Welcome to the Deep Dive. We're skipping the
usual pleasantries today because we have a massive,
incredibly dense historical breakdown to get
through. Yeah, we really do. There's a lot of
ground to cover. Our mission today is to explore
the 1917 Kerensky Offensive. And I'll say, if
you are the kind of person who loves tracing
massive global shifts back to a single chaotic
flashpoint, This is exactly for you. Oh, without
a doubt. It's one of those moments that just
redefines everything. OK, let's unpack this.
The setting is the summer of 1917. World War
One has been grinding up an entire generation
for, what, three years at this point. Right.
Three brutally long years. And in Russia, the
Tsar, Nicholas II, has just abdicated the throne.
The country is crumbling. The political landscape
is completely revolutionary. And the brand new
provisional government decides that the absolute
best way to unite this fragmented nation is to
launch an attack. Right. To launch one final
massive military offensive against the central
powers. What's fascinating here is the sheer
audacity and, well, perhaps the fatal flaw of
that premise. I mean, you have a government trying
to launch a coordinated, highly disciplined military
operation using an army that has essentially
just democratized itself. Which sounds impossible.
Because it is. These are soldiers who have just
experienced a revolution. They suddenly feel
they no longer have to blindly take orders from
above. It is a stunning paradox to try and execute
a war with a military apparatus that is actively,
you know, dismantling its own hierarchy. And
if you've ever wondered exactly how the Russian
empire tipped from a new liberal provisional
government directly into the hands of the Bolsheviks,
the dominoes do not falling in a palace. No,
they don't. They start falling right here in
the muddy trenches of Galicia. To really understand
how this gamble played out, we have to look at
the pressure cooker that was Russia in early
1917. The economy was just in free fall. To fund
the war, the previous government had simply printed
money, which led to catastrophic inflation. Food
prices had more than tripled. Hunger was the
primary driving force on the streets. Hunger
is always the ultimate catalyst. You know, in
February, Female factory workers in Petrograd
marched demanding bread. But they were quickly
joined by mail workers, and the demand shifted
almost overnight from food to the complete overhaul
of the state. And the military response to that
was the real turning point, wasn't it? Exactly.
When the military commander in Petrograd ordered
the garrison to fire on the rioters, a critical
mass of soldiers just outright refused. They
turned their weapons around and joined the crowds.
That systemic military refusal was the breaking
point that forced Tsar Nicholas II out. Which
leaves a massive power vacuum. And what steps
into that vacuum is a bizarre political reality
known as dual power. Dual power, yes. On one
side you have the provisional government. This
is made up mostly of liberal politicians from
the old state Duma. Technically they run the
country? Right, technically. On paper. On paper.
But on the other side you have the Petrograd
Soviet, which is a council of workers and soldiers,
and they hold the actual physical power on the
streets. It's important to note, impartially,
that neither of these groups was fully in control
of the masses. No, nobody was driving the car
at that point. Right. And lurking in the background
of all this are the Bolsheviks, the radical anti
-war fringe who are just actively watching this
moderate coalition struggle to maintain order.
And that struggle is most apparent in the military.
The petrograd Soviet was terrified that conservative
generals might use the army to crush the revolution
So they issued something called order number
one. This is where it gets crazy It really is
the intent of order number one was simply to
secure military loyalty to the Soviet But once
that order reached the front lines the enlisted
men interpreted it as absolute liberation. They
thought it was a free pass exactly They believed
it meant they no longer had to obey their officers
at all. They immediately formed these soldiers
committees to vote on their actions. It's so
difficult to fathom the reality of that on a
battlefield. I mean, think about it like this.
Imagine a corporate hierarchy where the interns
suddenly get to vote on whether the CEO's strategy
should be executed. That is exactly what it was
like. You have commanding officers trying to
orchestrate complex trench warfare, and they
suddenly have to pause, literally pause, a war
and negotiate with a committee of enlisted men
who are taking a vote on whether or not the artillery
barrage is a good idea. paralyzes the entire
command structure. And we have to look at the
deep -seated class tensions driving this. The
pre -war officer corps was largely aristocratic.
They looked at these new peasant -led committees
with absolute contempt. To them, it was a complete
inversion of the natural social order they had
known their whole lives. Meanwhile, the soldiers,
mostly peasant draftees, they were deeply patriotic
about defending their homes. But they had zero
interest in dying to conquer new territory for
government they barely recognized. So discipline
didn't just bend, it completely evaporated. Which
brings up a glaring contradiction. In the middle
of all this evaporating discipline and political
chaos, why would the provisional government choose
to attack? It's the big question. Right, because
holding the line seems difficult enough. Launching
a massive offensive seems like institutional
suicide. It looks suicidal in hindsight, sure.
But at the time, they were crushed between two
immense pressures. First, the Entente allies,
Britain, France, Italy, were really turning the
screws. They desperately needed Russia to attack
in order to pull German troops away from the
Western Front. And there was a financial threat
attached to that. A massive one. The Russian
foreign minister was explicitly warned that the
allies might withhold the massive loans Russia
needed to avoid complete bankruptcy. It was in
many ways financial blackmail. But was it purely
financial desperation, or did the provisional
government actually believe a victory was possible?
Because the new minister of war, Alexander Kerensky,
seemed remarkably convinced that a successful
offensive would give Russia the leverage to negotiate
an end to the war on their own terms. Peace without
annexations or reparations. That was the goal.
Kerensky was a brilliant orator, but he suffered
from a dangerous level of political optimism.
That's a great way to put it. He genuinely believed
that the fervor of the revolution could be translated
into military aggression. He thought a victory
would force Germany to the negotiating table.
He treated it like a political campaign. I mean
he was acting almost like a modern political
rock star touring the front lines giving these
sweeping emotional speeches alongside General
Alexei Brusilov. to just whip up enthusiasm.
Speeches don't deflect bullets, though. No, they
do not. And the military leadership quickly realized
that their regular infantry was fundamentally
unreliable. Many soldiers were openly stating
they would not leave their trenches. So the high
command needed a workaround. They needed troops
who wouldn't call a committee meeting when ordered
to charge. Exactly. Here's where it gets really
interesting. The provisional government's desperate
solution to this total lack of discipline was
to create volunteer shock battalions. Officially
called revolutionary battalions, but popularly
known as the Battalions of Death. The sheer scale
of this volunteer movement is staggering. Between
March and November of 1917, roughly 600 ,000
volunteers stepped up to join these shock units.
Wow. 600 ,000. Yeah. The military pulled the
most loyal, experienced, and aggressive soldiers
and officers from regular regiments, and even
brought in civilian volunteers from Petrograd
and Moscow. The psychological tactics involved
in these battalions were intense too. We even
see the creation of a women's battalion and the
strategy behind it wasn't just about adding numbers
to the ranks. The provisional government explicitly
deployed the women's battalion to the front lines
to shame the demoralized regular male infantry
into fighting. It is a profound reflection of
the societal desperation in 1917 Russia. I mean
they were willing to shatter deeply entrenched
gender norms if it meant squeezing one last push
out of the army. But did it actually work? Well,
from a purely military perspective, creating
these elite shock battalions was a strategic
disaster. By siphoning off the most motivated,
capable soldiers into a few specialized units,
they completely hollowed out the regular infantry.
Right, you take the best guys out. Exactly. They
removed the backbone from the main army, leaving
the bulk of their forces even more hesitant and
uncoordinated. And that structural weakness really
sets the stage for the launch on July 1st. The
7th and 11th Armies begin their advance toward
the city of Lemberg in the north. And initially,
Against all conventional logic, it works. It
really does. The shock battalions violently break
through the Austro -Hungarian trenches. They
capture over 18 ,000 men on the very first day.
And hidden within that initial push is a highly
complex, almost ironic engagement at the Battle
of Zborov. Oh, the Czech story. Yes. In the 11th
Army Sector, a Russian -aligned Czechoslovak
Brigade assaulted the Austro -Hungarian 19th
Infantry Division. Now, the Austro -Hungarian
Division was actually comprised of many ethnic
Czechs. So you have Czechs fighting Czechs in
the middle of a Russian offensive against a crumbling
Habsburg empire. It is a tragic microcosm of
the entire war. The Czechoslovak volunteers successfully
pushed the Austro -Hungarian forces out of the
town. And while it was a relatively small tactical
engagement, it became a foundational mythos for
Czech and Slovak history. It represented a critical
moment of armed struggle for their eventual independence.
But that localized triumph really just masked
the deeper rot in the Russian lines, didn't it?
Oh, completely. Because the whiplash hits almost
immediately. After two days of intense combat,
those elite shock troops, the ones who carried
the entire advance, are severely depleted. They
take massive casualties. Right. And the regular
infantry, who are supposed to follow up and secure
the gains, they simply sit down. They decide
they've done their part and they refuse to advance
further. The momentum doesn't just stall. It
evaporates. By the evening of the second day,
the troops of the 7th Army are actively refusing
attack orders. It all culminates in a catastrophic
failure for the 1st Guards Corps on July 6th.
And these were supposed to be the reserves, right?
Exactly. This was supposed to be the 11th Army's
fresh reserve force. They're ordered into the
assault, but the massive artillery barrage intended
to clear their path just never materializes.
So they are sent charging into fully intact enemy
fortifications. And the losses are horrific.
Absolutely horrific. And the reaction is immediate
mutiny. The chain of command completely shatters
under the pressure. The core commander tries
to arrest the political agitators in the ranks,
which of course only pours gasoline on the fire.
And the supreme irony here is that when reinforcements
finally arrive from Petrograd to stabilize the
line, they don't fire a single shot at the enemy.
Not one. They actually spend their time spreading
Bolshevik anti -war propaganda among the mutinying
soldiers. They actively make it worse. Yes, they
do. But while the northern front was paralyzed
by its own newfound democracy, there was one
commander who entirely rejected this political
reality. Down in the south, the Eighth Army was
only supposed to play a supporting role. Led
by General Love Kornilov. Yes. And while the
rest of the offensive was sputtering into mutiny,
Kornilov's forces actually shattered the Austro
-Hungarian lines. They advanced 30 kilometers,
capturing the towns of Kalush and Galich. And
Kornilov succeeded entirely because he refused
to play by Kerensky's rules. I mean, he was fiercely
pragmatic. He utilized committees of agitators
to persuade his men when it suited him. But fundamentally,
he was completely ruthless. He didn't tolerate
the insubordination that was tearing apart the
Northern armies. Ruthlessness was his defining
trait. I mean, when Kornilov requested reinforcements
to press his advantage, he received units from
the 7th Army, the very troops who had been marinated
in that Bolshevik anti -war propaganda. Right,
the mutineers. Exactly. And when those soldiers
arrived at the front and subsequently attempted
to abandon their positions and retreat, Kornilov
didn't negotiate. He turned his own machine guns
and artillery on his clean troops. He literally
slaughtered his own men to maintain the line.
He did. And if we connect this to the bigger
picture, Kornilov's brutal localized success
fundamentally altered the political landscape
in Petrograd. Well, because he was the only general
delivering victories, his actions were heavily
amplified in the Russian press. conservative
circles, and even terrified leaders within the
provisional government began to view Kornilov
not just as a general, but as a potential strongman.
Like a savior complex. Yes. They saw a savior
figure who possessed the iron will necessary
to restore order to a spiraling nation. But no
amount of iron will could hold back the sheer
weight of the German war machine. On July 19th,
the Central Powers launch a massive counter -offensive.
And the Russian Army doesn't just execute a tactical
retreat, it completely disintegrates. Disintegrates
is the right word. The 11th Army abandons its
positions entirely. The 7th Army breaks. And
soon, even Kornilov's 8th Army is forced into
a rapid withdrawal because their northern flank
has just ceased to exist. The scale of the collapse
is difficult to comprehend. The Russian army
has pushed back 120 kilometers in a matter of
weeks. They hemorrhage all the hard -fought territorial
gains they had secured during the Brusilov Offensive
the previous year. All of it gone. Almost the
entirety of eastern Galicia is retaken by the
Central Powers. Now there is one operational
bright spot during this collapse which we should
briefly acknowledge impartially. Down in the
Romanian theater Russo -Romanian forces actually
mounted a successful defense against the Central
Powers at places like Mareci and Mareti. Right.
The Romanian campaign was a tactical success.
The sight of the Romanian army effectively advancing
and holding the line actually bolstered the morale
of the Russian troops deployed in that specific
sector. It prevented the complete conquest of
Romania. But strategically? Strategically, in
the broader context of the Eastern Front, it
was irrelevant. The center of the Russian line
had evaporated. So what does this all mean for
you listening? We have an offensive that promised
peace and delivered a 120 kilometer retreat,
hundreds of thousands of casualties, but it's
the political shockwaves back in Petrograd that
truly reshape the 20th century. This is where
the dominoes really start falling rapidly. The
cascading consequences of this failure are immense.
First, even before the offensive fully collapsed,
the mere threat of being deployed to the front
sparked the July Days in Petrograd. These were
the massive protests, right? Yes. Violent uprisings
by garrison soldiers and workers who were terrified
of being sent into the meat grinder. The government
barely survived the riots. And in the desperate
aftermath of that, they turned to the one man
who seemed to hold the army together. Kornilov
is promoted. First, he has made commander of
the southwestern front, and then Kerensky appoints
him supreme commander of the entire Russian armed
forces. Which sets the stage for the ultimate
political miscalculation. Kornilov, riding high
on conservative backing and disgusted by the
weakness of the provisional government, reinstates
the death penalty at the front and drastically
limits the power of the soldiers' committees.
He's rolling back the clock? Trying to, anyway.
By September, he decides the only way to save
Russia is to march his troops on Petrograd and
crush the Soviet entirely. This becomes known
as the Kornilov affair. A military coup that
spectacularly backfires. Kerensky panics. To
stop Kornilov's advancing troops, the provisional
government and the moderate Soviet realize they
don't have enough loyal soldiers left to defend
themselves. They are completely out of options.
So they turn to the radical fringes, they release
imprisoned Bolshevik leaders, and crucially,
they arm 25 ,000 Bolshevik workers, forming the
Red Guards. This is the definitive turning point.
Yeah. By launching the July offensive, the provisional
government proved to the peasantry that they
valued foreign alliances and war aims over Russian
lives. They completely destroyed their credibility
with the military. Yeah. And by appointing Kornilov,
they alienated the working class and the political
left. And then by crushing Kornelov's coup, they
literally handed the weapons to the Bolsheviks.
The provisional government essentially engineered
its own obsolescence. Exactly. They provided
the Bolsheviks with the exact influence, justification,
and firepower required to launch the October
Revolution just weeks later. It is an incredible
historical tragedy. The Kerensky Offensive was
designed to be the ultimate unifying force. It
was supposed to legitimize a new democratic Russia
on the world stage. Instead, it served as the
exact catalyst that fractured the military and
handed the nation to Lenin. It's a stark lesson
in the limits of political rhetoric against military
reality. And there is a final detail here that
underscores the profound avoidability of this
tragedy. Tell me. Months before the offensive
even began, a delegation from the United States,
led by former Secretary of State Elihu Root,
traveled to Russia. Root met extensively with
the Russian leadership and strongly advised them
against launching any offensive operations. He
saw the writing on the wall. He recognized the
fragility of the democratized army. He argued
that the troops needed time to recover from the
political upheaval. But more importantly, his
strategic assessment was that Russia didn't need
to attack to be useful. Right, because of the
two -front war. Precisely. Simply by staying
nominally at war and holding their trenches,
Russia was forcing Germany to keep dozens of
divisions tied down on the Eastern Front. Their
mere presence was a massive strategic service
to the Allies. They just needed to hold the line.
They didn't need to advance an inch. That's it.
And this raises an important question for you
to ponder. What if Kerensky and the Provisional
Government had simply listened to that pragmatic
advice? What if they had accepted the reality
of their exhausted military, stayed on the defensive,
and let the revolutionary fervor cool down in
the trenches? Could the complete disintegration
of the Army, the subsequent arming of the Bolsheviks,
and the entire geopolitical trajectory of the
Soviet century have been avoided simply by choosing
to do nothing? That is a staggering historical
what -if to leave on. Sometimes the most consequential
action really is inaction. Thank you so much
for joining us on this deep dive. We hope this
exploration of the Kerensky Offensive gave you
a few of those aha moments and a deeper understanding
of the fragile moments that shape our world.
Keep questioning the historical narratives you
think you know and we'll see you next time.