Russia's First World War

A Social and Economic History

Peter Gatrell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317881384
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The story of Russia's First World War remains largely unknown, neglected by historians who have been more interested in the grand drama that unfolded in 1917. In Russia's First World War: A Social and Economic History Peter Gatrell shows that war is itself 'revolutionary' – rupturing established social and economic ties, but also creating new social and economic relationships, affiliations, practices and opportunities.

Russia's First World War brings together the findings of Russian and non-Russian historians, and draws upon fresh research. It turns the spotlight on what Churchill called the 'unknown war', providing an authoritative account that finally does justice to the impact of war on Russia's home front

CHAPTER 1

The front line, 1914–1916

From top to bottom, from the highest intellectual summits to the hardly civilised popular masses, the whole country is in a state of ferment. Everyone is anxiously waiting for some great cataclysm which shall bring in its train not only terrible destruction but also regeneration.

[M. Pospelov, August 1915, quoted in Odinetz and Novgorotsev, 1929, p. 163]

Most informed observers expected the war to last for weeks, rather than months. Mobilisation accordingly presented itself to all belligerents primarily as a technical matter of accessing preexisting stocks of weaponry and ammunition, and of delivering them to the front line along with troops, foodstuffs and equipment. These tasks involved a relatively small number of military planners. So far as production was concerned, government-owned arsenals would continue to deliver artillery, small arms and ammunition, with some supplementary supplies from the private sector. No adjustments were made to production schedules. No thought was given to the impact of conscription on industrial production. Nor did the location of industrial enterprises close to Russia’s external frontiers in the north-west give any cause for alarm.¹

Even within this narrowly circumscribed scenario, however, much more was at stake than technical issues of supply. A small handful of radical socialist parliamentarians proclaimed their opposition to war credits, but even they expressed the hope that ‘Russian culture could be defended against attacks from without and within’.² Leading Russian intellectuals and political leaders of virtually every hue proclaimed the legitimacy of war against the ‘Teutonic foe’. On the political left, the leading social democratic critic Petr Maslov argued that all classes of society had a vested interest in a Russian victory: ‘the murder of industry and agriculture in Ireland, inflicted by England, is a frightening foretaste of what would be in store’, should Germany win the war.³ In the provincial town of Iaroslavl’ workers, professional people, merchants, shopkeepers, women and children attended patriotic meetings. An editorial in the local newspaper captured the mood by claiming that ‘there are no longer political parties, disputes, no government, no opposition – there is just a united Russian people, reading to fight for months or years (sic) to the very last drop of blood. … Here begins the second great patriotic war’. The entry of the Ottoman empire into the war on the side of Germany in October 1914 guaranteed a fresh outpouring of emotion that lasted until the beginning of 1915.⁴

Unhappily for Russia, the military campaigns failed for the most part to live up to expectations. At the apex of military command the tensions between the War Ministry and the Supreme Command in the field were accentuated by a personality clash between Sukhomlinov and Grand Duke Nicholas, contributing to a lack of co-operation over planning. Shortcomings also manifested themselves in terms of the supply and transportation of munitions. The scale of the task confronting the Russian army proved overwhelming. On the field of battle there was insufficient co-ordination between the generals. Far from dealing a decisive blow to German and Austrian ambition, the Russian army experienced a series of defeats that demoralised front-line troops and civilians alike. No less troubling were the first signs of involuntary population displacement, as the retreating columns of soldiers and the bedraggled ranks of refugees brought the war directly into the towns and villages of European Russia.

1.1 Tsarist military campaigns

Military misfortune meant the loss of territory to the German army in 1914. The pattern of defeat was established early on. Between August and December 1914, the German army repelled the Russian onslaught in east Prussia, by means of a brilliant manoeuvre that first crushed Samsonov’s Second Army before turning its artillery on the First Army under the hesitant command of Rennenkampf (a Baltic German nobleman). German troops then advanced steadily along the Baltic coastal region and prepared to march on Warsaw. Following heavy losses at Tannenberg, Samsonov committed suicide, while Rennenkampf was accused of treason. A pattern quickly established itself comprising poor Russian generalship, weak military communications and intelligence and mutual recrimination. Supply difficulties and shortages of arms and equipment did not figure in the account at this stage.⁵ By the end of the year, the Russian army had lost control of the major industrial town of Lodz, leaving the German army a mere 50 miles from the Polish capital, which had now become home to 100,000 Jewish and Polish refugees. To the north, the enemy advanced deep into the region of Kaunas (Kovno), capturing the Latvian port city of Liepaja (in German, Libau) and threatening the Russian capital.⁶

These defeats were offset by early victories over the Habsburg army. Russian troops attacked at great speed through Galicia and Bukovina, capturing L’vov only a month after the outbreak of war. Here, at least, was a success that could be exploited in propaganda terms.⁷ Around 100,000 Austro-Hungarian troops were taken prisoner during this first offensive. A further 120,000 followed them into captivity when the Russians took the fortress of Przemysl’ in March 1915.⁸ Unfortunately, the Russian army proved unable to capitalise upon this victory. The new commander of Russian troops on the north-western front, Mikhail Alekseev, argued that he could only hold the line against the German army by reinforcing his own divisions; he was unwilling to see the front weakened in order to bolster Russian forces in the south-west. Disagreements and delays gave the Austrians time to regroup. Worse still, the Germans decided to deploy massive heavy artillery firepower in a narrow strip of land between Tarnow and Gorlice. The Russian army proved completely out-gunned, and its modest reserves of artillery ammunition evaporated. Some 240,000 Russian troops were taken prisoner. This was a moment of truth, exposing the lack of artillery and shell, as well as the modest quality of replacement troops and a shortage of rifles with which to send them into battle.⁹

