Who really won the First World War. What could have happened if Russia had won the First World War Brahma: The Creation of the Universe

From an article by Alexey Volynets.

During the First World War, only six European states remained neutral - Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, Norway and Sweden. Their citizens were fortunate to escape the horrors of carnage, occupation and devastation.
As a result of the Great War, they all benefited - the economies of neutral countries worked hard for the warring powers, sometimes for both sides simultaneously. It was during the Great War that the foundations of the current “Scandinavian socialism” and the glory of Swiss banks were laid.
However, this wealth was not easy for most neutrals. Only a very limited number of bankers and industrialists personally profited from the war, and for the majority of ordinary citizens, the war resulted in mass unemployment and the same food cards.

Dutch army.

Holland.

By 1914, Holland was by no means a small European country, but a large and rich colonial empire. Its overseas possessions in the East Indies (Indonesia) and the West Indies (the islands of the Antilles archipelago and Suriname) exceeded the size of the metropolis by more than 60 times.
38 million people lived in the colonies, while the population of Holland proper barely exceeded 6 million. In terms of the formal number of subjects, Koninkrijk der Nederlande, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was slightly inferior to Austria-Hungary, one of the largest powers of the early 20th century.
Moreover, in terms of economic development, Holland was then one of the leading countries, ranking 5th in the world in terms of foreign trade by 1914, and every tenth adult Dutch then worked in the banking and financial sector.

Shower for Belgian refugees.

The Dutch never had to fight, but they faced another problem. By October 1914, 900 thousand people fled to Holland from the territory of Belgium, where the fighting took place. Later, several tens of thousands of refugees, deserters and escaped prisoners of war were added to them from both sides of the front.
In the Netherlands, it was necessary to organize 7 large camps for refugees from Belgium, as well as special camps for internment of military personnel, which were attended by 35 thousand Belgian soldiers, over 15 thousand deserted Germans, several hundred escaped prisoners of the British, French and even several dozen Russians.
In 1918, when food rationing was greatly reduced, a wave of riots swept through the cities of Holland. They were called the "potato riot" as hungry crowds attacked shops, warehouses and barges with potatoes - the staple food of ordinary Dutch people during the war.

Distribution of products.

While the population of other countries was declining, in Holland it grew by half a million people, or 8%. The country's gold reserves increased 4.5 times during the years of the World War. In 1915-18 Over 400 tons of precious metal, mainly from Germany, ended up in the safes of the Central Bank of the Netherlands.
By the end of the war, the value of Holland's gold reserves was almost 2 times higher than the total nominal value of all paper money circulating both in the metropolis and in the colonies.
The profits and benefits gained through neutrality gave Holland the opportunity not only to avoid revolutionary upheavals, but also to carry out social reforms. By 1920, the country introduced an 8-hour working day, a 45-hour working week, lowered the retirement age from 70 to 65 years, and granted women the right to vote.

Switzerland.

More than half of the Swiss spoke and speak German, and only a fifth speak French. By the beginning of the 20th century, the economy of the confederation was most closely connected with Germany and Austria, and pro-German sentiment prevailed in the country. The Swiss army was built and trained according to the German model; Kaiser Wilhelm II visited its military exercises more than once.
By the autumn of 1918, the internal situation in Switzerland became even more complicated. Due to difficulties with food imports, bread rations on ration cards in cities were reduced to 250 grams per day.
True, this was not a real famine, since it was still possible to get food products at the market. But chronic malnutrition has affected Switzerland's poor. The country's authorities even began forced mobilization of the population for agricultural work.
On September 30, 1918, things got to the point where Zurich bank clerks went on strike, declaring that in 1917, bank owners had earned 35 million Swiss francs (over 100 tons of gold) in net profit from financial fraud on both sides of the front, but at the same time continued to hold citizens countries on half-starvation rations.
In November 1918, the country was swept by a general strike, in which over 10% of the population took part. To quell the unrest, the authorities even brought in parts of the army that never fought.

Swiss army.

