The Great War 1914-1918

The Power Blocks

Balkan troubles
The assasination of archduke Francis
Ferdinand, june 1914
Western front, 1914: Germans
attacking Belgium, France
French soldiers at the western front,
1914
British wounded, 1916
Ypres, Belgium
 Eastern front
• Russia attacking Germany and Austria-
Hungary;
After the battle at Tannenberg, 1914,
Russian prisoners of war
Warsaw bridge destroyed by Russians
evacuating Kingdom of Poland, 1915
Eastern front, 1916
1917 – US enter the war; president
Woodrow Wilson, 1919
 Why?
• Friendly feelings toward the allies
• Hostility toward the Germans
• Ideas of world-policy = world activity (US as a
world power, leading democracy, strong
economy)
Sinking „Lusitania”, 1915 (a painting)
The armistice, November the 11th,
1918, Compiègne (painting)
Memorial de Verdun
Revolutions in Russia, 1917

February revolution
• Old Style (julian calendar): 23 February –
March 3 1917
• New style: 8–16 March 1917
• Mass revolt, demonstrations, strikes, street
fighting
 Long-term causes
• Long lasting grieviances of the peasants
• Old-fashioned social structure
• Royal autocracy, lack of political freedom
• Poverty of the workers
• Old-fashioned structure of the army  hatred
between the soldiers and the officers corps
 Short-term causes
• Failures on the front
• The collapse of the economy because the
burden of the war: shortages of food,
unemployment, conscription
• Discredit of the royal family (the Rasputin
scandal, Nicolas as the commander in chief of
the army shows his incompetence)
Grigorij Rasputin
• Bread, land and peace!
Demonstration, march 1917
Petrograd, march 1917 (Newski
prospect)
Workers of Putilovs factory, march
1917
February revolution – soldiers
attacking the police
Soldiers demonstrating against the tsar
Soldiers demonstrating, march 1917
Burning the tsarist symbols, march
1917
Nicolas II abdication (march 1917)
• Abdication - a formal resignation and of the
throne (power)
The dual power
The Provisional government (first),
prince Lvov as PM
Provisional government, march 1917
Provisional government (last), A.
Kierenski as PM
Alexandr Kierenski as PM
Delegates Council (soviet), 1917
 The political scene
• Liberals (Kadet Party, Progressists, Octobrist
Party): ideas of democratization, Russia as a
modern democracy, cooperating with the
West, continuing the war
• Peasant party (Social Revolutionaries: agrarian
socialism, revolution, democracy)
• Socialist: two factions of the Russian social
democracy
Lenin with some members of a socialistic,
educational association 1897
 Socialists faction: Mensheviks
• The majority
• Orthodox Marxist
• Russia is a backward state, the workers are not
prepared to sieze power
• Russia must first develop industry  strong
working class;
• develop parliamentary democracy  the
workers will learn how to make politics and
gradually introduce socialism
Nikolay Chkheidze, Menshevik leader
 Practical conclusions
• Supporting liberals in their policy of building
Russia as a modern democracy
• Not attacking the PG
• Continuation of the war (the international
recognition needed)
• Social reforms, no revolution
 Socialist faction: the Bolsheviks
• Minority
• Leaders on exile
• Revision of marxism (leninism): Russia must
„jump” into socialism: revolution will be
successful in less developed, agrarian country
• Bolsheviks must concentrate on preparing the
revolution
Lenin and Zinoviev, Zakopane 1914
Lenin presenting the April Theses,
04.1917
 Practical conclusions: April Thesis
• A revolution must come, a socialist one,
thanks to which the workers will sieze power
• Only bolsheviks truly represent the interests
of the working class – mensheviks are traitors
• The war must stop at once – it is waged in the
interest of the international capital; is an
imperialistic war; the best thing will be if the
soldiers withdraw from the war, rejecting obeying
orders (and, if necessary, shoot the officers)
• Nationalisation of land, banks
• „All power to the soviet!” – in this way the
workers, soldiers and peasants will rule the
country (new form of a state instead of
parliamentary democracy – a socialist republic)
Arresting of generals (painting)
Lenin – the official portrait, 1918
The queue at the grocery store in
Petrograd, 1917
 July crisis
• A failed attempt to sieze the power by the
Bolsheviks
• Lenin escape to Finland
July 1917, Petrograd
Newskij Prospekt, july 1917
Lenin in Finland, 1917
 The October revolution
• 25 October (old style)
• 7 November
• A putch: 25.10 - the armed forces - Bolshevik
Red Guards under the Military Revolutionary
Committee (lead by Trotsky) starts occupation
of government buildings; 26.10 - the Winter
Palace (the seat of the Provisional
government) was captured; remaining
members of government arrested.
Leon Trotsky in Sibiria, 1900
Last guards of WinterPalace cadets,
november 1917
Female battalion in defence of the
Winter Palace
„Aurora”, the cruiser, 1984
Storming Winter Palace – a picture
from Eisensteins film
 Why did the Bolsheviks suceed?
• The only well organized, disciplined group,
loyal to leaders
• Lenin’s authority
• Presented themselves as the only protection
from the military dictatorship and
counterrevolution
• Determined to end the war
 Chaos and unpopularity of PG
The war continues
Economic situation difficult (50% of enterprises
closed, costs of living increasing, financial
bancrupcy of the state, mass strikes)
Peasant’s uprisings (seizures of the land, marches
on landowner manors and government offices,
withholding and storing grains)
National minorities dissatisfied (independence
denyied - Poland, Finland, Ukraine)
Delay in organizing the elections to Constituent
Assembly
Russian Constituent Assembly election
(30.10/12.11) results, 1917
In the wake of October Revolution
Supreme Council of People’s Commisars
(The Bolshevik goverment, Sovnarkom),
november 1917
One of the last meetings of the
Constituante, january 1918
• March 1918 – the bolsheviks change the name
of their party: The Russian Communist Party
(bolsheviks)
 1918

