What you must do in this unit
- Review the textbook chapter 29, particularly pages 378-82.
- Check the remarks by Professor Blois and Professor Evans on World War I.
- Study the Questions to Consider and the Key Terms for the Unit.
Some videos that you can watch for this unit
- Nicholas II Declares War on Germany 1914
- See also the videos dealing with World War I in the HIS 102 course.
- For extra credit please suggest to your instructor a relevant video for this unit of the course. Send the title of the video, the URL and a brief explanation of why you find the video interesting and applicable to the material that is being studied in this unit.
Extra Credit Options
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, watch Rasputin and explain how and why this happened in a one-page paper!
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (1962) and write a one-page paper in which you explain what went wrong for the Russian army in the first two months of the war.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read W. Bruce Lincoln, Passage through Armageddon: The Russians in War and Revolution, 1914-1918 (1986) and write a one-page paper in which you assess the impact of the war on Russian society.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Aleksei Brusilov, A Soldier's Notebook (1930) and write a one-page paper explaining Brusilov's role in historical events.
- For up to 25 points of extra credit, read Edvard Radzinskii, The Rasputin File (2000) and write a one-page paper explaining "how" and "why!"
- For up to 10 points of extra credit, read the "Willy-Nicky" Telegrams, exchanged between tsar and kaiser, 29 July - 1 August, 1914 and write a paragraph in which you assess these rulers' grasp on reality. You can also read the tsar's August 1914 manifesto announcing the start of the war to the Russian people.
Unit Learning Objectives
- Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to (1) explain the Russian rationale for entry into the Great War and (2) assess the impact of the war on Russian society and military.