What Was Russia Trying to Accomplish with Its 1914 Campaign?

Russian Infantry, 1914

Stephen Walsh, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

The scale of the fighting on the Eastern Front in 1914 is reasonably familiar, but the Russian campaign of 1914, apart from Tannenberg, is poorly understood. The Russian Army’s military strategy, the choices it made, what it was trying to achieve, why and how, are not well known. This article will analyse Russian strategy and operations in a thematic rather than narrative manner, placing the Russian conduct of operations in the context of Russian military thinking at the time. It will argue that the relative importance of the East Prussian and Galician Operations has been misunderstood, especially the Russian operations in northern Galicia. In late August 1914, the Russian Army faced strategic catastrophe on the entire Eastern Front,  because of events in not East Prussia but in northern Galicia, where the chronic lack of correlation between ends and means in Russian military strategy became acute. 

Russian Cavalry

The main strategic objectives of the Russian Army in August 1914 were to divert German forces from the west and defeat the Austrians in Galicia. Stavka and the French Army believed an invasion of eastern Germany would draw substantial German forces on to the Russians, thereby relieving the French and increasing the Triple Entente’s chances of defeating the Schlieffen Plan. In order to achieve this, Stavka tried to manufacture a third operation in August 1914, even though the Russian Army was already committed to the East Prussian and Galician Operations. The East Prussian Operation was an operational means to a strategic end dominated by the compass needle of the French alliance. The Day 15 deadline committed the Russian "steamroller" to a sprint but robbed it of the means to create the strategic and operational momentum that was its greatest asset. It was this chronic failure of strategic and operational thinking that lay at the heart of the failure of the East Prussia Operation in August 1914.

Junior Officers in the Trenches

In Galicia, the Russians teetered on the edge of strategic and operational disaster before securing a decisive victory over the Austrians. The northern sector of the Galician Operation, not East Prussia, was the Russian centre of gravity, the essential point, around which the Russian strategic plan revolved. It was the brush with catastrophe in northern Galicia, not 2nd Army’s defeat in East Prussia, that rescued Russian strategy from its more fanciful aspirations and resolved, albeit temporarily, the dilemmas that plagued Russian strategy. In November 1914, the invasion of eastern Germany, the operation that distorted, influenced and undermined Russian strategy, flattered to deceive but fizzled out against fierce German resistance. It was a strategic gamble to capitalise on an opportunity that never presented itself again, and in December 1914, the Russians conceded western Poland.

Anywhere on the Eastern Front

In August 1914, the Russian Army, whatever Russia’s political aims, confronted strategic objectives that were too ambitious, with insufficient forces to achieve them but too many troops to supply. The story of the Russian campaign in 1914 is one of a strategic failure to correlate ends and means: rapid victories were necessary to gain strategic and operational success, but the Russian Army did not have the means to sustain such operations. The vast bloody campaigns of 1914 took a terrible toll on Russia, inflicting 1.2 million casualties. [The war was entered to maintain tsarist Russia’s status as a great power, but it eventually destroyed the empire.]

Source: British Journal for Military History, February 2016

1920: Whose Olympiad?

 

Gold Medal for Antwerp Champions

By Bert Govaerts

The first Olympic Games after the tragedy of the Great War might have been a fine stage for global reconciliation, but the war was won by some and lost by others. These were to be the Games of the winners (and the neutrals). Just as Antwerp had been selected because it had suffered on the winning side during the war, a number of nations were excluded because they had fought on the wrong side. The Olympic ideal was supposed to be "above" all politics and the International Olympic Committee had purposely settled down in neutral Lausanne during the hostilities, but its president, Baron de Coubertin (who, as a Frenchman, had luckily enough found himself on the correct side), had enough common sense to understand that less than two years after the end of the war, German or Austrian athletes would not be welcomed with open arms in a country that they had helped ruin. The former Central Powers (or what was left of them) were not really excluded. They were simply not invited to participate in 1920. It would not be until the 1928 Olympics that Germany once again sent athletes to the Games.

Neither was Bolshevik Russia invited; not only was it considered a subversive state advocating the spread of world revolution, it had also left the Allies in the lurch in 1918 by signing a separate peace treaty with Germany and Austria. Moreover, Bolshevik Russia was engaged in warfare with the newly independent Polish state, a state that was receiving military aid and assistance from France. Coubertin found an administrative trick that allowed this one-time "exclusion" of Bolshevik Russia and of the former Central Powers without mortgaging the future of his Games.

