§ 5. Consequences of the Troubles and the international position of Russia on the eve of the Thirty Years War "Civil war" as a concept includes the whole complex of internal and foreign political events, including external interventions Open aggression of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against

The impasse in relations between the USSR and the United States before World War II From January to September 1935, Soviet-American relations developed rapidly, having gone through two critical periods - in February and August. The first of them indicated the termination of negotiations on debts, claims and

12. Germany in the late XIX - early XX centuries. The imperialist stage of development.

12.5. Germany before World War I (1900-1914).

In 1900, another economic crisis began, which led to the acceleration of the process of concentration in industry and banking. By this time, the capitalist monopolies in Germany began to completely determine the development of economics and politics. Imperialism became the dominant system. In the competitive struggle, German industry by the 10s of the twentieth century had already outstripped English. Let's give just one example. In 1892, 5 million tons of pig iron were smelted in Germany, and almost 7 million tons in England, and in 1912 this ratio became 17.6 million tons against 9 million tons.

In 1900, Bülow was appointed to the post of chancellor, replacing Hohenlohe. In June of the same year, the Reichstag adopted a naval program, which provided for the doubling of the German navy and its transformation into the most powerful fleet in the world after the English. This task was set by Emperor Wilhelm II.

The first foreign policy action by the Bulow government was the dispatch of troops to China to suppress the uprising of the so-called ihetuan. The members were called secret society Yihatuan, which means "Fist for Peace and Justice" in Chinese. The Ihetuani rose up against "foreign barbarians" and at the same time against reforms, or rather, attempts at reforms in the country, destroying ancient Chinese traditions. We are talking about attempts to carry out reforms in order to establish a parliamentary monarchy in China. When the rebels, along with government troops entered Beijing, they began to smash the embassies of European states. Several diplomats, among them the German envoy, were killed. The Ihetuani entered the capital with the permission of the then ruler of China, Empress Cixi, who wanted to use them in the struggle against the Western powers. Upon the arrival of the rebels in Beijing, Empress Cixi declared war on the European powers. In response, eight states: Germany, Japan, England, USA, Russia, France, Italy and Austria-Hungary sent their troops to suppress the uprising. Started fighting distinguished on both sides by brutal cruelty. The Yihetuan uprising was suppressed and on August 14, 1900, foreign troops occupied Beijing. In 1901, an unequal treaty was concluded with China, according to which the country had to pay a huge indemnity to foreign powers. China was also forced to agree to the indefinite stay of foreign troops on its territory. China has become a semi-colony of Western powers.

In 1904-1907, the German armed forces were again tested in action. This time in South-West Africa, over which she established a protectorate in the late 80s of the 19th century. Here, in January 1904, an uprising for the freedom and independence of local tribes began. herero and gottengot... Herero rose to fight almost without exception. Their squads total number about 7 thousand soldiers were armed with 2-3 thousand obsolete rifles, the rest - spears and bows. But in the first months of the uprising, the Herero defeated several German troops using the surprise of the attack. Only after the arrival of reinforcements from Germany, machine guns and cannons, the Herero were defeated and fled north and east. On the way of their escape lay waterless deserts. Herero losses in battles with German punishers were significant, but the losses of these people from thirst many times exceeded the combat losses. The number of the Herero people decreased from 70-80 thousand to 15-16 thousand people. When someone tried to tell Kaiser Wilhelm II that the actions of the armed forces in Africa were contrary to Christian morality, he arrogantly declared that the Christian commandments did not apply to pagans and savages.

No sooner had the German troops dealt with the remnants of the Herero rebels in the north of the country, as in the south in October 1904 almost all the Gottengot tribes rose to fight. They fought bravely and skillfully. Even German officers paid tribute to the skillful disguise of the Gottenots and the sudden actions of their small groups. Moving on to partisan operations, the Gottengoths resisted for almost two more years. Only by 1907, the uprising was suppressed, and the indigenous people were herded into the reservations. The entire territory of South West Africa became a German colony.

The suppression of the uprising of the Herero and Gottengot tribes took place already in the conditions of the economic crisis of 1907. The crisis has accelerated the further growth of monopolies. By this time, all the material resources of Germany were concentrated in the hands of 300 capital magnates. The creation of monopolistic alliances dividing the domestic and foreign markets has also accelerated.

Despite the rise of the labor movement, which put forward both economic and political demands, Chancellor Bülow managed to create a Junker-bourgeois bloc in the 1907 elections to the Reichstag under the slogans of an active colonial policy. This bloc, which voted for the allocation of funds to suppress the uprisings in South West Africa, was then called the "Gottengot bloc".

Germany's course of preparation for war prompted retaliatory actions from neighboring states. Recall that after the signing in May 1882 of the allied treaty between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy, known as Triple Alliance, as a retaliatory measure, Russia and France in 1893 concluded a military alliance with each other.

In April 1904, an agreement was concluded between the governments of England and France on the division of spheres of influence in Africa. So the so-called "heartfelt agreement" was achieved - Entente(from the French word "consent"), which opened up the possibility of a joint struggle against Germany.

In the pre-war years, the diplomatic activities of European states noticeably intensified. In 1907, England and Russia agree on resolving controversial issues in Iran, Afghanistan and Tibet. The Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907, like the Anglo-French Treaty of 1904, laid the foundation The Triple Accord, or the Triple Entente opposing the German-Austrian alliance. This meant that two military-political blocs, hostile to each other, appeared in Europe.

A few words about the politics of England. In tragically ended for Russia Russo-Japanese War In 1904-1905, Russia actually had two opponents: Japan and England. No, England did not send its ships and its soldiers against the Russian troops, but it gave money to Japan for waging this war. British subsidies accounted for about half of Japan's military spending. England achieved the weakening of Russia, but she did not diminish the danger for herself from Germany. Quite the opposite. Who, besides Russia, could be Britain's reliable partner in the struggle against the German policy of dividing the world? And England was forced to conclude an agreement with Russia in 1907 on the division of spheres of influence in Asia. The contradictions between the two powers were eliminated, and the conditions for the unification of France, Russia and Great Britain into a common allied bloc - the Entente were created.

The rapprochement of Italy with France and the Anglo-French treaty of 1904, which laid the foundation for the Entente, led to the political isolation of Germany. Therefore, Germany immediately began to make attempts to undermine the Russian-French alliance and prevent the creation of the Entente bloc. In the fall of 1904, negotiations between the German government and the Russian government with an unsuccessful attempt to conclude a Russian-German alliance were devoted to this goal. Germany also tried to pursue a policy of dragging out the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, in the unleashing of which it also played a certain role.

In March 1905, Kaiser Wilhelm II arrived in Tangier to oppose French policy in Morocco and thereby try to upset the Anglo-French Entente. But nothing came of this attempt. Realizing that in this difficult international situation Germany was not yet fully prepared for war, Wilhelm considered it good to make concessions to France and recognized France's "special interests" in Morocco.

In 1906, at the Algeciras Conference, German diplomacy made another attempt to break off relations between Russia and France, as well as to liquidate the Anglo-French agreement of 1904, but did not achieve success. And the Triple Alliance began to disintegrate after the conclusion of the Italian-French treaties of 1900 and 1902. Despite this, Germany continued to actively prepare for war with the aim of expanding the "living space" of the German nation.

Chancellor von Bülow resigned in the summer of 1909. About a year before his resignation at one of the meetings in the Reichstag, he said: “The times are past when other peoples shared land and water, and we, the Germans, were content with only blue sky... We demand a place in the sun for ourselves. "

The new Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg began to pursue basically the same domestic and foreign policy as his predecessor.

