THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
The far more important event that took place to shape the
course of the war in 1917 were the events that began to unfold in Russia from
March 12th, when the Petrograd Soviet of workers and soldiers’
deputies formed on that day fermented a revolt that forced the increasingly
unpopular Czar Nicholas II to abdicate his throne.
A provisional government with Alexander Kerensky as head
and later Prime Minister was formed. He was determined to continue with the war
against the Central powers and appointed Gen Alexei Brusilov as Supreme
Commander with the orders to launch a fresh offensive. The demoralization that
came with the unfolding political events worked to undermine the fighting
spirit of the soldiers who were soon embarked on a mass homeward retreat.
The ensuing Bolshevik revolution and the ascension to
power of V.I Lenin and Leon Trotsky in a communist insurrection swiftly brought
an end to Russia’s participation in the war as the November 1917 revolution was
closely followed with the opening of peace talks in December at Brest-Litovsk
with the Central Powers by a communist government that was more interested in
consolidating its hold on power than in waging the war.
Lenin Addresses Crowd in
1917
Vladimir Ilich Lenin led
the Bolshevik takeover of the provisional Russian government in what was known
as the October Revolution of 1917. Once in power, he sent delegates to
negotiate an armistice with the Germans to get Russia out of World War I.
Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918.
Hulton Deutsch
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rights reserved.
For the new communist government, consolidating its hold
on power was more important for it than fighting what it came to regard as a
ruinous Bourgeois war. For Russia, the war was over. The year Russia left the Allies
circumstantially was also the year the United States entered the war.
PEACE MOVES IN
EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES POLICY UP TO FEBRUARY 1917
The first two years of the war did not witness any
significant peace moves. By 1916 however the only two notable people, talking
about peace were the United States president Woodrow Wilson and the German
Chancellor Bethman. The United States policy of neutrality enabled President
Wilson to send a representative Colonel Edward M. House to London and Paris to
sound out the Allies about the possibility of United States mediation.
House’s discussions with the British foreign Secretary
Sir Edward Grey brought about a memo of understanding, that should Germany
reject United States mediation, the United States could enter the war on the Allied
side, and that the United Kingdom had the right to reject the US mediator
moves. The elections of 1916 caused Wilson to momentarily suspend the peace
initiatives.
The German Chancellor Bentham in deference to the US
peace initiative had prevailed on the German military to suspend the policy of
unrestricted submarine warfare. Following Wilson’s victory in November 1917, a
month passed by without any follow-up US action, meanwhile Germany had scored
the victory over Romania.
This victory induced the German leaders into thinking
that Germany could dictate the peace terms with the Allies which Bentham was
persuaded to announce; the failure of which was meant to pave way for the
resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. The terms to say the least, were
wholly unacceptable to the Allies. Amongst other things, the Germans insisted
on the outright annexation of Belgium and the parts of North East France under
German occupation.
On December 18th, 1916 President Wilson asked
both parties to state their war aims. The Allies were however induced by the
United States Secretary of State to outline war aims that would be too sweeping
for Germany to accept. The Germans suspected collusion between the Allies and
the US and chose to remain inflexible about their earlier stated war aims and
decided privately to no longer engage Wilson in any further negotiation.
Wilson on January 22nd, 1917 made a speech
calling for “peace without victory” which had a favorable hearing from London,
Austro-Hungary and on the face of the paper from Bentham, the German Chancellor
who ironically while exhorting Wilson to continue the peace overtures also
announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare.
President Wilson reacted immediately by breaking
diplomatic relations with Germany and announcing a policy of arming merchant
ships and taking of measures to protect American commerce. While Americans
still abstained from the war, and the Germans still avoided American ships, the
situation came to a head over the publication of the Zimmerman telegram.
Arthur Zimmerman, the German foreign affairs minister had
stirred the hornets’ nest when he urged the Mexican president whose nation had
a strained relationship with the United States to promise an alliance with
Germany should the US enter the war against Germany. He had promised Mexico the
recovery of the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona from the US
as part of the deal.
The British Admiralty incidentally intercepted and decoded
the message passing it on to the United States president on February 24. After
its publication in the United States press on 1st March 1917, there
was an immediate outcry for a declaration of war against Germany.
THE UNITED STATES
IN WORLD WAR I
After the severing of diplomatic relations on 3rd
February 1917, events leading to war took on an unstoppable momentum. On the 9th
of that same month, President Wilson president ordered the arming the merchant
ships against German submarines. In the period March 16-18, German submarines sank
three American merchant ships with heavy loss of lives.
On March 20th, 1917 President Wilson with the
support of the cabinet, the press and a large segment of public opinion went to
seek a Congressional resolution for the declaration of war against Germany.
This followed his request for a joint session of Congress on the 12th
of April on which day; he made a forceful speech calling for a declaration of
war by a joint resolution of both houses.
The Senate passed the resolution on April 3 while the
House of Representatives passed the resolution on April 16; presidential
declaration of war followed immediately.
The entry of the United States into the war was a turning
point morally, psychologically and financially because both Britain and France
had run out of money to continue to finance imports of food and war material
from the United States by April 1st, 1917, so America’s entry into
the war was a boon to the Allies.
