It’s easy to think of events after the end of the Great War as a kind of footnote to four years of unprecedented carnage – but as Anthony Read convincingly demonstrates in The World on Fire, it took a considerable amount of time to get from the Armistice in November 1918 to the Treaty of Versailles formally ending the war in June 1919, a result that was by no means inevitable. While that process of negotiation was taking place, the shock-waves of the 1917 Russian Revolution were being felt all over the world. The World on Fire tackles the events of 1919, looking at how Lenin’s avowed intention to export the Bolshevik Revolution affected the rest of the globe.

In Russia itself, the Civil War raged – Red control was at times tenuous and at one stage they were pushed back to controlling a block of territory around Moscow and not much else. The British, Americans and French interfered in various ways with the fighting, usually against the Reds, but there was no coherent strategic vision and no prospect of influencing the outcome without intervention on a far grander scale; that was not possible for Britain or France because the prospect of sending soldiers to fight for unclear aims in Russia prompted the serious threat of mutiny, and for America it was against President Wilson’s high-minded ideals.

In Germany, separated from Russia only by the newly restored state of Poland, the effects were greatest: there was a virtual civil war between the forces of the left, led by Communists with close links to Lenin, and the right-wing Freikorps militias. There was huge industrial unrest, numerous mutinies by the armed forces and the whole of Bavaria was proclaimed a Socialist Republic, though there were many other coups and attempted coups (much of the tumult being witnessed by a certain Austrian Corporal who was greatly influenced by what he saw).

Throughout the rest of the world, 1919 was a year of strikes: in Britain, in the USA, across Europe, a rising tide of  militancy swept through the workforce, a reaction to four years of sacrifice and deprivation more than a desire to live under Communism, but many in power could not make the distinction and most of the strikes failed to achieve their aims, often being savagely repressed. In America, the gulf between capital and labour was especially pronounced, and the suspicion of Communism became systemic, to manifest itself in periodic Red Scares that culminated in the McCarthy witch-hunts many years later.

In Britain, soldiers refused to cross back from Britain to France, and there were delegations of men sent to Downing Street – in reality, Britain only maintained the appearance of full control over its armed forces by not pressing the issue. Anthony Read does a masterful job of illustrating, through numerous incidents such as this, how the Great War and the spectre of Communism affected the victors almost as severely as the vanquished. World on Fire is a well researched, brilliantly organised and very accessible piece of history that comes highly recommended.

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