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Odd to say that the Russians weren't any good, considering the devastating casualties they inflicted (mostly on the Hapsburg forces) and suffered during WW I, a

by cafard 2y ago

Odd to say that the Russians weren't any good, considering the devastating casualties they inflicted (mostly on the Hapsburg forces) and suffered during WW I, and the mass slaughter of WW II. How did the Marne stack up against Stalingrad? It is fair to say that the losses of WW I induced caution in the British, and left a huge demographic hole in France.

shadowtree 2y ago
"In November 1918, the University of Liverpool recorded 1,640 names on its Roll of Honour, including 176 fatalities and many others missing. Similar lists were maintained in every university. The exact number of casualties from UK universities is uncertain, but the numbers were awful. Estimates suggest that Oxford lost 19% of those who served, Cambridge 18%, and Manchester and Glasgow 17%." It wiped the best and the brightest, from a small population. Russia sent serfs into the grinder.
- cafard 2y ago
  That must have been a great comfort to the Russians, Tsar down to the peasantry. [Added, less flippant] An army requires officers, and it is fair to guess that the Russian army had a reasonable complement of intellectually capable officers. The standard of education may not have been up to that of the western Allies or the Central Powers, but I suspect that the Russians weren't that bad. One would not know how many of the 191x class of the Russian universities were killed off, for the revolution largely remade those universities, and presumably had no interest in publicizing the works of the men who served the old regime.
csb6 2y ago
I am not sure of the context of the passage, but I would guess that Fitzgerald was aware of the massive slaughter on the Eastern Front but felt that the cultural moment in Western Europe/America that lead up to the fighting on the Western Front meant that it was a different kind of folly than in the east. I don’t think he is commenting on which military was more effective.

by cafard 2y ago

shadowtree 2y ago

"In November 1918, the University of Liverpool recorded 1,640 names on its Roll of Honour, including 176 fatalities and many others missing. Similar lists were maintained in every university. The exact number of casualties from UK universities is uncertain, but the numbers were awful. Estimates suggest that Oxford lost 19% of those who served, Cambridge 18%, and Manchester and Glasgow 17%." It wiped the best and the brightest, from a small population. Russia sent serfs into the grinder.

cafard 2y ago
That must have been a great comfort to the Russians, Tsar down to the peasantry. [Added, less flippant] An army requires officers, and it is fair to guess that the Russian army had a reasonable complement of intellectually capable officers. The standard of education may not have been up to that of the western Allies or the Central Powers, but I suspect that the Russians weren't that bad. One would not know how many of the 191x class of the Russian universities were killed off, for the revolution largely remade those universities, and presumably had no interest in publicizing the works of the men who served the old regime.

csb6 2y ago

I am not sure of the context of the passage, but I would guess that Fitzgerald was aware of the massive slaughter on the Eastern Front but felt that the cultural moment in Western Europe/America that lead up to the fighting on the Western Front meant that it was a different kind of folly than in the east. I don’t think he is commenting on which military was more effective.