Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich: Supreme Commander of the Russian Army

Abstract

Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich: Supreme Commander of the Russian Army, by Paul Robinson, DeKalb, Northern Illinois University Press, 2014, vii + 435 pp., US$44.95 (hbk), ISBN 978-0-875-80482-8Paul Robinson has written a very useful, informative, and readable book in his account of the life of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, uncle of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia. The strength of this book is the research, which uses the Grand Duke's personal correspondence and the memoirs of people close to him at court or in family matters to give the fullest depiction so far of the man. There are two weaknesses to this work. The first is that the author seems to have grown fond of his subject and consistently portrays him in a favourable light. To be fair, the author must be credited with defending the Grand Duke against unwarranted criticism that has thus far been based on suspect sources. In several instances he corrects longstanding misrepresentations that have taken root in the field, such as the notion that Nikolai Nikolaevich had a reactionary attitude toward change in the army and the claim that the Grand Duke conspired with the Army High Command in plotting a coup against Nicholas II in late 1916. The second weakness is that the author does not offer the insight or interpretive analysis of the life of Nikolai Nikolaevich that his material warrants. The author chose not to use the life of the Grand Duke to illustrate the major issues of the time, but places him and his experiences in a narrow context without analysis. Unfortunately, Robinson missed the opportunity to use the biography of such a prominent insider to add more to our understanding of how and why the tsarist regime collapsed.The Grand Duke's life was centred on his service in the military. That Nikolai Nikolaevich rose to become the Supreme Commander of Russia's field forces at the start of World War I based on birth rather than merit is obvious, but not acknowledged by the author. Those who study Imperial Russian military history will be disappointed that the author does not use the Grand Duke's career or this particularly significant appointment to address the issue of grand duke-ism and its effect on the professionalization of the Imperial Army.The main contribution of this book, besides being the sole work in English to comprehensively chronicle the life of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, is the treatment of his role as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Army during World War I from August 1914 through August 1915 and the inner workings of the Army High Command (Stavka) at the front. …