Page - 849 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Russian October Revolution 849 obtain power in the state, but also to keep hold of it through military means. This item 2 in the guidelines for the deployment of the Red Guards ran as follows : ‘The voluntary regiments shall at a time specified by the army committee be appointed by an order to the front armies to regiments of the Red Guards, and will from this time on be in- troduced to revolutionary discipline and mandatory service ; all volunteers will receive increased pay. On entry into the regiment, the volunteer enters into the obligation before the entire regiment to serve for at least six months with the Red Guards and to fulfil all the duties of a revolutionary soldier […].’ And item 4 ran : ‘The volunteers are only obliged to fulfil field service ; in base establishments and for commercial work, only freely recruited workers will be used.’ The Austro-Hungarian observers also received first-hand information on the efforts of the Ukrainian parliament, the ‘Central Rada’ (Central Council) to attain independence, to establish its own army and to set up a state administration. It was known that attempts at gaining independence, and inde- pendence declarations, were being made among individual regions and peoples such as those in the Caucasus, Siberia, Bessarabia, Turkestan and in the Black Sea and Danube region, as well as among the Bashkirs and Terek Cossacks. Estonia and Belarus were striving for autonomy within the Russian Empire.2018 The disintegration of the old cen- tral power, and the attempts at creating a new one, went hand in hand. This could also be regarded with satisfaction by the Central Powers, since only if the Bolsheviks came to power and pushed through their claim to leadership would the contract negotiated with them be tenable. In Vienna, the peace proposal from the Second All-Russian Congress had been published immediately. In the German Empire, it took another day, since Ludendorff was at first reluctant for the news to be spread. However, it could not be suppressed. Shortly afterwards, there was a real sense of alarm in Berlin, when contacts between German Social Democrats and Bolshevik representatives in Sweden became known, which were aimed at winning German backing for the October Revolution. Germany’s Socialists were to support the movement in Russia as far as possible through ‘large demonstrations and strikes’. Philipp Scheidemann and Friedrich Ebert had refused to stab the imperial government  – which had been led since 1 November 1917 by the Bavarian Count Georg von Hertling  – in the back in such a way. However, they de- clared themselves willing to read a Bolshevik appeal at mass gatherings, and to answer it through supporting rallies. Suddenly, there was talk of conducting the negotiations with Russia as peace nego- tiations straight away, and using peace envoys. However, this was by no means in line with what the Germans had envisaged. There was therefore a palpable sense of relief in the German imperial government when a Russian radio message was intercepted, via which the Council of People’s Commissars directed a formal proposal for an armistice to all belligerents. In Berlin and in the German Supreme Army Command, the conclu-