MAPS OF HISTORY · ON THIS DAY · May 9 · 1917
ON THIS DAY · 9 MAY 1917
The Nivelle Offensive
16 Apr-9 May 1917 — Nivelle promises rupture in 48 hours at the Chemin des Dames and delivers a bloodbath. Half the French army then refuses further attacks — “collective indiscipline” — and Pétain repairs it with rest, leave, and only 49 executions from 554 death sentences.
THE MOMENT IN CONTEXT
In Petrograd, food shortages and strikes turned into revolution when the soldiers of the garrison refused to fire on the crowds. The Tsar abdicated, and the Provisional Government that took his place chose to continue the war, but another failed offensive deepened desertion and distrust. In November the Bolsheviks seized power on a programme of peace, land and bread, and Russia began to leave the war.
From Chapter 8 — Breaking Points of The Great War, 1914–1918 (NOV 1917).
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TEACH THIS IN 5 MINUTES
- Why it happened — Russia: defeat metabolized as treason. The Tsar had taken personal command in 1915, so every failure was his; the court (Rasputin, a German-born Tsarina) made treason rumors respectable;…
- The turn — The October Revolution, 7 November 1917. A near-bloodless seizure in one city, by one determined minority, of a state nobody else would hold — and the war’s single greatest geopolitical…
- What it changed — Germany’s window opens. Russia’s exit will free some fifty divisions for the west — a one-spring-only superiority before American numbers land. The entire logic of 1918, on…
Then ask the room: Same year, similar exhaustion: why did Russia’s army dissolve while France’s recovered? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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