The Other First World War : The Blood-Soaked Russian Fronts 1914-1922

Winston Churchill called it 'the unknown war'. Unlike the long stalemate of the Western Front, the conflict 1914–18 between the Russian Empire and the Central Powers was a war of movement spanning a continent – from the Arctic to the Adriatic, Black and Caspian seas and from the Baltic in the west to the Pacific Ocean. The appalling scale of casualties provoked strikes in Russia's war industries and widespread mutinies at the front. As the whole fabric of society collapsed, German money brought the Bolsheviks to power in the greatest deniable dirty trick of the twentieth century, after which Russia stopped fighting, eight months before the Western Front armistice. The cost to Russia was 4 million men dead and as many held as POWs by the Central Powers. Wounded? No one has any idea how many. All the belligerent powers of the Russian fronts were destroyed: the German, Austro–Hungarian and Russian empires gone forever and the Ottoman Empire so crippled that it finally collapsed in 1922. During four years of brutal civil war that followed, Trotsky's Red Army fought the White armies, murdering and massacring millions of civilians, as British, American and other western soldiers of the interventionist forces fought and died from the frozen Arctic to the arid deserts of Iran. This is the story of that other First World War. A challenge to the conventional Western Front bias of World War I history, a must-have for any war historianUnlike the stalemate of the trenches in Flanders, the little-known eastern front of World War I was a war of movement that caused 12 million casualties, including female combatants. It spanned thousands of miles, from the Baltic to the Black and Caspian seas, before spreading north to the Arctic and east to the Pacific, embroiling several thousand British Empire and U.S. soldiers in secret operations in the far North, Siberia, and Ukraine. After the war, Britain and France rebuilt themselves and the U.S. was unaffected. In the east, this savage conflict of atrocities destroyed all the belligerents: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires. Berlin ended the eastern front hostilities prematurely at Brest-Litovsk, having covertly financed and promoted the Bolshevik Revolution. This unleashed a "rainbow of death" with the Red Army using famine, poison gas, and concentration camps against the Green, Blue, and Black armies. This remarkable story of war and attrition is brought to life by personal accounts from all sides. A challenge to the conventional Western Front bias of World War Ihistory, a must-have for anywar historian Unlike the stalemate of the trenches in Flanders, the little-known eastern front of World War Iwas a war of movement that caused 12 million casualties, including female combatants. It spanned thousands of miles, from the Baltic to the Black and Caspian seas, before spreading north to the Arctic and east to the Pacific, embroiling several thousand British Empire and U.S. soldiers in secret operations in the far North, Siberia, and Ukraine. After the war, Britain and France rebuilt themselves and the U.S. was unaffected. In the east, this savage conflict of atrocities destroyed all the the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires. Berlin ended the eastern front hostilities prematurely at Brest-Litovsk, having covertly financed and promoted the Bolshevik Revolution. This unleashed a "rainbow of death" with the Red Army using famine, poison gas, and concentration camps against the Green, Blue, and Black armies. This remarkable story of war and attrition is brought to life by personal accounts from all sides. Unlike the stalemate of the trenches in Flanders, the little-known eastern front of the First World War was a war of movement that cost 12 million casualties, including female combatants. It spanned thousands of miles from the Baltic to the Black and Caspian seas, before spreading north to the Arctic and east to the Pacific, embroiling several thousand British Empire and US soldiers in secret operations in the far North, Siberia and Ukraine. After the war, Britain and France rebuilt themselves and the US was unaffected. In the east, this savage conflict of atrocities destroyed all the belligerents: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires. Berlin ended the eastern front hostilities prematurely at Brest-Litovsk, having covertly financed and promoted the Bolshevik Revolution. This unleashed a 'rainbow of death' with the Red Army using famine, poison gas and concentration camps against the Green, Blue and Black armies. This remarkable story of war and attrition is brought to life by personal accounts from all sides