Boyars against the Tsar
Photograph of Nicholas Romanov taken after his abdication in 1917 in Tsarskoe Selo
The critical situation of the German bloc
The Quadruple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) was on the verge of collapse and defeat. Turkey's Caucasian front had been routed in the brilliant campaign of 1916. The Ottomans could not stop the Russian troops. Russia was preparing an operation to seize the Bosphorus and Constantinople, an invasion of Anatolia. The Turkish Empire was doomed.
Austria-Hungary was also defeated and completely exhausted, holding the front only thanks to German divisions. On November 21, 1916, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph died. The crown was received by Archduke Karl. Emperor Karl personally assumed command of the troops, received the support of the Chief of the General Staff and the actual leader of the Eastern (Russian) Front, Conrad von Hötzendorf, who believed that military defeat was inevitable and had to be accepted at any cost.
Vienna offered Berlin to start negotiations, the Kaiser refused. They tried to persuade Austria-Hungary to continue the war, they promised part of Romania, regions of Italy and Russia. Then the Austrians began secret separate negotiations with the French. However, Italy insisted on the transfer of Austrian territories, so the negotiations dragged on.
The German leadership understood that the situation was a dead end, if not critical. There were no resources for an offensive during the 1917 campaign. No major offensives were planned on any front, only defense. Reserves were sought. In the rear, construction of a powerful "Siegfried Line" (or "Hindenburg Line") was launched in order to shorten the Western Front, to consolidate it, and to free up some troops for reserves. They were planning to attack only at sea - to begin an unlimited submarine war.
The Germans already knew that the USA would enter the war in 1917, so submarine warfare could be waged without restrictions. They also knew that the Americans did not have a large and strong land army. They had only just begun to form one. During 1917, there was no need to fear the Americans. The USA had profited well during the world war: from a debtor they had become a global creditor, they had seized new positions in world trade, and they had intervened in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Cuba under cover of the noise. Now they were going to enter the European slaughter with fresh forces and take the leading place in the camp of the victors.
President Wilson went to the elections with the slogan "Wilson kept America out of war". It was a trick, the invasion army was already being created. In November, he won the elections, was re-elected for a second term. After that, all restrictions were lifted, preparations for war were in full swing and openly.
Start of the 1917 campaign of the year
The French commander-in-chief, Joffre, planned to fight in the old style: a series of offensives to grind down the enemy army. But this strategy with mountains of corpses was already boring for everyone. Both the French military and the authorities, as well as the British, spoke out against it. The plan was rejected. Joffre was offended and resigned. The new commander-in-chief, Nivelle, the "hero of Verdun", proposed to defeat the Germans in one general battle. Attack in a secondary sector, distract the enemy and his reserves, and then break through the front with a surprise blow and bring three armies into the breach at once.
The operation was scheduled for February 1917. Once again, a powerful force was prepared artillery fist, conducted reconnaissance, and carried out the corresponding engineering work. However, in January, the Germans themselves began to attack, now in one place, now in another. The Germans camouflaged their retreat in this way. While the fighting was going on, they withdrew the rear and second echelons to the "Siegfried Line". In early February, unexpectedly for the allies, the Germans began to withdraw the rest of the troops to the rear. The allied offensive that was being prepared was thwarted. It was necessary to occupy and equip the territory abandoned by the enemy. Then they had to prepare for the offensive again, prepare artillery positions, bring up railway lines (supply), carry out engineering preparations, etc.
At sea, the Germans began unrestricted submarine warfare in February. The US received an excellent pretext and immediately broke off diplomatic relations. London was in a difficult situation, dozens of ships were going to the bottom, and the islands' supplies were disrupted.
The situation on the Russian front was stable. The Russian army rectified the situation on the Romanian sector, and in January 1917, the enemy was routed in a counter-battle. In January, the Russian army had a partial success in the Riga direction. The Germans were alarmed, gathered reserves, and counterattacked, trying to regain their previous positions. The German attacks were repelled, and by early February the fighting had died down. In the end, our troops did not reach Mitava, but they showed that they could unexpectedly break through the enemy's defenses.
The Turkish command, in horror, after the terrible defeats of 1916, awaited a new Russian offensive. They gathered everything they could on the Caucasian front, more than half of their army, weakening other fronts. The British took advantage of this, launched a successful offensive in Iraq and captured Baghdad.
The beginning of the campaign was successful for Russia as well. In Persia, Baratov's Cossacks routed the enemy, captured Hamadan on February 25, then Kermanshah. The troops of the talented general developed the offensive and established contact with the British. Turkey lost most of Iraq. In Western Iran, Chernozubov's 7th Caucasian Corps advanced. And de Witt's 4th Caucasian Corps attacked at Musa and Bitlis.
Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Kolchak dominated the sea. The Turkish fleet was blocked in the straits. It destroyed enemy sea communications, disrupting the supply of coal and other goods. Without coal, the railway traffic and the work of the military industry collapsed. The Russians were preparing a landing on the Bosphorus.
It is obvious that for Petrograd, which was dealing with such allies in the Entente, who themselves were preparing a revolution in the Russian Empire (How the "fifth column" brought down the Russian empire), a separate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary would have been the best solution. Russia had no fundamental contradictions with the German world. Moreover, the Russian and German civilizations were natural allies. All the benefits from the clash between the Russians and the Germans went to Paris, London and Washington. That is why the British secret services eliminated Rasputin, who was against the war with Germany.
Unfortunately, Emperor Nicholas II remained noble even with dishonest partners. Russia did not take any steps toward a separate peace with Germany, although such rumors were spread, in particular about the "betrayal of the empress."
