WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.899 Welcome to the Deep Dive. We are so glad you 00:00:02.899 --> 00:00:04.700 could join us today. Yeah, thanks for having 00:00:04.700 --> 00:00:07.099 me. It's going to be a heavy one today. It really 00:00:07.099 --> 00:00:09.900 is. I mean, when you think of World War I, what 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:12.580 is the very first image that pops into your head? 00:00:12.859 --> 00:00:15.800 For most people, it's the trenches. Right, exactly. 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:17.859 If you're like most people, you are picturing 00:00:17.859 --> 00:00:20.440 the Western Front. Yeah. You see those endless, 00:00:20.780 --> 00:00:23.780 muddy, static trenches stretching across France 00:00:23.780 --> 00:00:26.440 and Belgium. The barbed wire, the stalemate, 00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:30.219 is very specific. Very grim picture. But today, 00:00:30.500 --> 00:00:32.700 we are taking you somewhere completely different. 00:00:33.159 --> 00:00:36.119 Today, we are looking east. Because the Eastern 00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:39.340 Front is a theater of this war that fundamentally 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:43.159 rewired global history. Yet it rarely gets the 00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:46.100 same level of attention in our popular imagination. 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:47.939 Yeah, it's always the Western Front getting the 00:00:47.939 --> 00:00:49.840 spotlight. Exactly. It's often treated as this 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:52.140 weird sideshow to the trenches of the West, which 00:00:52.140 --> 00:00:54.719 is just a massive historical blind spot. And 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:57.729 to fix that blind spot, We are pulling together 00:00:57.729 --> 00:01:00.729 a really comprehensive Wikipedia compilation 00:01:00.729 --> 00:01:04.209 today on the Eastern Front of World War I. That's 00:01:04.209 --> 00:01:06.629 our source material. And our mission for this 00:01:06.629 --> 00:01:09.530 deep dive is clear. We are going to rescue this 00:01:09.530 --> 00:01:12.769 massive dynamic conflict from the shadow of the 00:01:12.769 --> 00:01:15.250 Western Front. We want to extract those incredible 00:01:15.250 --> 00:01:17.769 aha moments for you. Right. And show you exactly 00:01:17.769 --> 00:01:20.989 how these forgotten battles completely rewired 00:01:20.989 --> 00:01:24.010 the map of modern Europe. So to really understand 00:01:24.010 --> 00:01:26.230 the eastern front, you first have to conceptualize 00:01:26.230 --> 00:01:28.549 the sheer terrifying scale of what we're dealing 00:01:28.549 --> 00:01:31.689 with here. Geographically, this front was absolutely 00:01:31.689 --> 00:01:33.890 colossal. We are talking about a contiguous line 00:01:33.890 --> 00:01:35.950 of conflakes stretching all the way from the 00:01:35.950 --> 00:01:37.989 Baltic Sea and the freezing north. Right down 00:01:37.989 --> 00:01:40.150 to the Black Sea in the south. Yes. But with 00:01:40.150 --> 00:01:42.890 a front that massive, how do you even maintain 00:01:42.890 --> 00:01:45.489 a contiguous line of defense? I mean, it sounds 00:01:45.489 --> 00:01:47.829 physically impossible compared to the relatively 00:01:47.829 --> 00:01:50.069 narrow corridors of the west. Well, it was impossible 00:01:50.069 --> 00:01:52.799 to keep it static. And that is the defining difference. 