Military
• Some Russians saw this ad indicative of a new mood in the country.
• Although, not everyone in Russia had such optimism and enthusiasm about the war.
• In February 1914, Peter Durnovo, the 70-year old ex Minister of Internal Affairs, and the leader of the Conservative group in the state council, wrote a memorandum in which he argued that a war with Germany would be disastrous for Russia.
• He dreaded the economic outcome of war, arguing that Russia did not have the financial resources to engage in a major European conflict and that either victory or dear would bring unfavourable economic consequences.
• .
• The first winter of war was one of stalemate.
• Russias communications with its allies was hampered by the entry of Turkey into the war, alongside Germany and Austria.
• This meant that the Russian Black Sea ports were useless, not just for naval traffic but also for normal commerce.
• Warsaw fell to the Germans in August and Russia lost control of all its industrially important Polish provinces.
• The Navy minister himself has doubts about the ability of Russias Baltic fleet to take on the German navy.
• Any success was short-lived or limited.
Economy
• Fighting a European war placed great strains on the Russian economy.
• Before 1914, Germany had been Russia’s largest trading partner.
• The market for Russian exports disappeared overnight and Russian industry was deprived of imports from Germany.
The Essay on Positive And Negative Effects Of Cold War On Germany
When looking at the Cold War most everyone begins to think about the United States and the Soviet Union. Even though these were the major countries that brought it up there are also other countries that people sometimes leave out of the picture. Take Germany for example during the Cold War period Germany was dealing with positive and negative effects that it was producing. The negative effects can ...
• Trade was severely disrupted by the blockade of the Baltic, the closure of the Black Sea and the limitation placed by the Swedish government on trade in arms across its territory.
• The only possible outlets for Russian trade were the arctic ports of Archangel and Murmansk and the Far Eastern ports at the end of the Trans-Siberian railway.
• There was a great difficulty of access for Russian business, as each was located at the end of a long and inadequate railway line.
• The volume of Russia’s foreign trade declined sharply. During 1914-15, imports fell by 40% and exports declined by the same proportion over the first 2 years of the war.
• The demands which the military placed upon the economy were severe.
• Almost 15million men served in the tsarist forces during the first 2 years of war and the dislocation that conscription brought to the labour force was considerable.
• The labour force was also upset by the pressures being imposed on it by Russias need to increase its industrial production. Partly to compensate for the difficulty of importing goods and partly to supply the enormous armies.
Arms and ammunition
• The belief that the war would be short had led Russian military strategists to concentrate on building up stocks of arms and ammunition, believing that they would suffice for thr 6month conflict.
• They had given no thought to ensure that armament factories would be ready to increase production quickly, and maintain supplies over a long period.
• When it became clear that the war was going to last much longer than anticipated, and that the nature of the fighting dictated the need for huge quantities of weaponry, the Russian armaments industry had great difficulty in coping with the changed circumstances.
• The Tula rifle factory, the largest in the empire, produced only 16 rifles during the first 7months of 1914.
• The crisis of the armaments supply was at its most severe during 1915: the Russian armed forces estimated that they would 3.5 million artillery shells each month and yet during the first four months of the year, they received a total of only 2million shells.
The Essay on Assess The Reasons For Bolshevik Success In The Russian Civil War 1918 1920
Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War of 1918 -1920 would not have been certain without the strong, determined and intelligent leadership provided by Trotsky and Lenin. The fact that the Bolsheviks were led by two individuals, who combined had tremendous political, social and military skills had a direct result on the outcome of the war. There were other significant contributing factors that ...
• The supply of rifles was equally poor.
• Russian industry was not able to meet the demands.
• By the summer of 1915, domestic production of shells was running at only 1million per month, less than 1/3 of the quantity the army needed.
• This inadequacy of arms and ammunition made a substantial contribution to Russias military setbacks of 1915.
Industry
• There was a complicated system of exemptions from military services, many industrial workers did not escape being called up/
• In Petrograd between 1914 and 1916 40,000 of the labour force were lost to the army.
• This coincided with industry, which required a greatly increased labour force to cope with the demand for a higher output/
• The number of industrial workers in the capital grew by more than 60% between 1914 and 1917, and factories were still after more labour.
• The Russian coal-mining industry expanded during the war, partly in response fo the near-impossibility of importing coal from Britain.
• Its labour force doubled to reach 800,000.
• Faced with transporting millions of soldiers across the empire, and the need to keep them supplied and equipped, the Russian railway system took on nearly 400,000 more employees during the war.
• After 1915, the performance of Russian industry improved substantially.
• Factories switched to producing munitions, as demand for these products was guaranteed.
• Production of basic resources, such as coal and oil, increased.
• By 1916, the overall output of Russian industry was 20% higher than in 1913.
• Coal output increased by 30%
• Engineering and chemical industries more than doubled their production.
• The 5% of production, which went to the military before the war, had increased to 30%.
• This shift in the emphasis of Russian industry was accompanied by a sharp reduction in the output of consumer goods.
• Consumption by households fell by 25% during the war.
