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Role of WWI in the decline and fall of the Romanovs: Could the Romanovs…
Role of WWI in the decline and fall of the Romanovs: Could the Romanovs have survived without WWI? How significant were the events of 1917 in the collapse of the Romanov regime?
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Military defeats
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The first military defeat was the Battle of Tannenberg on 18 August 1914, where Russian casualties numbered 130 000 and prisoners of war over 100 000, which follow a long retreat throughout 1915
The second was at the Battle of Masurian Lakes on 2 September 1914, where one whole army unit was surrounded and forced to surrender
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Conditions at the front
army quickly ran short of rifles, boots, ammunition, uniforms and, increasingly, food. lack of munitions and rifles - only had bayonets to fight
Strain of equipping and feeding millions of soldiers proved to be too difficult for the Russian economy and revealed its structural weaknesses and poor industrial base.
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By the middle of 1915 men were being sent out to the front without rifles at all and had to pick them up from dead soldiers.
conditions of the trenches at the front were horrible and Process of dealing with wounded soldiers was appalling
By 1916, three million Russians were dead or wounded, and nearly as many were captured.
Led to disillusionment and anger about the way the tsar and government were conducting the war - many soldiers refused to fight
The support of the army failing and even the peasants, who made up the majority of the soldiers turned against their Tsar.
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Food shortages
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due to a number of factors, bad harvests, lack of grain coming onto the market, poor transport systems and the loss of large areas of fertile farming land to the Germans.
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Eg. by 1916, Petrograd received barely a third of the food and fuel it required
Great source of anger and led to growing discontent- strikes broke out in 1915 and became increasingly butal in 1916 as people desperately sought goods in short supply
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As misery and food shortages continues, strikes and demonstrations broke out on an almost daily basis, culminating in the February Revolution that saw Nicholas abdicate, abandoned even by his own armies that had saved him in 1905
Government proved incapable of recondensing the stain that the war placed on ordinary citizens and failed to understand that it indeed to actively win their support to ensure the success of the war effort
Fuel shortages:
Fuel and raw materials were increasingly scarce, which affected production
Productivity was falling in large numbers of industries, especially non-military industries that were providing the supplies people needed in their everyday lives
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February Revolution 1917 - direct result of the war - revolution which began in St Petersburg overthrew the Tsar. Nicholas II, the last of the Romanov Tsars was forced to give up his throne on March 15 1917
Wave of popular unrest through Russia saw the Tsar was swept from power when the army and his generals deserted him
Strikes had recreated high levels of tension - anti-government feeling was high and Few people wanted to see the Tsar running the country and the war
Thursday 23 Feb - women participating in the International Women’s Day march went into factories calling for the support of men
By the afternoon, women had persuaded men from the factories to join them, a huge crowd making its way towards the centre of Petrograd
Over the next 3 days, Demands for bread were accompanied by demands for an end to the war and the tsar and most factories and businesses had gone on strike
All classes of people - students, teachers, shophopes, workers were involved in the march
Demonstrations in the past had been deals effectively with the Cossacks and other troops - Difference was that soldiers joined the demonstrators and would not intervene to save their monarch
Half of the army had been killed in war so a fundamental change had taken place in the army - Peasant or lower middle class men who were often liberalist or socialists were given promotions, replacing aristocratic and conservative officers
Many of the soldiers in the Petrograd garrison were young reservists, who identified with the people on the streets, Desperate not to be sent out the front line where the Russian Army was suffering huge losses
Shared the dissatisfaction with the way the war was conducted and the impact it was having on ordinary citizens in the cities
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