00:01:53.159 --> 00:01:55.060 Unlike the grinding trench warfare in France, 00:01:55.439 --> 00:01:57.980 the East was a war of movement. Constant violent 00:01:57.980 --> 00:02:00.840 movement. Exactly. It was defined by massive 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:03.859 flanking maneuvers, cavalry charges, and the 00:02:03.859 --> 00:02:06.640 encirclement of entire armies. Just to put the 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:08.780 fluidity of this conflict into perspective for 00:02:08.780 --> 00:02:11.240 you, over the course of the fighting, more than 00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:14.740 100 ,000 square miles of territory ended up changing 00:02:14.740 --> 00:02:17.580 hands. Okay, let's untack this because the way 00:02:17.580 --> 00:02:20.039 this whole thing kicks off is just fascinating 00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:22.699 and honestly a complete disaster of military 00:02:22.699 --> 00:02:25.919 planning. The war basically started with everyone 00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:28.680 relying on these incredibly rigid fundamentally 00:02:28.680 --> 00:02:31.219 flawed plans. Oh, it's a tragic clash of timetables. 00:02:31.620 --> 00:02:33.560 Exactly. What's fascinating here is how these 00:02:33.560 --> 00:02:35.900 pre -war strategies essentially locked these 00:02:35.900 --> 00:02:38.500 nations into a continental meat grinder before 00:02:38.500 --> 00:02:41.319 a single shot was even fired. Take Germany, for 00:02:41.319 --> 00:02:43.379 instance. Their entire opening move was based 00:02:43.379 --> 00:02:46.000 on the famous Schlieffen Plan. Germany knew that 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:48.000 if a major war broke out, they would instantly 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.580 be fighting on two fronts, France to the west 00:02:50.580 --> 00:02:52.780 and the Russian Empire to the east. Which is 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:55.099 pretty much the ultimate geopolitical nightmare. 00:02:55.699 --> 00:02:58.939 Precisely. So their gamble was to throw almost 00:02:58.939 --> 00:03:01.580 their entire military weight at France, knock 00:03:01.580 --> 00:03:03.580 them out of the war in a matter of weeks, and 00:03:03.580 --> 00:03:06.060 then quickly load everyone onto trains to pivot 00:03:06.060 --> 00:03:09.460 east and face Russia. The entire plan hinged 00:03:09.460 --> 00:03:11.780 on one massive assumption. That Russia would 00:03:11.780 --> 00:03:14.800 be slow. Right. That Russia, being so vast and 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:17.340 slightly less industrialized, would take months 00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:19.659 to mobilize its army. But Russia wasn't just 00:03:19.659 --> 00:03:21.719 sitting around waiting. They had their own playbook, 00:03:21.979 --> 00:03:25.639 Schedule 19A. And historically, Russian planning 00:03:25.639 --> 00:03:28.300 had been quite defensive, you know, let the enemy 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:32.080 freeze in the vast Russian interior. But by 1912, 00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:34.580 under heavy diplomatic and financial pressure 00:03:34.580 --> 00:03:37.560 from their ally, France, they shifted to a highly 00:03:37.560 --> 00:03:40.060 aggressive strategy. A very aggressive strategy. 00:03:40.219 --> 00:03:42.879 Yeah. Schedule 19A literally mandated an early 00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:45.099 Russian offensive. They were committed to attacking 00:03:45.099 --> 00:03:47.360 Germany before their own army was even fully 00:03:47.360 --> 00:03:49.819 mobilized, specifically to take the pressure 00:03:49.819 --> 00:03:52.500 off the French. So you have this incredibly volatile 00:03:52.500 --> 00:03:55.099 mix. Germany assumes Russia Russia will be slow 00:03:55.099 --> 00:03:57.759 while Russia is deliberately rushing to be fast. 00:03:58.139 --> 00:04:00.539 They're accepting massive organizational chaos 00:04:00.539 --> 00:04:03.759 just to hit the Germans early. But the political 00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:06.699 disconnect between the central powers, specifically 00:04:06.699 --> 00:04:09.419 Germany and Austria -Hungary, is where the real 00:04:09.419 --> 00:04:11.819 breakdown happens. This might be one of the most 00:04:11.819 --> 00:04:13.979 staggering failures of communication between 00:04:13.979 --> 00:04:17.500 allies and military history. Germany fully expects 00:04:17.500 --> 00:04:20.600 Austria -Hungary to attack Russia early on to 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:24.060 cover Germany's exposed eastern flank. But the 00:04:24.060 --> 00:04:26.860 German high command never explicitly clarifies 00:04:26.860 --> 00:04:29.579 to the Austrians that Germany won't be sending 00:04:29.579 --> 00:04:31.600 backup. Because they're too busy marching on 00:04:31.600 --> 00:04:33.819 Paris. Right. And meanwhile, Austria -Hungary 00:04:33.819 --> 00:04:36.160 is actively deceiving Germany at the exact same 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:38.600 time. The Austro -Hungarian Empire was hyper 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:41.100 focused on punishing Serbia, which is where the 00:04:41.100 --> 00:04:43.439 initial assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand 00:04:43.439 --> 00:04:45.939 happened. They let Germany believe the bulk of 00:04:45.939 --> 00:04:47.779 the Austro -Hungarian army was marching north 00:04:47.779 --> 00:04:49.939 to hold off the Russians, while in reality, they 00:04:49.939 --> 00:04:52.319 were secretly prioritizing an attack south into 00:04:52.319 --> 00:04:54.980 Serbia. So basically, Germany thinks Austria 00:04:54.980 --> 00:04:57.839 is watching their back against Russia and Austria 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:00.040 is sneaking off to pick a private fight with 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:03.399 Serbia. It is like the worst group project in 00:05:03.399 --> 00:05:06.120 military history. It truly was. And that complete 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:08.779 lack of coordination triggered massive shockwaves 00:05:08.779 --> 00:05:12.339 right at the start of 1914. Because of all these 00:05:12.339 --> 00:05:15.379 crossed wires, the Russian invasion is a completely 00:05:15.379 --> 00:05:19.220 mixed bag. Up north, at the Battle of Tannenberg, 00:05:19.459 --> 00:05:21.879 Russian forces run headlong into the Germans, 00:05:22.279 --> 00:05:24.899 led by Paul von Hindenburg, and suffer a crushing, 00:05:25.060 --> 00:05:28.220 disastrous defeat. Entire Russian corps are surrounded 00:05:28.220 --> 00:05:31.040 and annihilated. But almost simultaneously, further 00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:33.560 south, the Russians take on the Austro -Hungarian 00:05:33.560 --> 00:05:36.230 forces in Galicia. They absolutely crushed the 00:05:36.230 --> 00:05:38.329 Austro -Hungarian army there. Which sent a shock 00:05:38.329 --> 00:05:40.490 of absolute panic through the Central Powers. 00:05:40.930 --> 00:05:43.110 Germany suddenly realized their southern ally 00:05:43.110 --> 00:05:45.689 was on the verge of total collapse. So they had 00:05:45.689 --> 00:05:47.889 to frantically rip divisions away from the Western 00:05:47.889 --> 00:05:50.209 Front, sending them east just to keep Austria 00:05:50.209 --> 00:05:52.790 hungry in the war. And that desperation takes 00:05:52.790 --> 00:05:55.470 us right into 1915, which was a brutal seesaw 00:05:55.470 --> 00:05:58.149 of momentum. A lot of that momentum shift comes 00:05:58.149 --> 00:06:01.189 down to a Russian logistical nightmare that triggers 00:06:01.189 --> 00:06:03.649 what historians call the Great Retreat. Yeah. 00:06:03.850 --> 00:06:06.910 By the end of 1915, Russia loses the entire kingdom 00:06:06.910 --> 00:06:09.970 of Poland. They give up 300 ,000 square kilometers 00:06:09.970 --> 00:06:12.410 of territory. And the underlying reason is just 00:06:12.410 --> 00:06:15.089 mind blowing. It wasn't just that they were outmaneuvered. 00:06:15.149 --> 00:06:18.639 It was a systemic bureaucratic collapse. Get 00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:21.620 this staggering stat Russia had the manpower 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:24.839 capability to mobilize five million men But they 00:06:24.839 --> 00:06:27.540 only had four point six million rifles in their 00:06:27.540 --> 00:06:29.790 entire inventory If you think about what that 00:06:29.790 --> 00:06:31.870 means on a visceral level for the soldier on 00:06:31.870 --> 00:06:34.050 the ground, it is terrifying. You're being marched 00:06:34.050 --> 00:06:36.670 to the front lines of a modern mechanized war 00:06:36.670 --> 00:06:39.029 against a highly industrialized German war machine. 00:06:39.069 --> 00:06:41.009 And you are literally waiting for the man in 00:06:41.009 --> 00:06:42.750 front of you to be killed. So you can pick up 00:06:42.750 --> 00:06:45.170 his weapon. Yes. And it wasn't just a lack of 00:06:45.170 --> 00:06:47.230 factories either. It was catastrophic bottlenecks 00:06:47.230 --> 00:06:50.089 in St. Petersburg. You had endless trains loaded 00:06:50.089 --> 00:06:52.209 with ammunition sitting on sidings thousands 00:06:52.209 --> 00:06:54.610 of miles away because the bureaucracy couldn't 00:06:54.610 --> 00:06:57.439 figure out the railway schedules. And that logistical 00:06:57.439 --> 00:07:00.480 paralysis was a direct symptom of a deeply flawed 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:03.439 command structure. I know the service material 00:07:03.439 --> 00:07:06.680 has this harrowing diary entry from Russian infantry 00:07:06.680 --> 00:07:10.560 general Fyodor Pulitsyn. Oh, that quote is chilling. 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:13.620 It captures the sheer callousness of the leadership 00:07:13.620 --> 00:07:16.339 perfectly. He wrote about commanders who were 00:07:16.339 --> 00:07:18.759 so far behind the lines they never saw the faces 00:07:18.759 --> 00:07:21.720 of their own men, let alone the enemy. He accused 00:07:21.720 --> 00:07:24.139 them of, quote, hiding behind the difficulty 00:07:24.139 --> 00:07:26.620 of tactical responsibility. Meaning they were 00:07:26.620 --> 00:07:29.370 ordering mass slaughter on a map. completely 00:07:29.370 --> 00:07:32.170 isolated from the actual soldiers. Exactly. Completely 00:07:32.170 --> 00:07:34.629 detached. Well, here's where it gets really interesting, 00:07:34.910 --> 00:07:37.269 though, because despite that detached leadership 00:07:37.269 --> 00:07:39.750 and those nightmare logistics, the Russian army 00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:42.449 was still capable of producing moments of absolute 00:07:42.449 --> 00:07:46.189 tactical genius. In 1916, we get the Brusilov 00:07:46.189 --> 00:07:49.370 Offensive engineered by General Alexei Brusilov. 00:07:49.529 --> 00:07:51.529 This is widely considered the greatest Russian 00:07:51.529 --> 00:07:54.110 victory of the entire war. And he didn't achieve 00:07:54.110 --> 00:07:56.209 it by just throwing more unarmed men into the 00:07:56.209 --> 00:07:59.339 meat grinder. He completely dismantled the standard 00:07:59.339 --> 00:08:02.040 operating procedures of World War I. He really 00:08:02.040 --> 00:08:05.019 did. Up until that point, a standard World War 00:08:05.019 --> 00:08:07.899 I offensive was heavily telegraphed. You would 00:08:07.899 --> 00:08:10.980 spend weeks piling up millions of artillery shells, 00:08:11.319 --> 00:08:14.379 followed by days of relentless deafening bombardment. 