Military Monday No.5

Russian and German troops agreeing a ceasefire on the Eastern Front

The Great War undoubtedly changed every nation that entered the mass conflict. Perhaps the country that felt the most change above everybody else though, was Russia. The Russian Revolution changed the country forever but what affect did it have on the war itself?

Battles on the streets of Petrograd

The Russians withdrew from the war on 3 March 1918 with the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. With a major player of the Triple Entente out of the war, The German elite regained hope of victory and transferred major numbers of troops from the Eastern to the Western front to begin a new offensive in France. This was known as the 1918 spring offensive.

The Eastern Front in the First World War

A sustained and concentrated attack on the remaining allies could have been decisive but it faltered for the following reasons:

-The Germans were weary and poorly resourced after a long and arduous war.

-The Austrian-Hungarian Empire had almost totally collapsed by this point.

-American reinforcements poured in to help the British and French forces, overwhelming the German divisions even with the closure of the Eastern Front.

Subsequently, the war ended on Armistice Day on the 11th November 1918 with a German defeat and a new Bolshevik order in Russia which would become the Soviet Union in 1922.