Russia’s Kerensky Offensive enters its third week this week, and Minister of War Alexander
Kerensky, who it’s named after, has been at the front supporting his troops.
But when the cat is away the mice will play, and this week sees “The July Days” at
home - chaos in the streets of Petrograd.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to the Great War.
Last week that Russian army steamroller continued its advance in the Southeast, the British
sent a women’s auxiliary Corps to France, Lawrence of Arabia planned new attacks in
the Middle East, a British battleship exploded at sea, and mustard gas made its appearance
on the battlefield.
Here’s what followed.
The Russian steamroller began to run out of steam.
After two weeks of gains, enemy resistance begins to stiffen in Galicia on the 15th,
and indeed, Russian forces begin to withdraw the following day.
It wasn’t until the 19th, though, that the big German counterattack really began, but
it began with a vengeance.
9 German and 2 Austro-Hungarian divisions broke through the Russian lines on a 20 km
front and took 6,000 prisoners, and as the week drew to a close, the breach in the Russian
lines grew larger.
You know something?
From just the last two weeks Russia had a new hero in the person of General Lavr Kornilov,
as it was his units that had advanced the furthest.
He had actually been one of the officers captured at Przemysl when it fell two years ago, but
had made a daring escape.
He had served well last year under General Alexei Brusilov during the summer offensive,
and since then until this offensive had been a Corps commander in charge of the Petrograd
district.
And there was big trouble there this week.
By this time, the uncleaned sewers had created a real health hazard, not to mention an overwhelming
smell.
Dysentery and cholera broke out, and warnings were posted everywhere not to eat fresh fruits
and vegetables unless they had been washed in sterilized water.
Food shortages continued, and there had been a resurgence of big antiwar demonstrations,
many encouraged by Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and their Bolsheviks.
On July 16th on the Nevsky Prospekt, the main street of the city, came rifle and machine
gun fire, and there were trucks full of armed men roaming the streets.
By the evening, the trams had stopped running and armed soldiers were confiscating private
cars, including the Belgian ambassador’s Rolls Royce.
The streets were swarming with people, and rioting and looting broke out.
The US embassy estimated that around 70,000 armed workers and soldiers ran the city that
night and many people were killed or wounded in the streets.
Much of the soldiers were dissident units of the Petrograd garrison, who objected to
being sent to the front - though that order had been actually given just to get them out
of the capital.
Bessie Beatty, Californian journalist, wrote that the next day the Bolsheviks were taking
over the city.
Indeed, the Bolshevik-led protesters numbered a lot more that day than the day before, and
they were backed by several thousand politically agitated and armed sailors who’d arrived
from Kronstadt naval base, where they had had an uprising of their own in May.
Again on the Nevsky, machine guns were fired into the crowds, killing hundreds of civilians.
Torrential rains that evening and all day the 18th temporarily ended the hostilities,
and on the 19th soldiers called in to put down the violence began to arrive from Dvinsk.
They were a different breed from the troops in the city, and were seasoned and disciplined.
Around 30 of Lenin’s men were arrested.
The soldiers entered the Bolshevik stronghold at Kschessinska Mansion to find 70 brand new
machine guns and documents that showed that the Bolsheviks were getting funding from the
German General Staff.
This was political dynamite and a statement came out about it in the evening papers, which
turned the tide against the Bolsheviks and the “July Days” as they would be known,
came to an end.
These days had made Kerensky furious that the government had not taken control of the
situation in his absence, and he determined that its replacement, which was formed July
20th, would have “dictatorial powers in order to bring the army back to discipline”
(caught in the revolution).
The soldiers of the Petrograd garrison that had revolted were to be disbanded and sent
to the front, the Kronstadt sailors to be disarmed and sent back to their base, and
Petrograd awoke that day to find that the power of the Bolsheviks had been broken...
for the time being.
Warrants were issued for the arrest of Lenin, Trotsky, and the other Bolshevik leaders.
Trotsky was caught, but Lenin escaped to safety in Helsinki.
