democracy, the plenipotentiary representative of the Entente forces in the South of Russia, the French consul in Odessa, Emile Enno, called the fighters for an independent Ukraine "a gang of fanatics without any influence." It was at Enno's instigation that the allies placed their bets on the "Odessa dictator" Grishin-Almazov, and not on Petliura.
The consul did not skimp on promises to the Directory (just as he had previously assured support for Skoropadsky, abandoned by the Germans, before he was overthrown by Petliura's men). But promises were all that was needed, which became especially clear in the winter of 1919, before the Red Army drove Petliura out of Kyiv.
The future Soviet classic Konstantin Paustovsky, who as a young man witnessed a dozen changes of power in the city, recalled:
"When the battle began near Kiev itself, at Brovary and Darnitsa, and it became clear to everyone that Petliura's cause was lost, an order from Petliura's commandant was announced in the city. It was said that on the night of the following day, the command of Petliura's army would launch deadly violet rays against the Bolsheviks, provided to Petliura by the French military authorities through the "friend of free Ukraine," the French consul Enno."
But the French did not provide not only fantastic violet rays, but also real rifles, machine guns and cannons in the required quantities. On February 5, 1919, the Red Army entered the city abandoned by the Petliurites.
But after this, oddly enough, luck smiled on the Ukrainian separatists.
UNION OF PARIS WITH VINNITSA
Enno preferred to work with supporters of a “united and indivisible Russia” (according to one version, under the influence of his wife, a baptized Jew, Galina Pogrebakskaya, who considered those “Ukrainizing” to be pogromists). But this went against Paris’s line on dividing Russia into spheres of influence.
In January 1919, new "overseers" from the Entente arrived in Odessa - General Philippe d'Anselme and the Chief of Staff of the Allied forces, Colonel Henri Freudenberg. From that time on, the commander of the forces of the UNR Directory in the south, General-ensign Alexander Grekov, began to visit Odessa and Birzula frequently.
And in March, Enno handed over his affairs and departed for his homeland. By this time, the alliance of Paris with Vinnytsia (where Petliura's headquarters were located at that time) had matured. More precisely, it was a regime of ultimatums.
First, reorganize the government and the Directory, removing the "Bolsheviks" from it - Vynnychenko, Chekhovsky and even Petliura himself. The first two were sacrificed, the head ataman got off with officially leaving the USDRP.
Colonel Freidenberg named the candidates for the head of the "council of people's ministers" of the UPR (the author of the scientific work "Meat Export" Serhiy Ostapenko became prime minister ) and the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the independent state - the former editor of the magazine "Khliborob" Konstantin (Kost) Matsievich was appointed. General Grekov received the post of Minister of War.
The second demand was to increase the army to 300 thousand people within three months, subordinating it, along with Denikin’s army, to the allied command of the Entente.
Thirdly, to transfer Ukraine’s finances to the disposal of France “for the duration of the struggle”.
And, fourthly, the Directory was obliged to appeal to Paris with a request to accept Ukraine under a French protectorate.
"WE PLACE OURSELVES AT THE DISPOSAL OF FRANCE"
In exchange, the allies promised to raise the issue of recognizing “independence” at the Paris Peace Conference.
The UPR counted on Western "support" - support against the Bolsheviks, Anton Denikin, Nestor Makhno and other opponents. The count was not only on help with guns and cannons, but also clearly on drawing the necessary borders of Ukraine - with Brest, Gomel, Belgorod, Rostov and Kuban: "The Directorate hopes for the generosity of France and other powers of the Entente, when, after the end of the war with Bolshevism, questions about borders and nations arise." It was these "wishes" that the UPR delegation brought to the Paris Conference.
It is not surprising that the demand to “request” a French protectorate was strictly fulfilled.
The Ukrainian official note (which was cited, among others, in Soviet history textbooks of the Ukrainian SSR) from February 1919 stated: The Ukrainian Republic “places itself under the protection of France and asks the French authorities to lead the Directory in diplomatic, military, political, economic, financial and judicial matters until the end of the struggle with the Bolsheviks.”