00:08:14.639 --> 00:08:17.360 It looked impressive, but it gave the enemy plenty 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:19.759 of time to realize exactly where you were attacking 00:08:19.759 --> 00:08:23.680 and rush reinforcements to that exact spot. Grislov 00:08:23.680 --> 00:08:27.230 flipped the script. He used a tactic that completely 00:08:27.230 --> 00:08:30.089 shattered the defender's ability to react. Instead 00:08:30.089 --> 00:08:33.070 of a massive slow buildup, he secretly ordered 00:08:33.070 --> 00:08:35.830 his men to dig their staging trenches incredibly 00:08:35.830 --> 00:08:38.629 close to the Austrian lines. In some sectors, 00:08:38.690 --> 00:08:40.889 they were just 75 yards away. That proximity 00:08:40.889 --> 00:08:43.190 changes the entire physics of the battlefield. 00:08:43.470 --> 00:08:46.389 Exactly. Because if you are only 75 yards away, 00:08:46.730 --> 00:08:48.730 your infantry can sprint across no man's land 00:08:48.730 --> 00:08:51.210 and be inside the enemy trenches before the defending 00:08:51.210 --> 00:08:53.509 machine gunners even have time to aim and fire. 00:08:53.720 --> 00:08:56.080 He paired this with a brief, highly accurate 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:59.059 artillery barrage and launched quick, close -range 00:08:59.059 --> 00:09:01.960 surprise attacks. These infiltration tactics, 00:09:02.100 --> 00:09:04.600 focusing on speed and surprise rather than massive 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:07.940 buildups, they were incredibly advanced. The 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:10.240 source notes, they were strikingly similar to 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:12.700 the shock troop tactics later invented independently 00:09:12.700 --> 00:09:15.899 by Erwin Rommel. Wow. And the result was devastating. 00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:18.919 The Brusilov Offensive completely break the back 00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:22.000 of the Austro -Hungarian Army, inflicting over 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:25.120 a million casualties. It was so overwhelming 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:27.580 that Germany had to halt their massive offensive 00:09:27.580 --> 00:09:30.480 at Verdun in France just to send emergency troops 00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:33.000 to plug the gaping holes in the eastern line. 00:09:33.100 --> 00:09:35.820 It's a phenomenal tactical victory, but it also 00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:38.659 triggers a really tragic domino effect. Because 00:09:38.659 --> 00:09:40.759 Romania had been watching all of this unfold, 00:09:41.220 --> 00:09:43.580 they had stayed neutral. But seeing Brusilov 00:09:43.580 --> 00:09:46.360 completely humiliate the Austrians, Romania decides 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:48.759 this is their moment to join the Allies. They 00:09:48.759 --> 00:09:50.700 wanted to gain the territory of Transylvania. 00:09:50.899 --> 00:09:53.600 Which seemed like a calculated risk, but in reality 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:56.700 it was a swift and brutal disaster. The central 00:09:56.700 --> 00:09:59.080 powers fully understood the threat Romania posed 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:02.299 primarily because of their oil. So Germany, Austria, 00:10:02.419 --> 00:10:04.860 Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire all 00:10:04.860 --> 00:10:06.860 coordinate. They just crush them from three sides 00:10:06.860 --> 00:10:09.940 simultaneously. Yes. Romania is invaded from 00:10:09.940 --> 00:10:12.559 three different directions. The Romanian army 00:10:12.559 --> 00:10:15.759 was disastrously ill equipped compared to the 00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:18.240 veteran armies invading them. Within months, 00:10:18.240 --> 00:10:20.940 they lose their capital, Bucharest. But far more 00:10:20.940 --> 00:10:23.620 critically, they lose the Ploetii oil fields. 00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:25.679 Which was vital for the German war machine. You're 00:10:25.679 --> 00:10:27.919 absolutely right. So we have these massive movements 00:10:27.919 --> 00:10:30.779 of armies, brilliant tactical innovations, and 00:10:30.779 --> 00:10:33.259 millions of combat casualties. But if you look 00:10:33.259 --> 00:10:35.779 closely at the data, there was actually an even 00:10:35.779 --> 00:10:39.399 deadlier, unseen killer at work across this landscape. 00:10:39.799 --> 00:10:42.080 Yes, and this highlights the grim reality of 00:10:42.080 --> 00:10:44.700 this theater. On the Eastern Front, disease accounted 00:10:44.700 --> 00:10:47.179 for four times the number of deaths as direct 00:10:47.179 --> 00:10:50.379 combat. Four to one. That is just an unfathomable 00:10:50.379 --> 00:10:53.039 ratio. To compare on the western front, the ratio 00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:56.019 was roughly 3 to 1, disease to combat, but the 00:10:56.019 --> 00:10:58.759 east was an epidemiological nightmare. The primary 00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:01.840 culprit was the typhus epidemic. It's transmitted 00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:04.419 by infected body lice and the environment was 00:11:04.419 --> 00:11:07.059 practically designed for it to thrive. You have 00:11:07.059 --> 00:11:10.210 to picture the scale of displacement here. Entire 00:11:10.210 --> 00:11:12.370 cities were suddenly crammed with hundreds of 00:11:12.370 --> 00:11:14.889 thousands of refugees fleeing the advancing and 00:11:14.889 --> 00:11:17.269 retreating armies. They were living in incredibly 00:11:17.269 --> 00:11:20.809 unsanitary conditions. It devastated these overcrowded 00:11:20.809 --> 00:11:23.549 refugee cities. The outbreak became such a threat 00:11:23.549 --> 00:11:25.769 to the armies themselves that the German military 00:11:25.769 --> 00:11:28.350 authorities implemented a draconian sanitation 00:11:28.350 --> 00:11:31.629 program known as the Sanita Tetz Weizen, or medical 00:11:31.629 --> 00:11:34.070 affairs. And their methods were ruthless. Very 00:11:34.070 --> 00:11:36.690 ruthless. They built vast quarantine centers. 00:11:36.870 --> 00:11:39.409 They mandated forced, delousing procedures at 00:11:39.409 --> 00:11:41.950 military bathhouses. They even systematically 00:11:41.950 --> 00:11:44.309 culled stray dogs and cats in the streets out 00:11:44.309 --> 00:11:46.590 of fear they were spreading disease. And to curb 00:11:46.590 --> 00:11:49.029 the rampant spread of venereal diseases, they 00:11:49.029 --> 00:11:51.779 strictly regulated prostitution. didn't just 00:11:51.779 --> 00:11:54.659 upend the medical landscape, though. It completely 00:11:54.659 --> 00:11:57.399 rewired the social structure back home, especially 00:11:57.399 --> 00:12:00.320 for women. Because with so many men fighting, 00:12:00.639 --> 00:12:03.659 the traditional workforce vanished. By 1918, 00:12:04.419 --> 00:12:06.399 women's share of Russian industrial labor had 00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:09.539 jumped to 45%. Society would have collapsed without 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:11.500 them. They were building the artillery shells 00:12:11.500 --> 00:12:13.710 and keeping the economy functioning. But they're 00:12:13.710 --> 00:12:16.350 also on the front lines. The Russian army actually 00:12:16.350 --> 00:12:19.169 formed all female combat units, famously known 00:12:19.169 --> 00:12:22.169 as the Battalions of Death. And in Romania, you 00:12:22.169 --> 00:12:25.850 have national heroes like a Katerina Teodoroiu, 00:12:26.250 --> 00:12:28.230 who started as a nurse, transitioned to a frontline 00:12:28.230 --> 00:12:30.389 combatant, and was ultimately killed in action. 