The First World War

The First World War was Europe’s first shocking experience with modern mass warfare. Even a few statistics reflect the mind-boggling dimensions of this widespread conflict: the thirty-four countries eventually participated in the war mobilized 65 million soldiers of whom 10 million died and over 20 million were wounded. Civilian casualties were almost as high. Not only was the war massive, but it was total. Entire societies and their economies were harnessed to support the huge armies at the front. But as the losses mounted, the tremendous pressures they created, both at the battlefront and at home, exposed and aggravated the fatal political and socioeconomic weaknesses of Europe's old imperial order. Consequently, for the German, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires, which constituted the Central Powers, and for the Russian Empire, which, together with Britain, France, and America was a member of the Entente, the war eventually became an exercise in self-destruction.

The Russian Empire was the first to collapse under the impact of the war. Not unexpectedly, its demise was accompanied by the rapid rise of various Russian parties that had long opposed the tsarist regime and now attempted to impose their models of a new socioeconomic and political order on the disoriented society. But to the surprise of many, the former empire's appar­ently docile non-Russian nationalities also demanded to arrange their affairs as they saw fit. As a result, the common view of the revolution of 1917 as a titanic class struggle in Russia is inadequate for an understanding of what happened in Ukraine; there, a Ukrainian revolution occurred, and it was na­tional as well as socioeconomic in nature.

For the Ukrainians, who had to fight for both of the warring sides, the impact of the war was immediate, direct, and devastating. Throughout the struggle Galicia was the scene of the biggest, bloodiest battles fought on the Eastern front. Its populace suffered terribly from the destruction and dislocation that resulted from the fighting, as well as from the brutal wartime administrations of both the Russians and the Austrians.

But along with the physical damage, the war highlighted and exacerbated the plight of peoples, such as the Ukrainians, who had no state of their own to protect their specific interests. Vast numbers of Ukrainians - the Russian army alone had 3.5 million Ukrainian soldiers and 250,000 served in the Aus­trian forces - fought and died for empires that not only ignored their national interests but, in the case of Russia, actively sought to destroy their national movements. Worse still, as combatants on opposing sides, Ukrainians were forced to kill each other. The only positive aspect of the war was the possibil­ity that it would weaken the warring empires and thus create new political opportunities for their repressed subjects. But at the outset at least, this pos­sibility was too remote to be treated seriously.

The Ukrainians in Austria reacted quickly to the outbreak of hostilities. On 3 August 1914, all their parties formed the General Ukrainian Council (Zahalna Ukraiinska Rada) in Lviv, headed by the respected parliamentarian Kost Levytsky, for the purpose of providing Ukrainians with a single, united representative body. Declaring "that the victory of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy will be our victory and the greater the defeat of Russia, the sooner will come the hour of Ukrainian liberation," the council called on Ukrainians to fight for constitutional Austria (their best friend) against autocratic Russia (their worst enemy). Shortly after its formation, the council issued a call for volunteers for an all-Ukrainian military unit. Over 28,000 nationally conscious young men responded, many of them members of the Sich, Sokil, and Plast organizations. Worried by the prospect of large Ukrainian military units, influential Poles in Vienna saw to it that only 2500 men were accepted for service in the Ukrainian Legion (later the name was changed to Ukrainian Sich Riflemen - Ukraiinski Sichovi Striltsi), as the new unit was called. This was the first Ukrainian military formation in modern times. The vast major­ity of the other Ukrainians who served on the Habsburg side were inducted into regular Austrian units.

The socialist émigrés from Russian-ruled Ukraine also formed a political organization in Lviv in order to act as (self-appointed) spokesmen for their compatriots under tsarist rule. An important, even historic, feature of this or­ganization, called the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine (Soiuz Vyzvolennia Ukrainy - SVU) and led by Volodymyr Doroshenko, Andrii Zhuk, Marian Melenevsky, Oleksander Skoropys-Ioltukhovsky, and Mykola Zalizniak, was that it was the first group that unequivocally announced that its goal was the formation of an independent Ukrainian state. To achieve its purpose, the SVU resolved to cooperate with Germany and Austria against Russia.

But even before these organizations began to function, they were forced to flee to Vienna when the advancing Russian armies broke through Aus­trian defenses and occupied much of Eastern Galicia by early September. This Austrian setback had terrible repercussions for the Ukrainians of Galicia. Looking for excuses for their defeats, Austrian and Hungarian comman­ders turned a willing ear to accusations made by the Polish provincial ad­ministration that their defeat was due to the "treachery of the Ukrainians," who allegedly secretly sympathized with and aided the Russians. As a result, the retreating Habsburg armies, and most notably the Hungarian troops, un­leashed a reign of terror among the Ukrainian populace. Initially, Russophiles (but later Ukrainians in general) were arrested by the hundreds and executed without trial. Thousands more were hauled off to Austria, where they were interned in concentration camps.

Task 2. Pronounce the words and learn their meanings:

civilian [si’viljәn]	defeat [di’fi:t]
casualties [‘kæ juәltiz]	autocratic [,o:tә’krætik]
council [‘kaunsl]	accusation [ækju:’zei∫әn]
to provide [prә’vaid]	allegedly [ә’le’d idli]

Task 3. Give Ukrainian equivalents for the following word combinations and find the sentences with them in the text:

At the outset; at least; for the purpose; to provide smb with smth; the … the; to turn a willing ear.

Task 4. Give English equivalents for the following word combinations and find the sentences with them in the text:

Жертви серед цивільного населення; як на фронтах, так і в тилу; початок воєнних дій; на початку вересня; шукати причини своїх невдач.

Task 5. Explain word-building for:

Warfare, widespread, unexpectedly, spokesman, disoriented, bloodiest.

Task 6. Give synonyms for:

To mount, fight, goal, to resolve, to flee.

Task 7. In the text find the derivatives to the “war” and give their translation.

Task 8. Point out the nouns with the suffix –tion in the text.

Task 9. Find in the text the adjectives used in the comparative and superlative degrees.

Task 10. Make up a plan in the interrogative sentences to retell the text to.

Task 1. Read the text to yourself: