0:01:17 > 0:01:20Russia, October 1917.
0:01:20 > 0:01:24From Petrograd, a shockwave pulsed and widened
0:01:24 > 0:01:28through all this vast land which had once been an empire.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32The billows beat in every quarter of the world.
0:01:32 > 0:01:37Let everyone remember that in this war there are no reverses
0:01:37 > 0:01:42of the Russians, of the English, or of the French alone
0:01:42 > 0:01:46and that success or failure is one and the same thing for all.
0:01:46 > 0:01:53The fervent hopes once expressed by a Russian politician, now, in the winter of 1917, sounded ominous.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58In the east, a spectre more awful than all the shapes of death itself
0:01:58 > 0:02:01had appeared upon the battlefield,
0:02:01 > 0:02:05a spectre that had long haunted the war leaders' minds.
0:02:05 > 0:02:12For here was the most dreaded casualty of all - the will to war itself.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15Russia could go on no longer. Hindenburg said,
0:02:15 > 0:02:19Hitherto, the unwieldy Russian colossus
0:02:19 > 0:02:25had hung over the whole European and Asiatic world like a nightmare.
0:02:25 > 0:02:31Time and time again, her efforts had produced considerable crises for us.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34Tannenberg, August 1914.
0:02:34 > 0:02:39The enemy losses were extremely heavy,
0:02:39 > 0:02:44but our high command believed themselves compelled prematurely
0:02:44 > 0:02:49to draw away to the east strong forces from the west
0:02:49 > 0:02:54where they were trying to secure a rapid decision.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00Masurian Lakes, February 1915.
0:03:05 > 0:03:07Mighty masses rolled up against us,
0:03:07 > 0:03:12overwhelming masses, each one larger than our whole force,
0:03:12 > 0:03:16but German resolution bore this load
0:03:16 > 0:03:19and Russian blood flowed in streams.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37Galicia, May 1915.
0:03:37 > 0:03:42The fearful, continuous tension of the situation in the Carpathians,
0:03:42 > 0:03:46and its reaction on the political situation,
0:03:46 > 0:03:50imperiously demanded some solution.
0:03:50 > 0:03:55We found ourselves compelled to send large forces there
0:03:55 > 0:03:58to keep up our pressure upon the enemy.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15Gorlice-Tarnow, 1915.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20There was something unsatisfactory about the encounters of this year.
0:04:20 > 0:04:24The Russian bear had escaped our clutches,
0:04:24 > 0:04:31bleeding, no doubt, from more than one wound, but still not stricken to death.
0:04:31 > 0:04:36Did he have enough life force left to make things hard for us again?
0:04:37 > 0:04:42Her casualties are the highest of all the combatant nations.
0:04:42 > 0:04:46No-one knows the figures - five or eight million.
0:04:46 > 0:04:51All we know is, sometimes in our battles with the Russian,
0:04:51 > 0:04:57we had to move the mounds of enemy corpses from before our trenches
0:04:57 > 0:05:02in order to get a fresh field of fire against assaulting waves.
0:05:05 > 0:05:12Yet in 1916, the Russians had won a great victory over the Austrians in Galicia.
0:05:12 > 0:05:18The Germans and Austrians had had to stretch their manpower resources to the utmost to resist this blow.
0:05:47 > 0:05:52In January 1917, an Allied delegation arrived in Russia
0:05:52 > 0:05:57to develop efficiency for the planned offensive of that year.
0:05:57 > 0:06:01The British military attache in Russia wrote,
0:06:01 > 0:06:06The prospects for the 1917 campaign were brighter than in 1916.
0:06:06 > 0:06:11The Russian infantry was tired, but less tired than 12 months earlier.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14The stocks of arms and equipment were larger
0:06:14 > 0:06:19and supplies from overseas were arriving in appreciable quantities.
0:06:19 > 0:06:24In fact, desertions from the front ran into hundreds of thousands.
0:06:24 > 0:06:29Russia had lost as many dead as the British and French put together.
0:06:29 > 0:06:33She had suffered literally beyond endurance.
0:06:33 > 0:06:35She had reached her limit.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39Her soldiers, once so brave, had had enough.
