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The situation had long ceased to be a matter of individuals, or even whole battalions, disobeying orders. Now there was mass movement of Russian troops in both directions: forward from the trenches, not belligerently but in more fraternisation, shouting greetings, picking a way through the landscap…

the young Ukrainian Aleksandr Dneprovskiy execrated the patriotic press in the last months before the offensive as ‘tubs of printed slop … poured over the heads of long-suffering humanity’.

The old guard at the army’s top were deeply bitter at the direction of the war and the erosion of old nostrums.

The testeria of the reception was genuine, but it was neither deep nor lasting.