I. Summary of Events
As has been seen, both Baghdad and Jerusalem fell to British arms during the year 1917, but other mighty events of war were happening on the various fronts, and, while England was knocking out the Turk with her left hand, so to speak, she was still engaged in a furious fight against Germany on the Western front with her right, in conjunction, of course, with her faithful allies. Moreover, other things happened in 1917 which very materially influenced the course of the great struggle. The two most important events were the coming in of the United States of America and the dropping out of the Russians.
On the 1st February, 1917, Germany very foolishly declared unrestricted submarine warfare: that is, she issued a notice that, within what she was pleased to lay down as a War Zone, she intended to sink both combatant and neutral shipping at sight. This directly brought her into a state of war, which was declared on the 6th April, with America, and the first American contingent landed in France on the 25th June, and on the 27th October infantry and artillery belonging to that nation were actually in action. Of course, the armies from across the Atlantic were at first very small, like our own had been in 1914, but, like the British forces, they swelled with rapidity.
On the 12th March of this year of 1917 a revolution started in Russia and three days later the Czar abdicated. Notwithstanding this, however, the Russians, under General Brusilov, commenced a determined offensive in Galicia, which was at first successful, but which soon died away. On the 21st October the new government practically determined on peace, though there was a mutual agreement between the three countries of England, France and Russia that no one of them would make peace without the other two. These kinds of arrangements, however, did not affect the new rulers very much, and, on the 22nd November, Lenin authorized the troops at the front to negotiate for cessation of hostilities, and next day he started to work to disband the army. Preliminaries being signed with the enemy at Brest Litovsk on the 5th December, it became actually necessary for Rumania to follow suit. On the 21st June the Order of the British Empire was established.
At the end of October our friends the Italians were suffering disaster at the hands of the Austrians, and early in November a British force had to be sent to their assistance.