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Generals Gurko and Brussilov also sent in their resignations, and a few days later Minister of War and Marine Gutchkov, wishing to precipitate the impending crisis, also resigned. Complete anarchy now threatened, for the council still insisted on its right to guard the interests of democracy in the army as well as among the civil population.
In the early part of the month the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' became more and more radical in its demands, both as to the share it was to have in the control of the army and as to the disciplinary measures under which soldiers were to live. So serious became the crisis that Minister of War General Gutchkov, as well as Generals Kornilov, Brussilov, and Gurko resigned their commands.
Rodzianko told Russky that the Duma and the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Deputies had mutually agreed that the czar must abdicate and two deputies Gutchkov, the War Minister, and Shulgin were on their way to demand a document to this effect from Nicholas.
There on the 15th the modern Ides of March the modern Russian Tsar or Caesar was constrained to abdicate. On that day the Duma Coalition Ministry was announced; the Premier was Prince Lvov, Miliukov took charge of Foreign Affairs, Gutchkov of War and the Marine, and Kerensky, a Socialist, of Justice.
Lemberg was to be outflanked on the south by a movement from a line reaching from Zborow across the Dniester to the foothills of the Carpathians. Three armies were employed, Erdelli's Eleventh to the north, then Tcheremisov's Seventh reaching to the Dniester, and south of it Kornilov's Eighth. Kerensky orated in khaki, and Gutchkov served as an officer in the field.
The Provisional Government struggled in vain against the disintegration, but its efforts were frustrated by the Congress of Soviets which began to sit in April, fell more and more under Lenin's influence, and resisted on principle all measures to retain or re-establish authority. On 13 May, Gutchkov, the Minister for War, resigned, and Miliukov followed.
The one incident that seemed to make an impression on him was the defection of his own body guard. "What shall I do, then?" demanded Nicholas finally. "Abdicate," replied Gutchkov briefly. It will be remembered that the Provisional Government had decided that it would demand of the czar that he abdicate in favor of his son and of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, as regent.
He proved then, though still a man in his early thirties, the dominant figure of the situation, a position which he has retained to an increasing degree ever since. The other members of the new cabinet were: M. A. I. Gutchkov, chairman of the War Industries Committee, Minister of War and Marine.
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