1917
Page 56
meeting with Teddy Roosevelt and slighting of, 190–92
message to the Russian people (May 22, 1917), 205–6, 210
mobilizing for war, 186–88, 252, 253–54
nationalization of railroads and, 305
national unity and, 236–37, 251, 352
neutrality and, 4–5, 6, 14–15, 49, 51, 60, 96, 101, 128, 397
note to Bernstorff, threatening war, 5, 27
Paris Peace Conference and, 83, 257, 348–55, 361–78 (see also Paris Peace Conference)
peace note (Dec. 18, 1916), 52–53, 59, 96, 101
physical toll of war on, 351
postwar goals, 351 (see also League of Nations)
power of the federal government and, 196, 236, 255
purge of dissent, 237, 241–51
railroad debacle, 254–55
redefining U.S. relations with other countries and, 182–83
regulations and price controls, 196, 197–98
reshaping the world for the better and, 201
role as peacemaker, 49, 50, 57
Russian Duma government recognized by, 200
Russian Provisional government recognized by, 142
Russia’s overthrow of the Czar and, 148
as savior of the Allies, 362–63
secret treaties of the Allies and, 189–90
Selective Service Act, 187–88
separate peace with Austria and, 291–92
sinking of the Lusitania and, 5, 27, 48, 51, 67
speech on Flag Day (June 14, 1917), German spies in America, 247
speech on Fourth of July (1919), postwar goals, 351
speech to AFL (Nov. 12, 1917), hopeful view of Lenin, 275
speech to Congress (April 2, 1917) “The world must be made safe for democracy,” 143, 144, 147–50, 151, 153, 186, 257
speech to Congress (Jan. 22, 1917), “Peace Without Victory,” 56–60, 151, 205, 219, 306, 340
suppression of First Amendment rights and, 245
tax increases, 198
total war and, 219–20
Treaty of London and, 370
Treaty of Versailles and, 377
Trotsky and, 332–33
war as visionary crusade, 340, 351
as world leader, 60, 151, 186, 335
Zimmermann telegram and, 110–11, 113, 114–15, 126
Wilson, Woodrow, writings
article in International Review, 67–68
Constitutional Government in the United States, 68, 69, 84
“The Road Away from Revolution,” 417–18
The State, 68, 69, 84
Wilson and the Issues (Creel), 237
Wilsonism, 349, 350, 366, 371, 376, 377, 410
shaping of the future and, 372
Wood, Leonard, 192
World League for Peace, 14, 15
World War I (Great War), 13, 153
air war and, 32, 212–14
Allies final offensive, and German request for armistice, 337–39
Allies statement of purpose and war demands, 55–56
America as global hegemonic power and, 11, 18, 151, 241, 426
America enters, 6, 15, 34, 152–53, 186, 244, 428
America enters, Zimmermann telegram and, 3–7, 105, 110, 112–13
American neutrality and, 4, 5, 14–15, 101–2, 115, 124
American troops in, 174, 341, 343, 425
artillery and, 325
as bloodiest war in history, 33, 153
Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations, 299–300, 307, 310, 313, 320–23
Brest-Litovsk Treaty, 324–25
casualties, 20, 153, 341, 349
casualties in the final hours, 345
consequences for U.S. of German victory, 48
debt to American defaulted on, 425
Eastern Front, 20, 21–22, 23, 32, 41, 200, 287
fighting ceasing at the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of November 11, 344–45
as fight to the finish, 161
fog of war, 168–69
German-Russian armistice (Dec. 15, 1917), 303
German submarine war and, 3, 6, 26–27, 60, 99–100, 109–10, 162, 174
Germany’s use of slave labor and, 221
global balance of power and, 211, 235
Holocaust, 421n
Lenin’s Decree on Peace and, 282–83
machine gun and, 32
making world safe for democracy and, 143, 144, 147–50, 151, 153, 186, 257, 340
modern warfare and defender’s advantage, 31–32, 166, 172, 327–28
national self-determination and, 23, 56, 57, 61, 289, 291, 301–2, 312, 314, 340, 343
peace offers, German, 19, 22, 25
Petrograd formula for peace, 205, 214, 218, 220, 282, 321
poison gas used in, 216, 325
railway system and, 32, 166
stalemate of, 31, 162, 168
tanks and, 174, 184, 286–87, 337
total war and, 34
trench warfare, 31, 32
as war to end all wars, 340
Western Front, 20, 22, 28, 32, 166, 215, 287 (see also specific battles)
Wilson desire to be peacemaker, 49
Wilson’s peace proposal, 52–54
See also Allies; Britain; Central Powers; France; Germany; Russia; Wilson, Woodrow; specific battles; specific campaigns
World War II, 17
draft and, 188
FDR’s Arsenal of Democracy, 195
French armistice, signing, 346
Germany vanquishes France, 421
Lloyd George and, 367, 421
London blitz, 214
Pétain and, 421
U.S. Lend Lease program, 185
Wulfert, Natalia, 136
Young, Art, 245
Ypres, First Battle of, 2, 31
Ypres, Third Battle of, 214–16, 219, 233–34, 285, 286
Messines Ridge and, 216, 328
See also Passchendaele
Yudenich, Nikolai, 356, 379–80
Yugoslavia, 335
Fiume and, 371–72
Zieger, Robert, 197
Zimmermann, Arthur, ix, 3, 104–5, 141
abetting Lenin, 145, 146
authenticity of telegram and, 128–29
coded telegram, 3–7, 105, 110–11, 112, 123–30, 226, 421n
death of, 420–21
