The new year saw the last shots of the Romanian campaign, but as the
fighting died down on the front the cannons were roaring in the
northernmost sector of the Eastern Front as the Tsars men fought their
last battles on the Aa before the revolution broke out in March 1917.
The revolution was', however, not to be the end of the fighting on the
Eastern Front. In the Summer of 1917 Kerenski mobilised his
revolutionary soldiers and they attacked in Galicia in an effort to
force a "Peace without defeat". The German front held but the Russians
were able to achieves victories against the Austro-Hungarian forces
before the German troops gave them a sound thrashing at Tarnopol. The fighting spirit of the Red Army died down and they abandoned East Galicia and Bukowina to the central powers. Russian efforts to relieve the pressure on this front by attacking at Brezezany and on the Sereth ran into a solid German defence. The Germans advanced over the Putna and Susita. In the North the Germans advanced, taking Riga and Jakobstadt and then the Baltic islands. The spirit of the Russians was assumed to be broken. The fighting on the Eastern Front was over.

On the Western Front defensive fighting was the order of the day for the
German armies. With their withdrawal to the Siegfriedstellung in Spring
of 1917 the Germans had disrupted the jump off plans for one of the
three looming major offensives, but the other two would hit the German
defensive lines all the harder for it. Nivelle's Soldiers "drowned in
streams of their own blood" when the offensives on the Aisne and in the
Champagne ran into the new German defensive lines. The French soldiers
revolted but Petain managed to get his house back in order before the
Germans could use the revolt to their advantage.

The French did, however, succeed in pushing the Germans back in the
Verdun area and in taking the famous Laffaux Corner.

More dangerous for the German defenders was the offensive at Arras which
managed to take Vimy Ridge but then bogged down. It was not here that
the British concentrated their main efforts, but in Flanders, starting
at the Wytschaete-Bogen. Even with immense amounts of artillery and men
in thirteen barrage assaults (Trommelfeuerschlachten) the defenders held
strong with their new defensive fighting methods and the assaults came
to a stop in a sea of mud and swamp. The tank assault at Cambrai saw
gains by the newly introduced weapon, but when the shock had worn off
the Germans managed to take back the ground they had lost.

In spite of all the demands on the Western front the Germans managed to
send troops to Italy where with their allies they took part in the 13th
Isonzo battle where the breakthrough in the Julischen Alps managed to
destroy the Italian troops on that front. The German and Austrian troops
pursued the Italian troops and would probably have managed to destroy
Victor Emmanuel's Army if they had not been able to shelter behind the
flooded Tagliamento.

In the middle east the Turks lost the second battle at Gaza and had to
give up Jerusalem after losing Mecca and Baghdad. The balance was set to
change in the following year as America entered the war.