Of course, on the "winning" side there would be many absentees. Many sportsmen, including a number of Olympic champions, had died or been crippled at the front. After years of continued slaughter of Europe's youth, the competition between nations could hardly be fair. This had already been demonstrated during the so-called "Inter-Allied Games" of 1919, during which the United States, latecomers in the Great War, showed their athletic superiority. The neutral countries as well were in a favorable position.

Antwerp Olympic Stadium Entrance
Note the Soldier Is Throwing a Grenade Rather Than a Discus

Anyway, the Games had to be taken up again. Twenty-nine nations accepted the invitation to participate. Among them were the newly independent states of Estonia, Czechoslovakia, and Finland, created in the aftermath of the Great War. Belgium, Canada, France, Great Britain, Greece, India, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, and the USA had all been combatants during the war. Yugoslavia, Brazil, and Monaco participated for the first time, though at the time Yugoslavia was still known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. New Zealand participated independent of the Australians for the first time.

It had been a top-level decision to go ahead with the Games in Belgium. The "generals" had spoken, now the sportive "soldiers" had to march once again. The practical problems were forbidding. There was simply nothing available, except the will (of some) to push forward. Of course, money was the first major problem. It was not just that the organizing committee lacked funding. Belgium was then going through a period of galloping inflation, which made it very hard to calculate realistic budgets. And so much remained to be done. There was no Olympic Stadium, to mention just one obvious point. Some of Belgium's sportive infrastructure survived the war years, but the swimming pool, the tennis lawns, the boxing and fencing arenas, etc. would all have to be renovated and refurbished. Finding accommodations for the athletes was another tricky task in an impoverished country that was experiencing a post-hostilities housing crisis. All this was solved in one way or another, partly on borrowed money and with a lot of improvisation "à la Belge."

The stadium was finished in time, if only two months before the opening of the Summer Games. The most striking feature of the Olympic Stadium was the "imperial," neo-classical entrance gate (a temporary construction, made of cheap materials, but few people knew that at the time). In front, a statue by Albéric Collin was placed. Not of a classic discus thrower, but of a Belgian soldier throwing a hand grenade. The accommodation problem proved harder to solve. Some of the athletes would have to sleep in city schools, others in military barracks. The poor Dutch had to stay onboard a small vessel, the Hollandia, which was moored at an Antwerp dock. The 1920 Games were not exactly the most luxurious or comfortable in history.

Local publicity for the Games suffered immensely from a shortage of paper. A great poster campaign was planned, but it was never realized. The official poster for the summer games (one version shown above) was designed by local artist Martha Van Kuyck. It showed a classical discus thrower, more or less wrapped in national banners and posing in front of the Antwerp skyline, featuring the city's great pride, the gothic spire of Our Lady's Cathedral. The poster was not precisely a "state of the art" design. In fact, it was very old fashioned, still breathing the atmosphere of the Belle Époque, the period during which the leading sportsmen of Antwerp had started thinking of "their" Games. If anything, the occupation had not really revolutionized their taste. Anyway, local propaganda for the Games was so lacking that when several prelude athletic events were held, a Belgian newspaper wrote: "Friday evening (April 23rd), at nine o'clock, the Olympic games are supposed to begin. How many Antwerp citizens are aware of this?"

Opening Ceremony, 14 August 1920

The opening ceremony of the VII Olympiad took place on 14 August 1920. It began with a religious service in Antwerp's impressive gothic cathedral. The entire Olympic family gathered in a Catholic prayer house to listen to the admonishing words of a cardinal of the Church. Many military delegates from the Allied and neutral countries were present as well, and the memory of the Great War was omnipresent. The speaker, Cardinal Désiré Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, belonged in part to the national Belgian history of the war. During the occupation he had taken an attitude of staunch resistance toward the Germans, at times even embarrassing the "neutral" Pope himself. Yet, Mercier was not a universally popular hero in his own country. The French-speaking Mercier considered the Dutch language, spoken by the Flemish, Belgium's majority community, as an inferior tongue, fit only for everyday life but not for use in science, politics, or diplomacy. His "Olympic" speech (delivered after he had sung a de Profundis in memory of the athletes who died during the war) was entirely in French. That did not go unnoticed outside the cathedral. It rankled the atmosphere even before the Games began.

