How Far Was World War One Responsible for the Overthrow of Nicholas II, 1917 Essay

The start-off World fight was indeed a major cause of the tzars overturn in the February Revolution. However, it was not the sole factor rather, it was a catalyst and a focus that allowed all the other preexisting factors to boil over into revolution. The First World contend caused a multitude of hassles for the peasants of Russia, both at shoes and on the front. The vast majority of conscripts were from farming villages, meaning that less hands were at home to till the soil and produce food it in like manner meant a general slump in food production as a whole, resulting in a shortage of grain to feed the sharp-set industrial workers in the cities.As the death toll of the backwards, ill-equipped Russian Army was devastatingly high, this meant that virtually everyone in Russia would lose someone they knew, regardless of complaisant status. The lack of reliable supplies of food and basic commodities such as ember (most of it was going to the front) further crippled the econ omy, especially during the harsh Russian winter. This caused riots and protests to discover let out, ones that the once-Royalist troops were now unwilling to curb. Economic problems aside, the Tsar also make several extremely misguided decisions that further damaged his reign.While he intended to use the Great War to secure his status as Father of the People, Nicholas failed utterly in two respects. Firstly, he left over(p) at present to command the front this meant that all the blame for every military turn thumbs down fell on his shoulders and not some scapegoat commander. He would no longer be able to divert the illwill of the people should defeats occur, and they did indeed. Secondly, he left the Tsarina in charge of running the Empire while he was away, and this was a disasterous choice on many levels.Tsarina Alexandra was a German-born princess, which by nature aroused severe animosity on the part of the people who were genuinely fighting the Germans. Even worse, she l istened to Rasputin in everything, sacking many true ministers and regenerate them with his incompetent cronies. This threw the already-disorganised Russia into even greater disarray, preventing supplies from getting through to the hungry workers and leveling the economy even further. The Russians called her a spy and accused her of conducting an affair with Rasputin, whom they loathed.They could not fathom why an uncouth, dirty peasant would find so more favor in the eyes of their monarch. The status of the Royal Family was at an uncomparable low in the eyes of the people, and everyone began to talk about how they should be wedded of in every class of society, no less. Further compounding the problem was the fact that the vast majority of the Russian Army was at the front. foreign the 1905 Revolution, where the Tsar could quickly sign a peace treaty with japan and get his soldiers loyalty with generous payments to crush the revolution, the First World War showed no signs of ending.The armys morale was incredibly low. With mass desertions some every day due to the obsolete nature of both Russian millitary tactics and equipment, many soldiers had gone back to the cities of Petrograd and Moscow to live with their families. This meant that when the flow of public sentiment finally broke out against the Tsar in another revolution, these soldiers turned in support of the revolutionary cause. Because of the poverty and nut house caused to civilians by the war, the loss of millitary support and disasterous handling of the army, and finally the Tsars own mistakes, the Romanov Dynasty was at an end.That being said, there were other factors that stemmed from sooner the Great War. After the 1905 Revolution, the Tsar had promised to make his rule more constitutional. These image promises were shown in the October Manifesto, his abolition of redemption payments and the creation of the Duma, an elected parliament who in theory would help him run the empire. How ever, these were merely halfhearted, hollow words. The Tsar a great deal ignored the Duma, dashing the hopes of the middle class and destroying their trust in him.In addition, he released the 1906 Fundamental Laws, which shrewdly reestablished his sovereign authority by stating that everything in the October Manifesto was permissible yet only in the limits of the law, which naturally the Tsar still controlled. Additionally, the Tsar had his new Chief Minister Stolypin carry out land reforms. He allowed the more capable peasants to accumulate the holdings of their neighbours, creating a gentle class of kulaks or wealthy peasants.It was hoped that this would both stabilise food prices and cause a barrier to revolution, a lower-middle class that would be loyal to the Tsar and unwilling to upset the favorable status quo. It mostly worked. However, what Stolypin had lose was the fact that many peasants would be displaced by this new mini-elite. Evicted from their homes and encourag ed by the government to settle on the Trans-Siberian Railway, they traveled many miles in cramp and cold conditions only to find that all the prime land had already been bought up by wealthy capitalists.Feeling cheated and betrayed by their Tsar, these peasants drifted into the city and establish meager work in the factories. When the time came for a second revolution, they were ready. Stolypin himself was kill in 1911, leaving Russia a disorganised mess. No other solon of his caliber would ever step up again in the czaristic regime. The First World War was a major cause of the 1917 Revolution, but not the sole one. Rather, it was a climax that focused and pushed all preliminary elements over the edge.