OVERVIEW: 1917
After two and a half years of horrendous warfare, 1917 was the year in which many soldiers and civilians challenged the authority of their political and military leaders.
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS
The cold and hungry Russian citizens of Petrograd (now St Petersburg) were the first to do so in March when they took to the streets to protest against the war and ongoing food shortages. The soldiers sent to crush the rebellion started siding with the dissidents.
Within days, the ramshackle edifice of Tsarist autocracy had been exposed as the sham it was and was replaced by a provisional government, Nicholas II having abdicated. Russia remained in the war under its new government. However, the Petrograd rebellion proved to be just the first stage in an ongoing revolutionary process.
In November, Lenin's Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government - then led by Alexander Kerensky - in the second Russian revolution of 1917.
Lenin had promised to withdraw Russia from the war if the Bolsheviks gained power, and in spring 1917, the Germans had assisted his return from his Swiss exile.
Within weeks of seizing power, the Bolsheviks and the Central Powers had concluded a ceasefire that effectively ended Russian involvement in the war. The Brest-Litovsk treaty of March 1918 resulted in the release of half a million German soldiers for service on the Western Front. However, this numerical advantage would have to be used quickly before American troops started to make their presence felt.
THE AMERICANS ENTER THE WAR
The United States finally entered the war on the side of the Allies on 6 April. It had been inching towards this in the face of Germany's aggressive submarine campaign, but the event that finally drove it to war was the German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann's bizarre attempt to incite conflict between the US and Mexico.
What came to be known as the 'Zimmermann Telegram' was sent by Zimmermann to the German ambassador in Mexico and outlined the terms of an alliance between the two countries. Mexico was to attack the US with German and Japanese assistance; in return, it would receive the American states of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona.
The telegram was intercepted and decoded by British cryptographers, and its sensitive contents released to the American authorities at an appropriate time. Five weeks after the contents of the telegram were published in the American press, the US declared war on Germany.
DISAFFECTION
Disgusted with the conduct and heavy losses of the Nivelle offensive, large sections of the French army started mutinying in May 1917. The mutiny was suppressed, but only after General Nivelle had been replaced by Pétain and a more defensive strategy implemented.
Italy and Austria-Hungary clashed 12 times in battle on the plains of the Isonzo valley. In October and November, during the battle of Caporetto, Italian troops began to surrender and desert en masse, disillusioned by the brutality of their superiors and the conduct of the war.
Again, concessions were granted and obstinate commanders sacked. However, Italy's fighting strength was reduced by half, and the Allied positions had to be shored up by British and French troops despatched from the Western Front. The outcome of the entire conflict still hung in the balance.
|
|
