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Russia Falls, Germany Gambles: The Eastern Front's Final Chapter
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Russia's revolution shattered the Eastern Front and handed Germany one last desperate chance to win the war. This episode traces the Tsarist collapse, the Bolshevik seizure of power, and Ludendorff's all-or-nothing gamble on the Western Front.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
By the beginning of nineteen seventeen, Germany faced a war it could no longer win by grinding forward on two fronts. What changed everything wasn't a breakthrough on the battlefield.
The Provisional Government made a calculated bet. Russia's allies were counting on them.
In October nineteen seventeen, the Bolsheviks seized power in what they called the October Revolution. It was less a popular uprising than a swift, organized coup against a government that had already lost its grip.
Erich Ludendorff, who by this point was effectively directing German military strategy alongside Paul von Hindenburg, grasped the situation with precision. Germany's position was deteriorating.
Here's what Ludendorff's plan couldn't solve. Tactical success and strategic success are different things, and this gamble confused them.
The Allied counteroffensive began in August nineteen eighteen with what became known as the Hundred Days Offensive. The attack near Amiens on the eighth of August was described by Ludendorff himself as the black day of the German Army.
The exit of Russia and the German Spring Offensives aren't just two events that happened in the same year. They're two sides of a single pivot point.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.