After Russia’s October Revolution, the Eastern Front had gone quiet, as Lenin’s Bolshevik
government exited the world war and began negotiating peace terms with the Central Powers.
But those negotiations have failed and now, this week, the Eastern Front explodes back
to life.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week, Ukraine signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers, but it brought anything
but peace.
In fact, it caused Leon Trotsky to walk out of the Russian peace negotiations with the
Central Powers and Germany to then decide to renew the war against Russia.
There was new action in the field as well, as the Ottomans advanced from Anatolia toward
the Caucasus.
Colonel Morel and his ragtag crew of Russians and Armenians retreated as they advanced.
“The retreat occupied 11 days between 14 and 24 February and was carried out with remarkable
steadfastness and skill under bitter winter conditions - 40-50% of troops and refugees
were frost bitten.
The retreating columns - as in Ter-Gukasov’s epic withdrawal from the Eleshkirt Valley
half a century before - had to cover thousands of panic-stricken against repeated attacks
from the Dersim Kurds.”
The Ottoman 36th and 5th Caucasian divisions followed the retreat and occupied Erzincan
and Mamahatun.
By the 18th, the Ottomans were within 15km of Trabzon.
But the main action this week was far to the north.
The 18th was the end of the armistice between Germany and Russia and the German army crossed
Dvina River, marching on Dvinsk, and also toward Lutsk in Ukraine.
These cities were occupied the following day as the whole line advanced, pushing into Estonia.
The suddenly desperate Bolsheviks declared themselves ready to sign the “unacceptable”
peace conditions dictated by the Central Powers at the Brest-Litovsk conference, but Germany
General Max Hoffmann, the military rep at the conference was in no hurry to accept their
concession.
He now said the acceptance of conditions had to be sent in writing by courier through the
German lines to Berlin.
The German army advances toward Kiev, Moscow, Petrograd, and Reval with little resistance,
occupying Minsk.
German troops reach Finland to reinforce the White Guard.
In fact, in 124 hours, they advanced 240km on the eastern front.
Lenin and Trotsky’s written letter reached Berlin the 21st, but it was rejected and the
Germans wrote back demanding even harsher terms than at the conference.
They were well aware that Russia’s territorial integrity was disintegrating rapidly.
Lenin had been advised the whole time that his army could neither stop the Germans nor
defend Petrograd.
He had, though, been a bit more grounded in reality than some of his comrades.
Last month he had made very clear that it was a mistake to bet the survival of the Russian
Revolution on the possibility of one happening now in Germany, which he thought inevitable
though not imminent.
He thought hoping for such a revolution to save the day was a romantic dream and would
lead to Russia’s defeat.
Still, most of the Bolshevik leaders preferred resistance to accepting terrible peace terms.
Last month, 32 voted for a “revolutionary war” and just 15 for a separate peace.
16 supported Trotsky’s “no war no peace plan” we saw last week, figuring they’d
lose more Baltic territory but that was a price worth paying.
It wasn’t until after the massive German advance this week that Lenin could actually
get a majority for a separate peace.
But it wasn’t just the east the Germans were focusing on.
Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff and his staff were also making plans for a gigantic
spring offensive in the west.
The formal decision that it would be Operation MICHAEL was finally issued February 8th.
The basic plan had been issued late last month, and the operation had to be ready to go around
March 20th.
The 17th army would conduct MICHAEL I, the 2nd army MICHAEL II, and the 18th army MICHAEL
III.
Number one was planned as an attack from the Cambrai front toward Bullecourt-Bapaume, number
two an attack toward Péronne and then north.
These would cut off the enemy in the Cambrai salient and then continue northwest and roll
up the British.
MICHAEL III was to be an attack on both sides of St. Quentin to throw the enemy back over
the Crozat Canal and then cover MICHAEL II’s flank.
That was last month’s plan anyhow, but there were other side plans still in the works,
for example MARS would be launched south of the River Scarpe a few days after MICHAEL
began.
