The Death of the Russian Army 1917 (WW1 Documentary)

As 1917 began, the Russian army was larger and better-equipped than ever before. Within weeks, the Tsar and his dynasty were gone, and by the summer, the Russian army was disintegrating before the eyes of its generals – but how exactly did one of the most powerful armies in the world collapse?

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Konstantin Bredyuk, Lisa Anderson, Brad Durbin, Jeremy K Jones, Murray Godfrey, John Ozment, Stephen Parker, Mavrides, Kristina Colburn, Stefan Jackowski, Cardboard, William Kincade, William Wallace, Daniel L Garza, Chris Daley, Malcolm Swan, Christoph Wolf, Simen Røste, Jim F Barlow, Taylor Allen, Adam Smith, James Giliberto, Albert B. Knapp MD, Tobias Wildenblanck, Richard L Benkin, Marco Kuhnert, Matt Barnes, Ramon Rijkhoek, Jan, Scott Deederly, gsporie, Kekoa, Bruce G. Hearns, Hans Broberg, Fogeltje

» SOURCES
Engelstein Laura. Russia in Flames : War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914–1921 (NY.: OUP, 2018).

Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy.

Stone, David. The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914-1917 (Kansas UP, 2015).

Palmer, Svetlana and Sarah Wallis. A War in Words (London: Simon and Shuster, 2003).

Reese R. Roger. The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856–1917 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2019).

Smele, Jonathan. The ‘Russian’ Civil Wars 1916-1926 (London: Hurst, 2015).

Асташов А.Б. Русский фронт в 1914 ֊ начале 1917 года: военный опыт
и современность (Москва : Новый хронограф, 2014).

Базанов С.Н. Великая война: как погибала Русская армия (Москва: Вече, 2014).

Гребёнкин И. Н. Разложение российской армии в 1917 г.: факторы и акторы процесса // Новейшая история России. 2014. № 3. С. 145-161.

Доброволицы. Сборник воспоминаний (Москва: Русский путь, 2001)

Уайлдман А. Разложение императорской армии в 1917 г. // Критический словарь Русской революции. СПб.: Нестор-История, 2014. С. 78-87.


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»CREDITS
Presented by: Jesse Alexander
Written by: Jesse Alexander
Director: Toni Steller & Florian Wittig
Director of Photography: Toni Steller
Sound: Toni Steller
Editing: Philipp Appelt
Motion Design: Philipp Appelt
Research by: Jesse Alexander, Sofia Shirogorova
Fact checking: Florian Wittig

Channel Design: Yves Thimian

Contains licensed material by getty images and AP Archive
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All rights reserved - Real Time History GmbH 2023

[indianajones]

Here before Conrad Von Hötzendorf can be relieved of command

[jamesmaskell]

Five years AFTER the end of the main series and you're still making excellent content. I hope you all make enough money off of these to make a living

[Tommy-qcrj]

Thank you for continuing these documentaries, even after November of 1918. I don't know how much of your team has changed, but I love Jesse's (and crew) presentations as much as Indy's (and crew)

Thank you, for keeping the History flowing

[Charliecomet]

"Finally, when they could stand it no longer, they began doing what every army dreamed of doing-they began to go home."

[DrVictorVasconcelos]

It makes me sad that we rarely get a picture of the micropolitics going on. How many times have divisions collapsed because morale was lost specifically in response to the actions of one commander, and it goes down in history as just one army being better?

[janwacawik]

21:44 a noteworthy picture: the Russian soldiers are armed with Japanese Arisaka rifles. Due to a staggering deficit of small arms early in the war, Russia was forced to purchase all rifles they could get. From modern Japanese Type 30 and Type 38 Arisakas to old, black powder rifles like the Italian Vetterli-Vitalis and French Gras. The Japanese rifles were brought in in largest numbers, with the Arisakas becoming a second standard in the Russian army, and later the Red Army, along with the 6.5mm Japanese cartridge. They also ordered new rifles in the USA, with Remington manufacturing new Mosin-Nagants (most of which were never delivered due to issues with Russian quality control officers, and ended up in the American Expeditionary Corps to Russia) and Winchester redesigning their lever action M1895 into the M1915, made to Russian specs. What remains of those hectic purchases is a surprising variety on the Eastern European antique firearms collectors market.

[chrishanzek]

I would love to see a video that explains how Russian soldiers were tired of war, mutinied, escaped, etc in 1917 but in a very short time there were many soldiers fighting for the Red Army, White Army, Anarchists, etc. Were they the same soldiers?

[Sherman]

Huzzah!! Back to the Eastern Front of WW1. Gonna be honest, I was worried we wouldn't get more Great War vids but as always, Jesse and co never fail to drop more hits.

