Russia Falters in Ukraine: Parallels with WW1

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

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4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2022

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

Russia's current conflict in Ukraine was supposed to be a showcase of military prowess, a quick war that solidified her status as a great power. Instead, it has laid bare issues in leadership, training, supply and morale, all of which have crippled the military's operational capabilities. Although separated by a century, this conflict and Russia's handling of it bear a striking resemblance to Russia's involvement in the First World War. Dan speaks to Alexander Watson, acclaimed historian and author of the award-winning book The Fortress: The Great Siege of Przemysl, to find out exactly what comparisons we can draw between that conflict and the current war in Ukraine.

This episode was produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit.
0:04.2	It's the Eastern Front that we rarely hear about.
0:07.4	The invasion of Russia far less talked about and memorialized than the invasion of Russia
0:14.4	in 1812 by Napoleon or 1941 by Hitler.
0:19.6	It's the Eastern Front in the First World War when Russia allied with Britain and France
0:25.1	took on the central powers.
0:27.6	To be to the clichés about invading Russia and Russian winters, it was a catastrophic defeat
0:33.7	for Russia, the central powers won.
0:36.3	Germany carved out a brief but vast empire stretching across much of Ukraine, Belarus and
0:43.2	the Baltics today.
0:45.0	Russia fell into a revolution, civil war, genocide, one of the great catastrophes of modern history.
0:52.2	It was not meant to be like that.
0:54.0	It was never part of the plan.
0:56.0	Autocratic rulers, beware, it was meant to be a quick war.
1:00.0	It was meant to be a water bolster Russia to prove that she was indeed a great power,
1:05.0	to prove that her army could compete with the industrialized armies of central and western
1:10.6	Europe.
1:11.7	The Russian Empire in 1914 took the opportunity offered by Austria-Hungary's aggression
1:17.0	towards Serbia to put its foot down.
1:20.8	To fight a water strengthen its claim to be the dominant force of Eurasia, to bring its
1:25.3	satellite provinces and ethnicities like Ukraine and the Ukrainians further under its central
1:30.9	control and to push its frontier ever further into Europe.
	...

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