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Photograph of Russian troops on the front line taken May 15, 1917, after the Russian Revolution, from the German or Austro-Hungarian line. A barbed wire emplacement separates the photographer from the Russians. The Russian front was mostly quiet between the revolution in March and a Russian offensive begun July 1.
Headstone of an unknown British soldier among those of French soldiers at the National Cemetery, Craonnelle, France. © 2014 by John M. Shea
Map of the Trentino, part of "Italia Irredenta," unredeemed Italy: Venezia Tridentina (Trentino and Alto Adige)
On one bank of a river, dismayed French, Russian, Italian, and British soldiers watch Bulgaria drift from its broken Russian leash to the opposite bank where German, Austrian and Turkish soldiers express satisfaction and delight. The river leads, in the distance, to Istanbul. Still held by British tethers (and moneybag) are Greece and Romania.
A Russian Maxim machine gun squad on the front in a 1917 photograph. In the middle of the line one soldier wears a French Adrian helmet.
"There remained one other factor in the situation: the great amorphous mass of the Russian people themselves. Up to this point the revolution had not improved their living conditions in the least, at any rate in the cities. The food shortage in the cities had grown worse, and prices had now risen to seven times above the prewar level. The bread ration had gone down to 1½ pounds for manual workers and one pound for others. In Petrograd many factories had closed down, and the unemployed men, mingling with the idle military garrison, formed a solid pacifist block. They believed that their leaders in the Ex Com and the Soviet had betrayed them by joining a belligerent coalition government. They wanted peace." ((1), more)
"On June 28 fierce fighting broke out on the Aisne, where the British and Canadians made some small gains, and at Verdun, where the Germans overran a few French-held trenches.Two days earlier the first large contingent of American troops had arrived in France, 14,000 men, who disembarked at St Nazaire. But this was to have no effect at all on the battlefield. The men had first to train, and to be reinforced by colleagues, the next contingent of whom did not arrive for another three months." ((2), more)
"On the evening of the 29th [June], Mambretti orders a withdrawal to the original positions. The Italians have taken at least 25,000 casualties over the 19 days of the battle, on a front of three kilometres, for no gains whatsoever." ((3), more)
"With Russia slipping into civil and military disarray, the Balkan front in stalemate, and the Americans still months away from appearing in force, the entente was desperate to strengthen its position in southeastern Europe. On 10 June 1917 France demanded that King Constantine abdicate within twenty-four hours and prepared to occupy Athens. Confronted with overwhelming force, the king complied with the ultimatum. His second son Alexander succeeded him and immediately agreed to form a united government in Athens under Venizelos. Greece duly declared war on the Central Powers on 30 June 1917, the last European state to enter the First World War." ((4), more)
"On the morning of June 18, an air of tense excitement reigned all along the front. It was the kind of atmosphere you find in Russian villages just before the midnight service at Easter. We climbed up to an observation point at the top of a chain of hills running the length of our forward positions. There was a constant rumble of heavy artillery, and the shells whining overhead made a plaintive sound.From the Seventh Army's observation point, the battlefield lay before us like a huge, deserted chessboard. The shelling continued. We all kept looking at our watches. The strain was unbearable.Suddenly there was a deathly hush: It was zero hour. For a second we were gripped by a terrible fear that the soldiers might refuse to fight. Then we saw the first lines of infantry, with their rifles at the ready, charging toward the front lines of German trenches." ((5), more)
(1) The All-Russian Congress of Soviet and Front Line Organizations began June 16, 1917 and voted to support a new offensive against Germany and Austria-Hungary on its first day with only the Bolsheviks opposing. The Ex Com (the Executive Committee of the Soviet) had approved the inclusion of six socialists in the revolutionary government formed in mid-May. Along the the majority of Socialist delegates, the center and right-wing members of the government supported an offensive. The Allies, including representatives of the United States who offered loans on condition of continuing the war, urged the Russians to attack.
The Russian Revolution by Alan Moorehead, page 201, copyright © 1958 by Time, Inc., publisher: Carroll and Graf, publication date: 1989
(2) The Allied spring offensives of 1917 — the British Battle of Arras, the French Second Battle of the Aisne, the Italian Battles of Mt. Ortigara and Tenth Isonzo — had failed. Sick of the war, French soldiers mutinied in actions that affected nearly half the army. Since the March Revolution, the Russian front had been quiet, and it was not clear the army would rally for a planned offensive. The Americans who arrived in France in June were small in number, untrained, and with few weapons of their own. Their commander, General John Pershing, intended to prepare them for the spring offensives of 1918.
The First World War, a Complete History by Martin Gilbert, page 341, copyright © 1994 by Martin Gilbert, publisher: Henry Holt and Company, publication date: 1994
(3) General Ettore Mambretti commanded the newly created 300,000-man Italian Sixth Army in the Battle of Mount Ortigara, fought on the Asiago Plateau along Italy's northern border with Austria-Hungary south of Trentino. A year earlier, on May 14, 1916, the Austrians had launched the Asiago Offensive in the same region. Mount Ortigara is roughly 40 kilometers east of Trento, Italy (Austria-Hungary, in 1917) and 20 kilometers north of Asiago. The Italian offensive was an utter failure. Most of the land war between the two countries was fought on the Isonzo River in Italy's northeast.
The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, 1915-1919 by Mark Thompson, page 260, copyright © 2008 Mark Thompson, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2009
(4) Since being invited into neutral Greece by then-Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos at the end of 1915, the Allies had had a contentious relationship with pro-German King Constantine, who had promptly sacked Venizelos for his violation of Greek neutrality. The former Prime Minister formed a provisional government in Salonica in October, 1916, and raised battalions that fought on the Balkan Front. Russian Tsar Nicholas II had opposed the removal of a crowned head of state, but the March Russian Revolution had made his views irrelevant. Athens, the Greek capital, had already seen violent confrontations between the Allies and forces loyal to Constantine.
Decisions for War, 1914-1917 by Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig, page 181, copyright © Richard F. Hamilton & Holger H. Herwig 2004, publisher: Cambridge University Press, publication date: 2004
(5) Russian Minister of War Alexander Kerensky's description of the moments before and beginning of Russia's last offensive of World War I, the Kerensky Offensive, launched on July 1, 1917 (June 18, Old Style). The Russian Revolution of March had removed the Tsar and seized power for a provisional government and soviets, councils of workers, soldiers, cities, and towns. Whether soldiers would obey orders to attack was a real question. The comparison to Easter, the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, is curious, but Kerensky hoped for a resurrection of a new, revolutionary Russian army to carry on the war.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, page 285, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
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