The History of the Twentieth Century

The end of the war on the Eastern Front and the Italian defeat at Caporetto gave Austria-Hungary a badly needed military respite. But domestically, the country was crumbling, economically, socially, and politically. Discontent has reached critical mass.

The length and the toll of the Great War were a tragedy, but for Czech and Slovak nationalists, they also presented an opportunity to shake off the bonds of Habsburg rule and achieve independence.

In Russia, the Bolshevik government succeeds in throttling the Constituent Assembly and taking full control of the national government. They find themselves up against an array of enemies, including Czech and Slovak soldiers who had been fighting in the Russian Army.

A year after the US declared war on Germany, America's contribution to the war effort was still small. Later in 1918, after working through some political and organizational difficulties, American units began to make a difference on the battlefield.

Now that peace had come on the Eastern front, German soldiers were redeployed to the Western Front in one last-ditch attempt to win the war before the number of US troops on the Western Front became overwhelming.

Leon Trotsky challenged the Allies to state what great cause they were fighting for that justified continuing the war. With the Central Powers showing signs of readiness to negotiate, Woodrow Wilson lays out his conditions.

The Great War was framed in the West as a fight for the future of democracy, but in this episode we ponder how the demands of war are weakening democracy at home.

We look at economic and social changes in America brought on by the war, including the Espionage Act and new restrictions on freedom of expression.

Early 1918 saw both Germany and Russia each eager to make peace for their own reasons, but the power of the German military forced the Bolshevik government in Russia to accept the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

The October Revolution was seen at the time as merely replacing one temporary arrangement with another. But the Bolsheviks had other ideas.