The speech itself clearly, be it obliquely, referred to the Great War once again and not simply in pacifying terms. Before 1914, the Games, the Cardinal told the athletes, had been a preparation for war. History proved the correctness of the provisions of their founder. Today the Games were preparation for peace but also...."against the terrible risks that have not entirely disappeared from our horizon." Mercier urged the athletes to be moderate, disciplined, and prepared to accept authority. All this in order to prevent sports becoming the "brutal, haughty translation of the Nietzschean conception of life." Germany wasn't mentioned by name, but everyone understood the message.

After the religious ceremony, the Olympic family moved to the stadium on the outskirts of the city. After gun salutes were fired, King Albert, wearing his military uniform, solemnly opened the 1920 Games. Just as nowadays, the delegations marched in and paraded in front of the grandstand. When everyone was in, the new five-ringed Olympic banner was raised for the first time in history. Belgian soldiers released white doves to celebrate the return of peace. Another novelty followed: a Belgian athlete, decorated wartime veteran, and prewar Olympic medalist Victor Boin stepped forward, carrying a Belgian flag and flanked by two Belgian officers. He was the first athlete ever to take the Olympic oath. He did it, of course, in French.

And that was it. The Games could finally begin. The press praised the quality of the ceremony but could not fail to notice that the stadium was hardly filled to capacity. In any case, the Antwerp Games had begun.

Eyewitness: Amiens, August 1918

Canadian Troops on the Attack

It is a great victory. The 2nd German Army has suffered a humiliating reverse, the extent of which, even yet, cannot be fully estimated, and much of its organization which covered the open country before Amiens has been, for the moment at least, practically destroyed.

I do not think that war has ever yielded such extraordinary stories of rout and the confusion of trained soldiers. General von der Marwitz no longer has Amiens by the throat. It is doubtful whether he has any kind of grip on his own bewildered men.

To-day we have advanced further. There must not be undue impatience at home if the progress does not meet with the hopes of the map-followers. This has been a “clean-out” enterprise, executed on very definite lines, and the men who directed it know what they are about. Do not look expectantly at Péronne and St. Quentin and demand a daily sensation. Without attempting to look into the future, there is plenty to occupy people at home in the story of what has happened. Thus far it is a most incomplete story—necessarily so. The outstanding feature, however, has been the complete success of the tanks, cavalry, and armored cars, in delivering the first shock to the enemy, and the superb following stroke of the infantry of the British Isles, Canada, and Australia. Never have the Germans been more completely dazed.

I have heard from many quarters to-day accounts of the wonderful scene as viewed front the air. When the horsemen and their rivals in armor swept across the Santerre plateau, driving terror-stricken Germans in front of them, they did the most amazing things. The headquarters of the 11th German Corps in huts at Framerville was charged by tanks and the Corps Staff pursued down roads and across fields, one general escaping capture by running like a hare.

Tanks Supporting the Advance, 8 August 1918

Tanks or armored cars—I am not sure which—captured a German ambulance train with its staff of doctors and women nurses. Other trains were attacked and set on fire, and one containing part of a Saxon division was destroyed, 500 men and 30 officers who survived being taken prisoner.

Never have I seen more striking evidence of the dismay and disorganization of a surprised enemy than on the battlefield I visited this morning. The story of headlong flight before the tanks and armored cars and the infantry advancing in their wake with dreadful deliberation is written plain on the plateau of Santerre, beyond our old front line.

From the forward machine-gun nests to the snug headquarters of the 11th German Corps at Framerville the fugitives left a trail of debris and booty dropped pell-mell. Deserted batteries confront you at the edge of ruined villages, and some of the fields are dotted with document strewn haphazard by fleeing staffs.

I passed through eight miles of reclaimed country and four villages which were held by the Germans until yesterday morning, and every yard of this journey revealed fresh proof of the consternation of the enemy and his inability to check the panic of his troops.