0:06:42 > 0:06:46Now they were getting out of the trenches
0:06:46 > 0:06:50to fraternise with the Germans, man to man.
0:06:56 > 0:07:02In the rear, industrialisation had changed the face of Tsarist Russia,
0:07:02 > 0:07:05drawing peasants into the towns
0:07:05 > 0:07:10and creating a new, incoherent proletariat.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17The economy functioned in a welter of administrative confusion,
0:07:17 > 0:07:20but committees set up to organise production,
0:07:20 > 0:07:26after the appalling breakdowns of the early days of the war, had begun to have some effect.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30By the end of 1916, great improvements had been achieved.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33Patriotic spirit ran high.
0:07:33 > 0:07:39Victory over the Germans was the simple aim of most of the population.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51Pressure for more efficient management of the war
0:07:51 > 0:07:56was exerted by liberal politicians through the parliament, or Duma.
0:07:56 > 0:08:01But Tsar Nicholas II had no use for constitutional government.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04At his coronation he said,
0:08:04 > 0:08:07I shall maintain the principle of autocracy
0:08:07 > 0:08:12just as firmly and unflinchingly as it was preserved by my dead father.
0:08:12 > 0:08:17But Nicholas II was gentler, weaker than his father.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, wrote,
0:08:21 > 0:08:26He would never have been chosen by a responsible board of directors
0:08:26 > 0:08:29to manage any business of any magnitude,
0:08:29 > 0:08:34and certainly not a business confronted with a serious emergency.
0:08:34 > 0:08:40He was a devoted family man, deeply fond of his son, the tsarevitch,
0:08:40 > 0:08:43who suffered from haemophilia,
0:08:43 > 0:08:47a blood disease which made every scratch dangerous.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04There was nothing the Tsar liked better
0:09:04 > 0:09:08than to be with his soldiers and sailors.
0:09:08 > 0:09:13In 1915, he had made himself Supreme Commander.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17He loved the simple link, as he saw it,
0:09:17 > 0:09:21that bound him to his wider family -
0:09:21 > 0:09:24the 170 million people of Russia.
0:09:24 > 0:09:29Emotional faith in a paternal Tsar and the mystery of their religion
0:09:29 > 0:09:33were the simple guiding principles of their lives.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50The peasants' lives were miserable.
0:09:50 > 0:09:55Often, they lodged in the same single-room hovel as their animals
0:09:55 > 0:09:59on earthen floors with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape.
0:09:59 > 0:10:04Their diet was poor and the gross mishandling of wartime distribution
0:10:04 > 0:10:09meant that, though food was there, many went hungry.
0:10:11 > 0:10:18Chaos was aggravated by hundreds of thousands of refugees who poured into Russia in the early defeats.
0:10:18 > 0:10:23A British member of parliament observed their misery.
0:10:23 > 0:10:27Serried ranks of emaciated, huddled humanity,
0:10:27 > 0:10:32brutalised by their abject surroundings, corroded by disease.
0:10:32 > 0:10:37Men, women and children of different races and languages,
0:10:37 > 0:10:41crowded and congested like litters of pigs
0:10:41 > 0:10:43in an asphyxiating sty.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54In the towns and factories, too, there was misery.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59Strikes had been increasing sharply just before 1914.
0:10:59 > 0:11:04War, with its shortages and inflation, aggravated the unrest.
0:11:27 > 0:11:31The Tsar himself left affairs more and more to the Tsarina,
0:11:31 > 0:11:36a German-born but English-educated niece of Queen Victoria.
0:11:49 > 0:11:56The Tsarina's close friendship with her spiritual adviser, a lecherous and drunken monk, Rasputin,
0:11:56 > 0:12:01led to a widespread campaign against the entire Tsarist regime.
0:12:01 > 0:12:06To the public, this relationship assumed vast dimensions.
0:12:06 > 0:12:09It became the symbol of all Russia's ills.
0:12:09 > 0:12:14Rasputin's murder was hailed as an act of the highest patriotism.
0:12:21 > 0:12:26The winter of 1916-17 was particularly severe.
0:12:39 > 0:12:41Fuel was short.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44Food queues lengthened.
