Ten extra details

1. In February 1914 the Deputy Minister of the Interior and former head of police sent a memo to the tsar warning him that a war against Germany - even if Russia won - would destroy the monarchy.
2. The tsarina was German. Most Russians believed that she was helping the Germans to win by ruining Russia from within.
3. The huge casualties in the war - 9 million dead or wounded by 1917 - lost the tsar the support of the soldiers, so they turned against him when they were asked to put down the riots.
4. Taking 15 million men to fight in the army ruined Russia's agriculture. There were not enough workers to take in the harvest.
5. The war effort clogged up the railways with military transport, so food couldn't get into the towns.
6. On 13 March at the Kronstadt naval base, the sailors mutinied and murdered hundreds of their officers.
7. On 4 March, workers at the huge Putilov armaments factory in St Petersburg went on strike. Many historians say that this was the real start of the February Revolution.
8. The February Revolution was a genuine popular revolution, with spontaneous uprisings all over the country against the existing government - it was not planned by a particular rebel group or fuelled by a particular ideology.
9. On 10 March, with bread riots out of control, the tsarina wrote to the tsar blaming hooligans for the trouble. Her letter shows how out of touch the government was with reality.
10. The tsar tried to get back from the front on 13 March, but it was too late. None of the soldiers were loyal and his train could not get though to St Petersburg.