Russian revolution 1905-1907 had a definite influence on the labor movement in Germany and on the policy of the German government. As soon as the Russian revolution began, the German government stopped the policy of dragging out the Russian-Japanese war and took the necessary measures to prepare a counter-revolutionary intervention in Russia in order to defend the tsarist monarchy. Unfortunately, the matter did not reach the practical actions of the Germans, because the Russian revolution soon began to decline and in the end was defeated. And the interjection "unfortunately" we used here because after the shameful defeat in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-1905. the autocracy showed its complete failure and became finally hateful to the people. Not glorious Russian sailors in the Tsushima battle and not heroic Russian soldiers in the fields of Manchuria and in Port Arthur were defeated. Russian tsarism was defeated.

Under the influence of the Russian revolution of 1905-1907. in Germany, demonstrations of workers took place in solidarity with the Russian working class. Strikes were organized at enterprises, in particular, in the mines of the Ruhr Basin.

During these years, the future leader of the October 1917 coup in Russia and the future leader and teacher of the world proletariat, Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), lived and worked in Germany and neighboring Switzerland. He was deeply annoyed by the fact that the German workers, led by Social Democratic leaders, did not want to raise an armed uprising in Germany after the Russian revolution, but preferred to seek a solution to their social problems peacefully, adhering to simple worldly wisdom - they do not look for good from good. ... The congress of the German Social Democrats in Jena in the fall of 1905 adopted a resolution in which the mass political strike was recognized as a method of revolutionary struggle. But the congress ignored the question of an armed uprising. And the resolution on political strikes was actually annulled by the decision of the Mannheim Congress of 1906. The party Social Democratic leaders and trade union leaders in Germany resolutely abandoned revolutionary methods of struggle. And without the revolution, the German workers, albeit slowly, achieved concrete results in the struggle for their rights. For example, in 1906 universal suffrage was introduced in Bavaria and Württemberg.

But Lenin was extremely saddened by the state of affairs. Indeed, where does that fit: opportunists and revisionists of all stripes spoil the whole picture of the revolutionary struggle for socialism, betray the vital interests of the working class, and postpone the date of the world revolution indefinitely. Lenin cannot agree with this and therefore exposes the criminal activities of the Social Democracy in his famous work What Is To Be Done?

At the same time, militaristic and chauvinistic propaganda, the general orientation of German policy towards war, did their job. At the Essen Congress of the Social Democratic Party in 1907, a decision was made to "defend the fatherland" in the impending imperialist war. Public opinion in Germany was being prepared for the perception of war as a necessity.

In 1908, the Reichstag passed a law on the allocation of additional budgetary funds for the construction of a new type of warships - dreadnoughts. Large armored ships of this type were already under construction in England, and Germany, naturally, did not want to lag behind in this type of weapons. It is clear that the main burden of these military orders fell on the shoulders of the working people.

From the beginning of 1910, the labor movement in Germany acquired a broad scope. The new Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg began his activity precisely with the suppression of workers' protests. On March 6, 1910, government troops and mounted police were involved in dispersing a workers' demonstration in Berlin. Then this day was called "German Bloody Sunday" for a long time.

Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg made an attempt in 1911 to tear Russia away from the Entente, but his diplomatic maneuvers failed. German and French interests collided in Africa in connection with the capture of Morocco by France. After lengthy negotiations in November 1911, Germany recognized the French protectorate over Morocco, but received part of the French Congo as compensation. The social democratic leaders of Germany put forward a rather original slogan: "for the equality of all states in the colonies", which actually justified the aggressive policy German Empire... Against such a policy in last years Neither the Social Democrats nor the trade unions spoke out before the war in Germany. The Social Democratic leaders, having almost half of the seats in the Reichstag, did not even use the parliamentary tribune to criticize the aggressive policy of the government, but regularly, starting in 1910, they voted unanimously and disciplinedly for all the increasing expenditures on the army and navy.

The growing military spending worsened the material situation of the working masses, caused them dissatisfaction with the government's policy, which increased the general internal instability in the country. Under these conditions, the ruling circles of Germany considered it desirable to bring the start of the war closer. As if in response to these innermost desires of the German imperialists in the summer of 1914, events took place in the Balkans that precipitated the outbreak of the world war.

Original Russian Text © A.I. Kalanov, V.A. Kalanov,
"Knowledge is power"

Germany, united in 1871 into an empire under the rule of William I, embarked on the path of creating a colonial power. Leading German industrialists and financiers put forward a program of broad expansion: in 1884-1885. Germany established a protectorate over Cameroon, Togo, South-West Africa, territories in East Africa and part of the island of New Guinea.

William I

Germany's entry into the path of colonial conquest led to an exacerbation of Anglo-German contradictions. To further implement its plans, the German government decided to create a powerful navy who could end the naval domination of Great Britain. As a result, in 1898 the Reichstag approved the first bill on the construction of the navy, and in 1900 a new bill was passed, providing for a significant strengthening of the German fleet.

The German government continued to carry out its expansionist plans: in 1898 it seized Qingdao from China, turning a small settlement into a fortress, in 1899 it acquired a number of islands in the Pacific Ocean from Spain. The attempts made by Great Britain to achieve an agreement with Germany were unsuccessful due to the growing contradictions between them. These contradictions were further intensified in connection with the grant by the Turkish government in 1899, after the visit of Emperor Wilhelm II to the Ottoman Empire and his meeting with Sultan Abdulhamid II, the German Bank of the concession for the construction of the main highway of the Baghdad railway, which opened Germany a direct route through the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf and providing it with important positions in the Middle East, which threatened the sea and land communications of Great Britain with India.

Wilhelm II

Abdulhamid II

O. von Bismarck

Germany tried to use the clash of interests between Great Britain and Russia in Persia, as well as the general disagreements of the Entente members in the Balkans. In November 1910, in Potsdam, Nicholas II and Wilhelm II personally negotiated issues related to the Baghdad railway and Persia. The result of these negotiations was the Potsdam Agreement, signed in St. Petersburg in August 1911, according to which Russia pledged not to interfere with the construction of the Baghdad railway. Germany recognized Northern Persia as a sphere of Russian influence and committed itself not to seek concessions in this territory. However, in general, Germany did not succeed in separating Russia from the Entente.

As in other imperialist countries, there was a rise in nationalist sentiments in Germany. Public opinion of the country was being prepared to wage a war for the redivision of the world.

Italy, having completely united in 1870, did not remain aloof from the struggle for colonies. Initially, the Italian expansion was directed to Northeast Africa: in 1889 part of Somalia was captured, in 1890 - Eritrea. In 1895, Italian troops invaded Ethiopia, but in 1896 they were defeated at Adua. In 1912, during the war with the Ottoman Empire, Italy captured Libya, later turning it into its colony.

As early as 1900, there was an exchange of notes between Italy and France on the mutual recognition of the latter Italian claims to Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which were opposed by Austria-Hungary, and Italy - French claims to Morocco. In 1902, an exchange of letters between the French Ambassador to Rome Barrer and the Italian Foreign Minister Prinetti between France and Italy concluded a secret agreement that provided for the mutual neutrality of France and Italy in the event that one of the parties became the object of an attack or, as a result of a direct challenge, was forced to in defense, take the initiative to declare war.

Thus, despite the fact that by the beginning of the First World War, Italy formally remained part of the Triple Alliance, colonial interests pushed its government, headed by Antonio Salandra, to join the Entente and join the war on its side in 1915.