rejection of Wilson’s peace proposal, 54
Zinoviev, Grigory, 146, 227, 230, 231–32, 266, 272, 318, 358
Zionism, 312–14
Zurich, Switzerland
Lenin departs (1917), 153–55
Lenin in, 7–9, 8, 47, 61–63, 96, 139–41
Pfauen Café, 154
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ARTHUR HERMAN, PHD, is the author of nine books, including the New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World, which has sold half a million copies worldwide; and Gandhi and Churchill, which was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize. Among his six other books are To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World (HarperCollins, 2004), which was nominated for the United Kingdom’s prestigious Mountbatten Maritime Award; Freedom’s Forge, named by the Economist magazine as one of the Best Books of 2012; and Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior. He is currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. He writes regularly for the Wall Street Journal, the Wall Street Journal Asia, and the Nikkei Asian Review, and is a contributing editor for National Review.
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ALSO BY ARTHUR HERMAN
How the Scots Invented the Modern World
Gandhi and Churchill
To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World
Freedom’s Forge
Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior
COPYRIGHT
1917. Copyright © 2017 by Arthur Herman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been gra
nted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Cover design by James Iacobelli
Cover photographs: © Hulton Archive / Getty Images (Wilson) and © Time Life Pictures / Getty Images (Lenin)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Herman, Arthur, 1956– author.
Title: 1917 : Lenin, Wilson, and the birth of the new world disorder / Arthur Herman.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Harper, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017021669 (print) | LCCN 2017039978 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062570925 (ebk) | ISBN 9780062791467 (digaud) | ISBN 9780062570888 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780062747365 (largeprint : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780062791498 (audio : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1914–1918—Influence. | Wilson, Woodrow, 1856–1924—Influence. | Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 1870–1924—Influence. | Soviet Union—History—Revolution, 1917–1921—Influence. | United States—Foreign relations—1913–1921. | Nineteen seventeen, A.D.
Classification: LCC D523 (ebook) | LCC D523 .H3478 2017 (print) | DDC 940.3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017021669
EPub Edition November 2017 ISBN 978-0-06-257092-5
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* This was no mere coincidence. Hegel had had an enormous influence on Marx and Marx’s theory of history. In addition, during the early days of the war, Lenin began reading Hegel with fresh eyes, and became convinced that it was impossible to understand Marx’s logic of revolution without understanding Hegel first.
* In fact, Trotsky, an avid hunter, was a crack shot.
* Of all the German Americans, no group was more persecuted than the Mennonites. As members of a pacifist sect, they refused to participate in the draft on religious grounds. The U.S. government, however, denied their exemption. In the end, 130 “refuseniks” were court-martialed and sentenced to ten to thirty years at Leavenworth. Four of the Mennonites were placed in solitary confinement at Alcatraz, denied adequate food and drink, and required to stand all day with their arms chained to bars above their heads. Forced to sleep on cold, damp stone floors, two of them died from pneumonia.
* Prager was, however, buried in an American flag, as he had requested.
* I have changed the tense of the sentence, but not its meaning.
* All the receivers of mandates agreed to what would eventually be confirmed in the League of Nations in 1920. The very last mandate, that of Palau, did not officially run out until 1994, when the tiny island nation became independent.
* Latsis would himself be shot during the purge of 1938—another victim of the police state he helped establish.
* As for Nigel de Grey, the man who started it all by decoding the Zimmermann telegram, he never returned to publishing. He stayed on with Naval Intelligence after the Great War, and worked in the deciphering headquarters at Bletchley Park in the next world war. In September 1941, he presented Winston Churchill with some of the first evidence of Hitler’s Holocaust from intercepted German radio messages. De Grey died on May 25, 1951, struck down by a sudden heart attack in the middle of Oxford Street in London.