Tactics of the Eastern Front

[Doctord84]

James, Is Alexis Wrangel a relative of the Baron Wrangel who was one of the White leaders in the civil war by any chance?

[jwsleser]

The End of Chivalry is a very good book. It covers many of the Russia cavalry actions in WWI. Alexis Wranglel is the Baron's son. He also wrote General Wrangel: Russia's White Crusader

Jeff

[Doctord84]

Thanks Jeff, I might look those up when the current book pile gets a bit smaller!

Dave

[aiwac]

Orlando Figes' book on the Russian Revolution "A People's Tragedy" has a whole chapter on the Russian war effort and sources on the subject (A War on Three Fronts). Among other things, he argues that the Russian officers knew nothing about the science of trench-building which would have reduced casualties. Moreover, unlike Western Front armies, most of the Russian senior officers were too rigid and dogmatic to allow for the kind of "learning curve" which helped improved performance and tactics over time. Figes also mentions how the officers and the Army wasted much valuable manpower and munitions to defend fortresses which were easily bypassed.

A proper, thorough archival military history of the Russian War Effort in WWI has yet to be written. Figes can only whet ones' appetite on the subject.

[James A Pratt III]

On archive.org I found MG Sir Arnold Knox's book With the Russian Armies 1914-1917 Volume I but not volume 2. They do have the maps for Volume 2 along with volume 1s maps. Does anyone know if Volume 2 is online any where? This book does have some tactical information that you might find usefull.

[James A Pratt III]

I managed to get sort of by accident the article "The Tsarist Officer Corps 1881-1914: Customs, Duties, Inefficiency" in American historical review Volume 86 1981 by John Bushnell who wrote the book "Mutiney Admid Repression". The article points out while some officers learned their lessons during the Russo-Japanese war there were many who didn't in part because they didn't see combat during this war. it mentions a number of memoirs in both Russian and English as sources. Here are some of the memoirs in English: Russian Hussar Vladimir Littaur. War and Revolution in Russia 1914-1917 Basil Gurko; The Grinding Mill Reminscences of War and revolution in Russia 1913-1920 A Lobano-Rostovsky; Tattered banners: An Autobiography Paul rodizanko; A Subaltern in Old Russia A.A. Ignatyev; Over the Divide Yakhontoff