0:12:48 > 0:12:55Pressures on the Tsar to change incompetent ministers continued from all sides.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57His own cousin wrote to him,
0:12:57 > 0:13:02Shall Russia be a great state, free and capable of developing strong,
0:13:02 > 0:13:06or shall she submit to the iron German fist?
0:13:06 > 0:13:11Certain forces are leading you, and thus Russia, to inevitable ruin.
0:13:11 > 0:13:17It is absolutely indispensable that the ministers and the legislative chambers should work together.
0:13:17 > 0:13:24The existing situation, with the whole responsibility resting on you and you alone,
0:13:24 > 0:13:26is unthinkable.
0:13:26 > 0:13:33The British Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, doing what he could to keep Russia in the war,
0:13:33 > 0:13:38told the Tsar he must regain the people's confidence. HE replied,
0:13:38 > 0:13:43- Do you mean that- I- am to regain the confidence of my people
0:13:43 > 0:13:47or that THEY are to regain MY confidence?
0:13:48 > 0:13:51Suddenly, in the early days of March 1917,
0:13:51 > 0:13:56frustration in the Petrograd food queues spilled over into revolt.
0:13:56 > 0:14:02People came out to protest, found many others there and took courage.
0:14:02 > 0:14:07For the first time, there was doubt about the troops.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14The Tsar, true to character,
0:14:14 > 0:14:19washed his hands of the awkward situation and went to the front,
0:14:19 > 0:14:24leaving matters to the palace guard and the Petrograd garrison.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32Now turbulent forces suddenly broke the surface of Russian life.
0:14:32 > 0:14:37The French Ambassador watched from the safety of his room.
0:14:37 > 0:14:41A strange and prolonged din seemed to come from the Alexander Bridge.
0:14:41 > 0:14:48Almost immediately, a disorderly mob carrying red flags appeared at the end on the right bank of the Neva
0:14:48 > 0:14:51and a regiment came towards it from the other end.
0:14:51 > 0:14:56It looked as if they would collide, but the two bodies coalesced.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59The army was fraternising with the revolt.
0:14:59 > 0:15:04The vast Petrograd garrison of some 200,000 men
0:15:04 > 0:15:07was not typical of the army as a whole.
0:15:07 > 0:15:12It consisted of raw recruits, war-weary reserves, convalescents
0:15:12 > 0:15:15and even punishment battalions.
0:15:18 > 0:15:22Many deserters from the front had drifted to the capital's streets.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27Before long, the whole garrison had joined the mob.
0:15:27 > 0:15:32In a desperate move to get the Tsar to introduce the necessary reforms,
0:15:32 > 0:15:38the President of the Duma, Rodzianko, sent him a telegram. The Tsar received it at his HQ.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41This fat Rodzianko has sent me some nonsense
0:15:41 > 0:15:44to which I will not even reply.
0:15:44 > 0:15:51Nothing could stop the sudden upsurge against the monarchy, symbol of the country's sufferings.
0:15:51 > 0:15:57Within days, the Tsar was forced to abdicate and a 300-year-old dynasty came crashing to the ground.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16A general amnesty was declared
0:16:16 > 0:16:20and political prisoners were set free among the jubilant crowds.
0:16:30 > 0:16:34The Tsar's unpopular ministers were arrested.
0:16:59 > 0:17:04It is difficult to say how many died in the bloodless revolution,
0:17:04 > 0:17:08but most accounts say under a thousand.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12Petrograd, thanks to the measures taken by the government,
0:17:12 > 0:17:17rapidly resumed its normal aspect and order generally prevailed.
0:17:17 > 0:17:24This was especially noticeable at the burial of the victims of the revolution on April the 5th
0:17:24 > 0:17:28when a never-ending procession filed past in perfect order
0:17:28 > 0:17:32from ten in the morning till late in the evening.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35There were in all but some 200 coffins
0:17:35 > 0:17:39and as each one was lowered into the grave,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42a salute was fired from the fortress,
0:17:42 > 0:17:49but no priests officiated at the ceremony which was divested of any religious character.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53Somewhat dazed with the success of the revolution,
0:17:53 > 0:17:59Russia had to face the bleak task of deciding where she would go.
