Germany and Austria, meanwhile, had eagerly seized the advantage offered by Russia’s internal troubles.  Their troops were ordered to make friends with the Russians in the trenches opposite.  They played eagerly upon the new Russian feeling of the brotherhood of man and freedom and equality, to do away with fighting on the east, thus being able to transfer to the western front some of their best regiments.  As a result the French and English, after driving the Germans back for many miles in northern France were at last brought to a standstill.  The burden of carrying the whole war seemed about to fall more heavily than ever upon the armies in the west.  Talk of a separate peace between Russia and the central powers grew stronger and stronger.  The Russian troops felt that they had been fighting the battles of the Czar and the grand dukes and they saw no reason why they should go on shooting their brother workingmen in Germany.

At this point Kerensky, who had been made minister of war, set out to visit the armies in the field.  Arriving at the battle grounds of eastern Galicia he made rousing speeches to the soldiers and actually led them in person toward the German trenches.  The result was a vigorous attack all along the line under Generals Brusiloff and Korniloff which swept the Germans and Austrians back for many miles, and threatened for a time to recapture Lemberg.  German spies, however, and agents of the peace party were busy among the Russian soldiers.  They soon persuaded a certain division to stop fighting and retreat.  The movement to the rear, begun by these troops, carried others with it, and for a time it seemed as though the whole Russian army was going to pieces.  Ammunition was not supplied to the soldiers.  The situation was serious and called for a strong hand.  Kerensky was made prime minister and the members of the government and the council of workingmen and soldiers voted him almost the powers of a Czar.  He was authorized to give orders that any deserters or traitors be shot, if need be, without trial.  Under his rule the Russian army began to re-form, and the situation improved.

In November, 1917, a faction of the extreme Socialists called the Bolsheviki (Bol-she-vi’ki) won over the garrisons of Petrograd and Moscow, seized control of the government, forcing Kerensky to flee, and threatened to make peace with Germany.  These people are, for the most part, the poor citizens of large cities.  They have few followers outside of the city population, for the average Russian in the country is a land owner, and he does not take kindly to the idea of losing his property or dividing it with some landless beggar from Petrograd.

The revolt of the Bolsheviki, then, simply added to the confusion in the realm of Russia.  That unhappy country was torn apart by the fights of the different factions.  Finland demanded its independence, and German spies and agents encouraged the Ruthenians living in a great province called the Ukraine, to do the same.  The Cossacks withdrew to the country to the north of the Crimean peninsula, and the only Russian armies that kept on fighting were those in Turkey.  These forces had been gathered largely from the states between the Black and Caspian Seas.  Having suffered persecution in the old days, they had hated the Turks for ages and needed no orders from Petrograd to induce them to take revenge.