Russia 1914-17

Russian entry into the war came because of Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia for her alleged implication in the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (heir to the Habsburg throne) on 28 June 1914 at Sarajevo. Claims by Germany that Russia helped to precipitate general war because of her partial mobilisation on 29 July do not stand up, because she only put herself into the state of war readiness demanded by the vast size of her forces. The evidence suggests, by contrast, that Russia played a moderating role by advising Belgrade to accept an Austro-Hungarian ultimatum which would have virtually obliterated Serbian independence.

Russia's obligations under the terms of her alliance with France were clear-cut. Within fourteen days of mobilisation she was obliged to put two army corps, about 300,000 men, into East Prussia. The object of this move was to take the strain off her French ally who would bear the weight of the German attack under the notorious Schlieffen Plan. This obligation was met, much to the surprise of the Germans, when two corps under Generals Rennenkampf and Samsonov crossed the border into East Prussia. A minor victory was won at Gumbinnen, to be followed by catastrophic defeats at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes which put an end to the Russian intervention in Germany. It never happened again but it had served its purpose. Two German armies had to be switched away from the Battle of the Marne, which Germany lost, and General von Hindenburg had to be taken off the retired list to deal with the emergency. As the Schlieffen Plan was designed to knock France out of the war in six weeks, it can be argued that the Russian invasion of East Prussia was decisive.

Of course, it showed up the usual tsarist deficiencies. Messages were sent out in clear rather than in code (so the Germans had prior knowledge of Russian intentions), and no allowance was made for the different gauges of German railways. General Rennenkampf was accused (absurdly) of being a German spy, and Samsonov shot himself in despair in an East Prussian wood. But he had served his country and their allies well, and legends about Russian weakness had been exaggerated. Kochan and Abraham point out, quite rightly, that 'the tsarist Russian state entered the war in fairly good order'.

Other exaggerations concern Russia's capacity to arm and supply herself. While the failed Gallipoli landings of 1915-16 prevented a link-up between the western democracies and Russia, this failure was by no means as catastrophic as it has often been painted. Research by Professor Norman Stone showed that the tsarist autocracy was able to supply itself with shells quite adequately, and the most serious problems concerned transport. The disruption of the railway system in Russian Poland early in the war adversely affected the whole system, which never really recovered.

Otherwise, a sort of general pattern could be discerned. When faced with the Austro-Hungarian forces the Russians did well, helped perhaps by the unreliability of their fellow Slavs in the enemy forces. But when sizeable German forces were involved, as at Gorlice in 1915, the Russians came off second best. In part this was a matter of leadership, which was not assisted by the tsar's decision to move to Stavka (High Command) and take over supreme command himself. Nevertheless it remains true that in General Brusilov the Russians probably had the best general of the war, and one of the very few who was not obsessed by massive artillery bombardments and frontal bayonet attacks. Brusilov won striking successes in 1916, but Stavka did not have the reserves or the capacity to exploit them properly.

Russian losses were appalling (perhaps upwards of five million) but proportionately not as bad as those of France on the western front, and accounts of the imminent collapse of the Russian army in 1916-17 have been distorted. Gross inefficiency and cowardice are characteristics more properly attributed to the Rumanian army, where high-rarnking officers were allowed to wear rouge. Their ill-advised intervention in 1916 wasted valuable Russian resources, and ended in final German occupation of their country.

This article is based on material taken from A Traveller's History of Russia and the USSR (© Peter Neville), published by The Windrush Press, and is by kind permission of its author Peter Neville.