0:17:59 > 0:18:06The rising in the streets had been AGAINST something. Now the people had to decide what it had been FOR.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10The wish to run the war better had given the revolution its spark,
0:18:10 > 0:18:14but hatred of the war had given it momentum.
0:18:14 > 0:18:18In the confusion that followed, responsibility fell upon the Duma,
0:18:18 > 0:18:23responsibility to make good their implied promises.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27Now they had to do better than the autocracy they had so criticised.
0:18:27 > 0:18:34A Provisional Government was formed with a liberal, Prince Lvov, as the first Prime Minister.
0:18:34 > 0:18:39A young socialist lawyer, Kerenski, became Minister of Justice.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43In the Allied capitals, where the events in Russia looked simple,
0:18:43 > 0:18:48the revolution was hailed as a triumph for the Allied cause.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51The London Times commented,
0:18:51 > 0:18:56The army and people joined hands to overthrow the forces of reaction
0:18:56 > 0:19:01which were stifling national aspirations and strangling national efforts.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04Lloyd George declared in the House of Commons,
0:19:04 > 0:19:07We believe that the revolution
0:19:07 > 0:19:12is the greatest service the Russian people have yet made
0:19:12 > 0:19:17to the cause for which the Allied peoples have been fighting.
0:19:18 > 0:19:25In America, herself about to enter the war on the Allied side, the revolution seemed providential.
0:19:25 > 0:19:27The Secretary of State declared,
0:19:27 > 0:19:31The revolution in Russia has removed the one objection to affirming
0:19:31 > 0:19:35that the European war was a war between democracy and absolutism.
0:19:35 > 0:19:40In Petrograd, one of the Provisional Government's first acts
0:19:40 > 0:19:44was to declare that it would loyally maintain its alliances
0:19:44 > 0:19:48and endeavour to carry the war to a victorious conclusion.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51The French Ambassador reported,
0:19:51 > 0:19:55Patriotism, intelligence and honesty is on every face,
0:19:55 > 0:19:59but the task they have undertaken is patently beyond their powers.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03Heaven grant that they do not collapse under it too soon.
0:20:03 > 0:20:11Their task was complicated by the fact that a separate revolutionary body convened in the same offices -
0:20:11 > 0:20:17the Soviet. The Soviet, or council, claimed to represent factory workers and soldiers.
0:20:17 > 0:20:22Its majority wanted to continue the war to defend the revolution.
0:20:22 > 0:20:26One of its first acts was to issue Order Number 1 to the army,
0:20:26 > 0:20:32directed against the powers of officers and setting up soldiers' councils.
0:20:32 > 0:20:39In this uneasy alliance, the Provisional Government had to accept the Soviet's order.
0:20:39 > 0:20:45A struggle for the soul of Russia now began. A French observer noted,
0:20:45 > 0:20:50Groups were constantly forming with no actual reason in the streets.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54One man would have a discussion with another and passers-by would listen.
0:20:54 > 0:21:02People thus witnessed exchanges of political opinions where opposing ideas were set against each other.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06Groups were constantly forming and dispersing.
0:21:06 > 0:21:10At first sight, the crowd appeared to be full of unrest.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13Actually, it was only idle.
0:21:13 > 0:21:19The Germans had always regarded a revolution as their best hope for an early defeat of Russia.
0:21:19 > 0:21:22Now was the time to ensure the outcome.
0:21:22 > 0:21:29They saw as their instrument, Lenin, head of the Bolshevik group among the Russian revolutionaries.
0:21:29 > 0:21:35Lenin had spent the war years in Switzerland with his wife, Krupskaya.
0:21:35 > 0:21:41The Germans had so far made little contact with them, finding other revolutionaries more cooperative.
0:21:41 > 0:21:46Lenin himself was no pro-German. Pitilessly single-minded,
0:21:46 > 0:21:50he saw all the warring nations as capitalist imperialists.
0:21:50 > 0:21:55He wanted peace and worldwide revolution against capitalism.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58As late as January 1917, he said,
0:21:58 > 0:22:05We of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battle of this coming revolution.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10When revolution came, only two months later, he was unimpressed.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13The militant monarchy in Russia
0:22:13 > 0:22:16has been followed by a militant republic -
0:22:16 > 0:22:20capitalists who want to continue the imperialist war
0:22:20 > 0:22:24and to adhere to the robber treaties of the Tsarist monarchy.
