In 1905, the Russian Empire saw one of its most embarrassing defeats against a nascent Japan, losing territory and prestige in the world stage. Its fleets sank to the depths of the Yellow Sea, its regiments mauled by modern artillery and banzai tactics. This was the tipping point of a situation that had been brewing, arguably, for centuries; the Russian Empire was unsustainable in the age of steel and revolution. Early in the following year, a number of strikes and declarations by Russia's progressive intelligentsia resulted in a general breakdown of order. In Moscow, the butchering of a group of protesters in Bloody Sunday provoked an even stronger reaction. Even army units, done with Nicholas II's incompetence, began mutinying.
As a result, Nicholas II was advised to form a second State Duma, a form of parliament. However, its consultory nature further fuelled resentment, which resulted in the storming of the Kremlin by armed mobs and mutinying soldiers. At gunpoint, the Emperor was forced to agree to a Russian Constitution in which the Duma would have full legislative powers, Nicholas offering little resistance. This signalled the end of the revolution, and with it, Nicholas II's autocracy. However, despite the Imperial Military-Industrial Program of 1906 which allowed Russia to fight longer and harder, Tsarist influence over the Army officer corps would prove deadly with the onset of World War I.