That the Revolution could have been prevented, or at all events could have been deferred until subsequent to the end of the war, I firmly believe. Our diplomacy has been severely criticized in connection with Near Eastern affairs in 1915; nor will any one maintain that it was successful, judged by results. But the situation in the Balkans was one of extraordinary perplexity in any case, and the problem was complicated by the fact that the Allies were not all of one mind as to what course to pursue on almost any single occasion. The position of affairs during the critical months leading up to March 1917 in Russia, on the other hand, was no puzzle, and the political situation had never been a puzzle since the outbreak of war. Our French and Italian friends, moreover, fully realized that this country, if it chose to do so, possessed the means of exerting a special and controlling influence within the governing clique holding sway at the head of the empire, and they were most anxious that that influence should be exercised. But before touching on this question some comments on the military conditions within the territories of our whilom eastern Ally previous to, and at the time of, the catastrophe will not be out of place.
The potentialities of Russia for carrying on a war of first-class magnitude had been altogether overestimated at the outset in the United Kingdom and in France, alike by the public and by the military authorities—in France perhaps even more so than in this country. The armies of our eastern Ally did, it is true, accomplish greater things in some respects than had been anticipated, because they struck an effective blow at an earlier date than had been believed possible, and they thereby relieved pressure in the West at a critical juncture even if their enterprising and loyal action in East Prussia was later to lead them into a terrible disaster. During the first two or three months after the outbreak of hostilities their weakness in regard to equipment and to munitions was not, however, known, or at all events was only partially known. There was much talk in the Press about the "steam-roller" which was going to flatten the Central Powers out. We at the War Office had received warnings from our very well-informed Military Attaché, it is true; but those warnings did not convey to us the full gravity of the position, a gravity which was probably not recognized even in high places in Russia for some time. Moreover, as far as we could judge, Paris had no idea that anything was seriously amiss beyond the Vistula, in spite of the Franco-Russian alliance having been in force for some years.
The first really alarming tidings on this subject that we received came to hand, oddly enough, from Japan; and it bears testimony to the efficiency of our Far Eastern Ally's intelligence service that the Island Empire should have been so intimately acquainted with the military conditions in a State with which it had been at war only a very few years before. This information reached us, I think, in October 1914. But as far as I recollect, that warning, inexorable as it was, only touched the question of ammunition. We were told plainly that the Russians were likely to run out of this indispensable at an early date; but the message did not mention rifles, although these already began to run short within eight months of the commencement of the struggle. How it came about that there should have been so deplorable a breakdown in respect to war material can only be a matter of conjecture; but we may hazard a pretty shrewd guess that the collapse which was to lead to such deplorable results in the early summer of 1915, was attributable to graft on a Homeric scale. For the Russian army budgets had for several years before the war been framed on lavish lines; that for 1914, for instance, mounted up to 725,000,000 roubles, which represented a higher figure than the corresponding budgets in either Germany or France. General Sukhomlinoff, the War Minister on the Neva from 1910 to 1915, was, as is well known, disgraced in the latter year, and he was tried for his life after the Revolution.
The Russian victories in Galicia during the winter of 1914-15, followed as they were by the reduction of the important place of arms, Przemysl, caused unbounded satisfaction in this country. But those behind the scenes feared, with only too good reason, that such triumphs represented no more than a flash in the pan, and that, should the Germans decide to throw heavy forces into the scale, the Grand Duke Nicholas would speedily find himself obliged to abandon the conquests which looked so gratifying on paper. We in the War Office learnt, indeed, that the Russian generalissimo, who recognized that the munitions situation did not justify offensive operations on an ambitious scale, had been indisposed to undertake the capture of Przemysl, but that political pressure had been brought to bear on him.
