Grimm–Hoffmann Affair
The Grimm–Hoffmann affair was a short-lived scandal that threatened Switzerland's neutrality during World War I. Robert Grimm, a socialist politician, travelled to the Russian Republic as an activist to negotiate a separate peace between Russia and the German Empire, in order to end the war on the Eastern Front in the interests of socialism. When the Allies discovered the proposed peace deal, he had to return home. Arthur Hoffmann, the Swiss Federal Councillor who had supported Grimm, had to resign. Background In 1917, German troops were divided in fighting the Romanians and Russians on the Eastern Front and British, French and other Allied forces on the Western Front. The Allies insisted that the division of Germany's military strength was crucial to their own success. During the 1917 February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia abdicated his throne, a provisional government was instated. At the time, the Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin was living in exile ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown, godlike" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin.Reaney & Wilson, 1997. ''Dictionary of English Surnames''. Oxford University Press. It is also in use Robert (surname), as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert (name), Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe, the name entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta (given name), Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto (given name), ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Western Front (World War I)
The Western Front was one of the main Theatre (warfare), theatres of war during World War I. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the Imperial German Army, German Army opened the Western Front by German invasion of Belgium (1914), invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in Third Republic of France, France. The German advance was halted with the First Battle of the Marne, Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trench warfare, trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, the position of which changed little except during early 1917 and again in 1918. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this Front (military), front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Federal Department Of Foreign Affairs
The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA, , , , ), so named since 1979, is one of the seven Departments of the Swiss government federal administration of Switzerland, and corresponds in its range of tasks to the ministry of foreign affairs in other countries. The department is always headed by one of the members of the Swiss Federal Council. Since 1 November 2017, the department is headed by Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis. Mission The mission of the FDFA is to safeguard Switzerland's interests abroad and its relations with other countries, as stipulated in Art. 54, para. 1 of the Swiss Federal Constitution. The subsequent paragraph further outlines the parameters by which Swiss foreign policy is to be conducted: ''The Confederation shall ensure that the independence of Switzerland and its welfare is safeguarded; it shall in particular assist in the alleviation of need and poverty in the world and promote respect for human rights and democracy, the peaceful co-exis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Federal Council (Switzerland)
The Federal Council is the federal Cabinet (government), cabinet of the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. Its seven members also serve as the collective head of state and Head of government, government of Switzerland. Since World War II, the Federal Council is by convention a permanent grand coalition government composed of representatives of the List of political parties in Switzerland, country's major parties and Languages of Switzerland, language regions. While the entire Federal Council is responsible for leading the federal administration of Switzerland, each Councillor heads one of the seven federal executive departments. The president of the Swiss Confederation chairs the council, but exercises no particular authority; rather, the position is one of a Primus inter pares, first among equals and rotates among the seven Councillors annually. The Swiss Federal Council election, Federal Council is elected as a body by the 246 members of the Federal Assembly (Switzerland), Fe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Angelica Balabanoff
Angelica Balabanoff (or Balabanov, Balabanova; – ''Anzhelika Balabanova''; 4 August 1878 – 25 November 1965) was a Russian-Italian communist and social democratic activist of Jewish origin. She served as secretary of the Comintern from 1919 to 1920, and later became a political party leader in Italy. Biography Balabanoff was born into a wealthy family in Chernigov, Russian Empire, where she rebelled against her mother's strictness. While attending the New University of Brussels in Brussels, she was exposed to political radicalism. After graduating with degrees in philosophy and literature, she settled in Rome and began to organize immigrant workers in the textile industry, joining the Italian Socialist Party (''Partito Socialista Italiano''; PSI) in 1900. She became closely associated with Antonio Labriola, Giacinto Menotti Serrati, Benito Mussolini, and the party's founder Filippo Turati. She moved further to the left during the First World War, becoming active in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Petrograd
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601,911 residents as of 2021, with more than 6.4 million people living in the metropolitan area. Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As the former capital of the Russian Empire, and a historically strategic port, it is governed as a federal city. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after the apostle Saint Peter. In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia's entry into modern history as a European great power. It served as a capital of the Tsardom o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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International Socialist Commission
The International Socialist Commission, also known as the International Socialist Committee or the Berne International was a coordinating committee of socialists parties that adhered to the idea of the Zimmerwald Conference of 1915. Early history The Zimmerwald Conference elected Angelica Balabanoff, Odino Morgari and Charles Naine to the Commission, with the Swiss socialist Robert Grimm as chairman and Balabanoff as interpreter. The Committee was charged with setting up a temporary secretariat and publishing a bulletin. The ISCs initial purpose was to act as an intermediary between the affiliated groups in their struggle for peace. It was not to act as a replacement for the International Socialist Bureau and dissolve as soon as the ISB could begin functioning normally. Other adherents of the Zimmerwald movement, such as Vladimir Lenin, saw it as the beginning of a new International. The Commissions activity in the first months of its existences consisted of translating t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Swiss National Council
The National Council (; ; ; ) is a house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, representing the people. The other house, Council of States, represents the states, preventing more populous parts of the country overpowering the rest. As the powers of the houses are the same, it is sometimes called perfect bicameralism. Both houses meet in the Federal Palace of Switzerland in Bern. The national council comprises 200 persons. Adult citizens elect the council's members, who are called National Councillors, for four year terms. These members are apportioned to the Swiss cantons in proportion to their population. Organisation With 200 members, the National Council is the larger house of the Swiss legislature. It represents the people, the vote of each citizen having more or less the same weight, whereas the Council of States represents the cantons - each of them having the same weight, regardless of its population. Pierre Cormon, Swiss Politics for Complete Beginners', Editions ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Triple Entente
The Triple Entente (from French meaning "friendship, understanding, agreement") describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was built upon the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, the Entente Cordiale of 1904 between France and Britain, and the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907. It formed a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy. The Triple Entente, unlike the Triple Alliance or the Franco-Russian Alliance itself, was not an alliance of mutual defence. The Franco-Japanese Treaty of 1907 was a key part of building a coalition as France took the lead in creating alliances with Japan, Russia, and (informally) with Britain. Japan wanted to raise a loan in Paris, so France made the loan contingent on a Russo-Japanese agreement and a Japanese guarantee for France's strategically vulnerable possessions i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin, his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. As the founder and leader of the Bolsheviks, Lenin led the October Revolution which established the world's first socialist state. His government won the Russian Civil War and created a one-party state under the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism. Born into a middle-class family in Simbirsk in the Russian Empire, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics after Aleksandr Ulyanov, his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Alexander III of Russia, the tsar. He was expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in student prote ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, Second Party Congress in 1903. The Bolshevik party, formally established in 1912, seized power in Russia in the October Revolution of 1917, and was later renamed the Russian Communist Party, All-Union Communist Party, and ultimately the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Its ideology, based on Leninism, Leninist and later Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist principles, became known as Bolshevism. The origin of the RSDLP split was Lenin's support for a smaller party of professional revolutionaries, as opposed to the Menshevik desire for a broad party membership. The influence of the factions fluctuated in the years up to 1912, when the RSDLP formally split in two. The political philosophy of the Bolsheviks was based on the Leninist pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was a provisional government of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic, announced two days before and established immediately after the abdication of Nicholas II on 2 March, O.S. New_Style.html" ;"title="5 March 1917, New Style">N.S. during the February Revolution. The intention of the provisional government was the organization of elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and its convention. The provisional government, led first by Prince Georgy Lvov and then by Alexander Kerensky, lasted approximately eight months, and ceased to exist when the Bolsheviks gained power in the October Revolution in October ovember, N.S.1917. According to Harold Whitmore Williams, the history of the eight months during which Russia was ruled by the Provisional Government was the history of the steady and systematic disorganization of the army. The Provisional Government was a caretaker government, with its political system and the status of the monarc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |