52 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR 
pay enormous sums in excess of actual values. The Zemstvo Union 
therefore decided to establish its own workshops for designing and 
cutting up the materials, and to give out the actual sewing work to 
be done in the homes of seamstresses. The linen was received and 
paid for through the medium of codperative and other organiza- 
tions enlisted in this work. Later on the Union itself opened a num- 
ber of distributing offices to give out such work, employing directly 
scores of thousands of needy women, mainly soldiers’ wives. 
The peak of the work of the depots came in September and the 
beginning of October, 1914. By the middle of October most of the 
beds of the Zemstvo Union were fully equipped and the need for 
linen considerably reduced. At the end of September, however, the 
Army Supply Department urgently applied to the Union for 
7,500,000 suits of underwear. This order was accepted and exe- 
cuted promptly. This was only the beginning of a long series of 
orders from the same source to be executed by the Union in the 
course of the War. After this first order there came one for 240,000 
army tents. Later, in November, 1914, there was a request for the 
immediate delivery of fur clothing for 215,000 soldiers of the 
Serbian army. Lastly, in January, 1916, the Union was forced to 
andertake the entire business of supplying the army with warm 
clothing, amounting to something like 24,000,000 articles. By this 
time, the Union had already delivered to the Army Supply Depart- 
ment 35,714,099 pieces of clothing prepared to its order. Parallel 
with this work, rigorous and urgent efforts had to be made to fur- 
nish the army with boots. This task was taken in hand by many of 
the local committees of the Union. Russia itself, however, proved 
unable to supply all the footwear required, and the Union sent a 
special commission to the United States, where it succeeded in buy- 
ing up 3,000,000 pair of riding boots and 1,700,000 pair of army 
boots before January 1, 1916. 
Gradually it became necessary to readjust both the central and 
local organizations so as to enable them to conduct the necessary 
purchasing operations and at the same time supply the needs of the 
Union itself, as well as the needs of the Army Supply Department, 
which were practically unlimited. The average number of articles 
of one kind or another required during 1917 for these various 
needs may be estimated at 5,000,000 a month. This included chiefly 
underwear, winter and summer clothing, peltry, tents, and sand-