The end of the war did not immediately lead to normalization of life in Switzerland. For example, cards for bread were abolished only in August 1919, and for milk in May 1920.
However, the end of the blockade and the funds accumulated in banks during the war years allowed the authorities to improve the lives of hired workers - since 1918, a 48-hour working week was established in Switzerland (while before 1914, hired workers worked on average 60 hours a week).
It was after 1918 that Swiss banks began to gain worldwide fame as reliable custodians of secret accounts and banking secrecy. The confederation's gold reserves increased 2.5 times during the First World War.
Until 1913, Brussels was the leading banking center for secret operations, but the capital of Belgium was occupied by the Germans, and the role of intermediary bankers was taken over by banks in Zurich, Geneva, and Bern. It was there that, to ensure financial transactions on both sides of the front, banking and commercial secrets were first equated with state secrets.

Denmark.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the Kingdom of Denmark was not just a prosperous, albeit small, country, but one of the most “authoritative” in Europe - the Danish king Christian IX was the father of the English queen, the Russian empress and the Greek king.
By 1914, there were 21 large canned meat factories operating in Denmark. During the war, their number increased 7 times - to 148, and the export of canned meat to the Second Reich increased more than 50 times. As a result, the number of cattle and pigs in neutral Denmark decreased in the same proportions as in belligerent Germany.
To increase profits, shrewd Danish businessmen sold to the Germans mainly the so-called “goulash” - low-quality canned food, in which there was less meat than sauce and “vegetable content”, and the meat itself was diluted with offal.
But starving Germany bought such products in any quantity. The nouveau riche, who became fabulously rich by supplying food to the Germans, were then called “goulashbarons” in the Scandinavian kingdom. During the war years, they built real palaces throughout the country, even giving rise to a special architectural style.

But even greater profits for neutral Denmark came from the resale of strategic raw materials purchased mainly from the United States. Thus, by November 1914, the kingdom was purchasing 13 times more copper there than in pre-war times.
The Danish East Asia Company, which was engaged in such operations, paid its shareholders dividends in the amount of 30% on invested capital in 1916. During the years of the World War, Denmark's gold reserves increased by more than 2.5 times.
Danish capital was also active in Russia, where its interests were often lobbied by the mother of the last Russian Tsar, Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (nee Danish Princess Dagmara).
In particular, the Danish Gun Syndicate built a machine gun factory in the Vladimir province, the director of which was appointed captain of the Danish army Jurgensen. The Tsar's treasury concluded a contract with Danish shareholders for 26 million rubles in gold (about 895 million modern dollars).
However, excess profits mostly ended up in the pockets of big capital, and the war brought mostly losses to ordinary citizens.

Meeting of the three kings of Scandinavia in Malmö. From left to right: King Haakon VII of Norway, King Gustav V of Sweden and King Christian X of Denmark. December 18, 1914.

The war significantly changed the borders of the kingdom. The fact is that Denmark, which was a great maritime power in the Middle Ages, owned several islands in the Caribbean Sea from the 17th century.
In August 1914, the United States had just opened the Panama Canal, and these three islands immediately acquired strategic importance, allowing them to control the exit from the canal to the Atlantic.
Back in 1902, Washington offered Copenhagen to buy the islands, but the Danish Riksdag refused. In 1916, the United States again asked to sell the Caribbean islands, and Secretary of State Lansing bluntly told the Danish envoy in Washington that “circumstances may force the United States to take possession of the islands without Danish consent.” After this, the Danes agreed to cede overseas territory for $25 million.
The funds accumulated over the years of neutrality allowed the Danish industry to “shoot” after the war - already in 1920, production volume exceeded the pre-war one by 40%, and by 1919 the real incomes of industrial workers increased almost 1.5 times. Against this background, the introduction of an 8-hour working day no longer seemed like a huge achievement.

Scandinavian serenity.

Norway.

Formally, by the time the First World War began, Norway was the youngest independent state in Europe - it emerged as an independent kingdom de jure only in 1905, after the dissolution of the union with Sweden.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Norway was a very prosperous and prosperous country. Unlike other European countries, by 1914 its land had not seen war for two centuries (except for the skirmish with the Swedes in 1814, in which several dozen Norwegians died).
The neutrality of a country with a huge merchant fleet immediately resulted in increased trade turnover and huge profits. By 1916, the gross income of Norwegian shipowners from freight increased 5 times compared to pre-war times.
In that year, when hundreds of thousands of soldiers died at Verdun and in Galicia, Norwegian shipowners earned a fantastic amount in terms of the current exchange rate - almost 18 billion dollars - from the charter of their ships.

