World War 1 and the Russian Revolution Review Worksheet Answers

World State of war I saw the crumbling of empires, and amongst those to collapse was the Russian empire of Arbiter Nicholas Ii. When Nicholas declared war confronting Frg and Republic of austria-Republic of hungary in July 1914, he was absolute ruler of a realm of most 150 million people that stretched from Fundamental Europe to the Pacific and the edge of Afghanistan to the Chill.

Less than iii years afterwards, in March 1917, after soldiers in Petrograd joined striking workers in protest against Nicholas' rule, the czar was forced to abdicate. The following July, he and his family were herded into a cellar by Bolshevik revolutionaries and shot and stabbed to death, ending the Romanov dynasty's three centuries of dominion. Soon, amid the ruins of the Russian empire, the Soviet Union arose to become a world power.

WATCH: Secrets of the Romanovs on HISTORY Vault

Whether Earth War I was a game-changer that caused the Russian Revolution, or only hastened the inevitable collapse of an outdated monarchy unsuitable to compete in the modern world, is a question that historians go on to argue.

"Russia was more unstable, and had more serious internal dilemmas than many other groovy powers, and so the degree to which the shock of state of war resulted in chaos was correspondingly more intense," explains Steven Miner, a history professor at Ohio University who specializes in Russia, the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. "Collapse minus war was possible, just in my view not certain. Involvement in the cataclysm of war made information technology nearly inevitable."

World War I Exposes Russia's Weaknesses

Prior to the war, Russia was at a crucial crossroads. "Some argue that Russia was slowly evolving more modern political and social institutions, that information technology had a vibrant culture, a highly educated elite, that it had survived the upheaval of the 1905 revolution, and that it had the fastest-growing economy in the world earlier 1914," Miner says. But every bit he notes, the Czarist government faced plenty of threats to stability, from dire urban working conditions to labor strife that the Czar's soldiers tried to put downwardly by massacring gold miners in Siberia in 1912. To brand matters worse, Nicholas Ii was starting to roll dorsum the limited democratic reforms that he had agreed to in 1905.

The blowsy czarist regime'due south conclusion to hang onto power hindered modernization efforts, as a result, "the Russian Empire trailed behind the rest of Europe in terms of economic and industrial strength," says Lynne Hartnett, an acquaintance professor of history at Villanova University and an good on the Russian Revolution.

That made Russia vulnerable in a war, considering its factories simply couldn't produce enough artillery and ammunition to equip the Czar's 1.4 million-man army. At the starting time of the state of war, the Russians had 800,000 men in compatible who didn't even have rifles to train with, and those who did ofttimes had to make practise with obsolete weapons that were most 40 years sometime, according to Jamie H. Cockfield's 1999 volume, With Snow on Their Boots. Some soldiers had to get into battle unarmed, until they could pick up a rifle from another soldier who had been killed or wounded. And Russian federation's output of bullets initially was merely 13,000 rounds a day, then they had to make every shot count.

Russian Military Loses Conviction in Monarch

To chemical compound the lack of preparedness for war, Nicholas Two besides led the Russian military, a position that he didn't have the preparation or experience to do.

"He fancied himself a armed forces strategist, merely he was non," says Mayhill Fowler, a Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies professor at Stetson University. Equally she notes, Nicholas disregarded a prewar memorandum from one of his advisors, alarm that in the consequence of a defeat by Deutschland, "social revolution in its most extreme form is inevitable."

Information technology also didn't help that when Nicholas left Leningrad to join the troops, he left backside his German language married woman, Czarina Alexandra, whose brusque demeanor and distaste for Russian culture made her unpopular with the Russian populace.

The Romanovs visiting a regiment during Earth War I, c. 1917. Fifty-R: Chiliad Duchess Anastasia, Grand Duchess Olga, Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarevich Alexei, Grand Duchess Tatiana, and Grand Duchess Maria, along with Kuban Cossacks.

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The war quickly turned into a disaster, with Russia suffering a brutal defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg just a few weeks into the war. Some 30,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded, and nearly 100,000 were taken prisoner by the Germans.

"Things didn't Amend as the months dragged on," Hartnett says. "By the terminate of the yr, the Russian empire had lost more than than one million men." Russia's ammunitions were all just exhausted and the country's infrastructure was not equipped to efficiently resupply troops.

Though peasant soldiers suffered the nigh casualties, "for regime stability, the most serious losses were among the officer corps," Miner explains. Their loss weakened the ground forces and then much, he notes, "that when push came to shove in 1917, the army was non a reliable defender of the monarchy."

