Tsarist Armies. . .
( Tsarist Armies. . .) The Russian Army was known as the Russian Steamroller. It could field some ten million men and it was believed that in any war with Germany, this host would rapidly sweep through East Prussia for a straight-line march towards Berlin. The reality of the Russian Army. especially when World War I hostilities erupted in 1914, was more nuanced. The Army, at its senor command echelons, did not function as a team. Fealty to His Majesty, Tsar Nicholas II. was the prime requirement for command and not any particular talent that could be displayed on a battlefield. In 1914, the Army was divided into camps and these cleavages centered around the Russian Minister of War. In a narrow sense. the Minister was a "reformer" but such reforms had the potential to limit the patronage of the Tsar. Baltic Germans had been made Generals because of their loyalty to St. Peterburg. What it amounted to was a group of Russian officers that were in support of the Minister and ...