Effects on the war upon Germany and Russia

Effects of the Great War upon Germany and Russia

In 1914 both Germany and Russia had large and expanding populations. Germany was the second most populous Great Power with 66 million in 1913. Both countries had considerable natural resources and both were dependent upon fragile export and import trades. A problem that both countries had were that little preparation had been made by either for the dislocation that the war would bring. Both countries had increasingly active socialist parties as a result of rapid industrial expansion.

Russia’s main weakness was its failure to exploit its rich resources of oil, coal and iron ore. A main problem for this was a poor transporting network and coal could not easily be transported north from the coalfields of the industrial cities of Moscow and Petrograd. A senior Russian official said in 1904, “We are a rich country with all conceivable natural resources, simply ill-governed and prevented from unlocking these resources”

Despite the confidence of the War Minister that “Russia is ready”, Russia’s army was ill-equipped with few trained officers and short in munitions supplies and weapons. To put together with this mobilisation took skilled workers away from the factories and put into the army. The government also crippled itself financially by banning the sale of Vodka – which was a huge financial boost on Russia. The reason for the banning of selling Vodka was to avoid drunkenness amongst the Russian people; however this had little effect as the peasants in the countryside simply brewed their own.

On the other hand there is Germany, who unlike Russia, had a strong industrial output. They created more steel than Britain, France and Russia combined. However the Germany economy relied on imports of important raw materials such as oil and rubber, they also relied upon a great import of food due to a massive urban population. Most of Germany’s imports came from the USA. Another advantage for Germany was their army which was well trained and well equipped.

Despite these advantages there was a problem occurring in Germany. The naval building had bankrupted the government and this was to have huge consequences in the non-too distant future in Germany.

In both countries industry stopped almost completely with the outbreak of war. The strikers of St Petersburg in Russia returned to work to “protect the motherland”. In Germany the trade unions proclaimed to “the right to strike for the duration of the war”, the Kaiser reacted in front of a huge crowd in Berlin that “there are no more political parties; for me there are only Germans”

Many Germans were positive about their involvement in the war, the chancellor Bethmann Hollweg had given the German people the sense that the war was a purely defensive measure and this ...

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Many Germans were positive about their involvement in the war, the chancellor Bethmann Hollweg had given the German people the sense that the war was a purely defensive measure and this led to enthusiasm amongst the German citizens.

Likewise in Russia, the mood was generally of a positive nature but witnesses in Russia at the time reported that the mood was not shared in the countryside which was mainly peasant populated and knowing that they would also have to fight in the war, didn’t help their enthusiasm.

Both countries suffered big losses during the war in 1914 and the thought of the war being “over by Christmas” was now an unrealistic target. There was a knowledge to reorganise the economy so that both countries could maximise their military production and this was in result of the shell shortage that occurred in the European countries in 1915. The strength and nature of both Germany’s and Russia’s armies changed too. Within the first year of war both countries had lost their most able and more loyal soldiers and leaders, in response to this they were forced to call upon less able soldiers and less able to support the regimes which ordered them into battle.

Russia was suffering badly from military shortages. By November 1916, 40 Billion shells had been ordered abroad but from this only 7 billion were been delivered. A further problem which was developing was the lack of food; this provided much unrest in the cities of Russia. By 1916 the conscript army could not be fed or supplied and was at the point of starvation and mutiny, having lost the faith in its officers. With the food shortages about in Russia, the price of bread increased by 500% between 1914 and 1916 whilst the owner of a massive arms factory in Petrograd made a 2,000 rouble profit on every 3 inch cannon he produced – such was the demand.

With all the unrest, strikes broke out in June 1915 and by 1916 involved over a million workers. Meanwhile the whole tsarist system was under scrutiny by the Russian people.

