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Passage Through Armageddon: The Russians in War and Revolution 1914-1918
In Passage to Armageddon, W. Bruce Lincoln━━a leading historian of Russia━━captures the tempestuous passge of the Russian people through war, tragedy, and revolution from 1914 to 1918.
A masterly rendering of a people in the throes of a national emergence, Passage to Armageddon makes each reader a witness to the hsattering events of thise years. Usign firsthand accounts and primary materials, Lincoln draws us to step directly into army headquarters, state council chambers, boudoirs, trenches, and underground revolutionary hideaways.
As World War I begins, Russia is invaded by foreign armies and threatened by the terror of civil strife. The tsar and his military leadership conscript fiteen million fighting men byt supply many with neither boot, rifles, ammunition, nor food. In March of 1917, the Russian people, bled white by thrity months of armed struggle, drive the Romanovs off the throne and then embark on what is to become the great revolution of the 20th century. Lincoln renders these critical events of our time vividly and dramatically, bringing alive the personalities and the politics that formed modern Russia.
Delving into richly varied sources, the author of The Romanovs and War's Dark Shadow takes us on a turbulent, fascinating journey. Lincoln writes in the grand historical tradition of David McCullough and Barbara Tuchman, powerfully relating the history of modern Russia━━a story steeped in the human dimension, focused on the human factor.Passage to Armageddon is history at its best.
A masterly rendering of a people in the throes of a national emergence, Passage to Armageddon makes each reader a witness to the hsattering events of thise years. Usign firsthand accounts and primary materials, Lincoln draws us to step directly into army headquarters, state council chambers, boudoirs, trenches, and underground revolutionary hideaways.
As World War I begins, Russia is invaded by foreign armies and threatened by the terror of civil strife. The tsar and his military leadership conscript fiteen million fighting men byt supply many with neither boot, rifles, ammunition, nor food. In March of 1917, the Russian people, bled white by thrity months of armed struggle, drive the Romanovs off the throne and then embark on what is to become the great revolution of the 20th century. Lincoln renders these critical events of our time vividly and dramatically, bringing alive the personalities and the politics that formed modern Russia.
Delving into richly varied sources, the author of The Romanovs and War's Dark Shadow takes us on a turbulent, fascinating journey. Lincoln writes in the grand historical tradition of David McCullough and Barbara Tuchman, powerfully relating the history of modern Russia━━a story steeped in the human dimension, focused on the human factor.Passage to Armageddon is history at its best.
637 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 5, 2017
A very rich and satisfying narrative account of Russia and the Russian empire as it went through the spectacular disaster of WWI and the chaos of revolution.
Lincoln has a deep command of primary sources, which leads to myriad anecdotes and observations from contemporaries. These humanize vast historical movements and complication political developments.
As someone who's been making an amateur study of WWI for several years, I was familiar with the overall story and knew some of the details. I did enjoy Lincoln's perspective on certain actors, like the oddly successful Russian general Plehve, the Nobel-prize-winning writer Paustovskii,. His consistent disdain for the gaspingly incompetent Nicholas II helps keep Romanov nostalgia at bay. And he has an eye for the absurd, such as Bolshevik leaders unable to get into their own meetings because of too-punctilious guards, Red Guards threatening to spank legislators, and this:
I admire Lincoln's ability to zoom up from many tiny details to sum up the big picture, with more than a little dose of Russian cynicism. For example, Vladimir
So what's not to like?
First, as a WWI fiend I'm delighted to see *anyone* talking about the eastern front. But I'm disappointed that the epic Caucuses battles and the failed Romanian campaign are left out (explicitly, 12). The Ottoman empire doesn't even appear until page 167.
Second, for a book nearly 700 pages long, there aren't enough maps (a perennial complaint from me) and the images (photos) are too few.
Third, the book risks teleology. The Bolsheviks appear inevitable, while alternative regimes and parties aren't really taken seriously. Russian plans to advance beyond the empire aren't really allowed into the text.
That said, this is a rich, enlightening book, well worth the read for WWI and Russian students.
Lincoln has a deep command of primary sources, which leads to myriad anecdotes and observations from contemporaries. These humanize vast historical movements and complication political developments.
As someone who's been making an amateur study of WWI for several years, I was familiar with the overall story and knew some of the details. I did enjoy Lincoln's perspective on certain actors, like the oddly successful Russian general Plehve, the Nobel-prize-winning writer Paustovskii,. His consistent disdain for the gaspingly incompetent Nicholas II helps keep Romanov nostalgia at bay. And he has an eye for the absurd, such as Bolshevik leaders unable to get into their own meetings because of too-punctilious guards, Red Guards threatening to spank legislators, and this:
Unable to adjust to the new patterns of relations between officers and men that the revolution seemed to dictate, one colonel in the elite Izmailovskii Guards organized a "Regimental University" at which he delivered enthusiastic lectures to uncomprehending soldiers about such topics as the "Psychology of the Masses" until he began to write his orders in verse and had to be relieved. (399)
I admire Lincoln's ability to zoom up from many tiny details to sum up the big picture, with more than a little dose of Russian cynicism. For example, Vladimir
Lvov had become known as a blunderer whose inflated aspirations to influence events contrasted as sharply with his ineptitude as did his heavy beard with his hairless head. (420)John Reed is "a Harvard man who never ceased being impressed with that fact" (434). Or this sketch of 1916
For no good reason, able statesmen fell quickly from office, while sycophants of no talent rose to high positions. At the front,
men with weapons had no officers to lead them into battle. Artillery had shells but no way to chart the impact of its fire on enemy positions because the Russian army had almost no airplanes or barrage balloons. Generals feared to attack when they outnumbered the enemy by more than two two one, but were willing to launch assaults against his strongest defenses. War contracts promised profits beyond industrialists' wildest dreams but brought declining real wages and worsening working conditions for factory workers. Bountiful harvests produced shortages of food in towns and cities.(261)
So what's not to like?
First, as a WWI fiend I'm delighted to see *anyone* talking about the eastern front. But I'm disappointed that the epic Caucuses battles and the failed Romanian campaign are left out (explicitly, 12). The Ottoman empire doesn't even appear until page 167.
Second, for a book nearly 700 pages long, there aren't enough maps (a perennial complaint from me) and the images (photos) are too few.
Third, the book risks teleology. The Bolsheviks appear inevitable, while alternative regimes and parties aren't really taken seriously. Russian plans to advance beyond the empire aren't really allowed into the text.
That said, this is a rich, enlightening book, well worth the read for WWI and Russian students.
August 19, 2023
A rich and well-written work.
As the title suggests, this book is more about the Russian people and Russian politics during the war years; it is not a conventional history of the war itself or the 1917 revolution, although his treatment of these still satisfies, and his style has a wry humor to it.
Lincoln concentrates on the major players and their interaction with Nicholas I, Alexandra, and Rasputin. Through it all, Lincoln’s perspective is rather immediate, and he does not portray any of the revolution’s events as inevitable in any way. He does a fine job portraying the tragedies on the eastern front and the memorable negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. There are some topics that Lincoln omitted on purpose for the sake of brevity, though, such as the Romanian and Caucasian fronts, the wartime experience of Russian Jews, or the experiences of different nationalities.
The epilogue seems inadequate, though, and he sometimes quotes people out of context (Bryusov’s criticism of Lenin, for example). There’s a few errors as well. He writes that the telegraph was widely used for the first time during Russia’s war with Japan (not the American Civil War?) Lincoln writes that Ludendorff’s “peacetime career bore not a single mark of distinction before 1914,” even though he was selected for the War Academy (reserved for promising young officers) and assignment to general staff headquarters. He also writes that Stolypin’s assassin Dmitry Bogrov “died mysteriously in his jail cell” before a full investigation could be carried out, even though Bogrov was executed after his trial.