Thing is, last week at the big German Bad Homburg conference, Ludendorff said something
that seemed to betray his belief that this would win the war for Germany, “We must
not believe that this offensive will be like those in Galicia or Italy.
It will be an immense struggle that will begin at one point, continue at another, and take
a long time.”
But the plans were still evolving - the day after that conference, the 17th army was told
that the main effort of MICHAEL I was on the pivot of the right wing against Arras, and
not on the left wing cutting off Cambrai and linking with MICHAEL II, two days later this
was overruled and the main attack had to be on the left wing, and the execution of MARS
depends solely on the success of the MICHAEL attacks.
Another meeting is scheduled for next week at Charleville.
However the offensive begins, though, Ludendorff will be facing an army run by a different
High Command than before.
After a month of political maneuvering to get rid of him, British army Chief of Staff
Wully Robertson resigned this week, rather than compromise on actions that he felt would
weaken the army.
On February 16, 1918, then, Sir Henry Wilson became the new Chief of the General Staff,
and Sir Henry Rawlinson became the military rep at the Allied Supreme War Council at Versailles.
Here’s a quote from the Great War Generals on the Western Front, “Robertson refused
to accept the position at Versailles, for he felt the real power would rest with Wilson
in London.
Since Wully Robertson lacked the latter’s talent for “mischief”- Wilson’s own
term for his relentless drive for self-advancement and backstairs maneuvering- he was probably
correct.”
Robertson was - and still is - the only soldier in the British army to rise from the rank
of private all the way up to Field Marshal.
He began his military career in The Queen’s Lancers 1877 at the age of 17- lying and saying
he was 18, and passed his officer’s commission in 1888.
The British army was actually advancing in the field this week, though far from the Western
Front, in Palestine.
On the 19th, they were within 12km of Jericho, which they took the 21st.
They were now established on a line that threatened the Hejaz Railway.
General Edmund Allenby had reached the northern end of the Dead Sea, the lowest part of the
earth’s land surface, 1,290 ft below sea level.
The Ottomans retreated beyond the River Jordan.
The capture of Jericho not only gave Allenby access to the River, but also made possible
another plan of his.
Let me backtrack.
Following the capture of Jerusalem in December, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
had convinced the Allied Supreme War Council that the British should launch a new offensive
against the Ottomans in 1918.
He then sent Jan Smuts, from the War Cabinet, to Egypt to determine if that offensive should
come in Palestine or Mesopotamia.
So now, while Smuts is touring Palestine, the fall of Jericho happens, and Smuts endorses
Palestine.
Allenby said last month that he would like to destroy 10-15 miles of the Ottoman Hejaz
Railway, which was a major Ottoman supply route, and some of its bridges, and be in
direct touch with the Arab Revolt under Feisal, and then he would accomplish a lot.
More and more, Allenby’s plans now, after Jericho, involved a drive on Amman.
And earlier I mentioned the Germans reinforcing the Finnish White Guard?
Their leader, General Mannerheim, was gathering his army in the north because by the 18th,
south Finland was in Bolshevik hands.
Mannerheim demanded the evacuation of all Russian troops - red or white - from Finland
immediately, on the 23rd.
The Bolsheviks will agree to this, since they’ve got much bigger headaches of their own.
And the week ends, with the Ottomans advancing in Anatolia, the British advancing in Palestine,
and the Germans advancing all along the Eastern Front.
You gotta ask yourself, “how did the Russians not see this coming?”
Well, hindsight is easy, but still - a majority of the Bolshevik leadership believed, until
this week, that either revolution would cripple Germany, or that Germany would accept “no
war, no peace”.
I suppose that optimism stemmed from the success of their own revolution and rise to power,
but Russia is now in big big trouble.
Will they accept German peace terms?
Will they try to fight?
Will they submit and then launch a resistance?
Will the Bolshevik government survive?
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
If you want to learn more about one of the driving forces behind the German strategy
throughout the war, you can click right here for our episode about Paul von Hindenburg.
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