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Intermission at a French theater, 1915. Women and a girl knit, socks perhaps, for soldiers at the front, as does a Red Cross nurse seated between two sleepy soldiers, one — from an Algerian regiment — visibly wounded. An older man reads the news. Illustrated by A. Guillaume, the postcard is captioned in the languages of the Entente Allies, French, English, and Russian.
An Italian postcard of the Industry of War. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany squeezes gold from France and Belgium, filling sacks of money he provides to his ally Emperor Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary who feeds his guns to fire at Tsar Nicholas of Russia who vomits up troops. On the bottom right, Serbia, Montenegro, and Japan join the battle against Germany and Austria-Hungary. To the left, Great Britain flees to its ships. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy surveys it all, serenely neutral until May 1915. Germany taxed Belgium and occupied France heavily during its occupation, in money, in food and other necessities, and in human life and labor. Austria-Hungary borrowed heavily from Germany to support its war effort. The enormous manpower of Russia was a source of consolation for its allies, and of trepidation to its enemies. Some suspected Great Britain would take its small army and return to its ships, home, and empire.
View of Moscow, the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral along the Moskva River. The message on the reverse was dated from Moscow May 29, 1914 (new style); multiple postmarks May 17 (old style; May 30 new style) and May 21 (old style; June 3 new style).
Alexander Kerensky, leader of Russia's Cadet party and a member of the Provisional government in 1917 as Minister of Justice, War, and Prime Minister. From 'The War of the Nations Portfolio in Rotogravure Etchings Compiled from the Mid-Week Pictorial Published by the New York Times Co. New York City N.Y.' © Copyrighted 1919 by the New York Times Company 1914 - 1919
Map showing the territorial gains (darker shades) of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece, primarily at the expense of Turkey, agreed in the Treaty of Bucharest following the Second Balkan War. Despite its gains, Bulgaria also lost territory to both Romania and Turkey.
"There has been a big uprising of the Bolsheviki in Petrograd. A telegram has come containing the news that some members of the Provisional Government have been arrested by the rioters and that their so-called 'Socialist Organisation' intends to overthrow the Government and take power into its own hands. It seems that the man Lenin, who, with his accomplice Trotsky, had been worsted in July by Kerensky's supporters, had reappeared and assumed complete control of the Organisation. Will Kerensky prove strong enough to withstand him? If not, a civil war will be inevitable." ((1), more)
"The Entente is paying more and more dearly for its mistakes. Will its leaders ever open their eyes? They are faced with a terrible dilemma. The day will come when the exhausted people will see in revolution the only remedy for their ills and the only means of putting a stop to the war." ((2), more)
"Early in the morning of the 28th cadets seized all the key communication points and demanded that the troops in the Kremlin surrender or face an artillery bombardment. The Kremlin garrison capitulated, only to be machine-gunned by the score when the cadets thought they were being fired on. This was the first great atrocity presaging the coming terror by Whites and Reds alike.Bitter fighting ensued for the rest of the day and during the 29th, and the superior numbers and artillery of the pro-soviet regiments and Red Guards began to be felt." ((3), more)
"By the morning of the twenty-ninth we should have been in Petrograd, but we had only gotten as far as Tsarskoye Selo. That same day an anti-Bolshevik revolt broke out in the capital. At four in the afternoon I was called to the telephone. It was the Mikhailsky Castle calling from the very center of the city, where the headquarters of the government supporters were located. They begged me to send help, but we were unable to give it.The final act in the tragedy of the Provisional Government's struggle for the freedom and honor of Russia was played out on October 30, near Pulkovo, the site of the famous observatory. Against us were arrayed 12,000 men variously armed. The so-called Pulkovo Heights were occupied by Kronstadt sailors. We had 700 Cossacks, one armored train, the first infantry regiment to reach us from the front, and a few field guns." ((4), more)
"French officers addressing units of its 30th ID were met with shouts of 'Russians make war for France' and 'Peace and nothing more.' Their reports described Russian officers as demoralized and humiliated. In the 117th Regiment, officers of one battalion were arrested by their men and forced to march at command. Men of the 119th Regiment stormed their officers' mess, sacked the place, and forced its occupants to flee out a window. '30 Division is not the only [Russian] division . . . in a state of anarchy,' Colonel Ion Antonescu commented. 'The Russian 6th Army does not wish to fight and the troops of this army . . . would retreat at the first move of the enemy.'Consequently, Romanian reserves were channeled into strategic areas behind the 6th Army. Neighboring Romanian commanders made contact with their Russian counterparts to work out a plan of operations in the event of an enemy attack. On 13 November, after one regiment of the 30th ID left the line and its replacement refused to man it, a Romanian regiment took its place." ((5), more)
(1) Beginning of the entry for November 9, (October 27, Old Style), 1917 from the diary of Florence Farmborough, an English nurse serving with the Russian Red Cross, and then in Romania. She greatly admired Alexander Kerensky, who had been Prime Minister and Minister of War for the Provisional Government. He was then attempting to rally troops to retake Petrograd. Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky were the leaders of the Bolsheviks and the new government the Bolshevik Revolution brought to power. In July, the Bolsheviks and other leftists had failed to meet demonstrators' demands to act where the government would not, particularly in ending the war. In response, the Provisional Government imprisoned Bolsheviks including Trotsky. Lenin went into hiding.
Nurse at the Russian Front, a Diary 1914-18 by Florence Farmborough, pp. 327–328, copyright © 1974 by Florence Farmborough, publisher: Constable and Company Limited, publication date: 1974
(2) End of the entry for November 10, 1917 from the diary of Albert I, King of the Belgians. He was writing specifically about the Italian disaster in the Battle of Caporetto, but the same period saw the end of the charnel house of the Third Battle of Ypres, fought in Belgium. Days before the King wrote, Bolsheviks had seized power in Russia.
The War Diaries of Albert I King of the Belgians by Albert I, pp. 181–182, copyright © 1954, publisher: William Kimber
(3) Forces supporting the Bolshevik Revolution did not immediately secure Moscow, Russia's second city, but were opposed by a conservative Committee of Public Safety that included the officer cadets who took the Kremlin and slayed some of its defenders on October 28 (November 11 New Style). Support for the Bolsheviks was strong in the army and its many soviets. The Red Guards was the military wing of the Bolsheviks initially apart from the army, though many of its members were former soldiers.
Red October: the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 by Robert V. Daniels, page 207, copyright © 1967 Robert V. Daniels, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1967
(4) Alexander Kerensky was head of the Provisional Government that the Bolshevik Revolution overthrew. He managed to escape Petrograd, and spent the following days trying to rally troops to retake the capital. As he writes in his memoir, Russia and History's Turning Point, he gathered half-hearted support that was defeated. Tsarskoye Selo was the summer palace of the deposed Tsar. His dates, October 29 and 30 are November 11 and 12, New Style. Kronstadt was an island naval base in the gulf west of Petrograd, and strongly supported the revolution.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, page 443, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
(5) Until being ordered on July 25,1917 by Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky to stop all offensive action, the Russians had participated in a Romanian offensive. France had helped rebuild the Romanian army after its defeat in 1916, providing materiel and training. One of the demands of the Bolshevik Revolution was an immediate end to the war. Without Russian support, what remained of the Romanian army would not be able to hold what remained of unoccupied Romania: Moldavia, the northern part of the country. 'ID' is an infantry division.
The Romanian Battlefront in World War I by Glenn E. Torrey, pp. 261–262, copyright © 2011 by the University Press of Kansas, publisher: University Press of Kansas, publication date: 2011
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