Russian Supply Efforts in America During the First World War

Military Review, Jan-Feb, 2004 by Lester W. Grau

RUSSIAN SUPPLY EFFORTS IN AMERICA DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR, Dale C. Rielage, McFarland & Co. Inc., Publishers, Jefferson, NC, 2002, 164 pages, $30.00.

Like other nations that fought in World War I, Russia was unprepared for the size, scope, and intensity of that conflict. Ammunition stocks disappeared as artillery fired projectiles far in excess of prewar projections. There were not enough supplies to meet the needs of the battlefield because the railroad lines were unable to deliver available supplies on time.

Russia, Britain, and France were not able to produce the materiel Russia needed in sufficient quantity. Dale C. Rielage ably tells the story of Russia's efforts to buy war supplies and railroad equipment from the United States and Canada. The story is not about efficiency and good acquisition practices; rather, it is about chaos, bureaucratic pigheadedness, ineffective management, and competing governments spending lots of money. Russia's representatives managed to get the materiel they needed delivered, but incompetence, infighting, and needless delay marked their efforts. This book looks at Russia's desperate efforts to supply its forces before revolution and civil war eventually consumed them. Many of the contracted supplies were delivered to White Russian forces in an effort to defeat the Bolsheviks.

Acquisition is critical to modern industrial war, so perhaps, a closer examination of the acquisition process should be included in one's military-history reading. Rielage's book makes a good start, but the book is not easy to read because of its nonstandard sentence construction, passive voice, and awkward phraseology. The reader must wade through several pages before picking up the author's pattern, and every sentence must then still be read carefully in order to stay with the train of thought. Rielage also did not consult primary subject sources such as the Bakhmeteff Archives at Columbia University in New York or the Hoover Institution Library and Archives at Stanford University, California, which has over 260 linear feet of material from the Imperial and Provisional Russian Embassy.

The book does provide a good look at critical issues, and it highlights the way not to acquire military goods. Military historians, logisticians, and members of the Army Acquisition Corps in particular will find this book of interest.

LTC Lester W. Grau, USA, Retired, Leavenworth, Kansas