Manchester Guardian, 10 August 1918

_____________________

German Prisoners

On the other hand, the failure of August 8th was revealed to all eyes as the consequences of an open weakness. To fail in an attack was a very different matter from being vanquished on the defence. The amount of booty which our enemy could publish to the world spoke a clear language. Both the public at home and our Allies could only listen in great anxiety. All the more urgent was it that we should keep our presence of mind and face the situation without illusions, but also without exaggerated pessimism.

Paul von Hindenburg, German Supreme Commander

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Reflecting on the Great War and the Birth of Airpower

 

First World War Air Action As Popularly Remembered

By Tammi Davis Biddle, U.S. Army War College

For centuries before the Wright brothers’ first flight in 1903, humans had tried to imagine all of the future roles that airplanes might play—as both military and non-military instruments. During World War I, aircraft underwent revolutionary, telescoped changes driven by the intensely competitive demands of the war. In 1914, warplanes were primitive machines held together by wire and twine; by 1918, large, sophisticated four-engine bombers had been developed and used. These new instruments had major institutional and organizational ramifications for all modern military services—and the institutional transformation this entailed was far from painless.

Prewar expectations tended to influence the interpretation of wartime experience. Since the interpretation of data and evidence is heavily conditioned by what people expect to see, observations are colored by social, cultural, and political influences. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, civilian writers typically held higher expectations for air warfare than military planners did. The latter were generally conservative, expecting an airplane’s main or sole contribution to be reconnaissance. However, a minority—officers who came to hold formative roles in the development of air power and thus came to hold an institutional stake in the future of air warfare—emerged from the war with strong convictions and bold claims about the revolutionary impact of the airplane in war.

[After the Great War], those making bold claims for airpower, [especially Italy's Giulio Douhet, America's Billy Mitchell, and Great Britain's Hugh Trenchard] gained degrees of legitimacy for a variety of reasons. The war had indicated that technological advancement could take place in a highly telescoped way. Many observers thus concluded that the technological development of air power would be fast and relentless—and offensive capabilities would outstrip defensive ones. Moreover, many assumed that some of the most daunting weapons of the war, including chemicals and gas, would be teamed with airpower.

Air advocates argued that all modern states would have to embrace airplanes as essential tools of war and deterrence, insisting that those who failed to do so would put themselves at an enormous disadvantage in the ongoing competition among nations. Air power—long-range bombing especially—would restore offensive operations to the battlefield, and would offer the prospect of directly undermining the enemy’s all-important “will to fight” by strikes on his homeland. One would be able to leap over the army and navy and go right to both resources and popular will. It is interesting to note here that offensive operations had not in fact disappeared from the battlefield. By 1917, armies had begun to work out the basics of modern combined arms, restoring the offensive on land. This was manifest in the German offensive of March 1918, and in the subsequent ground offensives led by the Americans in 1918. However, many writers, traumatized by the trench stalemate of 1914–1917, assumed that the offensive on land was largely dead. Another common misapprehension of interwar theorists was that the German Army and Navy had not been defeated; instead, its population had lost the war due to war-weariness and defeatism.

Source: Airpower and Warfare: A Century of Theory and History, Tami Davis Biddle, U.S. Army War College Press

The Christmas Battles of the Eastern Front

Latvian Riflemen of the Russian Army

On the Eastern Front, Germany's 8th Army advance was halted near Riga in October 1915.  It would remain stuck in Latvia up to the February Revolution in 1917. German forces proceeded to build a strongly fortified, 30 km-long position, built with heavy lumber, known as the German Wall. Much of it was built across the Tirelis Swamp. After the failure of the 1916 campaigns on the Romanian territory the Russian commanders of the 12th Army received an order to attack on the Riga front. It was planned to attract the German reserve troops, thus helping their allies to resist on the Verdun and Somme battlefields.  With frost already forming on the battlefield Russian commanders decided to launch a surprise attack at Christmas time.

The Former Battlefield in Summer

The ensuing series of attacks—know as the "Christmas Battles"—were conducted from 23 December to 29 December 1916 (Julian Calendar) or 5 January to 11 January 1917 (Gregorian Calendar). They involved the Imperial Russian Army and Latvian Riflemen engaging the German 8th Army near Jelgava, Latvia. Commanded by General Radko Dimitriev, the Russian 12th Army launched an offensive in a swampy region known as Tirelis, with the main assault force being the 6th Siberian Rifle Corps, which included two brigades of Latvian Riflemen. 

