The Splintered Empires

The last volume of Prit Buttar's best-selling series on the Eastern Front in World War I in paperback.
At the beginning of 1917, the three empires fighting on the Eastern Front were reaching their breaking points, but none was closer than Russia. After the February Revolution, Russia's ability to wage war faltered and her last desperate gamble, the Kerensky Offensive, saw the final collapse of her army. This helped trigger the Bolshevik Revolution and a crippling peace, but the Central Powers had no opportunity to exploit their gains and, a year later, both the German and Austro-Hungarian empires surrendered and disintegrated.
Concluding his acclaimed series on the Eastern Front in World War I, Prit Buttar comprehensively details not only these climactic events, but also the 'successor wars' that raged long after the armistice of 1918. New states rose from the ashes of empire, and war raged as German forces sought to keep them under the aegis of the Fatherland. These unresolved tensions between the former Great Powers and the new states would ultimately lead to the rise of Hitler and a new, terrible world war only two decades later.

Prit Buttar studied medicine at Oxford and London before joining the British Army as a doctor. After leaving the army, he worked as a GP, first near Bristol and then in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. He is extensively involved in medical politics, both at local and national level, and served on the GPs' Committee of the British Medical Association. He has appeared on national TV and radio, speaking on a variety of medical issues. He contributes regularly to the medical press.
An established expert on the Eastern Front in 20th-century military history, his previous books include the critically acclaimed Battleground Prussia: The Assault on Germany's Eastern Front 1944-45 (Osprey 2010) and Between Giants: The Battle for the Baltics in World War II (Osprey 2013) and a definitive four-part series on the Eastern Front in World War I which concluded with The Splintered Empires: The Eastern Front 1917-21 (2017). He now lives in Kirkcudbright in Scotland.

List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Author's Note
Chronology
Dramatis Personae
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Road to February
Chapter 2: The Fall of the Romanovs
Chapter 3: The Wavering Ally
Chapter 4: Austria-Hungary's Peace Initiative
Chapter 5: Kerensky's Offensive Begins
Chapter 6: High Tide for Revolutionary Russia
Chapter 7: The Implosion of Russia
Chapter 8: The Bolsheviks and Red October
Chapter 9: Russia's Lowest Ebb: Brest-Litovsk
Chapter 10: Romania
Chapter 11: The Pygmy Wars: Finland
Chapter 12: The Fall of the Hohenzollerns
Chapter 13: The Fall of the Habsburgs
Chapter 14: The Pygmy Wars: Estonia
Chapter 15: The Pygmy Wars: Latvia
Chapter 16: The Pygmy Wars: Lithuania and Poland
Chapter 17: The Imperfect Peace
Notes
Bibliography
Index