After the peace talks between Austria-Hungary and Serbia ended, the peace talks between Germany and Russia also concluded quickly.
The Germans ultimately extorted a war indemnity of as much as 20 million marks from the Russians, a sum the Russians had to pay whether they wanted to or not.
However, there was a piece of good news for the Russians: the French ambassador had already spoken with the Russian Government, expressing France's willingness to provide a substantial loan to Russia to help it restore post-war order more swiftly.
Although this war wasn't fiercely fought between Germany and Russia, the mobilization of hundreds of thousands of troops was indeed real.
The reason for mobilizing such a large number of troops was, on one hand, to test the other side's commitment to the war, and on the other, to prevent the other side from quickly mobilizing its troops and launching a full-scale battle.
