Operating from a position of weakness and under pressure from home, the Russian foreign minister, Aleksandr Petrovich Izvolsky (Izvolsky, Aleksandr, Count), attempted to conclude a deal with his Austrian counterpart, Alois, Count Lexa von Aehrenthal (Aehrenthal, Alois, Graf (count) Lexa von), whereby Austria would occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina (over which it had exercised nominal suzerainty since 1878) in return for permitting a revision of the Straits Convention (Straits Question) that would allow Russia to bring its warships out of the Black Sea if it were at war but Turkey were not. There was subsequent disagreement about what had been agreed, and, in the event, Austria occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnian crisis of 1908) unilaterally, without making Russia any reciprocal concessions. Russia protested but was unable to achieve anything, as Germany threw its support unequivocally behind Austria.
Izvolsky had to resign after this public humiliation, and his successor, Sergey Dmitriyevich Sazonov (Sazonov, Sergey Dmitriyevich), set about building an anti-Austrian bloc of Balkan states, including Turkey. This failed, but instead Russia was able to sponsor a Serbian-Greek-Bulgarian-Montenegrin alliance, which was successful in the First Balkan War (Balkan Wars) against Turkey (1912–13). This seemed to herald a period of greater influence for Russia in the Balkans. Austria, however, reacted by demanding that the recently enlarged Serbia be denied an outlet to the Adriatic Sea by the creation of a new state of Albania. Russia supported the Serbian desire for an Adriatic port, but the European powers decided in favour of Austria. The Balkan alliance then fell apart, with Serbia and Greece fighting on the side of Turkey in the Second Balkan War (1913). (See also Balkan Wars.)
The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand (Francis Ferdinand, archduke of Austria-Este) in June 1914 and the subsequent Austrian ultimatum to Serbia thus placed Russia in a very difficult situation. If Russia let Serbia down and yielded yet again to Austrian pressure, it would cease to be taken seriously as a participant in Balkan affairs and its prestige as a European great power would be seriously compromised. The alternative was to escalate the Balkan conflict to the point where Germany would come in behind Austria and a general European war would ensue. Understandably by the standards of the time, Russia chose the second alternative. Nicholas II hoped that, by mobilizing only those forces on his border with Austria-Hungary, he could avoid both German intervention and escalation into world war. The result, however, was World War I and the destruction of the monarchy in 1917.
The immediate effect of the outbreak of war was to strengthen social support for the monarchy. The Duma allowed its sessions to be suspended for some months, and a number of a voluntary organizations came into existence to lend support to the war effort. Zemstvo and Municipal unions were set up to coordinate medical relief, supplies, and transport. Unofficial War Industry Committees were established in major cities and some provinces to bring together representatives of local authorities, cooperatives, merchants, industrialists, and workers for mutual consultation on economic priorities. These were supplemented in the summer of 1915 by government-sponsored Special Councils in the fields of defense, transport, fuel, and food supplies. Civil society seemed to be maturing and diversifying as a result of the national emergency.
In 1914 the Franco-Russian alliance proved its value. The German army could have crushed either France or Russia alone but not both together. The Russian invasion of East Prussia in August 1914 was a failure: in two unsuccessful battles nearly 150,000 Russians were taken prisoner. The invasion did, however, cause the Germans to withdraw troops from their western front and thus enable the French to win the First Battle of the Marne (Marne, First Battle of the) (Sept. 6–12, 1914). The entry of Turkey into the war on the side of Germany was a major setback, since it not only created a new front in the Caucasus (where the Russian armies performed rather well) but, by closing the straits, enormously reduced the supplies that the Allies could deliver to Russia. The failure of the British and French campaign in the Dardanelles and the entry of Bulgaria into the war on the German side meant that no relief could come from the south.
When the Central Powers launched a spring offensive in 1915, therefore, the Russian army was already short of munitions. The Germans and Austrians were able to occupy the whole of Poland and begin advancing into the western provinces and the Baltic region, unleashing a flood of refugees, who aggravated the already serious transport situation.
The military reverses of 1915, and especially the shortage of munitions, generated a strong swell of opinion in the Duma and State Council in favour of trying to compel the government to become more responsive to public opinion. The centre and left of the State Council combined with all the centre parties in the Duma, from the Moderate Rights to the Kadets, to form a Progressive Bloc. Its aim was to bring about the formation of a “government enjoying public confidence,” whose ministers would be drawn, if possible, partly from the legislative chambers. The bloc called for a broad program of political reform, including the freeing of political prisoners, the repeal of discrimination against religious minorities, emancipation of the Jews, autonomy for Poland, elimination of the remaining legal disabilities suffered by peasants, repeal of anti-trade-union legislation, and democratization of local government. This program had the support of eight ministers, at least as a basis for negotiation, but not of the premier, Ivan Logginovich Goremykin (Goremykin, Ivan Logginovich), who regarded it as an attempt to undermine the autocracy.
The emperor did not approve of the Progressive Bloc either. For Nicholas, only the autocratic monarchy could sustain effective government and avoid social revolution and the disintegration of the multinational empire. He entertained quite different notions of how to deal with the crisis. In August 1915 he announced that he was taking personal command of the army, leaving the empress in charge of the government. He moved with his suite to Mogilyov, in Belarusia, where he remained until the revolution. However, he played only a ceremonial role, allowing his military chief of staff, Gen. Mikhail Vasilyevich Alekseyev (Alekseyev, Mikhail Vasilyevich), to act as true commander in chief. During the next few months Nicholas dismissed all eight ministers who had supported the Progressive Bloc. Though he was unable to play the coordinating role that was so vital to the running of government, he still insisted that he was autocrat, maintaining ultimate power in his hands and preventing capable ministers from coordinating the administration of the government and war effort. From afar he ordained frequent pointless ministerial changes (dubbed by malicious gossip “ministerial leapfrog”), partly under the influence of his wife and Rasputin. Even loyal monarchists despaired of the situation, and in December 1916 Rasputin was murdered in a conspiracy involving some of them.