4º British: “Kosaken kommen!”

One of the biggest fears of Germany was the possibility of fighting on two fronts: the western front (against France and England) and the eastern front (against the "Russian steamroller").

Russia's strength lay in the large number of soldiers that could be mobilized (15 millions!). But that great human force was poorly prepared, poorly armed, poorly educated and wrong organized. A major problem was the high consumption of vodka (and excesses arising therefrom). The curious thing is that the sale of vodka was a state monopoly; with the prohibition of its consumption in the army, the Russian state lost out on a third of their taxes, causing new problems for supplies (weapons, transportation...) for war .

The Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov II, Supreme Commander of the Russian Imperial Army during the war, was aware of all those problems, that would cause severe losses (battles of Tannenberg and Masurian Lakes). So Russia suffered severe territorial, material and human losses (5 million dead soldiers) and finally the fall of Tsar Nicholas II in the Revolution of 1917.