Soldier as Teacher

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-45
Author(s):  
Michael E. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Teaching Skills ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Fort Benning

The years following World War I had proven fruitful for Almond. After another teaching stint, Almond completed the Advanced Course at the Infantry School at Fort Benning and remained as an instructor. He taught in the tactics department, using his experience as Machine gun battalion commander during World War I and caught the eye of the Assistant Commandant, Lt. Col. George C. Marshall, a connection that would benefit him later. After earning praise for his teaching skills, Almond then moved to Fort Leavenworth for the two-year Command and General Staff School. He then Manila to command a battalion of Philippine Scouts, where he pioneered a method of crossing a river using only the unit’s organic equipment. Almond was a canny promoter, and his successful exercise gained him a lot of renown n the Army. He performed well in a variety of assignments and his career mirrored that of his contemporaries.

The former chief of P. N. Wrangel’ staff P. S. Makhrov on the Red Army campaign to Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in 1939

2020 ◽  
pp. 461-471
Author(s):  
Andrey V. Ganin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
Southern Russia

The memoirs of general P. S. Makhrov are devoted to the events of 1939 and the campaign of the Red army in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Pyotr Semyonovich Makhrov was a General staff officer, participant of the Russian-Japanese war, World War I, and the Russian Civil war. In 1918, Makhrov lived in Ukraine, and in 1919-1920 he took part in the White movement in Southern Russia, after which he emigrated. In exile he lived in France, where he wrote his extensive memoirs. The events of September 1939 could not pass past his attention. At that time, the Red army committed approach in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus. Contrary to the widespread Anti-Sovietism among the white emigrants, Makhrov perceived the incident with enthusiasm as a return of Russia to its ancestral lands occupied by the Poles.

The Habsburg Command Conspiracy: The Austrian Falsification of Historiography on the Outbreak of World War I

1996 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 181-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graydon A. Tunstall
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
The Military

Before a single Austro-Hungarian soldier boarded the train for transport to his deployment area at the outbreak of World War I, the military plans put into motion, or rather not put into motion, by Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, the chief of the Habsburg General Staff (1906–11 and 1912–17), had sealed the fate of the initial campaigns on the Russian and Balkan fronts.

German-Italian Military Relations on the Eve of World War I

1979 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-371
Author(s):  
Michael Palumbo
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Large Mass ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Significant Research ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
European Situation ◽  
The Relationship

There can be little doubt that the German military leadership played an important role in the events leading up to the outbreak of World War I. Although there may be some disagreement as to the extent of the general staff's influence, its assessment of the European situation is known to have carried great weight in the decision-making councils in Berlin. Much significant research has been done on the activities of the German military hierarchy in the prewar period, but certain subjects remain to be explored. One of these is the relationship of the Berlin general staff with its counterpart in Rome. A great deal of evidence exists which indicates that in the period from December 1912 until August 1914 the chief of the general staff, Helmuth Graf von Moltke, and other military leaders in Berlin were greatly concerned about their southern ally. The German generals, probably influenced by the theories of Clausewitz with his great emphasis on the value of numerical superiority, saw Italy, with her large mass-conscripted army of over thirty divisions, as the balance of power in any conflict between the Central Powers and the Franco-Russian Alliance.

The Direction of Supply Activities in the War Department; An Administrative Survey, II

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-498
Author(s):  
John D. Millett
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
General Staff ◽  
War Department ◽  
Chief Of Staff ◽  
General Officers ◽  
Planning Development ◽  
The Military ◽  
Secretary Of War

Interestingly enough, in the extensive consideration given to War Department reorganization immediately after World War I, almost no attention was paid to the possible value of the S.O.S., A.E.F., experience. Three thousand miles behind the A.E.F., in Washington, it may have seemed that there was little to distinguish between the Services of Supply and the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division of the General Staff with its accumulation of hostile reaction.In August, 1919, the General Staff of the War Department presented its version of desirable legislation for the reconstitution of a peace-time Army. The measure provided for a General Staff Corps to consist of a Chief of Staff with the rank of General, five assistants to be detailed from the general officers of the line, five Brigadier Generals, and 220 other officers. The bill provided that the Chief of Staff should have “supervision of all agencies and functions of the military establishment” under the direction of the President or the Secretary of War; and it went on to provide that “the Chief of Staff shall be the immediate adviser of the Secretary of War on all matters relating to the Military Establishment, and shall be charged by the Secretary of War with the planning, development, and execution of the war program.