A. Salandra

NOTES
Cm.: A. Memories. M., 1957.
Cm.: Erusalimsky A.S. Foreign policy and diplomacy of German imperialism at the end of the 19th century. M., 1951.
Yu.V. Klyuchnikov, A.V. Sabanin Contemporary international politics in treaties, notes and declarations. Part 1.M., 1925, p. 241-242, 254-255, 267-268. Cm.: Skazkin S.D. End of the Austro-Russian-German alliance. M., 1974.
Yu.V. Klyuchnikov, A.V. Sabanin, with. 241-242, 254-255, 267-268, 304-306. Cm.: Serova O.V. From the triple alliance to the Entente: Italian foreign policy and diplomacy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. M., 1983.
New documents on the Algeziras conference and the 1906 loan // Red Archive. Vol. 1 (44). 1931, p. 161-165; International relations in 1870-1918, p. 158-162. See: International relations in the era of imperialism. Ser. 2, v. 18, h. 1-2. M.-L., 1938.
diplomacy. T. II. M., 1963, p. 698-703.
Collection of treaties between Russia and other states. 1856-1917. M., 1952, p. 405-407.
Cm.: B. German politics. P., 1917; he is. Memories. M.-L., 1935; German history in modern and modern times. T. 1.M., 1970.
Cm.: Popov V.T. The defeat of the Italians at Adua. M., 1938; Voblikov D.R. Ethiopia in the struggle to maintain independence. 1860-1960. M., 1961; Tsypkin G.V., Yagya V.S. History of Ethiopia in modern and modern times. M., 1989; Berkeley G.-F.-H. The campaign of Adowa and the rise of Menelik, N.Y., 1969.
Egorin A.Z. History of Libya. XX century. M., 1999, p. 35–39. Cm.: Yakhimovich Z.P. Italo-Turkish war of 1911-1912 M., 1967.
Egorin A.Z., with. 92-96.
Collection of treaties between Russia and other states. 1856-1917. M., 1952, p. 436-441. Cm.: Salandra A. Italy and the Great War. L., 1932.

The outbreak of the First World War

The situation before the First World War.

In 1882, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy signed an agreement to create the Triple Alliance. Germany played a leading role in it. From the moment the aggressive bloc of countries was formed, its members began active preparations for a future war. Each state had its own plans and goals.

Germany sought to defeat Great Britain, deprive her sea ​​power, expand the "living space" at the expense of the French, Belgian and Portuguese colonies and weaken Russia, tear away from it the Polish provinces, Ukraine and the Baltic states, depriving it of its borders along the Baltic Sea, enslave Europe and turn it into a colony. The Germans recognized their "historical mission of renewing decrepit Europe" in ways based on the "superiority of the superior race" over all others. This idea with the greatest persistence and systematicity was carried out and promoted among the masses by the authorities, literature, schools and even the church.

As for Austria-Hungary, its goal was much more moderate: "Austrian hegemony in the Balkans" is the main slogan of its policy. She hoped to seize Serbia and Montenegro, to take away from Russia part of the Polish provinces, Podolia and Volhynia.

Italy wanted to penetrate the Balkan Peninsula, acquire territorial possessions there and increase its influence.

Turkey, which subsequently supported the position of the central powers, with the support of Germany, claimed the territory of the Russian Transcaucasia.

In 1904 - 1907, the Entente military bloc was formed, consisting of Great Britain, France and Russia. It was founded in opposition to the Triple Alliance (Central Powers). Subsequently, during the First World War, he united more than 20 states (among them - the USA, Japan, and Italy, which went over to the side of the anti-German coalition in the middle of the war).

As for the Entente countries, they also had their own interests.

Great Britain sought to preserve its maritime and colonial power, to defeat Germany as a competitor in the world market and to suppress its claims to the redistribution of colonies. In addition, Great Britain counted on the seizure of oil-rich Mesopotamia and Palestine from Turkey.

France wanted to return Alsace and Lorraine, taken from her by Germany in 1871, and seize the Saar coal basin.

Russia also had certain strategic interests in the Balkans, wanted the annexation of Galicia and the lower reaches of the Neman, and also wanted a free exit for the Black Sea fleet through the Turkish straits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to the Mediterranean Sea.

The situation was also complicated by the tough economic competition of European countries in the world market. Each of them wanted to eliminate rivals not only by economic and political methods, but also by force of arms.

The Russian army was predominantly peasant. Its composition was as follows: 80% of peasants, 10% of workers, 10% of other classes. This is quite understandable, because Russia was an agrarian state, and the class that predominated in the country's population should have predominated in its armed forces.

The Russian soldier lived in a poor and harsh environment. They slept on straw mattresses and the same pillows without pillowcases. We covered ourselves with an overcoat, dirty after the exercises, wet after the rain. Only in 1905 was the supply of bed linen and blankets introduced to the troops.

The uniform of the Russian army had one major drawback: it was the same for all latitudes - for Arkhangelsk and for the Crimea.

The soldier's food was modest. A typical daily menu of a private: in the morning - tea with rye bread (about 1200 grams of bread per day), at lunchtime - borscht or soup with 200 grams of meat or fish (after 1905 - 300 grams) and porridge, for dinner - liquid gruel seasoned lard. But in terms of calories and taste, the food was quite satisfactory. The soldier's stomach was the subject of special care of commanders and chiefs of all levels. "Tasting" the soldier's food was a traditional rite performed by the highest officials, even the king, when visiting the barracks.

Military science was difficult for the soldier-peasant, thanks to illiteracy, lack of pre-conscription training and sports. Before the First World War, up to 40% of illiterate people were conscripted into the army. And the army, in which compulsory literacy was introduced since 1902, itself filled this gap, releasing annually up to 200 thousand reserve ones who learned to read and write in the service.

The soldier of the Russian army was brave, hardy, unpretentious and completely disciplined.

Austria-Hungary, suffering from internal ailments - the "patchiness" of the national composition of the population, German-Hungarian rivalry, did not have sufficient funds to fulfill the intended tasks of waging a world war. But behind her was powerful Germany, supporting her in her aggressive endeavors. Not only an ally, but also a leader.

On June 28, 1914, a Sarajevo shot rang out, as a result of the Austrian regime in Bosnia and Herzegovina captured by Austria-Hungary, as a result of the national liberation upsurge of the South Slavs. The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, while visiting the city of Sarajevo, was killed by a Bosnian Austrian citizen Gavrila Princip.

In response to the assassination, Austria-Hungary on July 23 presented Serbia with an ultimatum containing a number of obviously impossible demands. The Serbian government tried to give a rather conciliatory response to the ultimatum presented. However, it still did not accept some of the requirements contained in it. After that, on July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The next day, Belgrade was bombed for the first time.

Russia was considered the patroness and protector of Orthodox Slavic Serbia. When the war broke out, Nicholas II sent a telegram to the German Kaiser Wilhelm, an ally of Austria-Hungary. The Russian tsar "in the name of the old friendship" asked the Kaiser "to prevent the ally from going too far in an ignoble war declared to a weak country." Wilhelm replied that the perpetrators of the "dastardly murder" in Sarajevo should receive deserved retribution ...

The situation was heating up every day.

Immediately after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and in view of the mobilization of Austrian forces not only on the Serbian, but also on the Russian border, at the council in Tsarskoe Selo on July 25, it was decided to declare not an actual mobilization, but a pre-mobilization period, which provided for the return of troops from the camps to permanent apartments checking plans and stocks. At the same time, in order not to be taken by surprise, it was decided, if necessary (determined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), to partially mobilize four military districts - Kiev, Kazan, Moscow and Odessa. The Warsaw district, bordering directly on both Austria-Hungary and Germany, was not supposed to be raised, so as not to give the latter a reason to see this as a hostile act against her.

The Russian plan for mobilizing and waging war provided for only one combination - the fight against the combined Austro-German forces. There was no plan for anti-Austrian mobilization at all.

Germany demanded to cancel this measure within 12 hours.

On August 1, the German ambassador to Russia, Count F. Pourtales, handed over to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in response to Russia's refusal to cancel the mobilization, a note declaring war.

On the 1st of August Germany declared war on Russia, on the 3rd - on France. On the 4th, the Germans invaded Belgian territory, and the British government informed Berlin that it would "take all measures in its power to protect the neutrality of Belgium guaranteed to them." Thus, England on the 4th of August also entered the First World War.

Austria hesitated. And Nicholas II, still hoping to extinguish the fire, gave the order not to open hostilities until she declared war on August 6. As a result, our cavalry, which had only four hours of mobilization readiness, was able to throw its forward squadrons abroad only on the 6th day.