Photographer Donald Thompson, present at the July Days, had this to say (Revolution), “That
Lenin, who escaped... and his confederate Trotsky, who was a hash slinger in New York
a few months ago, have done more to ruin Russia than any two men I know of in history.”
It wasn’t just Russian demonstrators who were turning against the war, though.
On the 19th, the German Reichstag, that had been recalled in order to vote more money
for prosecuting the war, demanded that when peace came, it would be a peace without annexations.
A Peace Resolution July 19th was passed 212-126 and it urged the government to work for peace.
New Chancellor Michaelis, the mouthpiece of the army General Staff, said Germany would
do no such thing.
(Gilbert) “I do not consider that a body like the Reichstag is a fit one to decide
about peace and war on its own initiative during the war”, he said dismissively.
And another government was giving the okay for more war this week.
It had to do with the coming British Offensive in Flanders.
The preliminary artillery barrage for that was already in action, though there was still
the big question of whether British Commander Sir Douglas Haig was trying anything different
from what they’d been trying the past three years.
Prime Minister David Lloyd George and new Minister of Munitions Winston Churchill thought
not.
French Generals Foch and Petain thought not.
Haig, though, felt justified by the enormity of his resources, but the futility of the
other Western Front offensives gave food to skeptics.
In Haig’s favor, the weather was still unusually dry for the region and season, though that
would not likely continue, so he was in a hurry to get going.
He had decided, which his senior generals weren’t too thrilled about, that his youngest
army commander, 47-year old Hugh Gough, would carry out the main part of the offensive.
Gough was bold and eager, sure, and he came from the cavalry like Haig, and Haig still
believed in the big breakthrough that would be exploited by cavalry.
Thing is, Gough wasn’t much of an executive, and here in Flanders, the incredible amount
of men and resources to be organized took more managerial skills than it did dash and
bravado, and that wasn’t good for Gough.
On July 7th and 13th, he had asked for more time, the second time saying he needed five
more days.
Haig gave him three, moving the scheduled start date from July 25th to 28th.
On the 17th, fog turned up to further complicate things, so the date was pushed back to the
31st.
Haig was very well aware that rain would turn the battlefield into an enormous swamp, and
he was anxious.
But you know, he still hadn’t been given the green light by the British War Policy
Committee for attacking, only planning, but finally, on July 20th, they told him he was
free to proceed with the attack.
There was a group of people making plans for a future government happening as well.
All month long, negotiations between southern Slav representatives had been going on on
Corfu about the possibility of creating a new country.
They assume that Austria-Hungary will disintegrate and Serbia will regain its independence.
On July 20th (Gilbert), the Pact of Corfu planned a postwar union of Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes as a parliamentary monarchy under the Serbian royal family.
Minority rights would be guaranteed; there would be universal suffrage, and an elected
assembly.
There was, though, a bunch of conflict between Serbs who wanted Belgrade to run the show,
and Croats who wanted a Yugoslavia rather than a Greater Serbia.
That conflict remained unresolved.
And here are a few notes to end the week.
On July 16th, there was a mutiny among the French troops on the Salonika front.
Their demand was for the right to go home on leave.
300 got new leave, 90 were arrested.
On the 15th, Arthur Zimmermann, author of the infamous Zimmermann telegram earlier this
year, resigned, and on the 17th, the British royal house officially changed its name from
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor.
This was because of popular anti-German sentiment and the royal family didn’t want to advertise
its German ancestry.
And the week ends, with the Russians retreating in the east, plans for a Yugoslavia in the
south, and the British offensive in the west being delayed, even as the barrage is in force.
And chaos in Petrograd with Lenin forced to flee.
So that’s the last we’ll see of Lenin, I suppose.
I mean, taking money and weaponry from an enemy power in time of war and using those
resources against your own people?
That’s treason any way you look at it, right?
And that’s not something you just get a do-over for.
Although...
Russia is in such chaos, uncertainty, and turmoil that it’s anybody’s guess what’s
going to happen next.
Maybe we will see that guy again.
If you want to learn more about Russia before the Revolution, you can click right here to
watch our special episode about that.
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See you next time.