Imperial Russian Army - World War I and Revolution

World War I and Revolution

At the outbreak of the war, Tsar Nicholas II appointed his cousin, Grand Duke Nicholas as Commander-in-Chief. On mobilization, the Russian army totalled 115 infantry and 38 cavalry divisions with nearly 7,900 guns (7,100 field guns, 540 field howitzers and 257 heavy guns). There were only 2 army ambulances and 679 cars. Divisions were allocated as follows: 32 infantry and 10.5 cavalry divisions to operate against Germany, 46 infantry and 18.5 cavalry divisions to operate against Austria-Hungary, 19.5 infantry and 5.5 cavalry divisions for the defence of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea littorals, and 17 infantry and 3.5 cavalry divisions were to be transported in from Siberia and Turkestan.

Among the army's higher formations during the war were the Western Front, the Northwestern Front and the Romanian Front.

The war in the East began with the Russian invasion of East Prussia and the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. The first ended in a Russian defeat by the German Empire in the Battle of Tannenberg (1914). In the west, a Russian Expeditionary Force was dispatched to France in 1915.

The Imperial Russian Army dissolved amid the October Revolution of 1917; John Erickson's book The Soviet High Command 1918-1941 gives a good picture of how remnants of the Imperial army became part of the new Red Army.