So First World War started. It is necessary to describe the ratio of the number of armed forces of the opposing sides. It was as follows: after the end of the mobilization and concentration of the Entente troops, in comparison with the Triple Alliance, it was 10 to 6. Thus, the number of the Entente armies was greater. But one must take into account the weakness of the Belgian army (Belgium unwittingly found itself drawn into the war, despite the declared neutrality); disorganization and complete inconsistency with the standards of that time of the armament and equipment of the Serbian army - an army brave, but in the nature of a militia, and poor armament of the Russian army. On the other hand, the superiority of the central powers in the number of artillery, especially heavy (the number of guns per corps: Germany - 160, Austria - 123, France - 120, Russia - 108), and the German army - in technology and organization, counterbalanced, if not outweighed, this difference. This comparison shows that the level of technical and artillery equipment of the Triple Alliance was much higher than that of the Entente.

Particularly difficult was the situation in Russia, with its vast distances and an insufficient network of railways, which made it difficult to concentrate and transfer troops and the supply of ammunition; with its backward industry, which could not and could not cope with the ever-increasing demands of wartime.

It can be said that if on the Western European front the opponents competed in courage and technique, then on the Eastern front Russia could only oppose the aggressors with courage and blood.

The German plan for the war was to initially quickly deal with France, striking the main blow through neutral Luxembourg and Belgium, whose armies were weak and could not represent a serious force that could contain the German onslaught. And on the Eastern Front, it was supposed to leave only a fence against the Russian troops (in this case Germany counted on a surprise strike and a long mobilization in Russia). For this, it was originally planned to concentrate 7 times more forces in the west than in the east, but later 5 corps were withdrawn from the strike group, 3 of which were sent to protect Alsace and Lorraine, and 2 later to East Prussia to stop Samsonov's offensive and Rennenkampf. Thus, Germany planned to exclude a war on two fronts and, having defeated France, throw all its forces on the newly mobilized Russia.

A powerful group of German troops threw back the Belgian army and invaded France. The French and the English corps landing on the northern coast of France were forced to retreat under the pressure of superior forces. The enemy moved towards Paris. Emperor Wilhelm, calling for ruthlessness, promised to do away with France in the fall. Mortal danger looms over France. The government temporarily left the capital.

To save the allies, the Russian armies accelerated the preparation of the offensive and began it with an incomplete deployment of all their forces. A week and a half after the declaration of war, the 1st and 2nd armies under the command of generals P.K. Rennkampf and A.V. Samsonov invaded East Prussia and defeated the enemy troops in the Gumbinnen-Goldan battle. At the same time, forces were concentrated in the area of ​​Warsaw and the new fortress of Novogeorgievsk for the main strategic attack on Berlin. At the same time, the offensive of the 3rd and 8th armies of the Southwestern Front against the Austrians began. It developed successfully and led to the occupation of the territory of Galicia (Lvov was taken on August 21). At the same time, the armies in East Prussia, without reaching coordination in their actions, were defeated piece by piece by the enemy. The defeat in East Prussia in August 1914 deprived Russian troops of activity in the area for the duration of the war. They now received only defensive missions - to defend Moscow and Petrograd.

The successful offensive in Galicia led to the fact that reserves for the Southwestern Front are beginning to be removed even from near Warsaw, parting with the plans for an offensive on Berlin. The center of gravity of the operations of the Russian army as a whole is shifting to the south, against Austria-Hungary. 12 (25) September 1914, by order of the Headquarters, an offensive on Southwestern Front has been suspended. In 33 days, Russian troops advanced 280-300 km and reached the line of the Wisloka River 80 km from Krakow. The powerful fortress of Przemysl was besieged. A significant part of Bukovina was occupied with the main city of Chernivtsi. The combat losses of the Austrians reached 400 thousand people, of which 100 thousand were prisoners, 400 guns were captured. The Galician offensive operation was one of the most brilliant victories of the Russian army in the entire First World War.

During October - November, two major battles took place on the territory of Poland: Warsaw-Ivanogod and Lodz.

At times over 800 thousand people took part in the battles on both sides. Neither side was able to fully solve their tasks. However, in general, the actions of the Russian troops were more effective. Although the offensive on Berlin never materialized, the Western Allies, especially France, who were in dire straits, were given respite.

Due to the sending of part of the troops from France to the east, the Germans did not have enough strength for the planned bypass of Paris. They were forced to reduce the front of their offensive and reached the Marne River northeast of Paris, where they ran into large Anglo-French forces.

More than 1.5 million people fought on both sides at the Battle of the Marne in September 1914. French and British troops went on the offensive. On September 9, the retreat of the Germans began along the entire front. They were able to stop the advancing enemy only at the Aisne River. The government and the diplomatic corps, hastily fled to Bordeaux, were able to return to Paris.

By the end of 1914, the Western Front had stabilized from the North Sea to the Swiss border. The soldiers buried themselves in trenches. Maneuverable war turned into trench warfare.

At the end of November 1914, at a meeting of the commanders of the fronts of the Russian army in Brest, it was decided to suspend offensive actions, and until January 1915 a lull was established on the Eastern Front.

Serbian troops waged a heroic struggle against the onslaught of the Austro-Hungarian army, which in the fall of 1914 captured Belgrade twice, but in December 1914 the Serbs expelled the occupiers from all over Serbia and until the fall of 1915 fought a trench war with the Austro-Hungarian army.

Turkish troops, instructed by German military specialists, launched an offensive on the Transcaucasian front in the fall of 1914. However, Russian troops repulsed this offensive and successfully advanced in the Erzrum, Alakshert and Van directions. In December 1914, two corps of the Turkish army under the command of Enver Pasha launched an offensive near Sarakamish. but here, too, the Russian army forced one corps to surrender, and the second corps was completely destroyed. In the future, Turkish troops did not try to continue any active military operations.

Russian troops also expelled the Turks from Iranian Azerbaijan: only some areas of Western Iran were held by the Turks.

By the end of 1914, on all fronts, the armies of both warring coalitions went over to a protracted trench warfare.

The war on the seas and oceans in the second half of 1914 essentially boiled down to a mutual blockade of the coasts. The first naval battle was the 28 August 1914 raid of the British squadron of Admiral Beatty on German ships stationed in the bay of Helgoland Island. As a result of this raid, three German cruisers and one destroyer were sunk, the British had only one cruiser damaged. Then there were two more minor battles: November 1, 1914 at the Cornell battle off the coast

Chile, the British squadron was defeated by German ships, losing two cruisers, and on December 8, the British squadron defeated German ships near the Falkland Islands, completely destroying Admiral Spee's squadron. These naval battles did not change the balance of naval forces: as before, the English fleet was superior to the Austro-German, which was hiding in the bays of Helgoland Island, in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. On the oceans, in the North and Mediterranean seas, the Entente fleet dominated, it provided its communications. But already in the first months of the war, a great threat to the Entente fleet was revealed from the German submarines, which on September 22 sank, one by one, three British battleships carrying out patrol service on sea routes.

The pirate raid of "Geben" and "Breslay" on the Black Sea coast of Russia did not give significant results. Already on November 18, the Russian Black Sea Fleet inflicted severe damage to the Goeben and forced the Turkish fleet to take refuge in the Bosphorus. The Russian Baltic Fleet was in Riga and Gulfs of Finland under a secure minefield in the Baltic Sea.

Thus, by the end of 1914, the failure of the military-strategic plan of the German command became obvious. Germany was forced to wage a war on two fronts.

Military action in 1915

The Russian command entered 1915 with the firm intention of completing the victorious offensive of its troops in Galicia.

Stubborn battles were going on for the capture of the Carpathian passages and the Carpathian ridge. On March 22, after a six-month siege, Przemysl surrendered with its 127-thousandth garrison of Austro-Hungarian troops. But the Russian troops did not succeed in reaching the Hungarian plain.