Dense, not always vivid, but colorful enough and always interesting.
As the title suggests, this book is more about the Russian people and Russian politics during the war years; it is not a conventional history of the war itself or the 1917 revolution, although his treatment of these still satisfies, and his style has a wry humor to it.
Lincoln concentrates on the major players and their interaction with Nicholas I, Alexandra, and Rasputin. Through it all, Lincoln’s perspective is rather immediate, and he does not portray any of the revolution’s events as inevitable in any way. He does a fine job portraying the tragedies on the eastern front and the memorable negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. There are some topics that Lincoln omitted on purpose for the sake of brevity, though, such as the Romanian and Caucasian fronts, the wartime experience of Russian Jews, or the experiences of different nationalities.
The epilogue seems inadequate, though, and he sometimes quotes people out of context (Bryusov’s criticism of Lenin, for example). There’s a few errors as well. He writes that the telegraph was widely used for the first time during Russia’s war with Japan (not the American Civil War?) Lincoln writes that Ludendorff’s “peacetime career bore not a single mark of distinction before 1914,” even though he was selected for the War Academy (reserved for promising young officers) and assignment to general staff headquarters. He also writes that Stolypin’s assassin Dmitry Bogrov “died mysteriously in his jail cell” before a full investigation could be carried out, even though Bogrov was executed after his trial.
Dense, not always vivid, but colorful enough and always interesting.
March 12, 2023
Long and very dense.
This is a painstakingly thorough history of the Russian Empire's experience in World War I, from Sarajevo to Brest-Litovsk. Lincoln covers military, political, and cultural developments in varying levels of detail. He is in command of his material, and always has a quotation, an incident, or a statistic ready to illustrate his narrative and arguments. The breadth and depth of his coverage, the bewildering array of personal names, organizations, and locations, can make it sometimes hard work to get through; an index of names would've been much appreciated, and the book is woefully underequipped with maps (there is, for example, no general map of the Russian Empire in this book, just zoomed-in maps covering broad stages of the war). But it is a very strong work, nonetheless- while the story Lincoln tells is sweeping and sometimes inhumanly large, he never loses sight of the human angle, or becomes dull.
Lincoln is very down on the Romanovs; he portrays Nicholas II as essentially dim, timid, and stubborn, and dominated by the frankly stupid, hysterical Alexandra, who is herself in thrall to Rasputin. Unfortunately for the Romanovs, this picture of them is not really unfair; the best a more-or-less honest historian can do for them is to portray them as abjectly pathetic (eg Massie), but the fact that they reigned over a grotesquely backwards empire and led millions to their deaths in an incompetently-managed war makes even that kind of dubious, and Lincoln isn't inclined to make excuses for them.
Lincoln doesn't really come across as having any favorites in the Revolution. He doesn't make the Bolsheviks out as heroes, or the Mensheviks or Kadets out as principled martyrs, or the like; this is a very realist retelling. In Lincoln's telling, the Bolsheviks end up winning almost by default- Lenin was simply the only leader with anything like the political instincts and vision to come out on top. And, again, that's basically fair. Nicholas's brain-dead self-immolation discredited the monarchists; his refusal to grant a responsible government in 1915 or 1916 rendered the liberals' position as essentially untenable- they wanted a moderately-imperialist liberal government, and continued to want it long after it became politically impossible; Kerensky was a blustery man who gave a good speech, but couldn't deliver on policy; and the more moderate socialists lacked the Bolsheviks' discipline and willingness to seize power.
There are some notable limitations in the scope of the work. The work begins pretty abruptly with the outbreak of WWI, and ends just as abruptly with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty; these factors are somewhat ameliorated by the fact that Lincoln also wrote works covering the years leading up to the war (in particular In War's Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War, which is more of a broad-focus social history covering the 30 years leading up to the war) and the Civil War that followed (Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1921, which picks up right where this book leaves off, and continues its close-focus year-on-year history). Lincoln explicitly excludes detailed discussion of the Romanian and Caucasus fronts of the war, the struggles of Russian Jewry, the internecine battles of the varied revolutionary forces, and the nationalist movements struggling to escape the Russian Empire; this is probably reasonable, given how weighty this tome already is, but it does slant the picture.
