The First World War

Authors Avatar

The First World War was initiated by Germany and Austro-Hungary in order to take control under Serbia. But actually the start of the war was a great opportunity for large and developed European countries to demonstrate their power and solve their political and economical tasks. Great Britain, France, Italy, Turkey, Germany, Bulgaria and Russia were involved in this war being interested in territorial division and economical control. It is very hard to find out the real reasons of Russia involvement in the war because initially Russia in formal papers tried not to start it and initiated peace negotiations with Germany. At the same time tsar Nikolay II gave the order to start general mobilization in Russia explaining it as way to protect Russian borders in possible war start. This double-faced policy can be explained by two reasons: either Russia was expecting the war in favor of its political interests or Russian government at all levels did not have common agreed political views. In fact tsar Nikolay II was not a great politician and this explains existence of many advisors around him. But the biggest influence on the state political decisions was made by Grigoriy Rasputin who acted through the tsar’s wife. This woman fanatically believed that Rasputin was the God’s messenger to save Russia and tsar family. Rasputin being very powerful person with exceptional skills of psychological manipulation pursued his own ends – money. He was not interested in politics so worked for all parties and powers which could pay him. So he made tsar made decisions that often contradicted each other and it was the main reason of a big distemper in Governmental circles and therefore double-faced policy. The disorder, disagreement and distemper at highest levels of Russian power caused by tsar Nikolay II indecision inevitably had to develop into massive demonstrations. During the first seventeen years of the twentieth century Russia experienced three revolutions: Revolution of 1905, February Revolution of 1917, October Bolshevist Revolution in 1917.  

The reasons of February Revolution can be defined as economical, political and national. Analysis of all these three aspects demonstrates the deep total crisis strengthened and strained by Russia participation in the First World War. Below some of the economical, political and national crisis data will provided to demonstrate evident proves of great influence of war actions.

Join now!

The war expenses greatly worsened financial situation in Russia: during 1914-1915 war expenses increased nine times, every war day cost forty million rubles1. Russia began enlarging its capital by issuing new bank notes not supported by gold. It caused money rate decline and large inflation. At the same time agriculture which brought more than a half of Russian budget suffered from lack of human sources taken to war and resources such as horses, machines picked to be used

1 I.A. Isaev. “Russian State and Law History”. “Lawyer”.Moscow.1999(p.55)

by army. Agricultural products were mainly sent to acting forces to support and feed ...

This is a preview of the whole essay