alternatehistory.com

…Following the failure of Kornilov to crush St. Petersburg the Provisional Government fled the city. They attempted to reach Moscow by railroad and were stopped by striking workers. They then attempted to reach the city by road, avoiding the cities of Veliky Novgorod and Tver for fear of being intercepted by Bolsheviks, a fear that proved to be false. This put them effectively out of communication for ten days and let the Bolsheviks control the starting narrative. As such Moscow had been overtaken by revolution before they arrived with the local officials and troops not taking decisive action without orders.

The Provisional government then compounded their mistakes by taken the opportunity to flee west along the Trans-Siberian railway, rather than attempting to establish themselves in one of the cities to the south that were still loyal. As such establishment of a secure seat of government took over two weeks until they arrived in Omsk and decided the situation there was sufficiently secure. This lack of leadership at a key moment let the Bolsheviks take over the center of the Russian Rail and Telegraph networks without organized opposition and made the task of attempting to coordinate against the Bolsheviks almost impossible.

This lack of leadership led to local generals taking the initiative to try to form their own resistance blocks, to varying degrees of success, even crushing or dispersing a few Bolshevik uprisings near the front. However, they were unable to stop the slow disintegration of the Russian Army that had started to occur. Desertion, already rife exploded. A few more popular commanders were able to do better than others, and certain units with high morale such as the infamous Battalions of Death or of specific ethnic composition, such as Armenian volunteer units, did not suffer much at all. The combat power of the Russian Army was rapidly eroding.

Despite this the Provisional Government still controlled more than enough force to crush the Bolsheviks two weeks after the failure of Kornilov. At a command level this force was fragmented, and control had to be reasserted, a difficult task from Omsk when the telegraph lines from Moscow were unusable. It took two weeks for some semblance of control and coordination to be established and two more for a counter assault to be organized.

By that point the Bolsheviks controlled the territory between St. Petersburg and Moscow, the oblasts around Moscow, with pockets in the surrounding Oblasts. Bolshevik revolts elsewhere had been crushed by central authority, as in Minsk, or by local forces such as in Kiev, or simply contained as in Finland, Volgagrad and the Caucuses. The Bolsheviks were rapidly trying to organize some semblance of a military force to defend their territory, not helped by their ideological issues making military discipline difficult. They were outnumbered and substantially outgunned by forces loyal to the provisional government.

In the first offensives during September the Provisional government achieved a good deal of success, dispersing Bolshevik forces at a number of locations and retaking territory. With these victories the disintegration of the Russian Army accelerated. Opportunities for desertion increased and casualties were primarily concentrated among officers, NCO’s and the most loyal soldiers. As Government forces garrisoned retaken territory, they were exposed to increasing amounts of Bolshevik propaganda.

The first signs of trouble occurred two weeks into the reconquest when some of the government columns began bogging down. This was ignored as others were still making considerable progress. Yet one by one the other columns began bogging down as well. By the third week of October only two columns were moving forward at any speed, one to Moscow and another at st. Petersburg.

The St. Petersburg column met heavy resistance from the soldiers and sailors that had defected from the Bolsheviks. It was able to bulge their lines considerably, before being driven back by a counterattack from the armored cars that had been hastily assembled at the Putilov Works and captured from Kornilov. The retreat turned into a rout and the neighboring columns were forced to withdraw as well.

The Moscow column suffered a different fate. Victorious on the field it was ultimately torn apart by mutiny within as the harsh measures that allowed them to reach the gates of Moscow proved too much. The soldiers mutinied, executed their officers and defected to the Bolsheviks. With the failure of that column the neighboring columns were again forced to withdraw.

Things settled down into a stalemate for several weeks as the Provisional government tried to find the manpower and supplies to get their troops moving again. Such was not forthcoming in the continual disintegration of the Russian military, and at the end of October a retreat was ordered to consolidate and try again. This proved the final straw for the cohesion of the Russian forces, and they shattered on the retreat. Only the most dedicated managed to withdraw to their start lines, with the rest either deserting or going over to the Bolsheviks.

The Bolsheviks took advantage of the confusion and occupied the territory the government withdrew from, and even expanding further than they had before. Other groups joined them, anarchists in the Ukraine, ethnic nationalists in the Baltics and Caucuses, religious rebels in Central Asia and just plain madmen in Siberia. The Provisional government itself remained united, by the subordinates it depended on began to splinter into pieces as their control effectively began to run no further than the borders of Omsk…


-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004


…the most significant development of the fall of 1917, aside from the Caporetto offensive was the publication of the Russian Diplomatic archives by the Bolsheviks. The publication revealed the details of all the secret treaties and negotiations that had occurred before and during the war. Most importantly the Treaty of London bringing Italy into the war and the agreements to partition the Ottoman Empire.

The cynical and mercenary nature of the treaties appalled the American public. That the Entente was willing to carve territory from a neutral power and encourage the subjugation of another to gain Italy’s favor seemed to put to lie the idea that the war was fought for the rights of neutrals. The nature of secret agreements formed between nations without the knowledge or consent of the nation’s people offended the democratic sensibilities of the American populace.

Hellenophiles were appalled by the decision to give Corcyra from neutral Greece to Italy. In Greece itself newly reelected Prime Minister Venizelos had just recently outmaneuvered the king with regards to neutrality and had been planning to join the Entente. This revelation killed any chance of that happening and shifted Greece’s neutrality from pro-Entente to almost pro-Central Powers overnight.

The idea of giving Italy both a blank check and a free hand in Ethiopia offended many. It was too similar to the blank check given by Germany to Austria that helped start this whole mess to the comfort of many. Ethiopia’s status as one of only two independent African nations had African Americans appalled at the decision to sacrifice it to Italy, and its status as a Christian nation appalled certain white groups as well.

In general, the revelations of the Fall of 1917 started the process of souring the opinions of many Americans on their Entente Allies, despite the best effort of the propogandists both in America and abroad…


-Excerpt from The Loss of Innocence: America in the Great War, Harper & Brothers, New York 2014