Mkay, just one more bump in a feeble attempt at input. Worst case is I just keep military matters awfully vague if I am able to write this TL. 
One would think the Russians would attack elsewhere, perhaps they decide to attack the Germans in Poland to regain lost territory and drive a wedge between the Germans and Austrians, to attack the Germans directly to relieve Verdun.
The result will be larger German casualties, but eventually the offensive will peter out, and it will probably not have the same devastating results as the OTL Brusilov offensive had. OTL, the Brusilov offensive hit the Austrians just as they were recovering from the devastating losses of 1914 and 1915 and were at their weakes as Conrad had moved the best troops west to attack Italy.
When the Russian offensive in Poland peters out and Somme and Verdun winds down, the Germans and Austrians will probably look into a counter-offensive. Retaking what the Russian offensive retook is probably going to be it, especially as the forces the Germans OTL sent to help the Austrians with the Brusilov offensive are going to be available for this (or are already there, being sent to reinforce against the Russian offensive). Especially if the Russian offensive hit at the seams of the Germano-Austrian respective areas.
So, a major offensve akin to the brealthrough at Gorlice-Tarnow can perhaps be in order. It is not impossible that this can be co-ordinated with a Romanian entrance into the war - on the side of the Central Powers - and a Ottoman offensive in Trabzon. If Romania can be asked to join, the Bulgarians have nothing to do but guard Thessaloniki, and the Romanians nothing but attacking in Moldavia.
If four nations attack at the same time, Russia will be in for a world of hurt, even if Moldavia is good defensive terrain and the Ottoman offensive in Trabzon gets nowhere.
The reason why I started this topic was to see if there was a way to essentially have an earlier February Revolution. However, I didn't want it to happen by having Russia doing Verdun en mass. That's why I thought perhaps if Russia didn't try much of anything in the way of Offensives it could happen.
The big question is what do the Central Powers do instead of Romania and the counter-attacks and efforts in the Brusilov offensive? An attack in the east? An early Caporetto? Attack on Thessalonika to eliminate the Entente bridgehead? Attack against the Italians in Albania?
At the end of October 1916, a general strike broke out in Petrograd. Two army regiments barracked nearby were called out, but when ordered to fire on the strikers they fired on the police instead.
A longer shot is whether newspaper reports of red flags flying over Petrograd give a modest shot in the arm to the Socialist canddiate for POTUS, which would be most ly at Wilson's expense, and perhaps just enough to tip CA and NH into the Hughes column.
Also, probably, Lenin et al return to Russia that much sooner than OTL. Do we get a "bourgeois" revolution in November and a Bolshevik one in March, rather than vice versa?
I think it wouldn't help Benson much, perhaps it would hurt him. Regardless, he and Debs still would just be footnotes in American history...
I don't want to derail the thread to start talking about Hughes, but lets do that anyway!Outside of wanting to expand the military (how much?) and decrying the American intervention in Mexico I can't find much on what Hughes would likely do Foreign policy wise. Any suggestions?
As to what he'd have done, he would have been in a race against time. If Wilson carried out what was reportedly his plan, and stepped down immediately rather than waiting till March, that still leaves only weeks before Germany adopts USW, and makes war all but inevitable. About the only chance of avoiding it is
a) to put US merchantmen into convoys, in which case few if any get sunk, or
b) to use British activities as an excuse to stop US merchantmen sailing to British ports, so that few if any will run into u-boats.
Well, if the Germans didn't restart USW, then would Hughes just sit back and take a breather? From there, what would he do, just create a few more peace time Army divisions and wonder about Woman Suffrage and Mexico?.
Wilson, re-elected largely by the farm states, was unwilling to halt exports, but Hughes, who has swept all the industrial north bar Ohio, can't afford to turn the cities against him, and may well feel differently. That would be a heavy blow to the Allies.