Lincoln also makes some odd, trifling errors. He claims the Russo-Japanese War was the first conflict to see the deployment of military telegraphy- but it was being used in the American Civil War 40 years prior; he mangles the side-narrative of the Virgin of Kazan (failing to note the original was lost in 1904, and the one he's talking about was a duplicate); he misspells part of Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg's full name as "von Benckendorff"; he gets the Romanovs' death date wrong by two days (he gives July 18, rather than the correct July 16). These aren't serious black marks against the book, but it's odd they weren't caught. Even I caught them.
A very strong work all told.
This is a painstakingly thorough history of the Russian Empire's experience in World War I, from Sarajevo to Brest-Litovsk. Lincoln covers military, political, and cultural developments in varying levels of detail. He is in command of his material, and always has a quotation, an incident, or a statistic ready to illustrate his narrative and arguments. The breadth and depth of his coverage, the bewildering array of personal names, organizations, and locations, can make it sometimes hard work to get through; an index of names would've been much appreciated, and the book is woefully underequipped with maps (there is, for example, no general map of the Russian Empire in this book, just zoomed-in maps covering broad stages of the war). But it is a very strong work, nonetheless- while the story Lincoln tells is sweeping and sometimes inhumanly large, he never loses sight of the human angle, or becomes dull.
Lincoln is very down on the Romanovs; he portrays Nicholas II as essentially dim, timid, and stubborn, and dominated by the frankly stupid, hysterical Alexandra, who is herself in thrall to Rasputin. Unfortunately for the Romanovs, this picture of them is not really unfair; the best a more-or-less honest historian can do for them is to portray them as abjectly pathetic (eg Massie), but the fact that they reigned over a grotesquely backwards empire and led millions to their deaths in an incompetently-managed war makes even that kind of dubious, and Lincoln isn't inclined to make excuses for them.
Lincoln doesn't really come across as having any favorites in the Revolution. He doesn't make the Bolsheviks out as heroes, or the Mensheviks or Kadets out as principled martyrs, or the like; this is a very realist retelling. In Lincoln's telling, the Bolsheviks end up winning almost by default- Lenin was simply the only leader with anything like the political instincts and vision to come out on top. And, again, that's basically fair. Nicholas's brain-dead self-immolation discredited the monarchists; his refusal to grant a responsible government in 1915 or 1916 rendered the liberals' position as essentially untenable- they wanted a moderately-imperialist liberal government, and continued to want it long after it became politically impossible; Kerensky was a blustery man who gave a good speech, but couldn't deliver on policy; and the more moderate socialists lacked the Bolsheviks' discipline and willingness to seize power.
There are some notable limitations in the scope of the work. The work begins pretty abruptly with the outbreak of WWI, and ends just as abruptly with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty; these factors are somewhat ameliorated by the fact that Lincoln also wrote works covering the years leading up to the war (in particular In War's Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War, which is more of a broad-focus social history covering the 30 years leading up to the war) and the Civil War that followed (Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War, 1918-1921, which picks up right where this book leaves off, and continues its close-focus year-on-year history). Lincoln explicitly excludes detailed discussion of the Romanian and Caucasus fronts of the war, the struggles of Russian Jewry, the internecine battles of the varied revolutionary forces, and the nationalist movements struggling to escape the Russian Empire; this is probably reasonable, given how weighty this tome already is, but it does slant the picture.
Lincoln also makes some odd, trifling errors. He claims the Russo-Japanese War was the first conflict to see the deployment of military telegraphy- but it was being used in the American Civil War 40 years prior; he mangles the side-narrative of the Virgin of Kazan (failing to note the original was lost in 1904, and the one he's talking about was a duplicate); he misspells part of Paul von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg's full name as "von Benckendorff"; he gets the Romanovs' death date wrong by two days (he gives July 18, rather than the correct July 16). These aren't serious black marks against the book, but it's odd they weren't caught. Even I caught them.
A very strong work all told.
August 21, 2023
I have been taking mental notes for my review of this book almost since I started it, and I still feel unequal to the task of actually writing that review. (Perhaps if my notes had been written instead of mental, that would have helped.)
The (comparatively) narrow scope of this book helped me to see the events from a new perspective and highlighted things for me that had somehow fallen through the cracks before. When I've studied the military history of the Great War, it has focused on the Western front, with only a brief mention of the activities on the Eastern front prior to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. When I've studied the Romanovs, their dynasty, and their deaths, those books are almost entirely self-contained in people and locations of the last court of the tsars. Philosophy books that include Marxist-Leninism cover the workings of the people's parties. This is the first time I've read a book that covers the entire period from multiple angles--the war and the military, diplomacy and the monarchy, the reformers and the revolutionaries, the elite steelworkers and the illiterate peasants. This helped me put together the pieces I'd gathered from other works but had never been able to make sense of because I couldn't see the big picture. For example, I knew that Tsar Nicholas loved to be with his soldiers and to put on parades, but in the biographies of the Romanovs, they don't mention his utter failure at understanding anything about strategy and discipline. Those books also tended to slide over the fact that Nicky's beloved parades sometimes happened at the expense of battles at the front, as officers, calvary and gear had to be pulled from the lines to put on a good show for the tsar.
Also missing from both battle works and royal biographies are the many "responsible Russians," many of whom were still loyal to their tsar, but who sought reform a virtually all levels of Russian life. These were men (and women) who were intelligent, educated, who remained loyal to "Mother Russia," but who could see that the current state of affairs had to be corrected--sooner rather than later, once the weak hand of Nicholas II touched the wheel of the ship of state. It's heartbreaking, honestly, reading of all of the loyal reformers who tried to save both Russia and the Romanovs from themselves, separately and together. Some literally got down on their knees before Nicholas and begged him to make the hard choices necessary to save them all, but it was to no avail. Reading through the book, you can see that there was a moment when all of the pieces were in place for real, meaningful change, one that might have saved Russia and saved the 20th and 21st centuries many of their horrors, and then that moment just slipped away. Even then, there were still those scrambling to find something to salvage, or to at least blunt the worst excesses of the revolution, before Lenin and his Bolsheviks destroyed them all. In the end, it was all for naught, and those who could have saved Russia were gone--dead, disappeared, imprisoned, or fled to the West, leaving no one behind with the will and strength to pull the empire back from the brink.
What happened then, written in the blood of millions upon millions destroyed by the communist regime, we have all seen.
This was an amazing book, incredibly readable, although I would recommend having an index card on hand to keep note of names and titles--I got bogged down and had to go to the index more than once to remember who someone was. This book is also accessible to all--it's not necessary to be a scholar of history to read it and enjoy it, but it also provides insight even for those who've put a lot of time and study in already. This may be hard to find outside of used bookstores, but I highly recommend seeking it out if you have any interest in the subject at all.
The (comparatively) narrow scope of this book helped me to see the events from a new perspective and highlighted things for me that had somehow fallen through the cracks before. When I've studied the military history of the Great War, it has focused on the Western front, with only a brief mention of the activities on the Eastern front prior to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. When I've studied the Romanovs, their dynasty, and their deaths, those books are almost entirely self-contained in people and locations of the last court of the tsars. Philosophy books that include Marxist-Leninism cover the workings of the people's parties. This is the first time I've read a book that covers the entire period from multiple angles--the war and the military, diplomacy and the monarchy, the reformers and the revolutionaries, the elite steelworkers and the illiterate peasants. This helped me put together the pieces I'd gathered from other works but had never been able to make sense of because I couldn't see the big picture. For example, I knew that Tsar Nicholas loved to be with his soldiers and to put on parades, but in the biographies of the Romanovs, they don't mention his utter failure at understanding anything about strategy and discipline. Those books also tended to slide over the fact that Nicky's beloved parades sometimes happened at the expense of battles at the front, as officers, calvary and gear had to be pulled from the lines to put on a good show for the tsar.
Also missing from both battle works and royal biographies are the many "responsible Russians," many of whom were still loyal to their tsar, but who sought reform a virtually all levels of Russian life. These were men (and women) who were intelligent, educated, who remained loyal to "Mother Russia," but who could see that the current state of affairs had to be corrected--sooner rather than later, once the weak hand of Nicholas II touched the wheel of the ship of state. It's heartbreaking, honestly, reading of all of the loyal reformers who tried to save both Russia and the Romanovs from themselves, separately and together. Some literally got down on their knees before Nicholas and begged him to make the hard choices necessary to save them all, but it was to no avail. Reading through the book, you can see that there was a moment when all of the pieces were in place for real, meaningful change, one that might have saved Russia and saved the 20th and 21st centuries many of their horrors, and then that moment just slipped away. Even then, there were still those scrambling to find something to salvage, or to at least blunt the worst excesses of the revolution, before Lenin and his Bolsheviks destroyed them all. In the end, it was all for naught, and those who could have saved Russia were gone--dead, disappeared, imprisoned, or fled to the West, leaving no one behind with the will and strength to pull the empire back from the brink.
What happened then, written in the blood of millions upon millions destroyed by the communist regime, we have all seen.
This was an amazing book, incredibly readable, although I would recommend having an index card on hand to keep note of names and titles--I got bogged down and had to go to the index more than once to remember who someone was. This book is also accessible to all--it's not necessary to be a scholar of history to read it and enjoy it, but it also provides insight even for those who've put a lot of time and study in already. This may be hard to find outside of used bookstores, but I highly recommend seeking it out if you have any interest in the subject at all.
December 31, 2025
"When a muzhik thinks himself victim of some injustice, he usually submits without a word, because he is a fatalist and meek by nature, but he continues to ponder his injury, and tells himself that a price will have to be paid someday," the grand master of the Russian court once explained. "At some point . . . the peasants will demand an accounting," he added. "And when the muzhik ceases to be meek he becomes terrifying."
This might be the most dramatic and fascinating non-fiction I've ever read. It's exactly what I like about reading history. Hundreds of complicating and compounding factors, from economics to religion to battling personalities to the very land beneath the players feet, dart in and out of the 'story' of Russia's prewar, wartime and initial years of revolution and Lincoln connects them clearly and deftly in a way that is, honestly, quite often stunning. I loved it so much that it really defies review - i hope you can just trust me and pick it up.
"No longer could the laws that had governed the conduct of men and nations at war restrain them, for they struggled not for territory, but for a vision of the world to come that could exist only at the expense of the other's annihilation."
This might be the most dramatic and fascinating non-fiction I've ever read. It's exactly what I like about reading history. Hundreds of complicating and compounding factors, from economics to religion to battling personalities to the very land beneath the players feet, dart in and out of the 'story' of Russia's prewar, wartime and initial years of revolution and Lincoln connects them clearly and deftly in a way that is, honestly, quite often stunning. I loved it so much that it really defies review - i hope you can just trust me and pick it up.
"No longer could the laws that had governed the conduct of men and nations at war restrain them, for they struggled not for territory, but for a vision of the world to come that could exist only at the expense of the other's annihilation."
February 14, 2025
History book going into detail about the concurrent Russian Revolution as well as the Russian Empire’s involvement in the First World War. Covers a variety of topics in a small amount of pages, including the general social and political decline in late Romanov Russia as well as the establishment of the Bolshevik government. Also discusses Tsar Nicholas II’s various blunders as head of the Russian Empire which makes things go from bad to worse.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews