TSAR NICHOLAS II
THE DANGERS OF COMMAND
Nicholas I was an unbending martinet, but he was at least a trained soldier; his namesake, who succeeded to the throne in 1894, demonstrated what could be considered the worst possible combination of being both incompetent and dutiful. Nicholas II had the misfortune to preside over a Russian Empire that was increasingly anachronistic, which was going through a belated and partial industrialisation that at once undermined the old order without having yet been able to bring forth something new. A disastrous war with Japan (1904-5), which Russia had expected to be an easy triumph, showed how even to the east Russia faced powers which were modernising more quickly.
When Russia became embroiled in World War I in 1914, again the technology gap would prove crucial, as German machine guns and rapid-fire cannon decimated Nicholas’ forces. In September 1915, he fatefully made himself commander-in-chief, both because he felt it his duty and also because he hoped that the glory of what he still believed would be a Russian victory could help salvage the legitimacy of his regime. Instead, he became associated with bloody defeat after bloody defeat, and appeared to have nothing to offer but the hope that some kind of victory was just over the horizon.
In March 1917 (February by the old calendar Russia still used at the time), while uprisings were ripping through the cities, the tsar’s train was stopped at Pskov and a delegation under army commander General Nikolai Ruzsky induced him to abdicate. (“If you do not sign, I will not be responsible for your life,” Ruzsky warned.) Tsarism collapsed, the Bolsheviks would subsequently seize power, and Nicholas and his family would be executed in July 1918.
The president of Russia is commander-in-chief, and Putin himself has very clearly made the Ukraine war his own. He even let a meeting of the Security Council, at which he browbeat his senior officials into supporting his line, be televised to underline his own centrality. The whole strategy of the invasion reflected his assumptions about Ukraine rather than the doctrine whereby the generals plan and fight their wars. He thought it would be a quick victory, won in a couple of weeks. Now Putin – like Nicholas II – is at once in command yet unable to develop any kind of strategy seemingly able to turn the war around. A new ‘February Revolution’ may well be a long way away, if it ever materialises, but nonetheless the fate of the last tsar may prove one last cautionary tale for today’s Russian autocrat.
Dr Mark Galeotti is an honorary professor at University College London’s School of Slavonic & East European Studies. His latest book, Putin’s Wars: from Chechnya to Ukraine, released by Bloomsbury, is out now in all good stores