I think that there was a strong strand of distrust in the government at the start of WWI. The Russian Revolution of 1905, the failures of Russia in the Russo- Japanese War, Bloody Sunday, and the perceived distrust of the October Manifesto's goals all had contributed in a very predominant loss of faith in the Czar. Unwilling or unable to fully grasp how the political dimensions had changed, the Czar believed that waging war would.