The entry of the United States was also providential
because it was difficult to see how Britain and France could have survived
without the seven billion dollars in credit supplies that America’s entry into
the war provided them.
Though America’s direct military involvement took time to
make its impact felt, the system of conscription instituted by the introduction
of the selective service Act of May 18th, 1917 made the raising,
training and sending to Europe of an expeditionary force possible.
Battle of the Argonne
A machine-gun nest is set
up by the Allied forces to blast the Germans in the Battle of the Argonne in
France in 1918. This large-scale offensive destroyed highly fortified German
defense positions in western Europe, forcing the Germans to accept an
armistice.
Corbis
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Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Although there only 85,000 American soldiers in France in
March 1918, when the Germans launched their last major offensive of the war, by
September of that year, over 1.2 million American troops were in action in
France under the command of General John .J Pershing and they were to play a
decisive role in the last Allied offensives that forced Germany to sue for
peace.
The US Navy was
the world’s second largest Navy in the world when America entered the war in
1917 and its priorities soon shifted from the building of battle ships to the
building of destroyers involved in convoying and escort duties that greatly
helped to relieve the pressure on the British Navy. By the end of the war over
380 US warships were involved in the naval operations against Germany.
The US declaration
of war was also followed by similar declaration of war by many other countries
in North and South America like Cuba, Panama, Haiti, Brazil, Guatemala,
Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Honduras. This provided a moral and diplomatic boost
for the Allies.
THE RUSSIAN
REVOLUTION AND THE EASTERN FRONT, MARCH 1917-MARCH 1918
The Russian Revolution of February –March 1917 brought
the despotic rule of Czar Nicholas II to an end but the provisional government
that replaced it was as weak and incoherent in policy as the Tsarist regime
that it replaced.
The revolutionary forces of communists, workers groups,
soldiers’ deputies fiercely contested the rights and legitimacy of the new
government. The pressure for a full Worker’s Revolution was on and the strikes,
rallies and protests that followed, crippled the nation.
Its effect was demoralizing on the Russian military, its
commanders and the morale of the fighting men. Russia’s military cohesiveness
and capabilities were severely weakened by the wrangling at home.
Not even the
appointment of General F.W Brusilov as the overall supreme commander could hold
back the tide of discontent that had spread to the rank and file of the army.
The Allies were confounded by this turn of events while the Central Powers rejoiced
over the turmoil in Russia.
The new provisional government while aware of the turmoil
at home, felt obliged to continue with the war, both to save Russia’s prestige
and borders alongside its obligations to the Western Allies. The forces of the
Revolution on the other hand were bent on under mining the legitimacy of the
regime by calling on workers and soldiers to disobey the new government and
work towards its overthrow.
The fighting
spirit of the troops sagged with the issue of the notorious order number 1 of
the Petrograd Soviet of 14th March 1917, calling on soldiers and
sailors to take over control of their units and ignore lawful authority. Discipline
and morale dipped in the ranks of the army.
A fresh offensive against
the Austrians launched in July 1917 by General L.C Kornilov made spectacular
progress for 10 days before being halted by a German counter attack and
reinforcement of the Austrian lines by the German army.
Soon after the Russian advance was halted, its retreat
turned into a rout that extended for the next three weeks and saw the Germans
taking control of most of Latvia and of the approaches to the Gulf of Finland
by October 1917.
Defeat on the battle field spurred revolt in many of the
Russian satellite states that had been forcefully inculcated into the empire to
begin to push and agitate for freedom, revolt and subversion of the authority
of the Russian state.
The Germans saw this as their moment of opportunity and
continued to press on and indirectly incite these non-Russian people to agitate
for freedom. Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians Poles were all by 1917
actively involved in the agitation for freedom. The Ukrainians, Georgians,
Armenia and Azerbaijanis were in no less way active in their own nationalist
aspirations.
All these combined to undermine the authority and
influence of the provisional governments which soon began to give way, especially
in the wake of the Bolshevik mutiny and revolution that broke out in October
1917, and saw the rise to power of the Marxist leadership of Vladimir I. Lenin
and Leon Trotsky. The Bolshevik revolution brought about the end of Russia’s
participation in World War I.
The Bolshevik government’s policy of redistribution of
land to the peasants caused many soldiers to desert and return home to benefit
from the policy thereby disorienting the army.
On November 8
Lenin likewise issued his decree on peace with the belligerents, which
disavowed annexations and indemnities while stipulating the right to
self-determination for all the oppressed people agitating for freedom. Finally
on November 26, the Bolshevik government ordered a unilateral cessation of
hostilities against the Central Powers and Turkey.
This resulted in the Brest-Litovsk armistice signed on
December 15th, 1917 between Lenin’s government and the Central
Powers. The resulting treaty was humiliating to Russia as it stripped the
country of the regions of Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia
and most of Byelorussia while giving Poland over to Germany. Russia also ceded
Kars, Adahan and Batumi to Turkey.
GREEK INVOLVEMENT
IN THE WAR
Greek’s policy towards the war was clearly undefined, as
King Constantine I and General Stood were in favor of neutrality whereas Eleutherious
the leader of the liberal party was in favor of joining the Allies.
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