00:12:30.610 --> 00:12:32.690 And then you have the Scottish volunteer nurses 00:12:32.690 --> 00:12:35.850 nicknamed the Gray Partridges. Yes. The source 00:12:35.850 --> 00:12:38.720 has this amazing anecdote about them. The gray 00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:40.779 partridges were so respected that the Romanian 00:12:40.779 --> 00:12:44.019 press actually called them, quote, healthy, masculine 00:12:44.019 --> 00:12:46.539 and tanned women, which was meant as the highest 00:12:46.539 --> 00:12:49.279 possible compliment at the time. At one point, 00:12:49.559 --> 00:12:51.700 they turned a completely gutted, abandoned building 00:12:51.700 --> 00:12:54.419 into a fully operational hospital in just over 00:12:54.419 --> 00:12:57.320 a day. It's a remarkable testament to their resilience. 00:12:57.629 --> 00:13:00.470 It really is. Now let's fast forward to 1917, 00:13:00.789 --> 00:13:03.090 because this is where we hit a massive historical 00:13:03.090 --> 00:13:05.730 irony. We talked earlier about Russia's logistical 00:13:05.730 --> 00:13:08.470 nightmare in 1915, the man waiting for rifles. 00:13:09.129 --> 00:13:12.129 But by 1917, the Russian industrial machine had 00:13:12.129 --> 00:13:14.929 actually caught up. The statistics are unbelievable. 00:13:15.190 --> 00:13:18.090 By 1917, Russian domestic rifle production had 00:13:18.090 --> 00:13:21.330 doubled. Machine gun production increased sixfold. 00:13:21.730 --> 00:13:23.450 And their supply of artillery shells increased 00:13:23.450 --> 00:13:27.009 by an astounding 40 times. 40 times. Exactly. 00:13:27.590 --> 00:13:30.009 Russia actually had more troops and more guns 00:13:30.009 --> 00:13:32.070 at the front than the combined Austria -German 00:13:32.070 --> 00:13:34.809 forces facing them. Materially, the Russian empire 00:13:34.809 --> 00:13:37.250 was at its absolute peak. But it didn't matter 00:13:37.250 --> 00:13:39.799 because the breaking point wasn't military. It 00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:42.480 was political and social. Now, as we dive into 00:13:42.480 --> 00:13:44.200 this next part regarding the Russian revolutions, 00:13:44.580 --> 00:13:46.379 we want to remind you that we are impartially 00:13:46.379 --> 00:13:48.360 reporting the historical facts from our source 00:13:48.360 --> 00:13:50.580 material. We are not taking any political sides 00:13:50.580 --> 00:13:53.620 here or endorsing any ideologies. We are simply 00:13:53.620 --> 00:13:55.860 analyzing the structural events of this collapse. 00:13:56.379 --> 00:13:58.639 Right. And those structural events began with 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:01.100 the civilian population reaching a breaking point. 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:05.279 In February 1917, the February Revolution erupted 00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:07.960 in Petrograd. And it wasn't sparked by soldiers. 00:14:08.279 --> 00:14:12.039 It was sparse by 90 ,000 starving female factory 00:14:12.039 --> 00:14:15.740 workers marching for, quote, bread. That protest 00:14:15.740 --> 00:14:18.559 was the spark. Within days, the entire city was 00:14:18.559 --> 00:14:21.480 paralyzed by strikes. The soldiers refused to 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:23.980 fire on the crowds and mutinied. That exact moment 00:14:23.980 --> 00:14:26.500 forced the czar to abdicate. But the provisional 00:14:26.500 --> 00:14:28.580 government decided to keep fighting the war. 00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:31.259 The general population was completely done with 00:14:31.259 --> 00:14:33.899 the slaughter. And that exhaustion left the door 00:14:33.899 --> 00:14:36.669 wide open for the October Revolution. When the 00:14:36.669 --> 00:14:39.289 Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, seized power in November, 00:14:39.870 --> 00:14:41.970 Lenin's immediate promise to the people was peace. 