Initially they asked for 300,000 men, an unrealistically high figure, probably based on assumptions about Russia's 'unlimited' reserves.

A second brigade was also sent to serve alongside other Allied formations on the Salonika front in northern Greece.

While the Russian High Command showed little enthusiasm for this proposal, Tsar Nicholas II supported it.

The 3rd Brigade comprised serving soldiers plus reserve units formed in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk under the command of Fyodor Fyodorovich Palitzin; it left for France in August 1916.

[1] General Aleksei Brusilov, commander of the Russian Southwest Front from March 1916, was responsible for the four brigades, which contributed a total of 44,319 men to the Entente effort in western and southern Europe.

In July 1916, the 2nd Infantry Brigade, commanded by General Mikhail Dieterichs, was sent via France to the Salonika Front.

It was part of the Expédition de Salonique, stopping first at Brest aboard the ocean liner La Lorraine and finally arriving at Thessaloniki in October 1916, and at the front in November.

The Russian brigades also found themselves engaged in combat in the Balkans; where British, French, Italian, Albanian, Greek, Portuguese and Serbian forces were already serving together.

In France the Russian brigade prepared in camp de Mailly, in Champagne and was sent between Suippes and Aubérive on the Western Front.

Following heavy losses during the offensive of April 1917 (Second Battle of the Aisne, also known as bataille du Chemin des Dames) for the taking of Courcy and the Fort of Brimot, the 1st and 3rd Russian Brigades which had been placed under the French 7th Army Corps (General Georges de Bazelaire),[6] were both cited at the orders of armed forces and paused at camp de La Courtine.

On 15 April, on the eve of the Second Battle of the Aisne, the Russian soldiers received news of the February Revolution in Russia.

[7] On 23 April the 1st Infantry Brigade transferred to the Châlons-sur-Marne area, overseen by général Henri Gouraud of the French Fourth Army.

French President Raymond Poincaré, impressed by the state of the Russian camp, awarded General Lokhvitsky the Commander of the Legion of Honor.

At one meeting the committee representatives made an appeal to their fellow soldiers to refuse to drill, since they would not continue fighting.

The rebels refused and at 10 A.M. 16 September 1917 the encircling force fired upon the camp with a French artillery piece.

[12] A loyal remnant of Russian troops, under Colonel Georgy Semyonovich Gotua, demanded that they be allowed to continue to fight.

The Russian Legion was attached to the French 1st Moroccan Division commanded by Général Daugan on December 13, 1917.

[1] On September 12 the regiment penetrated three lines of fortifications despite heavy losses and were awarded a special flag by the Commander of the French Army, Marshal Ferdinand Foch as well as attracting more volunteers.

[1] After the German withdrawal to the border the Moroccan Division, including the Russian Regiment, advanced towards Moyeuvre.