Eastern Front 1914-1917 [Mass Market Paperback]

Norman Stone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

'Without question one of the classics of post-war historical scholarship, Stone's boldly conceived and brilliantly executed book opened the eyes of a generation of young British historians raised on tales of the Western trenches to the crucial importance of the Eastern Front in the First World War' - Niall Ferguson. 'Scholarly, lucid, entertaining, based on a thorough knowledge of Austrian and Russian sources, it sharply revises traditional assumptions about the First World War' - Michael Howard.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Norman Stone is Professor at Bilkent University. He was Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford from 1984-1997.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Global; 2nd edition (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140267255
• ISBN-13: 978-0140267259
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,931 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Other Front, June 6, 2003

By 

T. J. Graczewski "tgraczewski" (Burlingame, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eastern Front 1914-1917 (Mass Market Paperback)

For most Americans, the First World War conjures up a single, brutal image: trench warfare along the western front in France. Tangles of barbed wire, machine gun nests, pockmarked no-man's-land, gas masks, stacks of mutilated cadavers, and mountains of expended artillery shells. The names Ypres, Flanders, Somme and Verdun are synonymous with horrifying and senseless slaughter of attrition. However, the western front and its "marquee" battles are just part of the story of the Great War.

Norman Stone's "The Eastern Front, 1914-1917" shines the light of history on the "other front," a theater of battle that is still somewhat shrouded in mystery over 80 years after the last gun fell silent. What is perhaps most striking about the eastern front is how dissimilar it was from the engagements in the west. Although it consumed as many lives as the conflagration in the west, the primary military failure in the east wasn't the failure to recognize and leverage the strength of a defensive posture, but rather a failure to effectively exploit the offensive. Whilst the French, British and Germans settled into a defensive war of attrition, the Germans, Austrians and Russians continued in a war of maneuver. The eastern front was twice as long as that in the west with about half the artillery and poor railway networks to efficiently shift reserves to threatened areas. The great battles of the east (today familiar only to those with a keen interest in military history) such as Tannenberg, Lodz, Riga, Gorlice-Tarnow, and the Brusilov offensive, were largely offensive victories. The attrition in the east was caused by inadequate transportation and exhausted troops trying to fully exploit the offensive opportunities, not the attrition of withering firepower experienced in the west.

It should be noted that the title (and cover) of this book is a bit misleading. This is a history of Tsarist Russia at war; it is not a history of the entire eastern theater. Major operations such as the central powers drive to crush Serbia in 1915, the multiple battles around Isonzo on the Italian/Austrian front, and the Entente's beach head at Salonika (to name just a few) are touched upon only tangentially. The narrative is delivered almost entirely from the Russian perspective.

Stone's central argument is that Russia was much better equipped to fight the First World War than it is traditionally given credit for. Its decisive weaknesses were not an inability to produce artillery shells in large numbers, the ineffectiveness of its peasant soldiers, or the economic backwardness of the nation as a whole. Rather, these explanations are simply "hard luck" stories created by the Russian military officers themselves to hide the real source of failure: incompetence and poor organization. The Tsarist army, Stone says, was crippled by a political schism in its officer corps. There were two mutually exclusive camps in the Russian Army: those officers (mostly of middle class origin) who sided with the reform-minded War Minister Sukhomlinov, and all those who opposed him (mostly the old aristocracy and cavalry elites). Stone notes that many Sukhomlinovite commanding generals would have anti-Sukhomnilov chiefs of staff with whom they were not on speaking terms. Or, in the case of Tannenberg, one general would be a Sukhomlinovite (Samsonov) and the other a bitter Sukhomlinov opponent (Rennenkampf). Under such conditions, Stone concludes, it was easier to blame Russian failures on material shortages and poor frontline soldier morale than their own incompetence and the acute political and organizational crisis gripping the army.

In closing, Stone's work offers a unique and authoritative perspective on a largely forgotten aspect of what has been called the defining experience of the 20th century. No World War I library is complete without "The Eastern Front."

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still THE book on WWI's neglected Eastern Front, June 6, 2001

By 

James J. Bloom (Silver Spring, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eastern Front 1914-1917 (Mass Market Paperback)

It's hard to believe that after over a quarter of a century, Stone's book remains the sole "big picture" reference on the Russian end of WWI. Showalter's Tannenberg concentrates on that campaign and few, if any, authors have ventured to say much new about the mobile war far to the east of the Franco-Belgian trench lines. Stone did not take the opportunity to update his classic for this Penguin re-issue. The book's structure could be more rigorous, as it tends to be a bit fragmented. However, Stone's analysis is penetrating. He doesn't simply hop from battle to battle but provides good coverage of economic and industrial factors underlying the campaigns. Thus, this book is still well worth consulting. It looks as though Hew Strachan's new three-volume treatment of the War will pay more attention to the East, but the first volume only runs to the end of 1914 and it may be some time before we see the succeeding entries.