Autocracy Defeats Military Reform on Eve of First World War

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 152-157
Author(s):  
Mark von Hagen
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Military Reform ◽  
German Model ◽  
History Of ◽  
Family Connections ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
First World ◽  
Industrial Revolutions

AbstractSteinberg reconstructs the history of the Russian Imperial General Staff during the final decades of the autocracy and highlights the reformist vision of War Minister Alexei Kuropatkin. The aim of the reformers was to create a general staff on the Prussian/German model that would allow Russia to fight the new wars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, wars marked by increasingly large conscript armies and the application of ever more lethal weaponry made possible by Europe's industrial revolutions. The reforms also focused on officer education and aimed at creating leadership for the management and coordination of the troops in wartime. Unfortunately for Russia, these reforms foundered on the resistance of the autocrat himself and the structure of privilege that gave family connections and noble privilege power over merit and competence. They also met resistance from an older tradition of military leadership and education that favored elan over technical expertise with modern weaponry. The first test against a modern enemy during the Russo-Japanese War ended in humiliating defeat and the marginalization of the General Staff Academy by Nicholas II and his entourage, save for his uncle, the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. Even with the Grand Duke's encouragement of the reformers, what they could accomplish was too little and too late for the next large confrontation that sealed the fate of the Russian Empire, World War I.

scholarly journals The Testimony of the Russian Consul in Koenigsberg Zinovii M. Polyanovsky about His Stay in German Captivity (1914-15)

2020 ◽  
pp. 1131-1142
Author(s):  
Igor K. Bogomolov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Internal State ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
World War ◽  
General Staff ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Documentary Sources ◽  
The Press ◽  
Letting Go

The article brings into circulation the investigatory records of the “Extraordinary Commission for Inquiry into Violations of Laws and Customs of War by the Austro-Hungarian and German Forces” concerning German captivity of the former Russian consul in Koenigsberg Zinovii Mikhailovich Polyanovsky. With the outbreak of World War I, many Russian citizens who did not have time to leave Germany and Austria-Hungary were detained by local authorities on suspicion of espionage. Z. M. Polyanovsky, as a Russian diplomat, was their primary goal: he was detained on the very first day of the war. German authorities agreed to release Z. M. Polyanovsky only in exchange for their consul in Kovno, Baron G. M. von Lerchenfeld. Initially, the Russian General Staff strongly opposed letting go of a man who knew about the internal state of the Kovno fortress, but after losing Kovno agreed to do the exchange. Z. M. Polyanovsky returned to Petrograd in early October 1915, his arrival attracted the attention of the Petrograd press, and in December 1915 he was invited to the Extraordinary Investigation Commission to testify. The case of Z. M. Polyanovsky is noteworthy for several reasons. Firstly, it was quite rare for its time: most of the interned Russian tourists and diplomats were released by the end of 1914. The remaining ones were especially valuable prisoners, whom the Germans and Austrians agreed to release only with an equivalent exchange. Secondly, a rare example of documented evidence on the life of Russian subjects in Germany at the beginning of the war has been found: the bulk of such evidence was published in the press and in various propaganda brochures. Thirdly, bringing in and interrogation of Z. M. Polyanovsky demonstrates the mechanism of work of the Extraordinary Investigation Commission: obtaining information on the witness of war crimes from the press, searching for him with the help of the police, and inviting to interrogation. Finally, the investigatory records are one of the few documentary sources on the life of the diplomat Z. M. Polyanovsky after his return from the German captivity.

Through the prism of Spain. Socio-economic causes of different outcomes of Russian and Spanish civil wars

2017 ◽  
pp. 142-155
Author(s):  
I. Rozinskiy ◽  
N. Rozinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Economic Well Being

The article examines the socio-economic causes of the outcome of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1936), which, as opposed to the Russian Civil War, resulted in the victory of the “Whites”. Choice of Spain as the object of comparison with Russia is justified not only by similarity of civil wars occurred in the two countries in the XX century, but also by a large number of common features in their history. Based on statistical data on the changes in economic well-being of different strata of Spanish population during several decades before the civil war, the authors formulate the hypothesis according to which the increase of real incomes of Spaniards engaged in agriculture is “responsible” for their conservative political sympathies. As a result, contrary to the situation in Russia, where the peasantry did not support the Whites, in Spain the peasants’ position predetermined the outcome of the confrontation resulting in the victory of the Spanish analogue of the Whites. According to the authors, the possibility of stable increase of Spanish peasants’ incomes was caused by the nation’s non-involvement in World War I and also by more limited, compared to Russia and some other countries, spending on creation of heavy (primarily military-related) industry in Spain.

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