In 1915, Germany and her allies directed the main blow against Russia, hoping to defeat her and withdraw her from the war. By mid-April, the German command managed to transfer the best combat-ready corps from the Western Front, which, together with the Austro-Hungarian troops, formed a new shock 11th Army under the command of German General Mackensen.

Concentrating on the main direction of the counteroffensive troops, twice the strength of the Russian troops, bringing up artillery, numerically superior to the Russian 6 times, and in heavy guns - 40 times, the Austro-German army on May 2, 1915 broke through the front in the area of ​​Gorlitsy.

Under the pressure of the Austro-German troops, the Russian army retreated from the Carpathians and Galicia with heavy battles, left Przemysl at the end of May, and surrendered Lvov on June 22. At the same time, in June, the German command, intending to pinch the Russian troops fighting in Poland, launched strikes with its right wing between the Western Bug and the Vistula, and with its left - in the lower reaches of the Narew River. But here, as in Galicia, the Russian troops, which did not have enough weapons, ammunition and equipment, retreated with heavy fighting.

By mid-September 1915, the offensive initiative of the German army was exhausted. The Russian army was entrenched on the front line: Riga - Dvinsk - Lake Naroch - Pinsk - Ternopil - Chernivtsi, and by the end of 1915 the Eastern Front stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Romanian border. Russia lost a vast territory, but retained its strength.

At a time when the Russian armies were waging an intense unequal war with the main forces of the Austro-German coalition, Russia's allies - England and France - on the Western Front during the whole of 1915 organized only a few private military operations that were not significant. In the midst of bloody battles on the Eastern Front, when the Russian army was engaged in heavy defensive battles, the Anglo-French allies did not attack on the Western Front. It was adopted only at the end of September 1915, when on the Eastern Front offensive operations the German army had already ceased.

Having received a territorial gain on the Eastern Front, the German command, however, did not achieve the main thing - it did not force the tsarist government to conclude a separate peace with Germany, although half of all armed forces Germany and Austria-Hungary was concentrated against Russia.

In the same year 1915, Germany tried to inflict a crushing blow on England. For the first time, she widely used a relatively new weapon - submarines - to prevent the supply of necessary raw materials and foodstuffs to England. Hundreds of ships were destroyed, their crews and passengers were killed. The indignation of neutral countries forced Germany not to sink passenger ships without warning. England, by increasing and accelerating the construction of ships, as well as developing effective measures to combat submarines, overcame the danger hanging over her.

Germany also suffered a setback in the diplomatic struggle. The Entente promised Italy more than Germany and Austria-Hungary, which collided with Italy in the Balkans. In May 1915, Italy declared war on them and diverted some of the troops of Austria-Hungary and Germany.

This failure was only partially compensated by the fact that in the autumn of 1915 the Bulgarian government entered the war against the Entente. As a result, the Quadruple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria was formed. An immediate consequence of this was the offensive of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops against Serbia. The small Serb army heroically resisted, but was crushed by the superior forces of the enemy. The troops of England, France, Russia and the remnants of the Serbian army sent to help the Serbs formed the Balkan Front.

As the war dragged on, the Entente countries grew suspicious and distrustful of each other. According to a secret agreement between Russia and the allies in 1915, in the event of a victorious end to the war, Constantinople and the straits were to go to Russia. Fearing the implementation of this agreement, on the initiative of Winston Churchill, under the pretext of an attack on the straits and Constantinople, allegedly to undermine the communications of the German coalition with Turkey, a Dardanelles expedition was undertaken to occupy Constantinople.

On February 19, 1915, the Anglo-French fleet began shelling the Dardanelles. However, having suffered heavy losses, the Anglo-French squadron stopped bombing the Dardanelles fortifications a month later.

Military action in 1916

The 1915 military campaign on the Western Front did not bring any major operational results. Positional battles only prolonged the war, the Entente moved to an economic blockade of Germany, to which the latter responded with a merciless submarine war. In May 1915, a German submarine torpedoed the British ocean-going steamer Lusitania, which killed over a thousand passengers.

Without undertaking active offensive military operations, England and France, thanks to the transfer of the center of gravity of military operations to the Russian front, received a respite and concentrated all their attention on the development of the war industry. They accumulated strength for the further war. By the beginning of 1916, England and France had an advantage over Germany in 70-80 divisions and outnumbered it in the latest weapons (tanks appeared).

The grave consequences of active offensive military operations in 1914-1915 prompted the leaders of the Entente to convene a meeting of representatives of the general staffs of the allied armies in December 1915 in Chantilly, near Paris, where they came to the conclusion that the war could be ended victoriously only with coordinated active offensive operations on the main fronts. ... However, even after this decision, the offensive in 1916 was planned primarily on the Eastern Front on June 15, and on the Western Front on July 1.

Having learned about the planned dates for the offensive of the Entente countries, the German command decided to take the initiative into its own hands and launch an offensive on the Western Front much earlier. At the same time, the main attack on the area of ​​the Verdun fortifications was planned: for the protection of which, according to the firm conviction of the German command, "the French command will have to sacrifice the last man", since in the event of a breakthrough of the front at Verdun, a direct route to Paris will open. However, the offensive on Verdun, launched on February 21, 1916, was not crowned with success, especially since in March, due to the offensive of Russian troops in the area of ​​the city of Dvinsk and Lake Naroch, the German command was forced to weaken its onslaught at Verdun. Nevertheless, mutual bloody attacks and counterattacks near Verdun lasted almost 10 months, until December 18, but did not produce significant results. The Verdun operation literally turned into a "meat grinder", into the destruction of manpower. Both sides suffered colossal losses: the French - 350 thousand people, the Germans - 600 thousand people.

The German offensive on the Verdun fortifications did not change the plan of the Entente command to launch the main offensive on July 1, 1916 on the Somme River.

As a result of the entire Somme operation, the Entente seized an area of ​​200 square meters. km, 105 thousand German prisoners, 1500 machine guns and 350 guns. In the battles on the Somme, both sides lost over 1 million 300 thousand killed, wounded and captured.

Carrying out the decisions agreed upon at a meeting of representatives of the general staffs in December 1915 in Chantilly, the high command of the Russian army planned for June 15 the main offensive on the Western Front in the direction of Baranovichi with a simultaneous auxiliary strike of the armies of the Southwestern Front under the command of General Brusilov in the Galician-Bukovinian direction. However, the German offensive on Verdun, which began in February, again forced the French government to ask the tsarist government of Russia for help by an offensive on the Eastern Front. In early March, Russian troops launched an offensive in the area of ​​Dvinsk and Lake Navoch. The attacks of the Russian troops continued until March 15, but led only to tactical successes. As a result of this operation, the Russian troops suffered heavy losses, but pulled off a significant amount of German reserves and thereby facilitated the position of the French at Verdun. French troops were able to regroup and strengthen their defenses.

The Dvina-Naroch operation made it difficult to prepare for the general offensive on the Russian-German front, scheduled for June 15. However, the help of the French was followed by a new insistent request from the command of the Entente troops to help the Italians. In May 1916, the 400,000-strong Austro-Hungarian army launched an offensive in Trentino and inflicted a heavy defeat on the Italian army. Rescuing from complete defeat the Italian army, as well as the Anglo-French in the west, the Russian command began on June 4, ahead of schedule, the offensive of troops in the southwestern direction. Russian troops under the command of General Brusilov, having broken through the enemy's defenses on an almost 300-kilometer front, began to advance into Eastern Galicia and Bukovina (Brusilov breakthrough). But in the midst of the offensive, despite requests from General Brusilov to reinforce the advancing troops with reserves and ammunition, the high command of the Russian army refused to send reserves to the southwestern direction and began, as previously planned, an offensive in the western direction. However, after a weak blow in the direction of Baranovichi, the commander of the northwestern direction, General Evert, postponed the general offensive until early July.

