The Great War Won: ...Should Prepare for War

As 1917 waned, the collapse of the old Russia, the Tsarist Empire, turned the world on its head. Its foes saw its weakness as did its friends, not least its allies in France and Britain, but the latter saw, too, a perverse blessing of sorts. Under Alexander Kerensky's ascendant Socialist government, the Entente no longer had to explain its collaboration with the worst of the autocratic regimes in Europe. For a time, Russia seemed revitalized, even retaking the offensive against Germany. It was not to be. After a bare half year of military futility and political unrest, in October(under the old Julian calendar, November under the western Gregorian), Lenin's small but organized band of Bolsheviks took charge, then quickly sued for peace with Germany. In the West, first the French, then the British had suffered horrendous casualties in ill-conceived offensives, the French in Champagne country, the British in Flanders. Mutiny infected France, dismay enveloped England and enervation pervaded the entire Western Front. When Germany proclaimed its resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in the spring of 1917, America, now freed of the yoke of association with the Tsar, entered the war against Germany but not the other Central Powers. Its new Associates, Britain and France, embracing the new world's seemingly unlimited resources, thought they could now see the beginning of the end. But American was months away from fielding an effective fighting force. The new year began unfolding in the East as Germany began settling matters on its own terms, ending its strategic nightmare of a war on two fronts, able to turn its full and fearsome attentions to the West...