The Woodrow Wilson Center Press
Reforming the Tsar's Army: Military Innovation in Imperial Russia from Peter the Great to the Revolution
David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye and Bruce W. Menning
From Peter the Great to Nicholas II, Russian rulers always understood the need to maintain an army and navy capable of preserving the empire's great power status. This volume examines how Imperial Russia's armed forces sought to adapt to the challenges of modern warfare. The tsars inevitably faced the dilemma of importing European military and technological innovations while censoring political beliefs that could challenge the autocracy's monopoly on power. Within the context of a constant race to avoid oblivion, the impulse for military renewal emerges from this volume as a fundamental and recurring theme in modern Russian history.
Contributors include Robert F. Baumann, Mark von Hagen, David R. Jones, Jacob W. Kipp, Willis Brooks, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Gudrun Persson, David Alan Rich, Frederick W. Kagan, Dmitrii I. Oleinikov, Bruce W. Menning, John W. Steinberg, Paul Bushkovitch, Bruce W. Menning, Oleg Airapetov, David M. McDonald, and William E. Odom.
What People are Saying
Chapter List
Part I. Population, Resources, and War:
1. Universal service reform: conception to implementation, 1873–83, Robert F. Baumann
2. The limits of reform: the multiethnic imperial army confronts Nationalism, 1874–1917, Mark von Hagen
3. Forerunners of the Komsomol: scouting in imperial Russia, David R. Jones
4. Strategic railroads and the dilemmas of modernization, Jacob W. Kipp
Part II. Intelligence and Knowledge: 5. The Russian military press in the reform era, Willis Brooks
6. Reforming military intelligence, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye
7. Russian military attachés and the wars of the 1860s, Gudrun Persson
8. Building foundations for effective intelligence: military geography and statistics in Russian perspective, 1845–1905, David Alan Rich
Part III. Responses to Specific Wars: 9. Russian military reform in the age of Napoleon, Frederick W. Kagan
10. The caucasus factor in Russian military reform, Dmitrii I. Oleinikov
11. The offensive revisited: Russian preparation for future war, 1906–14, Bruce W. Menning
12. The challenge of reforming imperial Russian general staff education, 1905–9, John W. Steinberg
Part IV. Personalities: 13. The politics of command in the army of Peter the Great, Paul Bushkovitch
14. G. A. Potemkin and A. I. Chernyshev: two dimensions of reform and Russia's military frontier, Bruce W. Menning
15. Miliutin contra Moltke: Russia's refusal to accept a Prussian-style general staff, Oleg Airapetov
Part V. Conclusions: 16. The military and imperial Russian history, David M. McDonald
17. Imperial Russia and military history, Dennis Showalter
18. Russian military history and the present, William E. Odom.