Meanwhile, the troops of General Brusilov continued to develop the launched offensive and by the end of June advanced far into the depths of Galicia and Bukovina. On July 3, General Evert renewed the offensive on Baranovichi, but Russian attacks in this sector of the front were not successful. Only after the complete failure of the offensive of General Evert's troops, the high command of the Russian troops recognized the offensive of General Brusilov's troops on the Southwestern Front as the main one - but it was already too late, time was lost, the Austrian command managed to regroup its troops, pulled up reserves. Six divisions were transferred from the Austro-Italian front, and the German command, in the midst of the Verdun and Somme battles, transferred eleven divisions to the Eastern Front. Further offensive Russian troops were suspended.

As a result of the offensive on the Southwestern Front, Russian troops advanced far into the depths of Bukovina and Eastern Galicia, occupying about 25 thousand square meters. km of territory. 9 thousand officers and over 400 thousand soldiers were taken prisoner. However, this success of the Russian army in the summer of 1916 did not bring a decisive strategic result due to the inertia and mediocrity of the high command, the backwardness of transport, the lack of weapons and ammunition. Nevertheless, the offensive of the Russian troops in 1916 played a major role. It eased the position of the allies and, together with the offensive of the Anglo-French troops on the Somme, nullified the initiative of the German troops and forced them in the future to strategic defense, and the Austro-Hungarian army after the Brusilov strike of 1916 was no longer capable of serious offensive operations.

When the Russian troops under the command of Brusilov inflicted a major defeat on the Austro-Hungarian troops on the Southwestern Front, the Romanian ruling circles considered that the moment had come to enter the war on the side of the victors, especially since, contrary to the opinion of Russia, England and France insisted on joining Romania into the war. On August 17, Romania independently began a war in Transylvania and initially achieved some success there, but when the Somme battles subsided, the Austro-German troops defeated the Romanian army without much effort and occupied almost all of Romania, having received a rather important source of food and oil. As foreseen by the Russian command, 35 infantry and 11 cavalry divisions had to be transferred to Romania in order to strengthen the front along the Lower Danube - Braila - Focsani - Dorna - Vatra line.

On the Caucasian front, developing the offensive, Russian troops captured Erzurum on February 16, 1916, and on April 18 occupied

Trabzond (Trebizond). The battles developed successfully for the Russian troops in the Urmia direction, where Ruvandiz was occupied, and at Lake Van, where Russian troops entered Mush and Bitlis in the summer.

End of the war.

1917 year. The growth of revolutionary activity and "peaceful" maneuvers in the belligerent countries

By the end of 1916, the superiority of the Entente both in the number of armed forces and in military equipment especially in artillery, aviation and tanks. The Entente entered the military campaign of 1917 on all fronts with 425 divisions against 331 enemy divisions. However, disagreements in the military leadership and the selfish goals of the Entente members often paralyzed these advantages, this was clearly manifested in the inconsistency of the actions of the Entente command during major operations in 1916. Moving on to strategic defense, the Austro-German coalition, still far from defeated, presented the world with the fact of a protracted and exhausting war.

And every month, every week of the war entailed new colossal victims. By the end of 1916, both sides had lost about 6 million killed and about 10 million wounded and maimed. Under the influence of enormous human losses and hardships at the front and in the rear, the chauvinistic frenzy of the first months of the war passed in all the belligerent countries. The anti-war movement in the rear and at the fronts grew every year.

The dragging out of the war had an inevitable effect, including on the morale of the Russian army. The patriotic upsurge of 1914 was long lost, the exploitation of the idea of ​​"Slavic solidarity" has also exhausted itself. To this must be added a protest against cane discipline, abuses by chiefs, and embezzlement of the rear services. Both at the front and in the rear garrisons there were more and more cases of non-observance of orders, expressions of sympathy for the workers on strike.

The main obstacle to victory was now not material shortcomings (weapons and supplies, military equipment), but the internal state of society itself. Deep contradictions gripped the layers. The main one was the contradiction between the tsarist-monarchist camp and the other two - the liberal-bourgeois and the revolutionary-democratic. The tsar and the court camarilla grouped around him wanted to preserve all their privileges, the liberal bourgeoisie wanted access to government power, and the revolutionary democratic camp, led by the Bolshevik Party, fought to overthrow the monarchy.

The wide masses of the population of all the belligerent countries were enveloped in fermentation. More and more workers demanded immediate peace and condemned chauvinism, protested against merciless exploitation, lack of food, clothing, fuel, and against the enrichment of the top of society. The refusal of the ruling circles to satisfy these demands and the suppression of protests by force gradually led the masses to the conclusion that it was necessary to fight against the military dictatorship and the entire existing system. Anti-war demonstrations grew into a revolutionary movement.

In this environment, anxiety grew in the ruling circles of both coalitions. Even the most extreme imperialists could not ignore the mood of the masses who yearned for peace. Therefore, maneuvers were undertaken with "peace" proposals in the expectation that these proposals would be rejected by the enemy and in this case it would be possible to shift all the blame for the continuation of the war on him.

So on December 12, 1916, the Kaiser's government of Germany suggested that the Entente countries begin "peace" negotiations. At the same time, the German "peace" proposal was calculated on a split in the Entente camp and on the support of those layers within the Entente countries that were inclined to achieve peace with Germany without a "crushing blow" on Germany by force of arms. Since the "peace" proposal of Germany did not contain any specific conditions and absolutely hushed up the question of the fate of the territories of Russia, Belgium, France, Serbia, Romania occupied by the Austro-German troops, this gave rise to the Entente for this and subsequent proposals to respond with specific requirements for the liberation of Germany all the occupied territories, as well as the partition of Turkey, the "reorganization" of Europe on the basis of the "national principle", which actually meant the Entente's refusal to enter into peace negotiations with Germany and its allies. German propaganda noisily announced to the whole world that the Entente countries were to blame for the continuation of the war and that they were forcing Germany to take "defensive measures" through a merciless "unlimited submarine war."

In February 1917, the bourgeois-democratic revolution triumphed in Russia, and a movement for a revolutionary way out of the imperialist war developed widely in the country.

In response to the unrestricted submarine war on the part of Germany, which began in February 1917, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the latter, and on April 6, declaring war on Germany, entered the war in order to influence its results in their favor.

Even before the arrival of American soldiers, the Entente forces launched an offensive on the Western Front on April 16, 1917. But the attacks of the Anglo-French troops, which followed one after the other on April 16-19, were unsuccessful. The French and British lost more than 200 thousand killed in four days of fighting. In this battle, 5 thousand Russian soldiers from the 3rd Russian brigade, sent from Russia to help the allies, were killed. Almost all 132 British tanks participating in the battle were hit or destroyed.

In preparing this military operation, the command of the Entente insistently demanded from the Provisional Government of Russia to launch an offensive on the Eastern Front. However, it was not easy to prepare such an offensive in revolutionary Russia. Nevertheless, the head of the Provisional Government, Kerensky, began to intensively prepare an offensive, hoping, if successful, to raise the prestige of the bourgeois Provisional Government, and in case of failure to blame the Bolsheviks.

Started July 1, 1917 Russian offensive in the Lvov direction at first it developed successfully, but soon the German army, which received reinforcements from 11 divisions transferred from the Western Front, launched a counteroffensive and threw the Russian troops far beyond their original positions.

Thus, in 1917, on all European fronts, despite the superiority of the Entente in manpower and military equipment, its troops failed to achieve decisive success in any of the offensives undertaken. The revolutionary situation in Russia and the lack of the necessary coordination in military operations within the coalition thwarted the implementation of the strategic plans of the Entente, designed to completely defeat the Austro-German bloc in 1917.

Russia's withdrawal from the First World War

On October 25 (November 7), 1917, the October Revolution took place in Petrograd. The Provisional Government fell, power passed into the hands of the Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers 'and Soldiers' Deputies, convened in Smolny on October 25, established the Soviet Republic in the country. V.I. Lenin. On October 26 (November 8), 1917, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the Peace Decree. In it, the Soviet government proposed "to all the belligerent peoples and their governments to begin immediately negotiations on a just and democratic peace." It was further explained that the Soviet government considers such a peace to be an immediate peace without annexations, without the forcible annexation of foreign peoples and without indemnity.

