Mismanaging Warfare? Russian War Planning and the Ambulance Train Crisis of Summer 1914

This chapter rethinks the prevailing dismissal of the Russian state's war planning and war management during 1905-17 as incompetent. It shows that the summer 1914 ambulance train crisis has a much more complex and nuanced explanation than incompetence. Contrary to the popular wisdom, the planners did not underestimate the likely scale of the next war (ie. WW1), but they did struggle with tackling the implications of their forecast, including the lack of money, and with the sudden imposition of the Franco-Russian offensive strategy in 1912. When the crisis arose, the state's responses were far more effective, and the role of private institutions far less important, than has been argued.