[seanwalker]

Also, the destruction of the Guard Corps in 1916 was the death knell of the Czars. The Corps itself symbolised Russia in the arrogance of the officer corp and the loyalty of the ordinary soldier. They died in senseless frontal attacks because 'the Guard does not go in the back door' i.e. manoeuvre to limit casualties. If Petrograd had these 60, 000 men the whole outcome might have been different in an alternative history type of way.

[Doggieman]

Glad to see Jesse is still doing this channel. Truly a gem and a treasure of the internet, I hope these episodes remain on the web forever.

[joelwhigham]

After Russo Japanese War, Nicolas should have avoided any war until military reforms had been successfully implemented.

[micahistory]

it really shows you how demoralised the army was that it collapsed so quickly

[HeisenbergFam]

Either im hallucinating or Great War remembered password after 4 months

[Masada]

Really nice to see you guys upload on this channel again :-)

[giga]

Love the in-depth WW1 content you guys produce

[LukeVilent]

My great-gramps fought in the Russian Army as a Cossack cadet in 1917 - he was about 18 years old then. Early in the year, he was accepted to Platov Cossack Military Academy in St. Petersburg - right after the February 1917 revolution. His admission paper read: "For your admission, please be so kind to pay -5- *50* roubles to the -treasury- *treasurer*", with words in bold being written with a pen over a printed text.

On the summer, the cadets were sent to the "practical exercises". He managed to see the Austrian trenches once, reporting on those being comfortable like apartments. Soon, though, he's got a concussion and was out of action. Eventually, in order to survive, he joined the red army as a cook. His characteristics read "no physical handicaps" - while in fact he almost loss his hearing and half of his buttocks due to the explosion that caused the concussion, "analphabet" - he actually spoke 5 languages.

[c.w.simpsonproductions]

Well, Germany certainly succeeded with their goal of having Lenin create chaos. A perfect example of short-term thinking with vast consequences.

[Brian-----]

I think what's lost in the impact of the Russian Revolution, is that the war was exceptionally stressful and multiple belligerents cracked up under the pressure, which isn't the same as a military defeat. For example, Belgium was decisively defeated in the field, until the end, but actually didn't crackup. The same was true of Serbia and Romania, which had to exit the war because Russia cracked up. A crackup is where the armies have not suffered decisive defeat, but the empire or nation bails on the war (and there is more than one way a crackup can happen).

Britain and Germany were relatively resilient, but the blockade drove all the Central Powers toward crackup. The United States effectively was immune to crackup under the circumstances, though there was some chance that domestic support for belligerency could end. Arguably, though Germany absolutely was defeated in the west in 1918, the defeat would not have been decisive if it plus the blockade didn't drive crackup. Daily food privation is stressful, at the front and at home.

Bulgarian crackup in September 1918 ended the war. The reason was that Bulgaria had achieved all of its war aims, but could not exit because this was not Balkan War 3, it was World War 1. Bulgaria had to continue to endure the stresses, privations, and casualties of war, on top of those of the two Balkan Wars because Bulgaria had leveraged outside allies to triumph in the Balkans but the Bulgarian army and people no longer were willing to go along with, and pay the open-ended price of, the terms of that deal.

The first belligerent to approach crackup was France, during the Nivelle Offensive, but France pulled back from the brink. Curiously, part of the reason was that the United States had entered, creating huge expectations which were dashed when France, which had suffered much, realized just how LONG it would take (about 4 to 6 calendar quarters) for the United States to bring meaningful force to bear in France.

Caporetto threatened Italian crackup but the geography and pace of advance didn't catalyze fast enough and Italy recovered, though it did shift to a passive strategy until near the end.

Austria-Hungary lived with the crackup threat for the whole war, but managed it partly out of habit. When crackup came in September and October 1918, the war already was lost.

Turkey suffered rebellion, but did not crack up. The Turkish core held, and held throughout defeat and through postwar war.

And Russia, a known fragile state before the war, and where war entry papered over that fragility in the 1914 patriotic wave, actually cracked up. Though it suffered military defeats, these defeats were not decisive against Russia's size and resources. Losing Poland and Lithuania itself did not send Russia over the edge. The Russian soldiers simply were not willing to continue the war, they were not motivated and they had an alternative means of organization with which they destroyed the authority binding them to the war. (They did not destroy authority or war, such as communist ideologues falsely preach is possible, but they did destroy the specific authority at the time binding them to the specific war at hand, and that always is possible).

[christopherwang]

What if the Provisional Government did not launch the disastrous Kerensky Offensive in July 1917? Did the Provisional Government have any alternatives to a summer offensive in 1917? What if they had simply stayed on the defensive?

[alessandrobenvenuti]

The provisional government made some of the worst decisions that could be made in such a frail situation. They refused to sign an armistice and give up imperial ambitions well after entire divisions deserted or went rogue. The men just wanted to go home and I don’t blame them, since they never asked to be thrown into the worst war a soldier could be thrown in, in the first place