In Germany there was an understanding amongst the citizens that the state had to do more than just “relieve unemployment and prevent hunger”. In January 1915 bread rationing began and this was followed by the rationing of all foodstuffs. The cost of the war was also increasing in Germany and this was leading to inflation. Germany hoped to make up this money by forcing out reparations on the other European countries once they won the war, which Germany fully believed at the time they would do. Many middle class and lower class town dwellers suffered from the 1916-17 “Turnip Winter”. Coal was in short supply and so houses were left in cold during the winter months. In 1918, approximately 293,000 civilians died from starvation and hypothermia. This mainly hit the poorer people in Germany. Support for the Army also went after the “Black Day of the German Army” on the 8th August 1918, with realisation that defeat was inevitable.

The poor handling of the war led to the complete collapse of the whole tsarist system in Russia as the workers, soldiers and the peasants lost faith in the regime. When the tsar made himself commander in chief of the army in 1915 it resulted in a loss of life on a huge front, an almost complete breakdown in the supply network and a failure to allow any private initiative in organising the war effort led to the crisis that finally struck in 1917.

Both countries suffered shortages due to poor planning of the war. Both countries also failed in convincing the whole of their people that they were making the right movements. This led to the breakdown of the unity of both countries and exposed the faults that came about. The quote “Organisation was not enough, social cohesion was equally essential”, written by Feldman on his studies of relations in Germany, emphasised clearly the faults of Germany.

Meanwhile both countries were facing new government challengers. In Russia 1917, on the 9th of January workers carried out a protested strike with banners saying “Down with the War” and “Down with the Autocracy”, a second strike soon followed. This contributed to the Tsar of Russia abdicating with being under pressure from the army, leaders of the Duma and the rest of the country. The provisional government which succeeded the Tsar’s regime was never able to resolve the terms of the war. Therefore, the Bolsheviks who were well organised and ready to gain power took their chance and overthrew the provisional government.

In Germany the situation became even more complex. The trade unions accepted the “Stinnes-Legien” agreement of November 15th granting collective bargaining in exchange for supporting the employers against possible revolutionary action. The reason for the employers taking this deal was to hold off the threat of the radical demands of the Spartacists. Therefore, any threat of a revolution and a communist government was prevented by the leaders of organised labour. The deal between the army and the SPD prevented anything more serious than the establishment of parliamentary democracy.

Russia suffered two revolutions in 1917 which moved the country from a promise of democracy to the autocracy to finding itself occupied in a civil war. When the Bolsheviks took power they ensured that the power base of Russian politics changed.

In Germany the monarchy was also overthrown but this is where the similarities end as in the end many German people decided that there was no need for a radical overhaul of the system, despite the best efforts of the left wing parties such as the Spartacists who wanted a new era for the working class. It was the group that decided there was no need for the overhaul of the system that won the right of government and with this Germany didn’t really change much from the old order which had run the country.

Once the Bolsheviks achieved power in 1918, they began a deep re-organisation of the industry. The Bolshevik leadership responded to the needs of the economy, country and their own idealism. In Germany there was a very different outcome as it was the central party that took control, rather than the left and it was the middle class which won the struggle for the country’s political future.

Another difference to Russia is that the German revolution took place once peace had been established, whilst the Bolsheviks in Russia took power while the War was still on-going. Like the Bolsheviks, the German government faced huge problems but they didn’t have to maintain a war effort unlike the Russian government. A further difference between the two countries was that the German government didn’t have all the problems of organising a new democratic process and maintaining the war effort, unlike the Bolsheviks.

One of the main reasons to why Germany did not get taken over by a communist group has to be that many of the German people had kept their faith in the military leaders and so stability was in place, meaning that it was easy for Germany to stay the same. The same can not be said about Russia though which was missing the stability as Russian people had lost the faith in the Tsar regime.

Despite many similarities amongst the way with the new governments in both countries, Germany and Russia took very different paths after their revolutions. The main reason for this could lie in the fact of the reaction of the working class of each country to the ruling class. In Germany many of the people kept their faith in the people who had led them to war whilst on the other hand Russian workers had suffered worse and for far longer. The middle class and upper class liberals failed in their attempts to rule between February and October 1917. With the emergence of the determined group of Bolsheviks in Russian government, it meant that it would be Russia and not Germany that became the communist country.