In 1917, the First World War entered a stalemate stage, Germany was very tight on both the eastern and western fronts, especially in February 1917 when German-American diplomatic relations officially broke down, and the German Army Chief of Staff Ludendorff decided that this would lead to the United States joining the Entente to declare war on Germany, and once the American troops landed in Europe, Germany would not be able to win the war.

Therefore, Kaiser Wilhelm II was anxious to negotiate peace with Russia, the "weakest link" in the Entente camp, in order to transfer all troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front against the Entente. However, the Russian bourgeois Provisional Government, which came to power through the January Revolution of 1917, ignored the Russian people's call to withdraw from the war, and continued to strictly order the Russian army, which was short of ammunition and food, to attack the German army, which was armed to the teeth, on the grounds that it had assumed the so-called "obligations that Russia had promised to its allies in the Entente", which led to a series of catastrophic defeats and the death of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers.

Faced with such a "death, surrender, and departure" Russian Provisional Government, Germany turned to the hope of getting in touch with the Russian Bolsheviks, who insisted on communism and the European revolution, in order to get Russia out of the war. Ludendorff suggested that the Kaiser allow Lenin to return to Russia via Germany.

This, of course, did not mean that the German emperors and generals became fellow travelers of the communists. At the same time, Lenin, who was in exile in neutral Switzerland, also discovered the contradictions between the imperialist countries, and on January 22, 1917, Lenin delivered his famous "Revolutionary Report" to the young Swiss workers in the People's House in Zurich, in which he said: "The predatory wars in Europe will eventually lead to a massive popular uprising!" ”

Against this background, contacts between the German authorities and Lenin became possible. Secret contactLong before the publication of the speech "Revolutionary Report", Lenin had already made up his mind to return to China to launch the revolution, and he had determined the itinerary for returning home. One route was to return to Russia via a detour through France, but France and Russia were allies, and if the French authorities found out that the anti-war Lenin had entered their territory, they would not let it go easily, and would be detained at least and sentenced as a war criminal. The other route is to Central Europe, travel to Northern Europe via Germany, and then return home from Finland.

On December 28, 1916, Lenin walked out of his residence in Zurich with a small suitcase, and we followed him by train to the capital Bern at 10 a.m. After getting off the train, he went straight to a hotel not far from the train station, and half an hour later he stepped out of the hotel and boarded a tram bound for the small border town of Forsozuls. After getting out of the car, he walked around and walked into the German consulate building, which was 12:30 a.m. It was not until 16 p.m. the next day that Lenin walked out of the consulate. About 4 hours later, he boarded the train back to Zurich.

It was later learned that Lenin's visit to Fossozuls was with the German envoy to Bern, Switzerland, von Brown. Count Romberg met and negotiated two plans for escorting the Russian revolutionaries home. The first was to travel by train from Switzerland to Germany, through German-occupied Poland or through neutral Sweden into Russia.

In view of the fact that the Russian Provisional Government had requested Switzerland to extradite Lenin and other Bolsheviks, if Switzerland did not agree to Lenin and others leaving the country, it would adopt the second plan, with the German General Staff providing secret carriages to transport the Bolsheviks out of Switzerland by international freight trains, or preparing a ferry on Lake Constance, the German-Swiss boundary lake, to pick up Lenin and others.

Ludendorff thought that from a military point of view, it would be wise to return Lenin to Russia. …… No matter how Russia is not an opponent of Germany, as long as it does not withdraw from the war, we cannot escape the shadow of defeat. On this premise, when we help the Russian radicals who preached the Red Revolution, we are in fact helping Germany.

In early February 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II formally approved the "Thor Plan" jointly formulated by the German Foreign Office and the General Staff, and instructed on the plan: "More than 40 Bolsheviks headed by Lenin are of use to Germany and accept their applications." ”

The Russian revolutionaries were divided into two groups and returned to their homeland via Germany. On March 9, 1917, the first group of revolutionaries, led by Lenin and his family, boarded a German train from Zurich, where no one was allowed to board or get off after the train departed. The windows of the train were tightly covered by curtains made of black linen, and the attendants on board were as silent as possible.

Luckily, the Swiss government didn't stop us and the trip went smoothly. After the train entered Germany, a German officer named Herzog Moore got on board and handed out a pamphlet to each Russian passenger, said to have been written by the German Emperor, wishing them "a smooth journey and a successful revolution" and specifically mentioning that they would seize power when they returned to Russia.

In the early morning of March 12, Lenin and his entourage arrived in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. There Lenin took part in a joint meeting of the Russian émigrés and the Swedish Social Democratic Party, established the Politburo for Bolshevik Central Studies, and indirectly led the struggle of the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets against the Provisional Government in Russia.

On March 17, Lenin and others returned to St. Petersburg, where they were greeted with unprecedented enthusiasm by the workers and soldiers, and the sailors of the Baltic Fleet were in armored vehicles with searchlights to guard Lenin. In the midst of the cheering crowd, the commander of the sailors, Maximov, invited Lenin to say a few words, and Lenin boarded the armored car and delivered the famous 'bread will be, everything will be' ......"

Upon receiving the news that Germany was escorting him home from Switzerland, Eder got the news immediately. For the name Lenin, Eder can be described as thunderous, and there are too many titles worn on his head in previous lives. I remember that in the textbooks of his previous life, he was mentioned as a rare Marxist, a proletarian revolutionary, a politician, a theoretician, and a thinker. But now Eder still values him the most; Founder of the Bolshevik Party.

Eder's problem now was to expand the smuggling trade in Russia and try to bring down the Russian Provisional Government as soon as possible. Because Lenin did not come to power, how could he show the importance of Romania. At that time, the only person who could make trouble for the Allies on the Eastern Front was Romania. In order to win over the Entente in Romania to complete the blow in the back, the conditions will be much higher than they are now.

But the key to all this had to be Lenin's coming to power. If he did not come to power and stop the war with Germany, then Britain and France would not have attached importance to the role of Romania, and as for the performance of the American army, the Entente powers, including the Americans themselves, were not very sure.

Thinking of this, Edel called a guard. "Call the chief of the guard."