During World War I, the Pale lost its rigid hold on the Jewish population when large numbers of Jews fled into the Russian interior to escape the invading German army. By August 1915, the boundaries of the Pale were "de facto" unenforceable. The Pale formally came to an end soon after the abdication of Nicholas II, and as revolution gripped Russia. On March 20 (April 2 N.S.), 1917, the Pale was abolished by the Provisional Government decree, "On the abolition of religious and national restrictions". The Second Polish Republic was reformed from much of the former territory of the Pale in the aftermath of World War I. Subsequently, most of the Jewish population of the area would perish in the Holocaust one generation later.