READ MORE: World War I Battles: Timeline

Russians Retreat

By the bound of 1915, Russian troops had to retreat before a combined High german-Austrian onslaught. "Along with the horrifying large number of Russian soldiers killed and wounded, this not bad retreat led to a massive number of refugees," Hartnett notes. Those hordes of drastic people streamed into Russian cities that already were struggling under the burden of the war effort.

"Store shelves were emptied of their products and inflation soared," Hartnett says. "With losses mounting on the forepart and hunger and desperation growing at habitation, the Russian regime felt the pressure."

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Just Nicholas II somehow didn't grasp just how bad of a situation he was in. As Hartnett notes, he clung to the belief that he and the Russian people had an unshakeable mystical bond.

As the czar saw things, "his family had been in power for 300 years, and he was appointed by God," Fowler explains. His obliviousness is credible in letters that he wrote to his married woman, in which he mentions news of protests against his regime with mundane family matters. "He'southward just not aware that his empire is in trouble," Fowler says.

Breadlines Lead to Rebellion

Wartime Russia even so produced sufficient nutrient during the war to feed its population, just notwithstanding, Russians yet went hungry. "The problem was not production," Miner notes, "but rather distribution and transport, which led to periodic shortages." The inefficiency of the czarist state began to hollow out political support.

The Duma, Russian federation's elected legislature, couldn't do much virtually Nicholas' mismanagement of the state, since he had the power to dissolve it if members dared to disagree with him. Even and so, "prominent members wondered aloud if the recent decisions made by the czar's government were the consequence of stupidity or treason," Hartnett says.

By early 1917, Russia was in throes of a crunch then severe that Nicholas could no longer ignore information technology.

"Breadlines grew in many cities and virtually notably in the majuscule of Petrograd," Hartnett explains. At the massive Putilov manufacturing plant in Saint petersburg, workers went on strike in the early days of March, enervating college wages to recoup for the loftier price of food. Rather than meeting the workers' demands, he says, the factors responded with a lock out, prompting thousands of workers to proceed the strike.

A few days after, on International Women's Day, tens of thousands of people marched in the streets of Petrograd, with striking factory workers joining forces with mothers who demanded food for their children.

A Russian staff of life line guarded past the Imperial Police, March 1917.

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"This led to the beginning of the finish of the Romanov autocracy," Harnett says. Three days into the protests, the czar's officials ordered the military and policy to pause up the proests—using any means. The ensuing violence, says Harnett, claimed the lives of nigh 100. And on the side by side day, soldiers joined the demonstrators.

The army had enough. Czar Nicholas' generals convinced him to stride down. Iii days afterwards, Nicholas II abdicated in favor of his brother, Michael, who refused the crown. The reign of the Romanovs was over.

READ More than: Why Czar Nicholas II and the Romanovs Were Murdered

Germans Accommodate Render of Vladimir Lenin

The war had led to Nicholas losing his grip on power, but the February Revolution (which has that name because under the old Russian calendar, its events occurred in February) was just the kickoff. The czarist regime was replaced past the Provisional Government, composed of moderate Duma deputies, socialists and liberals who bickered amid themselves as they tried to get Russia nether control again. The new government tried to continue the war and award the alliances fabricated by the monarchy, while information technology searched for an leave strategy.

The Germans, eager to get Russian federation out of the war and so that it could concentrate on fighting French republic and United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, decided to destabilize the Provisional Government. They arranged for Vladimir Lenin, a communist revolutionary who headed the Bolshevik party, to return from European exile to Russia in a secret sealed railroad train. When he arrived, his slogan was "Peace, Land, Breadstuff," an entreatment to Russians who were tired of the state of war.

Vladimir Lenin, 1919. Found in the collection of Moscow'due south State History Museum.

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"The war as well helped requite Lenin a platform for his coup in October," Fowler says.

Alexander Kerensky, the terminal head of the provisional authorities, didn't help his side by leading what turned out to be a disastrous offensive against the Germans and Austrians in July of 1917. "Casualties soared and and then did desertions, helped past regular Bolshevik propaganda among armed services units," Hartnett explains.

When Kerensky tried to transport pro-Bolshevik units to the front, soldiers took to the streets in an insurgence against the Provisional Authorities that became known as the July Days. While that insurrection failed, Kerensky and the Conditional Government were doomed. In November 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power.

The following March, the new Bolshevik government of Russia signed the Brest-Litovsk treaty with Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Republic of bulgaria, giving upwardly 1 million square miles of territory to appease the Germans.

World War I, the conflict that had ended the Czarist regime, was over for Russia, simply in that location withal wouldn't be peace. Civil war broke out afterward that twelvemonth betwixt the Bolsheviks and opponents to the regime. Ultimately, the Bolsheviks prevailed, and in 1922, a treaty was signed to establish the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

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