Beyond shifting personalities at the top, the third year of fighting
brought more ominous developments. Verdun had, in fact, drained most
of the fighting spirit from the French army; if it remained apparently
intact, its cohesiveness was shaky. The discipline and organization of the
vast Russian army were equally fragile. The fighting forces of Italy and
Austria-Hungary showed signs that they could not bear their share of the
bloodshed much longer.
Political figures on both sides of the battle lines accepted the idea of a
negotiated peace. Emperor Charles, the new monarch of Austria-Hungary,
worked behind the scenes for a settlement. In France, Minister of the Interior
Louis Malvy, Radical party leader Joseph Caillaux, and their coterie seemed
prone not only to compromise but to defeatism. A different kind of desperation
in Germany led to renewed discussion of unlimited submarine warfare.
If the land offensive at Verdun had failed of results, only a new wave of
attacks at sea offered the prospect of victory.
The strains on the home front in some participating countries approached
the breaking point. Strikes in Germany and Russia were one sign of cracks
in the determination of the warring nations' civilian population. In Petrograd,
talk spread of a coup of some kind, perhaps by military leaders, to put
an end to the gross incompetence of the nation's political leaders.
World History
