This information is to accompany Unit One of the Curriculum Guide.
Student Information Sheet: The Reality of Modern Industrial Warfare
By November 1914, a solid line of trenches reached from the Belgian ports, in the north, through France to the Swiss border.
No one had planned on this stalemate and the generals were notable to respond to the new technological reality of war. No effective counter- force was developed that was equal to the defensive power of the machine gun.
The offensive strategy was to attempt to overwhelm the enemy trenches at a weak spot by softening them up with long artillery bombardments.
The troops and junior officers were then sent "over the top" of their trenches to charge across no man's land and attempt to overwhelm the defending enemy. The machine gun made it relatively easy to kill enormous numbers of the attacking army.
The slaughter was enormous and the gains in territory were minor.
This information is to accompany Unit One of the Curriculum Guide.
Student Information Sheet: The Impact of the War on the Home Front During the Early Years of the World War I
By October 1914, the generals and politicians began to realize that this was to be as much a war of materials as it was a war of patriotism. Each nation had to change, in a matter of months, its economic organization to support the war effort.
The war created millions of jobs for workers. The demand for labour brought many changes.
This information is to accompany Unit One of the Curriculum Guide.
Russian industry was not able to provide enough weapons, shells and ammunition for this type of warfare. This meant that many Russian troops went to the front unarmed or ill-equipped.
The German forces inflicted terrible losses on the Russians and Russian morale declined sharply, even though the peasant armies continued to fight until 1917.
Russia began to move towards full mobilization.
The Tsar was criticized for rejecting all help offered by the people and for keeping incompetents in positions of great responsibility.
By the summer of 1915, demands for a more responsive and democratic government increased.
By September, political parties, ranging from conservatives to the moderate socialists, had formed the Progressive Bloc, and were calling for a completely new government answerable to the Duma instead of the Tsar.
Nicholas responded by leaving the capital and personally taking command of the armies at the front.
In his absence, the Empress took control of the government.
This information is to accompany Unit One of the Curriculum Guide.
The Russian government had lost touch with the people and the realities of domestic affairs. Russia was rapidly sliding toward a revolution as food shortages worsened and morale declined.
On March 8, 1917, women in Petrograd started riots with the calls for more bread. The riots spread to the factories throughout the city. From the front, the Tsar ordered troops to restore order in the capital. However, soldiers deserted and jointed the people rioting in the streets. Military discipline dissolved.
The Duma declared a provisional government on March 12, 1917. On March 15, the Tsar abdicated the throne. The Romanov Dynasty had ended.
The general reaction of the populace was one of relief and anticipation of better social conditions.
The provisional government was moderate and was not interested in a program of fundamental social reorganization.
This decision meant a continuation of war weariness and suffering which undermined the credibility of the provisional government.
The government had to share de facto power with the Petrograd Soviet.
The summer offensive of 1917 was a failure with heavy casualties, and at that point, the peasant soldiers began to desert their units to return home to their villages.
These soldiers were intent on helping their families seize a share of the land and settle old scores in a general rural revolt against the aristocracy. Anarchy spread throughout Russia.
The revolution had not yet finished.
This information is to accompany Unit One of the Curriculum Guide.
Lenin was the son of a middle class school superintendent. In 1887, when Lenin was seventeen, his brother was executed for treason. This event made Lenin an implacable enemy of Imperial Russia who was totally dedicated to its destruction.
Lenin was converted to Marxism and argued that:
Lenin believed that the First World War had the potential to create enough social disruption so that he might have an opportunity to seize power.
When Lenin arrived in Petrograd, on April 3, 1917, he rejected any notion of cooperating with the Provisional Government. His slogans of "All power to the Soviets", "All land to the peasants" and "Stop the war now" were popular.
Lenin attempt a coup in July, but it failed and he was forced into hiding.
Kerenski, the leader of the Provisional Government, and General Kornilov quarrelled and Kornilov attempted a coup in September of 1917. The attempt failed and both Kornilov and Kerenski were discredited.
This military threat to democracy, from the political right, gave new credibility to Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Throughout the summer of 1917, the Bolsheviks increased their support among the workers and soldiers of Petrograd.
The organizational leadership of Leon Trotsky was responsible for the success of the next Bolshevik attempt to seize power.
He saw that opposition to his seizure of power could be reduced if it were done in the name of the popular and democratic Soviets rather than the Bolsheviks.
On November 6, Trotsky's new committee, supported by trustworthy Bolshevik soldiers, seized government buildings and arrested members of the provisional government.
At a congress of the soviets, a small Bolshevik majority (390 out of 650 delegates) declared that all power had passed to the soviets and named Lenin as head of the new government.
Lenin had the insight to seize on and reshape events which were happening around him in ways that were useful to his purposes.
The Bolsheviks were defeated in the 1917 elections for a constituent assembly. The assembly met for one day, January 18, 1918, and was permanently disbanded by Bolshevik troops acting on Lenin's orders.
People who believed in self-rule say that democracy was turning into a dictatorship.
Russia now faced a civil war between the "Whites" who came from many groups all united in their hatred of the Bolsheviks and the "Reds" who were the Bolsheviks. Trotsky and the Red Army was able to win the civil war.
The Bolsheviks also were able to mobilize the home front during the Civil War by establishing "war communism".
The Americans, British and Japanese intervened by sending troops in order to prevent war material from being captured by the Germans.
This information is to accompany Unit One of the Curriculum Guide.
The balance of power and the network of alliances that characterized pre-World War I international politics, were intended to maintain the peace. However, they had a rather different outcome. They gave individual members the security to take reckless actions.
The traditional mechanisms that nations used to secure their respective interests and for self-preservation had not prevented the horrific world war. The war had undermined the traditional tools of diplomacy. International affairs would no longer be the same.
Wilson's vision for a new international world order was largely dismissed by the leaders of Europe, more interested in punishing Germany.
Indeed, the new League was doomed from its inception. Apart from the lack of enthusiasm demonstrated by the Europeans, neither the United States, the most powerful world power, nor the Soviet Union, became founding members.
The constitution of the League also gave it no real power to force its members to comply with the "rules" of international relations.
Wilson: "Right must be based upon the common strength, not upon the individual strength, of the nations upon whose concert peace will depend."
This information is to accompany Unit One of the Curriculum Guide.
Student Information Map: Countries Established After World War One