Russian ordeal 1914-1917....

[phil andrade]

There are very divergent views on the war on the Russian Front. Most of us probably think of Tannenberg. The Tsar's peasant soldiery, largely illiterate, sometimes starving, ragged and bewildered are crushingly defeated by a competent and modern german army. The high tech teuton overwhelms the archaic slav. The deficiencies of the russian armies are woeful : guns without shells, soldiers without rifles....and then there is inept and corrupt leadership, both military and political. This being the case, it's a wonder that it took three years before the outcome could be determined.

On the other hand, there is another image. Terrible defeats inflicted on the Austro -Hungarian Empire - and the Turks - along with german casualties that were sometimes remarkably heavy. A million and a half Austrian prisoners were in Russian hands after three years, and, up until the summer of 1916, the Russians are said to have captured more Germans than the Entente in the West. By 1916, mountains of shells were available to russian gunners, and the Brusilov Offensive achieved gains so spectacular as to rank it as one of the greatest victories of modern times, achieved through superb leadership and some effective high tech tactics.

Russian casualties are a matter of guesswork, since the chaos of defeat, revolution and civil war created neither the will nor the means to compile accurate statistics. AJP Taylor opined that Russia probably lost more dead than all the rest of the belligerents combined. John Keegan cited a modern estimate that indicated battle fatalities not very different from those suffered by the French.

Has there been too much caricature in the history of Russia's war ?

Phil

[truthergw]

The news from Russia was managed successively by commanders in the field then the government censors on both sides before it was finally massaged by the British editors. The war was followed by years of civil war then the mutual antipathy between the Soviet and the British governments. Histories of the Great War in Russia are nothing more than propaganda exercises compiled several years after the war by both sides. I doubt very much whether there ever was the sort of objective data required to put together a meaningful account of the Russian war.

[razu]

Unfortunatelly the germans were doing two kinds of figth:one on the Front and one in the "back".For instance during the "Battle of Marasesti" the Romanian Army had to make baraje of artillery fire to stop the germans spreading newspapers printed in Russian language ,in germany,in which they were making anty War propaganda ,telling the Russians to go home that land is given to their families.So I think is true to say that the germans have "pushed" the Russians into communism ,revolution etc.I think the germans realized they cannot defeat the Russians so they found another way around to take them out of the War.

Did Lenin came to Russia in a sealed train carriage from germany or was it Switzerland?

Andrei

[centurion]

We've all probably seen stories of Russian troops in the trenches, one man with a rifle and two more to take it if he gets hit. However if you look back in history you find the same story over and again about different armies going back to the Napoleonic. The Russians put out a similar story about the Persian army facing them (muskets not rifles of course) and the French (or possibly their German allies) did the same for the Russians (what goes around comes around).

Certainly the Russians did have material shortages but by 1917 were catching up and pushing back the KuK having effectively neutralised the Turks. Hence Germany's most cynical and world damaging move, taking Lenin and the other Bolsheviks from Switzerland and facilitating their return to Russia. This doomed the world to more than 70 years totalitarian communism. The goons in North Korea are a direct descendant of this move.

[phil andrade]

Certainly the Russians did have material shortages but by 1917 were catching up and pushing back the KuK having effectively neutralised the Turks. Hence Germany's most cynical and world damaging move, taking Lenin and the other Bolsheviks from Switzerland and facilitating their return to Russia. This doomed the world to more than 70 years totalitarian communism. The goons in North Korea are a direct descendant of this move.

That's a very challenging statement, if I understand you correctly. Are you suggesting that this opportunistic act was the German reaction to a revival of Russian strength, rather than an exploitation of Russian defeat ?

The standard view, or so I was taught, was that it was defeat on the battlefields that engendered reform or revolution...the Crimea brought about the Emancipation of the Serfs, the Russo- Japanese War was followed by the upheavals of 1905 ( Bloody Sunday), and, of course, the catastrophes of the Great War were to bring about the Revolution of 1917.

It's a refreshing and interesting take on the story....the resurgence of Russia, rather than the decline, being the occasion of the sealed train episode.

Phil

[razu]

So I think it would be just to say that the blood of the Russian Royal Family is on german hands.

Also after this war they made another which engulfed the rest of Europe in communism(which they created in the first place)

Could ,as such,they been also in Sarajevo assasinate too?

Andrei

[John Gilinsky]

truthergw stated some good points on how the information, disinformation and propaganda was produced and disseminated through the generations from the start of the war in August 1914 until today. If one views how Russians, Ukrainians view 1914 to 1917 from say 1990 to date one can see the politically correct version of giving due share to the suffering for the Motherland by modern writers, historians, journalists and film-makers. This in turn of course only adds somewhat to the myths. What are badly needed are fully fledged extremely comprehensively archivally research based academic histories of what we in the west have had for over 40 years (say arguably from the 50th anniversary approximately of 1914): solid, critically thought out and archivally based works on substantive aspects of the war: logistics, commanders, technologies used, adapted or invented, micro-social histories of communities and/or locally or regionally raised units (eg. Pals Battalions in UK), etc....

John

Toronto

[MartH]

Considering how the Russian Royal Family thought and behaved, and I speak based upon my Finnish family history, their demise was on their own hands, and good riddance too.

[John Gilinsky]

"too much caricature" - of course - extreme political realities: rise and fall of war communism, collapse of empires, mass refugee crises, totalitarianism, mass executions, revolutionary movements, revolutions, anarchy, famines, mass fatality diseases (eg. typhus),... have to be caricuatured, stereotyped, mythologized in order for the masses of people directly involved alone to try to understand, make sense of their lives and tolerably accept such extreme events. Polarizations amongst historians and writers naturally follows. Thus history not only is abused willingly to serve politcal and sociological ends but is bastardized and grossly distorted compounding the innate extreme feelings that motivated the historians originally. Each side claims moral superiority (eg. communists versus capitalists, nationalists versus communists, Russians versus Little Russians (Ukrainians), European Russians versus Asiatic Russians, easterners versus westernizers, intelligentsia versus the masses of peasants, etc.... History becomes the conduit in these circumstances to narrow and grossly simplistic views espoused by demonizing mouthpieces of the black and white schools of history: good guys versus bad guys: US versus THEM!

John

Toronto

[SMSKaiser]

[...]

On the other hand, there is another image. Terrible defeats inflicted on the Austro -Hungarian Empire - and the Turks - along with german casualties that were sometimes remarkably heavy. [...]

This might be true...however you cannot say that Russia possessed a strong and effective Army because it defeated Austria and the Ottoman Empire several times.

Austria-HUngary had to deal with difficulties almost as serious as that of the Russians, for example there was an effective Russian propaganda concerning desertion of slav people from Austria-Hungary (a great number of the k.u.k. forces consisted of the latter, and already in August 1914 there were troops held back from the front as they were considered not to be trusted). On the other hand Russia almost at any time of the war, even from the beginning, fielded more troops than Austria (look at the difference of strength in artillery pieces during the war).

On the side of the Ottoman Empire, one cannot ignore the poor performance of the latter during the last century, especially the Balkan Wars, there poor equipment, poor leadership, besides the fact that there were some Ottoman victories as well.

As far as I know, German casualties only peaked in summer of 1915, during the great offensive of the Central Powers. As it was in other theatres, the attacker most times suffered high casualties due to the art of war at the time (MGs, trenches etc.)

So I dont think that we can argue that there was "too much caricature" in Russias weakness, the question should be: Why wasnt Russia able to throw there much weaker main adversary, Austria-Hungary, out of the war?

[John Gilinsky]

Why Russia did not ultimately defeat AH especially extremest represented or "caricatured" has many reasons shared by many belligerents: lack of field command insight into what happens if you do achieve a major or huge breakthrough(eg. Brusilov offensive of summer 1916); huge logisitical problems of sheer distance and poor pre-1914 communications (eg. Galician poor roads and few rail lines with mountainous Carpathian Mountains); defensive technology such as gas, machine guns, barbed wire, searchlights, flares, concrete field fortifications which clearly gave the advantage to the defense rather than attackers, etc....Again the myth of the huge Russian steamroller simply or with some effort of course rolling over the AH units who couldn't understand one another in the same unit due to the sheer mulitiplicity of the soldiers' cultures and languages is brought to the fore here.

John

Toronto

[SMSKaiser]

Well, I think you are focussing too much on the failed summer offensives of 1916. I think that we can agree that the war during 1914 and 1915 was much more "fluent" and without massive use of trenches, gas, etc, massive use of new weapons only began well after summer of 1915. The Germans and Austrian had their supply difficulties as well, and most of Galicia was in their hands for the most time of the war.

I never said that the Austrian regiments were helpless crowds which didnt even understand each other. The k.u.k Armies had fewer guns, were worse equipped overall, and outnumbered as well. This has nothing to do with "steamrolling" soldiers without a common language and culture.

[John Gilinsky]

We are dealing with the thread originator's question about the caricature of the extreme stereotyping of Russia's military efforts during the war: helpless ineffectual giant or far more effective than hitherto recognized especially in facing and defeating her enemies in the field. The Russians overall were viewed popularilly as a "steamroller" with masses of peasants all well equipped, trained and led of course, to just swoop down on the terrified Germans and AH armies especially during the first year of the war August 1914 to August 1915. The capture of Warsaw though finally put a huge dent in that "steamroller myth." Technological innovations etc...were used almost from the start of the war : eg. Sikorsky 4 engined planes were bombing right from the start, Jan 1915 German attempted use of chemical weapons at Bolimow, Poland, Russian invention of early (1916) semi-automatic hand held sub-machine guns, etc....

John

[phil andrade]

We are dealing with the thread originator's question about the caricature of the extreme stereotyping of Russia's military efforts during the war: helpless ineffectual giant or far more effective than hitherto recognized especially in facing and defeating her enemies in the field. John

Thank you, John...you capture the essence of my post.

There is a historiographical controversy implicit in the divergent views.

Sad to say, there has been a dearth of research into the Great War on the Russian Front. The most authoratitive book within the last 40 years is, apparently, Norman Stone's The Eastern Front 1914-1917 : I bought this book when it was published in 1975, and found it one of the hardest reads I've ever attempted. Stone does have this to say, however, about the German foray into Russia in the aftermath of Tannenberg, in the fighting of September 1914 "...by 25th September, the two Russian armies organised a counter offensive that drove back the Germans to their frontier, in the end even as far as the Angerapp lines. VIII Army [ German ] had captured 30,000 prisoners...But it had also lost heavily - 100,000 men, of 250,000 - and the battle...ended with a complicated stalemate."

This comes as a surprise to those who dwell on Tannenberg - the victorious Germans pushed their luck and ended up with a bloody nose themselves : we just don't hear much about it. Likewise the battles around Lodz a couple of months later, when the Germans, by their own admission, lost at least another 100,000 men, of whom 36,000 were killed....casualties that rivalled those they suffered at First Ypres at the same time, with its notorious "Kindermord" These two episodes might be cited as examples of "forgotten" Russian effectiveness, against the German Eigth and Ninth Armies, and should be set alongside the more widely publicised defeats.

Phil

[SMSKaiser]

We are dealing with the thread originator's question about the caricature of the extreme stereotyping of Russia's military efforts during the war: helpless ineffectual giant or far more effective than hitherto recognized especially in facing and defeating her enemies in the field.

I was only contributing to exactly this fact, If i did not get it over correctly, I am sorry.

The capture of Warsaw though finally put a huge dent in that "steamroller myth." Technological innovations etc...were used almost from the start of the war : eg. Sikorsky 4 engined planes were bombing right from the start, Jan 1915 German attempted use of chemical weapons at Bolimow, Poland, Russian invention of early (1916) semi-automatic hand held sub-machine guns, etc....

John

That was my point. An army which was able to mobilise so great numbers was not able to defeat the Austrians in their early campaign in september 1914, was during october already forced into the DEFENCE (apart from the fact that they were highly superior still).

Innovations were indeed used, but not on that great numbers that they would have made a difference. How many bombers were in the field on the Russian side?

Wikipedia says:

"In August 1914, the Ilya Muromets was adopted by the Imperial Russian Air Force. On 10 December 1914, the Russians formed their first ten-bomber squadron, slowly increasing the number to 20 by the summer of 1916."

Do you really think that they made any important difference, in that numbers, during that period? As well as any other of those "new" weapons; there were MG, gas etc in those early stages of the war, but they had no "decisive" role at that time.

Apart from this you said that Austria was not defeated because of this defensive technology...when Austria until 1916 was almost everytime the attacker, how could it have been to their advantage?

@PJA, concerning the battles against Germany:

I posted an online book about Germany's Eastern front performance on antoher thread here:

http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=12&xid...dc5e082achap002

It gives the German casualties to about 8000 for that battle, according to the casualties reports from the Army command (German Verlustlisten). This number mets that of the German Sanitätsbericht. What do you think of these, compared to 100-250,000?

(The Lodz figures are smaller in both sources, too)

To sum it up, my intention was to say that generally, the war went not well for Russia, and German and Austrian successes against this huge Army contribute to the picture of the helpless giant.

How could Hindenburg dare to attempt his capture of Warsaw against 3 Armies which were massed there, leaving so few troops in East Prussia against the Russian Corps still there? What about Lodz, where almost the same happened and this time even succeded?

