Military Affairs in Russia’s Great War and Revolution, 1914–22. Book 5: The Wider War, Strategy, Planning and Leadership, 1914–22

Description

These two books (Volume 5, Books 4 and 5) address the operations of the Imperial Russian army in the First World War from the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 until the Bolsheviks’ Declaration of Peace shortly after their seizure of power in 1917. Based largely on archival research by 17 military historians from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Russia, Romania, Austria, and the Republic of Ireland, the chapters present a series of novel perceptions on Russia’s Great War. They encompass issues of command, logistics, military learning, and specific campaigns, while also presenting the war in its larger contexts, spread as it was across two fronts—on Russia’s western border against the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires and Bulgaria, and the often-neglected front in the Caucasus—as well as on the Black and Baltic Seas. In new approaches to the topic, the books include contributions on the war’s domestic military impacts, particularly with regard to significant revolts in Russia’s Central Asian possessions. They also address the roles of naval and aerial warfare, and offer detailed discussions of Russo-Romanian military cooperation and the Austro- Hungarian war effort in Ukraine, which lasted into the civil war that broke out in reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution. The books conclude with an extended reflection on the war’s intellectual and political legacies, and how they shaped the Soviet Red Army. Regardless of their interest in or prior knowledge of Russia’s Great War, readers will find important and interesting new insights into this epochal conflict whose impact still resonates in the present day.