WwI

8 Pages 2075 Words

The Great War


World War I was the boiling point of years of rumblings under the surface between the great powers of Europe. In the end, it cost $332 billion, ten million lives, and twenty million wounded, with an entire generation in Europe and Russia wiped out (Paxson 5). Those figures do not even take into account those who were mentally scarred for life. Out of the war came a Europe that was based on the principles of self-determination and national unity. The largest and most prominent consequence was the revolution in Russia, yet there were also major developments in the Balkans in southern Europe with Austria-Hungary and drastic changes in international relations.
Russia had been primed for a revolution since the days even before the Great War. After the not so successful revolution of 1905, the tsar still kept power over the bureaucracy and the army; he also had the power of veto over the legislative body, the Duma. Tsar, Nicholas II, ruled the Russian Empire as an absolute monarch. However, following the loss of the war with Japan in 1905, serious disturbances took place in St. Petersburg and Nicholas was persuaded to accept a reduction in his power. In March, 1905, he announced plans to form a Russian Parliament called the State Duma. As this was only a consultative body, many Russians felt that this reform did not go far enough and over the next few years the country remained unstable (www.worldwari.com). The War merely acted as a catalyst and a means for the Soviets, under Lenin, to take control. Always considered a Great Power based on their outwardly appearance of size and numbers, Russia was actually a fragile, backwards nation making revolution inevitable. World War I exposed the weakness of the peasant-dependant nation of Russia.
Russia had been considered a world power ever since the days of Napoleon, with huge numbers of citizens and immense amounts of land. “Inside, Russia remained the weak, depe...