Chapter-2.pmd The year is 1916. You are a general in the Tsarís army on the eastern front. You are writing a report for the government in...

First, generals were not invited to criticize the Imperial Russian government--in many cases, these positions were not granted based on merit but rather on who one knew inside the imperial court.  Also, the seat of the imperial Russian government was St. Petersburg--Moscow would not become popular with Russian leadership until after the Revolution.  

The Russian Army had a lot of problems on the Eastern Front, but the most glaring problem was that of logistics....

First, generals were not invited to criticize the Imperial Russian government--in many cases, these positions were not granted based on merit but rather on who one knew inside the imperial court.  Also, the seat of the imperial Russian government was St. Petersburg--Moscow would not become popular with Russian leadership until after the Revolution.  

The Russian Army had a lot of problems on the Eastern Front, but the most glaring problem was that of logistics.  The average Russian soldier went into battle poorly equipped and poorly trained.  While the Western Front was a war of attrition, the Eastern Front became a war of movement as Russia lost land to both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany.  If I was a general who had the capacity to criticize the government and cause change, I would ask for better rail lines--much of Russia's supply problems were caused by not using uniform rail gauges--this simple change would have given the troops more food and these better conditions would have improved non-combatant casualties and improved desertion rates.  I would also encourage better cooperation among generals, as key battles early in the war such as Tannenburg were lost due to generals working in competition instead of cooperation with each other.