Indeed, among the many tasks that the victorious Soviets had to solve, one of the most important was the withdrawal from the war. The fate of the socialist revolution largely depended on this. The working masses were waiting for deliverance from the hardships and hardships of the war.

The governments of the Entente countries did not even respond to the proposal of the Second Congress of Soviets to conclude peace. On the contrary, they tried to prevent Russia from withdrawing from the war. Instead of looking for ways to peace, they tried to prevent Russia from withdrawing from the war. Instead of looking for ways to peace, they embarked on a course of supporting the counter-revolution in Russia and organizing anti-Soviet intervention in order, as Winston Churchill put it, "to strangle the communist hen before she hatched the chickens."

In these conditions, it was decided to independently begin negotiations with Germany on the conclusion of peace.

In the party and in the Soviets, a heated debate flared up - to conclude peace or not to conclude? Three points of view fought: Lenin and his supporters - to agree to the signing of the annexationist peace; the group of "left communists" headed by Bukharin - not to conclude peace with Germany, but to declare a "revolutionary" war on it and thereby help the German proletariat to kindle a revolution in itself; Trotsky - "no peace, no war."

The Soviet peace delegation, headed by the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs L.D. Trotsky, Lenin gave instructions to delay the signing of the peace. There was a glimmer of hope that a revolution might break out in Germany. But Trotsky did not fulfill this condition. After the German delegation conducted negotiations in an ultimatum tone, he announced that the Soviet Republic was ending the war, demobilizing the army: but not signing peace. As Trotsky later explained, he hoped that such a gesture would stir up the German proletariat. The Soviet delegation immediately left Brest. The negotiations were thwarted by Trotsky.

The German government, which had long been developing a plan to seize Russia, received a pretext for breaking the armistice. On February 18, at 12 noon, German troops launched an offensive along the entire front - from the Gulf of Riga to the mouth of the Danube. It was attended by about 700 thousand people.

The plan of the German command provided for the rapid capture of Petrograd and Moscow, the fall of the Soviets and the conclusion of peace with the new, "non-Bolshevik government."

The retreat of the old Russian army began, which by this time had lost its combat capability. German divisions moved almost unhindered into the interior of the country, and, above all, in the direction of Petrograd. On the morning of February 19, Lenin sent a telegram to the German government agreeing to sign the peace on the proposed terms. At the same time, the Council of People's Commissars took measures to organize military resistance to the enemy. It was provided by small detachments of the Red Guard, the Red Army and individual units of the old army. However, the German offensive developed rapidly. Dvinsk, Minsk, Polotsk, a significant part of Estonia and Latvia were lost. The Germans were eager for Petrograd. Mortal danger loomed over the Soviet Republic.

February 21 Council People's Commissars accepted written by V.I. Lenin's decree "The Socialist Fatherland is in Danger!" On February 22 and 23, 1918 in Petrograd, Pskov, Revel, Narva, Moscow, Smolensk and in other cities, a campaign of enrollment in the Red Army was launched.

Near Pskov and Revel, in Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine, there were battles with the Kaiser's units. On the Petrograd direction, Soviet troops managed to halt the enemy's offensive.

The growing resistance of the Soviet troops cooled the ardor of the German generals. Fearing a protracted war in the East and a blow by the Anglo-American and French troops from the West, the German government decided to make peace. But the conditions of peace he proposed were even more difficult. The Soviet republic had to completely demobilize the army, conclude unprofitable agreements with Germany, etc.

The peace treaty with Germany was signed in Brest on March 3, 1918 and went down in history under the name of the Brest Peace.

Thus, Russia withdrew from the First World War, but for the Soviet power in Russia it was only a respite, which was used to strengthen power and economy, to prepare for the "rebuff to world imperialism."

End of World War I

In the spring of 1918, the German command tried to defeat the Anglo-French troops before the arrival of large US armed forces in Europe. It assured the soldiers that this battle would be decisive.

From the end of March, Germany launched an offensive. At the cost of heavy losses, her troops managed to advance to Paris, capture many prisoners and trophies. But it was not possible to defeat the Anglo-French armies before the arrival of US troops. Not only the material, but also the manpower reserves of Germany were exhausted: teenagers were sent to the front. The soldiers were exhausted and did not want to fight; many deserted.

The offensive of the German troops failed, and the initiative passed to the Entente. The Anglo-French army and the already arriving US divisions threw the German troops back to their original positions.

On August 8, the offensive of the troops of France, England and the United States began under the general command of the French Marshal Foch. They broke through the enemy's front, defeating 16 divisions in one day. Not wanting to fight, the German soldiers surrendered. It was, according to the actual head of the German General Staff, General Ludendorff, "the darkest day of the German army in the history of the world war."

The German armed forces were no longer able to resist the general offensive of the Franco-Anglo-American troops.

Anglo-French and Serbian forces were advancing on the Balkan front. The Bulgarian army was defeated and Bulgaria surrendered. After the defeat of the Turkish army by British and French troops in Palestine and Syria, the Ottoman Empire also capitulated. Soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army refused to fight. Austria-Hungary collapsed. A number of independent nation states... On November 3, 1918, the Austro-Hungarian command signed an armistice dictated by the Entente.

On the same day, the revolution began in Germany. On November 9, the people overthrew the monarchy. The country became a republic. A new government was created. At dawn on November 11, 1918, in the Compiegne forest, in the Foch headquarters car, an armistice was signed between Germany and her opponents.

On November 11, at 11 o'clock in the morning, a signalman standing at the headquarters car of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief sounded the cease-fire signal. The First World War is over.

Results of the First World War

In 1914 Germany was better prepared for war than her opponents. However, the world war ended with the defeat of the Quadruple Alliance. The superiority of the Entente in human and material resources was of decisive importance. The United States was on its side.

The political system that existed in Germany, Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire, did not withstand the tests of the world war and crashed. As a result of defeats and revolutions, all three empires disappeared from the political map. England, France and the United States achieved the defeat of their main competitors and began to redistribute the world.

The Russian monarchy did not stand the test of the world war either. It was swept away within a few days by the storm of the February Revolution. The reasons for the fall of the monarchy are the chaos in the country, the crisis in the economy, politics, the contradictions of the monarchy with the broad strata of society. The catalyst for all these negative processes was the ruinous participation of Russia in the First World War. Largely due to the inability of the Provisional Government to solve the problem of achieving peace for Russia, the October coup took place. Soviet authority was able to bring Russia out of the world war, but only at the cost of significant territorial concessions. Thus, the tasks facing Russia in 1914 to expand the territory and spheres of influence of the Russian Empire were not fulfilled.

The imperialist world war of 1914-1918 was the bloodiest and most brutal of all wars that the world had known before 1914. Never before have the opposing sides deployed such huge armies for mutual destruction. The total number of armies reached 70 million people. All the achievements of technology and chemistry were aimed at exterminating people. They killed everywhere: on land and in the air, on water and under water. Poisonous gases, explosive bullets, automatic machine guns, shells from heavy weapons, flamethrowers - everything was aimed at destroying human life. 10 million killed, 18 million wounded - this is the result of the war.

Economic crisis erupted in European countries

Falling living standards

Undermining major global trade ties

Results for Russia

The war lasted 4 years 3 months and 10 days for our allies, and for Russia - 3 years 7 months and 3 days. Both in scale and duration, it was the largest war of modern and recent times after World War II, which lasted 6 years.

Compared to peacetime, the Russian army has increased 9.5 times. In comparison with the able-bodied male population, the size of the Entente armies was 50% (there are no exact data for Russia), and up to half of the railway transport was involved in military supplies.

