Why did Russia suffer many defeats during World War I
por Massimo Zampiga
1. No Military Experience
1.1. The main majority of the Russian army were peasants, and with little to no training (some not even knowing how to reload a gun) became an easy target, so the Russian army were losing thousands of men a day
2. Lack of Morale
2.1. Hundreds of thousands of Russian men deserted the Front due to: Terrible living conditions even for trenches in WWI, Overly stict and brutal commanders and generals who took advantage of their power and finally a lack of morale. Soldiers who were not given a weapon were told to wait for their comrade to die and then pick up their weapon.
3. Lack of weaponary
3.1. 1/3 of men didn't have weapons
3.2. At times in the war, Russian soldiers were told to ration to only 10 bullets a day each, making them a very vunrable target
4. Poor leadership of generals and officers
4.1. Lazy, incompetent, overconfident officerers
4.2. Generals didn't work as a team
4.3. Poor, outdated war tactics
4.3.1. Beleived that cavalry would be desicive. Rode with lances and rods which were no match and easily taken down by German Machine Gunners.
4.4. Russian generals beleived that Russia would prevail due to its huge population size, so they could just throw men into battle
4.4.1. The issue with this was that Russia would not be training these men, so they would be losing men faster than they were bringing men in at points in the war
5. Leadership from Tsar (from September 1915)
5.1. No Military Expirience
5.2. Not capable - made no difference to war effort
5.3. Blamed for military defeats
5.3.1. The peasants (80% of Russia's 125,000,000 person population), who had provided the most military recruits, had their image of a wise and caring Tsar further shattered by their experience of war.