The Location and Direction of the Attack on the German Wall

The attack commenced in the early hours of 23 December, catching the German forces off guard as they anticipated a quiet Christmas. The Latvian Riflemen, utilizing white winter camouflage and the cover of a snowstorm, breached the German barbed wire and captured the first line of defenses after a brief skirmish. Despite the harsh winter conditions, with temperatures plummeting to -35°C, the battle continued for two days, resulting in the capture of the German second defensive line at Mangaļi. However, the Russian advance was hampered by a mutiny among the Siberian units, which refused to engage further, while the Germans received reinforcements and launched counterattacks. On 25 December, Russian forces attacked the fortified position known as Machine-gun Hill, ultimately breaking German resistance and capturing around 1,000 prisoners, creating a gap of over 7 kilometers in the German lines.

Restored Trenches on the Battlefield

Following the initial success, the German 8th Army regrouped and launched a counteroffensive on 23 January 1917, employing a massive artillery barrage followed by infantry assaults across Tirelis. The Latvian and Siberian regiments defended their positions for three days, but faced heavy losses, particularly during failed counterattacks. Despite the harsh conditions, the Germans managed to reclaim 80 percent of their lost territory, although Machine-gun Hill remained under Russian control. The operation resulted in significant casualties for both sides, and the Russian command subsequently punished the Siberian Riflemen for their mutiny, with some facing execution and others being sent back to Siberia.

Sources:  History Maps; Camino Latvia

A House Divided: French Canada and the First World War–Video

Presented by Jesse Alexander of the Western Front Association

What Was Japan Up To in Siberia?

Some of the 70,000 Troops Japan Sent to Siberia

By John D. Beatty and Lee A. Rochwerger

Introduction 

Beginning in January 1918, the largest and best-known Japanese WWI-related campaign, referred to as the Siberian Intervention (Shiberia Shuppei in Japanese), was the largest international conflict that Japan had ever entered into up to that time. Of the ten Allied powers that sent troops to Siberia, the Japanese sent the largest contingent, stayed the longest, and were the only ones with specific instructions from their government about their mission—to create a separate and independent Siberia as a buffer against whoever controlled the government in Moscow after the ongoing Russian Civil War. Those reasons, however, were poorly articulated to the Japanese public. After several atrocities, ballooning debts, and shortages traceable to the project—that in the Taisho period (1912–25) were not hidden as they would be later—public opinion turned against it. When logistical, public, economic, and international pressure became irresistible, the last Japanese forces were withdrawn in October 1922.

Japan in the Great War 

As an ally of Great Britain since 1902, Japan declared war on the Central Powers in August 1914, knowing that she could also pick up some German Pacific territories on the cheap—at least without major bloodshed. At this stage in Japan's industrialization and modernization, nothing was “cheap.” 

In November 1914, British diplomats asked for Japanese 15 divisions to the Western Front. Since that figure constituted more than half of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) at the time and would have required some two million tons of shipping capacity, the effort was stillborn. On 17 February 1915, Japanese sailors trained as infantry went ashore with their French and Russian allies in Singapore to round up Indian mutineers from the British Army. Japanese naval forces escorted Allied convoys in the Mediterranean from April 1917 until the end of the war. In August 1917, the French enquired about deploying Japanese divisions to the Balkan front. For a number of reasons, including the imminent collapse of Russia, the Japanese demurred. In January 1915, Japan, trying to take advantage of Europe's distraction, issued their Twenty-One Demands to China that would have turned China into little more than a vassal. The United States, Britain, France, and Russia took great exception to the power grab. A watered-down version, known as the Thirteen Demands, was accepted by China in May. The Twenty-One/Thirteen Demands crisis caused great concern in Britain about the future of the alliance with Japan. It also angered Japanese militarists who were beginning to see foreign policy as their responsibility. 

When the Russian Revolution began in 1917, Japan became concerned about stability in Siberia. Lenin's Decree on Peace on 8 November 1917 seemed to indicate that the Reds were taking charge of Russia. By the end of 1917, after the collapse of the Italian front and troop withdrawals from Mesopotamia, Britain was asking for Japanese land troops anywhere. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918 was greeted with alarm in Tokyo, as it was negotiated by the Bolsheviks.