Europe, USA
 USA politics

Wilson’s Fourteen Points

January – Wilsons Fourteen Points - an
adress to the Congress
(Original – page one)
• 1. open diplomacy
• 2. and navigation
• 3. Free trade
• 4. Reduction of armaments
• 5. Solving the colonial question and taking the
will of people under consideration
•
• 6. Support for freedom and democracy in
Russia
• 7. Freedom for Belgium
• 8. Alsaçe-Lorraine back to France
• 9-12. Self-determination for European nations
 Polish point
• XIII. An independent Polish state should be
erected which should include the territories
inhabited by indisputably Polish populations,
which should be assured a free and secure
access to the sea, and whose political and
economic independence and territorial
integrity should be guaranteed by
international covenant.
 League of Nations
• XIV. A general association of nations must be
formed under specific covenants for the
purpose of affording mutual guarantees of
political independence and territorial integrity
to great and small states alike.
Political Cartoon –The Fourteen Principles
of Wilson's Peace To German Government
Wilsons Fourteen Points –European
Baby Show
 Germany

Loss of war, November Revolution

 Growing discontent
• extreme burdens suffered by the population
during the four years of war
• the defeat of the German Empire in the war
• social tensions between the general
population and the elite of aristocrats and
bourgeoisie
• the political desire of more democracy
• the impact of Russian October Revolution –
inspiration for the radicals
November Revolution
Kiel sailors mutiny – early november
1918 (soldiers councils created)
 Spartacus League– a radical wing of SPD,
inspired by Bolsheviks successes in Russia
Rosa Luxemburg, a.1900
Adressing the demonstration, 1907
 Moderate SPD join the movement – 09.11.
proclamation of the republic, followed by overhrowing
monarchies in the German lands
New government signes the armistice
• 12. 1918 Spartacists forming Communist Party
of Germany, KPD)
 Berlin uprising
• January 1919 – attempt to seize power by
communists
• Murder of Communist leaders: Rosa
Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
Barricade, Berlin, january 1919
Spartacist militia in Berlin
• With support of the army and the rightists –
moderate goverment supress the radicals
Anticommunist-poster, 1919
Victims of the summary execution
19 january – parliamentary election
 July 1919 – Weimar republic
established
• Constitutional Assembly in Weimar accepts
democratic and republican constitution
• Germany as a federal parliamentary
democracy
• Political freedom
• Strong position of the federal president
Russia

