548 Chapter 27
generals called for an armistice in mid-1918. In early
November, the German navy at Kiel mutinied rather
than continue fighting and revolution spread to Mu-
nich (where a short-lived socialist republic of Bavaria
was proclaimed) and other cities. Two days later, Kaiser
Wilhelm II abdicated and fled to Holland. While mili-
tant socialists (known as the Spartacists, after an an-
cient Roman slave rebellion) led by Karl Liebknecht
and Rosa Luxemburg sought to establish a communist
regime in Berlin, a hastily formed republican govern-
ment led by Matthias Erzberger met the Allied com-
mander in chief, French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, in a
railroad boxcar outside Compiègne, France, and ac-
cepted strict Allied terms (which made further fighting
impossible) for an armistice. The fighting stopped
at a symbolic moment—the eleventh hour of Novem-
ber 11th.
The human cost of the war was staggering, and
grim numbers only sketch its outlines (see table 27.3).
More than sixty million soldiers were mobilized to
fight, and nearly fifteen million people were killed
(eight million military and seven million civilians), not
counting the tens of millions who fell to the Spanish in-
fluenza and other war-related diseases. Most of the
great powers saw between one-third to three-fourths of
all military forces suffer war wounds and 10 percent to
17 percent killed. A generation of young European men
was lost.
The Russian Revolution:
The February Revolution
The most important wartime consequence of the war
took place in Russia in 1917–20. A revolution in 1917
(the February revolution) ended the Romanov monar-
chy, and a second revolution a few months later (the
Bolshevik, or October, revolution) brought Lenin and
the Bolsheviks to power. A subsequent civil war
(1918–20) led to the creation of a communist state.
The government of Nicholas II already faced ex-
treme difficulties on the eve of World War I. The peasant
majority of the nation had never achieved the economic
freedom or landownership implicit in the emancipation
of 1861. A growing working class, created by the begin-
nings of Russian industrialization, was enduring condi-
tions as bleak as those in England in the 1840s. Minority
populations such as the Poles felt the nationalist ambi-
tions for self-rule that had swept Europe, while minority
religions, especially the Jews, detested the regime that
persecuted them. Much of the intelligentsia aspired to
the individual rights and representative government they
saw in western Europe.
Added to these problems, World War I was a ca-
tastrophe for Russia. The Russian army’s inferior prepa-
ration and equipment led to shocking defeats. In 1915
the army suffered shortages of rifles, ammunition, andPercentage Percentage Percentage
Total men Combat of forces Military of forces Civilian Total population
Country mobilized deaths killed casualties wounded deaths war dead killed
Austria-Hungary 7,800,000 1,200,000 15.4 7,000,000 90.0 300,000 1,500,000 5.2
Belgium 267,000 14,000 5.2 93,000 34.8 30,000 44,000 0.6
British Empire 8,900,000 947,000 10.6 3,200,000 35.2 30,000 977,000 2.4
France 8,400,000 1,400,000 16.2 6,200,000 73.2 40,000 1,440,000 3.6
Germany 11,000,000 1,800,000 16.1 7,100,000 64.9 760,000 2,560,000 3.8
Italy 5,600,000 460,000 8.2 2,200,000 39.1 n.a. n.a
Russia 12,000,000 1,700,000 14.2 9,200,000 76.3 2,000,000 3,700,000 2.4
Serbia 707,000 125,000 17.7 331,000 46.8 650,000 775,000 17.6
Ottoman Empire 2,900,000 325,000 11.4 975,000 34.2 2,200,000 2,525,000 10.1
United States 4,740,000 115,000 2.4 204,000 6.7 115,000 0.1
Source: Calculated from data in Chris Cook and John Paxton, European Political Facts, 1848–1918(London: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 188–89, 213–32; William L.
Langer, ed., An Encyclopedia of World History(Boston, Mass.: Houghton-Mifflin, 1968), 976; The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1997(Mahwah, N.J.: World
Almanac Book, 1996), p. 184.TABLE 27.3Losses in World War I, 1914–18