Norwegian monarchy.

After 1914, Norway became the main supplier of copper and Atlantic herring to Germany. The arms industry could not do without copper, and fish was used not only for food - glycerin, necessary for the production of explosives, was obtained from fish oil.
Neutral Vikings actively traded not only with Germany - the volume of Norwegian exports to Russia in 1914-1916 in monetary terms increased almost 9 times.
During the war years, its active merchant fleet suffered the greatest losses among the ships of all neutral countries. From 1914 to 1918, 889 Norwegian ships were blown up and sank by mines and torpedoes, killing about 2 thousand Norwegian sailors.

Nevertheless, the world war literally turned into a golden shower for neutral Norway - by the end of 1918, the state gold reserves increased more than 3 times compared to pre-war, thanks to the flows of foreign currency and gold, 75 new banks were created (by the way, Norwegian banks provided to belligerent Germany loans totaling over a billion modern dollars). The capital of all banks in the kingdom increased 7 times during the war, and the size of bank deposits of Norwegians increased 4 times.
The growth of national wealth during four years of neutrality allowed them to buy out shares of most enterprises from foreigners and sharply reduce the participation of foreign capital in Norwegian industry.
Before 1914, two centuries without war made Norway a prosperous country, and four subsequent years of neutrality and profitable trade on both sides of the front turned it into one of the richest and most prosperous states in Europe.

Spain.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Spain had lost its former greatness and was considered one of the poorest and most backward countries in Western Europe. The population of Spain on the eve of the war barely exceeded 20 million people.
If before 1914 the kingdom experienced a chronic trade deficit of approximately 100 million pesetas per year, then in 1914-1918 its annual foreign trade surplus reached 400 million pesetas.
As a result, during the war, Spain not only paid off considerable foreign debts, but also increased its gold and foreign exchange reserves, which by 1917 had almost quadrupled. During the first three years of the war, the Madrid central bank received almost 500 tons of gold from trade with all the fighting powers.
However, due to the economic and social backwardness of the country, these profits almost did not reach ordinary citizens. Thus, according to economists’ calculations, the real incomes of workers in Spain during the years of the World War decreased by almost 30%. Already in August 1917, a general labor strike broke out in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Bilbao and other cities, which the authorities were able to suppress only with the help of the army.
As a result, unlike the Scandinavian countries and Holland, which used the benefits of neutrality for further development and prosperity, for Spain non-participation in the world war turned out to be almost a disaster - the aggravation of social stratification and social contradictions in the future led it to a bloody civil war.

Sweden.

During the First World War, Sweden was the only European country that managed to sit on two chairs at once - outright militant revanchism and profitable, extremely cynical neutrality.
It was Sweden that supplied the Kaiser's army with leather boots, selling over 4.5 million pairs to Germany by the end of 1916. In March 1915 alone, the Swedes sold over 10 thousand heavy horses for artillery to the Germans. Throughout the war, Swedish factories secretly produced sea mine hulls and spare parts for torpedoes for the German fleet.

Swedish entertainment.

With the beginning of the war, the export of pork from Sweden to Germany increased almost 10 times, beef - 4 times. If in 1913 Sweden sold 30 thousand tons of fish to Germany, then in 1915 - already 53 thousand tons. At the end of 1915, sales of all types of food from Sweden to Germany increased more than 5 times.
But neutral Sweden traded profitably not only with the Germans - by 1916, the export of Swedish goods to Russia increased 5 times. Moreover, Sweden took an advantageous position as a mediator between Russia and Germany.
Throughout the war years, through the mediation of Swedish companies, products from German factories were imported into Russia, and money was sent to Germany to pay for supplies.

The super-income of individual Swedish businessmen is evidenced by the example of one of the smugglers detained by the British in 1916 - in just six months he earned $80 million (at prices of the early 21st century) by reselling rubber purchased in England to Germany.
Sweden's state gold reserves increased almost 3 times from 1914 to 1918. The value of securities of Swedish joint-stock companies increased more than 3 times, and the savings of ordinary Swedes in banks during the war years increased by an average of 1.5-2 times.
Already at the end of 1918, the Swedish parliament approved laws on an 8-hour working day, universal suffrage, a reduction in military service and increased wages.

