QUOTE : Not only did Russian planners have no notion of quantities needed to wage modern war, they were also unready for innovation in modes of warfare. In June 1915, the Germans introduced poison gas on a large scale. The Russians had some gas masks but they were in storage, not in the hands of troops. Newspapers reported reassuringly that soldiers nonetheless had time to take "the necessary measures." These measures turned out to be "urinating on handkerchiefs and tying them around the face." More than a thousand men then died of gas poisoning.