During the war years, 16 million people passed through the Russian army, which amounted to 1/3 of the total mobilization in the Entente. By June 1917, 55.3% of the divisions of the anti-German coalition were concentrated on the Russian front. Thus, during almost the entire war (1914-1917), the Russian front was the main one.

The Serbian nationalist G. Princip killed the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife. The Serbian government itself, although it guessed about the conspiracy, did not approve of it, for the country was exhausted by the two Balkan wars. In historical science, at one time, there were verbose discussions about which country bears the main responsibility for unleashing an unprecedented hitherto bloody world massacre. von Yagov to the German ambassador to London, Prince K. M. Likhnovsky. Just as this prominent Kaiser diplomat reasoned in July 1914, immediately after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, many, if not all, thought in Berlin: “Basically, Russia is not ready for war now. France and England also do not want war now. In a few years, according to all competent assumptions, Russia will already be combat-ready.Then it will crush us with its number of soldiers; its Baltic Fleet and strategic railways will already be built. Our group, meanwhile, is getting weaker and weaker. In Russia this is well known and therefore they undoubtedly want another few years of rest. "

No less than in Berlin, they were interested in unleashing a world war in Vienna. Here is what he wrote, for example. the chief of the general staff of the Austro-Hungarian army and one of the most ardent adherents of the war K. von Goetzendorff: "Two principles were in sharp conflict with each other: either the preservation of Austria-Hungary as a conglomerate of nationalities, which should act as a single whole before outside world and to see their common good under the rule of one sovereign, or the growth of separate independent national states, claiming Austria-Hungary on their ethnic territories and thus causing the destruction of the monarchy.

The conflict between these two principles, which has been growing for a long time, has reached its highest stage due to the behavior of Serbia. His permission could not be delayed. "

However, after the murder in Sarajevo, Vienna still hesitated about the measures to be taken in the future. Thus, Austrian Prime Minister I. Tissa opposed decisive actions, and the aged monarch Franz Joseph, as always, doubted. the Austrian ambassador L. Segeny and at a meeting with him bluntly stated; "Do not hesitate to act against Serbia!" A concrete plan of reprisals against Belgrade was immediately approved. The Germans calculated the same: if Russia did not stand up for the Serbs, then in a one-on-one war Austria-Hungary would defeat them, which would benefit the central powers, and if Russia stood up for its historical ally, then a big war would break out in extremely profitable for Berlin conditions. So it was decided to issue an ultimatum to the Serbian side that was obviously unacceptable to it, the refusal to fulfill which would serve as the reason for the invasion of Austrian troops into Serbia. There is no doubt that it was the Germans who took the first and decisive step towards world war, unceremoniously pushing their “junior” coalition partners to extreme measures.

As for the allies in the Entente, at first, the murder of the heir to the Austrian throne did not cause much alarm. On July 20, President of France R. Poincaré and Chairman of the Council of Ministers R. Viviani arrived in Russia on July 20, confirming their allied obligations in the event of a war between Russia and Germany. That is why it was decided not to hand over the already prepared Austrian ultimatum to Serbia to the government of N. Pasic until the French delegation left for their homeland - thus, the allies were deprived of the opportunity to consult on this issue.

The Austrian ultimatum was delivered to the Serbian government only after he left Russia french president, - July 23. Belgrade was given 48 hours to respond. The ultimatum began with words about the connivance of the Serbian government to the anti-Austrian movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina and accusations of official Belgrade of organizing terrorist acts, followed by 10 specific demands. This document was actually a provocation, especially in that part of it, in which it was required to grant the Austrian authorities the right to conduct an investigation into the murder of the heir to the Austrian throne on the territory of Serbia, and was drawn up in such a way that no self-respecting independent state could accept it. The Serbian government immediately turned to Russia for help.

When on July 24 a telegram about the events in the Balkans went to the table of Russian Foreign Minister S. D. Sazonov, he exclaimed in his hearts: "This is a European war!" On the same day, a meeting of the Council of Ministers was held, at which the Serbs were asked to show moderation in response to the Austrian note. At the same time, the minister met with the German ambassador F., Pur-thales, in the hope of encouraging Berlin to act peacefully on the Austrians.

The policy pursued by official London is characteristic. Immediately after the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, the head of British diplomacy, Sir Gray, expressed deep regrets to Vienna, and then fell silent for a long time. Only on July 6, at a meeting with the German ambassador in London, Gray hinted that England would not allow the destruction of France. Not a word was said about Russia. Three days later, Griffin told the same prince Likhnovsky that England was not bound by any allied obligations either with Russia or with France and was retaining a free hand. At the same time, he exuded optimism. Interestingly, Gray also spoke to the Austrian ambassador in London about the damage to world trade that could be caused by a war between the four great European powers - Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and France. About the probable participation of the fifth great power - England - not a word. Thus, Berlin was firmly convinced that London would not intervene in the Balkan conflict, and this only made the Germans more aggressive. This was also facilitated by the difficult internal political situation in Great Britain itself, where the influence of pacifists was still strong.

At the appointed time, the Serbs prepared a response to the Austrian ultimatum. The note in reply was drafted in extremely conciliatory and diplomatic tones. Of the 10 points of Vienna's demands, 9 were accepted, the Serbs refused only to allow Austrian officials to conduct the investigation into the murder of Franz Ferdinand - this would be regarded by the whole world as Serbia's renunciation of its own sovereignty. Nevertheless, the Austrian envoy in Belgrade, Baron V. Gisl, making sure that the Serbs did not accept one point of the ultimatum, demanded his passports and left Belgrade. Further events developed on an increasing scale.

In response to Austria-Hungary's declaration of war on Serbia on July 28 and the shelling of Belgrade, Russia announced mobilization in the areas bordering with Austria-Hungary.

The next day, the British opened their cards, telling Likhnovsky that England would remain indifferent only as long as the conflict was limited to Austria-Hungary and Russia, and if France was drawn into it, London did not intend to stay on the sidelines for a long time. This statement produced a shock in Berlin, and the Kaiser was simply enraged. Instead of a war only against Russia and France, the Germans now had to fight against England, which completely dominated the sea and had practically unlimited human and raw material resources due to its vast colonies. In addition to this, Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance, refused to fight on the side of the central powers. In Berlin, they have already begun to talk about what England could. purely hypothetically, to mediate in the Balkan conflict, and called on Vienna to limit itself only to the occupation of Belgrade as a guarantee in future negotiations.

The course of events, however, could no longer be stopped. On July 30, the Tsar signed a decree on general mobilization in Russia. Germany demanded that Russia stop mobilizing, but, having been refused, on August 1, declared war on the Russian Empire.

It is surprising how hastily this was done - contrary to the plans of the military, which foresaw the defeat of France as a priority task, and the delay from Russia's entry into the war thus only played into their hands. This move, I think, was dictated by the peculiarity of the internal political situation in Germany; It was much more profitable for German politicians to declare to their fellow citizens that a war had begun in Europe against the backward tsarist autocracy for the triumph of democracy, and not started a new redivision of the world in the interests of the Second Reich.

On August 1, 1914, using a completely contrived pretext about provocations by the French border guards and the imaginary raids by French aircraft on sleeping burghers, the German chancellor drew up the text of a declaration of war on France. The note was handed over to the French side on the evening of 3 August.

Now the Germans needed to explain to the world why they treacherously attacked Belgium, whose neutrality had long been recognized by all the leading European powers, including Germany itself. To begin with, Chancellor T. Bethmann-Hollweg publicly called the international treaty on the neutrality of Belgium "a piece of paper", and then the official linden of Germany, not a single sum of money, announced the alleged invasion of this country by the French army and repulsing the "aggression" of the German troops. The Belgians were given a day for reflection. The Belgian leadership did not obey the dictates of the perfidious neighbor and turned to the heads of the Entente for help,

On August 4, under the noble pretext of defending the neutrality of Belgium, London, along with all its dominions, came out on the side of its allies in the Entente. So the war took on a truly global character.

V. Shatsillo. World War I. Facts and documents