Everything is shown on the map. :)

Nine European rulers at the funeral of Edward VII. 1910 Seated, from left to right: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King George V of Great Britain, King Frederick VIII of Denmark. Standing, from left to right: King Haakon VII of Norway, King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, King Manuel II of Portugal, German Emperor William II, King George I of Greece, King Albert I of Belgium.

Maxim Kupinov

11.11.2008 - 17:46

How American tricks distort human history In the early morning of November 11, 1918, English Admiral Rosslyn Wimyss and French Marshal Ferdinand Foch received a German delegation led by Major General Detlef von Winterfeldt in Foch's railway carriage in the Forest of Compiegne. At 5:10 a.m. the agreement was signed. Its most important conditions were the demands that Germany withdraw its troops from Belgium and France, as well as surrender 2,500 heavy artillery pieces, 25,000 machine guns, 5,000 trucks, 5,000 airplanes, 1,700 military aircraft, all its submarines and 150,000 carriages. The truce came into force at 11 am. 101 salvos were fired - the last shots of the First World War. After 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, the guns of the Western Front suddenly fell silent after more than 4 years of continuous war. The First World War is over. However, no one called her that then. The name used was the Great War. In Russia it was called the Second Patriotic, German; then in the USSR - the imperialist war. Humanity realized that the First World War was going on in 1914-1918 only when the Second World War began. The First World War lasted 1,568 days and nights. 38 states with a total population of 1.5 billion people took part in it (to one degree or another). It cost the warring countries $90 billion (at 2002 exchange rates - $1,440 billion), and the destruction was estimated at $60 (respectively, $960) billion. The total number of mobilized in both coalitions was 74 million people. Of these, according to various estimates, 9.5-10 million were killed or died from wounds, and 20 million dropped out of the armies due to injury. However, it is worth remembering that these figures are very approximate. They only take into account combat losses. This does not include victims of repression of civilians in Belgium, France, Serbia, Russia, victims of the genocide of Christians in Turkey, and refugees who died of hunger and disease. The Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria were defeated. France, Great Britain, Japan, Serbia, USA, Italy emerged from the war as winners. Russia, which did so much for the victory of the Allies, was not among the victorious countries. It was torn apart by the fratricidal Civil War. But then, in November 1918, few people still understood that the true victors in this war were not England and France, who had exhausted their forces no less than defeated Germany. The real winner, who entered the war only in 1917, was the United States of America. The Americans, having fought much less than their allies, suffered incomparably smaller losses. But their financial and industrial power increased incredibly due to military orders from Europe. German writer Erich Remarque, a participant in the First World War, described the meeting of German and American soldiers shortly after the ceasefire. “The last weeks have been especially difficult. We were thrown into the fire again and again, and we lost people in vain, but we did not ask anything, we went into battle, as in all these years, and from our company of two hundred people only thirty-two remained. We left the battles still without thinking about anything and feeling nothing, except for one thing: we fulfilled everything that was entrusted to us. But now, under the sympathetic gaze of the Americans, we begin to understand how senseless it all was in the end. The sight of endless well-armed columns shows us how hopeless it was to resist such superiority in men and technology. ... The Americans are coming close. Another moment and they surround us. Until now we have only seen them up close as prisoners or dead. A strange moment. Silently, we look at the Americans. They stand in a semicircle, all tall and strong as one; It’s immediately clear that they always had plenty of food... The Americans are wearing new uniforms, their boots are made of waterproof leather and fit their feet, weapons are of good quality, and their backpacks are full of military supplies. Everyone looks fresh and cheerful. Compared to them, we are a real gang of robbers. Our uniforms have faded from years of mud, from the rains of the Ardennes, from the limestone of Champagne, from the swamps of Flanders; overcoats were torn by shell fragments and shrapnel, sewn up with clumsy stitches, and became crusty from clay, and often from dried blood; boots are unraveled, weapons have long since served their purpose, ammunition is running out. We are all equally dirty, equally wild, equally exhausted. The war passed over us like a steamroller.” In World War II, the Americans will repeat this technique again - they will land in France after many German divisions have turned into a bunch of old people and children, victims of total mobilization - companies of flat-footed people and battalions suffering from stomach ulcers - will be put into service. By that time, professional German divisions will have died near Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk, and will have mastered prosthetics or cleared snow in Siberian camps. The Americans will fall upon the pitiful imitation of the once victorious German divisions, surpassing them in everything. Then the Yankees, with inimitable seriousness, will compose a legend about how Private Ryan landed and saved Europe from fascism. And even in a country that played a major role in the defeat of Hitler, some will believe this story. But in the Second World War, the Americans only repeated the trick - we will show up for a preliminary analysis and declare ourselves the main participants in the war. They first used this trick in 1918.

