After many vicissitudes in the fighting on the Eastern front in January, the Russians struck a smashing blow at the Teuton line on January 28, tearing a mile-wide gap in Bukowina, close to the Roumanian frontier.  Berlin admitted that the offensives on the Sereth and Riga fronts had been temporarily stopped, that many prisoners had been taken by the Russians, and that the German lines had been withdrawn because of superior pressure.  The reorganized Roumanian army was reported ready for a new offensive in the spring.

The Russian successes were, however, only temporary and the remainder of the winter campaign was marked by repeated efforts on the part of the Germans to break down the Russian defenses of Riga on the north, and to push the Slavs still further back on the south.  Late in February the Teuton forces entered Russian positions in Galicia and also re-took the offensive on the Roumanian front, raiding Russian trenches in the Carpathians and blocking all Russian attempts to force the mountain passes.  On February 28 they recaptured most of the peaks in the Bukowina which were lost to the Russians earlier in the year, and took a large number of Russian prisoners.

Meanwhile the Russian advance in Persia and Mesopotamia against the Turks continued unchecked, and events of importance were shaping themselves in the Russian empire, calculated to have an immense effect on the conduct of the Russian armies in the field as well as on the fortunes of the Romanoff dynasty.

RUSSIA DETHRONES THE CZAR.

Early in March, after several days of ominous silence in regard to events in Petrograd, the news of a successful revolution in Russia astonished the world.  From March 9 to March 15, it appeared, the Russian people, headed by Michael Rodzianko, President of the Duma, set about cleaning house with quiet but characteristic thoroughness.  Beginning with minor food riots and labor strikes, the cry for food reached the hearts of the soldiers, and one by one, regiments rebelled until finally those troops which had for a time stood loyal to the government of the Czar and his bureaucratic advisers gathered up their arms and marched into the ranks of the revolutionists.

The change came with startling and dramatic rapidity.  The Duma, ordered by Imperial rescript to dissolve, refused to obey and voted to continue its meetings.  An Executive Committee was appointed, headed by the President of the Duma, which after arresting a number of pro-German ministers of the Czar, proclaimed itself a Provisional Government and announced its intention of creating a new representative form of government for the country.  With the assistance of the army, it was soon in control.