To force the rest of the Entente to take seriously Russian democracy’s appeals for a negotiated peace, in May 1917 Kerensky, Tsereteli and their colleagues set themselves frantically to rebuilding the army as a fighting force. They were not unrealistic enough to imagine that they might defeat Germany. But if Russia could deliver the kind of blow against Austria that Brusilov had pulled off in 1916, the Entente would surely have to listen. It was an extraordinary wager that reveals, not the timidity, but the desperate ambition of the February revolution.37