For a whole century we have been taught that Russia entered the First World War with aggressive goals in 1914, lost it ineptly, and therefore the people, exhausted by war and devastation, rose up to revolution. How was it really?...

How Russia's victory was stolen

For a whole century, the Soviet and then the Russian people were taught that Russia in 1914 entered the imperialist world war with aggressive goals, lost it ineptly, and therefore the people, exhausted by war and devastation, rebelled, overthrew the hated tsar and took power into their own hands.

The war, which contemporaries called " Great Patriotic War", has turned in the minds of the people into " shameful imperialist", and also a lost one.

The history of the First World War was trampled into the mud in every possible way, monuments to its heroes were destroyed, the graves of soldiers were destroyed. It seemed that one more generation of Mankurts remained to be raised - and this shameful page of Russian history would be finally torn out of the glorious book, where there would be no tsarism, no slaves, no masters, but only universal happiness for 70 years.

In any case, there is no need to talk about any “spontaneous uprising of the people.”

Feint two: the “allies” hastily recognize the “Provisional Government”

Here's what we read in the memoirs Count V. N. Kokovtsov, former Chairman of the Council of Ministers and long-time Minister of Finance: “The spring of 1917 passed in a kind of haze, under the incessant roar of gunfire in the streets and under the yoke of the daily decrees of the Provisional Government, who were shaking our state machine with some kind of malicious haste and imperceptibly, but with a sure hand, preparing the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks"(Kokovtsov V.N. “From my past”, volume 2, Paris, 1933, p. 413).

The very government that declared itself a “responsible government” in advance, quite responsibly destroyed not only the bodies of state administration and power, but also practically stopped supplying the warring army with both weapons and ammunition, and food. Hunger began in the trenches. This was an additional incentive for the most patriotic troops to stick their bayonets into the ground.

Feint five: The Provisional Government brings down the army.

Letter from the commander of the 5th Army to the commander-in-chief of the armies of the Northern Front, General Ruzsky, dated March 29, 1917:

"V. secretly, in your own hands. Dear Sir Nikolai Vladimirovich! The general mood in the army is becoming more tense every day. Some calmness, which was noticeable in the first days, after the convening of a general meeting of deputies from all units, departments and institutions of the army, in recent days was replaced by the manifestation of an extremely dangerous property. The arrests of officers and superiors do not stop...

The fighting mood dropped. Not only do the soldiers have no desire to attack, but even simple stubbornness in defense has dropped to a level that threatens the outcome of the war.

The killings of officers became widespread. The very fact of an order to go on reconnaissance is perceived as “sending people to their deaths,” to say nothing of orders to attack. Even the very placement of units in a position on a quiet sector of the front becomes an extremely dangerous procedure.

“June Offensive”, also known as “Kerensky’s Offensive”.

Starting to attack July 6 (June 18) 1917 year, the Russians stirred up a hornet's nest with their offensive: taking the threat seriously, the Austro-Germans concentrated significant reserves, including those transferred from the Western Front, and already on July 19 launched a powerful counter-offensive with the strategic goal of defeating the Southwestern Front and reaching the rear Romania.

Unable to withstand the blow, the 11th, and after it the 7th and 8th Army, began a retreat that lasted until the 29th. The result is clear: The summer campaign on the fronts fails miserably.

The position of the Southwestern and Romanian fronts deteriorated many times over. But with all this, those who sat in the offices of the repeatedly changing composition of the Provisional Government could not just so easily take and give away the victory won with the blood of millions of Russian soldiers.

For so many years they have been shouting in all the stands about how they are fighting palace conspiracies aimed at concluding a separate peace with Germany.

They so fiercely branded the “German Queen” (granddaughter of the British Queen Victoria). And now - to take and do what they suspected of the tsarism they overthrew?

They were probably embarrassed to do this now. Shame had not yet been completely eradicated then. They apparently did not raise their hands to sign a separate peace with Germany, much less lose the war to it.

Therefore, in accordance with instructions received from outside, Kerensky and Co. the next trick: the Bolsheviks were allowed to power.

Trotsky and Lenin fought all these years against the war, for the defeat of the tsarist government, for the fraternization of Russian and German soldiers. It was they who were given all the cards in their hands. One was brought in a sealed carriage, the second, with the active participation of the Provisional Government, was delivered by ship.

Both the Western “allies” and the German General Staff were interested, each in their own way, in ensuring that this particular public came to power: one needed to knock Russia out of the ranks of the victorious countries, and the other needed to free their hands on the Eastern Front .

Feint six: October revolution.

It was then that they came up with an assault on the Winter Palace, which at that moment housed one of the largest military hospitals created by the royal family at its own expense.

The news of this fact still stupefies many bloggers and commentators.

Kerensky was in Gatchina at that time. The provisional government was demoralized and completely lost its capacity. Without any interference, the main points were taken by the assault troops: post office, telegraph, bridges and other strategic objects. Without firing a single shot.

Petrograd did not notice the “revolution”. The inhabitants believed that another “provisional government” had changed once again. Kerensky, as Ulyanov’s classmate at the Simbirsk gymnasium, did everything possible so that power would quietly fall into his hands.

As he writes Alexander Evdokimov, figures of the provisional government “unless they laid out a carpet in front of V.I. Lenin and they did not strew his path with rose petals.”

Feint seventh: the Bolsheviks offer an immediate truce.

In the fall of 1917, the Germans tested the strength of the Russian front for the last time, carrying out Riga operation. Despite the limited objectives of the Riga operation, the results exceeded all expectations: having lost only 5 thousand people, the German 8th Army completely defeated the Russian 12th Army, which occupied a strong position on the Western Dvina.

The Russians left Riga, having lost up to 10 thousand killed and 15 thousand prisoners, leaving the Germans with trophies of 273 guns (including 83 heavy ones), 256 machine guns, 185 bomb throwers, 48 ​​mortars, 111,000 artillery shells, not counting other property.

In October, they were joined by up to 20 thousand prisoners, 141 guns and 130 machine guns captured during the Moonsund operation to capture the islands in the Baltic Sea. These operations clearly showed the Germans the final loss of combat effectiveness of the Russian army.

October 26 (November 8), 1917 The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopted the Decree on Peace, in which the Soviet government invited all warring states to immediately conclude a truce and begin peace negotiations.

November 6 (19), 1917 The commander-in-chief of the Russian army, General N.N. Dukhonin, received an order from the Bolshevik government to immediately offer a truce to all states participating in the world war. Almost simultaneously, a note with proposals of similar content was presented to the ambassadors of the Entente countries in Russia November 9 (22).

Brest-Litovsk, where the command of German troops on the Eastern Front was located, was chosen as the venue for armistice negotiations. The Soviet delegation was headed A. A. Ioff That is, the head of the German delegation was General M. Hoffman.

December 2 (15), 1917. negotiations ended, a temporary agreement was reached on a cessation of hostilities for a period of 28 days,

Feint eight: Peace of Brest-Litovsk.

Much has been said about how and under whose pressure it was signed. Let us dwell only on his terms.

Terms of the Brest-Litovsk Peace

Rejection of provinces in which Belarusians predominated among local residents.

Recognition of Ukraine's independence.

Withdrawal of the Vistula provinces, Estland, Livonia, Courland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland.

Separate the Caucasian regions - Batumi and Kars.

Conclusion of peace with the UPR.

Demobilization of the navy and army.

Departure of the Baltic Fleet from the Finnish and Baltic bases.

Although Britain was destroyed and devastated, from a military point of view she and her allies were victorious. November 11, 1918 was the day of Germany's surrender in the First World War.

And the results of the war can be called the February and October revolutions in Russia, the November revolution in Germany, and of course the beginning of the penetration of American capital into Europe.