Boyars against the Tsar
In Germany, to achieve a favorable peace (they were no longer thinking about victory), it was necessary to turn off one of the fronts. A war on two fronts led to defeat. Therefore, the Germans tried with all their might to organize a revolution in Russia. The Kaiser and the German generals thought that they were using Russian revolutionaries for their own purposes. They would have been very surprised that there was a second and triple bottom to this game against Russia.
Thus, France, England and the USA – formal allies of Petrograd – played along with Germany in the game against Russia. The governments of the USA and England, their special services and the banking houses associated with them (financial capital – financial international) coordinated and regulated the process of preparing the revolution.
Russian liberal democrats, Westerners like Rodzianko, believed that the West was helping them for the good purposes of “the triumph of democracy and freedom,” to overthrow “damned tsarism,” so that a renewed Russia could “join the family of civilized nations” and become even richer. In reality, In London and the USA they were already preparing a second revolution, a socialist one. Detachments of internationalist revolutionaries, Trotskyists, were supposed to overthrow the "bourgeois-democratic" government and begin a global Marxist-Trotskyist experiment. A world revolution. Not only Russia, but also Germany, Austria-Hungary, and most of Europe were supposed to burn in its fire. What the German generals didn't know.
Almost all of the social elite worked against the Russian Empire. The noble, educated and wealthy classes. The industrial-financial, military, administrative and partly political elite. Many of them were members of Masonic lodges, subordinate to their senior "brothers" from Western lodge clubs.
The tsar was opposed by the hierarchs of the Church and the grand dukes, generals and ministers, a significant part of the State Duma and the leaders of the parties of that time. In particular, the Freemason, Finance Minister Pyotr Bark (1914–1917), who for some reason was not affected by the ministerial reshuffle (he was nicknamed “the unsinkable Bark”), worked against the tsar’s throne. He acted hand in hand with Western financiers, concluded deals that were extremely profitable for the Entente powers, and covered up Russian commercial banks that they wanted to check for ownership of capital. The Minister of Internal Affairs Khvostov and the head of the government Stürmer tried to overthrow him, but without success.
After the revolution, Bark quietly moved to Europe, settled in well, held senior positions in the Anglo-Austrian, Anglo-Czechoslovak, Croatian, British and Hungarian banks, and in the Bank of Central European Countries, all established under the auspices of the Bank of England. He represented the director of the Bank of England in the financial structures of the USA. He managed the financial and property affairs of the emigrated members of the Russian imperial house, was knighted by the King of England and received British citizenship.
Another "shady figure", as has already been noted, is the Minister of Internal Affairs Protopopov. He seemed to be a defender of the autocracy, newspapers and members of the State Duma threw mud at him, but the powerful police apparatus "slept through" the revolution under him. The Tsar was openly lied to, cheerful reports were brought in in the style of "everything is fine, beautiful marquise."
Westerners also dreamed of making Russia Europe, in essence, they wanted to complete the creation of a matrix of a Western-type society in Russia. With democracy, real power of parliament, a market. To destroy the autocracy, which, as they believed, was holding back Russia's development.
Russian Westernizers, liberal democrats, believed that it was enough to overthrow the tsar, establish a constitutional monarchy or republic, and everything would be fine in Russia, like in nice and civilized Western Europe.
That is why the monarchists in the armies of Denikin and Kolchak were underground, they were pursued by the White Guard counterintelligence. The White project was a pro-Western, liberal-bourgeois project. It was not going to restore the monarchy. Only a Western-type republic, a bourgeois society, capitalism. The power of bankers and capitalists.
Therefore, it was a terrible shock for them when the West did not help them. Moreover, when Western authorities and special services began to partially cooperate with the Bolsheviks. They supported both the Whites and the Reds and the nationalists, so that the carnage of the fratricidal war would bury Russia forever.
Pyotr Bark, the last Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire
Elite vs. Old Russia
That is why they did not wait for Tsarist Russia to win the war, when there were six months to a year left until victory. The State Duma and all the front commanders unanimously began to demand that the Tsar abdicate the throne. They sought to establish Western-style power in Russia and become the victors in the war with the German bloc.
Winston Churchill, the future British Secretary of State for War, noted:
“The outlook was encouraging. The Allies had a five to two advantage, the factories of the world were turning out armaments for them, ammunition was being sent to them from all sides, from across the seas and oceans. Russia, with her bottomless manpower, was properly equipped for the first time since the outbreak of hostilities. The double-width railway to the ice-free port of Murmansk was at last completed... Russia was for the first time in reliable contact with her Allies. Nearly 200 new battalions had been added to her forces, and vast quantities of shells of all kinds lay in the depots. There was no military reason why 1917 should not bring final victory to the Allies, it should give Russia the reward for which she had been in endless agony. But suddenly there was silence. The Great Power with which we had been in such close partnership, without which all plans were meaningless, was suddenly struck dumb.”
The various forces cut off from the supreme political power, including industrial-financial and commercial capital, the aristocracy and grand dukes, the church and the generals, leading political and social movements, the intelligentsia, which was entirely pro-Western and hated the "prison of nations", wanted to destroy the autocracy, seize all power and direct the development of Russia along the Western bourgeois-capitalist path. The Russian elite was oriented towards France and Britain.
However, instead of a triumphant victory, the Februaryist revolutionaries, the boyars of that time, having overthrown the tsar, opened Pandora's box and caused a design, civilizational and state catastrophe for Russia.
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