For the price, Stone provides plenty of data, backed by solid footnotes (though he didn't have access to ex-Soviet archives now available).

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Slow Read but Excellent, November 27, 2005

By 

J. E. Robinson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Eastern Front 1914-1917 (Mass Market Paperback)

The book is written by a Cambridge and Oxford history scholar and professor Norman Stone and is perhaps the best single book on the Eastern Front during WWI. From reading the book it is easy to understand the author's enthusiasm for the subject when we see his degree of knowledge on the subject and all the details. Clearly the book was a work of love by the author.

Although the book is just a 300 page paperback it is not a quick light read. There are 300 pages of main text and 20 pages of sources notes on four basic subjects, i.e.; introduction to the politics and war preparation, the military battles (which is the majority of the book), Russian economics, and finally a short section on the Russian revolution of 1917. As I said it is not a quick read; it took me over three weeks to read and some parts I had to read twice. Some parts were excellent for inducing sleep - especially all those Polish names and Russian Generals. Having said that some parts are slow, one can say that it is an excellent book.

The crux of the author's arguments is that fate of the war on the Eastern Front was decided by poor Russian management of its economic resources along with a highly fractured and disorganized armed forces, not by and fundamental negative Russian economic factors. This poor Russian effort was further complicated by a weak infrastructure - especially railroads - in an otherwise fast growing Russian economy. Also, the Russians failed to recruit in large numbers, failed to keep pace with modern military developments, lacked officers in numbers, had poor training, and failed to develop good leadership, wasted many available resources, suffered from poor moral especially among the lower ranks, and in general failed to coordinate and properly plan military actions as for example between ground troops and artillery.

During the years 1906 to 1914 the Russians spent enough money to cause worry in Germany outspending Germany in some years, but the money was not spent wisely (examples were too many fortress guns and too much cavalry) and there were still basis problems in the character and structure of Russian forces including the officers and both the tactical and strategic planning. The Russians did have a few successes as we read, but not enough.

The first 43 pages is what I call part one and it covers various introductions by the author - with an update in 1997 - and then the military build up to the war including an economic and military analysis of Russia and to a lesser extent Germany and Austria in the period 1900 to 1914. By 1914 the war was already brewing among the different European colonial powers and is triggered by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand visiting Sarajevo on Sunday June 28, 1914. Initially it is a war between Austria and Serbia but it quickly evolved to include the central powers of Germany, Austria, and Hungary against the so called "Entente" or other European powers including France, Russia, and Britain and its colonies. In August the German generals realizing that they are outnumbered strike deeply into France following the Schlieffen Plan, an attempt to land a quick knock out punch to France, with the intent of defeating France and then sending troops to Russia. But there the plan falters. Tthe German armies turned south before Paris in violation of the Schlieffen Plan exposing their western flank and they are stopped at the Marne. Then the First World War becomes trench warfare on the short Western Front in the fields of north eastern France. Far to the east we read of a series of battles on the Eastern Front over a longer and more complex geographic area of fields, forests, lakes, and mountains. The battles in the east are primarily in and around Warsaw, both to the north and to the south, but eventually cover the whole region to a line from Riga to the Carpathian mountains and Serbia, and eventually to Romania.

The second part about 150 plus pages is the hardest to read and the author attempts to guide us through each and every major Austrian and German battle with Russia, including the early battles in Poland, the winter actions, the retreat back towards Kiev, the Romanian invasion, etc. He goes into great detail and gives the names of all the Polish towns and rivers, and the many of the German and Russian generals. This was the slow read part of the book. He explains the actions with the help of a series of 10 maps (clear but small print) that show the detailed movement of armies, groups, divisions, etc. He explains who won what battle, why, and how, and how its impact on moral, future fights, politics, etc. He discusses artillery, forts, river crossings, supplies, shells, cavalry, movement by rail, food, prisoners, casualties, prisoners, moral, plans, tactics, etc. In all cases he gives lengthy detailed summaries of the various military leaders and their interactions and management.

We learn of the Russian General Brusilov and his many brilliant victories against German and Austrian troops, a sort of WWI Moshe Dyan but without tanks. In general both sides have mixed results, but the more powerful Russians are sent into a retreat by the better managed but smaller German army supported by their excellent rail system.

The next section covers the Russian economy, war production, economics, Russian finances, military recruiting, etc. This gives many insights into the state of the Russian fighting forces and economics up to 1916. By 1916 the economy is in trouble with high inflation, poor management, country to city migration, and the pressure of the war debt. This leads eventually to the broadly supported revolution of early 1917.

The final part is very brief but covers the lead up to the 1917 revolution mainly from an economics perspective, and then the author summarizes the take over of power by the Bolsheviks in late 1917 as the revolution of early 1917 leaves a power vacuum.

All in all an excellent read and impressive summary of this part of the war, especially on the economics, and he covers each and every battle.

Recommend highly 5 stars.