Lord Kitchener was constantly watching the Eastern Front with anxiety during the early months of 1915, fearing that in view of the Russian weakness some great transfer of enemy forces from East to West might be instituted. A strategical combination on such lines on the part of the German Great General Staff would under the existing circumstances have been a very natural one to adopt. But it is conceivable (if not very probable) that the higher military authorities in Berlin were not fully aware of the condition of their antagonists in Poland. The fact, moreover, remains that in their accounts of the campaign of 1915 the numerous books on the war which have appeared in Germany ignore to a remarkable extent the munitions difficulties under which the Grand Duke Nicholas was suffering. That, however, may be attributable to a disinclination to admit that Hindenburg's successes were due, not to any outstanding brilliance in the handling of his troops nor to the gallantry and efficiency of those concerned in the operations under his orders, but simply to his opponent being almost bereft of armament. Be that as it may, Russia was in such evil plight for arms and ammunition from the summer of 1915 on to that of 1916 that she was wellnigh powerless, except in Armenia. She only became really formidable again during the period of quiescence that, as usual, set in during the winter of 1916-17.
Shortly after returning home in May 1916, I took over charge (under circumstances to be mentioned in the next chapter) of the War Office branch which dealt with munitions and supplies for Russia, and I am consequently familiar with this question. To show what strides were made towards fitting the military forces out for a strenuous campaign in 1917, some output figures may be given. (I have none for dates prior to January 1916.) It should be mentioned that the output of field-artillery ammunition had already, owing to General Polivanoff's exertions, been greatly expanded during the latter part of 1915, and there was no very marked increase in this during 1916; the French supplied large numbers of rounds, and it had been hoped that great quantities would come to hand from the United States, but the influx from this latter source hardly materialized before the winter of 1916-17. Seeing how greatly the Russian armies had suffered from lack of heavy artillery during the first year of the war, the huge increase in output of howitzer and 6-inch rounds is particularly worth noting.
| January | 1916. | January | 1917. | |
| Rifles | 93,000 | 129,000 | ||
| Machine-guns | 712 | 1,200 | ||
| Small-arms ammunition | 96,000,000 | rounds | 173,000,000 | rounds |
| Field-guns | 169 | 407 | ||
| Field-howitzers | 33 | 62 | ||
| Field-howitzer ammunition | 72,000 | rounds | 369,000 | rounds |
| 6-inch guns and howitzers | 1 | 17 | ||
| 6-inch gun and howitzer ammunition | 32,000 | rounds | 230,000 | rounds |
By the early weeks of 1917 the empire was not dependent upon its own resources alone. Great contracts for rifles, machine-guns, small-arms ammunition, and field-gun ammunition had been placed in the United States under arrangements made by Lord Kitchener in the summer of 1915. The factories on the farther side of the Atlantic only began to produce during the summer of 1916, and they had not got into full swing before the latter part of the year; but by March 1917, 412,000 rifles, 12,200 machine-guns, 240,000,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, and 4,750,000 rounds of field-gun ammunition had already been handed over, and great part of this armament had been shipped (the field-gun ammunition mainly to Vladivostok across the Pacific); and a great output was still in progress. Over 800 howitzers and heavy guns, with abundant ammunition for them, had also by that time been despatched to Russia from the United Kingdom and France, and nearly 6,000,000 rounds of field-gun ammunition from France. Such statistics could be multiplied. Suffice it to say that there was every reason to assume that the Emperor Nicholas's legions would be adequately supplied with most forms of munitions for the 1917 campaign, and that, thanks to the great increase in the numbers of rifles, machine-guns and pieces of artillery available, they would take the field in far stronger force numerically than at any previous period of the war.
From the purely military point of view the position of affairs in the winter of 1916-17 was, in fact, decidedly promising. A huge force was under arms and was coming to be well equipped. General Brusiloff's successes in the summer of 1916, even if they made no appreciable alteration in the general strategical situation, had afforded most satisfactory evidence that the stubborn fighting spirit of the Russian troops had suffered no eclipse consequent upon disasters of the past. Confidence reigned at the Stavka, and competent leaders had been forced to the front. But the internal situation, on the other hand, had become ominous in the extreme.