The Decision to Intervene 

Between Lenin's Decree and the beginning of peace talks between Russia and Germany, IJA Vice Chief of Staff Tanaka Giichi formed a Siberia Planning Committee in February 1918. Their goal was to scratch out plans for detaching Siberia from Russia and whoever won the coming civil war over the levers of power in Moscow. Always frightened of a vengeful Russian state that would take away her hard-won gains in East Asia, the plan was made the more urgent by Japanese fear and hatred of communism. While General Uehara Yūsaku, Chief of the IJA General Staff, saw an expedition as an opportunity to rid Japan of an old enemy. Field Marshal Yamagata Aritomo of the Privy Council and Prime Minister Terauchi Masatake were more cautious, not wanting more disfavor in the West after the Twenty-One/Thirteen Demands crisis.

While the Japanese military planned, their allies dithered. While the Triple Alliance and the U.S. wanted to restart an eastern front against the Germans, they were indecisive about exactly how and lacked the manpower in any event. Already overextended in Europe, Allied manpower was a big problem for them. So were the tons of weapons, ammunition, and equipment intended for the Imperial Russian armies that were just sitting in warehouses in Russia. This material became another Allied goal for the intervention. Gradually they hit on a scheme to land at Murmansk, Archangel, and Vladivostok to secure the supplies and the connecting railways. Manpower would be supplied by the Czech Legion that was made up of some 50,000 ethnic Czech and Slovak soldiers, former members of Austro-Hungarian and German forces captured by the Russians. The Czech Legion was already fighting Russian Reds alongside the Whites.

But official Japanese action only followed the earlier direct action by Japanese officers. Japanese sailors went ashore in Vladivostok on 30 December 1917 to quell riots between workers' soviets and local authorities that threatened Japanese businesses. Two Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) battleships under Rear Admiral Kato Kanji arrived at Vladivostok on 12 January 1918, two days ahead of a British cruiser out of Hong Kong. In April 1918, Japanese sailors went ashore at Vladivostok again, this time to prevent supplies from falling into German hands. At the same time, IJA commanders in Manchuria were arming anyone willing to fight the Reds. These actions alarmed the West enough to finally act.

After Brest-Litovsk, the Czech Legion refused German demands to surrender and refused to obey several pleas and agreements to evacuate, suspecting treachery. They fought their way onto the Trans-Siberian Railway, managing to clear key points of the railway by the spring of 1918. This got the attention of hard-pressed Allied planners still bleeding from the German spring offensives. By the end of June 1918, the Czechs under Mikhail Diterikhs, a White Russian general, had cleared Vladivostok of the Reds. Despite the preemptive actions of the Japanese, the Whites and the Czechs, the United States and the Entente committed to up to 7,000 men each in Siberia, but few seemed to know exactly what for—to secure what supplies and to rescue whom? Even if the politicians were clear in their minds what they wanted their soldiers and sailors to do, the mission was not clearly articulated to any military force under any flag except the Japanese. The Japanese generals finally got government and imperial approval for a 12,000-man expedition in August 1918. This number could be expanded,  it was made clear, if the mission extended beyond Vladivostok.

Sometime after the Deployment, the Allies
Paraded in Vladivostok

Landing and Occupation 

The first Japanese troops of the official commitment, commanded by General Otani Kikuzo, landed at Vladivostok in July 1918. By marching quickly along the railway as far west as Chita just south and east of Lake Baikal, Otani could plead for more help to shore up his porous lines. Tokyo complied, and by the end of October, Otani had by most accounts (the number is still in dispute) 70,000 soldiers and sailors in Siberia. In addition, some 50,000 Japanese civilian settlers and businessmen were dispatched, scattering as far west as Lake Baikal and Buryatia. Otani wasted no time in claiming that he was the commander of all non-Russian forces in Russia, a claim that no other nation's forces acknowledged. 

Aftermath 

The Siberian Intervention would cost Japan some 5,000 casualties, mostly to typhus and diarrhea. It had also cost about ¥1 billion (half the total national budget for two years), spun inflation out of control, and left the military with little to no leverage to direct foreign and military policy during the so-called Taisho Democracy when liberal and democratic government almost took hold. 

