The World in 1917 the year Russia changed twice

The battle around Passchendaele ran from July to November and moved the front about five miles. A person on foot covers that in two hours.

Life back then

Food was the other front. Germans still call the winter just past the turnip winter, when the potato crop failed and families boiled the turnips normally fed to cattle. British shoppers queued for margarine and sugar, and bakers stretched flour with potato and barley, so bread came out heavy and grey. American families kept meatless Tuesdays and wheatless Wednesdays so grain could be shipped across the Atlantic. In Petrograd the bread queues turned into the crowds that brought the Tsar down.

The year in 8 events

• 🏛️Mar 15 Tsar Nicholas II gives up the Russian throne after strikes and bread riots in Petrograd.
• ⚔️Apr 6 The United States declares war on Germany after nearly three years of staying out.
• 🎖️Apr 9 Canadian troops take Vimy Ridge in northern France, attacking together as one army for the first time.
• 🌧️Jul 31 A British attack opens near Ypres in Belgium. Rain turns the ground to mud and the fighting drags on to November.
• 📜Aug 14 China declares war on Germany. It sends labourers to the Western Front rather than soldiers.
• ⚔️Oct 24 Austrian and German troops smash the Italian line at Caporetto. The Italians fall back to the Piave river.
• 🚩Nov 7 Lenin's Bolsheviks take power in Petrograd and begin pulling Russia out of the war.
• 🕯️Dec 6 Two ships collide in Halifax harbour in Canada. The explosion flattens much of the city.

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