Hello and welcome to a history of Europe, Geabattles podcast.

My name is Carter Islet, and today I'll be continuing the story of the First World War.

So far, on this series on World War I, I've looked at the origins of the war and also the first years,

1914 to 1916.

Today we turn to 1917 and the Russian Revolution.

The Russian Revolution.

The As the year 17 dawned, Europe had been at war for two and a half years,

and pressures on the home fronts were becoming intolerable.

Everywhere there were shortages of food, fuel and raw materials for industry,

mostly due to the insatiable demands of the military,

but made worse for the central powers by the Allied blockade.

Most important for the public mood were the shortages of food which sucked strength and support for the war. Peasants could still hoard their stocks and

resort to the barter economy so the worst sufferers were the working and lower

middle classes in the cities and strikes and bread riots became endemic throughout central and

Eastern Europe. In France and Britain, war weariness was also growing. In both countries,

socialists whose international minorities had in the first phase of the war been subsumed by

patriotic fervour were now arguing for a compromise peace.

But they were still in the minority, and political discourse was mainly directed at the conduct of the war.

In France, the heavy casualties at the Battle of Verdun in 1916 were blamed on General Duffra, who was replaced

as Commander-in-Chief by Robert Nivelle. In Britain, popular discontent found its target in the

administration of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. In December 1916, he was replaced by David Lloyd George, who had the charisma of a natural war leader and was far more energetic than his predecessor.

One advantage the British enjoyed was support from across their vast empire.

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