0:22:24 > 0:22:31Lenin's aim of peace at any price was at variance with the Petrograd Soviets and even many Bolsheviks.
0:22:31 > 0:22:36Now, in Churchill's words, the Germans transported Lenin
0:22:36 > 0:22:40"like a plague bacillus" from Switzerland into Russia.
0:22:43 > 0:22:50He arrived in Petrograd on April the 16th, determined to capture control of the revolution,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53but his moment was not quite yet.
0:22:53 > 0:23:00The man of the moment was Kerenski. Unlike Lenin, this socialist lawyer - a compelling orator,
0:23:00 > 0:23:05honest, shrewd, energetic - wanted to continue the war.
0:23:05 > 0:23:08His efforts to reinvigorate Russian society
0:23:08 > 0:23:13in defence of the revolution against German imperialism
0:23:13 > 0:23:17found a response among the Petrograd crowds.
0:23:17 > 0:23:22A freedom loan, launched to support the revolution, had great success.
0:23:28 > 0:23:35Patriotic fellow socialists from Allied countries, like the French socialist minister, Albert Thomas,
0:23:35 > 0:23:39were welcomed on goodwill visits to cement Allied solidarity.
0:23:39 > 0:23:47Thomas was very impressed. Eyes sparkling as he glanced about him, he said to the French Ambassador,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51Now we see the revolution in all its grandeur and beauty.
0:23:51 > 0:23:56The strength of Russian democracy lies in its revolutionary fervour.
0:23:56 > 0:24:03Kerenski alone is capable of establishing, with the Soviet's aid, a government worthy of confidence.
0:24:03 > 0:24:08Soon Kerenski was Minister of War in a new government,
0:24:08 > 0:24:12which included members of the Soviet, and with dynamic confidence
0:24:12 > 0:24:18he went ahead with his plans for the Russian army's summer campaign.
0:24:18 > 0:24:23As in 1916, it was to take place in Galicia.
0:24:23 > 0:24:28But in the army, the virus of revolution had spread.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31The cracks in discipline were widening.
0:24:31 > 0:24:34An English observer wrote,
0:24:34 > 0:24:36Desertion had set in wholesale.
0:24:36 > 0:24:44Few men left the front trenches, but as soon as they were moved into the reserves they decamped in a body.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51The movement was something elemental.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55They packed even the roofs of railway carriages.
0:24:55 > 0:25:01A photograph of this was published in England entitled, "Russian Soldiers Hasten To The Front."
0:25:01 > 0:25:05The Germans purposely left the front inactive
0:25:05 > 0:25:09to encourage this crumbling of Russian discipline.
0:25:12 > 0:25:17General Brusilov, victor of last year's campaign,
0:25:17 > 0:25:23had to spend hours arguing with soldiers, delegates and committees who had their own strategic ideas.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33However, Brusilov was optimistic. So was Kerenski,
0:25:33 > 0:25:36who issued the order of the day -
0:25:36 > 0:25:43I call on the army, fortified by the strength and spirit of the revolution, to take the offensive.
0:25:43 > 0:25:47Kerenski's offensive was launched on July the 1st.
0:26:05 > 0:26:11There were some initial gains. The Provisional Government issued an intoxicating communique.
0:26:11 > 0:26:16July 1st has shown the whole world the might of a revolutionary army,
0:26:16 > 0:26:19organised on democratic lines
0:26:19 > 0:26:24and inspired by a firm belief in the ideas of the revolution.
0:26:25 > 0:26:30It was a pipe dream. After a few days of partial breakthroughs,
0:26:30 > 0:26:33the Russian offensive petered out.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05The British military attache reported,
0:27:05 > 0:27:10They had lost many officers and had no incentive to further effort.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14They knew they could retire without being punished.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17As a Russian artillery general expressed it,
0:27:17 > 0:27:22"They felt lonely out in front, and went to their dugouts to sleep."
0:27:25 > 0:27:32Then the Germans and Austrians counter-attacked. The rout of the Russian army was overwhelming.