It also earned the enmity of Moscow because of Japanese support for their opponents, delaying diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union until 1925. Diplomatically the whole event was a fiasco. So great was the number of American and British officers and officials who were alarmed by the brutality, disingenuousness, and caprice of the Japanese that many in both the United States and Great Britain came to regard a future war with Japan within a generation as inevitable. 

In future postings on Roads to the Great War, we will present Beatty & Rochwerger's further discussions of  the performance, crimes, and ultimate withdrawal of the Japanese forces in Siberia.  MH

Life in Ireland During World War I

Poster from Loyalists Opposing Home Rule

Ireland in Turmoil

There was much turmoil in Ireland as the First World War approached. Labor strife was particularly evident in late 1913. The Dublin lock-out was a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers that took place in that city. The lock-out affected tens of thousands of Dublin families.The dispute, lasting from 26 August 1913 to 18 January 1914, is often viewed as the most severe and significant industrial dispute in Irish history. Central to the dispute was the workers' right to unionise. Although the workers organizations had been broken, he principle of union action and workers' solidarity had been firmly established. No future employer would ever try to "break" a union in Ireland. 

When World War I began in 1914, there was another festering crisis in Ireland over  Home Rule—a political movement from 1870 to 1922 that aimed to grant Ireland domestic control over its own affairs, such as education, health, and agriculture, within the United Kingdom. Unionists (opposed) and nationalists  (pro-home rule) were on the verge of civil war. Both sides stopped their campaigning for and against Home Rule and supported the British war effort. Ulster Protestants joined the British Army to show their patriotism. In return they expected to remain part of the United Kingdom when the war was over. Edward Carson insisted the Protestant Ulstermen be kept together in one unit. His request was granted and approximately 9,000 men from Ulster formed the 36th (Ulster) Division.

The nationalists hoped for Home Rule as gratitude at the end of the war. The nationalists were not allowed to form a division of their own like the Ulstermen. Not everyone in Ireland agreed with fighting for Britain. Arthur Griffith of Sinn Féin said, "Ireland is not at war with Germany. The only duty we have is to stand for Ireland’s interests." There was a banner in front of Liberty Hall in Dublin saying, "We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland."

Up-Scale Dublin Suburb Rathmines, 
Early 20th Century

1914 was the year after the Dublin Lockout and there was tension in the city. Some nationalists were busy planning a rebellion, seeing England’s difficulty as Ireland’s opportunity. There was also a sense that many people were happy with British rule. In 1911, King George V visited Dublin and thousands lined the streets to view his arrival. Many of the professional people who came out to see him had grown in political importance. Grand houses in places like Fitzwilliam Square were home to leading lawyers, businessmen and civil servants.

As well as that, during the 19th century, the wealthy began moving to suburbs such as Blackrock, Monkstown, and Rathmines. They built their lives around golf clubs, tennis clubs, yachting, and sailing. Houses were run with the help of servants who often lived in. Trams, horses and bicycles dominated transport, but cars were growing in importance.

Slums and poverty 

The former homes of the wealthy, especially on the north-side of the city, became home to thousands of the city’s poorest. These houses became known as tenements. Dublin’s slums were among the worst in Europe with thousands of manual and unskilled workers living in terrible conditions. A third of families lived in one room and in one case, five families were living in one large room.

The slums were disease-ridden and the death rate in Dublin at that time was 75 percent higher than in any British city. Those who had work worked very long hours for low wages. 

Employment

A Guinness Barge on the River Liffey

There was no major industrial area in Ireland at that time except in north-east Ulster. Dublin’s employment depended on administration and commerce. Dublin Port was busy with many British goods imported into the country and the bulk of agricultural goods leaving through Dublin for foreign markets. Up to seven cattle boats a day left Dublin for England. Work in the port, construction and administration could not absorb the huge number of available workers.

Good jobs with employers such as Guinness were dreamed of, but were not a  reality for most people. Employment in Cork centered around the major breweries such as Murphy’s and Beamish and Crawford.  People living in the county depended on agriculture and fishing. Galway was a county in decline with a birth - rate below the average and no industrial base. Waterford was equally poor with evictions of families from their homes commonplace. It was a mainly rural county with only Dungarvan and Waterford City having a population greater the 2,000. Belfast was booming due to the shipyards, the linen mills and associated industries.

Irish Soldiers at War

Men of the 36th Ulster Division, 1917

The conflict saw over 200,000 Irishmen join the British forces. Official estimates put the number of Irish dead at about 35,000. The vast majority died in their prime on French and Belgian battlefields. World War I wiped out an entire generation of young men. The war was fought on a huge scale and the armies were vast with millions of conscripts. The Irish came from every Irish county and many villages and towns. Men from the working classes joined in vast numbers. Farmers prospered during the war due to price increases and there was little prospect of them joining. The numbers joining up slackened off after the Eastern Rising. Many Irish people joined English, Scottish, and Welsh regiments. Emigrants joined the armies of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and the United States. In addition, women served as nurses at the front line.  They signed up for different reasons:

• Some enlisted to escape poverty.

• Others to maintain family honour or traditions.

• Others joined for adventure.

• Others wanted to stop German aggression.

• Many joined because they believed it would ensure Home Rule after the war and others joined to prevent Home Rule.

Women Working in the National Shell Factory,
Parkgate Street, Dublin

The war affected Irish life in other ways. Agricultural prices increased as the war went on due to the demand for food to feed the huge British Army. Middle and upper-class women in Ireland as in other countries took up new roles. They worked as nurses or in charity work in support of war victims. Many women worked in munitions factories also. As the war continued, life began to improve in Dublin. Living standards rose and mortality rates fell with money flowing into the tenements in separation payments to soldiers’ wives. Every woman whose husband was at the front got an allowance collected at the post office. The army provided a new source of steady income for the vast number of unemployed, unskilled workers.

Main Street, Longford, Ireland, in the early 1900s

Home Rule and the Easter Rising

The outbreak of World War I may have postponed another war in Ireland. Moderate nationalist leader John Redmond of the Irish Parliamentary Party had achieved Home Rule with the Liberals agreeing to introduce it. Ulster Unionists, led by Edward Carson, rejected Home Rule and formed the Ulster Volunteer Force, a 90,000 strong well-armed force which intended to fight to prevent it. Nationalists founded the Irish Volunteers to support Home Rule.

In September 1914, Redmond urged nationalists to enlist and fight for Britain in the war. Two days before his speech, Home Rule was granted but it was not to be enacted until the war was over. Some of the Irish Volunteers who refused to support Britain planned a rebellion. They were joined by the Irish Citizen Army in staging a rising at Easter 1916. Redmond saw the rebellion as a ‘German intrigue’ and Carson saw the leaders as traitors. Both men urged caution in the treatment of the leaders and prisoners when the rising ended. The British authorities ignored Redmond and Carson and after the execution of the leaders, public opinion rejected moderate nationalism in favour of militant republicanism. The Irish Parliamentary Party continued to push for Home Rule, but the British authorities did not grant it. In the 1918 general election, the people switched to Sinn Féin and Home Rule was no longer an option.

Constance Markiewicz,  Co-Organizer of the
1916 Easter Rebellion
(See our article on the Easter Rising's 100th Anniversary HERE)

World War I, the Home Rule campaign, and the Easter Rising changed life in Ireland for decades to come. 

Excerpted from: World War I—The Great War; from the County Longford, Ireland, Library

Aftermath: By 1932 There Was a Growing Fear for the Future in Britain

It was over airpower!

Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin

[After the Great War], those making bold claims for airpower, [especially Italy's Giulio Douhet, America's Billy Mitchell, and Great Britain's Hugh Trenchard] gained degrees of legitimacy for a variety of reasons. The war had indicated that technological advancement could take place in a highly telescoped way. Many observers thus concluded that the technological development of air power would be fast and relentless—and offensive capabilities would outstrip defensive ones. Moreover, many assumed that some of the most daunting weapons of the war, including chemicals and gas, would be teamed with airpower. (Tami Davis Biddle, U.S. Army War College.)

One of the most important consciousness-raising attempts by politicians about the terrible realities of air warfare came in the speech by the Conservative leader Sir Stanley Baldwin to the House of Commons in 1932. Baldwin pointed out that no town was safe: "The question is: whose morale will be shattered quickest by that preliminary bombing?" Baldwin was content to ram home his point that rapidly evolving aircraft technology was a threat in and of itself: "I think it is well also for the man in the street to realize that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed, whatever people may tell him. The bomber will always get through."

Source: The Blitz Companion