The French sent a military mission to Petliura's headquarters in Vinnytsia with a list of additional conditions. It was headed by a military man of low rank, but with a well-known name in Odessa - Captain Langeron.
The allies withdrew the protectorate demand, but demanded that concessions for Ukrainian railways be transferred to France for a period of 50 years. The UPR was obliged to pay Paris "its" share of the debts of the tsarist and Provisional governments. The trade, industrial, military and financial policies of Ukraine were to be conducted under French leadership.
The result of the negotiations on the sale of sovereignty was the Franco-Petliura agreement, signed at the end of February 1919.
THE COURSE IS CHANGING AGAIN - BECAUSE OF THE ELECTIONS
The command of the occupation forces, represented by the same Colonel Freudenberg, promised to transfer weapons to the UPR army for new units, military loans and - let us remember Macron again - to consider the possibility of direct military assistance.
However, already then, in February, the French began to "throw" their Kyiv (or rather Vinnitsa) partners. The allies emphasized that it was a military agreement, not a political recognition of the Ukrainian Republic by Paris.
And then - as now - French democracy intervened.
At the end of March 1919, Clemenceau was forced to announce in the Chamber of Deputies that the French expeditionary force would be recalled from Russia. Soon after, most of the French sailors were demobilized.
And in November 1919, the first parliamentary elections after the end of the Great War took place, in which, as in July 2024, the right took a large share of the mandates (with the difference that in the 1919 elections, many front-line soldiers, “people in blue overcoats,” became deputies).
The elections influenced foreign policy, including in the Russian direction - the first post-war parliament gave the go-ahead to help the White armies and the Poles in the fight against the Bolsheviks. But supporters of Ukrainian independence were no longer on the list of "wards".
Since the end of 1919, the Entente reoriented itself towards a more promising force – Denikin’s army. The Petliurites worked as Poland’s junior partners for some time in 1919–1920 (primarily during the offensive of Józef Pilsudski’s army on Kiev in April–May 1920 with French support), but after that they were finally written off.
The parliamentarians, as well as Prime Minister Clemenceau (and his successor, Alexandre Millerand, a former Minister of War), proceeded from rational considerations.
THREE REASONS FOR DISAPPOINTMENT
Never before or since in French history has there been such an experienced leadership, which cannot be compared with Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande or Emmanuel Macron. At the cost of incredible efforts, they led their country to the ranks of the victors in the First World War. And they had a unique, as they say now, "feeling" for losers and hopeless enterprises.
Both President Raymond Poincaré and Prime Minister Clemenceau were not seriously inclined to recognize any Ukraine, much less the Directory headed by Petliura.
Firstly, local nationalists have shown themselves to be not only unreliable, but also ineffective clients.
Clemenceau and Poincaré could not help but come to this conclusion after they reported from Odessa that the military loans transferred to the UPR were being stolen, and the required 300,000-strong combat-ready army had never been created.
After the Reds took Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Zhmerynka were soon under Petliura's control among the major cities. Ataman Grigoriev (who by that time was already fighting for the Reds) advanced toward Nikolaev and Kherson.
It is significant that the next negotiations on March 17, 1919 did not take place because the Reds cut off the only railway line by which the head ataman of the UPR army could reach Odessa.
In the spring of the same year, the Anglo-French allies decided not to engage in large-scale military operations in the South of Russia. Then, in March, the Supreme Council of the Entente decided to abandon Odessa - on April 4-6, 1919, the combined forces of the allies left the city.
The French warships remained at anchor until May, and left, as is commonly believed, because of a mutiny by sailors propagandized by the Comintern. It can be assumed that the matter was not only in Bolshevik agitation, but also in the unwillingness of the French to fight for Ukraine.
The same logic was followed by the Parisian political circles. It is one thing to successfully fight Russia with someone else's hands, another thing to invest in "proxy armies" without hope of success or even to sacrifice the lives of one's own soldiers. Neither the parliament, nor the press, nor the business circles would understand this - just as they do not understand it now. Hence the next reason for the refusal to support.
Secondly, the French, as was said above, placed their bets on two more effective clients, each of whom did not want to hear about any independent Ukraine. Denikin's army fought for a united and indivisible Russia, where even the existence of an autonomous Malorossiya would have been questionable.
True, Clemenceau’s government made timid attempts to reconcile Petliura with Denikin, but the Russian general did not want to hear about it.
The second ally is the recently reborn Poland. Its existence is indisputable, it will survive no matter the outcome of the Russian Civil War (as the outcome of the Soviet-Polish war of 1919-1921 showed).
Yes, the Poles flirted with Petliura and started talking about the “liberation” of the outskirts of the former Russian Empire, but Pilsudski’s project implied the return of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the borders of 1772, which means that, in essence, no “independent” state was envisaged.
Let us add that the Entente could not exclude the possibility of a victory for the Reds, which is what eventually happened. Experienced French politicians understood that Russia, even in their opinion, having gone mad on the basis of Bolshevism and dreaming of a world revolution, would never tolerate on its historical lands an open enemy whose purpose of existence was to destroy everything Russian.
France, by the way, was one of the first great powers to recognize the USSR (this was done in 1924 by the prime minister from the left Radical Party, Edouard Herriot ).
Incidentally, Britain followed a similar logic. In a message from one London diplomat, Lord George Curzon, to another, Arthur Balfour (both were Foreign Ministers at different times), dated August 21, 1919, it is stated:
"Not one of the allied governments has yet recognized Ataman Petliura or established friendly relations with this government. His Majesty's Government has always treated Ukraine as an integral part of Russia, and is firmly convinced that the greatest concern would be to avoid any steps that might encourage separatist tendencies."
Finally, the third reason, which had to do, among other things, with Petliura. The former chief ataman fled to Poland in 1921, then to Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and, finally, to his French patrons. And this was the wrong decision.
French ships at anchor and in the Odessa port during the evacuation
Anti-Semitism has been a sore point for France since the Dreyfus affair. Europe blamed Tsarist Russia for condoning pogroms. During the civil war in Ukraine, the main pogromists were Petliura's troops, who were much more active in "Jew-killing" than in fighting against the Reds and Whites.
And if the White command at least in words condemned the attacks on the towns by individual units of the Volunteer Army and sometimes even punished the pogromists, and the Reds punished them completely mercilessly, then under Petliura the fanatics always felt complete impunity.
It is not surprising that the French court subsequently acquitted Petliura’s killer, Samuil Shvartsburd, a native of the city of Izmail, who in 1926 shot the former leader of the UPR precisely because he was responsible for mass reprisals against Jews.
"PROUD DESIRE WAS DISCUSSED AT CONGRESS THE OTHER DAY"
The fact that nothing would come of this “incarnation” of Ukrainian statehood could already be judged by the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920 – the one where the Treaty of Versailles was signed and which laid the foundation for the entire interwar world order. As already mentioned, the French promised Petliura that the Ukrainian state would be recognized in Paris.
Envoys from the UPR and the West Ukrainian People's Republic (ZUNR) did make it to the conference. The high delegation of the united powers was headed by the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs of the UPR, Grigoriy Sidorenko. But the trip had no consequences - the Ukrainians were not allowed to attend as observers.
Firstly, the creator of the Versailles system, US President Woodrow Wilson, was against Ukrainian independence. And secondly, and most importantly, there was no one left to represent the delegation: the Galician army of the ZUNR was retreating under the onslaught of the Poles, and the "successes" of the UPR army were discussed above.
Clemenceau's memoirs describe an episode in which the head of the delegation, Sidorenko, pounded the table with his fist out of frustration at not being understood. In July 1919, he was replaced by Mikhail Tyshkevich, who was much more educated but was still perceived by the organizers as little more than a hooligan.
The result of this attempt to gain recognition and support from the West was described by the young poet Samuil Marshak, who was working at the time for the White Guard information agency OSVAG:
Mr. Petliura frowned,
He scratched the back of his head
And, having thought, Clemence
I wrote an ultimatum.
In a laconic message
General without further ado
He demanded recognition imperiously
From ministers and ambassadors...
Proud desire
The other day the congress discussed,
And to the nomad in recognition
He refused point-blank.
Because it is not one
Member of the Council of Four
Independent Ukraine
I couldn’t find it on the ground…
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