John W. Steinberg, All the Tsar’s Men: Russia’s General Staff and the Fate of the Empire, 1898-1914, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Baltimore, ISBN 978-0-8018-9545-6.
The new books are frequently advertised as “magisterial” or “definitive” studies but rarely appear as such after a few months in circulation. This fate, I am sure will not befell “All the Tsar’s Men.” Despite the shortcomings which I list below, the book is so thorough in its coverage and contains so much of the material, which is hardly available outside of the Russian archives that it constitutes an absolutely necessary resource for the scholar of the period.
In my view, these are the following weaknesses in J. W. Steinberg narration.
• Steinberg chastises the officers of the Russian General Staff for their “ineptitude”—so obvious in the course of the Russo-Japanese War—and even more costly in terms of lives and materiel in the course of the First World War. His low opinion of the Russian Command during the Russo-Japanese War is entirely justified. What he ignores is that even more glaring errors were committed by all sides in the First World War. Incessant frontal attacks over the top were practiced by all WWI commanders until the very end; shuffling of the top command by the French every day by the dozen and co-equal rigidity of the Germans in keeping all reins of power in the hands of Ludendorf and his small cadre of the Quartermeister Generals continued until the end of the war.
• By the newly opened sources, the Civil War in Russia was run, from the Bolshevik side, by the second team of the Russian Imperial General Staff—its officers, typically recruited within the rank from the Lieutenant Colonel to the Major General. They won handily over the first team of Imperial Generals (Denikin, Kolchak, Kutepov) who fought on the Whites’ side. Most, though by no means all, surviving members of this second team were executed during 1937-1938 purges.
• Because the author completely ignores Russian, or Mexican Civil War experience, he claims that the cavalry was obsolete by 1914. This was true only in the Western European trenches. In many other contexts, cavalry could be still a viable arm. Moreover, the contemporary and even WWII armies used more, not fewer horses and mules than their predecessors because the much increased logistical complexity of the modern armies in the conditions of mountains, poor roads and gasoline shortages still much relied on draught animals.
• The only real fault, which could be attributed to the “whiz kids” of the RGS was their inability to engage scientists and engineers in their education and planning. Moreover, Russian military caste practiced an open disdain to “Shpaks” (civilians, the “top hat wearers”) much like their Latin American, Austro-Hungarian or French, but much unlike their high-ranking German counterparts.
• The fractious, court and political intrigue-riddled system of the upper echelons of the Russian civilian power bears much larger guilt in the demise of the Russian Empire than any mistakes of the RGS or inflexibility of its culture. Furthermore, much more modern German Empire collapsed almost simultaneously with Russian, Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empire. Something was in the air.
• Finally, the author completely avoids the subject of the naval warfare. It has some justification in the fact that the RGS as most of the staffs of its day did not appreciate and could not achieve the integrated performance of the Army-Navy contingents. Yet, the misguided naval policy before and after Tsusima contributed as much if not more to the fall of the Russian Empire as the defeats of the ground forces.
