THE FAIL OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE

How military errors and a failure to modernise helped to bring down the tsars

Mark Galeotti

Did the catastrophe that was the First World War destroy the Tsarist Empire? One might think so, considering that it led to not one but two revolutions in 1917, toppling the three-centuries-old dynasty in February and bringing the Bolsheviks to power in October (March and November in our calendar). Yet once, while walking through Moscow and coming across one of the military re-enactment festivals that had become so popular in Russia, this author inadvertently started a heated debate when this was put to a quartet decked out in the brass-buttoned black splendour of the 1st Life Grenadier Yekaterinoslav Regiment. The eventual consensus was that despite – what else could they say? – the valour of the Russian army, the country was unprepared for and unequal to the challenges of the…

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All About History (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 150

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