0:28:07 > 0:28:12The real meaning of the revolution now made itself felt.
0:28:12 > 0:28:19It had meant a breakdown, not just of the Tsarist regime, but of Russia herself.
0:28:19 > 0:28:26Solitary, helpless and dismayed, the individual Russian was looking for direction.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30This was a chaos which anyone might exploit,
0:28:30 > 0:28:35provided he was ruthless and single-minded enough.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39Lenin was such a man. He constantly attacked the Provisional Government
0:28:39 > 0:28:47and when the news of the disasters at the front reached Petrograd, it seemed that his moment had come.
0:28:47 > 0:28:51Crowds flooded the streets, calling for peace, bread and freedom
0:28:51 > 0:28:55and for the overthrow of the Provisional Government.
0:28:57 > 0:29:00To foment an armed uprising,
0:29:00 > 0:29:05the Bolsheviks called in sailors from the naval base at Kronstadt
0:29:05 > 0:29:09Everything now depended on the loyalty of the army.
0:29:09 > 0:29:11An observer wrote,
0:29:11 > 0:29:16Looking onto the square, I saw an endless multitude
0:29:16 > 0:29:20packing the entire space as far as the eye could reach.
0:29:20 > 0:29:25A mass of placards and banners with Bolshevik slogans rose above them.
0:29:25 > 0:29:29To the left, the black, ugly masses of armoured cars loomed up.
0:29:29 > 0:29:32A French correspondent reported,
0:29:32 > 0:29:39Suddenly a shot rang out. Whence had it come from? By whom and against whom had it been fired?
0:29:39 > 0:29:43Nobody seemed to know, but it was immediately followed by other shots,
0:29:43 > 0:29:49which soon increased to a wild fusillade, dominated by the sinister rattle of machine guns.
0:29:49 > 0:29:54The bullets whizzed through the wildly fleeing crowd.
0:29:54 > 0:29:59The army stood by the Provisional Government
0:29:59 > 0:30:05and when it was announced that the Bolsheviks had been receiving funds from German sources
0:30:05 > 0:30:09Lenin had to flee to Finland on a forged passport.
0:30:09 > 0:30:13Other Bolsheviks, including Trotsky, were briefly arrested.
0:30:13 > 0:30:17General Kornilov, the commander in chief,
0:30:17 > 0:30:22unsatisfied with the Government's efforts to restore order and continue the war,
0:30:22 > 0:30:25marched, with his troops, on Petrograd.
0:30:25 > 0:30:30But Kerenski, afraid of being branded as a counter-revolutionary,
0:30:30 > 0:30:33refused to accept his support.
0:30:33 > 0:30:37He even enlisted Bolshevik aid to stop Kornilov
0:30:37 > 0:30:40and thus armed his worst enemies.
0:30:40 > 0:30:45Trotsky drilled the workers into a Bolshevik army - the Red Guard.
0:30:45 > 0:30:51They were to act as shock troops when the moment came for the Bolsheviks to strike
0:30:51 > 0:30:55and that moment was now not far off.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04The Germans did their best to hasten it.
0:31:04 > 0:31:10They launched an offensive in the north towards Petrograd,
0:31:10 > 0:31:17turning the Russian flank above Riga by an amphibious landing on an island in the Gulf of Finland.
0:31:17 > 0:31:20Hindenburg described the operation as,
0:31:20 > 0:31:27The one completely successful enterprise on either side in which an army and a fleet cooperated.
0:31:27 > 0:31:31Our plans were rendered so doubtful by bad weather at the outset
0:31:31 > 0:31:36that we were already thinking of disembarking the troops on board.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40The arrival of better weather let us proceed with the venture.
0:31:40 > 0:31:44From that point, everything went like clockwork.
0:32:50 > 0:32:54We succeeded in possessing ourselves of Osel
0:32:54 > 0:32:57and the neighbouring islands.
0:32:57 > 0:33:02One more pressure was thus added to the sense of crisis in the capital.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05In Petrograd, and at the front,
0:33:05 > 0:33:08Bolsheviks worked tirelessly.
0:33:08 > 0:33:13Soldiers, do not trust these wolves in sheep's clothing!
