On the Eastern Front during World War I, German soldiers guarded a pile of dead Russian soldiers in the frozen snow during the winter of 1916-1917, counting a group of dead Russian soldiers buried in the snow.

 　　On the Eastern Front during World War I, a group of German soldiers surrounded a pile of Russian soldiers in the frozen snow during the winter of 1916-1917. German soldiers stood guard as they counted the number of dead groups of Russian soldiers buried in the snow.

　Russia suffered a brutal defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg just weeks before the war began on August 1, 1945. Some 30,000 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded, and nearly 100,000 were taken prisoner by the Germans. By the end of the year, the Russian Empire had lost more than one million soldiers. Russian ammunition was almost exhausted and the country's infrastructure was ill-equipped to supply troops effectively.

　Russian factories were unable to produce enough arms and ammunition to equip the 1.4 million troops of Czar Nicholas II. At the beginning of the war, the Russian army had about 800,000 soldiers, but they did not even have rifles for training, and those who did had only outdated weapons that were nearly 40 years old. They went into battle unarmed until they received rifles from Russian soldiers who had been killed or wounded. Russian bullet production was initially only 13,000 rounds per day.

　By the spring of 1915, the Russians were in retreat before the onslaught of the German and Austrian allied forces. Along with the heavy casualties of Russian soldiers, the great retreat also created a large number of refugees. Hordes of desperate refugees poured into Russian cities already burdened with the cost of war.

　Russians were starving during the war, and by early 1917, Russia was in such a serious crisis that Czar Nicholas could no longer ignore it. on February 26, three days after the protests that led to the February 23 February Revolution began in the capital Petrograd, the Czar's high command gave military and police The military and police were ordered to disperse the protests. As a result, nearly 100 people lost their lives. The next day, Russian soldiers joined the demonstrators. Nicholas II abdicated three days later, on March 15, 1917, and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed in March 1918, ended the war between Russia and the Central Alliance in World War I.