A Russian Maxim machine gun squad on the front in a 1917 photograph. In the middle of the line one soldier wears a French Adrian helmet.
"The most violent of the attacks against troops of the Commander in Chief on the East front took place at Krevo, south of Smorgon, on July 9 and the days following. Here the Russians broke through a division of the Landwehr occupying a very long front, though it defended itself with extraordinary courage.For a few days, things looked extremely serious, until our reserves and artillery fire restored the situation. The Russians evacuated our trenches. They were no longer what they had been."
German General Erich Ludendorff's assessment of a Russian attack on July 22, 1917 (July 9, Old Style), an action in the Kerensky Offensive begun July 1, quoted in Alexander Kerensky's Russia and History's Turning Point. The German Landwehr were the territorial guard, generally older soldiers, although many older soldiers had been lost by 1917.
Russia and History's Turning Point by Alexander Kerensky, page 293, copyright © 1965 by Alexander Kerensky, publisher: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, publication date: 1965
1917-07-22, 1917, July, Ludendorff, Erich Ludendorff, Kerensky Offensive, Russian machine gun squad