0:33:13 > 0:33:18They call you to fresh slaughter! Well, follow them if you like.
0:33:18 > 0:33:22Let them pave the way for the return of the Tsar with your corpses!
0:33:22 > 0:33:27Let your orphans, your widows and children, deserted by all,
0:33:27 > 0:33:31pass again into slavery, hunger, beggary and disease!
0:33:31 > 0:33:37The Bolshevik following multiplied. Lenin himself returned secretly to supervise the insurrection.
0:33:37 > 0:33:42On November the 7th, in a superb stroke of political bluff,
0:33:42 > 0:33:49Trotsky simply proclaimed that the Provisional Government had fallen and that the Soviet was in power.
0:33:49 > 0:33:5220,000 Red Guards appeared on the streets.
0:33:52 > 0:33:57Bolshevik oratory and subversion worked among the troops.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01During the next few days, Trotsky's statement became a fact.
0:34:01 > 0:34:08The Bolsheviks besieged the Winter Palace where the Provisional Government was protected
0:34:08 > 0:34:13only by a few officer cadets and the women's battalion.
0:34:28 > 0:34:35In a few hours, the Bolsheviks captured the Palace and arrested the Provisional Government.
0:34:35 > 0:34:41The Provisional Government, like the Tsar before it, had fallen without a struggle.
0:34:41 > 0:34:47Now Lenin could honour his promise of peace.
0:34:47 > 0:34:53An armistice was arranged with the Germans, and Russian emissaries went to meet them at Brest Litovsk.
0:34:53 > 0:34:57The two sides made a strange contrast.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00The Germans - stiff, correct, experienced -
0:35:00 > 0:35:04apparently with all the cards in their hands.
0:35:04 > 0:35:10The Russians - nervous, uncertain - but with at least one good card.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12They could play for time.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20To counter the stranglehold of the Allied blockade,
0:35:20 > 0:35:27the Germans and Austrians desperately needed access to the vast granaries of the Ukraine.
0:35:27 > 0:35:34So they made a separate peace with the independent, anti-Bolshevik government of the Ukraine.
0:35:34 > 0:35:40A peace treaty with Rumania, now near the end of her tether, followed.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47But there was no peace with Russia.
0:35:47 > 0:35:52The endless Bolshevik delaying tactics enraged the Germans.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54They resumed their advance.
0:35:54 > 0:35:59The Russian army did not try to fight, but fell back in a rabble.
0:35:59 > 0:36:04"War is dead in the hearts of men," noted an American observer.
0:36:04 > 0:36:10The Bolsheviks were forced to accept the harshest terms of peace.
0:36:10 > 0:36:13The eastern front was finished.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23Hindenburg said,
0:36:23 > 0:36:27In spite of the peace with Russia, it was even now impossible
0:36:27 > 0:36:31for us to transfer all our troops from the east.
0:36:31 > 0:36:36It was necessary for us to leave behind strong German forces.
0:36:36 > 0:36:41Our operations in the Ukraine were not yet at an end.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46We had to penetrate into their country to restore order there.
0:36:46 > 0:36:52Only when this had been done, had we any prospect of securing food from the Ukraine.
0:36:52 > 0:36:56Of a very different import was the military assistance
0:36:56 > 0:37:03which in the spring we sent to Finland in her war of liberation from Russian domination.
0:37:03 > 0:37:08The Bolshevik government had not fulfilled the promise it made us
0:37:08 > 0:37:10to evacuate this country.
0:37:10 > 0:37:15We hoped, by assisting Finland, to get her on our side.
0:38:02 > 0:38:07The rest of our fighting troops which still remained in the east
0:38:07 > 0:38:12formed the source from which our western armies could be reinforced.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16Now the patient, enduring German army
0:38:16 > 0:38:19might at last bring off the decisive victory
0:38:19 > 0:38:22which had escaped its grasp.
0:38:28 > 0:38:35The troop trains rumbled across Europe, bearing division after division from east to west.
0:38:35 > 0:38:40Every click of their wheels echoed the ticking away of precious time.
0:38:40 > 0:38:43For Germany, it was now or never.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53Subtitles by Morag Reive BBC Broadcast 2003
0:38:53 > 0:38:57E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk