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1898 map of St. Petersburg, the Russian capital, from a German atlas. Central St Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on the Neva River. Key landmarks include the Peter and Paul Fortress, which served as a prison, Nevski Prospect, a primary boulevard south of the Fortress, the Finland Train Station, east of the Fortress, where Lenin made his triumphal return, the Tauride (Taurisches) Palace, which housed the Duma and later the Petrograd Soviet.
Re-elect President Woodrow Wilson! An October 18, 1916 cartoon from the British magazine Punch. The German sinking of ships that killed American citizens and sabotage such as the July 30, 1916 attack that destroyed the Black Tom munitions plant in Jersey City, New Jersey, were not enough to make Wilson call for a declaration of war on Germany, much to the distress of Great Britain and the other Entente allies. The date on Wilson's desk calendar is October 8, 1916, a day on which German submarine U-53 sank five vessels — three British, one Dutch, and one Norwegian — off Nantucket, Massachusetts. One of the British ships was a passenger liner traveling between New York and Newfoundland.
1898 map of Petrograd, the Russian capital, Kronstadt Bay, and the Russian naval base of Kronstadt, from a German atlas. Petersburg, or Petrograd, is on Kronstadt Bay, an extension of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. Kronstadt was an important naval base. North and east of central Petrograd was the Vyborg district, site of many factories and housing for workers.
Austrian pencil sketch on blank field postcard from Virgil of the 15th air company (Fliegerkomp. 15). On the reverse is a drawing of a fruit basket signed Mesavogl (?) 1917.
Egypt and Sinai from Cram's 1896 Railway Map of the Turkish Empire.
"'What [Kerensky] had to say on 14 February as the Duma reconvened was a stirring example of playing to the Soviet gallery.'The country now realizes that the Ministers are but fleeting shadows. The country can clearly see who sends them here. To prevent a catastrophe the Tsar himself must be removed, by force if there is no other way . . . If you will not listen to warning now you will find yourself face to face with the facts, not warning. Look up at the distant flashes that are lighting the skies of Russia.'Even as Kerensky was delivering his broadside, outside a massive demonstration of over 90,000 striking workers stormed along the Nevsky bearing aloft anti-war and anti-government banners. In the windows of the bakeries in Petrograd and Moscow the handwritten, whitewashed signs were becoming painfully familiar: 'No Bread Today — And None Expected'. At the Tsar's palace in Tsarskoe-Seloe, Alexandra, incandescent at Kerensky's oratory, called for his arrest and execution. But no one was listening." ((1), more)
"On February 27 the Duma was due to reassemble, and from all sides there were plans to mark the day with an attack upon the government. Leaflets appeared in the industrial districts urging the workers to rise against the government, and although the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks tried to sabotage one another's plans a demonstration did take place. Inside the Duma Kerensky made a violent speech in which he declared that Russia was exhausted, and that the moment had come for 'liquidating' the war." ((2), more)
"The president released the message to the press on February [28, 1917], and, once convinced it was authentic (and not a British forgery), American newspapers were nearly unanimous in condemnation of the base plot. Interventionists were almost blind with rage. If Wilson did not go to war, Roosevelt remarked privately, 'I shall skin him alive.' Sending the Zimmermann telegram appeared to most Americans a cruel and hostile deed, but the episode probably has been exaggerated as a cause of American intervention. The telegram helped condition Americans to the likelihood, perhaps the wisdom, of war with Germany. It did not provoke Wilson to ask for a declaration of hostilities; that act did not come until a month afterward." ((3), more)
"On March 1, 1917, bread rationing was introduced and there was a run on the bakeries. This was followed by strikes in the metal works and women's demonstrations. But it was the sort of thing that had happened so often before and there was no general alarm in Petrograd, no real upsetting of the city's life. The first week of March slipped away uneasily but uneventfully, and no really effective precautions were taken beyond the dispatch of a small force of seamen to the capital and a certain tightening-up of discipline by the police." ((4), more)
"March 2nd.—A lot of us watched a clever piece of work by a German flier two or three miles off. He came over at a great speed, made for one of our sausage balloons, manœuvred to keep it between him and our Archie-guns, and set it alight. The observers leapt out. One came down safely; but pieces of the burning balloon fell on the parachute of the other and burned it, so he dropped, and died of his injuries; this was his second leap from a burning balloon." ((5), more)
(1) The Russian Duma reconvened on February 27 (New Style, the 14th Old Style). Alexander Kerensky was a leading Socialist and member of the Petrograd Soviet. The bitterly cold weeks before Kerensky spoke led to a failure of the transport system and deliveries of food including to Petrograd and Moscow. Bolsheviks and others were active in the military and factories. Nobles and business people privately discussed the removal of Tsar Nicholas, but Kerensky's public call was a new step, one that infuriated Empress Alexandra.
1917: Russia's Year of Revolution by Roy Bainton, page 62, copyright © Roy Bainton 2005, publisher: Carroll and Graf Publishers, publication date: 2005
(2) KerenskyDumaBolsheviksPetrograd
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, page 135, copyright © 1958 by Time, Inc., publisher: Carroll and Graf, publication date: 1989
(3) 'The message' President Woodrow Wilson released was the 'Zimmerman Telegram', from Alfred Zimmerman, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the German Empire, to Heinrich von Eckhardt, German Ambassador to Mexico, on January 19, 1917. It directed Eckhardt to invite Mexico to ally with Germany and Japan against the United States. On success, Mexico would be rewarded with its lost territories of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The British had originally intercepted the cable, but Zimmerman publicly admitted it was authentic. Roosevelt was former Republican President Teddy Roosevelt. (Wilson was a Democrat.) The date in the source of the citation, 'February 29' 1917, did not exist, 1916 having been a leap year.
The Origins of American Intervention in the First World War by Ross Gregory, pp. 124–125, copyright © 1971 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., publication date: 1971
(4) Events in Petrograd, Russia's capital, for the first days of March, 1917 (New Style) including the introduction of bread rationing on March 1. The bitterly cold winter of 1916–17 affected the combatant nations, and in Russia's case it severely hampered the transport system that supplied the cities. Factories and worker housing were located on the northeast side of the city, across the Neva River. The island of Kronstadt, west of the city in Kronstadt Bay, was home to a Russian naval base. March 8, 1917, was International Women's Day.
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, page 136, copyright © 1958 by Time, Inc., publisher: Carroll and Graf, publication date: 1989
(5) Extract from the entry for March 2, 1917 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J.C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. Observation balloons were tethered to the ground, had no means of propulsion, carried one or more observers in a gondola, and were well protected by both anti-aircraft guns and fighter planes. Some pilots became specialists, in most cases briefly, at 'balloon busting.' Unlike pilots who did not wear parachutes, balloon observers did.
The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 301, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994
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