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Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov was born 1896 in a small village of Strelkova south of Moscow, Kaluga Province, and like an immense majority of the peasant population his family were desperately poor. He lived in an old house, in the middle of the village, with one room and two windows, he also was able to attend a nearby school. At aged 10 young Georgi was sent to Moscow to find work with his uncle as an apprentice furrier and found the working conditions severely harsh under the Czarist autocracy. His childhood was ended working twelve-hour days and sleeping on the factory floor. The Great War of 1914 for Zhukov was a welcomed relief and in 1915 the nineteen year-old received his conscripted call-up papers and was posted to a cavalry squadron. By 1916 his aptitude and ability had him selected for non-commissioned officer training. In his recorded memoirs he pointed to the problem within the Russian Imperial Army that the majority of aristocratic generals and officers neglected their troops and had little understanding, or esprit connection, with the ordinary peasant soldiers. He had been decorated for his bravery, and been wounded too, by March 1917 as the revolution, and change of government, swept away the old monarchist orde