It was the work of Sisyphus. The Commanding Officers gave their heart and soul to the work because in its success they saw the last ray of hope for the salvation of the Army and of the country. Technical difficulties could be overcome, as long as the moral could be raised.
Brussilov arrived and addressed the regiment. As a result, the officer commanding the 10th Army was relieved against my will ten days before the decisive advance. And it was not without difficulty that I secured the appointment of General Lomnovsky, the gallant Commander of the 8th Army Corps, who had arrived at the Front ten days before the action. There was an unpleasant misunderstanding about Brussilov's visit. Headquarters had mistakenly informed the troops that Kerensky was coming. This substitution provoked strong discontent among the troops. Many units declared that they were being deceived, and that unless Comrade Kerensky himself orders them to advance they would not advance. The 2nd Caucasian Division sent delegates to Petrograd to make inquiries. And efforts had to be made to appease them by promising that Comrade Kerensky was due to arrive in a few days. The War Minister had to be invited. Kerensky came reluctantly, because he was already disillusioned by the failure of his oratorical campaign on the South-Western Front. For several days he reviewed the troops, delivered speeches, was enthusiastically received and sometimes unexpectedly rebuked. He interrupted his tour, as he was invited to hurry to Petrograd on July 4th, but he returned with renewed energy and with a new up-to-date theme, making full use of the "knife with which the Revolution had been stabbed in the back" (the Petrograd rising of July 3rd-5th). Having, however, completed his tour and returned to the Stavka, he emphatically declared to Brussilov:
"I have no faith whatsoever in the success of the advance."
Kerensky was equally pessimistic in those days with regard to another matter, the future destinies of the country. He discussed in conversation with myself and two or three of his followers, the stages of the Russian Revolution, and expressed the conviction that whatever happened we should not escape the Reign of Terror. The days went by and the advance was further delayed. As early as on June 18th, I issued the following Order of the Day to the Armies of my Front: