In June 1916, Tsar Nicholas II adopted a draft of conscripting Central Asian men from the age of 19 to 43 into labor battalions for the service in support of the ongoing Brusilov Offensive. As a result, a revolt broke out on July 3 among the Muslim inhabitants of Russian Turkestan against the Russian authorities. Russia was forced to divert several thousand soldiers from the Eastern Front to suppress the rebellion, which ended in February 1917. Suppression of the rebels was typified by general massacres against the local population. This was followed by the expulsion of the surviving Kyrgyz and Kazakh from Russian Turkestan toward China; many of the refugees died along the way while attempting to cross the Tian Shan mountains. The revolt resulted in around 100,000 to 270,000 dead among the Kyrgyz population.