Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928

by Stephen Kotkin

Between August and December 1914, Russian armies drove into Germany’s eastern flank and over time managed to crush Austria-Hungary. Against Ottoman armies, Russia did far better than the British, emerging victorious after the Ottomans had invaded Russia in winter 1914–15 expecting, erroneously, to ignite Russia’s Muslims. The problem, however, was that the Germans recovered to repel Russia’s early advances and encircle Russian troops at Tannenberg (southeast of Danzig), then forced a 300-mile Russian retreat.89 By late 1915, German-led forces had not only reversed the Russian conquests of the previous year in Habsburg Galicia, but had overrun Russian Poland, with its vital industry and coal mines; much of Belorussia; and Courland (on the Baltic), thereby threatening Petrograd. Nonetheless, from 1914 to 1916, the Russian army tied down more than 100 Central Powers’ divisions on the eastern front; until 1917, Russia captured more German prisoners than Britain and France combined.