Russia in the First World War and the Collapse of Tsarism

Russia entered the First World War in August 1914 with considerable initial patriotic enthusiasm, temporarily unifying diverse social and political sectors. The early defeats at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes (1914) revealed significant deficiencies in the command, logistics, and equipment of the imperial army, and the "Great Retreat" of 1915 resulted in the loss of Poland, Lithuania, and much of Galicia, generating enormous casualties and a massive displacement of refugees. The military supply crisis, known as the "shell hunger," exposed the profound limitations of Russian industry in sustaining a modern, prolonged war against more industrially developed adversaries.