During the first two years of war, patriotic nationalism and belief in a just cause united peoples behind their national leaders. Each government used rigorous censorship and crude propaganda to bolster popular support. (See “Picturing the Past: Wartime Propaganda Posters.”) Patriotic posters and slogans, slanted news, and biased editorials inflamed national hatreds, helped control public opinion, and encouraged soldiers to keep fighting.

Political and social tensions re-emerged, however, and by the spring of 1916 ordinary people were beginning to crack under the strain of total war. Strikes and protest marches over war-related burdens and shortages flared up on every home front. On May 1, 1916, several thousand demonstrators in Berlin heard the radical socialist leader Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919) attack the costs of the war effort. In France, Georges Clemenceau (zhorzh kleh-muhn-SOH) (1841–1929) established a virtual dictatorship, arrested strikers, and jailed without trial journalists and politicians who dared to suggest a compromise peace with Germany.

In April 1916, Irish republican nationalists renewed their rebellion against British rule. During the great Easter Rising, armed republican militias took over parts of Dublin and proclaimed an independent Irish Republic. After a week of bitter fighting, British troops crushed the rebels and executed their leaders. Though the republicans were defeated, the Rising set the stage for the success of the nationalist Sinn Fein Party and a full-scale civil war for Irish independence in the early 1920s.

On all sides, soldiers’ morale began to decline. Numerous French units refused to fight after the disastrous French offensive of May 1917. Facing defeat, wretched conditions at the front, and growing hopelessness, Russian soldiers deserted in droves, providing fuel for the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the massive battles of 1916 and 1917, the British armies had been “bled dry.” Only the promised arrival of fresh troops from the United States stiffened the resolve of the allies.

The strains were even worse for the Central Powers. In October 1916, a young socialist assassinated the chief minister of Austria-Hungary. In spite of absolute censorship, political dissatisfaction and conflicts among nationalities grew. By April 1917, the Austro-Hungarian people and army were exhausted. Another winter of war would bring revolution and disintegration.

Germans likewise suffered immensely. The British naval blockade greatly limited food imports, and the resulting scarcity had horrific results: some 750,000 German civilians starved to death. For the rest, heavy rationing of everyday goods undermined morale. A growing minority of moderate socialists in the Reichstag gave voice to popular discontent when they called for a compromise “peace without annexations or reparations.”

Such a peace was unthinkable for the Fatherland Party. Yet Germany’s rulers faced growing unrest, strikes, and political defections. Thus Germany, like its ally Austria-Hungary (and its enemy France), was beginning to crack in 1917. Yet it was Russia that collapsed first and saved the Central Powers — for a time.