The great retreat of the Russian army in the spring of one thousand nine hundred and fifteen was disdainfully dubbed the Great Drape by liberal intellectuals who had not lifted a finger for victory. There are no rifles, no cartridges, no shells, battery commanders sign that their guns will not fire more than a dozen shots per day. Private manufacturers, taking advantage of the moment, inflate prices for ammunition by two or three times, the allies are slowing down and disrupting deliveries. Some surrender, believing the agitators that it will be better there, some actually skid, some break into suicidal bayonet attacks, in order to somehow delay the superior enemy. And some, with an incomplete company at hand, will go to the German rear, work the handbrake - and become a pebble in the boot of the vaunted Kaiser's soldiers!