A Russian Maxim machine gun squad on the front in a 1917 photograph. In the middle of the line one soldier wears a French Adrian helmet.
"On the morning of June 18, an air of tense excitement reigned all along the front. It was the kind of atmosphere you find in Russian villages just before the midnight service at Easter. We climbed up to an observation point at the top of a chain of hills running the length of our forward positions. There was a constant rumble of heavy artillery, and the shells whining overhead made a plaintive sound.From the Seventh Army's observation point, the battlefield lay before us like a huge, deserted chessboard. The shelling continued. We all kept looking at our watches. The strain was unbearable.Suddenly there was a deathly hush: It was zero hour. For a second we were gripped by a terrible fear that the soldiers might refuse to fight. Then we saw the first lines of infantry, with their rifles at the ready, charging toward the front lines of German trenches."
Russian Minister of War Alexander Kerensky's description of the moments before and beginning of Russia's last offensive of World War I, the Kerensky Offensive, launched on July 1, 1917 (June 18, Old Style). The Russian Revolution of March had removed the Tsar and seized power for a provisional government and soviets, councils of workers, soldiers, cities, and towns. Whether soldiers would obey orders to attack was a real question. The comparison to Easter, the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, is curious, but Kerensky hoped for a resurrection of a new, revolutionary Russian army to carry on the war.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, page 285, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
1917-07-01, 1917, July, Kerensky Offensive, Russian machine gun crew, Russian machine gun squad
