Why was the morale of the soldiers so low during the Tsar Nicholas' regime?

Question

Why was the morale of the soldiers so low during the Tsar Nicholas' regime?

Answer 1

The Tsarist army of World War One was referred to as The Russian Steamroller.

With 14 million peasant drafts lead by an officer corps one percent of that size, the Russian army was short of every single thing except soldiers, bravery and enemies.

When the guns of august blew that began the Great War that we now call world war one, the army of Tsar was struggling to reform its feet of clay. The Russian empire of the time included what are now Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Baltic countries, and Finland. The army was made up mainly of conscripted illiterate peasants lead by a very small (compared to other European forces) officer corps and an even smaller cadre of professional non commissioned officers. Western sources have given the tsarist officer corps a bad rap in the past eighty years-- painting it as a group of rich titled buffoons with no military skill. The fact is that it was a professional dedicated group that was mainly drawn from the tiny Russian middle class-nearly 40-percent of the officers in the Russian Army were of peasant origins.

But we must not forget that other armies also suffered from low moral, indiscipline, food shortage, cold, sickness,etc.

Answer 2

Because winter was cold, and they did not have supplies for survival. also the conscription time was very lengthy with the probability of never getting out of the army alive.

  

Answer 3

probably due to the fact they were conscripted for 25 years, many families never saw the conscripted man again.