1920 - The twenties start to roar

Sacco and Vanzetti, bombs in Wall Street
J. Edgar Hoover investigating
Reds, who back in Russia would soon defeat
The Whites, Kolchak caught, eastern troops freezing
New American President, Harding
The League of Nations moves to Geneva
Prohibition starts, stops Yanks from drinking
Turkey loses its empire, new leader
Zionists move to Israel, post-Balfour
Ireland partitioned, North and South discrete
The Southern IRA freedom-fighting
Kapp Putsch, Ruhr Red Army, early Hitler
Greece tried and failed to expand to the east
In 1920 this was happening

1919 - Red Terror

The Communists were still ruling Russia
In 1919, invading Ukraine
To suppress independence claimed last year
The other republics would get the same
The Cheka spread Red Terror, all untamed
Lenin would beat the Whites at all costs. In
The States, large labour strikes broke out, the flames
Of reactionary counter-revolution
Were fanned there, as with German rebellion
By the left's motley crew, brief disorder
Put down by the Freikorps, war veterans
Hired by the Weimar regime. In Scotland
There were even tanks in Glasgow, the fear
Everywhere, Bolsheviks bringing ruin

1918 - World War One (Part Five)

1918 - the map redrawn again
Though uncertainty dragged on til '19
The western front joined by Americans
The exhaustion of the German machine
Their best men gone, sapped by the Somme and Aisne
The Marne and Amiens, despite the end
Of the eastern front, Russia's men being
Removed from the war, communist Lenin's
Priority being the preserving
Of Marxism itself, Lithuanian
Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian regimes
Poland freeing themselves, and the breaking
Up of Austria and Hungary. German
Sailors mutinied, end of war's dark dream

1917 - World War One (Part Four)

1917 - year that shook the world
Everything was collapsing all around
The flag of Armageddon was unfurled
On fields of France and Flanders' muddy ground
Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, the Aisne, all drowned
In mud and bullets. The Germans' supplies
Low from British sea blockade, meant they'd mount
All-out U-boat war. When Americans died
In merchant ships bringing arms, the Yanks cried
For revenge, and mobilised. Russia's spoiled
Empire, by war finally overthrown
First the Tsar in February, then they tried
Pursuing liberal war, but soviets hurled
Them out, abolishing all bank accounts

1916 - World War One (Part Three)

Zeppelins drop bombs on London and Paris
Unreliable, liable to catch fire
Tanks cut through barbed wire to the Somme trenches
Of the Germans, but casualties were high
A million, 60% the Allies
The Somme was a sideshow, because Verdun
Was where the real German thrust lay - it lies
Before the plains of Champagne that lead on
To Paris. The French held firm. Attrition
There and even more at the Somme, the kiss
Of death, battle of equals, shells and wire
Yet France was a sideshow - the real German
War aim had been Russia, and maybe this
Tantalising goal would tempt them again

1915 - World War (Part Two)

In 1915 the World War progressed
Not at all, trenches static, give or take
The odd mile. U-boats and ships clashed from west
Of Chile to Korea. Both sides make
Advances, the British trial the break-
Through of the tank, while the Germans try gas
On the Russians, then the French, the Canuck
And Brits fighting near Ypres. The stalemate was
Established in the west, so the ruse was
To help Russia in the more fluid east
A sea route to supply them. But mistakes
Were made at Gallipoli. There were wars
At home as the Liberals split - Asquith's best
Had failed, and Lloyd-George now played for high stakes

1914 - World War One (Part One)

Franz Ferdinand was shot, Sarajevo
Late June '14 by a cross Bosnian Serb
He was the heir to Austria-Hungary, so
The Austrians felt justified to disturb
Serbian land. The Germans thought this superb
Russia will react, mobilise, and then
Germany will react in turn and curb
The growing Russian military threat when
The German force was still the stronger one
France was allied to Russia and also
Britain, who said they would stand by Belgian
Neutrality. The Germans struck east, though
Also west, soon into stalemate absorbed