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Bloody Sunday: The Revolution of 1905
Bloody Sunday is the name given to the events of Sunday, 22 January 1905 in St Petersburg, Russia, where unarmed demonstrators led by Father Georgy Gapon were fired upon by soldiers of the Imperial Guard as they marched towards the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. -
World War I begins
World War I was a global war centered in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. More than 9 million combatants and 7 million civilians died as a result of the war, a casualty rate exacerbated by the belligerents' technological and industrial sophistication, and tactical stalemate. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, paving the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. -
Schlieffen Plan developed
Facing a war on two fronts, Germany had developed a battle strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan. Named after it's desginer, General Alfred Graf von Schlieffen. The plan called for attacking and defeating France in the west and then rushing east to fight Russia.The Germans felt they could carry out such a plan because Russia lagged behind the rest of Europe in it's railroad system and thus would take longer to supply it's front lines. -
Trench Warfare began
By early 1915, opposing armies on the Western Front had dug miles of parallel trenches to protect themselves from enemy fire. This set the stage for what became known as trench warfare. In this type of warfare, soldiers fought each other from trenches. And armies traded huge losses of human life for pitifully small land gains -
Eastern Front Battle
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland and other allies, which encompassed Northern, Southern and Central and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It has been known as the Great Patriotic War in the former Soviet Union and in modern Russia, while in Germany it was called the Eastern Front, the Eastern Campaign or the Russian Campaign. -
WWI becomes Total War
Total war is when the entire population of a country is somehow involved in the fighting of the war, either as being targets of the opposing military in some form, or are directly attacking the opposing country's soldiers. It's when civilians are treated the same as soldiers on the battlefield, because all the country wants to do is win at any cost. -
French and Germans engage at Verdun
The Battle of Verdun was fought from 21 February – 18 December 1916 during the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies, on hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse in north-eastern France. The German strategy intended to provoke the French into counter-attacks and counter-offensives, to drive the Germans off the heights. French attacks would be relatively easy to repel with massed artillery-fire, from the large number of medium, heavy and super-heavy guns. -
Germans declared unrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink vessels such as freighters and tankers without warning, as opposed to attacks per prize rules. Prize rules call for submarines to surface and search for merchantmen and place crews in "a place of safety" before sinking them, unless the ship has shown "persistent refusal to stop... or active resistance to visit or search". -
Russia Withdraws from the War
Russia was having a revolution to overthrow the Tzar, who was keeping Russia in the war, though they were losing many men. And morale was very very low. So people were desperate for someone new to rule the country. So Lenin, the communist came in and promised Peace, Land, and Bread. Peace meaning, withdrawal from the war. (which everyone wanted). -
Armistice signed as Allies defeat Central Powers
Soon, the Central Powers began to crumble. First the Bulgarians and then the Ottoman Turks surrendered. In October, revolution swept through Austria-Hungary. In Germany, soldiers mutinied, and the public turned on the kaiser. On November 9, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II stepped down. Germany declared itself a republic. French and Germans signed a Armistice, or an agreement to stop figting. On November 11, World War I came to an end. -
The Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919.The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I were dealt with in separate treaties. Although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. -
Stalin Becomes Dictator of Soviet Union
Stalin began his ruthless climb to the head of the government between 1922 and 1927. In 1922, as general secretary of the Communist Party, he worked behind the scenes to move his supporters into positions of power. By 1928, Stalin was in total command of the Communist Party. Trotsky, forced into exile in 1929, was no longer a threat. Stalin now stood poised to wield absolute power as a dictator -
Five-Years Plans
Stalin outlined the first of several Five-Year Plans for the development of the Soviet Union's economy. The Five-Year Plans set impossibly high quotas, or numerical goals, to increase the output of steel, coal, oil, and electricity. To reach these targets, the government limited production of consumer goods. As a result, people faced severe shortages of housing, food, clothing, and other neccesary goods. -
The Long March
The Long March was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Communist Party of China, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the Kuomintang army. There was not one Long March, but a series of marches, as various Communist armies in the south escaped to the north and west. The best known is the march from Jiangxi province which began in October 1934. -
Stalin Launches the Great Purge
In 1934, Stalin turned against members of the Communist Party. In 1937, he launched the Great Purge, a campaign of terror directed at eliminating anyone who threatened his power. Thousands of old Bolsheviks who helped stage the Revolution in 1917 stood trial. They were executed or sent to labor camps for "crimes against the Soviet state." When the Great Purge ended in 1938, Stalin had gained total control of the Soviet government and the Communist Party.
