"Andrei Pervozvanny" was mostly inactive during the war as the Russian naval strategy in the Baltic was defensive and they did not intend to seek out the German fleet. Torpedo nets were fitted in early 1915 and the ship's torpedoes were removed in January 1916. In late 1916, four anti-aircraft guns were added. The ship's crew joined the general mutiny of the Baltic Fleet in Helsinki on 16 March 1917, after they received word of the February Revolution in Saint Petersburg, and several of the ship's officers were murdered by the crew. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk required the Soviets to evacuate their naval base at Helsinki in March 1918 or have their ships interned by newly independent Finland even though the Gulf of Finland was still frozen over. "Andrei Pervozvanny" and her sister ship the renamed "Respublika", led the second group of ships on 5 April and reached Kronstadt five days later in what became known as the "Ice Voyage".