Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Quite a Bit Better Than the Average in This Series, January 3, 2002
What a difference both a knowledgeable author and a talented illustrator make together! Though the sum total of efforts since about 1990 have been quite satisfactory, some of the earlier works, and unfortunately some more recent, have suffered from insufficient knowledge of the subject, even though the illustrations were well done, the items were misidentified in them.
All in all, starting from a base of personal ignorance of the Russian military system of about one and an awareness of the conduct of the war about five, I now have an overall seven which is passing but no honors! But in time, if I go on this book will have set me on the right path to knowledge. Now if I had only spent my career reading Russian instead of Spanish and French.:-)
Just some of the revelations in this work are the appalling lack of a modern tactical system even in the face of the slaughter in the Russo Japanese War, the huge lack of an industrial base and the consequent paucity of heavy artillery, and lack of modern mobile mechanized transports, necessitating the transfer of the Armored Car Squadrons of the British Royal Naval Air Service and those of the Belgians to the east after the Western Front became impassible for such units.
But the real drag on the Russian Army was the archaic social structure in which high rank was an entitlement of birth, rather than the result of merit, and the lack of opportunity for both peasants and workers to rise, or for the middle class to lead and serve usefully. None of this could be fixed by developing an arms industry nor by simply importing modern technology without a support base to maintain it. Even then they misused their field communications and sent all their orders in the clear so that the German SIGINT troops listened in and the outnumbered German Army was able to win the battle of Tannenberg.
The Russian government had been so paranoid, xenophobic, and fearful of their neighbors that they laid the national railway system in broad guage so that all freight trains had to be unloaded at the border with Germany and Finland and the goods and materials carried across and reloaded and all passenger cars had to be lifted by hydraulics or mechanicals and wider trucks and running gear put under them.
Even in the face of all this the Russian Army held on and even ran successful offensives in the south against Austria Hungary and Romania but the people were fed up, the Russian Navy mutinied and the Czarate fell to the Kerensky regime which in turn fell to the Bolsheviks. And we all know what happened then.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Quick Look at the Tsarist Army, February 16, 2002
This Osprey Men-at-Arms title makes an attempt to fill the long-neglected gap in First World War history covering the Tsarist Army. While many books evoke the image of a huge faceless Russian steamroller, few provide much details on exactly what this army looked like. This title makes modest progress in that regard and as such, deserves a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the First World War. The Russian Army begins with an introduction covering Russia's strategic position and a chronology of the major events on the Eastern Front in 1914-1918. A 4 ½ page section covers the organization of the army, particularly infantry, cavalry, Cossack and artillery units. An interesting 3-page section covers elite units such as the Guards Corps, the St. George's Battalions, the "Death" Battalions and the "Savage" Division. A brief section also discusses non-Russian units. A rather dull 7-page section then covers uniforms and personal equipment. Tactics and weapons are discussed in the last 7 pages. As usual, the eight pages of color plates in the center of this thin volume are excellent. The same cannot be said for the photographs, which are rather bland posed shots. Overall, this volume is decent but not great. There are nuggets of useful information, such as the belated Russian effort to form a heavy artillery corps - known by the Russian acronym TAON - in 1917. Since massed artillery was a Soviet specialty in the Second World War, it is interesting to see antecedents in the Tsarist army. The fact that the paucity of infantry training facilities caused the Tsarist army to station reserve battalions in the major urban areas like St Petersburg and that these under-utilized conscripts provided the fodder for Revolution in 1917 is also interesting. However, the sections on doctrine and tactics are far too short even for a volume this size (the chronology would have been a good place to make cuts). There is no real effort to address the pre-war doctrine and the author should have consulted Bruce W. Menning's excellent Bayonets before Bullets: the Imperial Russian Army, 1861-1914. The impact of the disastrous defeat in the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War and the impetus for post-war reform is almost totally ignored. Once the war began, the author ignores the enforced doctrinal shift from maneuver warfare to positional warfare; how did the Russian army adapt to trench warfare? Nor are the big campaigns discussed much, except for the successful Brusilov offensive. Instead, the reader is presented with a fairly vapid account of the Tsarist army that scarcely touches upon the impact of early disasters like Tannenberg or the gradual rot from revolutionary ideology. Nor is there even an order of battle provided for any phase of the war or mention of casualties. One might think that the fact that Tsarist Russia mobilized about 12 million men and that 1.7 million died in the war would be far more interesting to readers than giving virtually useless information on cavalry breeches stripes or tunic piping and lace. The author introduces interesting information on the organization of the Guards units for example, and then says very little else about them. Certainly the biggest sin of this volume is its failure to address the disintegration of the Tsarist army in 1917, except in passing. Since this volume is a stand-alone coverage of the subject, unlike others in the Men-at-Arms series, these omissions will not be rectified in other following volumes.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book On WWI Imperial Russian Forces., August 13, 2007
This text was extremely helpful to me on a subject that is little covered in English. Osprey is usually not that comprehensive but this book although condensed hit the salient points of the Russian army in the field in the First World War. I like the introduction and strategic overview, insightful and well written. The chronology of events with dates given to the major actions on the eastern front of the First World War was excellent, they also explored Russian military tactics and doctrines, easy to use research tool and quick reference. Although brief the author went into non-Russian units used at the front, vehicles and aircraft, even equipment and uniforms The photographs were excellent, I love the detailed color plates featuring many different uniforms, helmets and other varied headgear as well as the equipment used by the common soldier. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a student of military history and has an interest of the eastern front in the First World War.
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