Military Review English Edition January-February 2017 | Page 139
BOOK REVIEWS
sacking of Louvain, is one of the great human tragedies
of the war, and it certainly contributed to Allied propaganda depicting the Germans as beasts and butchers.
This volume amply illustrates the pathos of the Louvain
and Dinant sacking. Anyone with any doubt as to the
atrocities committed by the Germans against the Belgians
should read this book for careful illustration, documentation, and increased understanding.
Col. Dean A. Nowowiejski, PhD, U.S. Army,
Retired, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
THE END OF TSARIST RUSSIA
The March to World War I and Revolution
Dominic Lieven, Viking, New York, 2015, 428 pages
R
are are the historical works that provide new perspectives on iconic events in world history. The
End of Tsarist Russia by Dominic Lieven is one
of those works. His book details the strategic imperatives,
decisions, and personalities that led tsarist Russia to war
and its ultimate demise. He does not settle for a dramatic
retelling of the heady days of Revolution in Petrograd,
or the final years of the First World War. In fact, those
events are covered in the shortest and last chapter of the
book. Instead, Lieven studies the geopolitical situation in
the years preceding the Armageddon that swept through
Europe and the world a little over a hundred years ago. In
so doing, he illuminates dangerous parallels with today.
The first myth that Lieven debunks is that of tsarist
Russia as an exceptional or irrational actor on the world
stage before World War I. On the contrary, Lieven
argues that the strategic calculus of Russia resembled
that of the other empires of the time. Russia’s desires to
control the straits of Dardanelle were similar to British
designs on the Suez Canal or U.S. control over the
Panama Canal. Furthermore, he underlines the imperial
dilemma faced by all great powers in the early twentieth
century: that a state’s greatness depended on its size.
However, the greater a state’s size, the more vulnerable
it was to political disunity. This threatened all empires
in an age of rising ethnic nationalism.
Lieven then explains the particular security dynamics
of tsarist Russia. These included its defeat by Japan in
Manchuria, Pan-Slavic aspirations, a rising Germany, and
growing Polish and Ukrainian nationalism. Interestingly,
MILITARY REVIEW January-February 2017
and probably as a result of his access to Russian archives,
he spends a large amount of the book describing the
various personalities of Russian leaders and bureaucrats
who shaped tsarist policy in the years before the war. As
a result, the reader is struck by the realization of how important individuals are
to the course of history.
One of the book’s
most ambitious claims
is that “as much as
anything, World War
I turned on the fate of
Ukraine.” While clearly
meant to galvanize the
reader and draw parallels
with the current security
situation in Europe, the
book does make a coherent argument on the
primacy of the East in World War I. This is an important
point for those knowledgeable about the bloody trench
warfare of the western front.
This is an authoritative work, with new perspectives,
on Russian government policy in the years before World
War I. It is well written and particularly relevant in the
increasingly fraught geopolitical situation we face today.
Those security specialists who seek a greater understanding of historical Russian geostrategic imperatives will benefit from reading this book. However, its in-depth analysis of individual personalities might overwhelm more
general readers. Military officers will not find any tactical
or operational insights but will benefit from understanding the political context from which war is made.
Maj. Roland Minez, U.S. Army Reserve,
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
GALLIPOLI
The Dardanelles Disaster in Soldiers’
Words and Photographs
Richard Van Emden and Stephen Chambers,
Bloomsbury USA, New York, 2015, 344 pages
T
his is a collaborative effort between Richard Van
Emden, a well-published British author, historian, and filmmaker whose focus has been the
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