Russia in the First World War

Russian prisoners after Tannenberg,
August 1914
Public domain

On 1 August 1914 Germany declared war on Russia. Austria-Hungary declared war on the 6th. The immediate cause was Germany’s decision to support Austria-Hungary in her struggle with Russia in the Balkans. With the declarations of war, Russia experienced a wave of patriotic fervour. The Duma dissolved itself in a gesture of solidarity. St Petersburg lost its German name and was renamed Petrograd.

It is not true that Russia was unprepared for war. After the defeat by Japan, there had been considerable military expenditure, and by 1914 she was spending more than Germany on her armed forces. Her standing army of 1.4 million men was the largest in the world. Fully mobilised, she could field over 5 million soldiers. The trouble was that she was well prepared for a short war, but had no real contingency plans for a long war of attrition. Whereas the other European powers proved able to adapt, the tsarist system proved too unwieldy and inflexible. 

Russia fought a south-west war against the Austrians and a north-west war against the Germans. In mid-August the Russians broke through in Galicia, forcing the Austrians to retreat. This established the military reputation of General Alexei A. Brusilov, one of the most brilliant of the First World War commanders. 

General Alexei Brusilov
A brilliant commander with
an impossible task.
Public domain

On the north-western front, by contrast, the Russian advance ended in defeat at the hands of the Germans at Tannenberg in East Prussia on 31 August 1914. A second defeat at the Masurian Lakes in September compounded Russia's humiliation. A quarter of a million men were lost.

The army lacked a clear command structure. Military authority was divided between the War Ministry, Supreme Headquarters and the Front commands. Commanders were appointed for their loyalty to the court rather than their competence. The aristocratic generals wanted to fight a nineteenth-century cavalry war and scorned the art of building trenches. The trains were filled with horses and fodder.

The system of military communications was primitive. In 1914 the army had no more than 679 motor cars and two motorised ambulances. Military equipment was transported by peasant carts. Teleprinters broke down. Russian railways could not advance into German territory because they were built for a different gauge. 

This was clearly shown in the munitions crisis. A reserve of seven million shells was expected to last the whole war, enough for a thousand rounds per field or ten days of fighting. By the spring of 1915 the shortage was such that whole battalions had to be trained without rifles.

Soon the army was riddled by disease. The scale of deaths increased and morale and discipline fell apart. Nine million men had been called up in the first months of the war – most of them from a peasant background. With the high officer casualty rate, many of them quickly became NCOs and came to despise the aristocratic officers.  The war provided them with opportunities for advancement and was to provide many of the elite officers for the Red Army.

Nicholas takes command

In June 1915 the German army began to advance eastwards into Poland, where fortresses surrendered without a fight. By the end of September all of Poland and well as Lithuania and much of Latvia were in their possession. On 22 August the Tsar assumed supreme command of the army, whose headquarters were moved to Mogilev in eastern Belarus. This was a mistake, as from now on be associated personally with any military disaster; and he left the tsarina and Rasputin uncontrolled at St Petersburg.

Pavel Miliukov the Kadet leader

Liberal opposition

On 19 July, faced with growing pressure, Nicholas had been forced to recall the Duma . The liberal opposition now had a platform on which to renew its demands for a ministry of national confidence. Two thirds of the deputies from the moderate Right and moderate Left formed themselves into a Progressive Bloc. Its aim was to prevent the country from slipping into revolution by persuading the Tsar to appoint a government capable of winning the people’s support. Its most prominent spokesman was the Kadet leader, Pavel Miliukov.

The Bloc was opposed by the more radical elements – the left-wing Kadets and the socialists. In the Fourth Duma the most inflammatory speaker on the left was Alexander Kerensky. After the defeats in Poland, he worked for the overthrow of the tsarist regime.

The political crisis came to a head on 25 August when the Progressive Bloc, now numbering 300 out of the Duma’s 420 deputies, made public a nine-point programme demanding a ministry that would enjoy the confidence of the nation. In effect, they were demanding a parliamentary government. On 3 September the Tsar ordered the Duma to be adjourned. This highlighted the liberals’ impotence, caught between an intransigent Tsar and the fear of revolution. The Kadet politician, V. A. Malakov, compared Russia to an automobile driven by a mad chauffeur. With the Tsar at the front and the Duma prorogued, the Tsarina became the real autocrat. In her letters to Nicholas, she urged him to follow the policies laid down by Rasputin.

The Miliukov speech 

Petrograd was in a state of public hysteria, with much anti-German feeling focussed on the Tsarina and Rasputin. The Duma was split between moderates who wanted to save the system and radicals who wished to overthrow it. On 1 November 1916 Miliukov, decided to seize the initiative by condemning the government in his opening speech to the Duma. He listed the government’s abuses of power and ended each time with ‘is it folly or treason?’ But he was being outflanked on the left by the Duma radicals, led by Kerensky. 

The murder of Rasputin:  Among the many plots at this time (including one to assassinate the Tsarina) only one succeeded – the murder of Rasputin on 16 December.

Conclusion: would Russia stay in the war?

At the end of December, the British diplomat, Samuel Hoare, cabled to London:

The conditions of life have become so intolerable, the Russian casualties have been so heavy, the ages and classes subject to military service have been so widely extended, the disorganization and untrustworthiness of the Government have become so notorious that is is not a matter of surprise if the majority of ordinary people reach at any peace straw. Personally, I am convinced that Russia will never fight through another winter. (Quoted Catherine Merridale, Lenin on the Train (2016), p. 42.)