The Term Paper on Timelines Of The Great War And Russian Revolution Worksheet
Directions: For each of the four timelines that follow (1914, 1915, 1917, and 1918–1919), complete the timeline replacing the words “[Paste description here]” with the text of the correct description from the table beneath it. 1914 Timeline June 28, 1914| The event that triggered World War I| Sarajevo| The heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his wife are assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a ...
Agriculture
• The demands of the army and of war industries for labour had a substantial impact on the Russian countryside.
• It was the villages which supplied most of the conscripts and most of the additional labour for the factories.
• As the war went on, this had an increasing effect on agricultural communities.
• Women had to take in a larger share of farm work: by 1916 they made up more than 70% of the agricultural labour force on peasant farms, and nearly 60% of workers on landowners estates.
• The army requisitioned large numbers of horses so that the number of peasant households without a horse rose from 25% to 30%.
• The departure of millions of peasants from the countryside to the army or cities meant that less food was consumer in the villages themselves.
• While the army did requisition horses, compensation was paid to the peasants, and peasant families also received allowances if their menfolk were conscripted.
• The regime of prohibition, introduced by the government at the beginning of the war, reduced peasant expenditure, by making vodka unavailable.
• Prices for agricultural produce rose during the war, so that grain prices doubled between 1913 and 1916.
• However, inflation accelerated as the war progressed, so that by the end of 1916, prices were 3 times the level of 1913.
• The area of land under cultivation shrank during the war.
• By 1916, 12% less land was being devoted to growing grain and potatoes.
• The amount harvested decreased by at least as much.
• The reduction in the quantity of food being grown was rendered even more serious by the peasants’ reluctance to sell their produce.
• With rapidly increasing food prices, producers and traders were unwilling to sell at the regulated price, because they could obtain a better deal on the free market.
Transport
• The problem of food supply to the cities and to the army was also exacerbated by the inadequacy of the transport system across the empire.
• Industrial areas and provinces that did not grow enough to feed their own were generally located in the North and centre of Russia, with Moscow and Petrograd as their largest centres.
The Essay on Versailles Treaty Germany War Government
THE FALL OF GERMANY None of the European power wanted World War I, but they feared Germany. Germany was newly unified, and was beating the European powers in population and Industry. France wanted to recover the Alsace-Lorraine. Britain was a country used to being on the ocean, so they felt threatened by Germany's colonial expansion and William II's insisting on a large navy. Russia and Austria ...
• Effective transport was needed to more produce, and the new needs of the army now meant that the food also had to be moved to the front line along Russia’s western frontier.
• The Russian railway system had to adjust to a wholly different pattern of traffic after 1914: both the number of passengers and the amount of freight grew, but military traffic took priority over everything else.
• Railways in the west of the empire came under the direct control of the military authorities.
• The railway system found it hard to cope.
• The quantity of grain transported by rail fell by more than 30% between 1913 and 1915.
• Early in 1915, the government allowed local officials to fix prices for agricultural produce and, if this was ineffective, to requisition food at a lower price. This failed to improve the situation.
Government
• The government involved selected representatives of industry and commerce in planning military supply from May 1915, and significant steps were taken by Russian industrialists themselves.
• When the association of trade and industry met in May 1915, the leading Moscow Industrialist, P.P. Riabushinkii declared that ‘each factory, each mill, all of us must only think of that which can overcome this enemy force’.
• They decided to encourage the formation of regional war-industries committees and itself created a central committee to include representatives of the regional organisations, from local government, and science, and technology.
• Representatives sat on government bodies, dealing with good, fuel, and transport.
• By 1916, the overall output of Russian industry was 20%
Political system
• A special session of the 4th Duma was held a week after the declaration of war, at which every party, other than the five Bolsheviks, voted for war credits, the additional fincance which the government needed to embark on a war.
• The government moved quickly to aster its authority in the face of war: censorship was re-introduced and large areas of Western Russia were placed under martial law.
The Research paper on Policy Sub Governments In The United States Political System
Policy Sub governments in the United States Political System United States is a democratic country with the deep-set democratic beliefs in the freedom and prosperity of their land. The political system of the Unites States of America is a very complex system of interacting branches of management, which enable this country to be one of the most significant countries in the world, with not only ...
• The impotence of political groups to exert any influence through the national forum of the Duma, helped to stimulate local initiatives to allow a degree of public participation in the war effort.
• In the spring of 1915, the two bodies (Towns and Zemztvos) were allowed to establish a joint organisation, known as Zemgor, and its activities ranged.
• Russia’s military reverses in the spring of 1915 brought political tensions as well.
• The wholesale loss of territory made Russian weakness all too evident to Russian society in general and raised critical questions. Not just about the competence of the empires military leadership, but also about the political direction of the country.
• Members of the Duma pressed for it to be recalled to discuss the deteriorating military situation.
• When it did meet in mid July 1915, the Duma launched vigorous attacks on the government’s handling of the war.
• The Duma though, stressed its support for the overall direction of the war and emphasised that it wanted only to root out incompetence.
