William C. FullerReseñas

Read pages 362-407 on the Russo-Japanese War as part of the S&W syllabus at CNCS in Sept 2023.

From the syllabus: Fuller, a Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College, describes the Russian diplomatic situation and state of the empire on the eve of the war, along with the evolution of Russian strategy during the hostilities.

This is essentially two books, the first dealing with the career of one Sergei Miasoedov, an officer of the Imperial Russian Gendarmes who ran afoul of the toxic organizational and social politics of his time (probably from simple envy and resentment) and who became a handy scapegoat for the Russian military high command in the wake of disaster in World War I.

While this story is fascinating in and of itself (Miasoedov was too colorful for his own good), the whole scandal had a broader impact, due to Miadoedov's one-time close friendship with Vladimir Sukhomlinov, the controversial Imperial Russian minister of war; a man who had no shortage of enemies of his own, and that were looking for weapons to use against him. Fuller then launches into a consideration of the sweeping political panics that contributed to the collapse of the Tsarist state, as the nationalistic politics of the time could no longer tolerate a patriotism based simply on loyalty to the royal house.

Brilliant.