CONCLUSION
To the unthinking, Russia has proved somewhat disappointing. Such great
things were expected of her by those who knew nothing of the conditions
in the eastern theatre of war. At the end of over a month of fighting
she had not advanced a mile along the direct road to Berlin. Her army
in the north, after an advance which was acclaimed as of tremendous
importance, was defeated, driven back and practically forgotten. The
south-west of Poland was still overrun by the enemy, and the only real
advance that had been made was to penetrate about a hundred miles into
Galicia.
Certainly it does not appear at first glance to be a very considerable
achievement. It is only when matters are thoroughly investigated that
the truth is grasped. Russia has achieved more than any other Power
engaged in the war, and far more than could rightly have been expected
of her. In the west the Germans advanced to the very gates of Paris,
but they won no decisive victory; the allied armies remained intact and
unbroken. The Allies then assumed the offensive, and the Germans were
pushed back. But again no decisive battle has been fought, at least
during the period under review. The German armies are, at the moment
of writing, still intact and to all appearances capable of assuming a
renewed offensive with vigour. It is only in the eastern theatre of war
that victories have been won. Tarnopol, Tomasov, and Lemberg were not
merely favourable engagements which resulted in the enemy being forced
to retreat a few miles. They were victories which routed as well as
defeated the enemy.
It must be remembered, too, that these operations in Galicia and Poland
are being fought on the same vast scale as those in the west. They
extend along a front of no less than 200 miles. In point of numbers
engaged, the Galician and Polish operations are again very similar to
those in France. In fact, the conditions in the east and west are more
or less equal, and therefore Russia’s victories were the only really
decisive engagements won by any of the armies.
Official opinion in Russia would have been quite satisfied if, by the
beginning of September, the mobilisation was completed, and Warsaw,
Vilna and Kiev still in Russian hands. It was certainly expected that
at the end of a month’s warfare Russia would be engaged in fiercely
defending her own territories and in making desperate efforts to drive
the invaders back over the frontier. In short, she was fully expected
to be faced with a month or more of sheer defensive fighting before she
could hope to advance. The magnitude of her task in this direction
will be obvious when it is remembered that, in addition to the
inevitable slowness of mobilisation which renders her a comparatively
easy prey for invaders, she has a frontier of well over 1,000 miles to
defend against Germany and Austria.
Of course, much was made of the fact that Russia could mobilise no
less than eight million men. It was assumed that an immense army of at
least two million men would march on Berlin. By sheer force of numbers
Russia was going to bring both Austria and Germany to their knees. In
the first place there is a limit to human organising power, and it is
doubtful whether any general can successfully direct the operations
of such vast quantities of men. Napoleon himself never fought with a
million men, and no modern general has yet proved that he possesses
the military genius of the Corsican. Numbers are all very well up to
a certain point, but in excess they are only a hindrance and a menace.
The larger the army the slower it moves. It is the very unwieldiness of
the armies in the west that has caused their lack of success. They have
such enormous fighting power that there is no particular reason why
either should suffer defeat.
Superfluous men do not add to an army’s efficiency. They only
hamper its mobility and throw an extra strain on the commissariat
and transport. The ideal army is the one which is large enough to
accomplish its object thoroughly and no more. Employing two men to do
the work of one is merely a wasteful proceeding.
Russia has no intention of putting all her eight million men in the
firing line. Her object is to place adequate armies in the field and to
maintain those armies at their full strength of first-class fighting
men. She has no particular ambition to make herself bankrupt.
In view of the difficulties with which she had to contend and the
gigantic nature of her task, Russia may be said to have accomplished a
brilliant feat in rendering the ultimate defeat of Austria inevitable
and in opening up the most advantageous road to Berlin. The remarkable
success of her mobilisation has been followed by equally brilliant
achievements in the field. Soukhomlinov’s work has not been in vain.
Russia has indeed fulfilled her part and made the issue of the war as
sure as it is humanly possible to make it. Much remains to be done, but
the tasks of smashing Austria and reducing Germany to her knees will
now be taken up with every confidence.
The events in Russia have been as significant as those in the
battlefields. Not only has this war proved that Russia as a military
power has come into its own at last, but it marks the beginning of a
new era in Russian history. The world is witnessing the rebirth of
Russia. The nation is united as it has never previously been. The old
autocratic institutions are passing away, the Duma is gaining strength,
the coming rehabilitation of Poland is a master-stroke of liberalism. A
new Russia is emerging. Democracy is coming into its own at last in the
empire of the Tzar.
_Printed in Great Britain by Wyman & Sons Ltd., London and Reading_
Transcriber’s Notes
Text on cover added by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not
changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
The illustration following the Table of Contents is a detailed map of
Central Europe. If your book reader cannot display it, you can find it
among the book materials for "The Russian Advance" at www.gutenberg.org.
Page 17: “Moreover, sufficient of the earlier stages” was printed that
way.
Page 33: “remarkable effects of the war on the nation was” was printed
that way.
Page 50: “mobilisation bases were signalled out” was printed that way.