Russian troops enjoyed greater success against the Ottoman empire, whose rulers had thrown in their lot with Germany. Turkish and German warships jointly bombarded Odessa and Sevastopol. This action led Russia to declare war on 18 October 1914, although the High Command hoped to commit the minimum number of troops and ships to the Caucasian front. However, the Russians were obliged to deal with a Turkish offensive in eastern Anatolia in November, which resulted in heavy casualties for the Ottoman army. After a protracted campaign, the Russian army entered Ottoman territory in the late summer of 1915.¹⁰

During 1915 the Russian army suffered a series of dreadful setbacks that put even the debacle of 1914 in the shade. After a series of carefully planned manoeuvres, the German army occupied all of Poland, Lithuania and large parts of Belorussia. In April, General Mackensen launched a fierce offensive against the Russian Third Army, stationed between Tarnow and Gorlice. During the next five months, the Russian army suffered losses of around one million war dead and wounded, while a further one million were taken prisoner.¹¹ Each month gave rise to fresh military catastrophes. Warsaw fell on 22 July. The fortresses of Ivangorod, Novo-Georgievsk and Brest-Litovsk succumbed as well. By mid-August no Russian troops remained on Polish territory. Further north, the German army consolidated the gains made during the previous year’s offensive. Riga itself – the fourth largest city of the Russian empire – was threatened by troops who dug in no more than 25 miles from the city’s outskirts. By the summer of 1915 the German army occupied Russian Poland, as well as the provinces of Grodno, Vilno, Kovno and Kurland. Substantial territory in Belorussia, including the provinces of Minsk and Volynia, also fell into enemy hands. Even Petrograd could not be regarded as immune from a German onslaught; plans were made in August for the evacuation of state archives, art treasures and gold reserves.¹²

Austrian troops re-conquered Galicia, capturing Przemysl’ on 20 May and L’vov on 9 June, thereby enabling them to join up with the Germans in Russia’s south-west. The enemy entered the province of Volynia on 13 August. General N.I. Ivanov, commander-in-chief of the south-western front, instructed his subordinates to prepare for the evacuation of Kiev, a proposal that sent government ministers into paroxysms of fury. Nor was Odessa immune from the panic induced by the succession of defeats suffered by the imperial army.¹³

Tens of thousands of tsarist soldiers were captured, some of them surrendering without a fight, in protest at what they saw as betrayal by their commanders. Certainly the enemy boasted superior forces and greater firepower. The Russian army was also let down by the failure to make adequate preparations for a phased withdrawal. Soldiers expressed outrage that famous fortresses such as at Brest-Litovsk could be abandoned without a fight.¹⁴

Russia’s relations with its Allies came under strain. There was a widespread view that the Tsar’s forces had tied up German troops during 1914 in sufficient numbers to give the French and British a significant advantage on the western front. The belief that the military burden fell disproportionately on Russia was further confirmed by events in 1915, when it was felt that the Allies were willing to contribute money but not men to relieve the pressure on Russia. A greater commitment of troops on the western front – so the argument went – might have enabled the Russians to launch a sustained offensive against Austrian forces following their withdrawal from Przemysl’.¹⁵

Russia’s armed forces claimed greater success during the summer of 1916. Foreign observers such as the British general Alfred Knox and the French military attaché Langlois testified that military supplies had begun to transform Russia’s fighting potential. Under the imaginative generalship of Aleksei Brusilov, commander of the Eighth Army, the Russian army began to prepare for a surprise offensive along the south-western front. Brusilov believed that improvements in the delivery of artillery ammunition and small arms had improved the morale of the men under his command. Nor, in his view, did the relative shortage of heavy artillery dent their spirits. The Brusilov offensive was a resounding success, leading to the capture or death of half of the Austrian army on the eastern front. The Foreign Minister, Sergei Sazonov, declared that ‘we have won the war, although the fighting will continue for several more years’.¹⁶

Sazonov was wrong on both counts. Other generals were unable or unwilling to match Brusilov’s audacity, and his relatively heavy expenditure of troops, horses and artillery ammunition deprived him of the opportunity to pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Publisher’s acknowledgements
• Maps
• Introduction
• 1 The front line, 1914–1916
• 2 ‘Educated society’ and the Russian elite
• 3 Narod: plebeian society during the war
• 4 Tsarist authority in question, 1915–1916
• 5 Mobilising industry: Russia’s war economy at full stretch
• 6 Paying for the war, Russian style
• 7 Feeding Russia: food supply as Achilles’ heel
• 8 Economic nationalism and the mobilisation of ethnicity in the ‘great patriotic war’
• 9 Hierarchy subverted: the February Revolution and the Provisional Government
• 10 Economic meltdown and revolutionary objectives: between European war and Civil War, 1917–1918
• 11 Russia’s First World War: an overview
• Conclusion: Russia’s First World War in comparative perspective
• Bibliography
• Index