00:14:42.330 --> 00:14:44.850 He sought peace at any cost. Which culminated 00:14:44.850 --> 00:14:47.509 in the harsh Treaty of Brest -Litovsk. The cost 00:14:47.509 --> 00:14:50.149 of that peace was terrifying. The source details 00:14:50.149 --> 00:14:52.230 these devastating losses for Russia under the 00:14:52.230 --> 00:14:55.210 treaty. They lost 34 % of their population, 54 00:14:55.210 --> 00:14:57.389 % of their industrial land, and a staggering 00:14:57.389 --> 00:14:59.870 89 % of their coal fields. If we connect this 00:14:59.870 --> 00:15:02.350 to the bigger picture, you'd see why this specific 00:15:02.350 --> 00:15:04.669 theater of the war is so vital to understand. 00:15:04.889 --> 00:15:07.149 Why you, listening right now, should care about 00:15:07.149 --> 00:15:10.070 this. The sheer scale of human suffering and 00:15:10.070 --> 00:15:13.070 the geographical aftermath are immense. Total 00:15:13.070 --> 00:15:15.509 casualties for the Eastern Front were astronomical. 00:15:16.230 --> 00:15:18.850 Russia alone suffered over 8 million losses. 00:15:19.289 --> 00:15:20.889 And beyond the dead, we have to talk about the 00:15:20.889 --> 00:15:23.389 prisoners of war. There was a bleak fate for 00:15:23.389 --> 00:15:26.889 the 2 .5 million Austro -Hungarian POWs in Russia. 00:15:27.350 --> 00:15:29.370 They were forced to build canals and railways 00:15:29.370 --> 00:15:31.889 in horrific conditions. The source notes that 00:15:31.889 --> 00:15:34.950 25 ,000 died on the Murmansk railway alone. So 00:15:34.950 --> 00:15:37.330 much blood spilled. So what does this all mean? 00:15:37.710 --> 00:15:40.129 It means that the end of this war birthed the 00:15:40.129 --> 00:15:43.120 actual map of modern Eastern Europe. Four massive 00:15:43.120 --> 00:15:46.200 empires collapsed. The Russian, German, Austro 00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:48.659 -Hungarian, and Ottoman empires. And out of those 00:15:48.659 --> 00:15:51.720 ruins, independent states like Poland, Czechoslovakia, 00:15:51.899 --> 00:15:53.960 Yugoslavia, and the Baltic states were carved 00:15:53.960 --> 00:15:56.220 out, setting the stage for the rest of the 20th 00:15:56.220 --> 00:15:58.179 century. The borders of Europe were entirely 00:15:58.179 --> 00:16:01.360 redrawn in the East. It is a massive, dynamic, 00:16:01.620 --> 00:16:04.399 and profoundly tragic theater of war that is 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:06.700 too often eclipsed by the trenches of the West. 00:16:07.229 --> 00:16:09.509 We want to thank you so much for joining us on 00:16:09.509 --> 00:16:11.629 this deep dive. And I want to leave you with 00:16:11.629 --> 00:16:14.070 one final provocative thought to mull over on 00:16:14.070 --> 00:16:16.470 your own. Under that treaty of Brest -Litovsk 00:16:16.470 --> 00:16:19.509 we mentioned, in early 1918, Germany and the 00:16:19.509 --> 00:16:21.570 Central Powers technically won the war on the 00:16:21.570 --> 00:16:24.450 Eastern Front. They gained a massive Eastern 00:16:24.450 --> 00:16:26.929 Empire before eventually losing to the Allies 00:16:26.929 --> 00:16:30.110 in the West later that year. So imagine for a 00:16:30.110 --> 00:16:32.570 moment how completely different the entire 20th 00:16:32.570 --> 00:16:34.070 century would have looked if the Western Allies 00:16:34.070 --> 00:16:36.769 had failed, the armistice never happened, and 00:16:36.769 --> 00:16:39.629 that 1918 map of a German -dominated Eastern 00:16:39.629 --> 00:16:42.210 Europe had remained permanent. Wow. That really 00:16:42.210 --> 00:16:43.889 changes how you look at the whole conflict. Something 00:16:43.889 --> 00:16:46.250 heavy to think about. Until next time, keep diving 00:16:46.250 --> 00:16:46.529 deep.