First World War, Russian Revolution and the Inter-War Years

A war that remade the world

The First World War (1914–1918) was the first "total war", mobilising entire economies and societies. About 9 to 10 million soldiers died. Four empires – the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman – collapsed. The war produced the Russian Revolution, the League of Nations, new nation-states in Europe and the Middle East, and a peace settlement that helped cause the Second World War. It also mattered greatly for India: more than 1.3 million Indian soldiers served, and wartime hardship, the Montagu Declaration, the Rowlatt Act and the Khilafat issue set the stage for Gandhi's first mass movement. UPSC asks about the causes of the war, the Treaty of Versailles, the Russian Revolution and the rise of fascism.

Long-term causes (remember "MAIN")

• Militarism – an arms race, especially the Anglo-German naval race after Germany's naval laws (1898, 1900) and Britain's Dreadnought (1906). General staffs drew up rigid war plans such as Germany's Schlieffen Plan.
• Alliances – Europe split into the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy – 1882) and the Triple Entente (France, Russia, Britain – completed 1907). A local conflict could drag in all.
• Imperialism – rivalry over colonies, including the Moroccan crises (1905, 1911).
• Nationalism – French desire to recover Alsace-Lorraine, Pan-Slavism backed by Russia, and the restless nationalities of Austria-Hungary. The Balkans were the "powder keg of Europe" after the Balkan Wars (1912–13).

The immediate cause

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb linked to the Black Hand society. Austria-Hungary, backed by a German "blank cheque", sent Serbia an ultimatum and declared war on 28 July 1914. Russia mobilised; Germany declared war on Russia and France; and when Germany invaded neutral Belgium, Britain declared war on 4 August 1914.

Course of the war

• Western Front – trench warfare from the Swiss border to the North Sea; huge losses at Verdun and the Somme (1916); new weapons such as poison gas, machine guns, tanks and aircraft.
• Eastern Front – more mobile fighting; Russia suffered heavy defeats.
• Other fronts – the Ottomans joined Germany (1914); the Allied landing at Gallipoli (1915) failed; Italy joined the Allies in 1915. Indian troops fought in France, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Palestine and East Africa.
• 1917, the turning year – German unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram brought the USA into the war (April 1917); Russia left the war after the Bolshevik revolution through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918).
• Germany's last offensive failed, and an armistice was signed on 11 November 1918.

The peace settlement

At the Paris Peace Conference (1919), the "Big Four" – Wilson (USA), Lloyd George (Britain), Clemenceau (France) and Orlando (Italy) – dominated. US President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points promised self-determination and a League of Nations.

The Treaty of Versailles (28 June 1919) with Germany:

• War Guilt Clause (Article 231) – Germany accepted responsibility for the war.
• Reparations – later fixed at 132 billion gold marks.
• Territorial losses – Alsace-Lorraine to France, the Polish Corridor to Poland, all colonies taken as League mandates; the Saar under League control.
• Military limits – army limited to 100,000, no air force, demilitarised Rhineland.

Other treaties (St Germain, Trianon, Neuilly, Sèvres) broke up Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, creating states such as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland, and British and French mandates in Iraq, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. Germans called Versailles a "dictated peace" (Diktat), a grievance Hitler later exploited.

The League of Nations (1920), headquartered in Geneva, aimed at collective security. It settled some small disputes and its agencies, such as the International Labour Organization (1919), did lasting work. But it failed because the USA never joined, it lacked an army, decisions needed unanimity, and it could not stop Japan in Manchuria (1931) or Italy in Ethiopia (1935). India was a founding member.

The Russian Revolution (1917)

Causes. Tsar Nicholas II ruled as an autocrat. Peasants were land-hungry despite the abolition of serfdom (1861); industrial workers in St Petersburg and Moscow lived in harsh conditions; the 1905 revolution after defeat by Japan and the "Bloody Sunday" massacre had brought only a weak parliament (Duma). The First World War brought military defeats, food shortages and inflation.

February Revolution (March 1917 by the Western calendar). Bread riots and strikes in Petrograd were joined by soldiers. The Tsar abdicated. A Provisional Government, later led by Alexander Kerensky, shared power with the soviets (councils) of workers and soldiers. It continued the war and delayed land reform.

October Revolution (November 1917). Lenin returned from exile with the slogan "Peace, Land and Bread" and "All power to the soviets". The Bolsheviks, organised by Lenin and Leon Trotsky, seized power on 25 October (7 November) 1917. They issued decrees on peace and land, nationalised banks and industry, and left the war.

Aftermath. A civil war (1918–21) between the Red Army and the Whites (backed by foreign intervention) was won by the Bolsheviks. War Communism gave way to Lenin's New Economic Policy (1921), which allowed some private trade. The USSR was formed in 1922. After Lenin's death (1924), Joseph Stalin defeated Trotsky, launched Five-Year Plans (from 1928) and forced collectivisation of agriculture, which caused famine, and the Great Purge (1936–38).

Significance. The revolution created the first state committed to socialism, offered an alternative model of rapid planned industrialisation, inspired communist movements across Asia, including the Communist Party of India (1925), and influenced Nehru's ideas on planning. It also produced a one-party dictatorship.

Between the wars

The Great Depression. The Wall Street Crash of October 1929 started a global depression; by 1932 world trade had fallen by about two-thirds and unemployment soared. The USA responded with Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal (1933), and John Maynard Keynes argued for government spending to revive demand. In India, prices of agricultural goods collapsed, feeding peasant discontent during the Civil Disobedience Movement.

Fascism in Italy. Benito Mussolini founded the Fascist party and, after the March on Rome (1922), became prime minister, setting up a one-party state that glorified the nation, war and the leader.

Nazism in Germany. The democratic Weimar Republic suffered from Versailles, hyperinflation (1923) and then the Depression. Adolf Hitler's Nazi party exploited fear, anti-communism and anti-Semitism. Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933 and quickly built a dictatorship. He rearmed Germany, remilitarised the Rhineland (1936) and annexed Austria (Anschluss, March 1938). At Munich (September 1938), Britain and France, following a policy of appeasement, allowed him to take the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.

Japanese militarism. Japan invaded Manchuria (1931) and China proper (1937), and in 1936–37 joined Germany and Italy in the Anti-Comintern Pact.

Mains practice question

"The Treaty of Versailles contained the seeds of the Second World War." Critically examine. (250 words)

Answer framework

• Intro: Paris 1919; terms of Versailles.
• For: war guilt, reparations, territorial losses and military limits bred German resentment exploited by Hitler; unfulfilled Italian and Japanese ambitions.
• Against: Depression, failure of the League, appeasement and the US absence were equally important.
• Conclusion: Versailles was too harsh to conciliate, too weak to restrain.