And the World War also gave impetus to the development of new weapons - chemical weapons were used for the first time, mortars, flamethrowers, torpedo boats, and a gas mask were invented. In general, the militarization of the economy has occurred, and in general the style of warfare itself has changed.

Strange. that at the beginning of the First World War, almost all the monarchs of European countries were related. For example, the Emperor of Germany Wilhelm II was an uncle to the Emperor of the Russian Empire, Nicholas II. which did not stop them from going to war against each other. Then towards the end it was Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. and England was already attacking Russia, fearing to lose superiority at sea. The result of the First World War was the defeat of Germany and its allies. Was signed Treaty of Versailles. according to which Germany was in the status of a slave to the countries of the Triple Entente Alliance, and could not have advancing weapons. Everything changed only with the coming to power Hitler and his party NSDAP.

This is quite an interesting question. In this terrible First World War, so many states participated in one way or another, and such were the huge losses of some of the states participating in this war. That many people assumed that humanity would take a long time to recover from this horror, and in the near future there would be no wars for a very long time. However, those who thought this way, as we now know, were mistaken, because the Second World War soon came!

If you do not look at the formal side of who won the First World War, then you can say that no one won.

If we talk about the winner of the First World War, we should first remember its participants. Countries from all continents took part in the war, including exotic Brazil and Japan, which at that time opposed Germany. But the main countries that inspired the war were Great Britain, France and Russia on the one hand, and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other. Formally, the Entente won, since Germany signed the surrender and found itself completely destroyed. But all participants suffered. Empires collapsed, 10 million people died, the world map was greatly redrawn. Russia dropped out of the ranks of the winners, since at the end of the war the former empire no longer existed - Soviet Russia arose, but formally it was Russia's contribution that turned out to be decisive in the victory of the Entente.

1914 - 1918 World War I. 38 states fought. More than 10 million were killed, more than 20 million were maimed and wounded.

• France wanted to become the main country in Europe.
• Great Britain wanted to prevent anyone from gaining strength in Europe.
• Russia wanted to protect the countries of Eastern Europe from aggression.
• Strong contradictions between the countries of Europe and Asia in the struggle for spheres of influence.

Triple Alliance military bloc of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.

Entente military bloc of Great Britain, France and Russia.

CAUSE FOR WAR: in the city of Sarajevo, one fanatic killed the Prince of Austria-Hungary. As a result, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Turkey and Bulgaria began to fight against the Entente countries.

In August 1914 Russia achieved success, but then the inconsistency of the armies, supply problems, betrayal and espionage led to defeats. By the end of 1915 Russia lost the Baltic states, Poland, part of Ukraine and Belarus. In 1916 under the leadership of General Brusilov, a breakthrough was carried out on the Southwestern Front. More than 400 thousand enemies were killed, wounded and captured. Germany sent forces to help Austria-Hungary and saved it from disaster. On March 1, 1917 A general offensive of the Russian army was being prepared along the entire front line. But a week before this, the enemies staged a revolution in Petrograd. The offensive failed. The February Revolution destroyed all the army's victorious plans. Mass desertion began, soldiers did not obey orders, intelligence data was declassified. As a result, all offensives of the Russian army failed. There were many killed and captured.

RESULTS: After October 1917 The Bolsheviks came to power. In March 1918 they made a deal with Germany Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, gave the western lands to Russia and stopped participating in the war. Russia lost the most: more than 6 million killed, wounded, and maimed. The main industrial areas were destroyed.

Sources: www.bolshoyvopros.ru, 1line.info, ria.ru, zapolni-probel.ru, news.liga.net

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Russia dropped out of the ranks of the victors in the First World War due to the outbreak of the revolution. Actually, the war itself became an important reason for the Russian revolution. However, it is not difficult to imagine scenarios in which the revolution could have occurred later than 1917 or victory in the war could have been achieved earlier. In this case, the Russian Empire would have been among the victors in the First World War, along with Britain and France. How then could the future destinies of Russia and the whole world develop?

