Why russia faced problems in world war 1
Answers
1. Remember it was still the Czar in World War I. Very feudal, especially for the twentieth century. Very few rich, lots of extremely poor. The Czar in particular was not interested in Russia being a military nation. Prior to the war, he provided very few resources for the army, preferring to concentrate his efforts on local security. He was not well liked, at all. No help for the peasants, lived in opulence. I'm not saying he was unusually heartless, just that he was an old fashioned feudal King (Czar).
2. Very badly trained army. Badly paid, badly fed, barely trained at all. Bad leadership, political instead of military. Bad equipment. Bad food.
3. When the war broke out in fall 1914, almost everyone around the world expected a four month war. As huge casualties on all sides mounted, there were gigantic drafts of men. In Russia, this was done quite forcefully and again, without any thought to choosing the best men, or provide training. Just round up thousands upon thousands of guys and ship them to the front.
4. They did very badly in battle from the beginning. There were on the allied side (British, French) against the Germans. The Germans were invading Belgium / France and had a lot of esprit de corp, at least in the beginning. Russia was supposed to attack Germany in the East to take the heat off the Western Front. Huge losses and no progress.
Continued pressure from the British and French to do more. Doing more did nothing but lose more Russian lives. Remember that those that attacked were massacred by those who defended (all sides), but here it was Russia doing the attacking.
5. The war on all fronts was going nowhere. Thousands of dead were lost to gain yards. Initial breakthroughs were reversed for no permanent gain (by all sides). The new trench warfare with machine guns slaughtered the old massed attack technique. There were draft riots in France. Huge protests in Britain. As causalities when from hundreds of thousands to Millions, on all sides, the regular people didn't want to continue to die for their country with no discernible gain.
It was particularly bad in Russia where the peasant army had even less reason to want to fight, and no support for the current government (Czar). When the Russians protested, revolted; they were met with extreme force. Lots of deaths putting down the army insurrection.
6. There is some truth to saying that the 1917 revolution (after three years of devastation) came about because of the enormous failures over the war in Germany.