Under Lansbury, the "Herald" took an eclectic but relentlessly militant political position and achieved sales of 50,000–150,000 a day. But war in August 1914 – or rather the subsequent split on the left whether to support or oppose the war – radically reduced its constituency. Lansbury and his colleagues, core of the anti-war left, decided to go weekly. The paper played a key role in the campaign against the war for the next four years. It was in the forefront of the movement against conscription and supported conscientious objectors; and it welcomed the Russian Revolutions of February and October 1917. There were notable journalistic scoops, most famously its story in 1917 on "How they starve at the Ritz", an exposé of conspicuous consumption by the rich at a time of national hardship that panicked the government into food-rationing.