There might not have been a Second World War

An important factor contributing to the revival of Germany's military power after defeat in the First World War was cooperation with Soviet Russia. Both states sought geopolitical revenge. As a result, in 1922-1933 and 1939-1941. The Soviet Union and Germany mutually supported each other, preparing for a battle with Western democracies for the redivision of the world (however, in the end, the same Western states managed to set up Germany and the USSR for a battle, first of all, among themselves).
Well, if Russia had been among the powers that defeated Germany in the First World War, who could the latter then rely on for its revenge? There simply would not have been such a friendly country for Germany. Therefore, it is highly likely that the First World War would have been the last. The second one would not have arisen. There would be no Hitler, no Nazis, no Holocaust. This, of course, is not certain, but it is very likely.
In addition, the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which ended the First World War, turned out to be very humiliating for German national dignity. We have the right to assume that this happened to a large extent because the conditions of this world were developed and dictated to Germany by the Western powers without any participation from Russia. What if among the participants in the peace conference was the All-Russian autocrat Nicholas II, whose cousin was the German Kaiser Wilhelm II? Wouldn't the tsar try to make the terms of the peace treaty as gentle as possible for Germany, so that Germany would not have any desire for any kind of revenge?

Constantinople is ours

Russia, when it entered the First World War, had very specific geopolitical plans. They found expression in a number of political statements, projects, treatises, as well as secret agreements with the allies. Based on them, a specific plan for the post-war world order, to which Nicholas II strove, emerges.
First of all, Russia would receive Constantinople with the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and adjacent parts of the European and Asian coasts. Most likely, Constantinople would have been declared the third capital of the Russian Empire, along with St. Petersburg and Moscow. Possession of Constantinople after the war was guaranteed to Russia by a secret agreement between three foreign ministers (Britain, France and Russia; the so-called Sykes-Picot-Sazonov agreement) signed in 1916.
In addition to access to the Mediterranean Sea through the straits from the Black Sea, this agreement ensured the passage of the entire Turkish part of Armenia to Russia. An interesting fact: in January 1917, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich (the Tsar’s uncle), commander-in-chief of the Caucasian Front and governor of the Caucasus, signed an order to organize another Russian Cossack army - the Euphrates - on the river of the same name, on the territory already occupied by Russian troops at that time.

Slavic question

It has long been no secret to anyone that Nicholas II intended, following the war, to unite all of Poland within ethnographic borders and provide it with the same independence that the Grand Duchy of Finland enjoyed within the Russian Empire. At the same time, it was planned to forever take East Prussia away from Germany and divide it between Russia proper and Poland - what Stalin did after World War II.
Nicholas II sympathized with the ideas of creating the Yugoslav and Czechoslovak federations. In any case, Austria-Hungary would have faced the fate that eventually befell it - disintegration into national states. Yugoslavia, as it happened, would be led by a Serbian dynasty. Well, the monarch of Czechoslovakia would probably be nominally the Russian Emperor himself.

A constitutional monarchy

There can hardly be any doubt that parliamentary government, which began in Russia with the convening of the State Duma in 1906, would be further developed. And this would have happened without revolutions and civil wars. Gradually, during the twentieth century, many national provinces of the Russian Empire would certainly have acquired autonomy - as happened in similar cases in other states. Naturally, in such a Russian Empire political life would be in full swing. Development always comes through conflicts, sometimes bloody ones. But the fact of the matter is that these conflicts would not have a catastrophic outcome. The main thing is that in the history of our country there would not have been a radical change in the social structure, there would have been no mass repressions, the dominance of one ideology, and bad traditions of suppressing dissent would not have developed. Russia would be another country in the Western world. The fact that the Russian revolution took place in real history became the impetus for the development of many leftist movements. In a world where the Russian Empire dictated the terms of a peace treaty to Germany, the conditions for such movements would hardly have arisen at all.

But everything depended on Russia itself

However, the above could have taken place in the most ideal scenario. After all, much depended on the state in which Russia would be able to achieve the victory of the Entente over the bloc of Central Powers. After all, by the time of victory it could have been greatly weakened, and the allies could have disregarded its interests and trampled on previously signed agreements. The example of Italy convinces us of the possibility of this. She was among the formal victors in the First World War. And the allies even fulfilled her wishes to annex new territories to her. However, in Italy after the war there was almost a revolution led by leftist forces, and then Italy became one of the allies of revanchist Germany. So Russia’s victory in the First World War could have turned out differently for it. Although it is hardly imaginable worse than what happened in reality.