Customer Reviews

The First World War: The Eastern Front 1914-1918 (Essential Histories)

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This Osprey Essential History volume, concerning the Eastern Front, has its good points and its bad points. On the plus side, the volume is well written and provides a thorough summary for the Russian Front in the First World War, given its size limitations. On the negative side, one need only look at the bibliography, which has only seven sources listed, none of which were written after 1971. In the past thirty years, a great deal of new information has been uncovered about Russia in the First World War - none of which seems to have been incorporated by the author. Readers will probably be unfamiliar with the name of Geoffrey Jukes - and they should be, since Jukes did most of his writing for the old Ballantine series back in 1968-1971 and has written nothing significant in nearly two decades. In fact, the best part of this volume concerns the 1916 Brusilov offensive, which Jukes wrote a book about in 1971. Jukes does have a great deal of insight into Russian history, insight which is interwoven throughout the pages of this summary, but the insight is from another era, from the 1950s and 1960s. Furthermore, not only is much of the information outdated, but the focus is overly Russo-centric, with little attention given to German or Austrian perspectives.

The First World War: The Eastern Front 1914-1918 consists of a brief introduction and seven chapters. The first chapter provides an 8-page summary of Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian capabilities. The war itself is covered in the second chapter, which covers the fighting in 50 pages. The next three chapters attempt to add depth to the narrative by providing case studies on typical Russian soldiers, civilian life (mostly in Russia) and the last days of the Romanov dynasty. The sixth chapter covers the Bolshevik seizure of power and the Russian withdrawal from the war, followed by a brief conclusion. There are 10 maps including: Russia in 1914, the Battle of Tannenberg, the Lodz-Warsaw campaign, Galicia 1915, the Battle of Gorlice-Tarnow, the fall of Trebizon, the Brusilov offensive, the invasion of Romania, Lenin's route into Russia and the front-line in 1918.

Concerning the campaign summaries themselves, readers will be disappointed by the flimsy coverage of the 1914 East Prussian and Galician campaigns in a couple of pages. Jukes repeats an oft-quoted legend as fact about the alleged feud between the two Russian army commanders (Samsonov and Rennenkanpf) that supposedly contributed to the Russian defeat in East Prussia; readers should consult Dennis E. Showalter's 1991 Tannenberg: Clash of Empires on page 134 to see the actual facts. While Jukes' campaign narrative does get better after this shaky start, it remains rather shallow until he approaches the 1916 Brusilov offensive, which he knows so well. Jukes makes the interesting point that Brusilov, "deliberately violated the principle of concentration of force to increase his chances of surprise." The Turkish front is covered in some detail in 1915-1916, particularly joint Russian army-navy operations along the Black Sea coast, but then drops from sight.

Jukes tends to harbor an antiquated view of the Russian army as poorly equipped, clumsy and incompetent. In the discussion of the relative armies, Jukes cites Russian weakness in key weapons, "Machineguns were in equally short supply. In 1914 Russia had just over 4,100 (less than one per infantry battalion)..." In fact, Russia had two machineguns authorized per infantry battalion like most other European armies of 1914 and in starting the war with about 950 infantry battalions, the amount of machine-guns needed to equip the front-line infantry and cavalry units would have been about 2,000 weapons. Jukes also mentions a "deficiency of 350,000 rifles at the outbreak of war.." which is a misstatement, since Russia started the war with adequate numbers of small arms but was unable to replace losses by early 1915. These perceptions of ill-equipped Russian masses were not appropriate for 1914; the Russian army that started the war was equipped with solid, reliable weapons like the Mosin-Nagant rifle, Maxim machine-gun and Putilov howitzer. Furthermore, many of the Russian officers and NCOs had recent combat experience, which the Germans lacked. It was not lack of weapons that hindered Russian operations in 1914, but poor logistics, inadequate command and control, and an inefficient reserve system. Jukes also misses the fact that Russian military modernization after the disastrous Russo-Japanese War was one of the cassus belli from the German point of view (see David G. Hermann's 1996 The Arming of Europe). Jukes' figures on pre-war defense spending are way off, "Parsimony was the rule in Austria-Hungary's defense spending. As late as 1911 it was less than a quarter of Germany's, and just over a quarter of Russia's." In fact, Austrian spending was 52% of Germany's and 37% of Russia's. Jukes fails to note that Russian defense spending was greater than Germany's every year during the period 1904-1912.

Jukes does make some interesting points about the disintegration of the Russian army in 1916-1917. He cites the burden created by the Romanian entry into the war in 1916, requiring 70 Russian divisions to cover a new front in Moldavia, as draining Russia's last combat reserves. Another key factor often overlooked is the decline of Russia's rail system - run-down by the war, bad weather and mismanagement - which led to the food shortages in the major cities that instigated the collapse of the Romanov monarchy. Jukes also makes the point that the Tsarist regime made no effort to dispel revolutionary propaganda and relied solely on blind obedience from below; "STAVKA never attempted persuasion, or even telling the troops why Russia was at war..." In sum, readers will find this volume a useful overview but they should be wary of the lack of recent research incorporated into its text and the dated views based upon out-worn assumptions.

The book is very well written and has some unusal photographs, but it should be titled "Russia Through the Great War and Into Revolution." If I had been looking for a book concentrating on Russia, I would have given it all 5 stars.
The author is clearly very knowledgeable on Russia: I have a Master's in Russian plus additional years of work, and I can tell he knows his stuff well enough to choose the right things to say and can get them across very well. But if you are interested in the Austro-Hungarian side of the war, as I was, there will be very little here for you. The text has about the same emphasis as the illustrations: of 42 pictures, 26 are of Russians (including the 8 large ones), 10 are of Germans, and 2 are of Austrians if you count the officer in the photo of the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty who appears to be in an Austrian uniform. Four pictures of Lenin, but not a single one showing Austrian-Hungarian soldiers, and but a few of Germans (though they are interesting ones to have chosen). Of the seven books recommended for further reading, four are on Russia, none on Austria-Hungary. I hope they do another one in the series with a different emphasis, then I would be happy to have the set.

This is part of the Essential History series published by Osprey in the late seventies and eighties. They make a very good summary of the events, like a more intelligent Cliff Notes, but are limited in their scope. The biggest problem with this piece is that Jukes didn't have enough to say about what went on and so there are thirty or so pages of fluff added to the end to get the book up to one hundred pages.

For some one who wants a very short, concise view of what happened on the eastern front, and we are talking about the major battles only, this should be a good start. You will need to read on in other books if you want to get a socio-economic cause for problems in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies. The coverage of the two revolutions of 1918 are almost laughable, but all the main characters are mentioned.

The other reviewers peg this book right. It is visually very attractive, has excellent maps, well-chosen artwork, vivid writing in the British popular scholarly style. Compact, but with lack of explanations--who are the Uniates? Specialists know, but the general reader may not. But the skimpy bibliography revels what the others point out--Nicholas and Alexandra was a fine best-seller in 1968, but it is hardly the best word on the Russian Revolution today. No foreign-langauge sources. Nothing of political role or organizational issues with the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and German multi-ethnic armies and their impact on the fighting and eventual collapse of the three empires. I hope his other works in the series are more balanced. Also, why do the Brits have a monopoly on this kind of historical series?