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Upon the outbreak of World War I, Ukraine was not an independent political entity or state.The majority of the territory that makes up the modern country of Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire with a notable far western region administered by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the border between them dating to the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
Prior to the outbreak of war, German strategy was based on the Schlieffen Plan. With the Franco-Russian Agreement in place from the early 1890s, Germany knew that war with either of these combatants would result in war with the other, which meant that there would be a two-front war in both the west and the east.
The German minority population in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stemmed from several sources and arrived in several waves. Since the second half of the 19th century, as a consequence of the Russification policies and compulsory military service in the Russian Empire, large groups of Germans from Russia emigrated to the Americas (mainly Canada, the United States, Brazil and Argentina ...
By 1917, Germany and Russia were stuck in a stalemate on the Eastern Front of World War I and the Russian economy had nearly collapsed under the strain of the war effort. The large numbers of war casualties and persistent food shortages in the major urban centers brought about civil unrest, known as the February Revolution , that forced Tsar ...
The German troops encountered the first wave of Russian defenders as they launched a desperate counter-charge. These were the remnants of the 13th Company of the 226th Infantry Regiment—soldiers who had survived the initial gas attack. The Germans recoiled in horror at the sight of the advancing Russians, whose uniforms were bloodied.
The main objective for the German 6th Army was to capture Kharkov, which would help them close the growing gap between themselves and the German 17th Army. By 20 October, the Germans had advanced to the western edge of the city, and by 24 October, the 57th Infantry Division was able to take control of Kharkov. By this time, however, most of the ...
Leon Trotsky, head of the Soviet Russian delegation, hoped to delay talks until a revolution occurred within Germany, which would force them out of the war. [ 6 ] Meanwhile on 17 December, the Kievan Bolsheviks demanded that the Central Rada of Ukraine recognise new Soviet government in Russia, but the Rada refused, and conflict erupted between ...
On August 14, 1914, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich, head of the Russian army, appealed to the Slavic peoples of Austria-Hungary to join Russia. To cut short Austro-German attempts to raise Russian Poland, he called for "the rebirth under this [Russian] scepter of a Poland free of its faith, its language and with the right to govern itself".