When Russian figures about there strength are true, the whole campaign of 1915 was fought against Russian superiority.

You are stating some examples for when the Russians had their successes, but they were few, didnt change the course of the war, and were, in my opinion, too much exaggerated.

I do not get ANY impression of Russia not being that helpless giant during the war.

[phil andrade]

Sir, all honour to you...you are obviously an authority on this aspect of the war... I wish I could read German !

Stone refers to the German 8th army losing 100,000 men from its total strength of 250,000 in September 1914, and it was the 9th army that, apparently, admitted to another 100,000 casualties in the Lodz battles, of whom 36,000 were dead.

Your final statement is hard to reconcile with the impact of the Brusilov Offensive.

Phil

[James Blonde]

So I think it would be just to say that the blood of the Russian Royal Family is on german hands.

Also after this war they made another which engulfed the rest of Europe in communism(which they created in the first place)

Could ,as such,they been also in Sarajevo assasinate too?

Andrei

Well if you want to go down that road, ultimately Serbia should carry the blame,

seeing it was Serbian Officers, members of the "Black Hand" who instigated the

assassination of Emperor Franz-Josef nephew in Sarajevo and ultimately the

start of World War one.

The Bolshevik mentality was born and kindled in Russia, due to the situation in that country

and the ill treatment of the Russian serfs and no way can the blame be laid

at the feet of Germany between the years 1914 - 1919.

Connaught Stranger.

[MartH]

When commenting on German attacks don't forget the very successful Riga campaign, when they pushed on towards the Russian Capital.

When the Russians where negotiating the Brest Litovsk peace treaty and they refused some conditions the Germans effectively said fine, we will restart hostilities against Petrograd, the Russians capitulated.

[John Gilinsky]

MartH: Citing the end of hostilities of late 1917 and early 1918 when the Russians no longer had a strong indeed even any central government except an untried revolutionary one as representative of Russian overall war weakness is to put it mildly very very unfair to the Russians who fought hard and well during 1914 to 1917.

The Russians used technological advances whenever they could. However the sheer sizes of their armies and the sheer distances to be covered in distribution alone (logistics) along with the wild undeveloped areas where the armies fought (Galicia, Carpathian Mountains, rural Poland) meant that even when the Russians did have sufficient standard type technologies such as machine guns or aeroplanes that they could not service, replace these or even apply them as we have in the West come to expect such technologies to be applied. This last point clearly raises the issue of ethnocentralist historiography. We see the entire Eastern Front through the Western Front prism which definitely distorts (caricaturizes) ALL the belligerents efforts: the outnumbered Germans on the NW Front fending off hordes of wild savage Siberians and Cossacks with the Germans superior technology; the weak disorganized and poorly led AH armies being routed by only moderate efforts by well led Russian armies (eg. Brusilov). Think of how the Russians fought from their perspective: a huge country with major political and economic reforms underway with significant discrepancies between what the country's potential was, what they could deliver and what their best planners (all round: military, econcomic, political) envisioned Russia to be in. The Russian General Staff told the Czar that by 1917 the Russian military would be ready to take on a major war beteen the Germans and the AH powers.

Per Sikorsky: Use the Russian internet and Russian email contacts and websites: these planes were being used in 1914 for military purposes effectively: as transports, reconnaisance(photo) and as bombers. The lack of language facilitation and/or primary sources is being largely diminished by the internet, digitization, online translation services, etc.... Russian field artillery was considered to be one of the finest organized, equipped trained and led in Europe and they acquitted themselves well in fighting throughout 1914 to 1917 but especially in the "fluid" phases of fighting including 1914-1915. Another "caricature" stereotype is that the Russians relied heavily initially on cavalry including Cossacks. With the West's rapid recognition of motor transport of all kinds the Russian's continuing reliance on horse transport and mounted offensive units seems both at the time and to us today somewhat anachronistic. Again the question of not recognizing that all armies on the Eastern Front crucially relied on horse and other animal transport is overlooked when focussing on the Russian's military efforts.

