When looking for something else, I ran across Fige's statements about Russia and if it was prepared for WWI. He said on p. 253: "By 1914 Russia was spending more than Germany on her armed forces: over one-third of all government expenditures. It is not true, as historians later claimed, that the Russian army was unprepared for war. In manpower and material it was at least the equal of the German army, and, thanks to the recent improvements of Russia's western railways, took only three days more than its enemy to complete its mobilization."
...[in part]...
AGRBear
>>Decades under consideration have traditionally been treated by Soviet and Western historians as a prelude to the Soviet period. In the West, such treatment usually takes place in the context of the old but ever present controversy between the "optimists" on one hand the "pessimists" on the other. The optimists understandably emphasize the advances of Imperial russia in industry, agriculture, education, labor, and the creation of responsible, educated citizens who were gradually becoming constructive contributors to the government's political activitiy [stet]. All these elements were moving consciously or unconsciously toward full parliamentary government--all that was need was time. But alas, the war, with it's accompanying strains and tensions, frustrated these efforts and put an end to constitutional hopes. The pessimists, as could be expected, described all this activity as a "superficial glow," brought about partly by the government's half solutions but offering no justification for the outcome expected by the optimists.<< p. 4 RUSSIA UNER THE LAST TSAR edited by T.G. Stavrou.
Optimist:
Germany would not have defeated the Russians, by March of 1917 they were losing their edge because of they couldn't continue to contain two fronts for much longer. Germany was like a candle burning at both ends and so desperate that they sent Lenin back to Russia with a train load of gold to support the revolutionaries, who promised to end the war and give Germany just one front, the western one.
Had WWI ended with Nicholas II still at the helm, he would have stood bleeding and wounded. The exhausted and weary Emperor might well have signed his abdication if his generals had at that time demanded it. Nicholas II would and given his world over to his brother Michael, who would have set up a new Duma, with new rules and new blood, and they would have been on a very slow track to a parliamentary government. There, of course, would have been uprisings like there had been....
Pessimist:
This slow boat was NOT taken and it ended up wrecked in a river of blood....
AGRBear
