During World War I, in 1917, Russian soldiers performed autopsies on the bodies of Austrian soldiers on the battlefields of the Eastern Front. The bodies of Austrian soldiers filled the battlefield. Russian soldiers roamed among the frozen corpses.
Czar Nicholas II made the fateful decision to drag Russia into World War I. The Russian military was unprepared to handle the military and economic costs; in less than a year, some four million more Russian soldiers were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. In the course of the First World War (1914-1918), discontent against Czar Nicholas grew. During the war, more than 1.7 million Russian soldiers lost their lives and about 5 million were wounded. Many soldiers deserted and refused to fight under the orders of the dictatorial czar. Persistent political and social unrest ensued as famine worsened in the countryside, where some 80 percent or more of the Russian population lived. Many political critics of Czar Nicholas fled abroad from persecution by the Czar's secret police. They fled to Switzerland, including stubborn anarchists and socialists such as Bakunin, Kropotkin, Plekhanov, and Lenin.
The Eastern Front was very important in the overall front of the First World War. The Eastern Front was active in the fighting and was involved in some of the most important battles of the war. The fighting along the Eastern Front occurred from August 1, 1914 to May 7, 1918. During this period, millions of soldiers participated in both the Allies and the Central Allies, resulting in many casualties. The Allies estimated that they suffered about 9.9 million casualties and the Central Allies about 5.9 million casualties. Russia suffered the most losses on the Eastern Front due to its struggle against industrialization and the overall ill-equipment of its soldiers. Due to the realities of war, it also suffered many civilian losses on both sides. Russia experienced the outbreak of the Russian Revolution between the Eastern Front and World War I. Russia was ruled by Tsar Nicholas II, an absolute monarch before 1917. Russia before and during World War I, the increase in Russian casualties and the shortage of supplies led to an increase in the amount of anger directed at the Czar and his handling of the Russian war effort. Russia became a sharply divided society and the poorest Russians struggled daily to survive. Poverty was widespread, especially among the Russian peasants who worked for the landowning aristocracy.
In 1917, Vladimir Lenin led a series of revolts against Tsar Nicholas II. Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks, a communist organization that sought to gain power over Russia and pull Russia out of the fighting in World War I. Soon, Tsar Nicholas II and his family were imprisoned and Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power. Lenin opposed Russia's involvement in World War I and negotiated a peace treaty with Germany shortly after coming to power. the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed on March 3, 1918, won Russia peace with Germany, but in exchange Russia relinquished most of its land to Germany. Russia's withdrawal from the fighting in World War I forced Germany to concentrate all of its troops on the Western Front. This was a severe blow to the Allies. When the United States officially joined World War I on the side of the Allies, France and Great Britain soon received much-needed support.