John

Toronto

[MartH]

John I am well aware how hard the Russians fought in 1914-1917, I'm lucky enough to have spoken in depth to several veterans of the 27th Jaeger Battalion, one of them being my Grandfather. Let me assure you that from that man who was engaged in active service against the Russian armies both Imperial and Bolshevik for a several years I am under no illusions about their fighting ability, or have romantic notions about them: I can well recall my grandfather desperate to get back to his flat on Independence Day, to light candles in the windows in memory of, amongst others of his dead school friends aged 10 cut in half in the Helsinki streets by the Russian Cavalry on the orders of the Tsar after school. My mother this September told me what her best birthday present was ever, her 21st, the Russian guns going silent which was the day after the 1944 peace treaty came into effect because the Russians had spent the whole of one day after the peace treaty started shelling the refugee columns from the areas to be evacuated, a day into the peace! These are just two examples, Please don't ever tell me I'm unfair to Russians,

[razu]

Well if you want to go down that road, ultimately Serbia should carry the blame,

seeing it was Serbian Officers, members of the "Black Hand" who instigated the

assassination of Emperor Franz-Josef nephew in Sarajevo and ultimately the

start of World War one.

The Bolshevik mentality was born and kindled in Russia, due to the situation in that country

and the ill treatment of the Russian serfs and no way can the blame be laid

at the feet of Germany between the years 1914 - 1919.

Connaught Stranger.

..alleged!

also qoute from "Batlle of Marasesti" Romanian History by Constantin Kiritescu:

"In the Eve of the Battle

The commanders of the enemy armies knew perfectly the material and moral situation of the Russian armies in front of them.They knew they combative value weakened by the revolutionary activities and by the german propaganda.They knew that some units were ready to commite supreme treason of their own country.To runthrough this decomposing army with the plough of the 12 austro-german divisions seemed like a simple game.The success of the great offensive was beyond doubt.Moldavia given to the Russians to guard will soon be at the feet of the conquerors."

Andrei

[James Blonde]

..alleged!

also qoute from "Batlle of Marasesti" Romanian History by Constantin Kiritescu:

"In the Eve of the Battle

The commanders of the enemy armies knew perfectly the material and moral situation of the Russian armies in front of them.They knew they combative value weakened by the revolutionary activities and by the german propaganda.They knew that some units were ready to commite supreme treason of their own country.To runthrough this decomposing army with the plough of the 12 austro-german divisions seemed loke a simple game.The success of the great offensive was beyond doubt.Moldavia given to the Russians to guard will soon be at the feet of the conquerors."

Andrei

Hallo Andrei,

Actually documented facts, with regards the start of WW1 and history revisionism will not fit into this Forum.

Also fact, whereas most Romanian WW1 military history has been written post WW1,

(long after the Romanian Force early successes in 1916, have been subject to renovation for the want of a better word.)

and the Romanian forces were remorsefully pushed all the way back and up into Moldova, (there in some cases being protected by Russian forces,) and having had their capital city captured, by combined Austro-Hungarians, Prussians and other associated German States, Bulgarians & Turkish Forces.

Yes the Romanians won a few battles, and many sacrifices were made, but, the Romanian military of WW1 period were of a very poor quality, and poorly equipped and poorly trained to take on the combined forces from the aforementioned countries.

To try and suggest that Russian Communism and its rise are a result of Prussian Germany and her actions in WW1 is a joke.

Connaught Stranger.

[phil andrade]

To try and suggest that Russian Communism and its rise are a result of Prussian Germany and her actions in WW1 is a joke.

Connaught Stranger.

But it makes such a lovely story, Connaught !

Surely, german interests were well served by the aiding and abetting of revolution in Russia.

Churchill tells the story in his beautiful and dramatic way :

" In the middle of April the Germans took a sombre decision. Ludendorff

refers to it with bated breath. Full allowance must be made for the desperate stakes to which the German war leaders were already committed......Nevertheless it was with a sense of awe that they turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia. "

I wonder....what do you think ? This sounds very much like a german conspiracy to nurture the downfall of the enemy by contamination.

Phil

[razu]

....also who was organizing the bolsevics (as they were only simple men/women from the masses),paying them ,telling them what is the next move ,where to strike ,when to strike,who or what is the next target etc.A move like this takes a lot of organization.Only the newspapers printed by the germans in Russian language mus have cost a fortune.

Andrei

[John Gilinsky]

Razu: you come close to repeating the White Russian version of that little Austrian corporal's view of the war not to mention Ludendorf's as well: the stab in the back. War weariness, Bolshevik propaganda (home grown variety NOT imported) and simple disgust (see the movie AGONY produced a couple years ago and the link given by me elsewhere) with the Imperial Family and the mismanagement of the war effort all contributed to the causes of the Russian revolutions in the spring and fall of 1917. To assert that regional and localized tactical moves to undermine the Czarist Imperial forces and later those of the Provisional Government were essentially or at least critically masterminded and controlled by the Germans is a gross overstatement.

John

Toronto