The year 1917 witnessed the third year of World War One, a war that leaders promised would be over in six months. In February, the Germans unleashed their submarines, announcing unrestricted warfare. After pledging to stay out of the war, the sinking of the Lusitania and the Zimmerman Telegram caused President Woodrow Wilson to declare war in April and highlighting the potential power of the United States. The Russian Revolution also broke out in February, with Czar Nicholas II abdicating in March and Vladimir Lenin arriving in April. The French Army mutinies in June along the Western French and the Russian army abandoning the Eastern Front in July weakened the war efforts. In November, the Bolshevik Party seized power, promising to establish peace with Germany. It was a year of violence and revolutions, both of which reshaped the world due to the resulting shifts in political power.
World War One dramatically shaped the countries involved. For example, over the course of the war, 11% of Frances’s entire population was killed or wounded, including 18% of those mobilized. People could hear the battles throughout Europe, such that when the British exploded a mine in France it could be heard in Ireland. Certain battles were especially catastrophic for the people involved. The first day of the battle of the Somme, July 1916, was the worst day in the history of the British army. It suffered nearly 60,000 casualties; 20,000 of them killed. World War One not only killed a great number of Russians but also directly caused the Russian Revolution.Popular sentiment exploded at the Czar in 1917 and the Germans quickly brought in Vladimir Lenin to head the push for revolution.
There is a great difficulty in studying this topic. Over 250,000 books and articles have been written on the subject with blame alternating between Germany, all the countries of the time or the system, but providing an endless debate on the subject. Compounding the problem is the oversupply of sources on certain subjects like diplomacy and military while other aspects of the war, such as the role of colonial subjects, have few sources. Some of the sources are still secret and many of the secret organizations involved in the war, especially at the start, left few papers.
The muddled nature of the Russian Revolution and the varied agendas of all those involved in it also makes this a difficult topic to study. The closed archives under Soviet rule only increased the difficulty for historians. Also contributing further to this phenomenon is the rural nature of many of the issues to be addressed by this topic. People’s own ideologies, whether they be capitalist or socialist in nature, influenced the study which was intertwined with many of the events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For instance, the Russian Revolution set in motion a chain of events, such as the Cold War, that defined the 20th century.
Figure 1: WW1-Mobilized forces as a percentage of the total population
