Pershing Lecture Series: Knocking Russia Out of the War - Scott Stephenson

[@noobster4779]

To the treatmeant of russian prisoners in Germany during WW1 question: They were generally treated well by WW1 standarts. As mentioned, Germany and all the central powers were mass starving already and so POWs also had food rations cut short, but there was no deliberate policy of "let the POWs starve to death and give the food to germans instead". It was generally more a "everybody starves at the same time" situation. If im not mistaken a lot of russian POWs were also used as labour force in agriculture to free up germans for the frontline or factory this was in very stark contrast to WW2 were nazi germany and in particular the german army itself followed a policy of purposeful mass starvation of soviet POWs in the millions. And simply by the fact that during a nation wide food crisis in WW1 germany still managed to not starve the POWs to death while in 1941 there was no major food crisis (in germany and western europe, yet) but they still died in the millions we know it was a war crime on a giant scale (the nazis justified it by ideology and the fact that the soviets didnt sign the Hague convention on POW treatmeant....not that that would have mattered). The purposeful mass starvation of soviet POWs is the single most biggest war crime commited distinctively by the Wehrmacht (german army) during WW2 as POWs were mainly in their care and their responsibility. Its the easiest way to point out the "clean Wehrmacht myth" as absolute bullshit.

[@spacemanspud7073]

Insightful contrast! People tend to forget that the Russians(and it's satellites) suffered the most of Nazi aggression and atrocities, several times more victims than even the Jews! (Perhaps not in percentage of population, but the Nazi war crimes scale in the east was so massive I could believe that too)

[@rhysnichols8608]

The reasoning was the same in ww2. Germany was again under blockade, and Russia scorched earth policies in 1941 meant supplies were scarce. They didn’t have the resources to feed the hundred of thousands of prisoners they took in summer 1941. There was however less of an effort to get food to POWs at this time.

[@steventhompson399]

Awesome! I haven't heard much about WWI in the east before so I love when this channel does lectures on this area... Riga and operation Albion were pretty impressive victories compared to the mess on the western front, although the Russians weren't very formidable opposition by that time

[@JasperKlijndijk]

Check out the great war channel on youtube

[@asinner9096]

The Brusilovs army in the Kerensky offensive did also include national units. The Czechs legion, The Ukrainean Sich Rifles and the Polish Corps. And the Russian "Bataillons of death", the revolutionary guards who swore to fight to the death for the revolution. Whose with the Jolly Roger on the uniform arm sleeve. They fought like devils. But there was not too much of them and they suffered 30-40% casualties. And then the 8 German divisions arrived and that was it. By the way these were the very same divisions which after Riga wreked havoc on Italians in the battle of Caporetto and broke through the British lines in the kaiserschlacht smashing the Portuguese divisions. Such a little nice tour de l'europe: Galitsia, Latvia, Venetia, Flandria. All under 10 months.

[@cpawp]

Very interesting thx to Dr. Stevenson. I would love to see/ hear more differentiated information regarding how the Russians got 'knocked into the war', if possible....

[@Doodloper]

Okay, good to know you love to see/ hear more differentiated information regarding how the Russians got 'knocked into the war', if possible....

[@pgf289]

Very interesting lecture. Impressive advances, but yet again, where was the grand strategy from the Germans? If the Russians were so weak and incapable of launching offensives, then why not let them rot and focus forces in the West where they were facing 2 large and capable armies in the British and French, and a rapidly expanding American corps? There was no strategic advantage to capturing Riga and Reval, the more ground they captured, the more they stretched their logistics and tied up troops garrisoning towns.

[@rhysnichols8608]

Russia was not obsolete. It would still be very risky letting their guard down. No one knew how the revolution and military situation would play out. A repeat of the Brusilov offensive could’ve happened. It would be foolish to be so arrogant as to assume Russia was no longer a threat. We have hindsight, they did not.

[@laserprawn]

Knocking Russia out of the war and into the next war.

[@rhysnichols8608]

Good ww1 education to be found here, but the bias and inaccurate comments made about the current Ukrainian conflict are silly.

[@bobburges3654]

Could've done without the stupid modern Russia/Ukraine War bullshit. Stick to WW1.

[@daledykes9253]

HaHa knocking Russia out of the war. With what army ?

[@TaoQiBao]

The Imperial German army. You know this is about 1917/18, right?

[@steventhompson399]

Russia was actually knocked out of wwi by the germans, and the bolshevik revolutionaries and the popular dissatisfaction with things, which is one reason the nazis were confident when they launched barbarossa in 41

[@nelsonchereta816]

'We have but to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crumbling down.' Hitler on what he expected to happen with Barbarossa. It just turned out that the USSR in 1941 was a bit hardier than the Russian Empire in 1917.

[@mortenpoulsen1496]

​​@@steventhompson399 dont ruin a proper moan with actual facts and common sense😂