Civil war
First decisions of Bolshevik government
 Decree on peace
• The Workers' and Peasants' Government, created
by the revolution of 24-25 October (…) proposes
to all warring peoples and their governments to
begin at once negotiations leading to a just
democratic peace.
• (…)such a peace the government considers to be
an immediate peace without annexations (i.e.,
without the seizure of foreign territory and the
forcible annexation of foreign nationalities) and
without indemnities.
• Indemnity, reparation: a sum of money paid in
compensation for loss or injury
 Decree on land
• Abolition of the private property of the land
belonging to the church, aristocracy, state
• Redistribution (to divide into portions and
dispense) of the land among peasants
communities
• Declaration on the rights of Russias nations –
independence granted to all non-russian
nations within the Empire
• The Workers' Decrees: minimum wage,
limitations on workers' hours, the running of
factories by elected workers' committees.
• Red Army established
• Cheka established
Leon Trotsky as commander-in-chief of
the Red Army, 1918
 Cheka
• The All-Russian Emergency Commission for
Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage
• Lead by Felix Dzerzhinsky (Feliks Dzierżyński)
 Civil war
• White camp: a variety of Russian anti-
bolshevik group (supporters of tsarist regime,
conservatives, liberals, social
democrats/mensheviks
Aleksandr Kolchak (1916)
White army
 Non-Russian nationalities
• Ukrainians
• Poles
 Western intervention
• British, French, Americans, Japanese
Red Army capturing Kiev, 1920
Reasons of Bolshevik success
Controlling the central area of Russia: major
industrial plants, dominated by Russian-
speaking population.
Ending the war with Germany: Treaty at
Brest-Litovsk, 03.03.1918 (Leon Trotsky )
Territorial losses
Terror
Victims of red terror
 War communism

• Nationalization of all industries; strict centralized management

• State control of foreign trade
• Strict discipline for workers, with strikes forbidden
• Obligatory labour duty by non-working classes
• Requisition of agricultural surplus (in excess of an absolute
minimum) from peasants for centralized distribution among the
remaining population
• Rationing of food and most commodities, with centralized
distribution in urban centers
• Private enterprise banned
• Military-style control of the railways
 Good military leadership
• Trotsky as the organizer and leader of the Red
Army
• Compulsory conscription
Moscow, 1922
 Propaganda
• White camp: counterrevolution, people’s
enemies, traitors
• Foriegn intervention: a threat to „Mother
Russia”
Gen. Wrangel
Recruitment poster (Budionny’s
cavalry)
Ukrainian ataman Grigoriev
Red cavalry
Bolshevik victory
World fire
 The White camp flaws
• Lack of unity, disintegration
• Dominated by extreme right: unable to accept
democracy, land reform
• Unable to cooperate with Finns and Poles
• Personal dictatorships
• Antisemitism
White propaganda
 Results of civil war
• Bolshevik’s victory – 1922 Union of Soviet
Socialistic Republics proclaimed
Red Army parade, Charkov
Parade in Moscow, 1922
• Ruined economy
• Famine
Map of Russian famine 1921-1922
Victims
Russia 1921
Children waiting for food
Peasant crushing corn
A queue to a bakery
A queue before a magasin of Save the
Children Fund International Union.
A trade on the railway station
• Fridtjof Nansen mission 1921-1922
 Distributing food rations from the Nansen Mission's
railroad car. The man in the middle is receiving food
ration coupons from children who received soup and
bread.
Fridtjof Nansen (in the middle), tasting the food
that the homeless children receive at a food
station.
The collapse of Austria-Hungary
• 1916 – emperor Francis Joseph died
• Failures in the war
• Growing disintegration
• Wilsons Fourteen Points
 October 1018
• National commities created  provisional
government, declaring indepedence
• Czechoslovakia
• State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs
• Polish national commitee in Galicia
Czechoslovak declaration of independence rally
in Prague on Wenceslas Square, 28 October
1918
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, founder and
first president
 November 1918
• the German-Austrian National Council
proclaimed the Republic of German Austria
• 16 November proclamation of the Hungarian
Democratic Republic.